Chapter 681

Chapter 681: “Madness”?

Frem’s gaze was instantly drawn to the enormous Gatekeeper’s cane. He stared at it for a long time before finally forcing out some words: “…Everburning Ember…”

After a few more seconds of silence, he raised his head. His eyes fell on Vanna and Duncan. “You brought it out here because…”

“This was Vanna’s idea,” Duncan shook his head and stepped back half a step. “She thinks the Gatekeeper’s cane should be given to the Flamebearer Church.”

Frem’s eyes widened a little. He looked at the Inquisitor in surprise.

“Tarrigan left this Gatekeeper’s cane to me as a parting keepsake. But at that time, he did not yet know about the age of the Deep Sea,” Vanna sighed lightly and spoke in a calm tone. “Maybe the Tarrigan I saw was only a shadow. Maybe the Senkin of the Deep Sea age were only ‘replicas’ remade after the Third Long Night. But some things… belong where they belong. The legacy of a civilization should not become someone’s personal collection. Giving it to the Flamebearer Church has more meaning than keeping it in my own hands.”

The table fell quiet for a while. Helena, Rune, and Banster exchanged glances, then wisely closed their mouths. Frem slowly stretched out his hand. His fingers, rough like stone, gently stroked the coarse surface of the Gatekeeper’s cane.

The dense carvings on the Gatekeeper’s cane seemed to hold frozen time, telling without words of a forgotten era of civilization. In that faded and vanished memory, a race had stumbled up from the wasteland, walked toward glory, and then toward its end.

But Frem could not recognize a single character carved there. He only felt a strange closeness in every mark, so close it felt as if they were carved into his own soul, and yet so distant it was as if they came from another dimension.

A complex emotion welled up from his heart.

“When the elves first dug out those scrolls in the Dark Islands, they felt the same as you do now,” Rune suddenly broke the silence. The old elf watched the changes on Frem’s face and spoke quietly. “We have gone through it once. I understand.”

“…These carvings show a complete chain of script evolution. We will be able to decipher their meaning,” Frem said softly. “The Flamebearer Church is expert in this field.”

He suddenly lifted his head and looked into Vanna’s eyes with great seriousness.

“I will take rubbings of everything carved on it and use them to study the Senkin script and history—we only need to take those.”

Vanna blinked, surprised and puzzled. “Of course… but you mean, the Gatekeeper’s cane…”

“This is a gift our Lord gave you. Leaving it in your hands is His will,” Frem slowly shook his head. “And, Miss Vanna, the legacy of a civilization is not this Gatekeeper’s cane pulled from a dream. The true legacy is here—in the history recorded by these carvings.”

The Flamebearer Pope’s fingers brushed lightly over the surface of the Gatekeeper’s cane. In those shallow and deep grooves, his touch seemed to reach back to those ancient, lost years.

“To this day, whether we want to admit it or not, we can no longer deny what the cultists wrote in The Blasphemous Tome. The true history of our world began with the Third Long Night. Everything in the mortal world is a ‘replica’ created from the ashes. For a world copied from ashes… digging up ‘memory’ and ‘history’ now means far more than chasing after ‘relics’ themselves. Miss Vanna, we only need to take the writing from it.”

Vanna blinked again. This turn of events was not what she had expected. She subconsciously looked up at Duncan. He gave her a slight nod.

“…I understand,” Vanna let out a gentle breath. “Then I will keep it safe and treasure it as much as I treasure honor and life.”

“Good. Then this matter is settled as well,” Duncan broke the silence. He stepped forward with a faint smile on his face, but the smile quickly faded as if something had come to mind. He could not help speaking: “…But that reminds me. After Vanna brought this ‘Chronicle Pillar’ back into the Mortal Realm, you Flamebearer people never received any ‘feedback’ or ‘revelation’ from Tarrigan?”

“No,” Frem shook his head and answered very frankly. “Just as we said earlier in the meeting, the link between the mortal world and the Gods has become abnormally difficult. Not only are the ‘voices’ themselves weakening, but the messages that do manage to get through are mixed with more and more interference and noise. For now, the only good news is that the ‘power’ that the Gods send down can still work on the Boundless Sea. Beyond that, even we four have not heard Their voices clearly for many years.”

“I can only reach the Goddess’s vague revelation and, now and then, her mental guidance,” Vanna quickly added beside him. “The Goddess still answers my call very quickly, but that ‘answer’ has indeed always been hazy.”

“The decline and death of a god is a process completely different from that of a mortal,” Rune spoke up as well. “We still cannot uncover the secrets in it. But clearly, They still have reason—for now, at least. It is just that this ‘reason’ can no longer pass cleanly into mortal minds. It is as if some kind of ‘cognitive deviation’ has appeared between the two. That ‘deviation’ makes our minds less and less able to understand Their ‘voices’…”

Rune stopped there for a moment. After a brief silence, he went on with a hint of hesitation: “Frankly, this reminds me again of the story of the ‘Madbird’.”

Helena’s expression changed slightly at once. She seemed to understand Rune’s meaning right away. “You mean the nature of the Gods’ current ‘death state’ is that They are gradually drifting away from our world at the level of ‘cognition’? That the increasing interference and noise we have received from the arks over these years… is some kind of growing ‘Madbird effect’?”

“This is only a guess I came up with recently—after the Lightwind Harbor incident,” Rune nodded lightly. “It is also the only guess so far that can explain those stronger and stronger ‘noises’.”

Duncan listened quietly at the side as the Popes discussed the matter. When their talk had almost run its course, he suddenly spoke: “In fact… I was just about to say this. I can occasionally ‘hear’ Their voices, or see the messages They send.”

Helena, Frem, and the others fell silent at once.

All four Popes slowly turned their heads. Their eyes fell on Duncan, and each of their faces looked as if they had just seen a ghost—

To be fair, with their skills, they would probably be calmer if they really did see a ghost.

“Is that true?!” Helena was the first to speak. “You mean you can clearly hear the Gods’ voices? They even… send you messages?!”

Even Frem, always so steady and calm, lost his composure. The Senkin Pope, like a small giant, came around the table to stand in front of Duncan. “You have direct contact with the Gods? By what means?”

“Whoa, hold on. I said ‘occasionally’—I only hear or see Their messages once in a while,” Duncan quickly waved his hands, knowing they had misunderstood. “That does not count as ‘direct contact’. But yes… it is quite clear. To be honest, I have no idea what ‘noise’ and ‘interference’ you keep talking about—I have never run into them.”

The Popes looked at one another.

Duncan did not hide his few experiences of, by coincidence, hearing or seeing messages from the Gods. He told them about the notes he had seen, and the traces of the Gods’ conversations he had found in that strange, dark space.

Of course, he kept back the exact content of those exchanges.

Then the hall fell quiet for a long time.

At last, Frem was the first to break the silence. The steady Senkin turned his gaze to Rune. “…This seems to prove, at the very least, that They really do still have reason.”

“Yes, They are still rational,” Rune snapped out of his brief daze and began to think at once. “If this is true… and if my earlier guess is not too far off…”

He paused, then quickly sorted out his thoughts—

“Then we can read the situation like this: the Gods still have reason, but Their ‘reason’ has already drifted away from mortal minds, and even from the world itself. So we find it hard to contact Them, and the world has begun to suffer Their corruption. But on the other hand, because of his own special nature, Captain Duncan is completely unaffected by this ‘drift’…”

Rune suddenly stopped again. He seemed to sense some vague or unexplained contradiction in his chain of thought and fell into silence. Just then, Duncan happened to think of something else.

“I remember… according to the current conclusions shared by scholars and the Church, the ‘Abyssal Lord’ in the Abyssal Deep of the Deep Sea is an Elder God in a completely mad runaway state, isn’t It?”

“Of course,” Rune answered at once without the slightest doubt. “The Abyssal Lord is, like the Black Sun, a being with no reason at all. We even have direct proof of this. Humans cannot enter the Abyssal Deep of the Deep Sea and live, but through complex and dangerous ritual, we can ‘observe’ what lies at that depth…”

“I have had a chat with the Abyssal Lord too,” Duncan shrugged. “Honestly, I think Its mental state is actually fine—though It did say It has been having a hard time lately.”

Rune: “…?”

Duncan glanced at the ghost-struck faces of the Popes and hesitated for a moment. Then he decided to keep going—after all, the mood had already come this far.

“And about that ‘Black Sun’ you just mentioned… I have seen It as well, though we only exchanged a sentence or two. It really is having trouble holding on.”

Rune, Helena, Banster, and Frem all wore the same expression: “…?!”