Deep Sea Embers

Rain turned into fire.

Heidi cried out in surprise, and this cry that sounded like a mess of logic was the only description she could think of at the moment—she really couldn't understand what she saw or what happened, all she knew was, A rain of fire fell from the sky.

That's just a momentary thing.

The torrential rain enveloping Purand turned into flames pouring from top to bottom in an instant, as if the setting sun was falling and the corona was hanging upside down, the entire city-state changed from a city in the rainstorm to a melting city of living fire in less than a second. scene.

Everything was set on fire, trees, houses, towers, bell towers, and even the ground itself was spewing flames, even the rainwater flowing on the ground turned into hot molten lava, and the deafening thunder became a fire that spread all over the city-state. The explosion here was a loud noise where all the steam pipes, gas pipes, and pressure vessels were blown up one after another in a short period of time. This loud noise was even more terrifying than the previous thunder... The entire cathedral was shaking!

Heidi stepped back in horror, witnessing an end of destruction directly overlaid on the reality dimension, and then she heard a bell chime.

The sound seemed to be separated by a thick barrier, and it sounded like it was coming from a very distant place—it was the steam bell tower behind the cathedral ringing the big bell.

The loud and melodious ringing of the bell broke the fire rain, followed by the sound of far and near bells coming from the depths of the fire rain.

Hundreds of bells in Prand's church matrix rang in unison, and the reality stability barrier activated. The rain of fire seemed to be disturbed by invisible disturbances in the sound of the bells, and the flames that fell on the church turned into an ordinary rainstorm. The church steeples and flags that had been ignited were restored in the blink of an eye.

The whole city of Purland is on fire, but all the churches are holding the flames falling from the sky amidst the bells. The weird rainstorm and the even weirder sea of ​​flames are extremely contradictory mixed on this burning land, and the churches seem to be transformed into It has become an isolated island in purgatory, supporting a continuous anchor point in the great changes of the world.

Only then did Heidi finally hear a steady and old voice from behind her. It was Bishop Valentine who broke the silence: "The enemy is attacking... Destroy all targets that try to approach the church bell tower!"

Heidi turned her head and was about to ask something when she heard a series of deafening roars suddenly coming from the square outside the church.

She ran to the window and saw the guard troops assembled in the square firing—the steam walker's rotary machine gun was splashing barrages on the streets in the distance, and the steam tank's main gun fired continuously. It was urgently deployed from the city guard before. The troops coming over have also built fortifications on the edge of the rainstorm, and began to pour firepower on something in the sea of ​​flames.

Heidi finally saw the enemy.

Those are wriggling human-shaped ashes, endless, struggling and wriggling from the sea of ​​fire, looking at the human-shaped ashes that makes one's heart shudder.

Those ashes seemed to emerge out of nowhere from the flames, and the shapeless shapes seemed to be howling and screaming in pain every second. They came from all directions, like a herd of inexplicably attracted beasts, towards all the realities in the city-state Stable node - the church bell tower is coming.

The soldiers pulled the trigger in a daze. Most of them didn't know why this battle started, and they didn't know what happened in their familiar homeland. They didn't even dare to think about those seemingly extreme events. Where did the restless "enemies" come from? It's just that the mission of guarding the city-state, the instinct to obey orders, and the will to survive made them nail down the line of defense in the face of this terrifying scene like purgatory, and they learned it according to thousands of times of training Muscle memory to attack.

Then the guns of the guards fired together, easily tearing up the first batch of ashes that swarmed closer.

However, in the next second, more ashes appeared behind the scattered ashes, and even more twisted burnt objects rushed towards the church with flames and thick smoke.

They were as numerous as the population of the entire city-state.

"Hold the bell tower," Valentine's voice suddenly sounded, echoing over the entire church square, and even over the entire city-state, "as long as the bell is still there, our reality will not be modified and covered by them! Believers, witness The hour of faith has come... Hold the bell tower!!"

Heidi watched all this in great chaos, feeling as if her world had fallen apart at this moment, but after a brief adjustment
Afterwards, she had forced her mind to calm down. After realizing that this was a real-world invasion-level disaster, she forced herself not to pay attention to the sea of ​​flames across the square, and not to think about the fact that 90.00% of the entire city-state had been substantially destroyed. "Facts", but immediately ran to Valentine: "Is there anything I can do to help?"

"To appease the civilians who have taken refuge in the church, we need to avoid mental breakdowns within the church as much as possible," Valentine said in a deep voice, "and wait for the storm to end with them."

Heidi nodded immediately, and then, Valentine suddenly raised his head, his gaze seemed to penetrate the high wall of the hall, looking into the distance.

The archbishop's eyes reflected fire and light, and a bird's-eye view of the entire city-state floated in his field of vision.

He clearly saw that the entire Prand was burning in the rain of fire, and churches turned into isolated islands in the sea of ​​flames. Every church was being invaded from outside the reality, and the blazing ghast released from a branch of the doomsday was frenzied. They attacked those bell towers that were still ringing fiercely, as if desperately trying to make this still existing real world fall into the same tragic end as them, and behind those ashes, there were countless tall and thin black shadows.

Those dark shadows stood silently in the flames, silently pushing the city-state into doom.

It is the minions of the children of the sun.

Minions of the Sons of the Sun?
Valentine's expression suddenly changed slightly. In the face of this huge disaster at the level of a real invasion, he suddenly remembered a "little matter" that seemed to have been resolved a long time ago and was almost forgotten.

He suddenly turned to a high-ranking deacon beside him: "Are those sun heretics still in the underground church?!"

"Sun heresy?" The high-ranking deacon didn't realize it all of a sudden, and then hurriedly said, "Yes, they are still imprisoned in the underground sanctuary, and there is a whole team of guards guarding them, so they can't escape..."

"They never wanted to escape from the beginning!" Valentine said quickly, "They wanted to be locked up in the church from the beginning!"

"what……"

The high-ranking deacon's eyes widened instantly, and then, before his words fell, a dull loud noise suddenly came from deep underground in the church.

It was as if some kind of behemoth had awakened in the underground sanctuary.

And some priests in the cathedral who experienced a solar crisis four years ago thought of another thing amidst the loud noise——

Four years ago, hundreds of sun heretics gathered in the hiding place, summoned a short and terrifying forbidden power in a crazy bloody sacrifice, and a round of "fake scorching sun" formed from the ground, which almost caused a catastrophe.

But before this matter succeeded, their conspiracy was discovered by Fan Na, the newly promoted judge at the time, and led a team to extinguish it.

"...that was a test..."

The senior deacon widened his eyes and muttered to himself.

Heidi felt the sudden rise in heat around her, as well as stronger vibrations deep underground.

The sea of ​​fire rises, the bells are tolled, and the siren whistles in the fire rain. Countless ashes monsters emerge from all directions and run rampant in the world.

Fanna has experienced many dangerous battles. She has faced the cultists and the taboo monsters created by the cultists, and even faced the out-of-control deep demons and the deranged and crazy final missionaries, but there was no battle... It can be compared with this purgatory at this moment.

What she faced was no longer a battlefield, but a sudden doomsday.

In other words, the doomsday has already come, but it was covered by the curtain until today, and now the curtain is suddenly lifted—the living have no time to react, and they are already the embers of the doomsday.

But she was still alive, fighting a bloody path through the flames and ashes, and was struggling to get closer to the towering cathedral in the center of the city-state.

Every breath brought a burning pain, and her physical exhaustion was almost to the point where an ordinary person could be crushed several times. The armor on Fan Na's body was also severely damaged, and her body's recovery was gradually unable to keep up with the speed of the damage. The injury is aggravating a little bit.

But the young Inquisitor was still on his way.

The bells of the cathedral are still ringing, which means that Bishop Valentine's line of defense has not been breached-maybe the guards don't know about this conspiracy to pollute history, but they have always defended it.
All plots and battles are ready.

Since the battle in the cathedral is still going on, he has an obligation to return to his battle position.

Vanna was thinking.

She noticed that Bishop Valentine activated the reality stabilization measures, which means that he has noticed part of the truth, at least there is no problem with this part of the response, and as long as the bell tower does not fall, those heretics will try to cover the "official history" with "pseudo-history" The conspiracy is not so easy to succeed.

As long as the covering process is finally interrupted and the pollution is stripped from history from the source, the city-state can still be saved—the destruction at this moment is not the real destruction, but the terrifying "possibility" caused by the superimposition of two histories... Not too late, not too late.

Fan Na repeated in her heart as if to cheer herself up, she tried her best not to think about the possibility of the fall of the churches everywhere, and did not think about which ring the mysterious and terrifying Captain Duncan would be waiting for her, she just moved mechanically Step by step, destroy all the obstacles you see on the road, and walk forward step by step on the burning street, shortening the distance between yourself and the cathedral.

But suddenly, she stopped at a junction not far from the cathedral.

A dark gray car fell on the side of the road with all four wheels in the air. It seemed that it had rolled over in an accident. Several dead bodies lay on the side of the road, seemingly thrown out of the car.

And there was another person in the car—an arm protruding from the skewed window, stuck in the twisted door.

Fan Na instantly recognized the car, and also recognized the arm.

It was her uncle, Dant Wayne.