Chapter 1 The Knock

Dong, dong, dong.

The sudden knocking interrupted the sinister man's brief moment of confusion upon seeing the cotton. He immediately withdrew his gaze and turned toward the sound.

After briefly sensing the aura outside the door, he walked over and unlocked it.

A man in a dark hooded robe, his face half-hidden in shadow, stood there, displeased at the delay. "Why did it take you so long to open the door?"

"I am not your servant, Dumont," the man inside frowned, clearly unhappy. "Don't take the Saint's temporary favor too seriously."

"Think what you will, Richard, I'm just giving you a reminder," the Annihilation cultist, Dumont, said calmly. "Don't let fear fester in your heart for too long. You've been off since you withdrew from the Dream of the Nameless two days ago. Your caution, fear, and slow suspicion have already drawn the Saint's attention. He hasn't expressed dissatisfaction yet, but if you continue like this, it will be detrimental to our cause…"

Before Dumont could finish, Richard lunged forward, pressing his sinister face close to the other man's hood. "You're welcome to go in and try it yourself, instead of staying in the safe real world and spouting such nonsense!"

"I will go," Dumont said calmly, unperturbed by the provocation. He simply took a half-step back. "Tonight, as part of the next group of chosen, I will enter the Dream of the Nameless with you."

Richard finally dropped his hostile expression, looking at Dumont with surprise. "The Saint has decided to send another group already? Is the plan ahead of schedule?"

"What else? The reports you filed have been taken seriously. The Saint now knows that there is a dangerous force opposing us in the Dream of the Nameless, and that another power is also taking action—our 'allies' have sent word that they seem to have already clashed with them," Dumont said, spreading his hands and shaking his head. "Put aside your complaints and paranoia. I know you encountered difficulties in the previous operation, but you are among brothers. The Holy Master blesses us."

"...The Holy Master blesses us," Richard finally exhaled softly, his face completely relaxing. "I was just a little agitated."

"Understandable. After all, you were injured in the penultimate operation and encountered danger in the last one. Such trauma can put a considerable burden on the mind," Dumont said, looking up at the space behind Richard—at the faint dust motes floating in the air, and the illusory black chain drifting in the air. At the end of the chain, the "Harbinger of Death" (the *gaosibird*) perched wearily on a nearby cabinet, clearly not in good condition. "So, are you sure you don't need a couple more days of rest? In your current state, no one would object to you missing one operation."

"No need," Richard said immediately, shaking his head. His eyes became wary again. "My devotion to the Holy Master is my greatest strength. I will adjust my condition before tonight."

"...If you are so determined, I will tell the Saint," Dumont said, nodding. "Also, since you don't plan to miss tonight's operation, prepare yourself. Before nightfall, go to the assembly hall. The Saint will announce something."

Richard looked into the eyes of the man outside the door, then nodded after a moment. "Alright."

Dumont said nothing more, just took another half-step back, watching silently as the door closed. Then, the calm and indifferent expression on his face faded into a faint smile as he turned and walked deeper into the ship's corridor.

Another Annihilation cultist, short and stout, stepped out of the shadows in the corner of the corridor and walked alongside Dumont.

After they had gone some distance, Dumont suddenly broke the silence. "Richard's condition is not good. His demon is weakening, and his mind is losing its balance. Soon, the symbiotic pact will drag him to his death—fate is closing in on that guy."

"It's the fate he chose. The Depths will remember his sacrifice," the other cultist said softly. "We will eventually return to that place of origin, sooner or later… But I'm really curious, why is his mental imbalance so severe? Others who entered the Dream of the Nameless have also experienced various failures. Some were even heavily 'corroded' and escaped the dream in a near-death state, but their mental states weren't that bad…"

Dumont stopped and looked back at the closed door in the distance.

After a moment, he withdrew his gaze and shook his head. "Severe injury and severe injury are not the same."

He turned and continued walking, slowly adding, "Being corroded in the dream, fighting to the point of near death, all you need to do upon returning is rest with honor. But being beaten half to death by an underage girl and her dog in the dream, screaming and falling off the bed—and doing it in the assembly hall, with the Saint retrieving your memories on the spot—that requires more than just rest."

After this was said, both Annihilation cultists fell silent and continued walking slowly forward. After a long while, the stout cultist muttered thoughtfully, "That's terrible…"

"...Yes, that's terrible."

Inside the cabin, Richard sat on the bed with a dark expression, listening to the sounds in the corridor gradually fading away. His expression grew more and more ferocious with each passing second.

His symbiotic demon, the Harbinger of Death, was listlessly slumped on the nearby cabinet. The faint mist released from the bird-shaped demon floated in the air like a tangible substance, spreading in all directions and enhancing the "master's" perception.

But after a while, he restrained the urge to continue releasing perception, and under the drive of reason, he retracted the Harbinger of Death's power.

He had to restore his and his contracted demon's condition as soon as possible, and he had to prove himself in the next operation—the end of the cycle was approaching, the twilight of this world would soon arrive, and whether the followers of the Depths could gain a place in the unknown era after the Deep Sea Era depended heavily on their actions in that "dream."

Proving himself in that "dream" would be the best shortcut to eternal glory.

He breathed a long sigh, but his hand inadvertently touched something soft on the bed again.

It was still that clump of cotton.

Richard picked it up with some puzzlement, looking up and surveying the not-so-spacious cabin, as if searching for the source of this inexplicable cotton.

Did it come out of the bedding?

He searched the room but found no source. Finally, he went to the window, scratching his head in confusion.

Why was he so concerned about a clump of cotton?

The Annihilation cultist paused, puzzled, then shrugged—forget it, it's just a clump of cotton, no need to pay so much attention.

He pulled open his shirt, felt around on his skin, found a zipper, and casually pulled it open. Then, he stuffed the clump of cotton into the writhing flesh.

A soft laugh suddenly came from the corner of the room, like a five- or six-year-old girl hiding in the closet and watching the clumsy adults, giggling softly.

The Harbinger of Death on the cabinet seemed to sense something, but it only raised its head to look suspiciously at the direction of the sound before lowering its head again.

…

"Rabi found a stronghold of those cultists?"

In the captain's room of the *Brilliant Star*, Lucrezia was sitting at her dressing table. The edges of the mirror in front of her flickered with ghostly green flames, and candlesticks burned quietly before it, while her father's voice came from within.

"Yes," Lucrezia nodded to the mirror. "The stronghold is actually on a ship, and judging from the current situation, they aren't 'hiding' on the ship, but completely control it, and that ship is home to a considerable number of Annihilation cultists… It must be an important stronghold."

"...That rabbit has done a great service," Duncan in the mirror nodded with a serious expression, with not a little emotion in his tone. "Those cultists are elusive and never act conspicuously in the cities, making them very difficult to capture. I didn't expect to find a gathering place this time… Hiding on a ship, that's indeed beyond our expectations."

"The ship is quite large, and it seems to be a place specifically prepared for various dark and bloody rituals. Rabi smelled a strong smell of blood on the ship, the lingering scent of multiple sacrifices—such a ship certainly can't dock in the cities like ordinary ships, the smell of dark rituals can't be hidden from the church, so there must be a supply port behind it…"

Listening to Lucrezia's analysis, Duncan in the mirror began to think. After a while, he suddenly asked, "Is Rabi still hiding on the ship? Will it be discovered?"

"It's very good at hiding. Unless it actively confronts some of the high-ranking cultists on board, such as the 'Saint,' it normally won't be exposed," Lucrezia said. "It is a shadow from the spirit world and can hide in people's emotions and perceptions. On that ship, the environment full of negative energy is its best cover."

"Good," Duncan nodded. "Then let Rabi continue to hide and not contact the 'Saint.' Collect as much information as possible."

His original plan was to have Rabi construct a mirror ritual as soon as it found the cultists' hiding place so he could personally "descend" to the scene, then quickly teleport his followers over before the cultists all died, and beat them up. He would keep beating the cultists unconscious before their symbiotic demons committed suicide, seeing how many he could catch in the end.

The whole plan was simple and efficient and had already received Vanna's high approval.

But now it seemed… The "big fish" Rabi had found was bigger than anyone had imagined, so the problem couldn't be solved so simply and crudely.

As a master angler, he had to let the line out a little longer.

(End of Chapter)