Deep Sea Ember

Chapter 30 A Messy Trail

The huge and heavy mechanical spider folded and contracted its long arthropods to its abdomen, and used the wheel structure on the outside of the arthropods to glide at high speed on the straight road, while Inquisitor Vanna stood steadily as if cast on the carapace of this mechanical creation, the night wind with a slight sea smell blew through the streets, and the cold air cleared her mind more and more.

Cultists who worship the sun god are the henchmen of modern civilization – and unfortunately, there is more than one similar one.

There are always malicious gazes casting from the depths of subspace to the human world, and there are always foolish mortals who try to get involved in those ominous forces, and between this collusion between ancient gods and mortals, there are twisted things, forbidden heirs, and polluted reverberations lurking in the depths of the city-state, ready to move all the time, trying to pry the order structure of this society.

Of all these threats, the Sun God's followers are the one that makes the protectors of the city-state of Prade the most vigilant and troublesome.

Compared to most stupid and blind ordinary cults, the most dangerous thing about these heretics who worship the dark sun is that they have some kind of "belief" - although they are fanatical and twisted, although their bottom members are mixed with dragons and snakes, but in the upper echelons of this abominable sect, there is indeed some kind of "core belief" that has not changed for thousands of years.

This belief revolves around the "era of order" under the light of the old sun, which is not only self-contained, but even has a corresponding set of "true solar calendars" that are not recognized by modern civilizations.

As the inquisitor of the Deep Sea Church, Vanna was not very interested in the fallacies and heresies of those cultists, but she knew that it was the existence of these fallacies and heresies that gave the Sun God's cultists a unity and stubbornness far beyond other heresies, allowing them to survive tenaciously after blows and grow day and night in the shadows of many city-states.

But their resurgence in Prade still surprised Vanna.

According to several investigation reports, those heretics should have moved their main members to nearby Renza, Moko, and even the farther Cold Harbor city-states.

These minions hid in the sewers, relying entirely on their knowledge of the underground world and the little twisted blessings given to them by the Black Sun to evade the pursuit of the guardians.

But today, four years later, they are suddenly gathered again, and even dare to risk exposure to hold a sacrificial ceremony in the assembly hall...... Who gave them the courage?

Or ...... What major events are going to happen in this city-state? Is there some good reason for those cultists to draw the eyes of the Black Sun to Prade, even at the risk of extinguishing the last flame?

The vibration and noise of the steam core constantly running came from the mechanical spider's body, and the faint fragrance overflowed from the steam relief pipe and drifted with the night wind.

The "Creation of the World" hung high in the night sky, its pale glow illuminating the scattered houses, chimneys, and towers of Prade City, and now the action team was passing through the edge of the industrial area, and the huge steam and hydrothermal pipes that straddled between the factories pierced the sky above the streets like giant veins.

Vanna vaguely recalled the past, the deepest and most terrifying night she remembered—at that bloody midnight, her uncle had escaped the fire on her back, and the streets were filled with the walking dead and the shadows of flesh and blood that had fallen into collective hallucinations, and they had fled from the factory pipes, the smell of blood and the smell of chemical grease oozing from the pipes was disgusting......

There was a sudden vibration from the mechanical spider under her feet, and Vanna woke up from her memories.

The flat road came to an end, ahead was an abandoned area on the edge of the city, the road was potholed and uneven, and the two mechanical spiders ended their taxiing mode, they stretched out their long arthropods and began to walk quickly on the uneven road.

It didn't take long for the team to arrive at an abandoned sewer entrance.

Another team of eight was already on standby, and they cordoned off the nearby area to prevent unrelated personnel from approaching the entrance.

Vanna greeted her subordinates here, and then directly followed the person in charge of the scene into the depths of the sewers.

Through the deep corridors and through the dirty paths, Vanna finally arrived at the secret meeting place—where she saw more Guardian warriors and church priests performing purification rituals.

A makeshift sacrificial platform was located in the middle of the assembly hall, the wooden platform seemed to have been burned by flames, and on the high platform, you could see the blasphemous totem built by the Sun God cultists - the totem had been burned by the flames, but the basic structure was still intact.

Around the platform were dozens of cultists squatting on the ground with their hands tied, most of them shivering, while a few of them were mumbling their blasphemous prayers with their lips moving.

But with the ritual site being destroyed and the storm goddess already paying attention to this point, these heretical prayers had no effect.

Not far from the sacrificial platform were the bodies of the victims found in a nearby cave, these miserable victims were placed on linen with runes painted on them, and the mortician who arrived in a hurry was checking the condition of each body.

Several church pastors were walking around the altar, the copper chains in their hands swaying slightly, and the incense burner at the end of the chain emitted white smoke that touched the ground near the altar and was immediately stained with an ominous black shadow, and more white smoke would carry away these pollutions—the breath left by the black sun would be removed little by little in the process.

"Your Excellency, please come here, this is where we found something wrong," the young guard said, pointing to several corpses next to the sacrificial platform, "Please be careful, the ground here is not very clean."

Vanna went straight to those corpses, and after seeing the situation of one of them, she frowned subconsciously.

It was a cultist in a golden mask—no doubt, the priest directly responsible for the sacrificial rites on this blasphemous sacrificial ground.

There was a terrible hole in his chest.

“…… What is going on? Vanna frowned, "This fanatical heretic was too excited at the end of the ceremony and sacrificed himself as well?" I have never heard of such a rule among cultists who worship the Black Sun.

"That's exactly what is weird and bizarre - he's not self-sacrificing," the guard who brought Vanna immediately shook his head and said with a slightly eccentric expression on his face, "According to the description of the cultist caught at the scene...... Their 'messenger' was sacrificed by a sacrifice......"

"Sacrificed by a sacrifice?" Vanna immediately raised her eyebrows, "What kind of crazy talk is this?

"It's really like crazy words," the guard spread his hands helplessly, "In fact, when we arrived, most of the cultists here were indeed in a semi-crazy state."

"Already in a semi-crazy state?"

"Yes, there was obviously a big mistake in their sacrificial ceremony, many people were infected with madness, and even quite a few people had begun to s***h and kill each other, they all seemed to regard each other as ...... The 'monsters' occupied by some kind of terrifying thing were precisely because they rushed out of the assembly hall in a frenzy that they alerted the sheriffs patrolling nearby, leading to the exposure of the situation...... When we arrived, there were only a few people left who could answer questions clearly, and the few who could still speak fluently insisted that they had sacrificed the messenger.

"Into madness? Hack and kill each other? And think that others are occupied monsters? Vanna's expression immediately became serious, "Have you had an examination? Is it the result of being polluted by the black sun?

"There is no trace of external contamination, but more like a spontaneous madness - the factors that cause madness are rooted in their own spiritual world," the guardian said, pointing to a young lady in a long black dress who was walking among the cultists, "Ms. Heidi has arrived, and if we are sure that these cultists are not contaminated by the black sun, we can only think of a hypnotic way."