Chapter 654

Chapter 654: Visit in the Shadows

In the spacious, ornate assembly hall, the roof and walls were covered with many reliefs and patterns related to the Abyssal Lord. On the high platform in the center, the twisted thing known as “the Saint” sat in silence.

A “crown” woven from pitch-black bones stood on the platform. Between the tangled nerves and blood vessels at the base of the crown were many half-open, half-closed eyes. A chilling brain lay in the center of the Bone Crown. It writhed slightly from time to time and let out low, muffled sounds.

The lower priests and ordinary cultists in the hall stayed quiet. They stood carefully and nervously in the corners, keeping their distance from the central platform. They did not even dare meet the Saint’s eyestalks, which were now in a dormant state. A dull, heavy mood hung over the place, as if even the air had frozen.

Everyone knew the Saint was in a foul mood—and it clearly had to do with the sudden end of the recent operation.

The order to end the operation had of course come from the Saint himself, but it was obvious this was not a result this Lord wanted to see—the outcome was not supposed to be like this.

This silence and pressure lasted for who knew how long. Then a voice suddenly sounded in the ears of every lower priest and ordinary cultist: “Leave.”

Everyone felt as if they had been granted amnesty. In almost the blink of an eye, the Annihilators gathered in the hall left the assembly through the various doors, and in the end only the upper priests beside the platform remained.

“Saint,” an upper priest in a black coat, his graying hair combed neatly back, turned to the platform and broke the silence: “We have received news from Morka and Siprode. The elves who fell into sleep and dissolution in the various city-states have begun to recover.”

“…The entrance to the dream has vanished, and the Dream-Skull no longer reacts to the ‘blood food’,” another upper priest said at once. “Judging from the current situation, the Nameless One’s dream has probably vanished completely—but even now, the Suntists still have not contacted us.”

“They will not contact us again,” a reply finally came from the Bone Crown on the platform. “The Sunspawn who led this operation has fallen. This loss is enough to plunge those followers into a long chaos… Having lost the Spawn that served as their core, the branch that cooperated with us will soon die out.”

The upper priests around the platform stirred at once. After a brief moment of shock, the gray-haired priest finally could not hold back: “Then the Sunspawn has fallen?! How did it die? Was it something deep inside the dream…”

“I do not know,” the Saint said. “I only saw its radiance suddenly go out at the end of its fate, and vast shadows spread out from the place where it went dark. Even now, those shadows are still spreading toward us.”

The upper priests looked at one another. After a short silence, one of them spoke hesitantly: “You mean… after the Sunspawn fell, the shadows that killed it are still chasing us?”

“A haze hangs over our fate,” the Saint said slowly. “It has yet to disperse.”

“We are already far from all city-states and main routes,” another upper priest said hesitantly. “And we have successfully avoided the patrol fleets of the four major churches along the border…”

Another priest spoke up at once: “I do not know what the Four Gods’ dogs have been doing lately. They gathered a large part of their fleets near the eastern border, which has greatly weakened the patrol forces in the other border seas. We passed through very smoothly. We should be able to return to the ‘Holy Land’ soon…”

Yet another priest agreed: “‘The Holy Land’ is shrouded in thick fog along the border, and our Lord’s divine blessing rests there. Even the Pilgrimage Ark of the Four Gods’ dogs cannot break through…”

The upper priests all began to speak, but the “Saint” on the platform stayed silent. Gradually, the voices around the platform faded, and the priests wisely shut their mouths.

“‘He’ is coming.”

After who knew how long, the Saint’s deep voice suddenly reached everyone’s ears.

With those few short words, it was as if an invisible cold wind swept through the entire hall. The wind carried a fear and dread that seemed almost infectious. Even the Oblivion priests, whose hearts were already as cold and hard as black iron, shivered without meaning to.

One upper priest understood the Saint’s meaning almost at once: “You mean… the Ghost who returned from Subspace…”

“How is that possible?! We have not had any dealings with ‘his’ followers since then…” another priest blurted out. “We withdrew from the Nameless One’s dream before it changed any further. We should have already cut all ties with ‘him’…”

The Saint did not respond to those timid and useless voices, full of tension and fear, beside him. He only slowly raised the eyestalks around him. The eyeballs at the ends of those writhing tendrils swept over the hall, and then seemed to look through the walls, surveying the entire ship.

The haze in fate was reflected in his misshapen, swollen eyes. ghostly green flame burned in the shadows and had already begun to appear on the sea’s surface in the near future. He saw death and fear drawing near—in a not-so-distant time, most of the people on this ship would die.

As for the others, the misery in their fate was even worse than death.

He had already smelled, ahead of time, the scent of blood boiling in the flames, and heard the howls that would soon echo out. Yet more desperate than those coming deaths was that the shadows would keep spreading along this route. This ship was not the end, only a stopover for those shadows as they spread.

The Saint slowly withdrew his eyestalks.

In the limited future he could glimpse, he had carefully made many choices. Those choices had given him ever greater power and made this ship a symbol of the Lord’s will. But this time, he found that no matter what he chose, that haze followed closely behind in fate.

Whether it was ending the operation in the Nameless One’s dream ahead of time, changing the course of this “Holy Ship”, or sealing off the aura of the entire vessel, he could not shake off that terrible future.

Those shadows had surrounded him and everyone else. It even felt… as if they were already on this ship.

[Already on this ship?]

In the Bone Crown on the platform, the swollen, writhing brain suddenly froze for a moment. Then the living tissue around it slowly relaxed.

With that flash of understanding in his heart, the Saint noticed that the shadows everywhere had begun to weaken. On the sea not far away, the ghostly green flames that had risen from the darkness seemed to be slowly fading.

“…I have caught you,” he muttered softly.

One upper priest reacted at once: “What have you discovered?”

“…Go and bring everyone who has entered the Nameless One’s dream to the hall,” the Saint said slowly. At the same time, some of his eyes watched as the haze shrouding the ship and the breath of death from the future kept weakening. “Especially anyone who has been in contact with that girl who once traveled with the Abyssal Hound… Richard, yes, bring him here… Do not startle him, do not let him grow wary. Use mental guidance to slowly draw him over.”

The haze in the hall faded away completely. The sense of death coming from every part of the ship weakened sharply, and on the sea in the near future, the ghost-green flames sank back into the shadows.

The shadows really were on the ship. Once again, he had sensed that tiny “turning point” in fate—he had made the right choice and gained a good result.

One upper priest quickly left the assembly hall to carry out the Saint’s order.

Then the Saint on the platform fell silent for a moment and gave another order: “Also, have the ship stop.”

The haze in fate had scattered for now, yet a strange unease still lay in his heart. It seemed that things would not end so simply. That Ghost who had returned from Subspace… might not be so easy to shake off.

Driven by necessary caution, the Saint decided to stay on this stretch of sea for now. Until he was sure all hidden dangers had been cleared away, he could not let this ship draw any closer to the Holy Land…

One minute later, Richard woke from a short and chaotic nightmare.

A cold wind from who knew where blew past his neck. Faint whispers, too quiet to make out, came from the corners of the room. The scenes from the nightmare had already faded from his mind, and he could not remember what he had just dreamed. He only felt a lingering, hangover-like flutter in his heart that slowly ebbed away, turning into a hazy impression as time passed.

“She is coming to visit…”

A vague voice sounded, as if it had risen up from inside his own mind.

Richard sat straight up in bed.

Soft, blurry whispers came from every corner of the room. The lamplight flickered on the wall not far away and cast many strange, mottled shadows, like crisscrossing mycelium, or like an invisible spiderweb covering the whole cabin.

“Time to welcome the Mistress… my lovely little doll…”

The small voice spoke softly again.

Richard blinked slowly. The numbness and dullness in his head seemed to fade bit by bit. He got out of bed and walked slowly to the cabinet at the side. After he opened it and rummaged inside for a while, he finally found what he needed.

It was a big roll of paper and several pencils.

These were the materials he used on normal days to practice tracing runes.

He looked quietly at these things for a few seconds, and a small smile finally appeared on Richard’s face. He hugged the paper and pencils to his chest and walked back to the bed. Without hesitating, he tossed his bedding and quilt onto the floor beside him and spread the big roll of paper directly over the flat bedboard.

“They are coming to find you… do not waste time.”

Richard softly repeated the whisper in his mind. With a smile at the corners of his mouth, he bent over the bed with a pencil in hand and began to draw with practiced ease.

The beautiful face of a lady appeared in his mind and slowly took shape on the paper.