Chapter 603

Chapter 603: Test

Lucretia fully agreed with Duncan’s idea of “letting the line out to catch a big fish.” In fact, from the start she had not been very keen on the simple, rough plan that Father and Vanna had come up with.

It was not that she had any grudge against the Athlete. Mainly, she felt that with how sensitive and afraid Dog was of the spirit flame, and how quickly Abyssal demons killed themselves, they might not catch a single living cultist if they really used such a crude approach…

“Those cultists will hold a gathering before nightfall. I will have Rabby find a way to get some information,” Lucretia said as she thought aloud. “Right now, the biggest problem is that there is a so-called ‘Saint’ on that ship. That means Rabby can only ‘observe.’ Any active move could be noticed by that Saint.”

“A Saint?” Duncan sounded curious. “I know about the Saints of the Four Gods. I have a high opinion of Vanna’s fighting ability. But what is the deal with the Oblivion Church’s Saints?”

His question made sense. The Saints of the Four Gods were people favored by their deities. Their main trait was not great fighting power—though most Saints could fight—but their ability to communicate with their gods. Ordinary priests needed very complex rituals and certain prices to pay before they could hear a few whispers from their deities. Saints, on the other hand, almost needed no preparation. Sometimes a prayer in their heart was enough to let them talk with their gods. In more extreme cases, if a Saint was in danger, their deity would even find a way to contact them first, to give warning or guidance.

Put simply, the gods pampered them like their own children.

But the Annihilators’ “Saints” could not be like that at all. Duncan knew well the state of the Abyssal Lord and the Lord’s attitude toward those so-called “followers.” From that one line—“catch a few Annihilators and see what happens”—Duncan was sure of one thing. If one of those cultists ever became a “Saint” who could truly hear their god’s will, they would probably be “called home” the very day they were promoted—and then dragged into the Deep Sea of the Abyssal Deep by their “Lord” and beaten again and again.

“Annihilators see Abyssal demons as the purest beings, the ones closest to the original Blueprint, so they keep using demonic power to change themselves and get closer to that Blueprint. In this process, they gain greater power,” Lucretia explained. “I heard Vanna talk about this. In Frostholm, she once saw high-ranking Oblivion priests who had almost fused with Abyssal demons through symbiotic pacts. And the so-called ‘Saints’ go a step further.

“There is not much human left in them. They look more like demons than humans. They move like Abyssal demons and can draw power straight from the Abyssal Deep and the Deep Sea. Aside from keeping a human way of thinking, they are basically a kind of ‘Abyssal Deep creature.’ These Oblivion ‘Saints’ are almost able to enter the Abyssal Deep and the Deep Sea as freely as demons do—that so-called ‘eternal paradise.’ Perhaps it is only the last bit of humanity in them that still chains them to the Mortal Realm.

“Annihilators have no true deity watching over them, but through contracts with demons, they can still gain great power. Their ‘Saints’ are the same. Those freaks are powerful, strong-willed, and know countless forbidden truths about corruption. If they faced each other head-on… Rabby would not be a match for those Saints.”

Duncan listened with interest to Lucretia’s “little-known trivia,” then suddenly asked: “So how do they compare with Vanna?”

Lucretia froze, her expression turning a bit odd as she thought it over.

After a long pause, she finally said: “…Miss Vanna’s fighting power is quite… ‘special’ even among Saints. I think it is hard to compare.”

Duncan nodded in understanding: “All right, I see.”

After a brief pause, Lucretia spoke again: “There are some other developments.”

Duncan’s voice came from the mirror: “Go on.”

Lucretia organized her words: “Tyrian sent a message. Three cases of ‘Sleep Sickness’ have appeared in the city-state of Frostholm. The patients are Elves. Their symptoms are close to…”

She had only spoken half a sentence when the voice from the mirror cut in: “The same kind of coma as that Elf maiden Flora from Pland and as Taran Ael back then, right? But this time, hypnosis and dreamwalking by psychiatrists have both failed. Their dreams are like empty holes, and their minds are lost inside those holes.”

Lucretia stared at the mirror in surprise: “How did you… the message from Pland?!”

Then she suddenly understood.

“Right before I contacted you,” Duncan nodded in the mirror, “Heidi reported four such patients. They are also Elves, also in an endless sleep. And if things are as I suspect, these are not the only two city-states with problems. Maybe tomorrow, maybe even later today, similar reports will reach Lightwind Harbor from other city-states.”

Lucretia frowned and listened. After a long moment, she blinked, remembering the ancient tales Taran Ael had once told. She murmured as if to herself: “All Elves… are the fruit and seeds of Atlantis…”

“Legends are the projection of the Mortal Realm. Some parts of those stories are true,” Duncan said slowly. “Atlantis’s power holds the Elf race together. It gives them a hive-like bond. On the level of the spirit, it is possible that all Elves are one whole.

“This trait has lain dormant for a long time, but now… the Nameless One’s dream has awakened their link.”

“Hive… one whole in spirit…” Lucretia repeated Duncan’s words without thinking. The description made her frown, but she could not find any phrase more fitting. “So the Nameless One’s dream is spreading among the Elves, and Lightwind Harbor was only the first place where it broke out?”

“I call it the ‘Primordial Blast Point,’ the very first point of outbreak,” Duncan said softly. “And now the question is—why did this place become the Primordial Blast Point? What caused the Nameless One’s dream to erupt?”

Why?

Lucretia blinked in shock. While she was still dazed, Duncan’s voice continued from the mirror:

“Before the Nameless One’s dream broke out, two things happened. First, the Sun went out. The whole Boundless Sea fell into darkness. Apart from Pland, Frostholm, and Lightwind Harbor, every other city-state lost twelve hours of time. Second… the Vanished crossed the ‘vanished sea’ and came to the waters near Lightwind Harbor.”

Lucretia understood what Father meant at once.

She spoke without thinking: “So the Sun’s extinction activated the Nameless One’s dream hidden in the Elf race, and the approach of the Vanished… made Lightwind Harbor the ‘Primordial Blast Point’…”

“The first part was my guess from the start,” Duncan said with a nod. “The second part is a possibility that only just occurred to me.”

Lucretia thought for a moment, and a bold idea popped into her mind: “Then if the Vanished moves away from Lightwind Harbor now, will that temporarily hold back the spread of the Nameless One’s dream?”

“The Vanished is already moving away.”

In the captain’s cabin of the Vanished, Duncan turned his head and looked out the window.

Chaotic, dim clouds covered the sky. The black sea rose and fell silently in the distance. Mist lay over everything. The world held only black and white. Countless twisted, bizarre, half-real shadows flickered in and out within the fog far away, always keeping their distance.

“The Vanished is sailing at full speed in the depths of the Spirit Realm, heading north away from Lightwind Harbor,” Duncan said. “Next I will run a series of tests. They will include moving the Vanished to different places, sinking deeper into the Spirit Realm, and turning the whole ship into spirit form, to see what effect these changes have on the Nameless One’s dream.”

As he spoke, Duncan pulled his gaze back from the window and looked at the mirror beside him.

“But I doubt such actions can stop the Nameless One’s dream from growing. From the messages coming from the city-states so far, this ‘dream’ ignores the barriers of space and acts directly on every Elf. The Sun’s extinction and the Vanished’s activity are only the first ‘triggers,’ not the power that keeps the dream going. What truly sustains this dream is the Elf race itself.

“Still, I will try a few things with Goathead, to see whether changes to him can affect the Nameless One’s dream. Many clues now point in that direction. My current First Mate is that ancient creation deity from Elf legend.”

Lucretia looked surprised in the mirror: “But did you not say that the Goathead on the reflected Vanished told you Saslokar died a long time ago?”

“Is a deity’s ‘life’ and ‘death’ really that simple?” Duncan shook his head slightly. “Even if we do not talk about deities, on the Vanished alone I am not short of people who have ‘died before.’”

Lucretia opened her mouth, but found she had no good way to comment on Father’s followers. In the end she could only change the subject a bit stiffly: “Then what about Lightwind Harbor…”

“My true body will move away from the city for now with the Vanished,” Duncan said. “That is necessary for the tests I have planned. But Vanna and Morris will stay in the city. They will keep watching the Nameless One’s dream. For the time being, I cannot come back easily, but my power can still pass into the city through mirrors. If you run into trouble, you can call me at any time.”

Lucretia nodded. After a few seconds of silence, she spoke again with some hesitation: “When you are far away, you have to use your own avatar form to set up a beacon so that AI can use teleportation, right?”

Duncan glanced at Lucretia in the mirror and nodded: “…Yes. Is there a problem?”

“This… seems a bit inconvenient,” Lucretia said carefully. “When the Vanished was near Lightwind Harbor, you and your followers could travel between the city and the ship at any time. Now that you have to move away from the city, you can only send power through mirrors. Have you ever thought about… stationing an avatar form in Lightwind Harbor?”

Duncan stayed silent for two or three seconds, then shook his head with a serious face: “I do not plan to—for now. You know what my avatar forms need as ‘raw material.’ Unless I happen to run into a fitting situation, I do not intend to create another avatar form.”

Though her suggestion had been refused, Lucretia seemed to relax in the mirror: “All right, Dad.”