Chapter 534

Chapter 534: The Time for Prayer

The man finally began to calm down.

He had escaped that building corrupted by the Subspace Shadows, escaped those terrible mirrors and burning flames, and come to the gathering hall watched over by the Holy Lord’s gaze and divine blessing. Now trusted comrades were all around him. The flickering lights gave off a soothing strength. The concern and encouragement of like-minded believers slowly washed away his panic and tension.

It seemed that nothing terrible was going to happen.

So the man in the thick black coat let out a long breath. Then he picked up the cup of water Duncan had handed him, ready to wet the throat that had gone dry from running all the way here.

But as soon as he lifted the cup and saw the rippling surface of the water inside, he felt a stab of discomfort. A faint unease rose up from his heart, and he set the cup back down.

Clearly this was a “side effect” of the awful incident earlier. He felt that for at least the next few hours he had better not touch any drink in a cup again. If it really could not be helped, he would just find a straw later.

“So what exactly happened?” the cultist with straw-yellow hair and a grim face, the one who had just handed him the cup, asked with concern. “What kind of trouble did you run into?”

Around the round table, the other Annihilators also turned their eyes this way. Curiosity and seriousness showed on every face.

“That dream… the Nameless One’s dream the Ender mentioned. Inside it there was a maze of structures, and a barrier protected it,” the man in the black coat said with a sigh, still shaken. “The entrance did not ‘appear on its own.’ I do not know how it went for the other comrades who tried to enter. On my side, I was blocked out. Even the remnants of the Sun were kept outside. But that was not the worst part. The worst was…”

The man suddenly stopped. He glanced in confusion at the “comrade” beside him, and his brows drew together: “Duncan, are you alright? You look terrible…”

“Me? I feel fine,” the “Annihilator” with the dry yellow hair said with a laugh. His laugh sounded a little hoarse. “You are too nervous.”

“You really are too nervous. Duncan’s face has always looked this sickly,” another person at the table said, shaking his head. “Go on. What was the worst part? Ordinary trouble would not make you react like this.”

“…Duncan Abnomar, the ghost of the curse who returned from the Subspace,” the man in black said, still full of fear. “He stepped into that Nameless One’s dream.”

The hall fell silent at once. It was as if an unseen freezing wind blew through, making the air in the basement suddenly thick and still.

In that sudden, suffocating silence, the man in black felt a heavy pressure. But he forced himself to calm down and went on: “First I ran into a very troublesome psychiatrist. That psychiatrist broke through the ‘psychology chamber’ I set up. Then, in the open area of the Nameless One’s dream, I met the even more troublesome sea witch. Things were not too bad yet at that point. The remnants of the Sun held back the witch’s movements. But then, Duncan Abnomar suddenly appeared…

“That ghost ruined everything. Those remnants of the Sun and their ‘blood kin’ were no match for him at all. The information from outside was wrong. Duncan Abnomar and the sea witch were not enemies at all. They talked right in front of me, and their relationship was much friendlier than people guessed.

“Do you remember the reports from Frostholm? I even suspect the Vanished fleet never really disbanded. The Radiant Star and the Sea Mist have been carrying out that ghost’s orders in secret the whole time. And this time… I just happened to uncover their secret. That ghost and his two children must also be paying attention to the matter of the Nameless One’s dream…”

He spoke quickly. His mind had never felt so active. The terrifying experience he had just gone through began to reorder itself in his head, linking up with all kinds of secret information that had been spreading through different channels lately. In the end it formed a very convincing chain of logic, at least convincing to himself. As he laid it out, he felt he had finally sorted his messy thoughts and understood everything.

But then a gaze from across the round table, heavy as something solid, suddenly fell on him and cut him off.

“Wait,” the owner of that gaze said. He was an old man with graying hair and an air of authority. His eyes were sharp, and his deep voice carried the sternness of a leader. “Are you saying you ran into those Subspace Shadows in the Nameless One’s dream, and that it has already set its eyes on you?”

“Y-yes,” the man in black said, suddenly tense. Under the Envoy’s gaze he felt fear by instinct, but he still forced himself to answer. “It tracked me into the Mortal Realm and tried to invade my hiding place through mirrors. But I found the pattern of how it entered the Mortal Realm and blocked those ‘passages’…”

He spoke quickly, and finally, under the Envoy’s gaze, he began to feel that coldness. His dull, numb mind reacted at last. He noticed it at last—the constant noise that had been buzzing in his head, and the formless things squirming and twitching at the edge of his vision.

He slowly stood up. The muscles all over his body trembled. He accidentally brushed against the “comrade” sitting closest to him. That person raised his head and gave him a friendly smile, yet deep inside that smile there was a strange taste he could not name.

The man in black felt a sudden tightness in his chest. He spoke, hesitant and nervous: “Duncan, you… why does your face look even worse than before…”

The “Annihilator” with the dry yellow hair and sickly, sinister face sighed and shook his head with a hint of regret.

“Annihilators… In a way, your strange symbiotic pact ecosystem gives you a natural resistance to me,” he said calmly. “The Abyssal demons you rely on have sharp senses but not enough mind to weigh gains and losses. So in a very short time, these demons collapse. Right after that, the ‘vessels’ transformed out of your bodies break down as well. Even in the best case, they only last a little more than ten minutes…”

The “Annihilator” called “Duncan” spoke slowly. As he talked, a faint crackling sound came from all over his body. Behind him, a dim dark Shadow bound in chains seemed to struggle as it faded away. His body quickly filled with black cracks and began to crumble and fall apart bit by bit.

Duncan slowly spread his hands. The Abyssal demons that had formed a symbiotic pact with this body were already dead. The body itself slowly turned to ash as well.

“But the good news is, even in such a short time, I still heard quite a lot of useful things.”

That body crumbled away completely. Under the flickering yellow light, countless black ashes fell in silence.

The man in black stared in horror. In those few short seconds, he could not even tell whether fear, regret, or anger came first in his heart. Then he suddenly came to his senses. He looked up at the Envoy sitting across the table and cried: “I am guilty—”

“You are guilty.”

The gray-haired Envoy spoke without any expression. He raised his hand and pointed forward. In the darkness, a silent, shapeless shadow suddenly appeared and then vanished again in the hall. In that brief instant, the “guilty” man in black lowered his head, and his body slumped in the chair.

A few seconds later, the body burst into flame. Black fire swallowed his flesh in an instant, filling the air with a sickening smell.

The cultists in the hall watched in silence. No one made a sound. Only when the heap of burning black ash finally collapsed did a tall figure hesitantly break the silence: “Envoy, we…”

The man known as the Envoy did not answer. The pale-haired cult leader only swept a calm look over everyone in the room. Then he rose without expression, went to close the main entrance of the hall, and locked the hidden door used for emergency escape. After that, he murmured a benediction in front of both doors. Black thorns grew quickly under his prayer and sealed the doors in an instant.

The small cultist who had led the Visitor here earlier leaped to his feet when he saw this: “Envoy! What are you…?”

“Duncan was one of our earliest members,” the cult leader said calmly. His eyes moved over the two piles of black ash by the round table. “When do you think he was transformed?”

The Annihilators in the room looked at one another. One by one, they finally understood, and horror spread over their faces.

“He is among us,” the Envoy said as he came back to the round table. He looked at the believers gathered there and spoke slowly. “Any moment, any person, any face… He has already come in.”

“What should we do?” someone at the table asked.

“From now on, do not discuss our Lord’s secrets, and do not share information about the Cult. In our mortal bodies, we have no way to fight the Subspace Shadows. But the Lord will still witness our courage and toughness. We will no longer reveal any information to that ghost, no matter what terror or temptation He uses here…”

The Envoy spoke slowly. Then he spread his hands and went on in a solemn preaching tone:

“I will find a way to send out what we know about that Subspace ghost, including His way of invasion and His power to tempt. At the same time, I will stay here with you. As you can see, I have already sealed every passage out of this place.

“Believers, the time has come to prove your loyalty to the Lord. Let us pray. In the realm deep within the Abyssal Deep, the Lord’s divine blessing will make our souls live forever. All the suffering of today will be repaid in that eternal realm.

“Now, begin the prayer.”