Deep Sea Embers

Chapter 157 The Year That Disappeared

The old man's tone was very flat, as if he was calmly telling a story, and he just happened to appear in this story for a while.

"Sorry, it's easy to talk too much when you get older," the old priest smiled, looked at Fan Na and said, "Do you have friends from other sects?"

"...I have a good friend who is a cleric of the Academy of Truth," Fanna thought for a while, "but she doesn't talk to me about the admonitions of the God of Wisdom, Raheem."

"Believers of the God of Wisdom... This is normal. Their creeds usually require a college degree or higher to understand, and sometimes they need to pass an advanced mathematics test," the old priest nodded with a look of course, "Yes In contrast, it is the followers of the god of death who are the best to deal with-after all, we are always going to die."

Speaking of this, the old man paused, and looked at the neatly arranged files behind Fan Na with some curiosity: "Your Excellency, can you tell me, what are you looking for?"

Fan Na suddenly hesitated.

She didn't know whether she should tell the secret to the old priest in front of her. The hidden fire most likely pointed to a very dangerous shadow, and she couldn't be sure whether that "shadow" was monitoring the city-state through some means, or He couldn't be sure whether the old man in front of him could really help him. If he told the truth rashly, he might startle the snake.

But after a brief hesitation, she decided to reveal something.

This is the deepest part of the Church of the Deep Sea, the sanctuary favored by the Goddess of Storms, and the old priest in charge of the archives is a staunch warrior. He stays here to help visitors in this situation .

"I'm looking for a file—it's not accurate to say that it's a file, because it probably didn't exist from the beginning," Fan Na said slowly while deliberating, "Strictly speaking, it's a clue. In June of 1889, there may have been a fire, but all relevant information has been erased."

"The fire of 1889?" the old priest thought, "I don't remember any fire..."

He stopped suddenly and looked at Fanna thoughtfully.

"So, the erased data also includes our memories, right?"

"At least including people's memory," Fan Na nodded lightly, "I don't have enough evidence, except for my own 'knowledge', I have no way to prove the existence of that fire, and I'm not sure what the power is Manipulating this thing, I... just doubt it."

She suddenly felt a little embarrassed. As a judge, she was used to questioning and investigating, but this time the situation was completely different from before. She didn't know who the target of her suspicions was, and she wasn't even sure whether the target was a human or a ghost. She launched an investigation based on her own thoughts, which was very different from her usual calm and steady style of conduct.

However, the old priest in front of her just nodded calmly: "Your piety and character are the evidence, Your Excellency the Judge."

As soon as the words fell, the old priest walked quickly to a pillar between the nearby bookshelves, and used his mechanical prosthetic hand to knock on a few specific protrusions on the pillar. In the next second, a low-pitched roar came from the bottom of the floor. From everywhere, the creaking sound of gears and connecting rods was heard.

The gate of the archives was closed, and some of the bookshelves in the archives began to move slowly. Some of the bookshelves approached and closed up. In the vacant area, pillars depicting many complex runes moved slowly. Rise from the floor.

As those pillars went up, the subtle sound of waves echoed softly in Fanna's mind.

"...There is no need to mobilize so many teachers." Fan Na was a little at a loss by the old priest's actions. "This is just a preliminary investigation..."

"Past experience tells me that there is no 'preliminary' in the investigation of a huge threat," the old priest walked slowly towards Fanna, and he raised his mechanical prosthetic hand made of brass, "and I think a Anything that can interfere with cognition on a large scale, or even erase specific historical events, is a 'huge threat'."

"...But your rash move to block the archives may cause a lot of concern."

"No, the archives will be closed randomly several times a month, so that the sacred installations and bookshelves here can move," the old priest laughed, showing a mouthful of jagged teeth, "'Don't let the ancient The scroll has been quiet for too long', that is the rule."

"Then I have no doubts."

"You checked a lot of information just now. Judging by your expression, you must have discovered something?" The old priest nodded, "I can help."

"I found some records about 'heretical worship'—although it is not directly related to the incident I want to investigate, and the records themselves are scattered, I don't think it's right," Fanna said frankly, "Those heretical worships have common features, concentrated in the first half of 1889, and ended abruptly after the leak at the Sixth Street factory..."

The old priest listened carefully to Fan Na's description, and then found the corresponding files under the identification of the other party.

"That's it," Fan Na pointed to the document that was dug out. "The supposedly invalid sacrificial ceremony, substantial spiritual damage, although the scale is very small, they are all real acts of heresy worship. All cases The case-closing report also looks normal, and those who should be arrested and sentenced should be sentenced, but I think that each of these cases is actually...not properly investigated."

"For a case of this scale, the arrest and trial of those involved is already equivalent to the investigation in place, but you are right, when several similar incidents are superimposed... the situation is different," the old priest said Looking at the file, he frowned, "All the people who held the sacrificial activities were subjected to 'inexplicable bewitchment', but the source of the bewitchment can't be investigated..."

He grunted and looked up suddenly.

"Your Excellency, you only checked the files from 1889?"

"Yes," Fanna nodded, and immediately realized, "You mean..."

"The incident you are concerned about did happen in 1889, but have you ever thought that these strange cases of heresy worship did not necessarily start in 1889," the old priest said quickly, and then looked up Looking at the other rows of the bookshelf, "The earlier records are here, in the three rows from bottom to top, all of which can be read."

Fan Na immediately went to those files, and started to check the records in the file with the old priest.

But after a while, they found similar records of heresy worship events in the files they were reviewing at almost the same time.

1888, 1887, and even all the way back to 1886, there are.

"There is also a record here... the sacrificial event that happened in the port area, and here, it is only two months away from the last record!"

Fan Na quickly flipped through the file in her hand, feeling her heart beating rapidly. She raised her head and told the old priest what she had discovered, but suddenly found that the old priest was standing firmly in front of the bookshelf, motionless. Stare somewhere.

"Did you find anything?" Fan Na immediately frowned and asked nervously.

"There is no record of 1885," the old priest said softly, as if muttering to himself, "it should be here, in this row, after 1884...but now after 1884 is directly 1886... "

……

"Let's go here." On the edge of the sixth block, Duncan glanced back at the direction he and Shirley came from, and said with a slight breath, "There should be no more gains from investigating here."

They stayed in that chapel for a long time, but their current level of mysticism of "the two together are not as good as a dog" is obviously not enough to crack the strange space-time lock phenomenon in the underground sanctuary.

Before they left, the underground sanctuary returned to its original state, and the nun between the ashes and the living was still praying devoutly in the main hall of the church, and did not respond to the departure of Duncan and Shirley. .

The exterior of the church is still dilapidated, and the surroundings of the church are still empty.

But Shirley didn't really care much about the secrets in the church.

"I... can I really go home?"

She looked at Duncan quite nervously, her tone was disturbed but mixed with an inexplicable hesitation.

"Of course, I have never restricted your freedom to leave," Duncan smiled and rubbed the other party's hair. Although Shirley was about the same age as Nina, he couldn't bear the girl's petite and thin body. Zhu regarded her as a younger child, "Today's investigation is over, you can go home."

Xue Li subconsciously turned her head and glanced in the direction of her home. She wanted to move, but suddenly hesitated: "Then... shall we continue to investigate after that?"

"Of course, this matter is far from over," Duncan raised his eyebrows, "Why? Are you reluctant to leave?"

"Ah, no, no!" Shirley quickly waved her hands when she heard that, "I'm just... the next time I investigate..."

"I will find a way to contact you, and you can also take the initiative to come to me," Duncan smiled and rubbed Shirley's head again, "and it's not just for investigation, if you encounter any other difficulties, you can also come to me directly help."

Shirley blinked, feeling that something was weird, but she nodded slightly in the end, but before turning to leave, she couldn't help asking curiously: "Then...do you have any plans for the future? ?”

"Me?" Duncan was taken aback, thought for a while and said, "I'm going to buy a bicycle this afternoon."

Shirley was dumbfounded: "...Huh?"

"Buy a bicycle," Duncan repeated seriously, "I promised Nina for a long time, and it's time to fulfill my promise today. Why, what's wrong?"

Shirley opened her mouth for a long time before finally choking out a sentence: "Ah... Agou said, no matter what, you have to do something that subspace invasion should do..."

Before she finished speaking, a shadow suddenly appeared in the air next to her, and Ah Gou yelled hastily in the shadow: "I didn't say it!!"

The shadow disappeared in the next second - Agou was obviously afraid that people would see him if he showed his head outside.

Duncan: "..."

He held it back for a long time, and finally let out a helpless smile: "Okay, then the Subspace Invasion is going to buy a bicycle for his niece—let's leave it at that."

(End of this chapter)