Chapter 188

Chapter 188: The Madmen.

The clues finally seemed to line up.

History in Pland bore the marks of corruption. In the small cathedral of the Sixth District there was a warped, sealed boundary in time and space. On the statue of the storm Goddess, a strange Subspace fissure lay hidden. And Subspace… could Corrupt everything except Subspace itself.

Shirley was one of the few who still remembered that great fire from years ago. When the blaze broke out, she should have died like everyone else, yet somehow she fused with a Abyssal Hound and survived. And when everyone else’s understanding was warped by the corruption of history, she still kept her memories of that fire.

Now, a group of Enders had attacked Shirley. These fanatics who worshipped Subspace were deranged, their words absurd, yet every sentence circled around “correct history” and “loopholes”.

Duncan certainly did not believe any of their ridiculous “truths”. Whatever they called “correct history”, he took as the opposite. But one point was obvious – these cultists were tied to the historical distortions in the city-state of Pland. The Subspace power behind them was the true culprit. And people like Shirley, who still remembered that fire from back then, were mortal enemies in the eyes of these madmen who wanted to Corrupt the Mortal Realm with a false history.

But not every question had been answered.

How had these madmen suddenly discovered Shirley, this “loophole”? What was the connection between historical corruption and the “Black Sun”? The Black Sun did not have the power to Corrupt history, so what role did that “Sun god” really play in all this? And most important of all…

Was Nina, the suspected vessel of a Sun fragment, going to be marked by these cultists too?

Duncan stared coldly at the three crazed Enders and lifted a finger. A tuft of ghostly green flame suddenly ignited on one of them. The fire scorched the cultist’s body, which could almost be treated as an “supernatural item”. He let out a sharp scream and curled up on the deck, and the other Enders instantly fell silent.

“Fire… profane fire…” A cultist’s eyes bulged. Even as a crazed Subspace follower who felt no fear of pain, he still showed terror when he saw that green flame. “Profane, profane… such a profane thing!”

“If you don’t want to be burned alive, keep cooperating with my questions.” Duncan let flames bloom all across the deck. They wove into a net of fire that trapped the three cultists, scorching both mind and flesh. “Tell me – how exactly do you Corrupt history? Did you start from the Sixth District?”

“We are putting history back on its proper track!” Even under the threat of the ghostly flames, the Enders did not forget their lines. One of them craned his neck and shouted, “The Sixth District… the Sixth District was only a failed attempt, but that doesn’t matter, it doesn’t matter…”

The Sixth District was only a failed attempt?

Duncan frowned at once. The man had not answered honestly, yet he had still let slip something vital.

First, that fire back then really was the work of these Subspace followers, and not simply a blaze caused by the appearance of a Sun fragment as he had first assumed. Second, their attempt to Corrupt history seemed not to have fully succeeded – the great fire eleven years ago had not produced the result they wanted.

Then another key year suddenly surfaced in his mind – 1885.

That was the number Vanna had found under the small cathedral. It pointed to the year when the nun of that small cathedral died in battle, and, in theory, to the time when that cathedral had first been invaded by Subspace power.

The great fire eleven years ago, however, broke out in 1889, the fourth year after that nun fell.

In other words, it was four years after the small cathedral was invaded that the Enders started the fire of 1889 – and they called that fire a “failed attempt”.

A timeline slowly came into focus before Duncan’s eyes.

“You actually failed twice.” Duncan’s face was as calm and dark as still water as he fixed his gaze on the Ender writhing in the ghostly flames. “In 1885, you invaded a small cathedral and tried to use it as the origin point to spread your corruption of history. But a nun destroyed your plan with her life, sealing that year’s ‘invasion’ and her own ‘death’ inside the underground sanctum.

“Four years later, in 1889, you carried out your second plan. You started a great fire in the Sixth District where that small cathedral stood, hoping to overwrite the Mortal Realm with a ‘city-state consumed by fire’ History Branch. But you failed again. An unknown power erased all traces of that fire before it could keep burning…

“After that, you lay low in the city-state up to today, looking for chances to continue the plan, until you found Shirley, this loophole. You decided the failure back then was tied to her survival, so you wanted to get rid of this ‘hidden danger’ first?”

The ghostly flames burned bright. The Ender curled up in the fire. Even his pain-hardened flesh struggled to endure this agony that burned directly at his soul. Yet the madman still showed no intention of answering. Instead, he slowly split his mouth into a grin and looked at Duncan with a chilling smile.

“You don’t need to answer. I can see it in your eyes. You are mocking and furious, which means I am right.” Duncan ignored the other man’s taunt and went on in an even voice. “Next I have another question… What link do you have with that ‘Black Sun’? The fire of 1889 was triggered by a Sun fragment… Did you arrange that fragment?”

The Ender remained silent.

Duncan spread the flames to the other two men and watched them curl and twitch in the fire, but he still did not get a single word in reply.

“If you refuse to speak, I can only guess.” Duncan sighed and waved his hand, dispersing the flames. He had already realized that simple “pain” meant nothing to these fanatics who embraced Subspace. Their bodies and minds had long since mutated beyond human. “I guess you have some level of cooperation with those Sun believers… No, perhaps it is a deal with the ‘Sun spawn’ behind those believers. You help those Sun spawn revive their ‘lord’, and the method of revival… is to summon the Sun from ‘history’ itself?”

He glanced at the cultists who still kept silent, then continued, “In the early years of the New City-State Calendar, there was once a city-state known to the world only by name, Wilheim. The last message it left to the world was this: ‘The Black Sun descended from history.’ So this is not the first time you have done this, is it? You summoned the Sun that should already have gone out, dragged it out of history. That summoning process itself is the greatest corruption of history, isn’t it?”

As all the scattered clues suddenly fit together, all the threads slowly linked into one. Things that had once been incomprehensible, even unbelievable, turned into facts he could now imagine. Duncan’s imagination and memory ran at full speed. The known, the unknown, and the knowable slowly merged into a clear path in his mind.

Of course, many things still could not be explained. For example, how these Enders had even gotten mixed up with the Sun believers. What method they used to summon the Sun from history. Whether the ordinary Suntists and priests knew any of these secrets from the higher levels. He still had no answers.

Even much of what he had just pieced together was only speculation. Without an admission from the Enders before him, he lacked key proof.

The spirit-form flames on the deck slowly drew back, until only a ring of fire remained around the three cultists. Duncan stood before that wall of flame, looking down at the “preachers” with a blank face.

“You Enders who slipped into the city-state aren’t just the three of you, are you?

“Where are the others hiding? What do you plan to do next? Keep erasing the ‘loopholes’ you talk about? Or wait for a chance to unleash an even greater corruption?

“Still refusing to answer?”

As Duncan threw out question after question, one of the cultists finally moved.

The scrawny fanatic slowly pulled at the corners of his mouth and lifted his head to look at Duncan. His voice was hoarse and muddy. “We did not hide in your so-called city-state… We hide in this cursed, twisted history that should have ended long ago… Once it began, it will not end… What the Flamebearer could not do, you cannot do either, ‘Captain Mister’…”

The cultist’s grin grew wider, his smile chilling to the bone. His voice sank low, carrying both temptation and cold. “I just saw it. Your humanity is so dazzling. Where did you pick it up?”

Duncan’s gaze shifted at once. He took a step forward, his tone heavy and stern. “What do you mean?”

“…Wish you a pleasant day, Captain Mister.” The preacher suddenly seemed to turn into someone else. The crazed believer became a polite citizen. He slowly pushed himself up and sat hunched on the deck, yet his eyes seemed to look past Duncan as they roamed over the vast, silent Vanished. “Ah… the promised land, the Promised Ark…”