The large, 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 along the straight road, while Inquisitor Vana stood as steadily as if she were cast in the carapace of the mechanical creation, the night breeze with the smell of the sea blowing through the streets, and the cold air cleared her mind even more.

The cultists who worship the sun god are the great troubles of modern civilization – and unfortunately, there is more than one such one.

There are always malicious eyes cast from the depths of the subspace into the human world, and there are always stupid mortals who try to get their hands on those ominous forces, and between this collusion between the ancient gods and mortals, there are distorted things, forbidden heirs, and polluted remnants left behind from ancient times, lurking in the depths of the city-state, always ready to move, in vain to pry the order of this society.

Of all these threats, the Followers of the Sun God are the one that is the most alarming and annoying to the protectors of the city-state of Purland.

They are not only cultists, but also the product of a lost part of the old world's history, and the most dangerous thing about these heresies that worship the dark sun is that they have some kind of "faith" - although fanatical and distorted, despite the mixed members of the lower ranks, there is indeed a certain "core belief" that has not changed for thousands of years at the top of this odious sect.

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 "true solar calendar" that is not recognized by modern civilization, believing that they are descendants of an ancient civilization that has long been lost, and that glorious ancient civilization will be revived.

As the Inquisitor of the Deep Sea Church, Vanna has little interest in the heresies' fallacies, but she knows that it is the existence of these heresies that makes the followers of the Sun God have a unity and stubbornness far beyond other heretics, allowing them to survive the blows again and again, and grow day and night in the shadows of many city-states.

But their resurgence in Plain still came as a bit of a surprise to Vanna.

Since that unprecedented blow four years ago, the Sun God cultists in the city-state of Plander have been devastated, and according to several investigation reports, the heretics should have transferred their main members to nearby Rensa, Moko, and even further away in the city-state of Cold Harbor.

These minions have been hiding in the sewers, relying entirely on their knowledge of the underworld and the twisted blessing of the Black Sun to escape the Guardians, and for four years, their numbers have become dwindling and all they can do is survive.

But now, four years later, they suddenly gathered again, and even dared to risk exposure to perform a sacrificial ceremony in the assembly hall...... Who gave them the guts?

Or rather...... What is going to happen in this city-state? Is there some kind of good reason for the cultists to direct the Black Sun's gaze to Purland, even at the risk of being snuffed out to the last bit of fire?

The vibration and noise of the steam core running from the mechanical spider's body, and the surging scent of lavender overflowed from the steam pressure relief pipe, and drifted along the night wind, Fanna temporarily put away the cranky thoughts in her heart and glanced up at the sky.

The pale glow of the Creation of the World suspended in the night sky illuminates the houses, chimneys, and towers of the city of Purander, and now the team is passing through the edge of the industrial area, the huge steam and hydrothermal pipes that span the factories like the veins of giants running through the sky above the street.

Vanna vaguely remembered the past, recalling the deepest and most horrific night she could remember—the smell of blood at midnight, her uncle carrying her out of the fire, the streets littered with the walking dead and the shadows of the flesh that had fallen into collective hallucinations, and the smell of blood and the chemical grease oozing from the pipes was disgusting......

There was a sudden jolt from the mechanical spider beneath her feet, and Vana woke up from her memories.

The flat road came to an end, and ahead was an abandoned area on the edge of the city, with potholes and undulating roads, and two mechanical spiders ended their gliding mode, stretching their long limbs and starting to walk quickly on the uneven surface.

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

Another team of eight is already on standby, and they have cordoned off the vicinity to prevent unrelated personnel from approaching the entrance.

Vanna greeted her subordinates and followed the person in charge into the sewers.

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

A makeshift altar was located in the middle of the assembly hall, a wooden platform that looked as if it had been burned by flames, and on which you could see a blasphemous totem erected by the Helios, which had been destroyed 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 had lips twitching and muttering their blasphemous prayers silently.

But with the ritual site destroyed and the Storm Goddess already paying attention, these heretical prayers were of no avail.

Not far from the altar were the bodies of the victims found in a nearby cave, the miserable victims placed on rune-painted linen, and the hurried mortuary checking the condition of each corpse.

Several church priests were walking around the altar, the copper chain in their hands swaying slightly, the incense burner at the end of the copper chain emitted white smoke, and when the smoke touched the ground near the altar, it would be immediately stained with an ominous black shadow, and more white smoke would take away the pollution - the breath left by the black sun would be removed little by little in the process.

"Your Excellency the Inquisitor, please come here, this is what we have found out is wrong," said the young guard, pointing to several corpses next to the altar, "please be careful, the ground here is not very clean. ”

Vanna walked straight to the corpses, and after seeing the condition of one of them, she subconsciously frowned.

It was a cultist in a golden mask—no doubt the priest in charge of the sacrificial rites in charge of the sacrificial rites.

There was a terrible hole in his chest.

“…… What's going on? Vanna frowned, "Did this fanatical heretic get so excited at the end of the ritual that he sacrificed himself?" I've never heard of cultists who worship the Black Sun still have such rules. ”

"That's the weird and bizarre part—he's not sacrificing himself," the guardian who brought Vanna with him immediately shook his head, a slightly strange expression on his face, "according to the description of the cultists caught at the scene...... Their 'messengers' were sacrificed by a sacrifice......"

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

"It's a lot like crazy talk," the defender spread his hands helplessly, "in fact, by the time we arrived, most of the cultists here were already half-insane. ”

"Already half-insane?"

"Yes, there is clearly something very wrong with their sacrificial rituals, many people have become mad, and quite a few have even begun to slash each other, and they all seem to have taken each other for ...... The 'monsters' who were occupied by some kind of horror were precisely because they rushed out of the assembly hall in a frenzy that they alerted the magistrates patrolling nearby, causing the situation to be exposed...... When we arrived, there were only a few people left who could answer the questions clearly, and the few who could speak fluently insisted that the sacrifice had been sacrificed to the messenger. ”

"Into madness? Hack and kill each other? And think that someone else is a monster that is occupied? Vanna's expression immediately became serious, "Have you done a check?" Is it the result of being polluted by the black sun? ”

"There's no sign of being polluted by an external source, it's more like a spontaneous madness—the factors that cause madness are rooted in their own spiritual world," the Guardian said, gesturing to a young lady in a long black dress who was walking among the cultists, "Lady Heidi has arrived, and if we confirm that these cultists are not polluted by the black sun, we will have to find a way to hypnotize them." ”