Noticing the seriousness in Duncan's words, Vanna subconsciously had many associations and guesses in her mind—but in the next second, she forcibly controlled her thoughts and nodded solemnly with Morris.

Controlling one's curiosity is a basic rule for surviving in this world.

Confirming that Morris and Vanna were aware of the seriousness of the matter, Duncan breathed a sigh of relief, then nodded to Alice, who was beside him: "Clean up this pile of things on the table. Don't dump it into the sea, just burn it."

Watching Alice neatly clean up the mess on the table, Duncan sat back in his chair, his mind still recalling the scenes he had seen in that "strange dark space" before, and thinking about the information revealed in those "conversations."

At the same time, he was also thinking about how to re-establish contact with that dark space.

The handwritten copy cannot bear the impact of "truth"... Then where would the original of this "Book of Blasphemy" be? If I could get the original, would I be able to establish a stable connection with that strange dark space? Or... are there other extraordinary items that can achieve a similar effect?

Duncan recalled his previous experience of entering a dream on the Vanishing Ship, but accidentally entering another Vanishing Ship in the subspace—behind the captain's cabin door of the other Vanishing Ship was that strange dark space.

So he boldly guessed: The "dark space" itself should be

a "place" that actually exists in the subspace, and establishing contact with it requires certain media and techniques. The "handwritten copy" brought by Morris helped him establish this connection, but... it is not necessarily the only available "medium." If he could find a way to go to the "other Vanishing Ship" again, it might work.

Method... subspace?

Duncan frowned and immediately restrained the thought of diverging in "this direction."

Because he couldn't be sure whether this idea was his own or "released" to him by the subspace.

But one thing is very clear.

He needs more "samples"—whether it's the golden mask of the Sun Cultists, or the copy of the Book of Blasphemy of the Annihilation Cultists, or whatever the Doomsayer has in his hands, these will help him understand the truth of this world.

Thinking of this, Duncan immediately looked up at Morris and Vanna opposite him: "Do you know where I can get more similar items? I mean like this 'Book of Blasphemy,' items used by cultists to hold major ceremonies and preach."

"You want more?" Morris was startled, then thought seriously for a moment and shook his head, "This... I'm afraid it's difficult. Although the Church of the True Gods and the city-state authorities often seize some cult items, under normal circumstances, these things will be destroyed after necessary identification and research, no matter how special or valuable they are."

Duncan raised his eyebrows: "Destroyed directly? No samples left?"

"No samples left, only data left," Vanna replied. In this field, this Inquisitor was obviously more professional than Morris. "Some particularly dangerous things will not even leave data, only some 'translated' and 'safely modified' descriptive texts, which must be kept in special archives," or even only in the memories of certain "keepers of secrets."

Speaking of this, she paused, further explaining: "Because truly powerful cult items basically have the same degree of danger and pollution, and they directly point to 'heretical gods.' This danger and pollution will gradually increase over time, and we often cannot predict how much harm they can cause, so the safest way is not to leave samples. And..."

"And people's hearts are unpredictable, not to mention that even the strongest guardians have times when they expose their weaknesses." Morris saw that Vanna was a little hesitant, so he took the initiative to take over, "The guards who guard the blasphemous items will be bewitched and will change imperceptibly. Sometimes they don't even know that they have fallen—in 1666, a saint of Moco City-State talked to a forbidden book he was guarding in a hallucination, which led to the activation of the book, and finally resulted in a tragic accident in which dozens of people died. Since then, the city-states have no longer kept samples of the heretical items they have seized."

Vanna sighed, "In some ways, heretical items are more dangerous than 'anomalies'—because no matter how high-ranking an anomaly is, as long as the sealing rules are mastered, it can be controlled and even used, but heretical things... sometimes even they don't know what will pop out of them."

"Okay," Duncan rubbed his forehead, "It seems that I can't expect to get samples from the city-states... I still have to find wild cultists and kill them on the spot."

Listening to the captain's words, Vanna's mouth twitched subconsciously, then hesitated for a moment: "If you are really interested, I can try to borrow some information from the Cathedral. Although the corresponding items have been destroyed, there is still safe research data."

"If possible, please find me some information," Duncan said, nodding.

However, he felt that this information would not be of much help to him—because what he wanted was not information, but to find a suitable "medium" from those heretical items.

The Book of Blasphemy just now had proved one thing: the same extraordinary item may appear in a different "form" in his eyes and in the eyes of ordinary people. The knowledge recorded by the scholars of the Church of the True Gods would probably be of no use to him.

But no matter what, it's never a bad thing to increase some knowledge in the extraordinary field.

Just then, a burst of noisy sounds from outside the captain's cabin suddenly interrupted the exchange between Duncan and Vanna.

It sounded like Shirley and A Gou were making a racket all the way.

Duncan frowned: "Open the door."

Alice immediately ran over and opened the door to the captain's cabin, and then saw Shirley and A Gou running to the door. "Hey, don't make a lot of noise on the ship..."

"Hey, I know, I know, but there's something important!" Shirley shouted at the door, her petite body squeezing in directly from beside Alice, "Captain, Captain! A Gou is possessed! It says it saw some very evil stuff!"

"A Gou... possessed?" Duncan looked at the abyssal hound being dragged in with a puzzled look on his face. "It's an abyssal demon, how can it be possessed?"

Morris and Vanna next to him also had a "You're an evil thing, what kind of evil are you possessed by?" expression, but A Gou, who was being dragged in, stood up, looking really nervous and horrified: "Really, I've seen that thing twice in a row! It suddenly popped out of my mind when I was reading, staring at me directly on the level of consciousness..."

"When reading?" Duncan frowned as soon as he heard this. "What's so strange about that? Doesn't this happen often on the ship? Nina burns several dishes a day when she's rushing her homework..."

"It's not my old乡!" A Gou immediately shook its huge dog head, looking a little anxious. "It's not the shadows of the spirit world or any other evil spirits, it's something I've never seen before—that thing appeared directly in my 'consciousness,' like a pile of weird lights, with a big one in the middle, emitting red light, surrounded by a bunch of small ones, just like the 'starry sky' between the spirit world and the abyss—stars of light surrounding the red light source—"

A Gou was just babbling halfway when Morris next to him suddenly took two steps forward: "What did you say? What did you see?!"

It was the first time A Gou had seen this refined and steady old scholar have such a reaction, and was immediately startled, subconsciously shrinking its neck: "Uh... a large red luminous body, surrounded by a bunch of flickering light spots..."

Morris listened in stunned silence, and repeatedly confirmed the details with A Gou several times before finally looking up.

The old scholar's face was full of astonishment and confusion, as if the worldview he had built up for half his life had suddenly been hammered with a hole. He couldn't say a word for a long time.

Vanna on the side had already reacted. The muscles on her face twitched twice, and she hesitated to turn to Morris: "That sounds... a bit like..."

"The gaze of Rahm, the God of Wisdom..." Morris muttered to himself, then lowered his head and glanced at A Gou, his eyes as if looking at a rare antique just unearthed from the ground, "You have received the gaze of the God of Wisdom?"

The captain's cabin suddenly fell silent.

After an unknown amount of time, A Gou raised its head blankly: "...What did you say?"

Duncan didn't pay attention to A Gou's reaction, but frowned and glanced at Morris: "Are you sure?"

"Unless A Gou is lying, there is no other explanation," Morris said immediately. "What it described is exactly the image formed in the mind of the 'blessed' when the God of Wisdom bestows his gaze, and every follower of Rahm has seen it and will not be unfamiliar with it."

Duncan fell silent.

After a long time, he looked at the abyssal demon who was lying on the floor in confusion.

"What were you doing when you saw that scene?"

"Doing problems," A Gou said honestly, "Once it was geometry, once it was algebra."

Duncan: He didn't say anything, just continued to look quietly at A Gou, at the other party's ugly and huge... dog head.