Heidi ran breathlessly towards Vanna. Nearby guards instinctively moved to stop her as she approached, but they quickly recognized the disheveled, soot-covered woman as a senior consultant to the City Hall and the Church, and immediately let her pass.

"You're leading the team yourself?" Heidi looked in surprise at the fully armed Vanna, then glanced at the Church's elite troops behind her. "And you brought so many people?"

"A fire at the museum is no ordinary situation," Vanna said curtly, then sized Heidi up and down several times. Only after confirming that her friend was unharmed did she breathe a sigh of relief. "Looks like your vacation's ruined."

"It's 'ruined again'!" Heidi said with a resigned look of sorrow. "Why am I always so unlucky… ah, it hurts…"

Vanna noticed the peculiar lump on Heidi's head. She reached out and gently placed her fingers near the wound, while looking in the direction Heidi had come from, her brow slightly furrowed. "You just escaped?"

"Someone saved me… phew, that feels much better…" Feeling the pain on her forehead gradually subside, Heidi's attention began to focus. Then she paused, as if suddenly remembering something. She quickly looked around before suddenly leaning close to Vanna. "I need a quiet, blessed environment, preferably in a church."

Seeing the sudden seriousness in her friend's expression, Vanna reacted quickly. Without asking any questions, she turned and instructed the priests she had brought with her, "Take control of the scene, seal off the museum, raise the contamination level to Spirit Realm…"

Before she could finish, Heidi said in a low, urgent voice, "Abyssal."

"Adjust to Abyssal level, evacuate all civilians within two hundred meters of the square!" Vanna, shocked, immediately gave the order, then turned to the short-bearded district priest. "Take us to the nearest church. We need a private prayer room—prepare No. 16 incense."

The priest, who had just escaped from the fire, immediately bowed his head. "Yes, please follow me. It's near the square."

Vanna quickly led Heidi away from the square, and together with the priest, they rode to the community church nearby. Before they arrived, Vanna noticed that Heidi's face was flushing abnormally.

"What's wrong?" Vanna frowned and touched Heidi's forehead. The heat made her tone change instantly. "You're burning up!"

"I may have come into contact with something in the museum," Heidi said quickly. "I used self-hypnosis to seal some information deep in my memory. The hypnosis just ended… I'm gradually remembering it."

Listening to Heidi's story, Vanna's eyes widened slightly, and she quickly made a judgment: severe paranormal contamination, with the power to influence reality through mere recognition.

"Stop recalling immediately, slow down your thinking," Vanna reached out and held Heidi's shoulders. "Look into my eyes, shift your attention elsewhere! If you have to, hypnotize yourself again!"

"I'll try," Heidi took a deep breath. She gazed into Vanna's ocean-deep, tranquil eyes, trying to control the memories that were surfacing in her mind, trying not to recall the magnificent and solemn torrent of fire, not to recall the sea of fire surging and churning in the dark, empty space. But the memories were still seeping out, like blood from a wound, unstoppable.

Suddenly, a slight coolness came from her chest, abruptly awakening Heidi, who had felt like she was about to be swallowed by flames.

She subconsciously glanced down and saw that the glass "crystal pendant" that would only be given away as a free gift in an antique shop in the lower city was faintly glowing on her chest.

The faint light was almost imperceptible, yet it seemed like an anchor firmly rooted in the real world, pulling back her dissolving mind.

The next moment, she heard the priest's voice from ahead: "We're at the church!"

Under the personal escort of Vanna, a powerful saint, Heidi was quickly taken into the church. Because the priest had sent a psychic message to the church in advance, a prayer room had been prepared, and incense with powerful soothing and protective effects had been lit.

In the faint smoke of the incense, the statue of the Storm Goddess Gomona quietly overlooked Heidi and Vanna as they hurried into the room.

The priest was left outside the prayer room—because he might not be able to withstand the mental contamination that could occur.

As Heidi stepped into the prayer room, Vanna heard the illusory sound of waves in her ears. A feeling of being directly watched by a supreme and great being swept across her soul. Then, all the candles in the church began to burn fiercely, the blazing flames crackling and popping!

She looked up at the statue of the Storm Goddess, seeing it suddenly seem distant and majestic. An indescribable atmosphere of majesty was emanating from the statue and gradually focusing around Heidi.

"The Lord has gazed…" The phenomenon in the prayer room startled Vanna, but then she breathed a sigh of relief. She looked at Heidi, noticing that the flush on her face was gradually fading. "You're safe now. Release your memories. Let's see what you saw."

Heidi didn't speak, but simply nodded. Then she casually removed one of her earrings. There was a small deformation mechanism at the end of the earring. She used her fingernail to activate the mechanism, and a spike only a few millimeters long popped out of the earring.

Without hesitation, she clenched the earring with the spike extended, letting blood seep into her palm.

This was the deepest mental suggestion she had branded on herself at the beginning of her career as a mental therapist—when the platinum spike pierced the heart, all the unclean things sealed in her memory could be released.

The next moment, the illusory and layered sound of waves in the prayer room suddenly became extremely clear, but all the burning candles became dim and flickering. The entire room seemed to be covered with a swaying, blurred veil. Layers of veils swayed around the statue of the goddess, reflecting vague phantoms—

That was a scene that Heidi had urgently sealed in her memory.

It was only a glimpse of the truth she had glimpsed.

In the swaying, illusory veils, Vanna saw what Heidi had seen:

In the dark, empty space, a towering torrent of flames surged up, more intense than any fire in the world, more breathtaking than any power created by humans. It was like a giant wave of fire sweeping and devouring everything. Even a saint like Vanna instantly tensed all her muscles when she saw it!

How far did the flame flow surge in the darkness? Hundreds of thousands of kilometers? Millions of kilometers? Even further? What was it? Was it pure flame? Or a force more primitive than flame, capable of touching the eternal truth?

Vanna held her breath without realizing it. She watched the flame flow rise in the darkness, and then watched it gradually fall. The surging fire flowed like a viscous paste, forming magnificent and irregular arcs in the dark void. It wasn't until this illusion gradually dissipated and the illusory, layered sound of waves around her gradually subsided that she finally reacted.

After who knows how long, she suddenly felt as if a sea breeze was nourishing her mind. The gentle comfort of the Storm Goddess awakened her. She looked at Heidi, only to find that Heidi was also staring at her in astonishment.

"This… is what you saw in the museum?"

"Maybe… I guess…" Heidi felt her heart pounding. Even though this was a scene extracted from her own memory, it still exceeded her imagination due to the effects of self-hypnosis. "But this thing… doesn't seem like a 'collection' that could be placed in a museum."

"This couldn't be a 'collection'," Vanna said quickly. "Even if it's impossible to judge its scale, I know instinctively that it couldn't be kept in any building… you couldn't have seen it in the real world."

Heidi paused, her brow furrowing. After a long time, she said uncertainly, "I might have seen it in a state of unconsciousness… and performed self-hypnosis while unconscious. What I saw might not be its physical form or本体, but a 'projection' of it on the mental plane."

"Are you sure?" Vanna looked at her. "I'm not questioning your abilities as a mental therapist, but completing a temporary containment seal on mental pollution in a state of unconsciousness is not easy."

"I'm confident," Heidi nodded slowly but firmly. "I received rigorous training in this area at the Academy of Truth, and can rely solely on my subconscious to contain dangerous information when the main consciousness loses control. However, because self-hypnosis in this situation is uncontrollable, it will cause me to forget many key details. So I can't tell you the specific circumstances of when I saw this 'projection', and I don't know what the trigger or medium was."

"... Okay, I believe in your professionalism," Vanna stared at Heidi for a while before letting out a soft breath. "Looks like… you really saw something extraordinary."