In the air.

After the landing party had left the shallows of the coast and made its way into the interior of the Holy Land Island, the scalp-numbing sight was finally revealed to everyone.

It is as if the humanoids formed by the pitch-black silt can be seen everywhere, as if they have been swallowed up by the surrounding environment, "inlaid" in various places - the ground, walls, roadside boulders, and even tree trunks, they have completely merged with the things that swallowed them, like countless strange and terrifying sculptures standing still on this sacred island that no longer has living people, and the struggling posture displayed by each "sculpture" is telling everyone a fact-

"They" were once alive.

Shirley's scalp tingled, goosebumps coming from the dark bodies that could emerge in the fog and blend into the walls or floors, and she carefully followed Duncan with her arms crossed, muttering "Those cultists...... Are they all dead? Are they all dead here? And the same things we saw on the surface of the sea when we came here before? Isn't that the end of the entire Annihilation Sect? ”

"The Annihilationists in the rest of the world are still active, they have infiltrated countless city-states, but they are not so easy to purge away," Vanna said casually as she looked around, "but at least, there should be no Annihilation Cultists alive in this 'Holy Land'...... The fanatical Order of Darkness has finally suffered a heavy blow...... That's good news, at least. ”

"Good news, but hard to relax," Morris said cautiously, "now the key is not how many Annihilation Cultists have died here, but how they died, and how they came to be like this......

Morris paused, looking up at the shadowy buildings around him: "This is the 'holy place' that they have been running for an unknown number of years, and they have used this place as a safe haven to hide from the Church, and even built towns and harbors here, which shows that this border island has always been a safe and stable place...... At least until the island began to devour them. ”

"Devouring ......" Shirley subconsciously repeated the words used by the old scholar, and suddenly became nervous, staring at her feet, "This place won't 'eat' us too, right?!" Are we going to sink into the ground all of a sudden, and then we'll be like those things......"

This was obviously not just Shirley's concern, and tension was brewing among the Marines - even though they were all elite members of the Church and "professionals" who specialized in dealing with anomalies in the border areas, it was inevitable to feel nervous when faced with the strange situation on the Holy Land Island.

But just as Duncan was about to say something, Alice, who was walking next to him, spoke first: "No." ”

Shirley didn't realize that Miss Doll was answering her question: "Huh? ”

"It won't devour," Alice said casually, as if carelessly, "because the restoration process is over, and it's now stable again." ”

The line came to an abrupt halt.

Duncan realized something and stared into Alice's eyes: "Did you 'see' something again?" ”

Alice stopped slowly, but after hearing the captain's words, she showed a somewhat dazed expression: "Huh? ”

Shirley next to her immediately spoke: "The restoration process has ended, what you just said." ”

“…… What restore procedure? I didn't speak just now......" Alice scratched her hair, her blank expression didn't look like she was pretending at all (of course, she couldn't do such a difficult thing)," ...... What are you all looking at me for? ”

Duncan stared at Alice for a moment, knowing that the puppet would never lie to himself, so he just nodded slowly and quickly exchanged glances with Maurice and Vanna.

"There are no additional psychic responses nearby." Morris said.

"Let's keep walking." Duncan nodded, and continued with the group deeper into the island, while he quietly moved closer to Alice, keeping an eye on the puppet.

The landing party soon crossed the road in the center of the small port, and after passing through a condensed white fog, they came to an open square.

Vanna frowned and looked around: "...... It's hard to imagine that those cultists could have built such a place, and I don't know how long it took them to build everything here. ”

The square is still full of black humanoid blanks that have been "inlayed" to the ground and have "blended" with the surrounding things.

Judging from the posture of the half-exposed human bodies and their distribution, it seems that when an event occurs, these people still have the last minutes or ten minutes to flee - they rush from the interior of the island to the mouth of the sea, all the "human bodies" in the square are facing the coast, and some of them seem to have tried to save themselves by the power of spells, or "spells", and the ground around these rough figures shows signs of being damaged by acid or explosions, It seems that they did not die in the first moments of being devoured, and tried to "dig" themselves out in a brutal and desperate way - but to no avail.

All of them have been transformed into chilling black "sculptures" in the square, and this process of "transformation" may have been the direct cause of their deaths.

Duncan walked slowly through the eerie black "sculptures".

Suddenly, he stopped, his gaze falling on one of the "humanoid blanks".

Vana immediately noticed: "Captain? ”

"Well, I just moved." Duncan walked over to the humanoid blank with only its upper body exposed, and whispered as he stared at it.

And just under his nose, the pitch-black figure moved a little more—it seemed to be stiffly raising its head and slowly reaching forward.

Very, very slowly, its movement is barely perceptible to the naked eye if you don't keep it staring.

It is still slowly "escaping" in the direction of the coast!

Shirley instantly felt hairy.

She even suddenly felt that the other human figures around her began to move, and it felt that they were all alive, and they were all slowly struggling to move in the direction of the coast, and she felt that their featureless spherical heads seemed to be turning towards her, and their invisible eyes were focused on herself!

She felt her heart pounding, the tension that had been building up since she landed on the island seemed to be immersed in every vein, and she felt a sharp tingling in the arm she was connected to the dog - it reminded her of the time when she had just completed symbiosis with the dog and her body was not used to it, and she had not felt this pain in years.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the chains.

Countless chains, extending from those "humanoid rough blanks" that were swallowed by the ground, were slowly growing in the void, as if they wanted to wrap around themselves, or around Dog, she was already a little unable to distinguish the "difference" between herself and Dog, she felt that her thoughts were being mixed with Dog, she felt as if she had become a ...... An "individual" who is close to a dog, and a dog ...... Its humanity and wisdom are slowly metamorphosing into something else......

“…… We dug too deep......"

A voice that seemed to have countless voices overlapping had drilled into Shirley's head, rumbling like it was going to drill a hole in her memory.

Countless illusory chains spread from all directions of the entire Holy Land Island, quietly linking her and Ah Gou.

“…… We dug up the source......"

Shirley looked up slowly, a little dazed but instinctively looking in a certain direction inland, as if she was strongly attracted by something there.

“…… We are the same as them...... The source reveals a truth to us......"

Countless stormy fragments burrowed into Shirley's consciousness, chaotic flickering fragments of light and shadow, bizarre "impressions" skimming her memories—extinguished suns, cloudy skylight, whistling and loud noises in the fog, ecstatic believers, guidance, revelations, digging, holy caves, chambers, blinding lights, alarms, wriggling shadows, suddenly...... The Holy Land Island that came to life.

The island is alive.

They dug up something they shouldn't have dug up – when the sun went out.

The layers of voices were still roaring in my head, a "truth", a "truth" that instantly caused all the annihilation cultists on the entire Holy Land Island to be polluted and transformed into human shapes, was being poured into Shirley's consciousness little by little-

“…… Humans are a kind of highly differentiated demons, and the demons are primordial castings that are contained in the deep sea because they cannot infuse humanity and wisdom......"

Shirley's eyes widened slowly.

Through her and Gou's shared vision, she saw the world clearly for the first time.

But only for a moment.

In the moment when humanity and reason were crumbling, she felt a warm flame light up in her soul—the dark wriggling things and incomprehensible torrents of information that spread across her eyes suddenly contracted and collapsed into islands in the mist, and then she felt a large, rough hand gently pressing against her hair.

She and Ah Dog woke up at the same time, and then instinctively stepped back, trying to get away from the countless humanoid blanks here.

She accidentally tripped over the chains under her feet and fell backwards in embarrassment.

But the captain grabbed her thin arm.

"Looks like you saw something," Duncan said softly, sensing the feedback from the flame mark, after confirming that Shirley's sanity was gradually regaining stability, "what do you see?" ”

"This island is alive!" Shirley finally came to her senses, and her eyes widened suddenly, "We're standing on a part of the flesh of the Dark Holy Lord!" ”

(End of chapter)