Chapter 468

Chapter 468: New Visions

Bishop Valentine’s words made Vanna freeze for a moment. Then she did not know how to reply at all.

Noticing that the mood in the room turned a bit strange, Valentine also felt a little awkward. He looked at Vanna with a helpless expression and said: “The main thing is… people who come out of Vision 004 have all kinds of reactions. Some are dizzy, some have short-term mental problems, some even show Cognitive Shift. I can understand all that—but you are the first one to come out while burping.”

Vanna felt the atmosphere around her grow more and more odd. She herself did not know what to do: “I don’t even know how to respon—hic!”

She hurriedly swallowed, forcing down the urge to burp again. At the same time she tried, confused and anxious, to think about what had really happened after she entered Vision 004. Just then, the Saint projections who had gathered around them suddenly stirred. A moment later, they all moved aside.

Pope Helena walked through the crowd and stopped in front of Vanna.

The appearance of Your Eminence made Vanna straighten her back at once. She raised her head, and instinctively wanted to salute—but failed to hold it in and let out another burp.

Helena frowned.

This elegant and dignified Lady stared at Vanna in puzzlement for a while. Then Helena raised her head and looked at the empty ground where the “tomb of the Nameless King” had just sunk back into the earth. She watched that spot for a long time before turning her gaze back to Vanna: “…Did you eat the Tomb Guardian?”

“…?”

Vanna stared in shock for several seconds before she finally spoke in a helpless tone: “It would make more sense if you suspected I was in there gnawing on stones…”

There was not the slightest change on Helena’s face. It was as if, in her eyes, Vanna—this Inquisitor who was shocking even in the full history of the Deep Sea Church—really could pull off something as insane as swallowing a Tomb Guardian whole. But soon Helena shook her head. She calmed her voice and said: “True, even for you, that would be a bit extreme. So… what actually happened?”

“I don’t remember, I…” Vanna shook her head. Yet the moment she spoke, it felt as if a vague image rose in her mind—like a blocked-off memory trying to float to the surface. But that image vanished in the blink of an eye. Vanna frowned in confusion for a while and in the end could only keep shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I really don’t remember.”

“Is that so… It seems that even entering Vision 004 three times in a row still cannot resist this kind of Memory Erasure,” Helena said, her expression unchanged. Her gaze fell on Vanna’s hand. “Then let us confirm the parchment sheet. See what message you brought out this time.”

The Pope’s reminder made Vanna suddenly remember the important matter. She quickly pushed aside the messy thoughts and the embarrassment in her head and took out the parchment sheet she had been gripping so tightly.

As always, more than half of the parchment sheet had already been torn away. The information that should not leave the tomb was once again left behind inside Vision 004. On the remaining small part of the sheet, several lines of messy text were written.

Vanna’s eyes fell on those words, and her gaze suddenly tightened.

“…Vision-Frostholm…

“Vision-the Vanished…

“Vision-Lost Fleet…”

Three rough lines of text listed three Visions by name—without numbers.

Helena’s eyes grew more and more serious.

Bishop Valentine also saw the records on the parchment sheet, and he fell into deep shock.

Once again, Vanna had brought out strange information from the tomb of the Nameless King—odd Vision codenames that were completely different from the normal “Anomaly and Visions list” format!

“Again…” Vanna herself felt shocked. She stared fixedly at the words on the parchment sheet. Only after a long time did she raise her head, looking at the Pope in front of her with confusion. “Visions without numbers.”

“The appearance of Vision-Frostholm does not surprise me. After Pland turned into a Vision, I already had this feeling,” Helena said in a grave tone, her eyes deep and unreadable. “But the Vanished…”

“The Vanished was already on the Visions list,” Helena went on. “Now even its number has been stripped away.”

“Not only that. Now the Lost Fleet has appeared too,” Valentine said from the side. “It is also a numberless Vision—and it stands separate from the Vanished, occupying its own entry!”

Helena did not speak. Instead, she lifted her head and slowly swept her gaze over the spirit projections around her.

The Saints understood at once. They were well trained in the “secrecy rules” and the risks of corruption. They did not need any extra order. One by one, they bowed to the Pope, then left the gathering place.

Soon, the vast and ancient square was empty. Only Vanna, Valentine, and Helena remained.

“What has changed on the Vanished recently?” After all the other Saints were gone, Helena finally asked, “Why did the name of the Lost Fleet suddenly appear on the list? Is Captain Duncan calling his fleet back together?”

The Lost Fleet had truly existed, but that was more than a century ago. And that fleet had never been treated as a dangerous “Vision.”

With the most advanced exploration ship of its time, the Vanished, as the flagship; the two powerful warships the Sea Mist and the Radiant Star as escorts; and more than ten different support ships of all sizes, the Lost Fleet had once been the strongest and greatest exploration fleet on the Boundless Sea. Before that terrible upheaval occurred, this glorious fleet had discovered countless islands, opened more than ten vital trade routes, and had even drawn part of the borders of the civilized world.

In that era, Captain Duncan and the Lost Fleet were not frightening symbols. Instead, they stood for honor and greatness. They were the symbol of the courage of civilization pushing toward the edges of the world.

All of that ended suddenly when the Vanished fell into Subspace.

After that, the Lost Fleet broke apart. The flagship returned to the Mortal Realm with the label “Vision 005.” Its fleet members then dissolved and scattered during the following century. The only two remaining warships, the Sea Mist and the Radiant Star, no longer acted under the name of the Lost Fleet.

So through all this history, the “Lost Fleet” had never been listed as a Vision.

But now, a new Vision had appeared, and it was called “Lost Fleet.”

“…There is a ship named the White Oak,” Vanna said, sorting out her thoughts. She began to tell Helena about the recent incident in the Frost Sea. She knew the Pope must have her own intelligence channels and should already know the general situation in Frostholm, but only someone in the center of the incident—like Vanna—could know the details. “That ship is now a member of the Lost Fleet…”

Helena’s face stayed serious as she listened carefully to Vanna’s report on the “mirror world Frostholm incident,” and on how the White Oak was Transformed and absorbed into the Lost Fleet.

Only when Vanna finished did the female Pope break the silence: “So, a new Lost Fleet is forming. The moment that new exploration ship was Transformed into a member of the fleet, a new ‘Vision’ appeared on the tomb’s list.”

“It seems so.” Vanna nodded lightly. “Born as a Vision… and a numberless Vision at that. Something like this…”

“This kind of thing is not unheard of in history,” Helena said, shaking her head. “But every time a new Vision is born, it is usually accompanied by a huge disaster, or by huge changes in the environment of an entire region, even an entire sea. What did the birth of this Lost Fleet bring?”

Vanna opened her mouth, but her mind suddenly went blank.

“It seems… nothing happened?” she said after hesitating for a long time, almost like she was talking to herself. “At least for now, no one was hurt because of it. No place turned into a forbidden zone. In fact… the transformation of the White Oak came together with Frostholm returning to stability. The whole event seemed to develop in a good direction…”

Helena stared quietly into Vanna’s eyes. “Not only that. This new ‘Vision’ also has no ‘rules’ or ‘taboos’ we can sum up.”

A look of thought appeared on Vanna’s face.

“Normal Visions all have their rules and taboos. Just like normal Anomalies all have their dangers, and their containment and sealing conditions,” Bishop Valentine could not help speaking up. “But from what you just described, the Lost Fleet does not show any taboo-like behavior at all—not yet. Even though the White Oak has its own strange traits, these ‘strange’ things are limited to that ship itself, not to the entire ‘fleet.’”

“Maybe it is because this Vision has only just been born, so we cannot sum up its patterns yet,” Helena said, thinking. “But a greater possibility is… that it is like Pland now.”

“Pland now?” Vanna repeated the words without thinking and looked at Bishop Valentine. “Right now, Pland…”

“Just as I told you the last time we spoke: safe, calm. The veil of night is no longer frightening. The darkness no longer mutates,” Valentine said seriously. “It has been a long time since I received any report of supernatural corruption in the city. I believe Frostholm will soon become the same.”

Helena nodded slightly. “A calm veil of night and darkness, a place where life is stable and safe—this is the strangest thing in the world. The strangest thing is a place with no strangeness. Pland is such a place now.”

Vanna stayed silent and fell into quiet thought.

After a brief silence, Bishop Valentine spoke again: “Maybe all these numberless Visions will be the same. They reject all supernatural corruption except for themselves. The only strange thing they display is… that there is nothing strange within their range.”

“We still cannot jump to conclusions. At the very least, we must observe the newly appeared ‘Vision-Frostholm’ for a while,” Helena said in a deep voice. Then she frowned slightly and looked at Vanna. “So, as the one who controls all this, did Captain Duncan do anything… special? Does he have any plan? Will he keep expanding his fleet, or will he reclaim the Sea Mist and the Radiant Star into the Lost Fleet? Did he tell you anything?”

Vanna thought for a moment, and a hint of hesitation flashed across her face: “Well… he did give me a task.”

“A task for you?” Helena’s expression turned serious at once. “What task?”

“…He asked me to find a way to get a pass issued for the White Oak. To… slip it through the Church’s approval process somehow.”

“…?”