In Kolo, the sanctuary is the undoubted core and sacred place of the belief in the Goddess of Creation. Almost everything in this land serves religious beliefs—the cathedral is the religious, cultural, and administrative center of all cities, and the church is The source of all education, the clergy are responsible for managing the entire sanctuary, and the religious buildings are the most magnificent and complex facilities in the Order.
The underground of Luan Cathedral is not just a basement, but a super-large facility that can be called an underground palace.
Under the leadership of the priest, the crowd went to the entrance of the underground palace behind the assembly hall, then went down a wide stone ramp, and arrived at the underground part of the cathedral in a few minutes. Hao Ren saw a straight and wide corridor extending out in front of him. On both sides of the corridor, he could see many forks and entrances to rooms. Although the underground world did not see sunlight, there was a piece of shimmering milky white crystal inlaid on the wall at intervals. It wouldn't be dark down here—it was even brighter than the grounds of the church.
The unimaginable number of survivors is almost all concentrated in the underground palace. Refugees wrapped in clothes and blankets, surrounded by their families, and with frightened faces can be seen everywhere in the underground corridors. Most of the people only had a few bags and small boxes with them, and many people even had nothing around them. Obviously, they all evacuated here in a hurry.
Seeing someone coming down from the surface entrance, many asylum seekers immediately raised their heads. They looked at Hao Ren and his party curiously. Many eyes were full of doubt and nervousness, even those ignorant children.
"What the hell is going on here..." Calcius couldn't help muttering to himself.
"Asuman's shelter disappeared, darkness took advantage of the void, and the nightmare quickly devoured everyone who fell asleep," the middle-aged priest who led the way whispered, "overnight, more than half of the people became The seedbed of the nightmare, by the time we realized it, we were almost helpless. What happened is very weird, Your Excellency the High Bishop, Lord Holzman will explain it clearly to you."
Going deep along the corridor of the underground palace, the group of people finally reached the end. There is actually a small chapel built deep in the underground facility. The sacred light of this chapel has not been extinguished, and the soft holy light is diffused from the window of the chapel. Faintly sheltering the entire underground palace.
In the chapel, an old bishop with white beard and hair was leading several assistant priests to complete a sacred ceremony. After the ceremony was completed, he turned his head and looked at Hao Ren and Calassius standing in front of him.
"Archbishop Calassius," Bishop Holtzman paid tribute to Calassius. Although he is an elder in terms of age, but in terms of hierarchy in the church, he, a regional bishop who is only in charge of a city and surrounding villages, must respect him. Archbishop Calassius, who held an important position in the Icon Palace, paid tribute, "I know you and your investigation team. When you set off, I was also present at the Icon Palace."
"Bishop Holtzmann," Calassius nodded back, "I know you. Your diligence and piety are highly praised in the Icon Palace."
Then he briefly introduced Hao Ren, Lily and An who were beside him. He didn't elaborate on the identities of the three of them, but he just guaranteed in the name of God that these three are absolutely reliable allies. After the introduction, he went straight to the ground. Open your mouth and ask: "Bishop, what happened here? Why did the sanctuary fall to this point in just one month?"
"Everything deteriorated rapidly within a few days," the old bishop shook his head, his face was slightly pale. Just like what Father Bernstein said before, the old bishop seemed to have suffered a mental shock, and now he was a little sluggish Sluggish, "In the nearly one month since you set off, the situation in the sanctuary has continued to deteriorate, but it has not reached the point where it cannot be sustained. It was not until seven days ago that things suddenly got out of hand."
Hao Ren's expression was serious: "What's going on?"
"The light of Asuman suddenly faded sharply, countless large holes appeared in the protective barrier above the sanctuary, and the power of chaos poured in directly, causing huge casualties, ahem..." the old bishop said, coughing violently a few times, and finally Gradually relieved, "The first wave of attacks was blocked. After paying a huge price, the cataracts eliminated the chaos monsters that invaded the barrier, and barely restored the barrier above the main city. However, that night, We've had another wave of raids that we can't resist—raids that were launched in a dream."
Dreamland, Hao Ren instantly grasped this crucial word. He thought of the outposts destroyed by nightmares in the Talos West Forest, and the nightmare figure caught by Lily: "Someone was invaded by spirits in their sleep, Then insane self-mutilation suicide?"
The old bishop immediately turned his head: "How do you know?"
"Similar things have happened in other continents..." Hao Ren briefly described the nightmare disaster on the border of Talos, "but I didn't expect the same thing to happen in the Sanctuary."
"The nightmare attack we encountered was somewhat similar to what you said, but not exactly the same," the old bishop shook his head after listening, "Evil spirits did invade the dream world, but they did not cause a large number of casualties in the first place, but created countless Puppets that lost their souls, and even gradually spilled over into the real world. I think you've seen those... things roaming the square outside."
Lily blinked: "Those walking corpses?"
"A walking corpse? No, that's not a walking corpse." The old bishop glanced at Lily. "Those are not things in the real world at all. They are nightmares, the nightmares of Luan residents who have fallen into the nightmare world."
Lily felt a little bit overwhelmed: "Night...dream? What do you mean, were those outside just phantoms?"
"Things like phantoms are walking in the real world and gradually affecting the real world, constantly confusing the boundaries between reality and dreams," said the old bishop. "The first wave of nightmare attacks occurred in the middle of the night, and at that time On the first night after we desperately repelled the Chaos Monster, almost everyone fell into a deep sleep due to exhaustion. You can imagine what terrible consequences this caused—most people were swallowed by the nightmare almost without any resistance, and Relying on strong strength to wake up reluctantly, and people who did not fall asleep due to various reasons are less than one in ten. After we broke free from the dream, we found that many people around us were sleeping, and we could not wake them up by any means. Then the outside Wandering shadows began to appear on the street. Those shadows were the nightmares released by the sleeping people. They were similar to the main body, but they had no reason and could only wander blindly. Nightmare seedbed. More than 80% of the city was controlled by these nightmares in an instant. We gathered all the survivors and hid in the cathedral—only here, the power of the nightmare was temporarily out of reach, and we could sleep in peace. "
Speaking of this, the old bishop took a few deep breaths. He was already weak, and he barely finished a blessing ceremony just now. He felt a little out of breath by talking too much at this time.
Calassius had no choice but to continue asking: "Are all the survivors in this church? Are there no other living people in the city?"
"I can't guarantee that everyone is here, but at least 90% of the survivors are gathered here," the old bishop nodded, "We will send some people to the city every day to collect food and other resources, and at the same time look for Other survivors, occasionally survivors were brought in in the first few days, but as time went on, there were fewer and fewer survivors—one cannot sleep forever, and there are probably no one who can persist until today."
Hao Ren said, "When we came all the way, we saw some passers-by walking in a hurry, who didn't look like nightmares, and there were people responding from many houses. Aren't those people survivors?"
The old bishop seemed to have known that someone was going to ask this, and he immediately shook his head: "That's another nightmare... the nightmare of this city."
Everyone looked at each other in blank dismay.
"Luen is an ancient city with a history of thousands of years. We have lived here and been buried here for generations. The cycle of life and death has been passed down from generation to generation. The old city is like a container of souls, carrying the memories of millions of people from generation to generation. Thoughts and memories, they settle, and old buildings and streets take on spirituality. The city remembers what it was in brighter days, and when nightmares come, it falls into those shadows, so Memories of the past are distorted into nightmares."
Hao Ren recalled what he had seen and heard along the way, those houses with closed doors, those passers-by who were hurrying and full of fear, those voices full of hostility and repulsion, unwilling to communicate with others, they were so real, Didn't realize it was just a dream.
A dream that takes place in the real world.
The boundary between nightmare and reality is about to be erased. If this trend continues, I am afraid that it will not be long before the sanctuary of the entire real world will be replaced by nightmare.
Calassius looked gloomy: "The situation is so bad, is there no movement from the City of Gods?"
The old bishop glanced at him: "This is exactly what I want to tell you—horrific things have happened in the city of the gods. As early as the first wave of attacks came, the city of the gods abnormally and unilaterally interrupted all At that time, Chaos had not poured into the barrier, but Luan's sacred crystal could not receive the signal from the Icon Palace. Then we took a great risk and sent a reconnaissance team to check the gods. The situation of the city of dependents, but found that it has disappeared out of thin air, leaving only a large area of sulfurous scorched earth, and countless huge pits!" (To be continued~^~)