Chapter 184: Chapter 188 The Maniac
The clues seemed to be connecting.
The history of Plunder exhibited signs of contamination, and within the small church in the sixth district lay a twisted, sealed spatial rift. On the sacred statue of the Storm Goddess hid a bizarre Subspace crack, and Subspace… could contaminate everything outside of it.
Sherry was one of the few who remembered the great fire of that year. When the fire roared to life, she should have perished like everyone else, but she somehow merged with an Abyssal Hound and survived in a daze. While everyone’s perception was twisted due to the contamination of history, she retained the memories of the fire from that time.
Now, a group of Doomsday Preachers had attacked Sherry—these madmen worshipping Subspace were delirious and spouted nonsense, yet every sentence did not stray from “correct history” and “loopholes”.
Of course, Duncan would not believe the absurd “truths” they spoke, and he listened contrarily to their version of the “correct history”. But one thing was clear—these Heretics were inextricably linked to the chaos of Plunder City-State’s history, and the Subspace force behind them was the arch-culprit of everything. And those like Sherry, who remembered the fire of that year… were the archenemies in the eyes of the fanatics who sought to contaminate reality with incorrect history.
But not all questions had been answered.
How did these lunatics suddenly find Sherry, this “loophole”? What was the connection between historical contamination and the “Black Sun”? The Black Sun did not possess the capability to contaminate history, so what role did the “Sun God” play in all this? And most importantly…
Nina, the suspected carrier of the Sun Shard, would she also be targeted by these Heretics?
Duncan’s gaze was icy as he watched the three delirious Doomsday Preachers, slightly lifting a finger—a cluster of ghostly green flames suddenly ignited on one of them, scorching the body of the Heretic, which could be considered a “Transcendent item”. He suddenly screamed and curled up on the ground, which also brought sudden quiet to the other Doomsday Preachers.
“Fire… blasphemous fire…” one Heretic’s eyes bulged, even the delirious and pain-desensitized followers of Subspace revealed fear upon seeing the green flames, “Blasphemy, blasphemy… oh you blasphemous thing!”
“If you don’t want to be consumed by fierce flames, then continue to cooperate with my questions,” Duncan commanded flames to rise up from the deck, creating an interwoven net of fire that surrounded the three Heretics, searing their spirits and bodies, “I ask you, how exactly do you contaminate history? Did it start in the sixth district?”
“We are bringing history back on track!” Even intimidated by the Spectral Flames, the Doomsday Preachers did not abandon their spiel. One of them threw back his head and shouted, “The sixth district… The sixth district was just a failed attempt, but it was nothing, nothing…”
The sixth district was just a failed attempt?
Duncan immediately furrowed his brow, the other party did not answer directly, but still revealed some crucial information!
Firstly, the great fire of that year was indeed the work of these Subspace followers and not, as he had initially thought, merely a wildfire caused by the manifestation of the Sun Shard. Secondly, these Heretics’ attempt to contaminate history appeared not to have been entirely successful—the fire from eleven years ago did not achieve the expected effect!
Following that, another key year number suddenly came to mind—1885.
That was the number Fenna discovered in the Underground Sanctuary of the small church, pointing to the year the Nun perished in battle, which should theoretically mark the time when the church was invaded by Subspace forces.
And the fire that erupted eleven years ago took place in 1889, four years after the death of the Nun.
This meant that four years after the church was invaded, these Doomsday Preachers orchestrated the fire of 1889—which they referred to as a “failed attempt”.
A timeline seemed to gradually clear up in Duncan’s mind.
“You actually failed twice,” Duncan said solemnly, watching the Doomsday Preacher being scorched by the Spectral Flame, “In 1885, you invaded a small chapel, hoping to spread historical contamination from there as the origin. But a nun sacrificed her life to thwart your plans, sealing that year’s ‘invasion’ and her own ‘death’ in the Underground Sanctuary;
“Four years later, in 1889, you launched a second plan to start a huge fire in the 6th district where the chapel was located, aiming to overwrite reality with a historical branch where a ‘City-State was destroyed by raging fire.’ But once again, you failed. The fire was erased without a trace by an unknown force and couldn’t continue to burn…
“Then you lurked in the City-State until today, always looking for opportunities to continue this plan. Until you found Sherry—a loophole, thinking the failure of the original plan was related to her survival, and so you wanted to eliminate this ‘risk’ first?”
The Spectral Flame blazed fiercely, and the Doomsday Preacher curled up within it. Even a body that knew no pain seemed to struggle against the agony of the soul being directly incinerated. However, the madman showed no intention of answering the question; instead, he slowly stretched his lips into a spine-chilling smile as he looked at Duncan.
“You don’t have to answer, I can see the answer in your eyes—you mock and resent, which means I’m right,” Duncan continued calmly, unaffected by the provocation, “I have another question… What exactly is your connection with ‘Black Sun’? Was the fire of 1889 ignited by a Sun Shard… did you orchestrate that?”
The Doomsday Preacher remained silent.
Duncan spread the flames to the other two individuals, watching them curl up and convulse in the fire, but still not receiving a word in response.
“If you won’t talk, then I can only guess,” Duncan sighed, waving his hand to dispel the flames—he had realized that such simple “suffering” had no meaning for these madmen who embraced Subspace. Their body and mind had long since mutated into something inhuman, “I guess, you have some sort of cooperation with those Sun Believers… No, perhaps you collaborate with the Scions of the Sun behind those believers? You help those Scions of the Sun resurrect their ‘master,’ and the way to resurrect… is by summoning the sun from ‘history’?”
Watching the Heretics still maintain their silence, Duncan paused briefly before continuing: “In the early history of the new City-States, there was an unknown City-State called ‘Wilhelm,’ known only by name. The last message this City-State left behind spoke of ‘Black Sun descending from history’… So, this isn’t the first time you’ve done this, calling forth a sun that should have extinguished from history… And this summoning process itself is the greatest pollution of history, isn’t it?”
When all the scattered clues suddenly pieced together, when all the lines gradually connected into one, things that were once incomprehensible, even unthinkable, became imaginable facts. At this moment, Duncan’s imagination and memory operated at high speed, transforming the known, the unknown, and the knowable into distinct orbits in his mind.
Of course, there were many questions left unexplained—for example, how exactly did this group of Doomsday Preachers collude with the Sun Cult, or how they managed to summon the sun from history, or whether the ordinary Sun Cultists and priests were aware of these upper-level secrets, he still had no answers.
And even those things he had just thought of were largely based on speculation; without the confirmation of the Doomsday Preachers before him, he lacked the key evidence.
The Spectral Flame on the deck gradually receded, leaving only a ring of fire around the three Heretics. Duncan stood before this blaze, expressionless, looking down at the “preachers.”
“There must be more Doomsday Preachers infiltrating the City-State than just you few, right?
“Where are the others hiding? What do you plan to do next? Continue to eliminate what you call ‘loopholes’? Or wait for an opportunity to create greater contamination?
“Still refusing to answer?”
Duncan’s questions were thrown out one by one, and finally, one of the Heretics moved.
This gaunt madman slowly twisted his mouth, lifting his gaze to Duncan, his voice hoarse and unclear: “We are not hidden within the so-called City-States… We hide in this cursed, twisted history, which has begun and will not cease… What the Fire Transmitter failed to do, you cannot do either, ‘Captain’…”
His grin widened, the smile chilling to witness. His voice was deep, as if laced with enchantment and coldness: “I just saw how glaringly bright your humanity is, where did you pick that up from?”
Duncan’s eyes subtly shifted, taking a step forward, his voice grave and restrained, “What do you mean?”
“…I wish you a pleasant day, ‘Captain,’” the preacher suddenly switched personas, from a frenzied Believer to a courteous citizen. Slowly rising to a crouch, sitting on the deck, though his gaze seemed to pass through Duncan, sweeping over the vast and desolate Homeloss, “Ah… the promised land, the Ark of Promise…”