Chapter 68: Chapter 72: Intelligence at the Assembly Hall
To be fair, these heretics were actually quite cautious.
They didn’t believe this strange “compatriot” just because Duncan took out a Sun Amulet, nor did they readily trust his account of what had happened in the sewer sacrificial site; they observed Duncan’s words and behavior all along the way and even performed an additional verification after arriving at the gathering to confirm this stranger’s identity—given that they were a group of cultists always in hiding, they had done their best.
But all their screening measures treated Duncan as a “normal human being.”
Such methods were meaningless to the captain of the Homeloss.
The tall and thin leader took back the inconspicuous cloth strip from Duncan’s hands; he seemed completely unaware of any changes in the power contained within this Transcendent object, and after expressing a welcome to the new compatriot, he raised his hand to point towards a corner of the gathering, “Compatriot, rest here for now. There’s more than one unfamiliar face around here.”
Duncan nodded and walked towards the nondescript corner, paying attention to every face that appeared at the gathering.
Contrary to what he had seen at the sewer sacrificial site, he was surprised to find that these Sun Believers were not dressed in the iconic black robes but were dressed like ordinary citizens. They were not wearing hoods that concealed their faces but were openly exposing them.
Out of curiosity, he asked the Believer beside him, “Do you not need to hide your faces at this gathering?”
The Believer he addressed seemed very surprised, “…Do the local Believers of the Plunder City-State always cover their faces when they gather?”
Duncan frowned slightly, “You aren’t from Plunder…”
“We come from Rensa,” another Believer beside him said openly, after confirming that the stranger was truly a fellow church member, the followers of the Sun here had obviously let down their guard, “Everyone arrived last week, but before we could establish contact with the local compatriots, that attack happened…”
“Are all the people here from Rensa?” Duncan was somewhat surprised; he finally understood why there were still so many Sun Believers in the city after the destruction of the sewer sacrificial site.
“Yes, those gathered here are compatriots from Rensa, but there are teams from other City-States as well. Everyone is dispersed in different strongholds,” another Believer joined the conversation, “Sigh, we’ve all heard more or less about the situation in the Plunder City-State; over the past four years, that damn Governor and the church’s hounds have been striking at our cause… You’ve had it tough too, but thankfully, it’s all past.”
Duncan nodded noncommittally and then heard the first Believer he had spoken with comment, “That pigeon on your shoulder is really… quite unique.”
Duncan’s eyes twitched.
He knew that there was more than one person paying attention to the pigeon on his shoulder.
If you really had to say, a pigeon was no strange matter, but showing up with one on your shoulder to a gathering was odd.
He could only casually dismiss it, “It’s my pet; it can help me with a lot of things.”
While he brushed it off, thoughts were rapidly surging in his mind—a large influx of Sun followers was pouring into the Plunder City-State, which confirmed a previous suspicion of his:
The usually low-key Sun Church had suddenly staged such a high-profile event in the sewers; these heretics were indeed planning something big!
His fishing in troubled waters and mixing into the crowd had unexpectedly led him in the right direction!
At the same time, he also understood why the heretics attending this gathering didn’t disguise their faces but dressed as ordinary citizens.
In the sewers previously, the Sun Believers’ fully concealing outfits and the system of single-line contact among lower-level followers were to counter the church’s repeated purges and to avoid internal betrayal or key members being captured and leaking secrets; it was a desperate choice made by the local church under dire circumstances. These newly assembled crowds from the various City-States in Plunder had obviously not yet gained such experience—they were merely heretics after all, not a well-disciplined special forces team.
On the other hand, they had no need for such Disguises: those gathered here all rushed from the same City-State, “compatriots” who were already familiar with each other. Hiding their identities during gatherings was pointless.
Dressed as common citizens now, they were better able to flee at the first sign of their stronghold being compromised and to scatter and blend among the civilians in the loosely managed Lower City District.
As Duncan pondered this, his gaze swept over the assembly. Suddenly, he felt a gaze fixed on him.
He immediately followed the sensation and saw the owner of the gaze.
A girl with short black hair and a petite figure stood about a dozen meters away.
She was wearing a black dress trimmed with white lace, elegant and serene in appearance, looking to be around the same age as Nina, and most notably, around her neck hung a dark red collar adorned with a delicate silver bell. While it looked somewhat endearing, it was also conspicuously bizarre.
When Duncan looked her way, the girl naturally shifted her gaze elsewhere—her transition was seamless, but Duncan was certain that the stare had definitely come from this young lady!
Why was there such a young child among this group of heretics?
Duncan couldn’t help but wonder, and then he took another look at the girl’s attire… For some reason, he felt she was out of place in this environment.
While he was reflecting on this, the sound of a door hinge turning suddenly came from not far away. The tall and thin cult leader ordered the door of the basement to be closed. Then, he walked towards the center of the assembly.
All eyes immediately focused on this leader, and Duncan also gathered his thoughts, paying attention to the changes in the situation. He saw the tall man standing confidently amid everyone’s gaze, his somber face sporting a slight smile, before he pulled out an object from his chest and raised it high above the congregation.
It was unmistakably a pale golden Sun Mask—identical to the one worn by the Cult Priest who had presided over the sacrificial ceremony in the underground assembly hall.
“Offer reverence to the glory of the Lord, silently chant the sacred words under his gaze,” the tall man declared in a voice filled with devoutness, “Bow your heads to this blessed mask, and may the protection of the Scions of the Sun dwell within it, guiding the brothers and sisters gathered here.”
The surrounding believers immediately began chanting the name of the True Sun God in unison, then they clenched their fists in front of their foreheads and bowed in a gesture of respect—not to the tall man in the middle of the assembly, but to the golden mask, as if the mask itself were the actual entity of a higher being, while the man holding it was just a vessel.
Duncan blended in with the heretics, going through the motions, but he had no idea what the so-called sacred words were, so he mumbled a few lines of multiplication tables and started to seriously observe their actions, deducing the significance behind each step of their ritual.
The tall, thin man solemnly placed the mask on his face.
The next second, Duncan immediately sensed… some kind of change in the man.
He couldn’t exactly describe the feeling; it was as if the man had adopted a new air the moment the mask was donned, or as if an additional shadow had merged with his figure. Duncan watched the golden mask fashioned after the sun, noticing the lines on the mask seemed to be subtly moving—as if the mask had come to life at that moment, as if a distant and powerful consciousness had projected its faint forces onto the mask, endowing the otherwise ordinary object with transcendent qualities.
The ordinary person wearing the mask was, with this single action, with this brief ritual, transformed into a symbol of some divine power.
The believers around him began to praise in unison, “May the glory of our Lord endure forever! May the way of our Lord descend upon the mortal world!”
Duncan had gotten to the sixth line of the multiplication table, and his mind raced with recollections.
He had seen the Cult Priest wearing the golden mask at the sewer gathering, but at that time, the Priest had already completed the “donning” process. Moreover, at the time, Duncan was still unclear about the surroundings, and the temporary body he was using was not in good condition, so he hadn’t realized there was anything special about the seemingly ordinary golden mask and hadn’t wondered why the mask-wearing Priest was called “messenger” by the common believers.
It seemed now… could this so-called Sun Mask actually be a “communication device” used by the hidden Scions of the Sun, outside of civilized society, to remote control believers, to observe the world? Or more precisely, some kind of Spiritual Projection device?
Suddenly realizing this was an interesting item, Duncan’s gaze at the golden mask shifted slightly.
This thing… maybe it was fated for him.