Chapter 153

Chapter 153: Space-Time Lock

In the dark, the statue of the Storm Goddess Gamona still stood quietly in the center of the underground sanctum, veiled and looking down at the mortal world.

Of course, by strict doctrine, the “Goddess” in the underground sanctum was another side of Gamona and should be called the “Maiden of the Still Sea”.

Duncan stared hard at the cold stone statue. He was sure he had just heard a voice, a whisper like something from a dream, coming from that statue.

Yet Shirley and Dog, who were standing right next to him, still showed no reaction. Clearly, Duncan was the only one who had heard that voice.

“Mr. Duncan?” Shirley had also noticed Duncan’s strange behavior by now. She widened her eyes a little in nervousness and leaned against Dog without meaning to. “Did you find something?”

“Did either of you hear any sound just now?” Duncan pinched out the flame on his fingertip. As he spoke in a low voice, he moved closer to carefully study the statue of the Maiden of the Still Sea.

“Sound?” Shirley and Dog looked at each other and shook their heads. “No.”

The statue of the Goddess did not react at all to Duncan’s closer approach. No other sound came.

Duncan felt that he might have been a bit reckless this time.

He had thought the link between the Storm Goddess and this cathedral had already been cut. When he summoned Dog and burned down the chapel door earlier, no manifestations had appeared. So he had slowly loosened up while exploring. He had not expected that one burst of fire would draw the deity’s gaze—if that faint question just now really had come from Gamona.

So he did a small bit of self-reflection in his heart and decided that the next time he was reckless, he should be a little more careful.

At the same time, as he was reflecting, a new doubt suddenly rose in his mind:

Judging from the state of this cathedral, before he and Shirley came in it had clearly been completely abandoned and forgotten. The link between the Storm Goddess Gamona and this place had also clearly been blocked. In theory, his flame should be another “invading force” inside this cathedral. Burning with his fire should only have made the corruption and blocking of this cathedral even worse, like lighting another fire on ruins that had already been badly burned. So how…

…had the link between the Storm Goddess and this place instead grown stronger for a moment after he lit his fire?

Wasn’t he the intruder here? Shouldn’t his flames be very destructive to the power of a deity that held the attribute of order? How had he ended up “burning the Goddess awake”?

The more Duncan thought about it, the more confused he felt, but he did not let his thoughts run wild for long.

In the end, he still could not be sure whether that faint whisper had really been Gamona’s voice. He was just guessing based on that idea. The real problem in front of him now was thinking about what to do next with this strange cathedral.

After that whisper died away, nothing else happened. Duncan did not know what a Goddess usually did with Her time, but right now She did not seem to plan on keeping Her gaze on this place. The rest of the underground sanctum still stayed as it had been at first. The fire he had released had not lifted the Veil the way it had in the abandoned factory.

He still could not sense anything on the far side of the Veil. The flames he had left in that split body of the umbrella fiend were still missing without a trace. He could only be sure that the fire was still burning and had even started to spread, but he could not touch the “dimension” where those flames were.

This cathedral was indeed an important node on the Veil, but with only his and Shirley’s strength, it seemed hard to pry this place open.

With the condition of his current body, and with the distance between the Vanished and the city-state of Pland, it was also hard for him to call up a larger scale of flames. It would be hard to make a bigger stir here.

As these thoughts flashed through his mind, a faint idea took shape in Duncan’s heart.

It was time for him to once again play the part of “enthusiastic citizen Mr. Duncan”.

This cathedral had been hidden until today. Some nameless force had been blocking outsiders from peeking into it. So what if… he forcibly took the lid off?

He was very curious how the Deep Sea Church of the city-state of Pland would react, and even more curious about what the Storm Goddess would do. Since he could not open the Veil here by himself, he might as well turn this place into a big news event.

Of course, this time it would not work to just find a few patrolling Night Watchers and report it to them. That might only get the first group of investigators who came killed. He had to think carefully about how to turn this place into big news in a way that was both safe and effective.

As he thought, a small smile appeared on Duncan’s face without him noticing. It was the smile of a mischief-maker planning a big piece of trouble. But this smile scared Shirley and Dog beside him. Dog, especially, clamped his tail down on the spot: “M-M-Mr. Duncan, do you have a plan?”

Duncan waved his hand as soon as he heard the question. “Nothing much. I just plan to do my part to uphold the city’s order.”

Dog let out a gurgling sound in his throat. He thought that even if you said those words to the mad demons of the Abyssal Deep and the Deep Sea, no one would believe them. The look on the big boss’s face just now had clearly been the smile of a Subspace intruder who had finally figured out what a Subspace invasion really was and was getting ready to carry one out…

“All right, there’s nothing more to see here,” Duncan said. He did not care about Shirley and Dog’s reactions. He only glanced back at Gamona’s statue and gave it a meaningful look, then turned and walked toward the exit door. “We shouldn’t stay here for long.”

The group hurried toward the exit, but before they left, Shirley could not help stopping again. “Mr. Duncan, wh-what about this dead nun?”

Duncan also stopped. He quietly looked at the young woman who had died after fighting with all her strength.

She was still very young, so young that it made one feel regret. She had not been a Guardian whose job was fighting for the Church, yet she had died here in the dark of the underground sanctum with a sword in her hand.

Duncan suddenly realized a problem.

A nun… Why had a nun been guarding the sanctum? Under normal conditions, shouldn’t there have been a whole squad of specially trained Guardians stationed here?

He thought back to the scene he had seen in the main hall earlier.

That squad of Guardians seemed to have died in the main hall of the cathedral. And from the scene he had seen in that “overlaid Mortal Realm”, those Guardians had not died in battle. It was more like they had all suddenly dropped dead while they were sitting on the benches in prayer.

The Guardians who should have been stationed in the underground sanctum had suddenly died in the cathedral’s main hall, with no sign of battle on their bodies. The nun who should have stayed in the main hall had instead died alone in the sanctum in battle. The intruders seemed to be from Subspace, yet they had left no trace after the fight. After that, the cathedral had been sealed and forgotten, while some sort of “echo” of the nun had returned to the main hall to go on with the daily prayers…

Duncan’s attention came back to the Mortal Realm. He quietly looked at the nun for a few seconds and said softly: “I’m sorry. I can’t bury you. You will have to stay here for now. Maybe someone will come and find out the truth of what happened back then.”

For this matter, he really did need to borrow the hands of some “professionals”.

Duncan stood up and walked toward the exit that led to the main hall. Behind him, Shirley could not help speaking up: “Ah, we’re just leaving her here?”

“This is called preserving the scene,” Duncan said without looking back. “Come on. The investigation here is not over yet. It’s just that from now on, we won’t need to do the work ourselves.”

Shirley let out an “oh” as if she half understood, then pulled Dog along and followed Duncan’s steps. They left the underground sanctum and walked toward the stairs ahead that led up to the main hall.

A faint knocking sound came from behind them.

Duncan stopped short and turned his head toward the source of the sound.

A dark wooden door stood at the entrance to the main hall. The door was slightly ajar. Iron bands and rivets had been used to strengthen it, and faint traces of holy runes could be seen on the panels.

Shirley glanced back, and her eyes slowly grew wide in horror.

Then she turned her head again and saw Duncan’s face set in a deep, dark expression.

“T-The door…” Shirley raised her hand and pointed toward it. Her mouth opened and closed a few times, but no words came out.

“I see it,” Duncan cut her off. He walked back to the sanctum’s entrance, looked at the dark door, and reached out to push it lightly.

The door was not locked, but when he tried to push it further, he felt resistance.

Someone on the other side was holding the door.

He drew back his hand and thought in silence for a few seconds, holding back the urge to light another fire and burn the door open.

He already knew what things would look like after opening the door. The strange phenomena here made him give up the idea of using crude methods to keep trying again and again.

“Twisted space and time… it really is twisted to quite a degree,” Duncan said.

At the same time, in the great Deep Sea cathedral in the upper city, the calm-faced Vanna finished her daily prayers. After assigning today’s work to her subordinates, she sent all her attendants away and went alone into the depths of the grand, holy building.

This was the archive of the great cathedral. Under the Goddess’s gaze, this archive held all the records of supernatural matters that were not fit for the public eye.

In a sense, this place stored the history of the city-state of Pland. It stored the Church’s “memory” of this land.