Chapter 677

Chapter 677: Pilgrimage

Ever since the day he first saw those “giant ships” that were like small city-states, ever since he learned that these huge monsters kept “pilgrimaging” across the sea, Duncan had always had questions about these astounding creations—the Pilgrimage Arks.

What exactly did the Pilgrimage Arks mean? Were their special “pilgrimage” journeys really just patrols?

People in the city-states often said that the Pilgrimage Arks represented the great power of the Four Gods. They were the highest symbols of the Church’s might and also the “palaces” of the four True Gods in the mortal world. The Church sent the Arks to patrol the Boundless Sea to intimidate heretics and to protect the city-states from being corrupted by certain malicious beings in Subspace. At first, Duncan had had no doubts about this explanation.

But as he came into contact with the Four Gods’ churches more and more—especially after he learned many inside stories about the Church from Vanna, Morris, and Agatha—he began to see problems.

The ones who truly fought heretics and malevolent spirits were the inquisitors and guardians of each city-state. The ones who truly intercepted cultists at sea and rescued sailors were the regular fleets of the Four Gods’ churches. The ones who truly watched for Subspace corruption and strengthened the city-states’ defenses were the bells of the Cathedrals, the bishops’ prayers, and the strictly laid-out systems of Cathedrals and bell towers.

The four solemn Pilgrimage Arks… in fact, never took part in any matter that concerned the mortal world.

For three quarters of every year, they patrolled certain hidden routes. Those routes were invisible and unmeasurable to the mortal world, as if they lay in the cracks between dimensions of the Mortal Realm, and they stayed far from every city. For the rest of the time, they took turns patrolling near the eternal Veil at the border, where they traded only the bare minimum of information with the Church’s border fleets. They did not deal with any city-state at all. They even deliberately avoided the patrol ships of the border city-states.

Only in very rare cases did these Arks dock at a city-state. For example, after some great event like the Black Sun incident in Pland, they would appear before the eyes of the world.

Aside from times like that, the Arks had no contact with the mortal world. Even within the four great Churches, they were always wrapped in a mist of mystery. Most priests would never in their whole lives have a chance to set foot on a Pilgrimage Ark. Only those chosen as “Saints” could be brought aboard while they were still apprentices, and even then, they were allowed to move only in certain areas. After they finished the learning and training they needed, they were sent back to their original cities. From beginning to end, these Saints never had the chance to touch the true secrets of the Arks.

All these clues showed that the very existence of the “Pilgrimage Arks” was filled with huge doubts. Their real purpose had always been hidden.

Now, Duncan finally had his answer.

“…The four Pilgrimage Arks we have now were built only a few decades ago,” Frem said in his low voice. “Before these ‘giant ships’ were put into use, the four Churches also had an earlier generation of ‘arks’. But those ships could not be compared at all with the Cathedral-ships we have today…”

Frem’s voice flowed like stone slowly grinding. It carried a calm weight that made people relax and trust him without noticing.

“The earlier Church ‘arks’ were only big ships,” he said. “Back then, they were still just part of the Holy See’s ocean fleet, a link in its armed forces. They were not as mysterious as they are today, and they were not cut off from the world like they are today.

“The Cathedral-ships we have now are things on a completely different level. Rather than saying they are four ‘great ships’… it is more accurate to say that they are four ‘anchors’. They hold the gods’ sanity in place at some ‘point of balance’ outside the mortal world.”

Duncan did not speak. He only watched the pope opposite him with a serious expression. He knew that Frem was explaining this mainly for his sake. All the other popes and bishops here came from the Pilgrimage Arks. These people were clearly those who already knew the truth.

“…It is impossible now to say exactly who first sensed the truth,” Frem went on. “It was a chain of revelations and inspirations. In benedictions, we heard a whispered Truth. In visions from sacred incense, we saw darkness and corruption piling up. The souls of the four of us felt more than once a ‘pull’ from beyond the world. The gods drew our minds to a vast, chaotic place and let us see Their death and Their shadows… and during all this, the link between the priests of the mortal world and the Four Gods kept breaking again and again. That was around the year 1822.”

At this point, Frem paused for a moment. Lucretia, who sat not far to Duncan’s right, suddenly seemed to think of something and said: “1822… the ‘Cold Harbor Silence’?”

“Yes. The Cold Harbor Silence,” a hoarse voice replied. “That event is well known, but it is only one fragment, one piece left behind because it could not be fully covered up, among a long chain of worsening incidents.”

The answer did not come from Frem, but from Banster, who sat beside him. The Death Pope wore a black robe. His voice was rough, and his old, pale face looked almost like that of a dead man.

“In that incident, every priest in the city-state suddenly lost contact with Bartok, the God of Death,” Banster said. “For twenty-four hours of ‘Silence’, they heard in their minds a continuous, terrifying, hollow wailing and screaming that only they could hear. Afterwards, foul blood flowed out of the ‘Sanctum’. The city’s archbishop sacrificed himself and dissolved in that foul blood to protect the Grand Cathedral. When it was all counted up, seventeen priests had died as martyrs during the ‘Silence’, and seventy-seven more fell into permanent madness after seeing things outside the real world. Their minds shattered.

“And in my judgement, for twenty years after that, the ‘Silence’ kept leaving lasting effects. The brief disappearance of the divine protective wards weakened the Mortal Realm’s defenses over the Frost Sea region. The influences of Subspace, the Abyssal Deep, and the Spirit Realm all slipped in while the defenses were low. With Cold Harbor as the center, the city-states around the Frost Sea produced, in that period, more ‘innate psionics’ than all the other city-states in the world put together.”

Banster fell silent and looked toward Rune.

“Yes, just as Banster said, the Cold Harbor Silence of 1822 was only one fragment,” Rune said with a nod. “The real situation was that, for quite a long time, across the entire Boundless Sea, the connection with the gods was growing harder and even dangerous. Everyday prayers often received no answer, and worse still, they sometimes received answers that never should have come. The protection over the city-states grew weaker. Strange incidents at sea became more and more common. In one revelation and vision after another, we finally confirmed the gods’ terrible ‘state’.”

The hall grew quiet again.

Duncan knew the gods were dead. His followers knew it as well. The four popes and the bishops of the Pilgrimage Arks all knew it too. But when this matter was laid plainly on the table—when every piece of information and every past incident was placed side by side and tied to the Great Annihilation—a strange, heavy pressure still spread through the room.

“…So you built these huge Pilgrimage Arks to strengthen the link with the gods and to slow Their decay,” Duncan said at last, breaking the silence. “I am not interested in the exact ‘principles’ of the process. I only want to know how effective it really was. Did it work? Just now Frem said the Arks’ delaying effect has already reached its limit. What exactly does that mean?”

“It did work, at least at the beginning,” Helena said with a nod. “The Arks are anchors for the gods. The ‘death’ of the gods is a long and complex process. Strictly speaking, that process cannot be stopped at all. It is like the turning of the laws of the world—it cannot be reversed. But the presence of the ‘anchors’ can at least keep the gods in a relatively stable state until They completely ‘disappear’. According to our earliest estimates… it should have worked for several centuries, perhaps even a thousand years.

“Our first thought was that if we had such a long ‘buffer period’, we might have a chance to find other methods to slow the gods’ decay even further. We might even find… find…”

Helena suddenly stopped. Some words were hard for her to say out loud. It seemed that even though she and the other popes had already taken action toward that goal, she still did not wish to admit certain “facts”.

Rune, Banster, and Frem also fell silent, their expressions complicated.

Beside Duncan, Lucretia frowned in puzzlement. Nina and Shirley could not hide the curiosity on their faces. Morris opened his mouth as if he wanted to speak, but he held back.

Soft, unreal waves sounded in Duncan’s ears. Faint whispers seemed to murmur to him from behind the thick Veil. He felt dazed for a moment and looked down at the tabletop in front of him.

A faint trace of water appeared on the table, then quickly faded away.

He looked at that trace of water, then raised his head and looked at Helena across from him.

“Find a replacement, right?”

Helena’s eyes widened as she stared at Duncan in shock.

Duncan only shook his head and did not explain. After a few seconds of silence, he spoke again in a low, thoughtful voice: “…But only a few decades have passed. That is still far away from the ‘centuries’ you expected.”

“Yes. Things have grown worse than we imagined,” Banster said, his voice hoarse and heavy. “We once thought the gods’ current ‘balance’ might last a thousand years. But the power of decay and rot has already begun to invade the whole world. The Arks’ ‘pilgrimage’ journeys were first meant to strengthen the link between the gods and the mortal world. But now, we spend half our time trying to ‘filter’ the corruption that spills out as They decay…

“This makes us… deeply sorrowful.”

Banster ended his words with a sigh.

After a moment of thought, Duncan broke the silence again: “So you have taken new action—the fleets gathering in the border seas, right?”