Ashes Of Deep Sea
Chapter 715 - Chapter 715 Chapter 712 Peeking at the Truth

Chapter 715: Chapter 712 Peeking at the Truth Chapter 715: Chapter 712 Peeking at the Truth They were everywhere.

After the landing team moved away from the coastal shallows and advanced into the interior of Holy Land Island, the hair-raising scene finally unfolded before everyone’s eyes.

It was as if figures formed of pitch-black muck were visible everywhere, as though they had been “embedded” by the surrounding environment into various places–on the ground, the walls, beside the roadside boulders, and even on tree trunks. They had entirely merged with the things that had engulfed them, resembling a myriad of bizarre and horrifying sculptures frozen on this island void of living people. Each “sculpture” exhibited a posture of struggle that told onlookers one fact–

“They” were once alive.

Sherry felt her scalp tingle. The black human bodies that could pop up at any moment in the fog, merged with the walls or the ground, made her skin crawl. She wrapped her arms around herself and carefully followed beside Duncan, trying to avoid the struggling limbs or heads on the path while murmuring, “Those heretics… are they all dead? Did they die here? Are those things we saw on the sea surface when we first came over also them? Could it be that the entire Obliteration Sect has been wiped out?”

“Heretics from the Obliteration Sect are still active in other parts of the world. They’ve infiltrated numerous City-States; they’re not so easy to eradicate,” Fenna said, frowning as she kept watch around her, “But at least, it seems there are no living heretics left on this ‘holy land’… This fanatical dark cult has finally suffered a significant blow… That at least is good news.”

“Good news, but hard to relax,” Maurice spoke cautiously. “The key issue now isn’t how many Obliteration Sect members have died here, but rather how they died and how they turned into… this…”

Maurice paused for a moment, looking up to survey the faintly discernible buildings shrouded in fog. “This is their ‘holy land,’ a place they’ve operated for who knows how many years. They regarded this place as a safe haven to hide from church pursuit, even building towns and ports here. This suggests that this remote island had always been a secure and stable spot… at least until the island began to devour them.”

“Devour…” Sherry subconsciously repeated the scholar’s word, suddenly tensing up and looking down at her feet, “This place isn’t going to ‘eat’ us too, is it?! Could the ground suddenly give way, and then we become like those things…”

Clearly, it wasn’t only Sherry harboring such worries–the tense atmosphere was brewing among the marines as well. Despite being the elite of the church, and specialists in handling various anomalies in the border regions, feeling nervous in the face of the eerie situation on Holy Land Island was inevitable.

However, just as Duncan was about to say something, Alice, walking next to him, spoke up first, “It won’t happen.”

Sherry didn’t immediately understand that the doll-like Miss was responding to her question, “Huh?”

“It won’t devour [us],” Alice said casually, as if it were an afterthought, “Because the restoration program has ended, and this place has now stabilized again.”

The team suddenly came to a stop.

Duncan realized something and stared into Alice’s eyes, “Did you ‘see’ something again?”

Alice stopped half a step later and, after hearing the captain’s words, looked somewhat puzzled, “Huh?”

Sherry spoke up immediately, “The restoration program has ended, you just said that.”

“…What restoration program? I didn’t speak just now…” Alice scratched her hair, her bewildered expression not at all feigned (of course, such a complicated act was beyond her), “…What are you all looking at me for?”

Duncan kept his gaze on Alice a moment longer, knowing well that this doll would never lie to him, so he just slowly nodded his head and quickly exchanged glances with Maurice and Fenna beside him.

“There’s no additional mental response nearby,” Maurice remarked.

“Let’s keep moving,” Duncan nodded and led the team deeper into the island, while discreetly staying a little closer to Alice, staying alert to her condition.

The landing team soon passed through the central road of the small port, and after traversing a condensed patch of white fog, they arrived at a spacious square.

Fenna frowned looking around, “…It’s hard to imagine that those heretics could create a place like this. It’s a mystery how long it took them to build everything here.”

The square was still littered with black humanoid rough drafts, “embedded” into the ground and fused with surrounding things.

Judging by the postures of the half-exposed bodies and their distribution, it seemed that when a certain event occurred, these people had a few last minutes, perhaps ten, to flee–they ran from the heart of the island towards the embayment, all the “human bodies” facing towards the coast. Some of them seemed to have tried to use spells, or rather the power of “curses,” to save themselves. The ground around these humanoid rough drafts was marked by signs of acid or explosive damage, suggesting that in the initial moments of being devoured, they hadn’t yet died, having tried to “dig” themselves out with crude and desperate means to no effect.

They had all become the chilling black “sculptures” on the square, and perhaps this process of “transformation” was the direct cause of their deaths.

Duncan stepped slowly through the eerie black “sculptures.”

Suddenly, he stopped, his gaze falling on one particular “humanoid rough draft.”

Fenna immediately took notice, “Captain?”

“This, it just moved a little bit.” Duncan approached the humanoid rough sculpture that was only half-revealed above the ground, staring at it as he whispered.

And right before his eyes, the pitch-black figure moved slightly again–it seemed to be stiffly and slowly raising its head and reaching out with its hands.

Very, very slowly. If one wasn’t staring intently, the naked eye could hardly notice its movement.

It was still slowly “escaping” towards the direction of the coast!

Sherry instantly felt her hair stand on end.

She even suddenly felt the other humanoid rough sculptures around her start to move; it felt like they were all still alive, and all of them were struggling to move slowly in the direction of the coast. She also felt that their spherical heads devoid of features seemed to have all turned towards her, invisible gazes converging upon her!

Her heart pounded fiercely, and the tension that had been accumulating since she set foot on the island seemed to soak into every vein, causing a sharp pain to shoot through the arm connected to Adog–it was a pain she hadn’t felt in many years since she first completed the symbiosis with Adog and her body was still not accustomed to it.

In the corner of her eye, she saw chains.

Countless chains, stretching from those “humanoid rough sculptures” swallowed up by the ground, were slowly growing in the void, as if trying to wrap around her, or perhaps around Adog. She began to lose clarity on the “difference” between herself and Adog. It felt as though her thoughts were blending with Adog’s; she felt herself becoming… an “entity” close to Adog, while Adog… its humanity and intelligence were slowly transforming into something else…

“…We dug too deep…”

A voice like a multitude of voices layered upon one another bored into Sherry’s brain, rumbling as if to bore a hole in her memory.

Numerous phantom chains spread from all around the Holy Land Island, quietly linking her and Adog.

“…We’ve found the source…”

Sherry slowly raised her head, her gaze instinctively and blankly drawn toward a certain direction inland of the Holy Land Island, as if strongly attracted by something there.

“…We are the same as them… The source has revealed a truth to us…”

Countless storm-like fragments pierced into Sherry’s consciousness, and strange, fleeting “impressions” skimmed through her memory–the extinguished sun, turbid sky light, the howling and booming through the fog, ecstatic Believers, guidance, revelations, excavation, Sacred Cave, secret chambers, blinding lights, alarms, writhing shadows, and suddenly… the awakening of the living Holy Land Island.

The island was alive.

They had dug up something they shouldn’t have–when the sun had gone out.

Those overlapping voices continued to thunder in her mind, a “truth” that caused all followers of the Obliteration Sect on the entire Holy Land Island to be contaminated, transformed into humanoid rough sculptures, was being gradually poured into Sherry’s consciousness–

“…Humans, are a form of Profound Demons highly differentiated; Profound Demons, being unable to infuse humanity and intelligence, were the original molds contained within the Mysterious Deep Sea…”

Sherry slowly widened her eyes.

Through the vision she shared with Adog, she saw the world clearly for the first time.

But only for a moment.

As humanity and reason teetered on the brink of collapse, she felt a warm flame ignite within her soul–the dark, writhing entities and overwhelming influx of incomprehensible information before her suddenly shrank and collapsed into an island in the mist. Then, she felt a rough, large hand gently rest on her hair.

She and Adog both startled awake and instinctively retreated, trying to distance themselves from the countless humanoid rough sculptures around them.

She accidentally tripped over a chain at her feet and fell backward awkwardly.

But the captain caught her slender arm.

“Looks like you saw something,” Duncan said softly, feeling the feedback from the Flame Mark and confirming that Sherry’s sanity was gradually stabilizing, “What did you see?”

“This island is alive!” Sherry finally came to her senses and suddenly widened her eyes. “We’re standing on a piece of the Mysterious Saint’s flesh!”