Chapter 260

Chapter 260: The Cathedral Ark.

In the wide, dim assembly hall, the three Church leaders fell silent at the same time.

After who knew how long, the Servitor of the God of Death, Pope Banster, finally spoke softly: “The law of Anomalies and Visions going off pattern – there will always be Anomalies or Visions that do not follow the rules.”

“Clause Zero is indeed useful, but we cannot use Clause Zero recklessly,” the short, plump, kindly Rune shook his head. “We cannot throw Clause Zero at everything we cannot understand. That would numb us when a real danger appears, and we would miss our chance.”

“You mean… the information from Vision 004 has a problem?” Banster tilted his head slightly. “Vision Pland did not actually lack a number. Its number is simply hidden?”

“Or it may be an entirely new naming scheme,” Rune said in thought. “Vision 004 and Vision Pland themselves have no problem. We just cannot yet understand this new way of naming Visions. The things that happened in Pland lately are very unusual. It is a city-state corrupted by history and then ‘saved’ by the power of the Subspace. Nothing like that has ever happened before…”

“I do not like ‘new mechanisms’,” Banster shook his head, his voice low. “New mechanisms mean new factors we cannot control. We have already sacrificed too much to figure out how the world runs… and this world keeps changing.”

“No one likes them, but the world has always been this cold,” Rune shrugged, then his eyes fell on Helena. “I hope you can gain something in Pland. Use your own eyes to see what really happened to that city-state.”

Helena did not speak for a moment. She only nodded lightly. She seemed to fall into thought. After a long time, she suddenly broke the silence: “There is one more thing. You must have noticed it too – the problem with Vision 001.”

Rune’s expression grew serious. This old man who served the God of Wisdom rarely had such a tense face. “Yes. The Sun-Watching Tower has confirmed that the rune ring at the edge of the Sun… really suffered damage. The missing part is only a small piece of the whole rune structure, but that piece is indeed gone. I am still sending people to watch the state of Vision 001 at all times, but so far we have not seen the rune ring break any further – yet there are no signs of it repairing itself either.”

“In all regions, we have not found any unusual moves from the Suntists,” Banster spoke right after. “I also first suspected that this matter was related to them, but from the intelligence we have now, those Sun heretics themselves do not seem to have noticed the change in Vision 001 yet.”

“That still does not prove this has nothing to do with the ‘Creeping Sun Wheel’,” Helena said in a low voice. “The Creeping Sun Wheel is one of the oldest beings in this world, and those Sun heretics at best are only mold growing under its influence. Their connection with their own deity is not as close as they like to believe.”

“We will keep watching those cultists and the ‘Sun spawn’ behind them,” Banster said slowly. “And those Enders as well… No matter what, what happened in Pland must not happen again.”

Helena nodded slightly. Then she saw light and shadow ripple in the darkness as the figures of the two popes grew faint and dissolved into nothing.

She turned back and glanced at the place where the Nameless King’s tomb had sunk. Then her own figure slowly faded from the assembly hall as well.

The next second, Helena opened her eyes in the Mortal Realm.

She stepped out of the secret chamber, and two attendants came forward. Helena waved a hand, signaling the attendants to leave on their own. Then she walked alone through the long corridor toward the upper deck of the Cathedral Ark.

A towering Cathedral sailed across a vast, dim sea. Its three spires and its many tall towers and bell towers pointed straight at the sky, their tops lost in drifting mist. The lower half of the Cathedral Ark was heavy armor, huge pipes, and rough mechanical structures that connected to the deck area.

An ark-like giant ship, its lower half an iron fortress, its upper half a holy Cathedral – this was the true headquarters of the Deep Sea Church, the “Great Storm Cathedral” that patrolled the Boundless Sea.

Helena walked out from a corridor covered in sacred reliefs and stepped onto a terrace on the upper deck. She quietly looked down at the towering wonder of engineering beneath her feet.

This Cathedral was actually quite new. In fact, the hull had been finished only thirty-five years ago, and its upper structures had been completely built just twenty years ago. Scholars from the Academy of Truth helped design the Cathedral Ark’s vast power system and complex control mechanisms. At least so far, all of it was running very well.

Before this Cathedral Ark was finished, the Great Storm Cathedral had been much smaller than it was now, and its cruising endurance on the Boundless Sea had been much shorter.

The Storm Goddess did not mind her believers using the help of other faiths to build her holy sanctuary. None of the Four Gods minded such things.

In fact… the Four Gods did not care about anything that happened in the mortal world at all.

Helena took a slow breath and looked at the thin mist around the Cathedral Ark. That veil of mist and the murky, dark texture of the surrounding water showed that the whole ark was sailing in the gap between the Mortal Realm and the Spirit Realm. From this position, most ordinary ships sailing on the Boundless Sea could not see any trace of the Great Storm Cathedral.

After quietly standing in the cold wind for a while, Helena reached out and took from her side a piece of wood that had been carefully carved by hand into the shape of a wave.

She silently recited the name of the Storm Goddess Gamona and threw the wave-shaped charm amulet, carved from “Sea-Breath Wood”, far out into the sea.

“The faith of the Saint you are watching has already begun to waver,” Helena’s divine gaze rested on the spot where the charm amulet hit the water, and she spoke softly, as if to herself. “But her human side does not seem stained – she is still human.”

The waves rose and fell gently. It was as if invisible whispers sounded softly within the murmur of the sea. Helena tilted her head and listened for a long time, then nodded slightly: “So this is good enough… yes, I understand.”

After rolling and bobbing on the surface for a long time, the Sea-Breath Wood charm amulet flipped once and sank silently into the Boundless Sea.

Pland, inside the antique shop.

The morning sunlight was just right. Bright sunlight shone through the freshly wiped shop window onto the shelves of all heights, so that the fake antiques on the shelves seemed to be coated with a faint layer of gold. Nina hummed a cheerful tune in a minor key as she happily wiped the “goods” on the shelves. From time to time she peeked out to look at the few figures by the counter.

Alice and Shirley sat there, frowning over a stack of letter cards. Dog hid in the shadows beside the counter, holding a pencil in his paws and trying to copy the word list from memory.

Nina found it a very strange thing. To this day she still did not understand how Dog managed to hold a pencil with his paws.

After almost falling asleep for the third time, Shirley let out a huge yawn and put the letter cards in her hand down on the counter. She looked up at Alice, who was still completely focused: “Aren’t you sleepy at all?”

“I’m not sleepy,” Alice raised her head and answered honestly. “I don’t know what ‘sleepy’ feels like – I only sleep when it’s time to sleep.”

“…I’m really curious what it feels like to be a doll with a soul,” Shirley muttered. Then she carefully looked around and, like a thief, glanced up toward the second floor before lowering her voice. “Hey, why hasn’t Mr. Duncan come down today… and when I saw him this morning he also looked very preoccupied.”

Alice put aside the letter card she had just memorized, picked up another one she had already forgotten, and started again. Absent-mindedly, she said: “He’s thinking about the secrets in the Deep Sea.”

“Thinking about the secrets in the Deep Sea?” Shirley froze for a moment. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. That’s what he said,” Alice gave a small shake of her head. “Why don’t you go ask him? He should be happy to teach you a few things…”

Shirley opened her mouth and was just about to say something when she suddenly heard Dog’s panicked voice coming from the shadows beside the counter: “If you want to get yourself killed, don’t drag me along!”

“I never said I was going to ask,” Shirley glared in the direction of the voice. “I haven’t even finished my alphabet yet…”

She had only said half the sentence when a crisp jingle of a brass bell suddenly sounded from the door.

Dog vanished without a trace at once. Alice smoothly set the letter cards aside and looked up toward the door: “Welcome. May I… Eh? Mr. Morris?”

It was Morris who had come so early in the morning. The old scholar wore a dark winter coat and a thick bowler hat, and tucked under his arm was a hefty-looking old book. After he came in, he first greeted Alice and Shirley by the counter, then looked toward Nina, who was tidying the shelves nearby: “Is Mr. Duncan here?”

“He’s upstairs,” Nina nodded, looking curiously at the old gentleman. “Do you need something from him?”

“I think I’ve found the origin of that symbol,” Morris said happily, lifting the old book he had brought. “It’s unbelievable. It actually appeared in a document about the ancient kingdom of Critt – and in such an inconspicuous place!”