Chapter 678: “Parade”
Chapter 678: “Tour”
Tour of the Ark – since the day he saw these “giant ships” that look like small city-states, and since he knew that these huge things were constantly “touring” the sea, Duncan had questions about these amazing creations. Duncan had been questioning these amazing creations since the day he saw them with his own eyes.
What does it really mean to patrol the ark, and is their special “patrol” behavior …… just “patrolling”?
The people in the city state often say that the ark represents the greatness of the four gods, they are the symbol of the highest force of the church, but also the four gods in the earthly “palace”, the church makes the ark patrol the infinite sea, in order to deter those heretics, in order to protect the city state from being contaminated by some malicious existence in the subspace, in the beginning, Duncan did not have any doubt about this kind of statement, but as he became more and more aware of this, he had no doubt about it, but as he became more and more aware of this, he had no doubt about it. At first, Duncan had no doubt about this claim, but as he came into contact with the Church of the Four Gods more and more, especially after learning more and more insider information related to the Church from Vanna, Maurice and Agatha, he found doubts.
The ones who were truly responsible for fighting heretics and evil spirits were the Inquisitors and Guardian systems of the city-states, the ones who were truly responsible for intercepting heretics and rescuing seafarers at sea were the regular fleets of the Church of the Four Gods, the ones who were truly responsible for guarding against subspace contamination and consolidating the defenses of the city-states were the bells of churches, the bishop’s prayers, and the strictly-planned church-bell-tower system, and the four majestic parade arks… …never in fact participated in anything to do with the earthly world.
They spend three quarters of the year patrolling certain hidden routes, invisible and unpredictable to the earthly world, seemingly located between the dimensions of reality and far away from any city, while the rest of the time they take turns patrolling the borders near the “Eternal Curtain”, with a minimum of communication with the ecclesiastical border fleet, without interacting with any city. The rest of the time, they take turns patrolling the border near the Eternal Curtain, with minimal interaction with the Church’s border fleet, and no dealings with any of the city-states – they even deliberately avoid the border city-states’ patrol fleets.
Only on rare occasions would these arks dock at a city-state – for example, after a major event such as the Black Sun of Prand, would they appear before the eyes of the world.
Other than that, these arks would not have any contact with the earthly world, and even within the four churches, they were always shrouded in a layer of mysterious mist – the vast majority of clergymen would never have the opportunity to set foot on a ceremonial ark, and only those who were classified as “saints” were eligible for the privilege of studying on the ark. Only those who are classified as “Saints” are eligible to be received on the Ark during their apprenticeship period, but they can only move around in the designated areas and will be sent back to their original cities after completing the necessary studies and training – these “Saints” will never have the chance to get in touch with the true secrets of the Ark. These “saints” will never have access to the real secrets of the Ark.
All these clues suggest that the existence of the “Tour Ark” itself is full of great doubts – their true purpose has been hidden.
Now, Duncan finally got his answer.
“…… The current four Patrol Arks were constructed decades ago, and before these ‘giant ships’ were put into use, the four major churches actually had a previous generation of ‘Arks ‘, but that was completely incomparable to these four church ships today ……”
Frem’s voice was low, and his words sounded as if they were flowing out of the rocks, carrying a subconsciously relaxing and convincing composure.
“The church ‘arks’ of the previous generation were actually just big ships, back then, they were still just a part of the ecclesiastical sea cruising fleet, a part of the armed forces, not as mysterious as they are today, and not as …… isolated from the earth as they are today isolated.
“Today’s ‘church ships’ are on another level altogether, rather than being four ‘big ships’ …… actually, strictly speaking, they are more like four ‘anchor points’ for anchoring the sanity of the gods to some ‘equilibrium’ beyond the earthly realm.”
Duncan didn’t say anything, but just looked at the opposite side of the room with a serious expression – he knew that these explanations from Frem were specifically for his own ears, and that the other popes and bishops attending the gathering here were all from the Ark of the Patrol, and that these people were obviously “in the know” of the truth. They were all obviously “in the know” of the truth.
“…… Exactly who it was that initially perceived the truth …… is actually no longer verifiable, it was a series of ‘revelations’ and ‘inspirations’, we heard murmured truths in benedictions, we saw darkness and corruption piling up in visions brought about by incense, and more than once the spirits of the four of us felt ‘tugs’ from beyond the world, as the Gods picked up our minds to a chaotic expanse of place, allowing us to see His death and gloom …… And in the process, the earthly magi began to experience frequent breaks in the connection between them and the four gods …… That was probably around 1822.”
Frem paused briefly at this point, while Lucrecia, who was sitting a short distance to Duncan’s right, seemed to suddenly think of something: “The ‘Cold Harbor Silence’ incident in 1822 ……? ”
“Yes, the Cold Harbor Silence incident – that’s famous, but it’s really just a microcosm, a microcosm of what was left behind in a series of deteriorating situations that had the greatest impact and that couldn’t be fully made good.”
It was not Frem who made the reply, but Banister, who sat beside Frem, the black-robed Pope of Death with a somewhat raspy voice and a pale face as pale as death.
“All the clerics of the entire city-state suddenly lost contact with Bartok, the God of Death, and in the ‘silence’ that lasted for twenty-four hours, they heard constant, horrifyingly appalling hollow whistling and hissing in their minds that only they could hear, and then tainted blood came out of the ‘Holy of Holies’, and the Archbishop of the City State was martyred, melting into the blood to protect the Cathedral – at hindsight, seventeen priests were martyred in the ‘Silence’, and another seventy-seven fell into permanent insanity, their minds broken by witnessing things outside the real world ……
“And in my judgment, the ‘Silence’ event is still having lasting after-effects for all of the twenty years since then – the short-lived disappearance of the power of divine refuge led to a weakening of the reality dimension protection in the region of the cold and cold sea, the sub space, the influence of the Profound and Spirit Worlds took advantage of the situation, and with Cold Harbor as the center, the number of ‘celestial psychics’ born in the city-states of the Cold Sea during that period of time was almost more than that of all the other city-states in the world combined.”
Banister paused and dropped his gaze on Lune. “Yes, as Banister said, the Cold Harbor Silence of 1822 was only a microcosm,” Lune nodded, “What really happened was that for quite some time, across the Boundless Sea, contact with the Gods was becoming difficult, even becoming …… dangerous, daily prayers were often unanswered, but even worse was getting ‘answers’ that shouldn’t have been, the shelter the city-states received was weakening, and there were more than a few strange occurrences on ocean voyages, and in one revelation and vision after another …… we finally confirmed the terrible ‘state’ of the gods.”
Silence fell in the hall.
The Gods were dead – this matter was known to Duncan, known to the followers around Duncan, known to the four Popes and the Bishops on the Ark of the Patrol, but when this matter was brought directly into the open, when all the intelligence and the events that had taken place were spread out and linked to the Great Annihilation, a strange and depressing atmosphere still inevitably permeated the scene.
“…… So, you have built the massive Patrol Ark for the purpose of enhancing the connection with the Gods and slowing down His ‘decay’ process …… “Duncan spoke up to break the silence, “I’m not interested in the exact ‘principles’ of the process, I just want to know, to what extent did you do this ‘effectively’? Did it really work? Just now, Frem said that the Ark’s ‘delaying’ effect had reached its limit, what about that?”
“It worked, at least at first,” Helena nodded, “The Ark is the anchor point for the Gods, and the ‘death’ of the Gods is a long and complex process, and technically speaking, the death process itself is Strictly speaking, this death process itself cannot be stopped at all – it is as irreversible as the operation of the laws of the world, but the existence of the ‘anchor point’ can at least allow the gods to maintain a relatively stable state until they completely ‘disappear’. relatively stable state until their complete ‘disappearance’, and according to our initial estimates …… it should work for at least a few centuries, if not a thousand years.
“Our initial thought was that if we could have such a long ‘buffer time’, perhaps we would have the opportunity to find other ways to further slow down the process of the gods’ decay, or even to find …… find ……”
Helena suddenly stopped, as if she had difficulty saying something directly, as if she still didn’t want to admit certain “facts” even though she and the other popes had already taken action for this.
Lune, Banister and Frem also fell silent with complicated expressions.
Beside Duncan, Lucrecia frowned in puzzlement, Nina and Shirley couldn’t help but look curious, and Maurice opened his mouth thoughtfully but stopped talking.
The soft, disembodied sound of waves appeared in Duncan’s ears, a vague whisper that seemed to murmur to him from behind a thick curtain, and he drifted off for a moment, looking down at the tabletop in front of him.
A light water mark surfaced on the table and flew away again.
He looked at the water mark and lifted his head to look across the table at Helena.
“Finding a replacement, right?”
Helena’s eyes widened in shock as she looked at Duncan.
Duncan, however, just shook his head without explaining anything, and only after a few seconds of silence did he whisper thoughtfully, “…… But only a few decades have passed since then, which is more than a few centuries short of the ‘centuries’ you were expecting to see more than a point and a half.”
“Yes, the situation has deteriorated worse than we thought,” Banister’s voice was hoarse and gloomy, “We had thought that the current ‘equilibrium’ of the gods might last for another thousand years, but the forces of decay and decadence have already begun to invade the entire world, the Ark’s ‘tour’ activities began as a way to enhance the Gods’ connection with the earthly world, but by now, we spend half of our time trying to figure out how to ‘filter out’ the contamination that they give off during the decay process ……
“This makes us …… doubly sad.”
Banister ended his sentence with a sigh.
Duncan, on the other hand, broke the silence after a moment’s reflection, “So, you’ve taken a new course of action – those are the fleets that are massing in the border waters?”
(End of chapter)