Chapter 535

Chapter 535: Enthusiastically Maintaining Public Order

So the Annihilators began their prayer.

They prayed under the dim light of the oil lamps, in the deathly still air, in that deep, cold hall, under the gaze of the Abyssal Lord.

A member who had acted rashly under Mental Derangement had brought that unshakable Shadow into this hall. From now on, anyone who left the hall might carry that Shadow to other comrades, just like what had already happened. So they would not leave here again. Under the Envoy’s witness and encouragement, these devout and fanatical cultists chose a quiet and loyal sacrifice.

They had made up their minds to carry the secrets they knew to the Lord’s realm and never again leak a single bit to that ghost.

At least, that was the decision they made now. A moment of courage was always easy.

The cultists prayed in silence, calling again and again for the divine blessing of the Abyssal Lord in the secret room. The Envoy sat quietly at the round table. His calm gaze rested on every face in the room, taking in their firmness, nerves, bravery, fear, and wavering.

Time passed, and no one knew how long. The flame on the oil lamp on the table flickered, dimming and brightening. During one sudden flare of the light, someone seemed to hear a faint voice:

“…I will give you one chance.”

Someone lifted his head in fear, searching for the source of the voice. Someone else squeezed his eyes shut, afraid he would really see something. But the voice had already faded into the air, as if it had never been there.

“Keep praying,” the Envoy said softly. His words seemed to carry a strange persuasive power. “That ghost can do nothing. Aside from death, He has no way left to threaten us. And death itself is the quickest road to the Lord’s realm.”

In the past, the Envoy’s words always gave people courage and quickly steadied even the most uneasy followers. Yet this time, for some reason, every word he spoke only made people feel a colder chill of coming horror.

Growing unease spread through the hall. Fear crept toward the edge of reason. Doubt slowly grew in the silence. Not everyone here was one of the most devout Saints. And for those who were less devout, this was the time for their reason to break.

At last, one believer screamed. It was the smallest one. He seemed to have suddenly seen something terrible. He leaped from his chair and shouted: “I will talk! I will talk! I know what is going on!”

The Envoy shot to his feet and shouted in anger and alarm: “Hold him down!”

Several figures around the round table rushed over at once. They grabbed the small figure roughly and angrily, pinned him hard onto the table, and tried to cover his mouth to keep him from spilling the Lord’s secrets. But the small cultist burst out with shocking strength. He struggled wildly. Black chains appeared around him. Terrible bone spurs and hardened growths formed on his limbs, almost letting him break free from his comrades’ hold, as he kept shouting:

“The Enders gave us the information! They said the Nameless One’s dream hides the Truth from the creation of the world and holds the Lord’s first Blueprint…

“The dreams of the elves can lead to the Nameless One’s dream! That race itself is the vessel and passage for dreams, because they already had flaws at the Blueprint stage…

“The followers of the Black Sun are also moving, but they are looking for something else. I do not even know what they are searching for!

“The Enders said the time is near, but this is all I know… This is all I know, Mr. Duncan. Only the Prophets and the Saints know more, and those Enders, they know… I really only know these things!”

The small cultist struggled and shouted as fast as he could. In his huge fear, he found another kind of courage, the courage to betray his faith. But right after that, he forced his head up again, tears and snot running down his face, and looked toward the Envoy not far away. After that brief courage came new fear: “I am sorry, I just want to live, I want to live…”

Then he screamed again: “Mr. Duncan! Please protect me! Do not let the Envoy kill me! I kept my promise, you said you would give me a chance! You said… you would…”

The heavy weight pressing on his shoulders eased. The small cultist screamed in terror halfway through his words, then finally, belatedly, sensed the change in the air and slowly fell silent.

All along, only his own screams echoed in the hall. His “comrades” held him down, but not one of them truly tried to stop him from shouting. The Envoy watched him with a steady gaze and never lifted a hand.

He stared, eyes wide, as the Envoy slowly placed both hands on the table and gave him a gentle smile: “See? Saying it was not that hard.”

Around the round table, the cultists who had been holding him down stepped back one after another.

His “comrades” stood around him, watching him. Their faces showed stiff but gentle smiles. Then they began to clap for him, one after another.

The small cultist stared, eyes wide. He looked in terror at everyone in the hall. At last his lips trembled as he spoke: “Envoy… Lord Duncan, and Duncan, Duncan, you all are…”

A series of chilling howls and roars rang out. One after another, Abyssal demons appeared in the hall. Some were already breaking apart. Some were pulling at chains and struggling to flee the Mortal Realm. As these symbiotic pact demons broke down or escaped, every figure in the small cultist’s eyes, including the Envoy, suddenly burst into flame.

Before the last burning figure collapsed, it walked up to the small cultist, smiled, and patted him on the shoulder: “You too.”

The hall fell silent.

The small figure stood quietly among the countless piles of black ash. After a few seconds, he suddenly blinked. Then he hurried back to the round table, grabbed pen and paper from the top, and quickly wrote a full page.

Then he snatched up the sheet of paper and walked to the basement’s exit. The “thorns” the Envoy had summoned still sealed the door tight. Dark, wicked power flowed through the tangled thorns.

But in a single instant, the thorny growth burst into flame. Pale green spirit form fire turned it to ash, and the door behind the thorns swung open with a push.

Duncan strode through the basement door while the embers had not yet died, passed through the run-down buildings on the surface, and then his figure rose into the air amid the flames…

A patrolling Guardian stared in shock as a ball of eerie green flame fell onto the street in front of him. He had just raised his weapon on instinct when a staggering figure, seemingly falling apart bit by bit, stepped out of the green fire.

The small, unstable, and very suspicious figure walked toward him quickly, a bright smile on his face: “Hello, I would like to report heretic activity.”

The Guardian, who had been about to blow his whistle and attack with his sword at the same time, froze.

He had served the Church for many years, but this was the first time he had met this kind of… informant. In his confusion he blurted out: “Report?”

“Yes. It is in the basement of the house at the very end of that alley ahead, the one with the blue sloped roof. This is a denunciation letter. It has the basic details of their gatherings. At the end there is an anonymous bank account. Please transfer the Whistleblower Bounty straight into that account. Thank you.”

The Guardian stared blankly at this suspicious and strange fellow and listened to his stream of words. His mind was a mess. At last he could not help lifting a hand to point at the other’s face, which was constantly crumbling into ash: “Mister, you do not look very well…”

“I know. I am keeping it together as best I can, but it looks like I am still not doing it quite right. It is only fifteen minutes more stable than usual. Do not worry. Just do not forget to send the money…”

The young Guardian took the denunciation letter almost without thinking. Before the other man completely fell apart, he finally remembered to ask a question: “Mister, what is your name?”

“Just a helpful heretic…”

…

Aboard the Vanished, in the captain’s cabin, Duncan came back to himself and let out a long breath.

His main consciousness had returned to the ship.

The Goathead at the edge of the chart table reacted at once and turned his head this way: “Ah, great Captain, it looks like you gained quite a lot?”

“I got useful information out of a group of cultists at a secret gathering,” Duncan said with a sigh. He raised his hand and rubbed his brow hard. “Sadly, the time was too short. I did not have time to find out which city-state that was or whether there are other gathering points nearby. But it is not a big problem. I think we will be dealing with them again soon…”

On the wall not far away, the surface of an ancient-style Oval Scrying Mirror rippled with layers of shadows. Agatha’s figure appeared in the mirror and looked at Duncan with curiosity: “Are you alright? You look a bit tired?”

“I was just trying a newer way to control an avatar form. I am not quite used to it yet,” Duncan said, waving his hand. “Looks like splitting your mind is not something you can just try for fun. Maybe I should ask Heidi for advice when I get the chance… How can she split into dozens at once without getting confused?”

Agatha: “…?”

But Duncan did not stay on that topic. He soon frowned slightly and began to recall and sort out the information he had just gotten from “far away.”

He had first thought it was only a normal Dream Invasion, just a strange nightmare. He had thought the appearance of those cultists was only an accident. He had not expected that behind it, shadows far beyond anyone’s imagination would suddenly show themselves.

“The Nameless One’s dream…” Duncan lifted his head in thought and looked at Agatha in the mirror and at Goathead on the table. “Have you heard this term before?”