Chapter 332 – City of Infiltration
Chapter 332 – City of Infiltration
The paper was crumpled and in many places contaminated with grayish-black “mud”, the writing on it was blurred and chipped, but after Maurice handled it carefully, many of the words were restored to a barely legible state –
“Brown Scott” recorded the bizarre changes that had occurred to him during the last lucid stages of his sanity:
“…… Around 4:00 a.m., twelve hours after locking the door to his room, increasingly intense ringing in the ears and paroxysms of vertigo seriously affecting his own movements, only able to write when he is in a slightly better state, bleeding seems to be present under the skin, and he sees inexplicable bruises appearing ……
“At six-thirty, the internal organs seem to be tumbling, as if the structure of the body has lost its order, each with its own ideas generally wandering through the body, and do not feel pain, and even the feeling of vertigo is much weaker …… Fear began to subside, and more and more clear memories appeared in the mind ……
“Around seven o’clock, clear recollections of the details of the time of death, growing more and more convinced that the real self was in fact long dead. The left leg was inexplicably fractured – or perhaps a section of bone in the center had suddenly dissolved and disappeared.
“At eight fifteen, the left leg began to dissolve, first the skin split open on its own, then the internal tissue flowed out like some kind of grayish-black liquid, and as if the disembodied liquid substance had a life of its own, it wriggled on the floor and even climbed up the walls …… For a moment I feared that the boards I had nailed to my window Whether they could block these weird and scary substances, but then realized that they gradually lost their activity soon after leaving the body, and even when they remained active, they seemed to be consciously avoiding sunlight …… This may be a very important piece of information, and is hereby recorded ……
“…… heart stopped beating, but the consciousness still continues, can feel that this body has completely stopped according to the normal human physiological mechanisms, try to cut a wound, there is no blood in the wound, only gray-black viscous material slowly flowing out of the …… At this moment this body, in the end, what substance is formed?
“The entire lower half of my body began to dissolve, and it took some effort to fix myself in a position and continue to write these words – I can’t feel any pain right now, I’m not breathing, and my heartbeat stopped a long time ago, and occasionally I can hear buzzing noises, as if the substances that make up my own body were resonating …… More and more of the gooey substance left the body, making a mess of the room ……
“…… I hope Galoni won’t be shocked when she cleans up the room …… Though as I write the name, I can barely recall Galoni’s appearance in my mind.
“At half past ten the most feared thing began to happen, vision was fading fast, the environment was darkening rapidly and I had to fumble with the edges of the paper to make the writing underneath as clear as possible ……
“Unable to ascertain the present time, about eleven to twelve o’clock, a sharp, strange noise was heard, which lasted about five minutes, after which all discomfort began to subside, and the perception of the remnants of the body was rapidly diminishing. It could be vaguely felt that the part of the body below the chest was falling ……
“Another hour may have passed,”
The text breaks off here.
It was unknown whether the recorder’s consciousness had finally reached its end, or whether he was no longer able to accurately put words on paper with the loss of most of his senses – in the end, all the dead man had left of the earthly world was an abrupt punctuation mark.
Maurice was silent, making no sound for a long time, and only after an unknown amount of time did he speak softly as if to himself, “Ah, it is indeed his handwriting.”
“Do you need a moment alone?” Duncan gave the older gentleman a calm look, “I can wait outside.”
“No, I’ve already mourned him once,” Maurice shook his head gently, “I just didn’t expect to be able to see his academic records again after six years …… All this information is useful, isn’t it? ”
Duncan didn’t answer first, but approached the solidified and stagnant “mud”, peering thoughtfully at its edges, then picked up the last of Brown Scott’s records, examining the edges of the paper where it had been completely saturated by the mud.
The edges were somewhat blurred, and the boundary between the paper and the mud seemed to have disappeared, or even to have partially merged.
Maurice noticed Duncan’s movement, “Have you found anything?”
“…… Progenitor,” Duncan looked up, “The local church of Frost is studying this substance, and they believe that this ‘slime remaining after the disintegration of deep-sea replicas ‘ is very close in nature to what the Annihilationists refer to as ‘protozoa’.”
Morris was stunned for a moment, but he was now more or less accustomed to the Captain’s situation of grasping new clues out of nowhere at some point in time, so he did not curiously pursue the source of this information, and only spoke after a short period of thought, “…… I know the ‘protozoan ‘ expression, and to study the historical origins of the cultists, you always have to get around their god-awful stuff.” He paused, seemingly organizing the information in his mind, and continued a moment later, “Just as the Sunists firmly believe that the real sun of the distant past will save the world sooner or later, the Annihilationists also have a similar ‘salvation prophecy’, preaching that at a certain date in the future, the Profound Holy Lord will awaken from his slumber and, in a violent rage In a violent rage, he will destroy the present earthly world, which has been distorted and deceived by the gods, and the Profound Sea, which represents the ‘true present world’, will rise from the depths of the world and become a paradise for mortals to live in peace again, and before that day arrives, there will first be a massive outpouring of ‘primordials’, which are the world’s s cornerstone, the blueprint for everything, they will cover everything and restore the world to its true form ……”
Listening to the old scholar, Duncan was silent for a few seconds and raised his head, “A massive outpouring …… from the deep sea?”
Morris did not speak for a while.
“I’m getting more and more interested in those Annihilationists now, but more than their so-called ‘salvation prophecies’, I’m more curious about how they’ve established a ‘connection’ with a thousand meters deep underneath the Frost at the moment, “Duncan shook his head, “Replicas come from the deep, the Obsidian and that submersible on Dagger Island did, but how do a bunch of godforsaken Annihilationists …… do you think they got in touch with the power under a thousand meters of deep water? ”
“…… It’s no small feat for even powerful city-states to build submersibles capable of traveling to and from thousand-meter depths, and at the very least, it’s unlikely that it’s something a bunch of cultists could get a hold of,” Maurice spoke up in thought, ” But they could channel the power of the deep through some sort of indirect ritual, or communicate with a …… ‘powerful being’ in the deep.”
“So there must exist a larger cult stronghold in Frost, a place that is hidden and capable of holding large rituals, enough so that they can keep channeling the power of the deep to create replicas in the city-state, or even invade Dagger Island.” Duncan spoke slowly, raising his head and looking around the room – the only window was boarded up, and the roof, walls and floor were covered in dry, lifeless “mud”, all traces of which seemed to speak without words of a All the traces here seem to tell a story of a shocking death and confrontation.
In his perception, the Lost Country was sailing in the direction of Dagger Island and Frost Island.
“Maybe it’s finally time to give the cultists here a little ‘Lost Country Shock’.” He said softly, while rubbing his fingers together, a small cluster of ghostly green flames falling from his fingertips, dropping silently to the ground, and quickly dissolving into the air to disappear.
Maurice, of course, saw the scene, but he said nothing, only taking one last look at the table next to him.
That was the place where Brown Scott had last “worked” – perhaps it was just a short-lived replica, but when the body that kept collapsing and disintegrating was writing, it still had a noble soul.
“What about …… here?” The old scholar looked up at the captain, “The traces in the room, the information Brown left behind, and …… Galoni on the first floor.”
“We’ve got enough clues, leave the rest to the Frostbite,” Duncan said lightly, “Leave the room as it is, leave that letter on the table in a prominent place, and prepare a letter of report, and as for Galoni… …”
Duncan paused.
“The cognitive disruption that Galoni suffered is clearly not over, and the fact that she still shows no signs of regaining her senses after the duplicates in this building have disappeared, and is even convinced that her teacher is resting in her room, suggests that the ‘source’ of the disruption is not her teacher, but rather, some still-active , something hiding in the depths of the city-state, and she won’t truly recover until that source is eliminated.”
At that, he frowned slightly as he seemed to think of more.
“And ……’m not sure how many more ‘Brown Scott’s’ there are in this city-state, and how many more ‘Galoni’s’ there are. ”
Maurice’s expression froze, “You mean ……”
“With rumors circulating in the city of the return of the dead, yet at the same time diametrically opposed news reaching the Tyrian side of the city,” Duncan glanced at Maurice, “this city-state, I fear, has been infiltrated to the point of being sifted by replicants and cognitive interference phenomena.”
(End of chapter)