Chapter 456

Chapter 456: The Divinely Blessed (?)

Noticing the serious tone in Duncan’s words, Vanna instinctively started to make all kinds of guesses in her head. But the next second she forced herself to stop, and nodded solemnly together with Morris.

Controlling one’s curiosity was a basic rule for surviving in this world.

After he was sure Morris and Vanna understood how serious this was, Duncan let out a breath. Then he nodded to Alice beside him and said: “Clean up this pile of things on the table. Don’t throw them into the sea, just burn them.”

“Okay!”

Watching Alice quickly clean up the mess on the table, Duncan sat back down in his chair. His mind was still replaying the scenes he had seen in that strange dark space, and he was thinking about the information revealed in that “conversation”.

At the same time, he was also thinking about how to contact that dark space again.

The handwritten copy could not bear the impact of the “truth”… Then where was the original of this “Blasphemous Tome”? If he got the original, could he build a stable link with that strange dark space? Or… were there other supernatural items that could do something similar?

Duncan remembered the time he had been Dreamwalking on the Vanished and then accidentally entered another Vanished in Subspace. Behind the captain’s cabin door on that other Vanished was that same strange dark space.

So he boldly guessed that the “dark space” itself was a real “place” inside Subspace, and that connecting to it needed certain media and techniques. The handwritten copy Morris had brought had helped him build that link, but it did not have to be the only usable “medium”. If he could find a way to visit that “other Vanished” again, that might also work.

A way… Subspace?

Duncan frowned and quickly pulled his thoughts back from that direction.

He was not sure if that idea was his own, or something Subspace had “released” into him.

But one thing was clear.

He needed more “samples” – whether it was the Suntist’s Golden Mask, the copy of the Blasphemous Tome from that Annihilator, or whatever that Ender had in his hands. All of them would help him understand the truth of this world.

Thinking of this, Duncan raised his head at once and looked at Morris and Vanna opposite him: “Do you know where I can get more items like this? I mean things like this ‘Blasphemous Tome’, the items cultists use for major rituals and preaching.”

“You want more?” Morris was shocked. Then he thought it over carefully, and shook his head: “This… will be very hard. The True Gods’ Church and the city-states’ authority often seize Cult items, but usually, after the necessary identification and research, these things are destroyed, no matter how special or valuable they are as objects.”

Duncan raised his eyebrows: “Destroyed directly? No samples kept?”

“No samples, only records,” Vanna answered. In this field, this Inquisitor was clearly more professional than Morris. “Some things are especially dangerous. For those, not even full records are kept. There are only descriptive texts that have been ‘translated’ and ‘safely edited’, and even those must be stored in special archives, or only kept in the memories of certain ‘Keepers of Secrets’.”

She paused, then went on: “Because any Cult item that really has power also has equal danger and corruption. On top of that, they point directly to a Heretic deity, and this danger and corruption grows with time. We often cannot predict how much harm they may cause, so the safest way is to keep no samples. And also…”

“And also, people’s hearts are hard to guess, and even the strongest guardian has moments when their weakness shows,” Morris took over when he saw Vanna hesitate. “Wardens who guard blasphemous items can be tempted. They can slowly change without noticing it. Sometimes they do not even know they have already fallen. In 1666, a Saint of the city-state of Morka talked with a forbidden book under his care in a hallucination. That made the book turn alive, and in the end it caused an accident that killed dozens of people. After that, the city-states stopped keeping samples of seized Heretic items.”

Vanna sighed: “In some sense, Heretic items are even more dangerous than an Anomaly. No matter how high an Anomaly ranks, as long as you master the sealing rules, you can control it and even use it. But with Heretic things… sometimes even they themselves do not know what will come out of there.”

“All right.” Duncan rubbed his forehead. “Looks like we can’t count on getting samples from the city-states… We’ll have to find wild cultists and take them out on the spot.”

Hearing the captain’s words, the corner of Vanna’s mouth twitched. She hesitated and said: “If… you really are interested, I can try to borrow some records from the Cathedral. The items themselves have all been destroyed, but the safe research documents still exist.”

“…If possible, then help me find some records,” Duncan said with a nod.

But he felt those materials would not help him much. What he needed was not data. He needed to find a fitting “medium” among those Heretic items.

That Blasphemous Tome just now had already proved one thing. The same supernatural item might appear in a different “form” to him than to an ordinary person. The knowledge that the scholars of the True Gods’ Church had written down would most likely be useless to him.

But still, gaining more knowledge about the supernatural field could never hurt.

Right then, a noisy clamor from outside the captain’s cabin suddenly cut off Duncan and Vanna’s conversation.

It sounded like Shirley and Dog chattering all the way over.

Duncan frowned: “Open the door.”

Alice ran over at once and opened the cabin door. She saw Shirley and Dog rushing up to the doorway and said: “Hey, don’t make such a racket on the ship…”

“I know, I know, but this is important!” Shirley shouted at the door. Her small body squeezed right past Alice into the room. “Captain, Captain! Dog got possessed! It says it saw something really creepy!”

“Dog… got possessed?” Duncan’s face twitched. He looked in confusion at the Abyssal Hound that Shirley was dragging in. “It’s a Abyssal demon. How could it get possessed?”

Morris and Vanna wore the same look that said, “You’re already the weird thing, so what could possibly possess you?” Dog, who had been dragged in, rolled and scrambled up off the floor. It really looked nervous and scared: “Really, I saw that thing twice in a row! It popped up in my head when I was reading, staring right at me on the level of my mind…”

“When you were reading?” Duncan frowned as soon as he heard that. “What’s so shocking about that? It happens on this ship all the time. When Nina rushes her homework, she ‘braises’ several a day…”

“Not my folks from back home!” Dog shook its huge dog head at once, and even sounded a bit anxious. “And not the Shadows of the Spirit Realm or some other malevolent spirit either. It was something I have never seen before. That thing appeared right inside my ‘consciousness’. It was like a bunch of strange lights. There was a big one in the center that gave off red light, and around it was a field of smaller ones. It was just like the ‘Starry Sky’ between the Spirit Realm and the Abyssal Deep, with dots of light circling around the red light source in the middle…”

Dog was only halfway through its rambling when Morris suddenly took two quick steps forward: “What did you say? What did you see?!”

This was the first time Dog had seen the gentle and calm old scholar react like this. It was scared, and shrank its neck by reflex: “Uh… a big red glowing orb, with lots of flickering lights around it…”

Morris listened, dumbfounded. He asked Dog to confirm several details over and over. Only then did he finally raise his head.

The old scholar’s face was full of shock and confusion. It was as if someone had punched a hole in the worldview he had built over half his life. For a long time, he could not say anything.

Vanna had also reacted by now. The muscles on her face twitched twice. She hesitated, then turned to Morris: “That sounds… a bit like…”

“God of Wisdom Rahm’s gaze…” Morris muttered. He lowered his head and looked at Dog again, as if he was looking at a rare antique just dug out of the ground. “You received the God of Wisdom’s gaze?”

The captain’s cabin fell silent at once.

After who knew how long, Dog finally lifted its head in a daze: “…What did you say?”

Duncan ignored Dog’s reaction and frowned at Morris: “Are you sure?”

“Unless Dog is lying, there is no other explanation,” Morris said at once. “What it described is exactly the image that forms in the mind of one who receives divine blessing when the God of Wisdom sends down His gaze. I have seen it too. Every believer who follows Rahm is familiar with it.”

Duncan fell silent.

After a long while, he looked at the confused Abyssal demon lying on the floor.

“What were you doing when you saw that scene?”

“I was doing practice problems,” Dog said honestly. “One time it was geometry, the other time algebra.”

Duncan: “…”

He did not say anything. He just kept quietly looking at Dog. He stared at that ugly, huge… dog head.