Deep Sea Embers - Chapter 689

[Chapter 678 “Pilgrimage”]

to the Ark – Ever since the day he saw these “giant ships” that looked like small city-states with his own eyes, and since he learned about the continuous “patrol” of these behemoths on the sea, Duncan has been fascinated by these amazing creations. Doubts arose.

What does it mean to patrol the Ark? Their special “patrol” behavior… is it just “patrol”?

People in the city-state often say that patrolling the ark represents the power of the four gods. They are the symbol of the church’s highest force and are also the “palace” of the four righteous gods in the world. The church ordered the ark to patrol the boundless sea in order to deter those heretics. , in order to protect the city-state from being contaminated by some malicious existence in the subspace. At first, Duncan had no doubts about this statement, but as he came into more and more contact with the Four Gods Church, especially from Vanna and Maurice , after learning more and more inside stories related to the church from Agatha, he discovered doubts.

Those who are really responsible for fighting against heretics are the judges and guardian systems of each city-state. Those who are really responsible for intercepting heretics and rescuing voyagers at sea are the regular fleets of the Four Gods Church. Those who are really responsible for guarding against subspace pollution and consolidating the defense of city-states. , are the bells of the church, the prayers of the bishop, and the strictly planned church-bell tower system, but the four majestic cruising arks…in fact have never participated in anything related to the world.

They spend three-quarters of the year patrolling some hidden routes. These routes are invisible and unfathomable to the world. They seem to be located between the cracks of real dimensions and far away from any city. The remaining During the time, they take turns patrolling near the “Eternal Curtain” on the border, only having minimal communication with the church’s border fleet, and will not deal with any city-state – they will even deliberately avoid the patrol fleet of the border city-state.

Only on rare occasions would these arks dock in the city-state—for example, after a major event like the Black Sun of Pland happened, they would appear in front of the world.

Apart from this, these arks will no longer have any connection with the earthly world. Even within the four major churches, they are always shrouded in a mysterious mist – the vast majority of priests will never have the opportunity to set foot on a pilgrim ark in their lifetime. , only the chosen ones who are listed as “saints” are eligible to be taken to the Ark during the apprenticeship period, but they can only move in the designated area, and will be sent back to their original place after completing the necessary learning and training. The city where they are located – these “saints” will never have the opportunity to come into contact with the real secret of the Ark.

All these clues indicate that the existence of the “Pilgrimage Ark” itself is full of huge doubts – their true role has been hidden.

Now, Duncan finally has his answer.

“…The current four pilgrim arks were built decades ago. Before these ‘giant ships’ were put into use, the four major churches actually had the previous generation of ‘arks’, but they were completely incomparable with the four church ships today. …”

Frame’s voice was low, and his words seemed to flow from the rock, with a calmness that was subconsciously relaxing and convincing.

“The ‘arks’ of the church of the previous generation were actually just large ships. At that time, they were only part of the Holy See’s patrol fleet and a part of the armed force. They were not as mysterious as they are today, and they were not as isolated from the world as they are today.

“Today’s ‘church ships’ are on another level entirely. They are not so much four ‘big ships’… In fact, strictly speaking, they are more like four ‘anchors’, used to connect the minds of the gods. Anchored at some ‘balance point’ beyond this world. “

Duncan didn’t speak, he just looked at the opposite side with a serious expression – he knew that Frame’s explanations were specifically for him, and the other popes and bishops attending the gathering here were all from the Pilgrimage Ark. These people Obviously they are all “insiders” of the truth.

“… Who was the one who first noticed the truth… It is actually impossible to verify. It was a series of ‘revelation’ and ‘inspiration’. We heard the murmuring truth in the prayers.” , seeing the accumulation of darkness and corruption in the illusion brought by incense, the four of us felt the ‘pull’ from outside the world more than once. The gods led our thoughts to a chaotic and vast place, allowing We see their death and haze…and in this process, the connection between the earthly priests and the four gods began to be frequently interrupted…that was probably around 1822. Frame

paused briefly as he spoke, while Lucretia, who was sitting not far to Duncan’s right, seemed to suddenly think of something: “In 1822… the ‘Cold Harbor Silence’ incident?” ! “

Yes, the Cold Harbor Silence – that’s famous, but really it’s just a microcosm, a microcosm of the biggest impact in a series of deteriorating situations that were left behind because of the inability to fully deal with the aftermath. “

The answer was not from Frame, but from Banst, who was sitting next to Frame. The black-robed Pope of Death had a hoarse voice, and his old face was as pale as a dead man. “All the priests in the entire city-state

suddenly Losing contact with Bartok, the God of Death, during the twenty-four hours of ‘silence’, they heard a continuous and terrifying hollow roar and roar coming from their minds that only they themselves could hear. , and then the dirty blood flowed out from the ‘Holy Cathedral’, and the city-state archbishop was martyred and melted into the dirty blood to protect the cathedral – according to subsequent statistics, a total of seventeen priests were martyred in ‘Silence’, and another seventy-seven People fell into permanent madness, and their minds collapsed because they witnessed things outside the real world…

“And according to my judgment, in the twenty years after that, the ‘Silence’ incident was still having a lasting follow-up impact – God The temporary disappearance of the power of shelter led to the weakening of the protection of the real dimension in the Lenglie Sea area. The influence of the subspace, the deep and the spiritual world took advantage of the situation. With Lenggang as the center, the Lenglie Sea city-states were born during that period. The number of ‘natural psykers’ is almost more than that of all other city-states in the world combined.”

Banster stopped and set his sights on Rune.

“Yes, as Banster said, the Silent Event of Cold Harbor in 1822 was just a microcosm,” Rune nodded. “The real situation is that over a long period of time, across the entire Infinite Sea, with The relationship between the gods is becoming difficult and even… dangerous. Daily prayers often lose responses, but the worse situation is that they get undue ‘responses’. The protection of city-states is weakening, and ocean voyages There were more and more strange things happening, and in the revelations and visions one after another… we finally confirmed the terrible ‘state’ of the gods.” The

hall became quiet.

The gods are dead – Duncan knew this, and so did the followers around Duncan, as did the four popes and the bishops who visited the Ark. But when this matter was brought to light, everyone knew it. When the intelligence and past events were spread out and linked to the Great Annihilation, a strange depressive atmosphere still inevitably spread at the scene.

“…So, you built a huge pilgrim ark to strengthen the connection with the gods and slow down their ‘decay’ process…” Duncan broke the silence, “I am very specific about this process.” I’m not interested in the principle. I just want to know to what extent is the ‘effect’ of what you did? Does it really work? Just now Frame said that the ‘delay’ effect of the Ark has reached its limit. What’s going on? ?”

“It worked, at least at first,” Helena nodded, “The Ark is the anchor of the gods, and the ‘death’ of the gods is a long and complicated process. Strictly speaking, this The death process itself cannot be stopped at all – it is as irreversible as the operation of the laws of the world, but the existence of the ‘anchor’ can at least keep the gods in a relatively stable state until they completely ‘disappear’. And according to our initial estimates… it should work for at least centuries, or even thousands of years.

“Our initial thought was that if there could be such a long ‘buffer time’, maybe we would have a chance to find other ways to Further delay the decay process of the gods, and even find… find…”

Helena suddenly stopped, as if some words were difficult to say directly. It seemed that even though she and several other popes had taken action for this, she still Unwilling to admit certain “facts”.

Rune, Banster and Frame also fell silent with complicated expressions.

Beside Duncan, Lucretia frowned in confusion, while Nina and Shirley Unable to help but full of curiosity, Maurice opened his mouth thoughtfully, but hesitated.

The soft and illusory sound of the waves appeared in Duncan’s ears, and a faint whisper seemed to come to him from behind a thick curtain. Whispering, he was in a trance and looked down at the table in front of him.

A faint trace of water appeared on the table and quickly dissipated.

He looked at the trace of water and raised his head to look at Helena opposite.

“Found it” Substitute, right? “

Helena opened her eyes wide and looked at Duncan in astonishment.

Duncan just shook his head without explaining anything. After a few seconds of silence, he whispered thoughtfully: “…But Only a few decades have passed, which is far from the ‘centuries’ you expected. “

Yes, the situation has deteriorated worse than we imagined,” Banster’s voice was hoarse and gloomy. “We thought that the current ‘balanced state’ of the gods might last for thousands of years, but the power of decay and decay has begun to invade.” Throughout the world, the Ark’s ‘Pilgrimage’ activities were originally intended to strengthen the connection between the gods and the earthly world, but now, half of our time is spent trying to find ways to ‘filter’ out the pollution they emit in the process of decay… …

“This makes us… doubly sad.”

Banster ended his words with a sigh.

Duncan broke the silence after a moment of thinking: “So, you have taken new actions – the fleets assembled in the border waters?”

(End of this chapter)