novelburst
Chapter 144: 148 Overlapping
Chapter 144: 148 Overlapping
Chapter 144: Chapter 148 Overlapping
A swift white shadow darted through the old and dirty alleyways of the Lower City District, over the crisscrossing pipes and pressure-relief structures above the factory area, past desolate stations and deserted streets, and finally slipped into a narrow, shabby lane.
A pale green flame suddenly bloomed, spreading wildly in the air like a doorway, and the vortex within the gate briefly expanded before Duncan stepped out from it.
Immediately following was the still somewhat dazed Sherry.
Duncan looked back at the girl behind him, gave her a once-over, then spoke in a deep voice, “How do you feel? Is there any discomfort?”
“I… I’m okay,” Sherry was still reeling, but her confusion was more due to the disorientation caused by suddenly being whisked through dimensions by the big shot rather than any physical discomfort. She looked up at Ai Yi, who had returned to its Bone Dove form and was now perched on Duncan’s shoulder, and after a long pause, she finally reached out with telepathy to communicate with A Dog, who was hidden within her Spiritual Body, “A Dog, can you beat this dove?”
“…Don’t ask, the answer is no,” A Dog’s voice sounded muffled, “Not just birds raised by the big shot, but even fish stewed by him, I can’t beat…”
Sherry was taken aback, “Why suddenly mention fish?”
“Because I can tell that, with this person, there is likely nothing that abides by common sense…”
Duncan didn’t know that Sherry was whispering with A Dog; he was simply rechecking Sherry’s condition and sensing the state of the mark he had left on her. Only then did he completely ease his mind.
In fact, he was confident in Ai Yi’s ability to transport living beings, not only because he had tested it with his own now-mortal body but also because, after that, he had Ai Yi perform numerous “live experiments” with various animals on the outside. All the tests were perfect, confirming that the dove could safely transport living targets—but even with so many tests, he still subconsciously checked on Sherry’s condition.
After all, Ai Yi was mysterious and filled with puzzles, and no one knew how many special traits it had yet to reveal. Using the “Bone Dove Express” warranted extra caution.
After confirming Sherry’s condition, he then turned his attention to their surroundings.
The view before him was a quiet, mean lane, at the end of which one could faintly see the old street scenery, with decrepit piping facilities stretched overhead from houses on both sides, some of their connections leaking slight hisses of steam.
This was a common sight in many areas of the Lower City District.
But Sherry immediately realized where they were.
“Is this… the Sixth District?” She widened her eyes in surprise, “Mr. Duncan, did you sense the mark appear here?”
“Yes, the Sixth District, we’ve come back here but…” Duncan exhaled slowly, then frowned lightly, “but the sensation of the mark faded a minute ago.”
“…Faded? Did it go out?”
Sherry asked in surprise, but Duncan didn’t give an answer, instead looking thoughtfully in a certain direction.
In Sherry’s “Dreamscape,” he had implanted a flame within the remnants left after the Assailants split, instructing it to return to its “original body.” Shortly after, he lost the sensation of that flame as Sherry’s Dreamscape ended—until just now, when the mark suddenly appeared in his awareness again, guiding him here.
To the Sixth District in the real world.
The Spiritual Body fire that should have spread within the Dreamscape had suddenly sent signals back in the real world—Sherry’s own Dreamscape, the fringes of which connected with the scenes from Nina’s dream, the umbrella monster that attacked Sherry in the nightmare had appeared at the real fire scene at the museum…
Unconsciously, many contradictory yet vaguely connected clues linked together in Duncan’s mind, feeling as if he was about to touch that invisible veil.
Or rather, that vast veil, although shrouding the entire City-State, still retained a “gap” somewhere in the Sixth District—at some place they had previously overlooked.
He looked towards the last direction from which the mark sent a “signal” in his perception.
The trace of the mark only appeared for a short period and had quickly faded away a minute ago, but Duncan did not think the flame he left behind had been extinguished—despite not being able to pinpoint its location accurately, he could still sense that the flame was still burning, and even growing stronger than before.
Since the flame still burned and grew, it indicated that its “mission” was not yet over—it was still chasing, consuming, and assimilating the Assailant, even possibly spreading into a large fire. Its brief appearance in the Sixth District followed by a quick retreat could be due to an unstable “veil” in this area, with a gap that had briefly opened and closed, causing a crossover connection between two dimensional worlds.
He needed to find that gap, the one that seemed to connect the Dreamscape and reality.
Days later, Duncan was leading Sherry through the desolate and dilapidated streets of District Six once again, this time they didn’t waste their time asking the locals for information but headed straight to the deepest part of the district.
“That abandoned factory is in a different direction…” Halfway, Sherry lifted her arm and pointed to a large building in the distance.
“We’re not going to that factory,” Duncan said quickly, “this way.”
“Oh…”
Sherry followed his response, scurrying to keep up with Duncan’s pace.
The withered leaves drifted with the wind, landing under Sherry’s feet. As she stepped on them, the light crackling sound of breaking beneath her seemed like the crunch of charred wood, or the faint popping of tiny flames.
She looked around, only to see the ordinary streets, with old houses lined along, standing amid the falling leaves, facing the intruders with cold indifference.
Suddenly, Sherry noticed something was wrong.
She realized she hadn’t seen a single pedestrian for some time.
District Six was indeed quiet, with few pedestrians in most parts, and the few residents who were there seemed listless, indifferent, and solitary. But it was never so deserted that there were no people at all!
An uncomfortable feeling began to spread from the bottom of her heart, eerily reminding her of the dreamscape where she had been trapped. She subconsciously moved closer to Duncan, not expecting him to suddenly stop—thump, she bumped into his back.
In the next second, Sherry had prepared her entire last will in her mind, and envisioned three styles of tombstones, but it quickly occurred to her that those crushed by the Subspace Shadow likely wouldn’t leave a body behind…
Duncan’s calm voice interrupted the girl’s fleeting chaotic thoughts: “It seems we have arrived.”
“I’m very, very sorry I really didn’t mean to please you…huh?”
With an instinctive burst of apologies, Sherry then realized that the dignified figure before her didn’t seem angered. Following this, she noticed that she had stopped in front of a building that looked long-forgotten.
It was a church.
A community church commonly found in Plunder City-State stood at the end of this small path.
It had the characteristic slim spires of Deep Sea churches, black roof tiles, and white stone walls, but they were covered with hanging withered vines and decayed filth. The grand doors, although slightly ajar and featuring complicated sacred runes, were starting to decay. The stained-glass windows were also shattered, nearly reduced to twisted iron shapes. Through the cracks in the door and the holes in the windows, one could dimly see a shadowy interior.
This had once been a sacred place, but an aura of ruin and abandonment now permeated every crack between its bricks.
“…Is this the ‘church’ that old man near the intersection mentioned last time?” Sherry recalled their last investigation in District Six, “I remember he said a nun lived here, but that nun wasn’t often in the church…”
“It’s beyond just ‘not often’ to explain this level of disrepair,” said Duncan casually, as he stepped toward the church door, “rather than the nun being out often, it seems this place has been forgotten for as long as eleven years.”
Sherry watched him walk towards the church, instinctively feeling averse and tense about the building. However, after a moment of hesitation, she still followed Duncan’s footsteps.
The next moment, Duncan pushed open the church door that was ajar, and the inside scenery of the small church became vividly clear to both him and Sherry.
Warm, bright candlelight caught Sherry’s eye. The clean and tidy small church was lit up brightly, and at the end of the neatly arranged pews, the statue of the Storm Goddess Gomona stood silently amidst the light.
A nun, who had been kneeling in front of the statue praying devoutly, heard the door and stood up, turning around.
She saw the visitors at the entrance, her face revealing a gentle smile: “It’s been a very long time since anyone visited this church.”
“Oh… it seems we’ve got the right place,” Duncan said quietly, looking at the smiling nun with a composed expression, “the breach in the veil.”
He blinked, and in his eyes, the smiling nun at one moment retained the appearance of a living person, but at the next, became a heap of writhing human-shaped ashes. Behind her, the church exhibited a bizarre superimposed state—the flames burned fiercely on the intact pews; ash and sparks fell from the ceiling; the scene after the fire and the intact church overlapped in a strange and tearing display.
It was as if two entirely different realities had been forcibly merged within this church.