Chapter 151 Fear of the Abyssal Demon

Duncan bent down to examine.

It was indeed the nun—the one who had spoken with Duncan and Shirley not long ago, and who was theoretically praying in the main hall.

But now she lay here, dead near the entrance to the underground sanctuary, and until the moment Duncan pushed the door open, she had been using her body to hold the door shut.

It seemed she had been trying to prevent something from invading the underground sanctuary, but judging from her state before she fell, it also seemed that she had been desperately fighting something within the sanctuary, and had closed the door before dying to prevent that thing from escaping.

"Looks... like she just died..."

Shirley also mustered her courage to come closer at this time. She craned her neck from behind Duncan, and after two or three seconds, she cautiously spoke.

"Yes, it looks like she hasn't been dead for long, and even..." Duncan said, reaching out and placing his hand on the nun's arm, "Even still warm."

The corpse at the entrance to the underground sanctuary retained residual warmth, and the blood on her scarred body had not yet dried. This even gave Duncan the feeling that the battle in this basement had been continuing just as he and Shirley stepped into the church, that the nun was still alive at that time, and even... until he and Shirley began exploring the church, the nun was still breathing.

But that was impossible.

This church had been abandoned for eleven years, and the extraordinary anomaly that occurred in the city-state of Pland was also eleven years ago. If this church was truly a "key node" on the Veil, then everything here should have already happened and begun eleven years ago. The nun who fought to the last moment in the underground sanctuary... could not have just breathed her last now.

Shirley looked serious and quickly stood up, her gaze cast towards the opposite side of the door.

The underground sanctuary of this community church was, as he had expected, just a slightly narrow basement. There were no lights in the sanctuary. Even the ever-burning oil lamps and gas lamps that were supposed to ward off evil had been extinguished. Only the faint light spilling through the door illuminated the interior. In the dimness, one could vaguely see a statue of a goddess quietly standing in the center of the basement. On both sides of the sanctuary were pillars hung with scripture banners, and niches containing sacred objects.

Shirley stepped over the nun's corpse and searched for traces of battle in the basement. He saw dents on the walls and pillars where they had been hacked, as well as pits left by bullets and traces of burning. All of these should have been left behind by the battle.

But he had not found the "enemy," had not found the "invader" that the nun had desperately fought before her death.

He turned his head and looked at the Abyssal Hound, who was following behind him, cautiously looking around with his head lowered: "Duncan, can you make anything out?"

"Traces of slight temporal distortion... This place doesn't seem to have the 'reality overlap' anomaly of the surface church, but in fact, the temporal distortion is more severe than anywhere else," Duncan said in a particularly serious tone. As the only paranormal expert in the "three-person" team, his analysis was obviously much more organized than Shirley's wild guesses. "In my eyes, the entire underground sanctuary is shrouded in a thin mist. The distorted timeline has completely replaced reality, but... besides the phenomenon of temporal distortion, I haven't found anything else."

"What about the 'invader' who attacked this place?" Shirley frowned. "The nun couldn't have been fighting the air here, could she?"

"...There was an invader," Duncan sniffed—although it had no respiratory system. "No signs of living things, and no signs of Abyssal demons or spiritual beings."

Having said that, it paused, and then added, "Please trust my judgment in this regard. Abyssal Hounds are best at hunting. Distinguishing the scent of prey in the environment is a basic ability as a predator, unless..."

Shirley raised an eyebrow: "Unless?"

Duncan slowly looked around, as if suddenly becoming very cautious. It lowered its voice and came to Shirley's face: "Unless something from the subspace ran out... I can't track that thing, but if it's really something from the subspace, you should be more familiar than I am..."

Shirley's expression immediately turned blank when he heard this: "Sorry, not familiar at all."

Duncan quickly lowered his head: "You... If you say you're not familiar, then you're not familiar..."

Shirley pondered slightly. He knew that Duncan wouldn't doubt his words, but he really wasn't familiar with the subspace. However, on the other hand, Duncan's words did remind him—

He recalled the fleeting glimpse of the crack he had seen when observing the goddess statue in the main hall of the church, the chaotic light and shadows leaking from that crack, and the bizarre anomalies he had seen at the bottom of the *Forsaken*.

Subspace... Could it really be something from subspace that had run out?

"If it really is something from subspace that ran out..." Shirley frowned, as if talking to himself, "How could it directly break into the sanctuary of the Goddess of Storms? Shouldn't this be the most heavily defended place? And judging from the traces at the scene, the invader doesn't seem to have attacked from the outside, but rather appeared directly in the sanctuary and then broke outwards..."

"Then I don't know," Duncan shook his head. "The secrets of the Seven Churches are a blind spot in the knowledge of Abyssal demons, and subspace is a universally recognized taboo. Even the Doom Lords don't pry into those secrets—in fact, in my eyes, humans are an even more insane race than demons in this field. They actually dare to study subspace, and haven't had any accidents for so many years..."

"Humans are occasionally a very bold race," Shirley said casually, then looked at Duncan, "But I'm a little surprised. The Abyssal Depths are closely adjacent to subspace. Are you Abyssal demons more afraid of that place than humans? Isn't subspace practically your doorstep?"

"Just because someone lives next to a volcano doesn't mean they like to drink lava," Duncan said, drooping its head and explaining to the boss, "We live next to subspace, so we know better than humans how terrifying it is to fall in."

Shirley seemed thoughtful, and asked the question he hadn't been able to ask last time: "...So you fear the *Forsaken* returning from subspace as much as humans do?"

Duncan glared at the owner of the *Forsaken*, but it dared not stop the topic that the boss had started, so it could only honestly say: "Actually... if the *Forsaken* simply returned from subspace, it wouldn't be that scary. The main thing is that, in the beginning, that ship would occasionally 'fall' back into the real world, as if it was oscillating between two dimensions, constantly traveling between subspace and the real world..."

Shirley had only asked casually, but he didn't expect to hear such information, and his heart stirred: "Oscillating between the real world and subspace?"

"Yes, every time it directly pierced through the spirit world and the Abyss, carrying everything it encountered along the way, like a runaway cannonball," Duncan said, sounding obviously still fearful. "I still remember a terrifying scene to this day. The ship fell from the upper layers like a burning meteor, its flames carrying screaming humans and twisted ship hulls. Those blindly fighting Abyssal demons scattered in terror, but in the blink of an eye, they were swept into the flames by the massive force, instantly merging with those humans into bizarre, twisted lumps, and then being torn apart before being sprinkled into the bottom of the Abyss..."

"The *Forsaken* smashed through various dimensions in this way, falling into the depths of subspace, and then, after two days, it drilled out from the bottom, and then... did it again."

As Duncan spoke, it swallowed hard, and a rough scraping sound and the sound of corrosive substances surging came from its throat.

"At that time, even some of the blindly ignorant Abyssal demons briefly stopped fighting, and just stared blankly in the direction of the spirit world every day. Fear even surpassed the killing, becoming their new instinct... And I was one of those most deeply branded by that fear."

Shirley listened blankly, and after a long while, finally blurted out: "That... I understand why you have such a large psychological shadow."

Duncan bravely raised its head to look at Shirley: "You... Don't you know these things yourself?"

Shirley almost lost his composure—What the x do I know! This isn't my doing! Why do I have to carry the blame for this old chestnut?!

But no matter how much he complained, he could only mutter it in his heart. In front of Duncan, he could only continue to keep a straight face: "Maybe I didn't pay attention."

Duncan: "..."

Seeing the Abyssal Hound's utterly devastated appearance, Shirley sighed and had no choice but to add, "I'll pay attention in the future."

His tone was very sincere.

Duncan was so touched that it didn't dare to move.

Shirley himself then fell into brief contemplation.

If what Duncan said was true, then the *Forsaken*... had once been in a completely out-of-control state? It didn't simply return from subspace, but had been "oscillating" between the real world and subspace for quite a long time?!