Chapter 211: Fire and Rain

Chapter 211 – Rain of Fire
Rain turned into fire.

Heidi lost her voice and exclaimed in shock, and that cry, which sounded as if it was a logical mistake, was the only description she could think of at the moment – she really couldn’t comprehend the sight she was seeing, couldn’t comprehend what was really going on, all she knew was that there was splashing rain of fire falling from the sky.

And that was only for a split second.

The rainstorm that had enveloped Prand had transformed into flames pouring down from above in a matter of moments, as if the sun was falling and the corona was hanging upside down, and the entire city-state had transformed from a city in a rainstorm to a city of living fire in less than a second.

Everything was set ablaze, trees, houses, towers, bell towers, even the ground itself was erupting in flames, even the rainwater flowing on the ground turned into hot molten lava, the deafening thunder turned into explosions all over the city state, that is, all of the steam pipelines, gas pipelines and pressure vessels blew up one after the other in a short period of time, which is even more horrifying than the previous thunder! The …… entire cathedral shook with a roar!

Heidi stepped back in horror, witnessing a destructive end directly over the reality dimension, and then she heard a bell ring.

The sound seemed to come through a thick barrier, sounding as if it were coming from a very distant place – it was the steamy belfry at the back of the cathedral ringing its great bell.

The loud, melodious chime broke the rain of fire, followed by bells ringing far and wide from the depths of the rain of fire.

The church matrix of Prand rang with a hundred bells, and the reality stabilization barrier was activated in response; the sky-splitting rain of fire seemed to be unseen and disturbed by the sound of the bells, and the flames that had fallen over the church were transformed back into an unusual rainstorm, and even the church steeple and banner that had already been set ablaze returned to their original state in the blink of an eye.

The whole city of Prand was ablaze, but all the churches carried the flames falling from the sky in the ringing of the bells, and the strange rainstorm and the even stranger sea of flames were blended paradoxically in this burning land, and it seemed as if a church had become an island in the purgatory, supporting the continuous anchors amidst the huge changes in the sky and the earth.

It was only then that Heidi finally heard a calm and old voice coming from behind herself, and it was Bishop Valentine who broke the silence, “The enemy is attacking …… Destroy all targets attempting to approach the church bell tower!”

Heidi turned her head and was just about to open her mouth to inquire about something when she heard a series of deafening booms suddenly coming from the direction of the square outside the church.

She ran to the window and saw that the Guardian forces assembled in the square were firing – the rotary machine guns of the steam walkers were showering the streets in the distance with bullets, the main guns of the steam tanks were firing continuously, and the troops that had been urgently deployed from the City State Guard earlier had already built up fortifications on the edge of the storm and started pouring in some of the firepower into that sea of Firepower.

Heidi finally saw the enemy.

It was writhing humanoid ash, endless, struggling and writhing from the sea of fire, chilling to the eye.

The ashes seemed to emerge from the flames out of nowhere, their indeterminate forms hissing and screaming in agony every second, and they were coming in waves from all directions, as if inexplicably attracted by a herd of beasts towards the church bell tower, the stabilizing node of reality for all of the city-state.

The warriors pulled the trigger in a state of confusion, most of them had no idea what the battle was about, or what was happening to their familiar homes, and did not even dare to think about where those extremely disturbing-looking “enemies” were coming from, but only the mission of defending the city-state, the instinct to obey orders, and the will to survive! It was only the mission of defending the city-state, the instinct to obey orders and the will to survive that kept them nailed to the defense line in front of this purgatory-like horror, and launched an attack according to the muscle memory gained from a thousand training sessions.

And so, the guns of the defending forces blazed forth, easily tearing apart the first ashes that swarmed close by.

The next second, however, more ash sprang up behind those scattered ashes, even more twisted and incinerated things, swarming towards the church, wrapped in flames and smoke.

Their numbers were as if they were as large as the population of the entire city-state.

“Hold the belfry,” Valentine’s voice suddenly rang out, echoing over the entire church square, even over the entire city-state, “as long as the bells remain, our reality will not be modified or overwritten by them! Believers, the time has come to witness the faith …… Guard the bell tower!!!”

Heidi watched all of this in great confusion, feeling as if her world had fallen apart at the moment, but after a brief moment of adjustment, she had forced her thoughts to calm down, and after realizing that this was a reality invasion level disaster, she forced herself not to focus on the sea of flames across the plaza, and not to think about the fact that ninety percent of the entire city-state had been substantially destroyed by the “Facts”, but instead ran to Valentine at the first opportunity, “Is there anything I can do to help?”

“Pacify the civilians who have taken refuge in the church, we need to avoid mental breakdowns within the confines of the church as much as possible,” Valentine said in a hushed voice, “and then wait with them for this storm to end.”

Heidi nodded immediately, and immediately afterward, Valentine suddenly raised his head again, his gaze seeming to pierce the high walls of the hall and look out into the distance.

Flames and flashes of light were reflected in this archbishop’s eyes, and an overhead view of the entire city-state floated into his vision.

He clearly saw the whole of Prand blazing in a rain of fire, one church turned into an island in a sea of flames, each one suffering from an invasion from beyond reality, fiery evil spirits unleashed from some apocalyptic offshoot feverishly attacking the bell towers that were still ringing as if desperately trying to make the still-surviving reality fall into the same tragic finality as they had, and behind all that ash were numerous tall thin, dark shadows.

Those black shadows stood silent in the flames, silently pushing the city-state into doom.

It was the minions of the Children of the Sun.

Minions of the Children of the Sun?
Valentine’s expression suddenly changed slightly, in front of this reality invasion level disaster, he suddenly remembered a “small thing” that seemed to have been solved a long time ago, and thus almost forgotten.

He suddenly turned to a high-ranking assistant priest beside him, “Are those solar heretics still in the underground sanctuary?!”

“Solar Heretics?” The high-ranking assistant priest didn’t react at once and was stunned for a moment before rushing to speak, “Yes, they are still imprisoned in the underground sanctuary, there is a whole brigade of guardians watching over them, they can’t run out ……”

“They never tried to run out in the first place!” Valentine spluttered, “They wanted to be held in the church from the beginning!” “Sh……”

The high-ranking assistant priest instantly widened his eyes, and right after that, before his words fell, a dull and loud sound suddenly came from deep underground of the church.

It was as if some sort of giant beast had awakened in the underground sanctuary.

And some of the magi in the cathedral who had experienced a certain solar crisis four years ago associated another thing with this loud sound-

Four years ago, hundreds of solar heretics gathered in their hideout and summoned a short-lived and horrific forbidden power in a frenzied blood sacrifice, and a “counterfeit sun” took shape underground, nearly causing a catastrophe.

But before this could be accomplished, their plot was detected by the then-newly promoted Inquisitor Vanna, who led a team to put it down.

“…… That was a test ……”

The high-ranking assistant priest stared wide-eyed and muttered.

Heidi felt a sudden rise in heat around her, and a strong vibration deep underground.

……

Seas of fire rose, bells chimed, sirens shrilled and wailed through the rain of fire, and an inexhaustible number of ash monsters sprang up from all directions to wreak havoc on the earthly world.

Vanna had been in many perilous battles, she had faced cultists and forbidden monsters created by cultists, and even out-of-control spectral demons and misguided and insane final preachers, but no battle could compare to this inferno at this moment.

What she was facing was no longer a battlefield, but a sudden doom.

Or rather, the doomsday had actually come long ago, only to be covered by a curtain until today, and now the curtain was suddenly lifted – the living could not react in time, and they were already the embers of the doomsday.

But she was still alive, killing her way through the sea of fire and ashes, and was trudging towards the towering cathedral at the center of the city-state.

Every breath carried a burning sting, the physical exhaustion was almost to the point where it could crush an ordinary person several times over, and the armor on Vanna’s body had been badly torn, her body’s recovery gradually failing to keep up with the speed of the damage, and her injuries worsening little by little.

But this young Inquisitor was still moving forward.

The bells of the cathedral were still ringing, which meant that Bishop Valentine’s defenses had not yet been breached – perhaps the defenders were unaware of this conspiracy to pollute history, but they had always been prepared for all conspiracies and battles.

Since the battle for the cathedral was still going on, it was his duty to return to his fighting position.

Vanna was thinking.

She noticed that Bishop Valentine had activated the reality stabilization measures, which meant that he had already sensed a part of the truth, at least this part of the response was not a problem, and as long as the bell tower had not been lost, the heretics’ attempt to overwrite the “true history” with the “pseudo-history” would not be so easy to succeed. The heretics’ plot to cover the “true history” with the “false history” would not be so easy to succeed.

As long as the overwriting process was finally interrupted, and the contamination was stripped away from the history at its source, the city-state could still be saved – the destruction at the moment was not a real destruction, but just a horrible “possibility” that the two histories had been added together… …It’s not too late, not by a long shot.

Vanna repeated to herself as if she were cheering herself up, trying not to think about the possibility of the churches being lost, or where the mysterious and terrifying Captain Duncan might be waiting for her, but just mechanically moving her feet, destroying any obstacles she saw on the way, and moving forward through the burning streets, closing the distance between herself and the cathedral.

But suddenly she stopped at a junction not far from the cathedral.

A dark gray car was down on all four wheels on the side of the road, seemingly having rolled over in an accident, and several bodies lay dead on the side of the road, looking like they had been thrown out of the car.

And inside that car was another person – there was an arm poking out of the crooked window, stuck in the twisted and deformed door.

Vanna instantly recognized the car, and the arm.

It was her uncle, Dante Wayne.

(Time to push the book, and milk another bite of Into the Unscientific, pushed it before, now it’s 2 million words, after writing three complete copies, it feels like it seems to be very stable, interested in it can check it out.)
(End of chapter)