Chapter 184 A Contaminated History

The chartroom was as it always was. Sunlight streaming in from the boundless sea filtered through the portholes, illuminating the old objects that held a century of light within them. The black goat-head sculpture stood quietly in the corner of the chart table, controlling the *Lost Country*, while a thin mist rolled across the surface of the ancient sea chart. In the swirling fog, the trajectory representing known routes was extending straight ahead, moving forward.

At the end of the route was the city-state of Pland, and that shimmering point of light was now appearing in the mist ahead, gradually closing the distance between itself and the *Lost Country* at a speed imperceptible to the naked eye.

The door opened, and Duncan appeared in the doorway.

The goat-head sculpture immediately stirred. Its wooden neck creaked as it turned its head in the direction of the sound, "Ah, the great Captain has come to his loyal second-in-command! Is everything going well with your affairs? You've been busy since yesterday. Are you in a good mood today? The weather today..."

"Stop, stop, you don't need to repeat similar greetings several times a day," Duncan interrupted before it could finish, his gaze lingering on the goat-head's face for a moment, seemingly inadvertently.

The goat-head was as it always was, with no expression on its face. Its obsidian eyes were still strangely cold, and it stared at him from the table, its gaze filled with an inhuman quality.

But there was no dangerous aura, and nothing different from usual.

This fellow seemed to be diligently carrying out Duncan's orders. Duncan had told it to focus on sailing the ship, and it was really just focusing on sailing the ship.

"Captain, you seem preoccupied?" the goat-head said, with its familiar, sycophantic enthusiasm. "You seem to have captured some prisoners... but they don't seem to be on the ship anymore?"

"They disappeared after sunrise."

Duncan slowly walked behind the navigation table and sat down, saying casually, "They were a few End of the World Evangelists."

"Ah, the End of the World Evangelists... troublesome and dangerous fellows. They're indeed hard to catch, always appearing and disappearing inexplicably," the goat-head immediately rattled on. As Duncan knew, once a topic was opened, this guy would spout a string of nonsense, but that nonsense often contained useful information, without needing much questioning at all.

"But how did they provoke you? Those crazy evangelists don't usually show their faces. Compared to the Sun Cultists or the Annihilation Cultists, they're much more low-key and rarely seen..."

"They attacked someone I was watching, so I caught them and used them to test Alice's abilities," Duncan said casually, while observing the goat-head's reaction. "They also said a lot of crazy things, related to the subspace... how much do you know about these cultists?"

"I suggest you don't pay too much attention to their crazy 'preaching'," the goat-head said immediately. "Just frequently calling out the name of the subspace can attract dangerous attention, let alone dealing with those lunatics who follow the subspace. Of course, a great existence like you might not be affected by them, but hearing too much is never a good thing..."

Then it paused and continued, "I tell you, I don't know much about those lunatics, and not many people in this world know them either. The End of the World Evangelists are probably the strangest group of cultists. They're good at being elusive, their thinking is fragmented, and unlike ordinary cultists, they don't have a large number of low-level rabble – they're much fewer in number, and there's no one you can talk to normally..."

The goat-head chattered on, becoming more and more verbose, but even in the midst of this lengthy nonsense, Duncan still heard some key information.

According to the goat-head, the number of End of the World Evangelists was far less than the other two cult forces (the Sun Followers and the Annihilation Cultists) that were also major threats to civilization. Judging from current records and activity, their number might only be a thousand, or even less.

Ordinary cults have a large number of ordinary people acting as "low-level believers." These rabble have no power and live normal social lives. Except for their corrupted minds, they are basically no different from ordinary people, but the End of the World Evangelists have no such underlying structure – whenever they appear, they are always "priests" with great power.

No one knows how a cult group can operate and maintain itself to this day without such underlying support, just as no one knows the specific process by which Sun Cultists and Annihilation Cultists convert ordinary people.

In addition, although the End of the World Evangelists have the word "evangelist" in their name, they seem to have almost no successful "conversion" cases – their sanity has long evaporated, their language and logic are different from ordinary people, and although they always recite some "truths" related to the subspace whenever they appear, no sane person would listen to their bewitchment, and those with weak wills... have already been corrupted into monsters by the subspace before they can be bewitched.

In other words, the End of the World Evangelists theoretically cannot increase their numbers through "conversion."

Finally, the End of the World Evangelists are elusive, very elusive.

Duncan had already experienced this firsthand.

The goat-head claimed that it didn't know much about the End of the World Evangelists, but the information it provided was quite extensive.

"A group of evangelists so deranged that they can no longer 'convert'?" Duncan muttered thoughtfully, stroking his chin. "Then where did the original End of the World Evangelists come from?"

"Who knows?" The goat-head's neck creaked and shook. "Maybe they grew directly out of the subspace..."

Duncan didn't pay attention to the goat-head's obvious "subspace joke," nor did he mention his "non-linear conjecture" about the End of the World Evangelists.

He simply thought that if he, who had only encountered the End of the World Evangelists for the first time, could come up with this conjecture, then what did the guardians and bishops in the human city-states, who had been fighting against heresy for a long time, know about those subspace believers? Would they have a more complete theory to explain the strangeness of those lunatics?

"Captain, you seem very concerned about those End of the World Evangelists?"

In the silence, the goat-head's voice suddenly broke the quiet in the room. "It's rare to see you with such a serious expression..."

Duncan looked up and quietly glanced at the goat-head.

"Tell me, if the history of a city-state is contaminated, can it still be saved?"

He said suddenly, calmly and casually, as if discussing an ordinary "academic conjecture" in his spare time.

The goat-head was stunned for a moment (although its stiff face didn't have much expression to begin with), and after two or three seconds, it responded, "Historical contamination? Oh, that's a high-end topic. Sounds like something only the subspace could do..."

"Something only the subspace could do?" Duncan raised his eyebrows. "Why do you say that?"

"Besides the subspace, which is itself a dangerous thing with space-time and cause-and-effect all mixed up, what else could casually contaminate the history of a city-state?" the goat-head said casually. "There's nothing in the mortal world with that kind of power... oh, if you have to say, there might be one thing that qualifies in terms of power, but that thing is hanging in the sky..."

Listening to the goat-head's chatter, Duncan's heart skipped a beat.

The space-time and cause-and-effect relationships of the subspace itself are chaotic?

This was the first time he had heard such clear and direct information about the subspace.

And along with this information, he recalled something the Frost Queen had said to him in that illusion – please do not contaminate history.

He frowned, temporarily suppressing the chaotic thoughts in his mind, and refocused his gaze on the goat-head, which immediately noticed the captain's attention, stopped chattering, and quickly realized, "Ah, no wonder you're suddenly concerned about those End of the World Evangelists... could it be that they..."

"They might be planning something big," Duncan said quietly. "It makes me a little... annoyed."

He quietly stared into the goat-head's eyes, and the goat-head stared back expressionlessly, as if they were observing each other, but there seemed to be no additional communication.

"The city-state has its own guardians, and the Fire-Keepers are watching the pulse of history," the goat-head said. "Anyway, no matter what those End of the World Evangelists do, they can't threaten you. Even if they can contaminate history, they can't contaminate you and the *Lost Country*..."

Duncan raised an eyebrow. "Can't contaminate me and the *Lost Country*?"

"... We returned from the subspace, Captain..." the goat-head said slowly. "Everything in the world can be contaminated – except for the subspace, and we... have been in the subspace long enough."

Duncan frowned. For some reason, the crazy words that those End of the World Evangelists had said suddenly surfaced in his mind.

After a moment of silence, he couldn't help but murmur softly, "The Promised Ark..."