The evening alarm bell rang three times, and before the third time, Vanna had already arrived at the cathedral.
Old Bishop Valentine was already waiting here. This venerable old man, wearing a black priest robe, was standing silently in front of the statue of the storm goddess Gemona, praying with his eyes closed. He heard the sound of someone entering the church, and without turning around, he knew it was Vanna.
"Inquisitor Vanna," Valentine said solemnly, "Storm Cathedral has sent an order to summon listeners."
"Directly from Storm Cathedral?!" Vanna was surprised. She quickly walked to the statue and exposed herself to the light. "Didn't they discover some new anomaly or phenomenon?"
"If it was just a new abnormality or phenomenon, the alarm bell would not ring three times in a row." Valentine shook his head. "It was the gravekeeper in the "tomb" who sent a direct message saying that there was an abnormal movement in the body of the nameless king. Although it is not clear yet,
I don’t know what the message is, but it seems that ... the existing list is changing.”
- As he spoke, the old bishop turned his head and looked quietly into Vanna's eyes.
"This time we need to send a listener into the tomb to get information directly from the body of the nameless king. The Deep Sea Church is currently on duty in the tomb. The listener will be selected from the followers of the Storm Goddess. The specific candidate has not yet been decided. You and I are on the list of candidates."
Vanna calmed down and asked calmly: "When do we set off?"
"Now," Valentine nodded, motioning for Vanna to follow him. He walked behind the statue of the goddess, and a door with many sacred symbols painted on it had already opened, revealing a deep and long corridor behind it. "The spiritual energy channel is ready."
Vanna bowed to the statue of Gemona, then turned and followed the old bishop.
They passed through the door and walked through the long corridor. Under the flickering light, the two devout believers arrived at the deepest part of the ancient church - a special secret room at the end of the corridor.
This is a small room. Unlike the main body of the church which is made of cement and bricks, this small secret room is made entirely of stones. The gray irregular stones are stacked tightly together to form the walls and roof of the room. In the center of the room is a sunken fire pit, with crackling flames burning in the stone pit - but there is no fuel at the bottom of the flame, as if the fire was condensed out of thin air.
Apart from the flame in the center of the room, there was no furniture in the entire secret room. Only the sound of running water came from nowhere and continued to sound illusory from all directions. Every wall around seemed wet.
Even the floor of the room seemed to have small streams of water flowing at all times - giving people the feeling that this stone hut was not a room in a cathedral, but... a flooded cave on the seabed.
This was not the first time that Vanna came to this secret room. As a "judge" with the same status as the bishop in the city-state, she also had the right to use the "psychic channel" here. This seemingly inconspicuous room was the "port" for building the psychic channel. There were similar facilities in the central church of every city-state, and every church had similar technology. The priests of the Storm Goddess used such "flooded caves", and the priests of the God of Death built pathways that connected each other in the "Pale Vine Room".
These seemingly gloomy and depressing facilities actually have magical effects: they can strip the user's soul and send it into a huge and interconnected psychic space, no matter how far apart these city-states are, no matter how turbulent the waves on the vast ocean are.
This was a miracle accomplished with the blessing of the gods, allowing church branches far apart on the vast ocean to communicate in a timely manner. In ancient times, when ocean-going ships were not as reliable as they are now, this was even the only way for many city-states to maintain communication and confirm each other's survival.
The door of the secret room slowly closed. The dark and heavy metal door made a dull sound, and the complex and dense runes on the two doors immediately moved quickly, like living things entangled and meshing with each other, completely sealing the entire room.
Vanna and Valentine stood together beside the fire pit in the center of the secret room. They lowered their heads, stared at the jumping holy flames, and silently chanted the holy name of the storm goddess Gemona.
The illusory sound of flowing water came continuously from all around, and the rising waves began to rise extremely rapidly. In the OE, Fanna saw the trickle on the ground suddenly turned into surging waves and began to rise extremely rapidly.
She stared at the fire in the center of the room, which—as always—burned with shadows in rising waves.
Vanna closed her eyes and calmly allowed the illusory sea water to completely submerge her.
The cold touch quickly dissipated, and she opened her silver eyes again. What she saw was no longer a rock chamber like a waterlogged cave, but an extremely wide chaotic space - it seemed to be a square, an almost boundless square, simple and vast, with many magnificent pillars supporting it at the end of her sight. The tops of those pillars were all in a fragmented state, and their tops seemed to shatter and dissipate in the distant sky. A stream of light shrouded the top of the square. There seemed to be something hidden in the depths of that light, but it was definitely not something that could be penetrated by the eyes of ordinary people.
Fanna calmed herself down, and saw that there were many figures standing in the square - all of them were black shadows with only outlines. Although her faces could not be seen clearly, she could confirm from the familiar aura emanating from each figure that they were all devout saints of the Goddess of Scenery - saints from various city-states, mobile churches, and even from the Cathedral of the Storm.
Only "saints" can become alternative "listeners" - because there are some "voices" that only powerful saints can listen to while remaining sober.
"It seems that we are the last batch," a dark figure approached. Because she was very familiar with him, Vanna recognized him as Bishop Valentine before he spoke. The old man's tone seemed a little awkward.
“I was also the last one to arrive at the last meeting… .…”
"Are the saints from other city-states living in secret rooms..." Vanna muttered, "Every time the news of the call comes out, they can gather half of the people in less than ten minutes..."
"Ever since Saint Folsom wrote 'First' on the registration bay at the assembly grounds twenty years ago, they've started scrambling to arrive early." Valentine shook his head. "Honestly, there's no way to reason with Lan... The goddess won't pay any extra attention to her because of this." Vanna said nothing, and at this moment, a sudden roar suddenly came from the end of the crowd, interrupting her thoughts and the conversations between all the saints' phantoms.
Vanna and Valentine looked up at the same time, and were shocked to see that the ground in the center of the square was rising - the fragmented ancient stone bricks were rippling like water waves, and in the layers of ripples, a huge object was rising rapidly, first a pale spire, followed by tilted stone walls and quaint pillars.
Almost in an instant, the thing came completely into Vanna's sight - a huge building made of pale stones.
It was a solemn and dignified "palace", an ancient building built in a long-lost history. It was composed of a pyramid as the main body and surrounded by several obelisks and towers. No other city-state in the world had such a style. Its gloomy and depressing atmosphere did not seem like a building for living people at all.
Rather than saying it is a palace, it is more like a huge mausoleum.
In fact, it was indeed a tomb - a tomb belonging to some ancient and powerful being.
Like everyone else, Vanna's eyes involuntarily fell on the bottom of the huge pyramid building. Under the gaze of countless people, the door of the mausoleum finally slowly opened. The heavy and pale stone door retreated to the sides, and an extremely tall figure slowly walked out of the mausoleum.
In Vanna's opinion, it was hard to say whether "he" was still a living human being.
His body was wrapped in layers of shrouds, half of his body and the shrouds were in a nearly burnt black state, the other half was wrapped in heavy runes and locked. Some of those gloomy chains even extended directly from his flesh and blood, with their ends entangled with throbbing blood vessels and nerves. This ancient gravekeeper was like a horrible creature made up of flesh and blood, iron chains and the curse of death. He stepped out of the mausoleum of the nameless king and walked with heavy steps towards the dark shadows gathered in the square.
Although this was not the first time she had seen the "gravekeeper", Vanna still subconsciously took a breath and felt her muscles a little tense.
Then, she saw the "gravekeeper" walking straight towards her.
The candidate has been chosen.
The gravekeeper walked past everyone in the square without hesitation until he stopped in front of Vanna. Only one eye was exposed on his head, which was wrapped in a shroud and chains. This eye stared at Vanna calmly - although the latter was quite tall, the gravekeeper was still a whole head taller than her.
"You can enter the tomb." The gravekeeper spoke, his voice was hoarse as if it came from a corpse, and then he raised his right hand that seemed to be scorched by fire, holding a feather pen and a roll of parchment. "Write down what you heard." The gravekeeper instructed concisely.
(Oh my god!)