Chapter 736

Chapter 736: Leaving Sanctuary Island

The “Black Gate” deep in the cavern had been closed, yet more and more Abyssal demons were still crawling out all across Sanctuary Island. This little island, formed from a piece of the Abyssal Lord’s flesh, was trembling. Deep rumbles and strange buzzing sounds rolled through the mist like noises from a giant beast’s belly. Countless weird shapes flickered in and out of sight in the fog. Every second, shadows turned solid and wildly attacked the uninvited guests who had stepped onto the island.

Duncan and his group left the cavern. After they met up safely with Vanna, Amber, and the others who had been holding the valley, they began to fall back toward the coast.

The ground shook. From deep in the valley came the sharp crack and boom of breaking rock. Chaotic howls and mad muttering spread like a nightmare in every direction. Nameless shadows gathered in the mist. Cold air carried malice from all sides as it howled past the jagged stones on the cliffs. In the swirling fog, even the rocks on the cliff faces seemed to slowly come to life. Huge limbs hung down from the heights. Those vine-like limbs bent and shivered, making wet swallowing and chewing sounds. Dirty black mud dripped from them, and every drop that hit the ground hissed and sent up curls of dark smoke.

Even the Church warriors, who often operated in the border seas, could not help feeling tense. The marines gripped their enchanted steel swords, consecrated lanterns, and charm amulets as they moved, watching the restless shadows along the path. Amber walked beside Vanna with a longsword in one hand and, in the other, a consecrated lantern carved with storm sigils. As she walked she softly recited prayers to the Storm Goddess. Gentle wave?sounds whispered in the minds of the warriors, shielding their thoughts so they would not be tempted or corrupted by the demons’ whispers. The death priest, whose body was covered in tattoos, walked at the very front carrying a casket of Sacred Bone Ash. Beside him the fog briefly drew back, and the shapes of the demons faded. A temporarily calm road opened before them for the journey back.

Once Duncan saw that these Church warriors truly had enough strength to handle the trouble on the road and bring everyone back safely, he relaxed. He walked calmly at the back of the group and put more of his energy into thinking.

After some time, they made it through the wild inner part of the island and finally stepped onto the main road leading to the pier—the coast was already close.

The roar of guns and explosions came from deep within the fog ahead. Now and then huge flames leapt up into the air, like a bursting sunrise that lit and burned red a wide stretch of sky. The sight was shocking.

Amber came over and said: “replicas shaped like ships and large wandering demons have already started showing up on the sea nearby. Our fleet is fighting those monsters.” The young priest of the Goddess held a longsword in one hand and, in the other, a consecrated lantern carved with storm patterns. Her face looked very serious. “They report that one side of Sanctuary Island is slowly… changing shape. Some of the sea cliffs seem to be softening and collapsing downward. It has not affected this side yet, but the whole island is clearly… coming to life, in some way.”

Duncan lifted his head. He looked at the huge boulders in the mountains that kept coming alive in the mist, and at the black tentacles that had grown from the nearby slopes and were curling and spreading toward the low ground. He nodded lightly.

“This island is just as Shirley said. It really is a piece of the Abyssal Lord’s flesh. The whole island is a section of one of His tentacles that pierced into the Mortal Realm,” Duncan said. “And now it seems He has started to correct that ‘mistake’.”

“…It is a pity about all the truths buried here,” Amber pressed her lips together and said: “If we had more time, we could have explored this island properly. Those Annihilators sat here for at least a few centuries. There must still be countless dark and sinful secrets hidden here… maybe even secret bases and lists of their agents hidden inside the city?states…”

Hearing Amber mutter with a bit of regret, Duncan did not answer. He only watched the island as it kept collapsing and twisting, and could not help recalling the vast ‘mountain range’ he had seen at the bottom of the Abyssal Deep—majestic, grand, and yet shrouded in sorrow and darkness.

Ten thousand years had passed. The “Navigator One” that had once been meant to rebuild the ecosystem had, in its runaway growth, turned into a huge twisted monster. Its limbs pierced the Abyssal Deep Sea, stabbed into Subspace, and reached into the Mortal Realm, yet it still had not stopped growing.

This made Duncan think that even if the Boundless Sea had never “malfunctioned”, even if Vision 001 – the Sun could keep supporting it, the ever?growing Navigator One alone would still have been enough to bring another doomsday.

And that doomsday would not be far away. Perhaps, on some day within the next hundred years, Navigator One’s exponentially growing body would fill the whole Abyssal Deep and the Deep Sea. Then it would spread at a mad speed into every dimension. His tentacles would stab through every city?state and coil over the whole sea, wrapping around every ship that sailed there, until every solid thing in the mortal world was swallowed again by its “creator” and turned once more into black mud and writhing tentacles.

…Was this the same scene those Annihilators saw in their visions of mental derangement? Just as they preached—on some day in the future, the Abyssal Lord would return to this pitiful world. The elements would burst up from the depths of the world and turn everything back into a pure, original state…

In a way, those mad cultists really had seen part of this world’s “truth” in their mental derangement. Maybe it was during brief links with the Abyssal Lord. Maybe it happened while they turned themselves into demons and touched the elements as they pleased. They had seen the future and then explained that terrible future in whatever way they were willing to understand.

Duncan drew in a slow breath and gently shook his head.

Navigator One had invited him to “take over” this Sanctuary World and hoped that, in the process, Duncan would burn away his huge body that had already gone completely out of control. Navigator One had calmly admitted that this would be a kind of “release”—release from a long mission.

It seemed that sustaining this Sanctuary World really was a long and bitter task, enough to leave even an ancient “machine” tired and filled with despair.

In his heart, Duncan once again firmed his resolve to find another way.

Keeping this Sanctuary World as it was would never be a good choice—at least, it was not the best one.

After a journey that was dangerous but ended without disaster, the landing party finally returned to the hidden pier, shielded by the inner bay and the sea cliffs. The small boats they had used to come here still waited at the shore, rocking in the restless water.

The landing skiff lowered from the Vanished rocked the most—and it was rocking upright.

In short, the whole boat had its bow pointed at the sky, stuck in the shallows like a weed, bouncing and swaying. Only when Duncan and the others showed up did it finally flop back onto the water with a loud “bang”. Then it wagged its oars, swung its stern, and rushed to the shore on its own, bobbing in excitement and slapping its own sides with the oars.

Duncan: “…”

Lucretia stared at the little boat for a while, then lowered her head and muttered to Duncan: “Dad, I kind of don’t want to get on that boat anymore…”

“It is a bit embarrassing,” Duncan stayed silent for a few seconds, then sighed softly. “But let’s still get on. We’ve already come this far. If we take the pigeons right in front of it, this thing might just sink itself on the spot. There are already enough ghost ships in this world. If we add one more furious landing skiff to the list, it will be hard to explain to people later…”

Lucretia sighed and, with mixed feelings, could only follow Father onto the small boat.

The three fast boats left the pier and sped toward the mouth of the small bay, toward the thick fog that kept flashing with light and booming with noise.

Just as they left the bay’s mouth and could already see several main warships anchored on the nearby sea, Shirley suddenly seemed to feel something. She jerked around on the small boat and looked back toward the island.

Her eyes, filled with a faint bloody light, slowly widened—

“ The island is starting to sink!”

In a series of dull, thunder?like booms, the whole Sanctuary Island collapsed and sagged like some soft matter that had lost its support. Its sea cliffs melted downward. Black sludge seeped out from every bit of soil and rock. Huge tentacles and jagged limbs burst through the softening cliffs and coast, thrashing madly in the rising water. Countless frenzied demons ran and howled among the crumbling rock walls. They seemed to want to escape, but some unseen force tugged at them so they could not leave the bounds of Sanctuary Island. They could only “sink” along with the island…

Duncan noticed that Sanctuary Island was not really sinking into the sea. Instead, it was dissolving, melting away at the surface of the water.

Navigator One was slowly pulling back this limb that had wrongly stretched into the Mortal Realm.

Even though the collapse of the Sanctuary World was already close at hand and his own runaway state could no longer be reversed, he still tried, within the limits of his power, to repair the system’s errors and push back the final breaking point.

But… how many more times could this kind of delay still work?

Duncan and Alice sat at the stern of the small boat and looked back at Sanctuary Island, which was almost completely “dissolved” into the sea. Its final outline shook in the thickening fog like a dream that was slowly drifting away.

Before that outline fully vanished, Duncan faintly heard a voice. It was a low vibration carried on the breeze.

“Do not forget our pact, bearer of the Flame Usurper…”

Duncan felt someone grab his arm. He turned his head. In the fog, the clearest thing he saw was Alice’s deep violet eyes.

“I heard him speaking, Captain.”

“I heard him too, Alice. Can you still find the place where he is?”

“Yes,” Alice nodded, then scratched her hair. “But I don’t really know how I do it. I just feel that… if you need it, I can still take you to him, because I remember… the ‘road’.”

Duncan nodded slightly. “That is enough.”

Alice hesitated for a moment and then asked, very carefully: “Then… will we go back to find him?”

“I think… we will.”

“Then about when?”

“…At least before the world’s doomsday.”