Yuan Tong

Chapter 378 Trapped

Chapter 1 The Fray

The shadows in the spirit world dissipated, and the noisy clamor and monstrous malice permeating the space rapidly vanished.

Agatha raised her left hand, quietly "gazing" at the emaciated heretic collapsed at the edge of the triangular area. The latter was writhing in agony on the ground, the black chains extending from his body already shattered. Smoke rose from the broken chains, which were weathering into dust, fragment by fragment.

With the death of the symbiotic abyssal demon, the life of this heretic was also rapidly approaching its end—but at least for now, he could still answer some questions.

Although Agatha didn't expect this stubborn heretic to truly cooperate, she slowly walked over, stopping at the edge of the triangle and looking down at the dying cultist.

"You were able to completely erode and replace an infrastructure facility under the church's very nose, even replacing all the priests… I find that very surprising," she said slowly, her voice seemingly mixed with the deep echoes of a tomb. This dizzying sound could weaken most people's mental defenses. "How did you do it?"

The dying heretic struggled to raise his head, only to reveal a mocking smile. There was no fear on his emaciated face. "You guess?"

Agatha remained unmoved. "Your lair is in Frost City, isn't it?"

"Heh…" The cultist's head trembled. He used all his strength to prop himself up, lying on his back on the pale ground to meet Agatha's gaze. "Don't waste your effort. What if it's in Frost City… you won't find it… When you find the sanctuary, that's when we'll have succeeded, you foolish cleric…"

Agatha was expressionless, merely raising her staff slightly and touching the tip to the cultist's chest. "What exactly are you trying to do? Pollute the city-state with the so-called 'primordial essence'? Or are you妄想relying on those 'imitations' that can't even maintain themselves to replace the living in the city-state? What connection do you have with the power in the Deep Sea? Is it related to the Qian Yuan Project?"

A wisp of pale flame ignited at the end of the staff, burning flesh and soul, causing the cultist to convulse and spasm. However, this heretic, already deep into fanaticism, merely clenched his teeth, glaring at the gatekeeper before him. Only a terrifying, eerie laughter squeezed out from between his chattering teeth: "Heh… heh… that which is promised… is about to descend… no one… no one can escape…"

Agatha finally frowned. She slowly raised her arm, and the cultist was lifted into the air by her staff, the pale flame burning his body, which had been twisted by long-term symbiosis with the abyssal demon, making him look like a tattered cloth fluttering in the fire.

Her voice was cold, like a draft in a tomb: "One last question. Why can you heretics… speak the name of the God of Death?"

In the pale flame, a smile slowly bloomed on the emaciated cultist's face. He seemed particularly pleased. Seeing the church's gatekeeper confused by this question, even the pain brought by "cremation" was halved.

"The Abyssal Lord has brought revelation… the direction of all faiths in the world… is no different… We who have received revelation have already crossed the so-called boundaries… Gatekeeper, do you really think there's any difference between your god and the Holy Lord?"

Agatha's expression changed instantly. The cultist had actually compared the Abyssal Lord to the God of Death. Such blasphemous words filled her with anger. However, the cultist revealed a final, liberated smile in the burning flames, not giving her a chance to continue questioning. He swallowed his last breath, leaving only a few remnants that quickly turned to ashes.

"...Madman's words, upside down and confused."

Agatha's face was gloomy. She slowly lowered her staff. The anger in her heart remained, but these emotions did not interfere with her normal thinking. After controlling her emotional fluctuations, she immediately began to think.

Aside from his last statement comparing the Abyssal Lord to the God of Death, this stubborn cultist had actually revealed a lot of information that could be used for speculation.

They did have a "lair" in Frost City, and they called this lair a "sanctuary," which meant that it was indeed a place for holding rituals. This matched the currently known information. The sanctuary was "hidden" in a special way, making it extremely difficult to find. And he had just mentioned that when the sanctuary was found, that would be when they succeeded… So, the method of hiding that place was likely related to their "ritual" process. The closer the ritual was to completion, the more obvious its concealment would be…

Was it because holding the ritual would inevitably reveal some aura? Or was exposing the sanctuary an indispensable part of completing the ritual?

The cultist also mentioned a sentence, "That which is promised is about to descend." This perhaps corresponded to the ultimate "prophecy" in their belief system: that the power of the Abyssal Lord would subvert the real world, and the abyssal deep sea, originally located in the depths of the world, would become the new "reality"—those mad Annihilation cultists had always regarded the abyssal deep sea as their promised land. There should be no doubt about this.

But how would this process be achieved? By simply continuously投放 "primordial essence" into the city-state? That was obviously not enough… Those "imitations" could hardly maintain their own stability for a long time. How could they pollute the entire city-state?

Unless… the Annihilation cultists had a way to stabilize the "imitations" for a long time. They could create such an environment, or… transform Frost City into such an environment…

Agatha frowned, quickly ended her thoughts, and looked up to survey her surroundings.

She was still in the spirit world, and the things around her were illuminated by the pale light pouring in from the cracks in the ceiling, appearing shadowy and indistinct. Faint noises came from all directions, and those eternally unsatisfied spirit world shadows were stirring again—a feast couldn't keep them quiet for too long.

The young gatekeeper shook her head, raised her left hand, and put her eyeball back into its socket.

The faint noises around her disappeared instantly, and the shadowy lights and the black-and-white-gray space regained color in the blink of an eye. The aura of the real world rushed towards her.

Agatha gently breathed a sigh of relief and took out eye drops from her clothes, but suddenly, her movements froze.

It was completely silent around her, and there was no one there.

Agatha raised her head and looked around. She couldn't see the black-clothed guards she had brought, nor the manager of the sewage treatment center who had run away earlier, nor the ashes and remains left by the three cultists and the dozen or so "imitations"—

In theory, when she eliminated those cultists and "imitations" in the spirit world, their remains should appear simultaneously in the real world.

The silence around her was too eerie, and she couldn't even sense the aura of any living people nearby.

Agatha frowned tightly. She rotated her eyes, easing the dryness, while carefully observing the environment, and then slowly walked towards the door not far away.

The slightly rusty metal door had a crack, looking like someone hadn't closed it tightly when they left in a hurry.

With a creaking noise, the metal door was pushed open little by little.

Behind the door was a long corridor. The gas lamps in the corridor were burning quietly, bright, but without any warmth or sense of security brought by the light.

"Tap… tap… tap…"

The sound of the staff and heels landing echoed crisply and hollowly in the corridor. Agatha walked slowly forward along the corridor.

The entire sewage treatment center was empty.

But she couldn't see any enemies either.

She walked straight through the factory area and came to the open space outside the factory.

The sky was dim, and chaotic, heavy clouds covered the city-state. Only a few weak rays of light diffused between the clouds, barely allowing people to see that it was daytime. The buildings in sight were shrouded in this dim light, surrounded by a cold, deathly, and eerie atmosphere.

Agatha clearly remembered that when she came to the sewage treatment center, the weather outside was sunny—the sun was high in the sky, and the city-state was cloudless.

The sun?

A trace of doubt suddenly rose in Agatha's heart, and then this slight doubt expanded into a clear sense of tearing in her cognition. She suddenly realized something and looked up again, carefully observing the sky.

The sky only had an unknown source of chaotic light, and she couldn't see any celestial body that could be called the "sun."

Agatha tried to recall the appearance of the "sun," recall the concept of the "sun."

She couldn't remember, as if a thick curtain covered her reason, preventing her from remembering what the "sun" in her memory looked like. But one thing was very clear—in this world, there should exist something called the "sun," which naturally hung high in the sky, able to emit light and heat and illuminate all things!

"...Cognitive interference, can affect even the gatekeeper… The intensity is astonishing, and it covers the entire environment…" Agatha whispered to herself. After a brief moment of astonishment, she had quickly calmed down and was once again observing her surroundings.

"It's an Otherworld."