Chapter 148

Chapter 148.

A swift white blur swept over the old, filthy alleys of the Lower City, over the crisscrossing pipes and relief vents above the factories, over a desolate station and its empty streets, and finally darted into a narrow, shabby alley.

ghostly green flame suddenly blossomed, spreading through the air like a doorway. The vortex within that blazing gate pulsed once, and Duncan stepped out.

Shirley, still a little dazed, followed right behind him.

Duncan looked back at the girl behind him, gave her a quick once-over, and finally asked in a low voice: “How do you feel? Anything uncomfortable?”

“I… I’m okay,” Shirley said. She was still dizzy, but the dizziness came more from suddenly being dragged through the air by the big boss than from any real physical discomfort. She glanced up at AI, who had reverted to a white dove and was perched on Duncan’s shoulder. After a long moment, she used the mental link to speak with Dog, who was in his hidden state, hiding inside her soul: “Dog, can you beat that dove?”

“…Don’t even ask. If you ask, the answer is no,” Dog replied, sounding sullen. “Forget the bird the big boss keeps. I couldn’t even beat the fish the big boss stews…”

Shirley froze. “Why are you suddenly talking about fish?”

“Because I’ve figured it out. Anything near that being probably stops obeying normal rules…”

Duncan had no idea Shirley was muttering with Dog. He only checked Shirley again with his own eyes, then felt the feedback from the mark he had left on her, and finally relaxed completely.

In truth, he was quite confident in AI’s ability to transport living people. Not only because he had already tested it on his current mortal body, but also because afterward he had AI perform a lot of “live tests” outside, using all kinds of birds, beasts, and other small animals. Every test had gone perfectly, proving that this pigeon could carry living targets without harm—yet even with so many trials, he still instinctively checked on Shirley again.

After all, AI was full of mysteries. No one knew how many strange traits it still hid, waiting to be discovered. Being a little more careful when using the “Bone Dove Express” never hurt.

Once he finished checking on Shirley, he turned his attention to the surroundings.

In front of him lay a cold, deserted alley. At the far end he could faintly see the crumbling street beyond. Old, poorly maintained pipes stretched overhead between the houses on both sides, and at some joints thin streams of steam hissed out.

It was the kind of scene common in many parts of the Lower City.

But Shirley still recognized where they were at a glance.

“This is… the Sixth District?” Her eyes widened in surprise. “Mr. Duncan, was this where you sensed that mark appear?”

“That’s right, the Sixth District. We’ve come back here again, but…” Duncan let out a breath, then frowned slightly. “The mark’s signal faded about a minute ago.”

“…Faded? Did it go out?”

Shirley asked in shock, but Duncan did not answer. He only stared thoughtfully in a certain direction.

In Shirley’s “dream”, he had planted a tiny flame into the fragment left behind when the attacker split apart. He had ordered that fragment to return to its “main body”. Not long after, when Shirley’s dream ended, he lost his sense of that flame. Only just now had that mark suddenly reappeared in his perception, guiding him here.

Here, to the Sixth District in the Mortal Realm.

The spirit form fire that should have spread only within the dream had suddenly sent a signal back from the Mortal Realm. Shirley’s own dream, at its edges, had linked to the sights in Nina’s dream. The umbrella-wielding monster that attacked Shirley in the nightmare had once appeared at the great fire at the City Museum in the Mortal Realm…

Without realizing it, many clues that seemed to contradict each other yet faintly connected were lining up in Duncan’s mind. He felt as if he were about to touch that unseen Veil.

Or rather, even though that vast Veil covered the whole city, it still had a “gap” somewhere. That gap was in the Sixth District—at some place he and Shirley had overlooked last time.

He was looking toward the spot where he had last sensed the mark’s “signal”.

The mark’s trace had appeared only briefly, then faded quickly a minute ago. But Duncan did not believe the flame he left behind had gone out. Even if he could no longer fix its location, he could still sense that little fire burning on, and that it had grown far stronger than before.

Since the flame was still burning and growing, that meant its “mission” was not over yet. It was still chasing, devouring, and assimilating that attacker, maybe even spreading into a roaring blaze. The way it flickered into the Sixth District for a moment and then vanished again might mean the Veil here was unstable, with a gap that opened and closed for a short time and let the two layers of the world overlap and connect.

He had to find that gap—the gap that seemed to link the dream and the Mortal Realm.

Several days later, Duncan once again led Shirley through the bleak, run-down streets of the Sixth District. This time they did not waste time asking the locals anything. They headed straight for the deepest part of the neighborhood.

“The abandoned factory is the other way…” On the way, Shirley raised an arm and pointed at a large building in the distance.

“We are not going to that factory,” Duncan said quickly. “We’re going this way.”

“Oh…”

Shirley answered softly, then hurried her short legs to keep up with Duncan.

Dry yellow leaves drifted by on the wind and fell under Shirley’s feet. She stepped on them as she walked, hearing the faint crackle of them breaking. It sounded like stepping on charred splinters of wood, like tiny tongues of flame murmuring and popping.

She lifted her head and looked around, but saw only an ordinary street. Old houses lined the road, standing in the drifting leaves, facing the unwelcome visitors with cold indifference.

Then Shirley suddenly noticed that something was wrong.

She did not know when it had started, but there was no one else on the street anymore.

The Sixth District really was quiet. In most places there were few pedestrians, and the few residents looked listless, cold, and withdrawn. But it had never been so empty that she could not see a single person!

An unpleasant feeling spread from the bottom of her heart. It vaguely reminded her of the dream she had been trapped in. She instinctively moved a little closer to Duncan—just as he suddenly stopped. With a thump, she crashed straight into his waist.

In the next second, Shirley drafted her full last words and even imagined three different designs for her gravestone. Then she quickly remembered that people crushed by the Subspace Shadows probably did not leave a body behind anyway…

Duncan’s calm voice cut off the young lady’s wild thoughts: “Looks like we’re here.”

“I’m so, so sorry, I really didn’t mean to, please… huh?”

Shirley blurted out a string of pleas without thinking. Only then did she realize that the big boss in front of her did not seem angry at all. Right after that, she finally noticed that she had stopped before a building that looked as if it had been abandoned for who knew how many years.

It was a cathedral.

A community cathedral, the kind seen everywhere in the city-state of Pland, stood at the end of the lane.

It had the Deep Sea Cathedral’s iconic slender spire, but dead vines and rotting grime hung everywhere on its black roof tiles and white stone walls. The main door, carved with complex sacred sigils, stood slightly open. The stained-glass windows beside it had fallen to pieces, leaving almost only warped iron frames. Through the crack of the door and the gaps in the broken windows, they could vaguely see a dark interior.

This had once been a sacred building, but now the air of ruin and neglect filled every crack between its bricks.

“…Is this the ‘cathedral’ that old man at the crossroads mentioned last time?” Shirley recalled their last trip here to investigate the Sixth District. “I remember he said a nun lived here, but that the nun was often not in the cathedral…”

“Falling into this state can’t be explained by ‘often not at home’,” Duncan said casually as he walked toward the cathedral’s main doors. “Rather than saying that nun often goes out, I’d say this place looks like it was forgotten eleven years ago.”

Shirley watched him walk toward the cathedral. She instinctively felt tense and repelled by that building, but after a moment’s hesitation she still followed in Duncan’s footsteps.

The next moment, Duncan pushed open the half-closed cathedral doors, and the scene inside the small cathedral appeared clearly before their eyes.

Warm, bright candlelight fell into Shirley’s eyes. Inside, the small cathedral was neat and spotless, lit from end to end. At the far end of the rows of benches, the statue of the Storm Goddess Gamona stood quietly amid the lights.

A nun who had been kneeling devoutly before the statue in prayer heard the door open, rose, and turned around.

She saw the visitors standing at the door and showed a gentle smile. “It has been a long time since anyone came to visit this cathedral.”

“Oh… looks like this really is the place.” Duncan looked at the smiling nun before him and said quietly, his expression calm: “The gap in the Veil.”

He blinked. In his eyes, the smiling nun kept the appearance of a living person for one instant, then in the next became a human-shaped heap of writhing ash. Behind her, the cathedral itself fell into a bizarre state of superposition—flames roared over intact benches, while ash and sparks drifted down from the roof. The scene after a fire had burned everything to ruin and the scene of the intact cathedral overlapped at the same time, creating a strange and torn vision.

It was as if two completely different facts had been forced together inside this cathedral.