Chapter 203

Chapter 203: The Veil’s Two Sides

Rain poured down in sheets. All of Pland was wrapped in an unprecedented downpour.

It was as if the sea had turned upside down and the endless deep ocean looked down on the land from the sky. It was as if the world had fallen into an abyss. Clouds black as ink hung overhead like blocks of iron. Endless rain washed over Pland’s ancient clocktowers, tall buildings, walls, and jagged coast. At the same time, wave after wave rose from the sea, as if trying to form some kind of siege, sealing the entire city-state layer by layer from all directions.

Even the dullest person could sense something eerie from this unnatural storm. citizens ran home in a panic. Doors and windows shut tight everywhere. The vagrants on the streets rushed into the nearest Sanctuary World or relief center, or at worst squeezed into a sewer entrance or a pipe relay station. At least there were gas lamps and holy steam there, enough to give the barest sense of safety on a day like this.

Heidi forced her way through the gale and rain onto the square of the great Cathedral. Perhaps the Goddess’s protection still lingered, because the rain around the Cathedral was a little lighter than elsewhere. But that lighter rain did not make Heidi relax. It only made her more worried.

The fact that the rain here was weaker than elsewhere proved that this storm really was tied to supernatural power.

The Cathedral’s guards opened the main doors. Heidi jumped out of the carriage and rushed into the holy triple-spired gate. In just those few steps, she was soaked through by the icy rain.

But she had no time to care about that. The instant she stepped into the Cathedral, she felt the air around her roiling and restless. Her Spiritual Insight was warning her, telling her that an unseen conflict was spreading out from this place as its center.

A silent Monk received her. At her urgent request, the Monk went to inform Bishop Valentine, who was praying in the main hall of the sanctuary. Heidi waited in anxiety and unease for three minutes before the revered old man finally appeared before her.

She noticed that the Bishop wore the full ceremonial robes. A heavy triple crown sat squarely on his head. He held a long holy staff, and at his waist hung the Storm Canon, bound in silver and gems.

This was not clothing for an ordinary day. These were garments worn only for the most important rituals. The heavy, splendid vestments were a burden that would make even a strong adult feel tired while walking. Yet Valentine moved with steady, solemn steps. Lightning seemed to brew in his eyes, and his presence was lofty and filled with holiness. These holy things let the old man shed his Mortal identity for a moment and become a kind of symbolic vessel. He came to stand before Heidi, looking seriously at the “psychiatrist” who had braved such weather to visit the great Cathedral, and said: “Child, what has happened?”

“I… I need sanctuary. Highest-Grade Sanctuary!” Heidi answered at once. She recalled the extra serious warning her father had given before he left and spoke with great solemnity: “I need the entire Storm Cathedral on alert to protect me – to protect the child of Pland’s greatest Historian.”

“Pland’s greatest Historian…” Bishop Valentine gazed quietly into Heidi’s eyes. It was as if a bolt of lightning kept jumping in the old man’s pupils. Then he slowly closed his eyes and nodded softly. “I have received your request, child. The great Cathedral will provide sanctuary. You are safe.”

“Thank you, truly,” Heidi took a deep breath. She did not take her eyes off the old man. The moment she saw Valentine’s clothing, she knew that the great Cathedral had already entered a wartime state even before she arrived. “May I ask… what exactly has happened?”

“War,” Valentine said calmly. “Someone has declared war on Pland. A storm that bears no divine blessing from the Goddess has fallen upon Pland. That is the signal of war. But not until you arrived did I finally know who our enemy is.”

“War?!” Heidi stared. “Who is the enemy? Where are they?”

Valentine gazed at Heidi in silence for a long time before he spoke softly: “Pland.

“A Pland that was already wiped out in history.”

A clap of thunder boomed. The whole Cathedral seemed to shake. Heidi jumped in fright and looked up in terror at the glass windows that still rattled in the thunder’s echo and at the heavy chandelier swaying left and right overhead. In the midst of all this shaking, she suddenly felt a faint tremor – one different from the thunder.

It was the roar of many Steam Walkers gathering in the square, and the rumble of the Church Guard’s Steam Tanks driving out of their garages.

Heidi turned her head in fear and looked at Bishop Valentine, who stood before the Goddess’s statue as steady as a reef in the sea. She spoke very fast: “Is the enemy coming?!”

“The enemy is already here,” Valentine said quietly. In the noise of constant thunder, his low voice still fell clearly in Heidi’s ears. “They arrived many years ago…”

…

The greatsword slammed down with a roar. The rubble blocking the way blew aside like dust. Vanna stepped over a collapsed, slanting section of road with her sword in hand and saw the houses ahead toppling like wax figures in a fire. Hot, heavy ash covered the street like snow. Faint embers danced and scattered among the ashes and ruins. Now and then, suspicious human shapes slowly writhed in that hot gray dust. The sight was eerie and tragic, hard to look at.

Vanna forced herself not to focus too much on those writhing Ashen Humanoids.

She knew they were all citizens of Pland. They were people she had known, protected, and loved. They had died in this fire that burned down the whole city-state. Everyone in the city-state had perished, without a single survivor.

They had died in this piece of history, yet the undying flames had molded them into these horrible and pitiful phantoms.

These scenes disturbed her feelings and her judgment.

The young Inquisitor pressed her dry, pale lips together. She felt her airways being burned bit by bit in the ash-filled air and felt her strength slipping away. Once again she reminded herself –

None of this had happened, and it would not happen.

She lifted her head and looked to the end of the street.

Amid the writhing ash and leaping embers, she could sometimes see ghostly streams of green flame flash by. That was the mark left in this false history by a certain dreadful ghost captain. That ghost captain’s position in this event was strange and impossible to read. Vanna could not see what the other party wanted at all. She only knew that his power had somehow slipped behind the Veil and spread through this ruined Pland, faintly opposing the power that twisted history.

At the far end of her sight lay the end of this trip, one of the targets she had set for herself in this destroyed Pland.

A small Cathedral whose main structure had remained intact in the great fire stood quietly at the end of the street.

She had already crossed half the city-state on foot to come to this small Cathedral in the Sixth District.

Strictly speaking, she had fought her way through half the city-state.

Vanna walked forward with her sword, passing over every obstacle. The doors of the small Cathedral had already collapsed. A long hall lit by lingering firelight appeared dimly before her.

The long hall no longer had warm, bright lamps. The neat, holy prayer altar was gone, and so was the young Nun who had once prayed there in peace.

Vanna stepped over the ruins and went to the side and rear of the main hall, where she found the slanted stairway leading down.

A dark wooden door stood quietly at the bottom of the stairs.

Vanna let out a light breath, easing the pain and fatigue in all her joints, then walked down the steps.

The rotary machine gun she had taken from the Walker earlier had long since broken down and been thrown away on the road. Now she held only the trusty greatsword that had been with her for many years.

She came to the door with her sword in hand and pushed it gently.

The door was locked, but only with a latch. No one was bracing it from the other side.

Vaguely, she could feel a breath of life on the other side of the door, and faint sounds came through.

Vanna tightened her grip. The flimsy lock did not last even half a second in her hands. With a sharp metallic crack, the door to the underground sanctum swung open.

A young, tense voice cried out from the other side of the door: “You can’t open the door!!”

As the voice rang out, there seemed to be another faint noise mixed within it.

“Your junior,” Vanna said as she pushed the door wider. The greatsword scraped small sparks from the floor as she stepped inside. The stubborn consecrated lantern at her waist still shone, lighting up the underground sanctum that had fallen into darkness. “Your battle-sister.”

The sanctuary was lit by the faint light.

A Nun holding a longsword stood carefully at the feet of the Goddess’s statue, watching Vanna, who had pushed the door open, with full alertness and gaze. She wore the old model of Nun’s dress from 1885, and her face was still very young.

In the year she died in battle, she had been about the same age as Vanna.

Vanna looked at the fully alert Nun opposite her and sighed softly.

As she had imagined, only within this corruption-twisted Veil could she step into this sealed underground sanctum before the Nun died in battle. The short moment before the Nun’s death was part of the historical corruption.

This small Cathedral in the Sixth District was the first point of distortion.

The young Inquisitor had finally uncovered the most critical piece of information. But… how was she supposed to report all this afterward?

“Sister?” The Nun with the longsword had gotten used to the sudden light. It seemed only now that she realized all the flames in the underground sanctum had gone out and that she had somehow ended up standing in total darkness. In the deep dark at her feet, something seemed ready to stir. She lifted her head and looked at the tall woman in the dim glow, and finally saw the marks of the Storm Church on the woman’s armor and greatsword. “Are you sent by the great Cathedral? Leave at once! The corruption here is already in a runaway state. While I still…”

Vanna shook her head and walked forward slowly: “I’m here to help you.”