Chapter 183: Chapter 187: The End of the Sermon
The subspace believer who had just awakened fell into an inexplicable frenzy upon realizing they were aboard the Holoss, raising their hands and shouting unintelligible words in a fervor that sent Alice backing away in fear—thankfully, she caught her head just in ti to keep it from falling off.
“This local specialty is terrifying!” Miss Puppet’s eyes were wide open as she tucked herself behind Duncan, “What’s wrong with him?”
Duncan had no idea—he hadn’t even finished asking his question!
Then, the other two Doomsday Preachers woke up, and upon understanding their situation, they too fell into the sa ecstatic state as the first, crazily chanting about the “Ark of Promise” and “the gates of Subspace.” Regardless of what Duncan and Alice said, they were beyond communication.
By this point, Duncan had an inkling of why these Doomsday Preachers were so ecstatic—
They were fanatics chasing after subspace, and Holoss was a Ghost Ship returned from subspace. Could it be that in the eyes of these madn… Holoss was considered so kind of divine “miracle”?
Were they fanatical Believers witnessing a miracle?
But this fervor seed a bit too excessive.
The three Heretics huddled together, crying, laughing, and shouting, praising the greatness of subspace while calling upon the Holoss. Occasionally, they would even emit sounds uncanny for a human throat, their trembling howls as if truly originating from the roars of subspace. In the end, they all knelt together and began to kiss the deck of the Holoss!
This final spectacle provoked the previously spectating Alice. Miss Puppet’s eyes blazed as she grabbed a mop nearby and whacked it down on a Heretic’s head, “My freshly washed deck!”
Before Alice’s words fell, two buckets and several mop handles scampered over, beating the fervent Believers without rcy—the uncontrollable shouts of the fanatics, the reprimands from Alice, and the clamor of colliding buckets and mops suddenly mixed together, turning the usually quiet Holoss into a noisy commotion.
Duncan stood by, astonished, the spectacle of the “Cursed Puppet and her lackeys beating up the intruders” leaving him deeply shocked. His first thought was curiosity about when the puppet beca so close with things on the deck, and his second was to step forward and stop this farce, “Stop!”
The buckets and mops instantly halted, while Alice couldn’t resist whipping a Doomsday Preacher with the mop once more before kicking him. She then stomped away, grumbling, “My freshly washed deck, and they lick it all over…”
“Although I do find their actions sowhat disgusting, there’s no need for this…” Duncan looked helplessly at the puppet, then turned to address the Heretics who had just been beaten up, “Have you cald down yet?”
The Doomsday Preachers lay on the ground, but despite the past beating, they showed no signs of faltering or fear, still eerily spirited with a haunting smile on their faces. Their seemingly frail and lean bodies endured the pain with astonishing tolerance, almost as if they had abandoned the normal human sense of pain.
Upon hearing Duncan’s words, one of the preachers slowly turned his head. He stared into Duncan’s eyes, and after a long mont, his chaotic eyes finally focused. Then, producing a chilling laugh, he said, “Ha, haha… The gatekeeper of the promised land, the ghost at the helm, the navigator of the Ark! I can see…I can see your heart! How sad…you were granted this bliss, yet you reject His gift… You were worthy of entering the promised land, yet you refuse it! You…fool!”
Duncan frowned slightly.
Alice imdiately leaned in from behind, “Captain, shall I beat him up again?”
The nearby buckets and mops also hopped over, swaying behind Alice.
Like lackeys, and the lackeys of those lackeys.
“Just be quiet over there for a bit,” Duncan motioned with his hand, staring at the Doomsday Preacher who was still giving him a strange laugh, his expression unchanged, “It seems you know a lot about , this ‘Ghost Ship Captain.’”
“Subspace whispers your na… whispers of your foolish refusal…” The heretic grinned, blood from the beating dripping down from the corner of his mouth, writhing like a living thing upon his chin as if they were tentacles, “You had the blissful qualification, why then did you flee… Do you not know that Subspace is the eternal and ultimate destination for everything? You had already reached the end… why did you turn back from that endpoint?!”
Duncan rely watched the cultist—uncertain whether he had gone mad or was simply caught in fanaticism—with an unreadable face but inwardly unsettled.
These fervent followers of Subspace indeed had sothing about them; their deranged beliefs not only granted them bizarre powers but also seed to have truly unveiled to them so secrets about Subspace—what this man before him was saying… a part of it might actually be true.
Captain Duncan escaping from Subspace? Rejecting Subspace’s blessings?
Could it be that after Holoss had fallen into Subspace back then, the real “Captain Duncan” hadn’t completely succumbed to madness as rumors claid? Holoss’s return journey from Subspace… was it, in fact, a successful flight? Did “Captain Duncan” still possess so rationality at that ti?
When, then, did he beco utterly mad? And when did he die?
Duncan suddenly recalled the goat-headed being’s attitude when facing Subspace—wary, resistant, even faintly panicked.
This seed to provide indirect confirmation of the Doomsday Preacher’s words, a confirmation of that escape.
Afterward, the Doomsday Preacher fell back into his dented state, muttering to himself incomprehensibly, breaking out into fits of joyous laughter, or smacking his own body, while his two companions remained unconscious throughout, lost in unsettling ntal confusion.
These followers of Subspace were even more insane than the Sun Cultists Duncan had encountered, further removed from the rationality of the real world—they seed to be perpetually in a state of ntal instability, their thoughts drifting between reality and Subspace, unable to think or communicate normally unless soone was talking to them or they were on a specific mission.
Was it because of Subspace’s influence? Or had they deliberately destroyed their own sanity as a ans to embrace Subspace more fully?
What puzzled Duncan even more was—how did such mad, strange heretics, whose appearance had even altered, manage to move about within the City-State?
These lunatics, just walking down the main street, would hardly go unnoticed, probably getting surrounded and gunned down by the security’s steam-powered walkers within five paces!
After a while, seeing that the Doomsday Preachers showed no signs of coming to their senses, Duncan was forced to take the initiative again, “Why did you attack Sherry?”
The three heretics reacted, one of them lifting his head in his dazed state, swaying to and fro, “Attack? Attack who?”
“The thing you just did,” Duncan’s voice was cold and stern, his deanor like still water, “You attacked a girl with an Abyssal Hound—why attack her?”
“Attack… oh, attack…” The dazed cultist suddenly grinned widely and began shouting, “We were rely putting everything back on track, allowing the right history to descend smoothly! Holes, flaws, a minor hidden danger… must eliminate the hidden dangers… She was supposed to die in the right history, she should not have lived! With her alive… flaws keep appearing…”
“The right history?” Hearing the heretic’s mad gibberish, Duncan’s gaze subtly changed, he caught on to key information, reacting instantly, “There are problems with the history line of Prand? You did it?!”
“Problems? No problems, no problems… We are just setting everything on the right course!” The frenzied cultist tilted his face, his eyes alight with the fervor of a martyr, “This world should all return to the right track! That dood fate has been delayed for so many years, everyone has defied the grace of Subspace, defied the fate that was ant to occur! We are correcting history to the right trajectory!”
“Correcting history to the right trajectory!” The other two Doomsday Preachers, as if infected, also started shouting praises fervently, one of them even stood up after shouting, hands raised high as if declaring so truth, “Only by going back on track, after total extinction can there be a rebirth! Subspace will devour everything and Subspace will also Reshape everything! The fire is extinguished, embers hard to rekindle… Only by lighting a second bonfire can the world survive through that grace!”
Reviews
All reviews (0)