Chapter 1 An Omen

Crap!

The instant the old caretaker saw the twisted radiance, he realized he had carelessly fallen into an extremely dangerous situation. In this bleak, late hour, something unimaginable and unspeakable was knocking at his door, and, even more fatally, just minutes ago, he had burned potent incense to extract secrets from the souls of two cultists!

The incense was potent enough to construct the caster's desired final illusion in the minds of the dead, and it could also greatly enhance the caster's own perceptual range and mental acuity, allowing him to successfully distinguish the aura of a Nether Demon from the most subtle fluctuations of consciousness in the two cultists. The side effect, however, was a temporary elevation of his spiritual vision, leaving him now almost defenselessly facing the truth of the visitor.

Radiant, twisted starlight surged wildly outside the door, vaguely outlining a massive, giant-like presence. A grating howl, as if ten thousand roars were superimposed, crashed through his mind. Each howl seemed to tear at his soul. The old caretaker stood there, rigid, and saw a beam of starlight extending towards him, the tip suddenly blossoming as if countless eyes were turning within.

Duncan looked at the old man holding a shotgun in front of him, then craned his neck to look behind the old man.

He saw the two lifeless bodies.

The cultists had been dealt with—this seemingly fragile old man seemed to have more strength than he had anticipated.

"Looks like the trouble's been taken care of, that's great," Duncan smiled, nodding slightly, "I was going to help, worried you might be in danger."

As he spoke, he glanced down at his current state, and quickly added, "Ah, I know I look a bit scary right now, and very suspicious, the reason is simple—the situation was urgent, and I had to temporarily use a substandard body. This body is gradually collapsing, but rest assured, old man, I'm not a bad person..."

Human language seemed mixed in with the buzzing and rumbling. Mostly understandable words mingled with vast knowledge, washing over all his senses. The old caretaker faced this star giant in an invisible storm. He realized that the other party was talking to him.

Duncan looked at his hands.

It wasn't sunrise yet; the boundless sea was still in darkness.

This unspeakable being had departed. From the perspective of a higher-level entity, it couldn't be said to have disturbed anything here, which meant that it might be some kind of friendly presence—so, at least for the short term, the cemetery should no longer be invaded by anything else.

He closed his eyes tightly, silently chanting the name of the death god, Bartok, and reopened them a few seconds later.

He couldn't allow a suspicious presence to remain on this land that was supposed to be the resting place of the dead.

His whole body was smoking, his skin was cracking inch by inch, and half a pound of coal ash fell with every movement. The old man was just pointing his gun at himself without immediately firing, which could only prove that there might be no bullets in his gun...

Inside the captain's cabin of the Vanishing Sea, Duncan breathed a sigh of relief and glanced at his side.

The pale light of the World Scar illuminated this world.

Duncan frowned slightly.

He still remembered very clearly the scene of this body rapidly disintegrating.

The bizarre images in his vision were still there, but a little better than before. At least he could see more of what the real world should look like and could see the boundary between the road and the mortuary table.

Aey was tilting her head, looking this way, when she suddenly blurted out, "Our warriors are fighting the enemy... the battle is too unfavorable for us!"

The old caretaker pondered for a moment, then turned and went back to the small house. He slowly locked the door, and then, fighting the persistent dizziness and tinnitus, locked the windows. Relying on his memory, he found herbs and holy oil from a pile of disordered shadows and writhing things, and sprinkled them in the four corners of the room. After doing all this, he came to the center of the room, pushed the still-warm body from the chair to the ground, sat down on the chair himself, hung a death god emblem around his neck, and, holding the double-barreled shotgun, quietly waited for the dawn to arrive.

This

The unspeakable being suddenly left, actually left.

The old man's muscles were stiff, but he slowly raised the double-barreled shotgun in his hand, and, under the enormous mental pressure and confused thinking, aimed the muzzle at this seemingly insignificant "individual."

The old caretaker looked at the path and saw a pile of strange coke scattered by the roadside. He looked towards the mortuary table, but it was difficult to see what it really looked like.

"This body is nearing its limit."

Duncan recalled his experience in that cemetery, sorting out the information he had.

"Leave," he said unclearly, then raised his voice a little, "Leave! Don't disturb us!"

This was another key point.

"My first visit today was a bit chaotic, and many accidents occurred," he said with a smile to the old caretaker, "but our conversation before was quite pleasant. I hope we can meet again in a more peaceful and stable environment next time. Goodbye."

With that, he stretched his slightly stiff neck and looked up at the window.

And at the end of that darkness, was the direction of Frost.

These Annihilation cultists obviously knew something; they had anticipated the disintegration of this body...

But despite the setbacks, his efforts were not entirely without gain.

Behind these abnormal events... was there some connection to Maurice, this "friend who had come back to life?"

This corpse obviously had a problem—not only because four Annihilation cultists had risked running to the cemetery in the middle of the night to steal the body, but also because of the strange "self-disintegration" phenomenon that occurred later.

He could feel that the collapse of this body had reached its limit, and his spirit, projected from the Vanishing Sea, was gradually separating from this disintegrating medium.

Whatever he was going to investigate next, he would have to wait until the sun rose.

Only one thing confused him—he was the guardian of the cemetery.

His somewhat hasty trip to Frost was unsuccessful. Not only did he fail to find a body that could be used for a long time, but he didn't even manage to leave the cemetery in the end.

While guessing the intentions of these cultists, he was also thinking about another matter.

This unspeakable being who visited on this winter night seemed to want to communicate something with him.

The old caretaker felt the enormous pressure and maddening noise in his spiritual world disappear in an instant, and the chaotic starlight in front of him also vanished in the blink of an eye. A sense of fullness tinnitus emerged. He raised his head and looked around in the persistent tinnitus, seeing the cemetery path winding under the glow of the gas lamps. The shadows on both sides of the path were blurred and overlapping, as if hiding countless shaking and jumping contours. The mortuary table, not far away, was covered with jumping limbs and creeping shadows, and pairs of eyes blinked in the darkness, each pair of eyes seemed human, yet not human.

His rich experience turned into the correct judgment at this moment: he didn't know how long his madness would last. In a state of lost judgment and possible deterioration at any time, continuing to be active outside could only lead to unpredictable results—he wasn't even sure if he was aiming at the living or the dead the next time he raised his gun.

It was the echo of madness—the good news was that it wasn't permanent madness, nor was it complete madness.

His spirit withdrew from the body. This body, which was rapidly disintegrating due to the death of the symbiotic demon, was finally completely destroyed. After losing Duncan's forced maintenance, it fell backward and, upon hitting the ground, shattered into a pile of dry, cracked coke.

The Annihilation cultists who led the Nether Lord... this was the most noteworthy part.

It could be foreseen that what happened outside this cemetery after sunrise tomorrow would come to the attention of the Frost authorities and the local church, and would cause a small stir among the church guards.

He, this "dead man" who crawled out of the coffin, would certainly attract the attention of the local church.

Four cultists, disguised as priests of the god of death during the strictest curfew, ran to the cemetery to try to steal a corpse, and even lost their lives for it... This was a big deal.

He

It wasn't the first time he had done this kind of body snatching, but it was the first time he had seen this strange disintegration phenomenon—back in the sewers of Prand, even if this heartless sacrifice was in a great state, it had never experienced such a strange situation!

But he quickly understood the old caretaker's intense reaction at this moment—after all, the way he looked now didn't look like a good person.

But he couldn't hear anything clearly.

Duncan raised his hand and slowly stroked his chin.

"What's Alice fighting with again?" Morfan listened to the noise outside, vaguely hearing the clanging sounds on the deck and the exclamations of Miss Automaton, but that sound had long become a daily occurrence on the Vanishing Sea, so he didn't care and just shook his head, "Let her go, she'll stop after a while."

This temporary body...

Duncan frowned.

At the same time, Duncan also remembered a sentence the cultist had inadvertently revealed, "I should leave," Duncan nodded, taking half a step back, not minding the old man's reaction at all, "I just came to check on the situation."