Embers of the Deep
Chapter 38: Offline
The corpse was breathing, as if it had lingered on the edge of the realm of death before turning back to the world of the living.
The heretics in the room stared dumbfounded at the scene. Some of them didn’t even realize that the man before them had actually "died" once just moments ago. The transition between life and death was so brief that without close attention, it was almost indistinguishable—they simply felt the dying "comrade"’s breath suddenly stabilize and strengthen, which was extraordinarily surprising.
The next second, the man lying on the ground opened his eyes.
He seemed to have been in the darkness for too long, so much so that the not-so-bright oil lamp in the room felt blinding. Blinking to adapt to the light, his eyes slowly began to move, as if only then did he take notice of the three black-robed figures gathered around him.
"Thank the Lord for His protection!" exclaimed a younger heretic, unable to contain his excitement, "You made it through! I thought you were going to..."
"Wait! Something’s not right! Back away!" the heretic with a deep voice suddenly realized something. He stopped others’ movements and stared intently at the man who had just awakened, retreating backwards and speaking with a threatening tone, "His breathing had completely stopped just now, I’m sure of it... Something is off!"
Duncan finally adapted to his surroundings, and the ringing noise in his head gradually faded away. He saw the figures huddled around him and his first thought was—Why are these people still here when I open my eyes? Why am I still in the sewer?
Wandering the Spirit Realm was supposed to be random. He had chosen his destination completely based on intuition, blindly making his selection, yet he opened his eyes both times to find himself among these heretics. What kind of cursed fate was this?
But right after, he sensed something wrong from the reactions of those around him, and the next second, he noticed the black robe on his own body.
Duncan fell silent for two seconds, realizing the situation.
Last time, he had been sacrificed by the heretics, and now, after closing and opening his eyes, he had become a "heretic."
He and these people truly shared a twisted fate.
"...Something is definitely not right!"
Just then, an antagonistic, low voice suddenly interrupted Duncan’s post-"awakening" muddle, and following the sound, he met an icy, vigilant gaze.
The owner of the gaze watched him coldly, while the other two heretics, catching on belatedly, began to retreat and took a defensive stance.
Duncan paused, suddenly realizing—he might have possessed a corpse, just like last time.
He was playing dead right in front of these heretics!
After figuring out the current situation, the heretics’ nervous reactions became logical. Duncan’s thoughts raced. He felt the lingering numbness and sluggishness within the body had not fully dissipated, making it difficult to move. Trying to stir trouble under the watchful eyes of several heretics didn’t seem easy; he needed to find a way to calm them first—and as he quickly sought a way out, fragments of broken, vague memories suddenly surfaced in his mind!
In those fragmented, vague memories, he "recalled" many experiences not his own—he remembered "himself" hiding in the sewers, remembered "himself" offering all his family’s wealth to the messengers of the sun, remembered "himself" joining those dark, insane, and bloody rituals for healing sickness, drinking the blood of the innocent to receive "Sun’s blessing"...
At the end of a series of chaotic memories, he "saw" the scene of the sacrificial ritual, saw many people dressed in black robes like himself standing beside the altar, and a young sacrifice being brought forth onto the high platform. The young victim wore a stiff and eerie expression that plunged the whole ritual into chaos...
He saw the "Sun’s messenger" sacrificed of a heart, everyone around the altar fell into madness, the cultists killing each other, surging flames spewed from the sun totem, angry roars and nihility murmurs filled the meeting ground, and the original owner of his body along with a few remaining heretics fled in disarray...
Duncan didn’t know how long he had been dazed, perhaps it was only an instant, as the tide of strange memories in his mind calmed down again; a sad and hateful life thus became a series of pale fragments, lying at the bottom of his heart like some kind of "nourishment."
This was a memory belonging to the original owner of the body he now inhabited—although what remained wasn’t much, the source was indisputable.
Duncan blinked; this was a change that hadn’t occurred during the last "journey through the Spirit Realm."
Last time, he hadn’t been able to obtain any memories from the possessed corpse; the "sacrifice’s" brain had been a complete blank... Why was there such a change this time?
Was it because the shell he now occupied was still "fresh"? Or was it because the pigeon "Ai Yi" had strengthened the power of the brass Compass?
Duncan slowly rose from the ground, knowing that whatever the reason behind this change, now was not the time to be daydreaming. The nervously wired Heretics had clearly realized something was amiss with his "resurrection."
As Duncan got to his feet, the three Heretics also immediately took a half-step back, followed by the deep-voiced man in a black robe who pressed his hand to his waist and broke the silence, "Don’t move—tell me, what’s your name?"
"...Ron," Duncan briefly recalled, then quite naturally uttered the name he had just learned from the memories, "Ron Strine."
"He’s called Ron." A young Heretic in a black robe immediately whispered to their apparent leader with a deep voice.
However, the black-robed man showed no hint of relaxing his guard. He just kept staring fixedly at Duncan, then suddenly chanted in a strange tone and cadence, "In the name of the Sun, may the Lord’s light shine upon all, in the name of the Sun, may the Lord’s blessings descend!"
Listening to the Heretic suddenly erupt into babbling, Duncan was initially stunned but then felt a burning sensation in his chest. He instinctively reached into his shirt where the warmth was coming from, only to find a golden Sun Amulet—a peculiar heat emanating from the surface of the amulet!
The next second, the amulet suddenly burst into fierce flames. The flames seemed filled with malevolence, lunging straight towards Duncan’s heart!
"The glory of the Lord is consuming him!" Seeing this, the Heretic who had been chanting the prayers reacted instantaneously. He pulled out a short sword from his waist and shouted, "His soul has been replaced! Kill this heretical abomination!"
The other two Heretics were clearly a bit slower in their reaction, but they too quickly realized what was happening. Those who had just moments before believed Duncan to be a "fellow brother" now drew their short swords and daggers without hesitation, lunging towards him while shouting loudly, "Kill him!!"
Duncan, holding the now fiercely burning Sun Amulet, watched as three figures charged at him. The next second, another shadow suddenly appeared at the edge of his vision!
An undead bird engulfed in ghostly green flames tore through the air, skimming across rooftops with a cold torrent of flame, emitting a strange shrill screech as it scattered invisible ashes and feathers with each flap of its wings.
The three Heretics were, as expected, distracted by the "undead bird." They instinctively looked up at "Ai Yi," who had taken on a Spectral Form.
The next moment, all their movements slowed down, as if their connection with the real world had suddenly become distant and sluggish. The figures of the three robed men seemed to stutter frame by frame in the air, leaving overlapping afterimages. They came to rest in a comically slow motion, finally freezing completely about two meters from Duncan.
Their eyes were filled with immense terror as they watched the undead bird circle once above the ceiling, then land on the black-robed "compatriot" across from them. They saw the man’s Sun Amulet still burning fiercely, but the next second, the flames turned a ghostly green, matching the same form as the flames on the "undead bird."
Duncan pinched the Sun Amulet in his hand, green flames of the Spiritual Body spiraling along its surface. The stream of flame, emanating from the amulet, circled in front of him like a well-behaved pet before calming down and coiling gently around his arm, as if seeking favor.
He walked unhurriedly towards the three Heretics, gripping the fully overtaken and transformed Sun Amulet. Looking into their horrified eyes, he couldn’t help but feel a tinge of regret in his voice, "How much better it would be for you to pretend you know nothing."
The next second, the figures of the three Heretics suddenly flickered violently in mid-air, then disappeared without a trace.
The "undead bird," wrapped in green flames and resembling a skeleton, hopped twice on Duncan’s shoulder. Amid the crackling of the burning flames, it let out a sharp and hoarse cry, "Oops, the page is gone, try refreshing?"