Chapter 201

Chapter 201: Piercing Through

Fire—fire burning everywhere, or fields of ash left behind after it burned out. The Cathedral was destroyed by fire, the bell tower was destroyed by fire, and the city-state itself seemed to have been destroyed by fire.

Dry, hot wind howled across the Cathedral square, now burned into ruins. Gusts whipped up drifting clouds of ash. Tiny sparks fell from the Great Bell tower above, and charred flags sagged and dropped in the wind.

A tall figure in light armor stepped onto the square. The heavy, broad greatsword in her hand scraped across the scorching ground, throwing up a trail of sparks.

The tips of Vanna’s hair had already been singed by the shocking heat in the air. Her armor was damaged in many places. In some of the gaps, bleeding wounds were still visible. The flesh in those wounds writhed and was slowly healing.

She held the sword in her right hand and carried a huge rotary machine gun in her left. A heavy ammo box rested on her back. She had taken this gun not long ago while passing the armory, dismantling it from a half-ruined Steam Walker, and it handled fairly well.

Hot wind blew in, and the smell of ash drilled into her nose. Vanna narrowed her eyes slightly, looking toward the distant streets and the slow-rising smoke and red light behind them.

In this strand of “history”, the whole of Pland had already been burned down.

The fire had started spreading in 1889. For eleven years no one noticed it, until it burned through the entire city, and in its slow erosion, fixed the whole city-state in a ruined state.

Even the power of the Storm Goddess had already suffered serious distortion and interference. The longer Vanna stayed here, the harder it became for her to feel the gentle touch of the sea breeze.

It was easy to burn down a city-state, but very hard to burn it down without a God noticing. Those Heretics had taken advantage of a loophole in history and had very likely used the status of the Black Sun to interfere with the God’s judgment of the mortal world.

But… where exactly were those Heretics?

A low, hoarse whisper suddenly came from the Shadows between the nearby buildings. That whisper carried a profane, malicious power. In the murmurs, the Shadows gathered from nothing, turning into mind-bewitching illusions. But Vanna did not even glance toward the direction of the condensing Shadows and whispering. Instead, she casually lifted the Six-Barrel Machine Gun in her left hand and pulled the trigger toward another direction that looked empty.

Deafening thunderous roars exploded over the square. Yellow brass shells rained down. As the tongues of flame swept by, a tall, thin shadow suddenly appeared in the air. It had been hiding in the cracks between light and shadow, but was now forced to show itself and, in its haste, could only use a mass of tentacles and the Black Umbrella in its hand to block the hail of bullets rushing at it—and in that very instant of blocking, a roaring wave crashed down on it!

Vanna hurled her greatsword. The greatsword, wrapped in the Power of the Storm, slammed down with a roar, pierced straight through the Monster, and carried it ten meters away before pinning it firmly to the ground. She paid no attention at all to the attacker that had been nailed down. Instead, she turned and sidestepped quickly, grabbed a nearby streetlamp that had already been bent out of shape, wrenched it free, and smashed the heavy steel toward her side.

The second hidden attacker was knocked to the ground by the streetlamp. Its head, ugly like a flower made of flesh and blood, burst into a mess of meat. The remains writhed and struggled violently on the ground until Vanna turned the huge rotary machine gun and swept a storm of scorching bullets across it.

Vanna muttered: “Two-man teams for hidden ambushes… It seems your tactics go no further than that.”

Vanna grumbled this, tossed aside the badly twisted streetlamp, and beckoned to call the Storm greatsword back to her hand. She set the greatsword upright at her side as a support, while still raising the machine gun in her other hand, pointing it like an executioner at the Monster’s minced remains on the ground.

After a few seconds, she frowned.

She murmured: “No regeneration?”

The young Inquisitor bent down and confirmed that the heap of scraps, which had once been part of a Sun Spawn, simply lay there limply. Not only was there no sign of Regeneration at all, it was already starting to lose moisture and vitality at great speed, turning into a pile of shriveled charcoal before her eyes.

Why? Why had these remains lost their Regeneration? Was it because their main body had suddenly grown weak? Or because these scraps had been greatly weakened for some other reason?

Vanna watched this scene with both confusion and caution. Then she suddenly raised her head, as if sensing something, and stared hard at a nearby street.

A mass of flowing green fire appeared in the darkness. It quickly gathered and spread along the edge of the square, then, as if sensing something, suddenly pounced upon the Spawn remains!

It burned, devoured, and grew stronger.

Right before Vanna’s eyes, the invading green flames burned away the dead flesh, like a predator enjoying its kill.

The young Inquisitor’s eyes narrowed at once. She stared tensely at the spreading green fire, utterly on guard, while all kinds of thoughts and guesses surged through her mind. Yet the flames seemed to ignore her. They flowed on their own around the area, prowling across the square, then finally streamed away into the distance.

Vanna watched the flowing, spreading fire with a thoughtful look, then set off again, walking toward the deeper parts of the city-state.

…

Torrential rain poured down. Sheets of water stretched from sky to earth. The sudden downpour from the thick clouds felt like a plot brewed for many years that had finally revealed itself, washing over everything in the city-state of Pland.

When even the force of the storm could not stop Morris’s steps, destined misfortune went to work again—his car finally broke down.

The old Scholar decisively gave up on trying to start the car again. He knew this obstructing power would only grow worse, because that Ender had declared something over him at some unknown moment. That curse would not allow him to fix the car.

But the Ender’s “declaration” was not an unbreakable spell. Usually, that kind of thing could only exert different degrees of mental guidance or interference over an “event”. The longer it lasted and the wider its range, the more power it needed and the greater the cost it had to pay.

He could not stop in this storm.

Morris opened the car door. Bone-chilling wind and rain struck him at the same time, soaking him through in an instant and even blowing him a step off balance.

But the old man only reached up to press down his hat, gripped his cane with the other hand, and stepped into the hazy wall of rain ahead.

He did not open an umbrella. In weather like this, an umbrella meant nothing.

He was already very close to the antique shop now, only half a block away. If the weather were even a little better, he would have been able to see the shop sign.

But in these harsh conditions, all he could see was a vast curtain of rain and a few nearby shops on both sides of the street with their doors and windows tightly shut.

Morris trudged forward with difficulty in the downpour. He did not know how long he walked before the familiar shop finally appeared in his sight.

The old man subconsciously quickened his pace.

The curse the Ender had laid on him seemed to have finally reached the end of its strength. The headwind that had kept blowing against him weakened bit by bit. The chill it carried stopped being as bone-deep as before. The rain curtain was still thick, but no longer fell onto him like stones.

When there were only a few steps left to the antique shop, Morris suddenly heard a voice beside his ear—

The voice said: “Stop, you will regret this!

“Ahead there is no salvation… Pland will only be swallowed by another disaster!

“History is about to be fully replaced… What you are saving is no longer the true Mortal Realm, but an echo on a wrong path…”

Morris did not slow down at all. He rushed forward two quick steps and almost crashed through the door.

In that instant, the voice at his ear vanished abruptly, as if it had never been there.

The cold wind and sudden rain on the street were also shut out beyond the door.

Morris staggered forward a few steps. Water dripped from his clothes onto the floor. The warm, bright interior made it hard for him to adjust for a moment.

He vaguely heard talking from upstairs. It sounded like two young girls. One of the voices was Nina’s, saying: “The rain is coming down so hard!”

The other girl’s voice answered: “Yeah, it started all of a sudden… Good thing we listened to your uncle and came back early.”

Nina complained: “My hair still got wet though… Shirley, help me dry the back of my hair!”

Morris shook his head, letting the thoughts numbed by cold wind and chill rain slowly return. He lifted his head and looked toward the counter.

In the warm lamplight, a blonde lady in an elaborate dark-purple gown sat quietly behind the counter, casting a curious look in his direction.

She was very beautiful, but Morris did not pay much attention to her appearance.

What he noticed was the air of transcendent elegance around her, and the mysterious, tranquil aura that seemed to linger by her side.

It felt as if she were not sitting in an antique shop in the Lower City at all, but calmly seated in a quiet palace garden, looking at him—the clumsy outsider—with a serene, lofty gaze.

Morris felt he might have sensed some… inhuman traits on this lady, but in the next second he drew back all his perceptions.

There was a new “recruit” in Mr. Duncan’s antique shop, someone he had never seen before. No matter what this new recruit’s identity was, he absolutely must not pry into it at will.

Then he heard a greeting from across the room. The lady said: “It is raining very hard outside, old Mister. Do you need any help?”

Morris froze for a moment, then quickly said: “Mr. Duncan… I’m looking for Mr. Duncan. It is a very important matter! Is he not in the shop?”

The mysterious, elegant woman smiled and said: “He is. He said his blood pressure is a bit high, so he is resting on the second floor.”

Morris looked stunned and repeated: “His blood pressure… is a bit high?”

The blonde behind the counter shook her head and said: “I don’t know why either—after we finished talking about the matter of history and replicas, his mood has not been very good.”

History and replicas?!

Morris’s heart gave a sudden thump. He wanted to ask more, but then he heard footsteps on the stairs, followed by Mr. Duncan’s voice: “Alice, do we have a guest?”

Alice answered: “Yes, Mr. Duncan! An old man I don’t know!”

Morris raised his head and saw Duncan standing on the stairs, half his body lit by the lamp and half hidden in Shadows.

Duncan saw him and looked somewhat surprised and curious.