Chapter 438: The devastation
Chapter 438: Full of Scars
That brilliant piece of starlight was speaking to itself, was coming towards itself – He was sitting on the couch before, yet when He took a step this way, Agatha felt as if she was gazing at a giant that was hard to describe in words, and for a certain brief moment, she even lost the ability to judge size and proportion, and her misplaced perceptions made her unable to comprehend the size of this house, and the giant …… that the piece of starlight had gathered together almost made her soul feel suffocated.
But it was only a brief illusion, and in the next instant Agatha was startled out of her dismay, and realized that her reason was not affected by any of the presences in this room, as if …… she had naturally blended in.
“I ……” she settled back and gazed at the starlit giant before her, aware that she was continually gazing at the “reality” of the Unnamable One, an act that would normally be It was suicide, but after confirming that she was truly unaffected by it now, she grew bold, “I didn’t think you’d actually be here, I just came to take a chance …….”
“Where did you think I would go? Just waltz out of here when it’s full of shit? Like those protagonists in picture books who complete their quests?” Duncan laughed and said as he sidled his body to gesture for Agatha to enter the room, followed by a pause and an unmoving glance at Alice next to him as he added, “I mean the picture books with normal content.”
Agatha was a bit stunned, she felt as if she couldn’t keep up with this great being’s thought process, but she soon convinced herself that “it’s only normal that mortals can’t understand the thoughts of the ancient gods”, and took a step towards the house.
Duncan, however, stopped suddenly and glanced at Agatha’s hand.
“…… Can you put Sherry down first?” He spoke in a somewhat odd tone, “Shirley you too – why do you look like you’re enjoying yourself instead?”
“Ah, sorry!” Agatha then snapped to attention and hurriedly put the skinny girl she was carrying in her hands onto the ground, but the moment she put it down, her expression suddenly changed.
In the chaotic situation at the doorway just now, she hadn’t focused on Sherry, and it was only then that she snapped her attention to the abnormalities on the latter’s body – the limbs that had been mutated by the symbiosis of the Phantom Demon, the chains that had been extended out from her body and hidden, and the Phantom Hound that was hiding in the shadows, surreptitiously sizing up the outside.
“Psi ……,” Agatha subconsciously spoke, her muscles having instantly tightened.
But before she could make a move, Duncan’s voice had rung out from the sidelines, “Relax, it’s just a harmless hound, I do occasionally need a hound to help me find things.”
“Harmless …… hound?” Agatha spoke with a strange expression, but her gaze subconsciously swept around.
The individual figures once again came into view – those that looked like God’s Chosen, those suspected to have been blessed by subspace, those that appeared to be hosting the sun’s might, and the empty shells of souls that couldn’t even be seen ……
Her gaze once again fell upon the girl named Shirley.
The Phantom Hound realized that she had been discovered and was crouching in the shadows with her neck craned, looking pathetic.
Agatha fell silent.
The Ancient God and His followers were gathered here – indeed, any of the Spectral Demons would call themselves human and harmless here.
“Don’t worry, Shirley is not an Annihilationist,” Duncan explained patiently again when he saw Agatha fall silent, “she and Dog were befriended for other reasons, and they are both acting under my orders now, and will not jeopardize the city-state.”
With that, he gestured to a chair not far away, “Sit down, you should have a lot to say.”
Agatha walked slowly over to him, while Duncan watched her movements – she found the location of the chair quite accurately, but there was obviously a bit of hesitation and fumbling as she sat down.
“You seem to be taking some time to get used to yourself these days,” Duncan spoke up, “Is that okay?”
While this mysterious being seemed ever so kind and calm, Agatha moved her body a little uncomfortably, “…… It is true that I am not quite accustomed to the way I perceive the world nowadays, but there is no need to worry about this body. In fact there are quite a few more benefits to the changes that have happened to me, I am now able to see many things that I once could not observe, it just …… takes getting used to.”
“I’m sorry,” Duncan said in a rather serious tone, “I wasn’t expecting such a change – in fact you wouldn’t have had to resort to anything so extreme as self-sacrifice.”
“But it was the most efficient way,” Agatha shook her head gently, “There is nothing better than a Gatekeeper as a vehicle for your great power.”
Duncan said nothing more, and then his attention was focused on the other man’s particular attire at the moment.
“You’re very different from the last time we met,” he said casually, “It looks …… like you’re more of a cleric now than you were before.” “I’m temporarily filling in for the Archbishop,” Agatha nodded gently, “Bishop Ivan is gone, and now that the fighting in the city is over, someone to lead the Church in soothing the souls of the dead and the minds of the living is needed here now more than a heavily armed gatekeeper. ”
“Bishop Ivan?”……” Duncan’s tone was somewhat solemn, and after a brief silence he sighed softly, “I have not seen him, but at that time I sensed the refuge that descended upon the city-state …… It was brief, but his efforts did weaken the link between the mirror image and reality for a short time, and without him, many more people would have died.”
“May he find peace in Bartok’s kingdom,” Agatha said softly, “he …… has sustained himself for many years, and now he can finally rest for a long time.”
“He will – and while I’m not sure exactly what’s going on in Bartok’s realm, as a proper god, I’m sure He’ll do justice to those high and noble souls,” Duncan said casually, followed by a turn of phrase, “now. Tell me about the situation in the city-state.”
Agatha nodded gently.
She knew that as the Gatekeeper of the Church of Death, and one of the only people left in the city-state who could preside over the situation, she should not reveal Frost’s current predicament to just anyone, let alone establish more communication with an unknown being who was suspected to be an ancient god, but after witnessing that huge figure standing on the sea outside the city-state, and after executing the “self-sacrifice”, she knew that it was time for her to tell him what was happening in the city-state. However, after witnessing that huge figure standing in the sea off the city-state, and after performing that “self-sacrifice”, she knew that both Frost and herself had inevitably established an unbreakable connection with this mysterious existence.
Now that this being was obviously still interested in continuing to pay attention to this city-state, there was no way for her to avoid this matter.
If she had committed a sin with her choice today, then let the Church and the Lord judge her.
“Frost is in a …… bad way at the moment,” she spoke, her voice low and slow, “as you know, we have just lost Archbishop Ivan, and the Church’s clerics and guardsmen have lost a great deal in the defense of the city-state. And now there is fear and tension permeating the city, as well as various negative effects from the deaths and injuries – if these are not dealt with in a timely manner, then secondary disasters are very likely to occur, and horrors will be bred out of the people’s inner hearts, and with the Church being understaffed, the ‘fear ‘ itself would spread through the city-state like a snowball.
“Indeed, sunset in a few hours may well be the beginning of the test – the Frost has gone on for a long time without the sun shining during the previous Mirror Invasion, which has greatly weakened the City-State’s defenses against transcendent forces, and no one knows what will happen during the first night that follows.
“On the other hand, the situation at City Hall is actually worse than the Church – aside from the battle damage suffered by the City State’s guards and vigilante forces, the worst of it is ……”
Agatha was visibly a bit hesitant to say this, but after a few seconds of agonizing she still spelled out the situation – after all, there was no way to keep the consul’s whereabouts unknown from anyone.
“The most serious thing is that the consul is missing.”
Duncan raised an eyebrow, “Missing?”
“He disappeared into the Boiling Gold Mineshaft, and I ……” Agatha was a little stuck, seemingly organizing her words, and it took a few seconds before she continued with a complicated expression, “the other me, who had led the team that investigated the mine tunnel where the Consul disappeared. According to the report of the exploration team that returned to the cathedral afterward, both ‘I’ and Consul Winston had entered an abnormal area blocked by a stone wall and did not return ……”
Her tone was low and hesitant, and it was clear that she was not as calm as she appeared to be when she mentioned her “other self”.
Duncan, on the other hand, could almost imagine how Agatha was torn, confused and conflicted when she returned to the cathedral to learn about the actions of her “other self” in the past few days from the other clerics.
He gazed at Agatha calmly: “You can put it bluntly – the consul of the Frost City State is dead, you have already judged this, right?”
“Yes,” Agatha finally stopped hesitating and said frankly, “Although there’s no evidence, I do ‘know’ that he’s dead, dead in some weird and dark space, and probably won’t even be able to recover his body. ”
“You ‘know’,” Duncan emphasized the word ‘know’ and then adjusted his sitting position in his chair, “It looks like you’ll be making another trip to the Boiling Gold Mine after that. will be making another trip to the boiling gold mines.”
“There …… is where ‘she’ last disappeared,” Agatha nodded gently, “When she last disappeared, I sensed something difficult to describe in words, it was as if I could sense her mind, and I felt …… as if she had a lot of things she wanted to tell me, but she ran out of time ……”
Agatha paused and continued, “And …… those members of the exploration team who returned from the mine also mentioned something to me that the ‘other me’ told them while leading the team to explore the mine, and this matter disturbs me even more ……”
(End of chapter)