Everywhere.
After the landing team left the shallow coastal area and advanced for some distance into the interior of the Holy Island, the terrifying scene finally appeared in everyone's eyes.
Humanoid figures that seemed to be formed by pitch-black mud could be seen everywhere, as if they were swallowed up by the surrounding environment and "embedded" in various places - the ground, walls, roadside boulders, and even tree trunks. They had completely merged with the things that swallowed them, like countless weird and terrifying sculptures standing still on this holy island where there were no living people. The struggling postures displayed by each "sculpture" told everyone a fact -
“They” were once alive.
Shirley felt her scalp tingling. The dark bodies that could appear in the mist at any time and merge into the walls or the ground gave her goose bumps all over her body. She followed Duncan carefully with her arms folded, trying to avoid the limbs or heads struggling to rise on the road while muttering: "Those cultists... are all dead? All died here? Then those things we saw on the sea when we came here before were also them? Could it be that the entire Annihilation Sect is finished?"
"The Annihilation Cultists in other parts of the world are still active. They have infiltrated countless city-states, and they are not so easy to eliminate," Vanna frowned and said casually while paying attention to her surroundings, "But at least, there should be no Annihilation Cultists alive in this 'holy land'... This fanatical dark cult has finally suffered a heavy blow... This is at least good news."
"It's good news, but it's hard to relax," Morris said cautiously. "The key now is not how many Annihilation Cultists died here, but how they died and how they became like this..."
Morris paused, looking up at the shadowy buildings in the fog. "This is the 'holy land' they have been operating for who knows how many years. They use it as a safe haven to avoid the church's pursuit. They even built a town and a port here. This shows that this border island has always been a safe and stable place... At least it was like this until the island began to swallow them up."
"Swallow..." Shirley subconsciously repeated the words used by the old scholar. Suddenly, she became nervous and stared at her feet. "Will this place 'eat' us too? Will the ground suddenly sink in and turn us into the same as those things..."
This was obviously not just Shirley's concern, tension was also brewing among the Marines - even though those who came here were the elite of the church, and they were also "professionals" who specialized in dealing with various abnormal phenomena in border areas, it was still inevitable to feel nervous when faced with the strange situation on the Holy Island.
But just as Duncan was about to say something, Alice, who was walking beside him, spoke first: "No."
Shirley didn't realize for a moment that the doll lady was answering her question: "Huh?"
"It won't be swallowed," Alice said casually, "because the restoration process has ended, and this place has stabilized again."
The team suddenly stopped.
Duncan realized something and stared into Alice's eyes: "Did you see something again?"
Alice followed suit and stopped half a beat later. After hearing what the captain said, she looked a little confused: "Ah?"
Shirley beside him immediately said: "The restoration process has ended, as you just said."
"... What restoration program? I didn't say anything just now..." Alice scratched her hair, her blank expression not pretending at all (of course, she couldn't do such a difficult task), "... Why are you all looking at me?"
Duncan stared at Alice for a while. He knew that this doll would never lie to him, so in the end he just nodded slowly and exchanged glances quickly with Morris and Vanna beside him.
"There were no additional mental reactions nearby," Morris said.
"Let's keep going." Duncan nodded, and led the team deeper into the island. At the same time, he quietly moved closer to Alice, keeping an eye on the situation of the puppet at all times.
The landing team quickly passed through the road in the center of the small port, and after passing through a condensed white fog, they came to an open square.
Fanna frowned and looked around: "... It's hard to imagine that those cultists could come up with such a place. I wonder how long it took them to build everything here."
Rough black human figures "embedded" in the ground and "blended" with the surrounding objects can still be seen everywhere in the square.
Judging from the postures and distribution of those half-exposed human bodies, it seems that when a certain event occurred, these people had the last few minutes or more than ten minutes to escape - they ran wildly from the inland of the island to the estuary, and all the "human bodies" in the square were facing the coast. Some of them seemed to have tried to use magic or the power of "spells" to save themselves. The ground around these rough human figures showed signs of damage by acid or explosion. It seemed that they had not died in the first moments of being swallowed, and they tried to "dig" themselves out with rough and desperate means - but it didn't work at all.
They all turned into chilling black "sculptures" in the square, and this "transformation" process may be the direct cause of their death.
Duncan walked slowly among these strange black "sculptures".
Suddenly, he stopped and his eyes fell on one of the "rough human figures".
Vanna noticed immediately: "Captain?"
"This, it moved just now." Duncan came to the rough human-shaped figure with only the upper body exposed on the ground, staring at it and whispered.
And right under his eyes, the dark figure moved a little bit again—it seemed to be raising its head stiffly and slowly, and slowly reaching forward.
It's very, very slow, and its movement is almost imperceptible to the naked eye unless you look closely.
It is still slowly "escaping" towards the coast!
Shirley suddenly felt goosebumps all over.
She even suddenly felt that the other humanoids around her began to move. She felt that they were all still alive and were all struggling to move slowly towards the coast. She also felt that their spherical heads without facial features seemed to be turning towards her, and invisible gazes were focused on her!
She felt her heart pounding, and the tension that had been accumulating since she landed on the island seemed to permeate every blood vessel. She felt a sharp pain in the arm that was connected to Agou - this reminded her of the time when she had just completed symbiosis with Agou and her body was not yet adapted. She had not felt this kind of pain for many years.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the chains.
Countless chains, extending from the "humanoids" swallowed by the ground, were slowly growing in the void, as if they wanted to wrap around herself or around Agou. She could no longer tell the "difference" between herself and Agou. She felt that her thoughts were mixing with Agou's. She felt as if she had become an "individual"...close to Agou, and Agou...its humanity and wisdom were slowly transforming into something else...
"…we dug too deep…"
A voice that sounded like countless overlapping voices drilled into Shirley's mind, rumbling as if it was going to bore a hole in her memory.
Countless illusory chains spread from all directions of the entire Holy Island and quietly linked her and Agou.
"… we found the source…"
Shirley slowly raised her head, she looked in a daze but instinctively in a certain direction of the inland of the Holy Island, as if her attention was strongly attracted by something there.
“…We are the same as them… The Source reveals a truth to us…”
Countless storm-like fragments penetrated into Shirley's consciousness. In the chaotic flickering fragments of light and shadow, bizarre "impressions" swept through her memory - the extinguished sun, the turbid skylight, the whistling and loud noises in the fog, the ecstatic believers, guidance, revelation, excavation, holy caves, secret rooms, dazzling lights, alarms, creeping shadows, and suddenly... the Holy Island came alive.
This island is alive.
They dug up what they shouldn't have—when the sun was out.
The layers of voices were still roaring in her mind. A "truth", a "truth" that instantly caused all the Annihilation Cultists on the entire Holy Land Island to be polluted and transformed into rough human figures, was being poured into Shirley's consciousness bit by bit -
"…Humans are a type of highly differentiated Abyssal Demons. Abyssal Demons are primitive molds that were contained in the Abyssal Deep Sea because they could not be infused with humanity and wisdom…"
Shirley slowly opened her eyes.
Through her and Agou's shared vision, she saw the world clearly for the first time.
But I only saw it for a moment.
At the moment when her humanity and reason were crumbling, she felt a warm flame lighting up in her soul—the dark, wriggling things and the incomprehensible torrent of information all over her eyes suddenly shrank and collapsed into a small island in the fog, and then, she felt a rough big hand gently pressing on her hair.
She and Agou were suddenly awakened at the same time, and then instinctively stepped back, trying to get away from the countless human-shaped rough drafts here.
She accidentally tripped over the chain under her feet and fell backwards in embarrassment.
But the Captain caught hold of her thin arm.
"It seems you saw something," Duncan felt the feedback from the Fire Mark, and after confirming that Shirley's sanity was gradually returning to normal, he spoke gently, "What did you see?"
"This island is alive!" Shirley finally came to her senses and suddenly widened her eyes, "We are standing on a piece of flesh of the Deep Saint!"
(End of this chapter)