Chapter 656

Chapter 656: Longing for Cotton

The ship was very quiet. Apart from the gentle sound of broken waves slapping now and then through the open windows, the only noise in the cabin was the faint hum from the distant engine room and pipes. Most people seemed to have left this area. Even the ones who stayed were probably sitting carefully and quietly in their rooms at this time.

This quiet could almost give someone the illusion of being “safe”. If not for the faint smell of blood that drifted by from time to time, some reckless, clueless visitor might never guess that this was a lair occupied by a group of cultists.

But Lucretia knew that her “visit” had probably already been noticed by the master of this ship.

She could feel a wave of hostility aimed at her spreading across the ship. A powerful sense of perception was sweeping again and again through every corridor and every cabin.

She raised the small Conductor’s Baton in her hand and traced a few glowing symbols in the air. For the moment, they cut off the flow of her aura.

The rabbit Rabby stood carefully at her side. This creepy-looking doll was now nervously glancing around. After watching for a long time, it finally could not help but whisper: “Old Master didn’t come with you?”

Lucretia lowered her head and glanced at it: “You want to see him right now?”

The rabbit shivered at once: “No no no, Rabby is just a bit curious. Rabby doesn’t want to…”

“Father will come later, but I have to come first to help him clean up this filthy place.” Lucretia found the rabbit’s reaction amusing, but she did not keep teasing it. “He needs some living Annihilators for a certain… communication ritual. But if he descended here directly, I’m afraid there would be no survivors left.”

The stuffed rabbit listened half-understanding. After a while it suddenly blurted out: “Oh oh, Rabby remembers. The demons around ordinary Annihilators would be scared to death by Old Master, right?”

“…You do manage to remember a few useful things.”

“Rabby is very smart!” The stuffed rabbit instantly became proud. Then its tone changed, turning mysterious and eager to show off: “If that’s the case, Rabby has a suggestion…”

“Suggestion?”

“Maybe we only need to keep that ‘saint’ alive… From Rabby’s observation, that ‘saint’ has already eaten his symbiotic pact demons. He won’t die even if he sees Old Master…”

Lucretia raised her eyebrows.

…

Something had come aboard the ship. Shadows were spreading across the decks. A disturbing presence flashed in and out of perception. Some areas deep in the cabins were slowly slipping out of contact, and among the congregants moving about the ship… some of them were starting to act wrong.

In the bright, wide, and splendid assembly hall, Annihilators were gathering. More and more people were receiving the Saint’s summons. These uneasy dark believers hurried in from all directions, whispering under the heavy air and carefully talking over the current situation.

Another dozen or so cultists were singled out and isolated. They were brought to the platform where the Saint stood. Ropes soaked with alchemical potions tied up each of them, and heavy collars to suppress symbiotic pact demons were fastened around their necks.

Several heavily armed priests stood not far away, clearly in charge of guarding these bound cultists.

The surrounding looks could not help but fall on those tied-up “companions”. Whispers rose around them, guessing what kind of mistake these people had made to end up bound like this in front of the Saint.

Someone recognized that all the bound ones were “dreamwalking personnel” who had taken part in the Nameless One’s Dream operation earlier. When people linked this with the fresh rumors that had just spread through the ship today, about the Nameless One’s Dream and the Sunspawn, the hushed discussions grew even more tense and uneasy.

Richard only felt the whispering around him grow noisy and harsh.

The dull buzzing sounded like countless little files scraping his skull. It slowly turned into sharp noise and meaningless howls. He could no longer pick out the words in those sounds, nor understand their meaning. A cold feeling spread deeper and deeper through his veins, making him more and more irritable. What unsettled him even more… was that ever since a while ago, he could no longer hear that small but comforting voice in his mind.

[Where did Rabby go?]

He sluggishly raised his head and looked at Dumont, who was bound beside him. Dumont happened to lift his head as well and turned his eyes this way.

Dumont’s gaze also held doubt and confusion. He opened his mouth toward Richard, but no words came out, as if something were stuck in his throat. Between his teeth, Richard could vaguely see some white fluff.

“You brought something onto the ship…”

The Saint’s voice finally rang out from the platform. That chilling pressure locked straight onto Richard, Dumont, and the others.

“Where did you hide it?”

Among the dozen Annihilators who were tied up, a few trembled slightly, as if instinct still let them fear the Saint’s pressure. The rest, however, stood completely still, as if they had lost all sense of danger and of anyone above them – as if the nerves and flesh that should have reacted to fear no longer existed inside those skins.

The black bones crisscrossing the Saint’s body clicked and clacked. Each tap of bone on bone sounded like it could strike the soul itself. In that chain of clicks, Richard’s tottering sanity seemed to recover a little. He finally remembered who he was, and then another doubt rose up – why was he tied?

He hesitantly lifted his head and looked toward the platform.

A harsh, commanding voice came from above: “What did you see in the Nameless One’s Dream? What did you touch? What did you do after you returned?”

Richard’s mind worked with great effort. In his dazed fog, the last spark of thought finally flared to life.

“It was the witch in the sea, that witch and her servant!”

He thought he shouted that.

In reality, he only jerked his mouth open. After a few rough, hoarse huffing sounds, he spat out a large clump of cotton in front of everyone.

More cotton still clogged his throat, so he could not form a single word.

The last spark faded. Richard lowered his head and stared blankly at the white fluff on the floor – cotton. Precious cotton.

“My cotton… my cotton… my cotton!”

A string of meaningless mutters came from his cotton-stuffed throat. Richard hurriedly threw himself forward, trying to snatch back that precious cotton. The ropes tied around his body threw him off balance. He almost fell flat, then twisted and writhed on the floor in a crazed, crooked posture, desperately trying to grab those damp clumps of cotton with his mouth.

Thud, thud.

Several other figures toppled over as well.

Dumont, Wesson, Sulock… all the ones who had once entered the Nameless One’s Dream with Richard dropped onto the floor. The deadly pull of the cotton was something they could not resist. They howled, muttered, and struggled, fighting with all their might over the cotton Richard had just spat out.

[Don’t steal my cotton! Don’t steal my cotton!]

Richard roared in his heart. He rammed his head hard against Dumont, pushing him aside, only for Wesson to clamp down on his ear with a fierce bite. They began to tear and bite each other for the sake of the cotton. All reason and feeling had faded, leaving only the instinct to snatch the cotton.

The hall burst into an uproar. Even the dark cultists whose hearts were as cold as iron could not stay calm in front of such a bizarre and horrifying scene. They watched their dozen former “companions” thrash and writhe on the floor while still bound by ropes, watched them tear into each other while letting out mangled, broken howls. Cotton kept spurting from the wounds they bit open – like some living parasitic creature made of fibers.

“Execute them!” a shout rang down from the platform.

Bang bang bang.

At the Saint’s order, someone finally reacted. Several gunshots thundered through the hall. The armed priests serving as wardens started firing their large-caliber revolvers at Richard and the others. Right after that, others began calling on the power of their symbiotic pact demons, hurling magic bullets, lightning, and clouds of acid at their former “companions”, who were clearly no longer human.

Richard and Dumont’s bodies were torn apart with ease by these attacks. Their fragile skin split like old rags, ripping with harsh tearing sounds. Cotton billowed from their bodies in drifting clouds, with not a trace of blood or flesh.

In the blink of an eye, the dozen Annihilators parasitized by “cotton” lost their lives.

Yet after only a few seconds of silence, the cotton that had poured out of their bodies suddenly started wriggling again. The clumps began to devour and tear at each other, as if the obsession these people had for grabbing cotton still churned inside the fluff. As the cotton gnawed and ripped at itself, some light, drifting things rose from the pile.

They were spores, as fine as dust.

The spores billowed up like a thin mist and began to spread through the hall.

Even the dullest person felt a huge sense of danger and terror when they saw that hazy cloud of spores.

But the spores had only floated a short distance when they seemed to hit an invisible barrier. A powerful force quickly drove them back down into the cotton heap.

On the platform, the Saint opened his black bony cage that looked like a crown and a prison. Tendrils reached out from the giant brain within and waved in the air.

The drifting spores were all caught. A burst of fierce flame then flared into existence, burning up the pile of cotton that was still frantically writhing and heaving.