Chapter 715

Chapter 715: .

After going down a long slope and passing through a small town where no living people remained, only many humanoid Rough Husks embedded in the ground and rock walls, the exploration team entered a valley filled with strange black stones.

The entrance to this valley was hidden, buried in a mass of tangled remnants that looked like thorny plants. But the “memory” in Shirley’s mind clearly pointed out the exact spot.

The black rocks in the valley were jagged and twisted, forming unsettling, complex shapes. They did not look like the result of natural weathering, but they were clearly not carved by human hands either.

They were more like deformed freaks struggling to be “born” from the earth and the cliffs, only to turn into stone at the last moment of their growth. On some of these black, monstrous rocks, one could even see claw-like shapes, almost-formed tentacles, and even eye sockets and mouth-and-nose structures. Once they noticed these details, even someone as seasoned as Vanna, an experienced Inquisitor, could not help but frown. The eerie horror seemed to seep into her bones and made her extra wary.

The flowing fog seeped into every gap and also filled this deathly still valley.

“These rocks feel alive to me…” a squad member in a black robe, bearing the triangular Holy Emblem of the God of Death, muttered quietly. “Like some kind of living things, sealed inside these black shells… I keep feeling like they might move at any moment.”

“Control your imagination. Don’t casually paint that kind of image in your mind.” The God of Death priest who came from the Rest, and who had barely spoken a word since they landed, cut off his soldier’s muttering at once.

Duncan glanced at this silent, strange priest of the God of Death. He was a tall, bald man, wearing a black robe. All the skin that showed outside his clothes was covered in dense, complex black rune tattoos. Those countless runes even climbed all the way over his eyelids. It made the priest look strange, gloomy, and frightening.

Because of the awkward tension that still existed between the Death Church and the Vanished, this leading priest did not talk much with Duncan along the way. But when he noticed Duncan looking at him, the odd-looking bald man still turned his head and nodded politely: “Is there something you wish to ask?”

“I remember your name is Norm,” Duncan said with a nod. “After the Frostholm incident ended, a large amount of elements collected from Frostholm’s pipe system was sent to the Death Church headquarters. Do you know about that?”

“I had direct contact with those samples,” Norm answered casually. “They left a deep impression.”

“What do you think of these ‘traces’ on this island?”

“…They share the same source, but they feel different to me,” Norm said after thinking for a moment. His face looked a bit stiff as he answered, but he still spoke seriously. “The ‘samples’ from Frostholm were a cold and disgusting substance. They were in a completely still state, with no more changes happening. But here…”

He paused and bent down to pick up a small stone from the ground.

“Others might not see it from the surface, but I can feel that… the inside is still ‘working’. It is still undergoing slow ‘changes’. It’s hard to describe. It is a sense only we believers of the God of Death can feel. If I have to put it into words… it is like what Miss Shirley said. This whole island is ‘alive’. Even though it has grown quiet again, every part of it is still ‘living’, only in a state that is close to death.”

Duncan nodded slightly and stayed silent for a moment.

From the intelligence they already had, the entire island was formed from the power of the Abyssal Lord. And from what Shirley had seen in those “visions”, it could even be considered a piece of “flesh” torn from the body of the Abyssal Lord. If it was truly the flesh of Elder Gods, then it was not hard to imagine that it could remain alive even after being separated from the main body for tens of thousands of years.

The only thing that felt unbelievable was… that it had evolved into this form at the edge of the Mortal Realm—trees, rocks, soil, streams flowing through the ravines, and all kinds of resources and minerals that could be collected on the island.

The Annihilators had even used the island’s resources to build towns and harbors.

This made Duncan think. What kind of “being” was this so-called Abyssal Lord? Before it became one of the Elder Gods in the age of the Deep Sea, what had the core of “Navigator One”, labeled LH-01, actually been?

And what about Rahm, the God of Wisdom, who also had an LH number and should be called “Navigator Two”? He seemed completely different from the Abyssal Lord, both in power and in “form”… What lay behind that difference? Why did LH-01 and LH-02 differ so much?

For some reason, Duncan felt he was still overlooking something. Besides the numbers LH-01 and LH-02, there seemed to be another question he had never paid attention to…

But his thoughts did not go on.

Shirley, who was leading the way, suddenly slowed down.

“…I ‘saw’ this place before,” she said, blinking as she stood in an open space strewn with gravel. She looked around the misty valley, recalling the scenes from the chaotic visions in her mind. “Those cultists all gathered in this clearing. When the Sun went out, they crowded here, shouting like crazy. They thought they had been ‘enlightened’… Their dumb-ass dig site should be somewhere nearby… This used to be a sealed place. For some reason they never dared come close before. But when the Sun went out, they all lost their minds and stopped being afraid…”

Standing near Shirley, Amber frowned a little.

The young official of the Goddess turned her head toward Vanna: “…I think I just heard Miss Shirley say something very rude without even thinking about it…”

“You only just noticed?” Vanna looked surprised. “She’s always like that.”

Amber: “…?”

Shirley paid no attention to their chat at all. Her focus was completely drawn by the broken memory fragments constantly surfacing in her mind and the strong feeling of familiarity from the valley. She took two steps forward, and the blood-red glow in her eyes swept slowly across the thin fog. Very soon, she sensed a familiar aura coming from ahead.

The aura of the Abyssal Deep.

“This way.” She blinked. The blood-red light faded from her eyes. She raised her hand at once and pointed toward a narrow gap between two cliffs. “They dug down from here!”

It was a rock crack wide enough for two people to walk side by side. It seemed to have been a natural fracture in the canyon, but deeper inside there were clear signs of human excavation and widening. A few digging tools lay scattered around the entrance, but the ones who had used them had already been swallowed clean by the rocks and soil. Those chisel marks were the last proof that they had once existed in this world.

“…The passage below is narrow, and we don’t know what’s down there. We shouldn’t all go in,” Amber said after craning her neck to glance inside. She quickly pulled back and turned to the others. “I suggest most people make camp around the entrance. A small group of elites can go down to check the situation.”

“I’ll take the first team down,” Duncan said at once. “Alice, Shirley, Dog… and Morris—you four come with me. Vanna, you and Amber and Norm stay outside to make camp and keep watch on the island.”

There was good reason for his plan. One of his goals in coming to Sanctum Isle was to confirm what connection, if any, existed between Alice and the Abyssal Lord. So of course he had to bring the doll. Shirley and Dog would be their guides once they went below. Morris was very learned and also an experienced explorer of secret realms. This kind of mission was exactly his field.

But clearly Vanna had other ideas: “You’re not taking me? You might run into enemies down there. You’ll need extra fighting strength…”

“There might be enemies outside too,” Duncan said. Then he leaned forward and peeked into the crack at the cramped space below. He turned back and looked at Vanna with a serious face. “And it’s very low down there. No room to jump.”

Vanna froze, stunned for two or three seconds, before she reacted. She looked a bit awkward: “…I don’t only know that one move…”

But she only muttered that, and soon nodded: “Alright, I understand. We’ll stay here and make camp, and we’ll also do a basic search of the other parts of the valley.”

Duncan nodded lightly: “Good. Keep in touch. If anything happens, call my name at once.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Then Duncan led Morris, Alice, Shirley, and Dog toward the dark entrance that slanted down into the depths.

Vanna watched their figures vanish into the darkness. Only when she saw faint ghostly green flame light appear deeper in the passage did she quietly let out a breath. Then she turned her head and saw Amber standing nearby, staring straight at her with a strange look on her face.

Vanna felt a little awkward: “…Why are you looking at me like that?”

Amber thought for a moment, then could not hold back: “…Under normal circumstances, if something happens, aren’t you supposed to call the Goddess’s name first?”

Vanna’s expression went blank: “…”

The Inquisitor fell into deep thought.

But she soon recovered and looked at the younger junior in front of her with utter seriousness: “You can call both at the same time.”

This time it was Amber’s turn to stare blankly: “…You can?”

“You can.”

“…The Goddess allows it?”

Vanna spoke with pious certainty: “I asked, and He did not object.”

Amber kept staring, stunned: “…?”

Norm stood next to the two of them, his face unreadable (mostly because all his features were covered in tattoos). After a long time, he silently traced the triangular emblem of the God of Death over his chest and let out a long sigh that no one noticed.

At the same time, in the narrow passage that slanted ever downward, Shirley and Dog were moving forward with great care.

ghostly green flame slowly spread along the rock walls on both sides, lighting the path ahead. Shirley held the chain that linked her to Dog in one hand and steadied herself on the cold, smooth stone with the other. Her face was tense.

A faint blood-red glow shimmered at the bottom of her eyes.