Chapter 151: “The Fear of the Demons”
Translation hosted by bcatranslation
Duncan leaned in, examining the body on the ground with a discerning eye.
It was undeniably the nun he and Shirley had conversed with not long ago. Under normal circumstances, she should have been in the church’s main hall, engrossed in prayer at this time.
Instead, her lifeless body lay near the entrance to the underground sanctuary. The door had been sealed shut, with her body acting as a barricade until Duncan pushed it open.
It seemed she had tried to prevent something from entering the sacred underground space. However, the condition of her body suggested a darker story; it appeared she had been involved in a fierce struggle within the sanctuary before shutting the door in a futile attempt to contain whatever menace lurked inside.
“It looks like she just passed away,” Shirley whispered, her voice tinged with disbelief and fear. She gathered her courage, stepping closer and cautiously peering over Duncan’s shoulder. She hesitated momentarily, carefully choosing her next words.
“You’re right. She doesn’t seem to have been dead for long,” Duncan’s voice trailed off as his fingers lightly touched the nun’s arm. “Her body is still warm.”
The unsettling warmth of the nun’s corpse, coupled with her battle-damaged body still marked by fresh, wet blood, gave Duncan an eerie sensation. It felt as if the life-and-death struggle within the church’s basement had been raging even as they had first entered the building – as if this nun had been alive while they were beginning their exploration of the church.
But that defied all logic.
The church had been deserted for eleven years following an inexplicable, supernatural event in the city-state of Pland. If the rumors were true that this church was a critical point in some vast, mysterious cosmic plan, then the tragic events here should have transpired and concluded over a decade ago. The nun, who had apparently fought to her last breath in this underground chamber, couldn’t have just died.
Wearing a somber expression, Duncan straightened up and directed his gaze toward the interior of the underground sanctuary.
It was much as he had imagined—a fairly expansive basement area. Strangely, all light sources within the sanctuary were extinguished. Even the lamps that should have been lit for exorcism rituals were dark. A faint sliver of light filtered through the open doorway, weakly illuminating the space within. In this dim visibility, he could just make out a statue of a goddess standing in the center of the underground room. Pillars on either side were adorned with religious tapestries, and alcoves for sacred vessels were carved into the walls.
Carefully stepping over the nun’s body, Duncan scanned the basement for any signs of a struggle. The walls and pillars bore slash marks, bullet holes punctured the surfaces, and there were even signs of scorching—evidence of intense combat.
Yet, frustratingly, there was no indication of the adversary—the unknown entity against whom the nun had fought so desperately before meeting her tragic end.
As Duncan turned his head, his gaze met the otherworldly figure of Dog, the dark hound that was part of their unusual trio. Dog had been diligently trailing behind Shirley, its eyes continuously scanning their surroundings with a wariness that only a supernatural creature could muster. Duncan felt compelled to ask, “Dog, can you make sense of the peculiar circumstances we find ourselves in?”
Dog’s response was immediate and delivered with a seriousness that left no room for doubt. “I’m detecting severe distortions in the fabric of space-time,” it stated. Unlike Duncan, whose theories were mostly speculative, Dog’s expertise in supernatural phenomena made its analysis more credible and organized. “In my vision, the entire underground sanctuary is shrouded in a sort of thin, intangible mist. It’s as if the regular laws of reality have been supplanted by these twisted dimensions. Yet, aside from the spatial-temporal distortion, I haven’t detected anything else.”
Duncan’s brow furrowed as he processed Dog’s words. “What about the ‘invader’ that was supposedly attacking this sanctuary? That nun we met earlier couldn’t have been battling mere illusions or distortions, could she?”
Dog seemed to sniff the air, an action that would have been unremarkable if not for the fact that it lacked a respiratory system altogether. “There’s no scent of any living beings, nor can I detect the traces of ethereal demons or other spiritual entities,” it confirmed.
After a slight pause, Dog continued, “You’ll have to trust my senses on this matter. We skeletal hounds are masters of the hunt. Discerning the unique scent of our prey, even in complicated environments, is a fundamental skill for us—unless…”
“Unless what?” Duncan interjected, raising an eyebrow in curiosity.
Dog scanned the room again, its demeanor shifting to one of heightened caution. It walked closer to Duncan, almost whispering, “Unless something has emerged from subspace, a dimension that is beyond my capabilities to perceive. In that case, you might be more acquainted with it than I am.”
For a brief moment, Duncan’s face went completely expressionless. “I regret to say I have no familiarity with subspace.”
Seeming disappointed, Dog lowered its head. “If you say you’re unfamiliar, then I’ll take your word for it.”
As Duncan stood there contemplating, he realized that Dog’s skepticism was warranted, yet he was genuinely clueless about subspace. However, Dog’s analysis did trigger a memory. He vividly remembered the fleeting glimpse he’d caught of some sort of rift near the goddess statue in the church’s main hall. There was also the chaotic light that seemed to spill from that rift, along with the unexplained phenomena he’d witnessed aboard the Vanished.
The notion of subspace haunted him. Could something have truly entered their reality from such an elusive dimension?
Duncan spoke more to himself than to his companions, lost in the implications of this new theory. “If the intruder is indeed from subspace, how could it breach the sanctuary dedicated to the Storm Goddess? A place like this should be fortified by the most potent spiritual defenses. Furthermore, judging from what we’ve seen, the intruder didn’t seem to penetrate these defenses from the outside. Instead, it appears as though they materialized directly within the sanctuary and initiated their attack from there…”
The more Duncan thought about it, the more the pieces of the puzzle seemed to fit yet diverge into ever more complex shapes, leaving him and his companions in a labyrinth of cosmic riddles.
“I’m not qualified to comment on that,” Dog said, shaking its head with a sense of resignation. “The mysteries guarded by the Four Churches are far beyond what ethereal demons like me could comprehend. The concept of subspace is so fraught with danger and taboo that even feared demons, notorious for their curiosity, shy away from delving into it. Ironically, humans are far more audacious in this arena. They’ve been studying subspace for years, seemingly without any major calamities.”
Duncan smirked, a playful glint in his eyes. “Well, humans have always had a penchant for pushing boundaries.” He then turned his gaze back to Dog. “But what surprises me is your caution. The abyssal deep sea, where you reside, borders on subspace, doesn’t it? In that case, shouldn’t shadow demons like you be even more knowledgeable of subspace? It’s practically your next-door neighbor, after all.”
Dog’s head drooped, its eyes clouded with a somber expression. “Living next to a volcano doesn’t imply a love for drinking lava,” it said, putting forth an analogy. “Our proximity to subspace has only given us a more profound understanding of its terrifying nature, more so than any human could fathom. We avoid it precisely because we know how treacherous it is to venture close.”
Duncan absorbed this information, his mind racing. Finally, he voiced a question that had been nagging at him for a while. “So, do you also share our human fear that the Vanished might one day return from subspace?”
Dog visibly cringed, eyeing Duncan cautiously. It was as if the mere act of discussing the Vanished could set off a cosmic catastrophe. However, since Duncan had broached the topic, Dog felt compelled to elaborate. “If the Vanished had simply returned from subspace, that alone wouldn’t have been terrifying. The truly unsettling part is that the ship had been repeatedly ‘falling back’ into subspace, oscillating between dimensions. It seemed as if it was caught in a relentless loop, phasing in and out of subspace and our reality.”
Duncan had initially asked the question in a rather casual tone but was caught off guard by the gravity of the information Dog shared. His interest was piqued. “You’re saying the ship was oscillating between our world and subspace?”
Dog’s countenance turned grave, its voice tinged with a fear that seemed to come from firsthand experience. “Yes, and in doing so, it wasn’t just passing through our realm or the spiritual realm. It was literally dragging along anything and anyone it encountered, like a runaway cannonball ripping through the fabric of multiple dimensions. I can still vividly recall a nightmarish scene: the ship plummeting from the upper realms like a burning meteorite engulfed in flames. It was surrounded by the agonized screams of humans and had a distorted, malformed hull. Shadow demons who were engaged in battle scattered in sheer terror. Yet, before they could escape, they were sucked into the conflagration by the ship’s immense gravitational pull. What followed was abominable: humans and ethereal demons fused together into grotesque, twisted amalgamations before being torn asunder and scattered into the farthest reaches of the ethereal realm. That’s how the Vanished wreaked havoc in this manner, plunging deeper into subspace, only to resurface two days later, and then… repeat the whole cycle.”
As Dog recounted this harrowing tale, it seemed to struggle with a physical reaction, its throat emitting a gritty, scraping sound as if it were trying to swallow some corrosive substance. The sound served as a chilling punctuation to the grim narrative, underlining the horror that Dog—and perhaps many others—had witnessed.
“At that stage, even the most obstinately oblivious among the shadow demons took a break from their incessant skirmishes,” Dog narrated, its eyes clouding over as if reliving the trauma. “Day after day, they would halt their battles and simply stand there, their gazes turned toward the spiritual realm. Their natural propensity for aggression and rivalry was overtaken by a newfound, overwhelming fear. I was no exception; the horror of that time left a lasting imprint on me, one that I’m still grappling with.”
As Duncan listened, his face remained inscrutable, yet his eyes betrayed a glint of newfound understanding. “I see. It makes sense now why you’re so haunted by the experience, why it has left such a deep-rooted psychological scar on you.”
Summoning the courage to meet Duncan’s gaze, Dog hesitantly posed a question, “Don’t you already know about these occurrences yourself?”
For a fleeting moment, Duncan felt his composure waver. How could he possibly be privy to such nightmarish events? He had never asked for this knowledge, nor did he feel that he should be burdened with the weight of these historical horrors that seemed so remote yet so closely connected to their present situation.
But regardless of his internal turmoil, Duncan managed to maintain a composed exterior. “I might have been… unobservant,” he conceded, choosing his words carefully.
Dog seemed to deflate, its eyes a complex mix of confusion and disappointment.
Recognizing Dog’s glumness, Duncan sighed, the weight of the moment settling on him. “In the future, I’ll be more vigilant,” he pledged, his tone earnest, laden with sincerity.
This simple statement seemed to have a profound impact on Dog. For a moment, the skeletal hound appeared as if frozen in time, deeply moved by Duncan’s commitment.
Duncan then fell into a period of brief but intense reflection. If what Dog had described was indeed true, then the implications were staggering. Could it be that the Vanished had experienced a prolonged phase of erratic behavior? That it hadn’t merely made a one-time journey from subspace, but had, for an extended period, been caught in a volatile oscillation between subspace and the real world?
The thought added yet another intricate layer to the already complex tapestry of mysteries that Duncan found himself entangled in, forcing him to reconsider what he thought he knew—and what he needed to find out.
sounds like foreshadowing
Thanks for the all the chapters dude! Easily my favorite novel since LoTM!
same