Ashes Of Deep Sea

Chapter 147 - 151 The Fear of Profound Demons

Chapter 147: Chapter 151 The Fear of Profound Demons

Duncan bent down to examine the scene.

It was indeed the nun—the same nun who had spoken to Duncan and Sherry not long ago and who, theoretically, should have been praying in the main hall at the moment.

But now she lay here, dead near the entrance of the Underground Sanctuary, and until the moment Duncan pushed the door open, she had been using her body to firmly blockade it.

It seemed she was trying to prevent something from entering the Underground Sanctuary. However, considering her state before she collapsed, it looked as though she had been desperately fighting against something within the Underground Sanctuary and had closed the doors before she died, to stop that thing from getting out.

“It looks… as if she just died…”

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Sherry, bravely edging closer now, peeked over Duncan’s shoulder and after two or three seconds, she cautiously spoke up.

“Yes, it seems she hasn’t been dead for long, even…” Duncan said, as he placed his hand on the nun’s arm, “she still has warmth.”

The body at the entrance of the Underground Sanctuary retained a residual warmth. Her horrendously wounded body was smeared with blood that had yet to dry, which gave Duncan the impression that the battle in the basement had still been ongoing when he and Sherry had first stepped into the church; the nun was alive at that time, and even… she might have still been breathing when they began to explore the church.

But that was impossible.

The church had been deserted for eleven years, and the supernatural phenomena in the Plunder City-State had occurred eleven years ago as well. If this church was indeed a “key node” on the curtain, then everything here should have happened and ended eleven years ago. The nun, who fought in the Underground Sanctuary until her last moment, couldn’t possibly have just drawn her last breath now.

With a grave expression, Duncan slowly stood up and directed his gaze towards the opposite side of the door.

As he had expected, the community church’s Underground Sanctuary was nothing more than a slightly spacious basement. There was no light in the sanctuary, not even the Everlasting Oil Lamps and gas lamps that were supposed to ward off evil spirits; all were extinguished. Only the faint light pouring in through the doorway illuminated the interior, where in the dimness, one could vaguely make out the silent figure of a female deity’s statue standing in the center of the basement. Pillars adorned with scriptural tapestries lined both sides of the sanctuary, along with niches for storing Holy Artifacts.

Duncan stepped over the nun’s body and began to search for traces of battle within the basement. He spotted cuts and notches on the walls and columns, pits from gunshots, and scorches from flames—all signs of combat.

But he could not find the “enemy”—the “invader” the nun had desperately fought against before her death.

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He turned his head to look at the Abyssal Hound following behind Sherry, keeping its head low and cautiously scanning the surroundings: “Ah-Gou, can you make anything out?”

“Signs of severe time-space distortion… It doesn’t seem to have the same kind of ‘reality overlap’ phenomenon as above in the surface church, but the time-space distortion here is more severe than anywhere else,” Ah-Gou spoke with extra seriousness. As the only Transcendent expert in the trio, its analysis was clearly much more systematic than Duncan’s wild guesses. “To my eyes, the entire Underground Sanctuary is shrouded in a thin mist. The incorrect time-space has completely replaced reality, but… aside from the time-space distortion, I can’t find anything else.”

“What about the ‘invader’ who attacked this place?” Duncan frowned, “The nun couldn’t possibly have been fighting air in a battle of wits, could she?”

“There are no invaders,” Ah-Gou sniffed—though it didn’t have a respiratory system—”no scent of living beings, nor the scent of Profound Demons or creatures from the Spirit Realm.”

Pausing, it then added, “Please trust my judgment in this regard; the Abyssal Hounds excel at hunting. Distinguishing the scent of prey in the environment is a basic skill for a predator, unless…”

Duncan raised his eyebrows, “Unless?”

Ah-Gou quickly glanced around, seemingly becoming very cautious. It lowered its voice as it approached Duncan, “Unless something from the Subspace slipped out… I can’t track that, but if it is something from the Subspace, you should be more familiar with it than I am…”

At that, Duncan instantly became expressionless, “Sorry, not familiar with it.”

Ah-Gou quickly lowered its head, “If you… If you say you’re not familiar, then you’re not familiar…”

“”

Duncan pondered for a moment. He knew that A-Gou certainly didn’t believe his words, but he was indeed not familiar with Subspace. On the other hand, A-Gou’s words had reminded him—

He recalled the crack he had glimpsed in the main hall of the church while observing the statue of the Storm Goddess, the chaotic light and shadows leaking from that crack, and the bizarre visions he had seen under the hull of Homeloss.

Could it really be something from Subspace that had gotten out?

“If it really is something that escaped from Subspace,” Duncan furrowed his brows as if talking to himself, “how could it directly break into the Storm Goddess’s Sanctuary? Isn’t this supposed to be the place with the strongest defenses? And from the traces at the scene, the invader doesn’t seem to have broken in from outside; rather, it appears to have materialized in the Sanctuary and launched an attack outward…”

“I don’t know about that,” A-Gou shook his head, “the secrets of the Four Great Churches are a blind spot in the knowledge of Profound Demons, and Subspace is universally recognized as taboo. Even fear demons wouldn’t pry into such secrets—actually, in my eyes, humans are an even crazier race than demons when it comes to this field. They dare to study Subspace and haven’t had any accidents for so many years…”

“Human beings have always been a very bold race,” Duncan casually remarked and then looked at A-Gou, “but I am somewhat surprised. Mysterious Deep Sea is closely adjacent to Subspace, yet you Profound Demons are more afraid of that place than humans? Isn’t Subspace essentially right next to your home?”

“People who live next to volcanoes don’t drink lava because they like it,” A-Gou drooped his head, explaining to the boss, “Living next to Subspace makes us more aware than humans of how terrifying it is to fall into it.”

Duncan became thoughtful and asked the question he hadn’t managed to ask last time: “…So that’s why you, like humans, are also afraid of Homeloss’s return from Subspace?”

A-Gou shrank his neck, very cautiously glanced at Duncan as if afraid that discussing this topic might inadvertently anger the owner of Homeloss before him. But since the boss had started the topic, he dared not continue, so he just honestly said, “Actually… if Homeloss had only returned from Subspace that wouldn’t be so scary. The key is, during the initial period, the ship kept ‘falling’ back into reality from Subspace, like oscillating between two dimensions, passing through Subspace and reality again and again…”

Duncan had simply asked casually, but he didn’t expect to hear such information. Suddenly his heart stirred, “Oscillating between reality and Subspace?”

“Yes, every time it would pierce through Spirit Realm and Mysterious, dragging along everything it encountered on its way, like a wildly careening cannonball,” A-Gou said with an obvious residual fear, “I even remember a terrifying scene to this day. The ship, like an everlasting comet of fire, fell from the upper layers, flames enfolding screaming humans and a distorted hull. The fight-blind Profound Demons scattered in panic, but in the blink of an eye, they were swept into the flames by the immense force, and those humans were instantly merged into strange, twisted clumps that were then shredded and scattered into the depths of the Mysterious…

“Homeloss smashed through various dimensions this way, and fell deep into Subspace, then after a couple of days, it came out from below again, and… did it all over once more.”

As A-Gou spoke, he swallowed hard, and the sound of rough friction and the movement of corrosive substances came from his throat.

“At that time, even some of the blinder and duller Profound Demons halted their struggles temporarily. Every day, they would just blankly stare in the direction of Spirit Realm, fear even surpassing slaughter to become their new instinct… and I was one of the ones with the deepest imprint of fear at that time.”

Duncan listened with a wooden expression and finally managed to get a word out: “Then… I see why you have such a big psychological shadow now.”

A-Gou dared to lift his head and look at Duncan, “You… you really didn’t know about these things?”

Duncan nearly lost control of his expression—he didn’t know crap! He didn’t do this! Why should he have to shoulder such an old, hefty blame?!

But his complaints were confined to muttering in his heart. In front of A-Gou, he could only continue to keep a straight face: “…Maybe I wasn’t paying attention.”

A-Gou: “…”

Seeing the deeply stricken look on this Abyssal Hound, Duncan let out a sigh and had to add: “I’ll pay attention in the future.”

His tone was very sincere.

A-Gou was moved and dared not make a move.

Meanwhile, Duncan fell into brief contemplation afterward.

If everything A-Gou said was true, did that mean Homeloss… had gone through a period of complete loss of control? It wasn’t simply returning from Subspace, but rather, for a considerable amount of time, it had been ‘oscillating’ between reality and Subspace?!