Deep Sea Embers

Chapter 150 Behind the Curtain
On the outside, the community church has been abandoned for an unknown number of years, but inside it is brightly lit, clean and bright. At the same time, in Duncan’s eyes, this brightly lit church is clearly superimposed with a dilapidated scene that seems to be "as if another fact" .

This gave Duncan a feeling. He felt that this small church was like a "false space" superimposed on reality, or a forgotten place stuck in the gap between time and space. Two diametrically opposite histories used to be here Confluence, yet the church stays at the point of confluence, and the time inside it has not moved forward since then.

It was neither destroyed nor survived that fire.

So... the nun who stayed alone in this church, what do you know?

"It's been a long time since anyone visited this church," the nun in a black priest's robe repeated softly. She raised her head with a smile, but her gaze seemed to pass through Shirley and Duncan standing in front of her. "Where are you from? Unfamiliar faces... You are not residents here, are you?"

There was a bright and warm scene in front of her, but Shirley shrank her neck suddenly under the nun's smiling gaze. She felt a chill for some reason, and whispered nervously to Duncan: "I...why do I think this place is weird? It looks dilapidated from the outside, but inside..."

Duncan didn't answer, but just patted Shirley on the shoulder casually. From the girl's reaction, he already guessed that the other party should only be able to see "one side" of the church, and most likely it was the side that was not destroyed. But now he doesn't know how to explain his conjecture to Shirley - if Agou is released at this time, with the "eyes" of that deep hound, he should be able to see the real situation here, right?
It's just that it's best not to let Shirley summon Agou rashly before she understands the details of the nun in front of her.

"We passed by here," Duncan said calmly to the nun, just like a normal visitor to the church, "have you been here all this time?"

"Me? I have always lived in this church," the nun nodded lightly, "I have been praying here, praying to the great existence."

"But people in the neighborhood say that the nun in the church hasn't come back for a long time," Duncan said, watching the reaction of the nun in front of him, "They say this church has been neglected, and it has been deserted for a long time .”

The nun listened quietly to Duncan's words, but she didn't react violently, as if her heart had been eternally calmed down.

She just showed a faint smile: "Oh, yes, but I've been here all the time... probably because they forgot to pray, and thought the church was not open."

Duncan was noncommittal, but he had confirmed that it wasn't just this church that had problems, but the entire Sixth Street block outside the church.

This deserted church is deep in the block. Just from the appearance, it has been deserted for more than ten years!For ordinary people in this world, the church is not just a place to provide spiritual comfort—it is also a functional facility for maintaining regional security and resisting evil forces after nightfall. It is also a place where many civilians encounter mental problems or A place of healing after being plagued by nightmares... Such an important facility has been abandoned for 11 years, and the residents of the Sixth Street District did not feel that there was anything wrong, but just said lightly that "the nun is not here recently"?
Imagine that if a community has been without water and electricity for a full 11 years, the local residents don’t think there is anything wrong at all, and outsiders just say “the water and electricity department is not working recently” when asked, what a strange situation this is!
As for the nun in this church... Now Duncan is still not sure what kind of figure this mass of human-shaped ashes that shows its original shape in his eyes from time to time is, but through preliminary conversations, he can feel that the other party seems...not hostile.

Not only was there no hostility, but her thinking seemed to be in a very strange state. It could not be said that she was irrational, but she was definitely not sane.

Duncan asked a few questions on the sidelines, and the nun in the church answered them one by one calmly, and her calm answer itself...was a manifestation of insanity.

Because under normal circumstances, a stranger suddenly ran into the church and grabbed the nun on duty and asked a lot of irrelevant things, the nun should have been baffled.

She has reason - but not much.

"Do you want to pray? Or do you need help in calming the nerves and exorcising evil spirits?"

The nun smiled and asked softly.

"Thank you, but there's no need," Duncan shook his head, then looked around and asked casually, "By the way, where are the guards of this church?"

Every church should have a Guardian, and even the smallest community church in a ghetto has enough Guardians to deal with common threats, and this church should be no exception.

"The guards... the guards are resting in the church, and they won't show up until nightfall," the nun's smiling expression remained unchanged. "What can you do with the guards?"

Duncan didn't answer, but his eyes slowly swept over the benches beside the nun.

In his field of vision, the phantoms of the fire destroying everything and the collapsed piles of ashes and ruins were superimposed in the brightly lit church like overlapping films, and in another dimension of the superimposition, there were many... burnt bodies.

"Are the guards resting there?" Duncan raised his hand and pointed not far away, but in Shirley's eyes, there were only two rows of empty benches there.

The nun froze for a moment, looked in the direction of Duncan's finger, and said softly after a while: "Shh...they are sleeping."

Duncan hummed, and asked casually, "Can we look around?"

"Of course, the church is open for inspection," the nun nodded lightly. "You two, please do your own thing. I'm going to continue praying—if you need help, you can call me at any time."

After saying this, the weird nun really turned around and walked towards the goddess statue not far away, completely leaving Duncan and Shirley aside.

And it wasn't until the nun left that Shirley, who had been nervous for a long time, suddenly breathed a sigh of relief. She couldn't care less about being afraid of Duncan at this time, because the ubiquitous weird atmosphere in the church had already made Agou, who was in hiding, agitated. A strange sense of tension is directly passing into her mind through the spiritual connection, making her subconsciously move closer to Duncan: "What the hell is going on with this place... Why does this nun feel creepy, she obviously looks normal , but it seems that nothing is normal..."

"There seem to be two churches here," Duncan said softly, explaining simply and straightforwardly, "One has been burned down, and the other is still intact. They are superimposed in this time and space at the same time, and the nuns in the church...are either dead or alive. "

Shirley froze for a moment, and after half a minute, she whispered in confusion and astonishment: "What do you mean?"

Duncan glanced at her: "Let's go back and read some books—if it doesn't work, I can teach you."

Afterwards, without waiting for Shirley's answer, he walked straight into the depths of the church.

As the nun said, the church is open for inspection, so of course he has to "visit and visit" at will.

Shirley was stunned at the back, and quickly followed Duncan's footsteps. They passed through the neatly arranged benches, and passed by the icon and prayer altar at the end of the benches.

The quiet nun knelt in front of the icon of the Storm Goddess, pressed her hands lightly on her chest, and prayed devoutly to God, as if she had completely forgotten about the visitor, as if she had been kneeling here for the past 11 years, maintaining the Uninterrupted prayer.

Duncan blinked, and the nun turned into a wriggling mass of human-shaped ashes, piled up next to the charred and destroyed prayer altar, and the dome was sprinkled with dots of fire, like fallen leaves.

He suddenly felt something, and looked up at the statue of the Storm Goddess above.

The holy statue in a long skirt stood quietly on the high platform, and there was a crack across the head of the holy statue!
In this short moment, Duncan saw a bit of truth superimposed on the core of the double church. He clearly saw a dim crack opened at the head of the statue of the goddess, and there was a dim and chaotic light and shadow in the crack, as if There is only a horizontal horror eye pupil, and the depth of the pupil reflects the scene that should never belong to the real world, and the "holy nature" that should have lingered on the statue of the goddess has long since disappeared without a trace. On the terrifying stone sculpture, only coldness and nothingness occupy the place!

And in the next moment, the terrifying scene disappeared without a trace, and the icon of Gomona still stood quietly on the high platform, overlooking the surrounding majesticly, exuding a reassuring and awe-inspiring majesty.

The nun who was kneeling and praying in front of the goddess suddenly opened her eyes. She turned her head slightly and looked at Duncan calmly.

"Do you want to pray to the goddess?"

(End of this chapter)