The first thousand two hundred and ninety-eight chapters are gradually swallowed reality
In Colo, the sanctuary is the undoubted core and holy 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. The church is everything.
The source of education, clergy are responsible for managing the entire sanctuary, and religious buildings are the most magnificent and complex facilities in the Order State.
The underground of Louan Cathedral is not just a basement, but a very large facility that can be called an underground palace.
The priest led everyone to the entrance of the underground palace behind the assembly hall, and then went down a wide stone ramp. After a few minutes, they arrived at the underground part of the cathedral. Hao Ren saw a straight and wide corridor in front of him.
Extending out, you can see many forked roads and room entrances on both sides of the corridor. Although there is no sunlight in the underground world, the walls are inlaid with milky white crystals that emit a shimmering light at regular intervals, so that the place below does not fall into darkness. It is even better than the church.
The ground part is much brighter.
The unimaginable number of survivors are almost all concentrated in the underground palace. In the underground corridors, you can see refugees wrapped in clothes and blankets, clustered with their families, with frightened expressions on their faces, and small children piled up around them.
In the pile of luggage, most people only had a few packages and small boxes with them, and many people even had nothing around them. It was obvious that they all evacuated here in a hurry.
Seeing someone walking down from the entrance to the surface, many refugees immediately raised their heads. They looked at Hao Ren and his party curiously, with doubts and nervousness in many eyes, even those of ignorant children.
"What on earth happened here..." Calasius couldn't help but mutter to himself.
"Asuman's protection disappeared, darkness took advantage of it, and nightmares quickly swallowed up everyone who fell asleep," the middle-aged priest who led the way whispered. "Overnight, most of the people turned into
The seedbed of nightmares. By the time we reacted, there was almost nothing we could do. What happened was very strange. Your Excellency, the High Bishop, Mr. Holtzman will explain it clearly to you."
Following the corridor of the underground palace all the way, the group finally arrived at the end. There was a small chapel built deep in the underground facility. The sacred light of this chapel was not extinguished. The soft holy light diffused from the windows of the chapel.
Faintly protecting the entire underground palace.
In the chapel, an old bishop with white hair and beard was leading several assistant priests to complete a sacred ceremony. After the ceremony was completed, he turned his head and looked at Hao Ren, Calasius and his entourage standing in front of him.
"Archbishop Calasius," Bishop Holtzman paid tribute to Calasius. Although he was the elder in terms of age, from the perspective of hierarchy within the church, he, a regional bishop who was only responsible for a city and surrounding villages, had to respect him.
Archbishop Carathius, who holds an important position in the Icon Palace, paid tribute, "I know you and your investigation team. When you set off, I was also there to meet you in the Icon Palace."
"Bishop Holzmann," Carasius nodded in return, "I know you. Your diligence and piety are highly praised in the Icon Palace."
Then he briefly introduced Hao Ren, Lily and An beside him. He did not elaborate on the identities of the three of them. He only guaranteed in the name of God that these three people were absolutely trustworthy allies. After completing the introduction, he went straight to the ground.
He opened his mouth and asked: "Bishop, what happened here? Why did the Holy Land fall to this in just one month?"
"Everything deteriorated rapidly within a few days," the old bishop shook his head, his face slightly pale. Just as Father Bernstein said before, the old bishop seemed to have suffered a mental shock and was now a little sluggish.
Luo Zhen said, "Although the situation in the sanctuary has continued to deteriorate in the nearly one month since your departure, it has not reached the point where it cannot be sustained. It was not until seven days ago that things suddenly got out of control."
Hao Ren looked serious: "What exactly is going on?"
"The light of Asuman suddenly attenuated sharply, and countless large holes appeared in the protective barrier over the sanctuary. The power of chaos poured directly in, causing huge casualties. Ahem..." the old bishop said, coughing violently a few times,
Only then did he gradually regain his breath, "The first wave of attacks was blocked. The Skitarii paid a great price to eliminate the Chaos monsters that invaded the barrier, and barely allowed the barrier over the major cities to resume operation. However, that night
, we encountered another wave of irresistible raids. The raid was launched in a dream."
In the dream, Hao Ren instantly captured this crucial word. He recalled the outposts destroyed by nightmares in the Western Forest of Talos, as well as the nightmare shadow caught by Lily: "Someone was spiritually invaded in their sleep.
And then went insane and committed 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 that the Holy Land would be like this."
"The nightmare attack we encountered is somewhat similar to what you said, but not exactly the same." The old bishop shook his head after hearing this. "Evil spirits did invade the dream world, but they did not cause a large number of casualties in the first place. Instead, they caused countless
The puppets that have lost their souls are even gradually overflowing into the real world. I think you have seen those...things wandering in the square outside."
Lily blinked: "Those walking corpses?"
"Walking corpses? No, those are not walking corpses," the old bishop glanced at Lily, "Those things are not in the real world at all. They are nightmares, the nightmares of the residents of Luan who have fallen into the nightmare world."
Lily felt like her mind was a little lost: "Nightmare? What do you mean? Were those outside just now phantoms?"
"Things similar to phantoms are walking in the real world and gradually affecting the real world, constantly confusing the boundaries between reality and dreams," the old bishop said. "The first wave of nightmare attacks occurred late at night, and it was
On the first night after we desperately fought off the Chaos monsters, almost everyone fell asleep due to fatigue. You can imagine the terrible consequences this caused. Most people were swallowed up by nightmares with almost no resistance, and relied on
There are less than one tenth of the people who have strong strength and barely wake up by themselves, and who do not fall asleep due to various reasons. After we break free from the dream, we find that many people around us are sleeping and cannot be awakened by any means, and then the street outside
Wandering shadows began to appear on the ground. Those shadows were nightmares released by sleeping people. They were similar to the original body, but had no reason and could only wander blindly. Anyone who came into contact with them would be mentally shocked and gradually transformed into new ones.
The seedbed of nightmares. More than 80% of the city was instantly controlled by these nightmares. We gathered all the survivors and hid in the cathedral. Only here can the power of nightmares be temporarily out of reach, and we can sleep peacefully."
Having said this, the old bishop took several deep breaths. He was already weak and had barely completed a blessing ceremony just now. At this time, he felt out of breath after talking too many words in succession.
But Carathius had 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 more than 90% of the survivors are gathered here," the old bishop nodded. "We will send some people every day to collect food and other resources in the city, and we will also search for
Other survivors, there were occasional survivors brought in in the first few days, but as time goes by, there are fewer and fewer survivors who cannot sleep forever, and there are probably no people who can persist to this day."
Hao Ren spoke: "When we came here, we saw some people who were in a hurry and didn't look like nightmares. There were also people in many houses who responded. Aren't those survivors?"
The old bishop seemed to have known that someone was going to ask this. He immediately shook his head: "That's another nightmare...the nightmare of this city."
Everyone looked at each other.
"Runen is an ancient city with thousands of years of history. We have lived here and been buried here for generations. The cycle of life and death is passed down from generation to generation. The old city is like a soul container, carrying the memories passed down from generation to generation by millions of people.
Thoughts and memories have settled down, and the ancient buildings and streets have become spiritual. The city still remembers what it looked like in the bright days, and when the nightmare comes, it also falls into these shadows, so
Memories of the past are twisted into nightmares."
Hao Ren recalled what he saw and heard along the way, those closed houses, those pedestrians who were in a hurry and full of fear, those voices full of hostility and rejection, unwilling to communicate with others, they were so real,
But I didn't expect it to be just a dream.
A dream that takes place in the real world.
The boundary between nightmares and reality is almost flattened. If this trend continues, it won't be long before the entire sanctuary in the real world will be replaced by nightmares.
Karasius looked gloomy: "The situation is so bad, is there no movement in the City of Gods?"
The old bishop glanced at him: "This is exactly what I want to tell you about the appalling things that happened in the City of Gods. As early as the first wave of attacks, the City of Gods abnormally and unilaterally interrupted all communications with all subordinates.
The church's magical link, at that time, Chaos had not poured into the barrier, but Luan's sacred crystal could no longer 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, only to find that it had disappeared out of thin air, leaving only a large area of sulfurous scorched earth and countless giant pits!" (To be continued.)