Chapter 323

Chapter 323: At Death’s Door

After thinking it over, Duncan still decided not to reveal his identity for now. After all, he now knew the details behind the glorious “battle record” of the Vanished back then.

A century ago, “he” had sunk the largest faith center of the death Church in one go, and in the most terrifying way – by dragging it straight into Subspace.

If you put it in modern terms, it was about the same as blowing up Pland right in front of Gamona and scattering its ashes on the spot.

He figured that if he suddenly said the words “Captain Duncan” right now, the people outside the coffin might start shouting slogans and rushing in to die for their faith on the spot. By then, it would not matter what he tried to say.

He had seen how fierce loyal Believers could be. Back then, Vanna had no deep hatred for him at all, yet she had still greeted him with a flying cleave the moment they met. And the death God Believers here had held a blood feud with the Vanished for a full century…

But this awkward dodge from Duncan sounded very different in the ears of Agatha and the Old Caretaker.

The young Gatekeeper and the aging cemetery warden instinctively exchanged a look.

“This is a kind of protection,” Agatha said in a low voice. “The name of a high-ranked supernatural being carries power.”

The Old Caretaker nodded slightly: “A friendly existence. At least for now.”

Agatha steadied herself and set these thoughts aside. Her gaze returned to the coffin, but a new doubt rose in her mind: why did this visitor always choose the dead as a “medium” to make contact with the Mortal Realm?

Did that mean… he was a being who held power in the domain of death?

Yet as a high-ranking priest of the God of Death, she had never heard of such a being in the field of death. A single avatar form that could make a battle-hardened cemetery warden like the Old Caretaker fall into temporary madness the first time they met – an supernatural of that level could not possibly leave no trace at all in the records.

Even with all these questions in her heart, Agatha did not show it. She used a calm and proper voice to ask: “May I ask what your purpose is in coming here?”

“I was passing through, and then I noticed this city-state is wrapped in shadows,” Duncan casually repeated the cover story he had prepared long ago. “Those shadows bother me.”

“Shadows?” Agatha frowned. She quickly thought of the disturbance that had taken place in this cemetery earlier and reacted at once. “Do you mean those Annihilators? Their activities…”

“They are not worthy of being called shadows. The true shadows stand behind them,” Duncan said slowly. He knew the young woman’s voice outside represented the Church’s influence in the upper levels of Frostholm. Guiding her mind was really the same as warning the authorities of Frostholm. He had already prepared a whole package of things to report. “Have you really noticed nothing? The Abyssal Lord’s power is spreading beneath your city…”

“What did you say?” For the first time, Agatha’s calm expression showed a hint of a runaway state. All the plans she had formed in her head up to now had not included anything like this. “The Abyssal Lord?! His power is spreading under the city… what does that mean?”

Jumping straight from Annihilators to the Abyssal Lord behind them… that was a completely different level of trouble!

“Here is a suggestion. Why not widen the scope of your investigation?” Duncan did not directly answer her question. He just continued: “The Annihilators active in the city are only small ripples before a great wave. Something much larger is lurking under the surface.

“Take a close look at the Deep Sea, look at an old Deep Dive plan that almost everyone has forgotten, and look at the things that have recently risen from the Deep Sea. All of these are connected.”

Agatha and the Old Caretaker stared at each other.

The young Gatekeeper could not connect too many points at once. But the Old Caretaker, who had lived through a certain era himself, instantly thought of something.

“Do you mean… the Abyssal Trench Project?” the old man blurted out. When he said the words “Abyssal Trench Project”, his voice clearly paused for a moment. “Why would you know that…”

He broke off halfway.

It was not so surprising for a very high-ranked Higher Being to know about some secrets among Mortals.

Agatha’s eyes widened slightly. Her gaze moved quickly back and forth between the Old Caretaker and the coffin. Then she stopped and quickly whispered to the old man beside her: “I have to warn City Hall… something might happen near Dagger Island.”

“You had better go now,” the Old Caretaker answered just as quickly under his breath.

While the two of them talked quietly, Duncan’s voice suddenly came again from the dark coffin: “Then my warning has been delivered. I will not stay any longer.”

Agatha froze, then spoke without thinking: “You are leaving already?”

“I still have some things to do,” the voice in the coffin said. It sounded a little rushed. “If I get the chance, I will come visit again.”

When he finished speaking, the coffin went completely quiet.

The visitor had left, and he had left quite suddenly. Agatha and the Old Caretaker were a bit stunned. They had not expected that the mysterious “Visitor” would come this night only to say a few sentences, only to deliver a warning.

Such a sudden arrival and sudden departure made him seem even harder to grasp in their eyes.

While the two in the graveyard were still in shock, Duncan had already returned to that dim, chaotic, strange space.

He really had left in a hurry. In his first plan, he had meant to stay in the cemetery a bit longer. He had even thought about climbing out of the coffin to have a formal meeting with the cemetery warden and the Gatekeeper named “Agatha”.

But just now, while he was walking in the Spirit Realm, he had suddenly sensed something odd.

In the endless dark, star-filled space, Duncan looked up. His gaze fell not far away.

The countless tiny stars that represented the living beings of Frostholm were twinkling in the void. Among them, one star’s flickering was showing a strange change and releasing a strange aura.

Duncan moved closer and used his gaze on that “star”.

Its light was fading quickly, as if a living life was rapidly slipping away. But at the edge of that dim light, something else was quietly drawing near, trying to tangle with that star.

After a moment of thought, Duncan reached out toward that light.

…

On the cold sea completely covered by the veil of night, a few pieces of wreckage that had not been swallowed by the vortex were bobbing up and down in the waves, drifting north toward Frostholm under the push of the currents.

One larger piece of wreckage had broken away from the other fragments like a lone canoe. On this piece of wreckage, a huge, almost unrecognizable body suddenly twitched twice.

The body wore a torn military uniform. Horrible burn marks covered it everywhere. The flames had left shocking scars all over. The hair on the head had been burned away, and the face was so ruined it was hard to tell what it had looked like before.

The left arm was twisted in a strange angle, clearly broken by some enormous impact. Both legs were bent out of shape, skin split open and flesh torn.

Yet almost no blood flowed from those wounds – the heat of the explosion had already cauterized them all.

The injuries were terrifying, but this body… was still alive.

Belazov tried to open his eyes. He tried several times and felt as if he tore some part of his burned eyelids before he finally managed to see a faint, blurry patch of light and shadow.

Slow, muddled pain spread through every part of his body. It felt as if a rusty saw had shredded all the organs in his chest into tiny pieces. But all these sensations blended together in a strange numbness, so that he could no longer tell which feeling came from which part of his body – he could not even be sure if his limbs were still connected to his torso.

He knew his nervous system had probably collapsed. All his organs were failing fast. The last bit of adrenaline in his body was working as hard as it could to keep his brain going. He had not really survived the blast – he had only not died yet.

Fragments of memory slowly rose up in his mind. He still remembered what had happened on Dagger Island. He also remembered noticing something odd on the ship and activating “Protocol Twenty-Two”.

He felt a little surprised. In an explosion like that, he had not died on the spot. Somehow, he still had one last breath left. He could even look back on his life as he lay dying.

Maybe it was because the captain’s cabin was especially strong and blocked some of the blast. Or maybe it was because he had failed to save the thirty-one normal crew members who might have been on that ship, so he had to suffer all this pain now, as punishment for his failure.

But none of that mattered anymore.

He could just barely see the wreckage floating on the nearby sea. From this, he could tell that the Sea Swallow had been completely destroyed. The main structure of the ship should already have sunk into the depths.

He no longer had the strength to worry about whether those sunken remains would bring some new, unpredictable disaster. He had done his duty. He had done all he could to keep his oath of loyalty. Everything else was already beyond him.

Belazov slowly let out a breath. In the tearing pain in his chest, he calmly waited for the door of God of Death Bartok to open before him.

But the first one to meet him was not death’s Envoy.

Under the cold glow of the World’s Wound, a tall young man in a blue coat, holding a gatekeeper’s cane, had somehow appeared at the edge of the drifting wreck.

A length of black chain stretched out from the back of the young man’s skull, drifting upward into the air through a cloud of smoke. At the end of the chain floated a strange creature made of what looked like smoke and dust, its outline like that of a jellyfish.