There can't be a Harvest Moon in the RimWorld.

There's no need to hesitate in this environment anymore. This isn't my mining town at all! It's some unknown den of iniquity! Everything here is abnormal from top to bottom!

But how do you explain Poppy?! She's clearly the person I know, and she remembers me perfectly! And the buildings in the town are exactly the same as the Mineral Town I remember!

I instantly connected the scene before me with the story of the captain's notebook.

Is there really some mysterious force manipulating my perception, making me constantly distort what I see? At first, I was extremely familiar with Popuri and the tavern, but the longer I stayed, the more bizarre things became?!

If I blindly believe what I see, will I end up like that captain, obsessively trying to escape the area, only to find myself in an extremely dangerous place?

No, no...

I need to think about this more carefully...

If the residents before me have been mutated, why didn't the priest I saw change just now? In a bizarre world, the one whose appearance remains normal must be the most abnormal one!

"Go find the priest... the clue must be with him..."

Chapter 402 The Lost Calxus

In the empty church, bright red candles still flickered in the corners of the room, casting blurry shadows in the main hall. The dripping wax from the candlesticks had formed a winding line, and the swollen lump quickly cooled in the air, turning into a deformed mass hanging on the base of the pointed candlestick.

In a quiet corner where everyone had left, a priest, wrapped tightly in his clothes, sat in front of the organ, his fingers hovering over the keys but not playing anything, lost in thought as he faced the organ.

As all the red candles in the hall burned out one by one, the light illuminating the entire hall finally came to an end, leaving only a faint last candle flame, which magnified the priest's lonely figure on the wall, casting a huge shadow mural.

In such a scene, the priest is like a puppet stripped of its soul; once he steps off the stage, he becomes an empty shell.

"call."

The last source of light suddenly went out, plunging the entire place into darkness. Lightning flashed intermittently outside, only occasionally illuminating a corner of the church's main hall.

“Father, I have some doubts and would like to pray to the Holy Spirit. I wonder if you have time?”

Having blown out the last candle, I had already stepped across the sacred and magnificent red carpet in the center of the venue, and quietly sat down on a bench, when suddenly I spoke.

The priest, who was sitting in front of the organ with his back to me, lost in thought, swayed slightly as his hand accidentally pressed a key on the organ, and he let out a low whimper.

But he immediately realized what was happening and quickly stopped pressing the buttons, as if he was even more afraid of making a sound than I was, and whispered.

“Marcus…you really have come back to life as Rhodes said…”

"Is Rhodes gone? Aren't you going to call him out to fight me together?" I watched his actions with a cold smile, already prepared to face two enemies at the same time: Rhodes and the priest. Now was no longer the time to run away or hide, but to confront these visible enemies and find the answer to the problem.

The priest didn't turn around, but said in a low voice, "You think I'm an ally of Rhodes?"

"Is not it?"

"Of course not! If there's anyone in this town who's my ally... it can only be you... Marcus!"

The priest lowered his voice, but spoke with all his might, “The Holy Spirit has told me everything. The one who rises from the dead will bring an end to everything… just like the dreamlike night of the lost Carcassa…”

I looked at him expressionlessly and asked without flinching, "And what about the residents of this town? And what role did you play in them?"

The priest, with his back to me, suddenly began to sway, as if laughing inwardly or convulsing, and said haltingly, "I am but a recorder of moments... a clumsy announcer... or perhaps a witness to a great being..."

"Then why did the residents turn into monsters?" Ignoring his ramblings, I continued to ask.

“You don’t understand… The Holy Spirit has long since descended upon you, that great will… You were once closer to the Holy Spirit than I was, yet you willingly forfeited your right to protection… But the Holy Spirit still favors you; your resurrection is the best proof…”

Intermittent explanations came through as the priest continued his narration. Although his words were rich and detailed, he did not explain any specific details, indicating that he did not intend to answer my questions.

"Then let me ask you another way: what are you and Rhodes plotting together?"

"A conspiracy? No, Rhodes has always been wrong about one thing. His blind heart tried to fathom the will of the Holy Spirit, and as a result, he made an irreparable mistake... He was wrong... I knew he was wrong from the moment I finished reading the nameless captain's manuscript..."

I pulled the parchment notebook from my waist and asked earnestly, "You mean this book? Is there any important information in it?"

The priest didn't turn around, but seemed to see everything behind him. He slowly nodded and said, "Those are memories left behind by the calamity... The content is unimportant, the metaphors are unimportant, the facts are unimportant... This is also why I will cooperate with Rhodes... He is the source, so he will inevitably trigger the moment of end..."

The priest's descriptions grew increasingly frantic, and his speech rhythm deviated from human habits. His tone lacked both intonation and clear emotion; even his pauses and breaths became random and irregular, dissecting the complete language and making it difficult to understand.

He suddenly started playing the organ again, his reckless manner resembling that of a wild beast at its wit's end. The organ's deafening roar tore apart the quiet atmosphere of the church; the chaotic rhythms appeared contradictorily, colliding and converging into a high wall, creating a breathtaking effect through the distortion of both loudness and tone.

The priest's hoarse singing voice suddenly rang out.

"Cut through the clouds along the shore"

The twin suns sink into the lake

A long shadow fell.

Right there in Karksa

The magical night when the black star rises

The wondrous moon that moves through the night

But what's even more amazing is that...

The Lost Calxus

The lyrics are filled with obscure imagery, seemingly a narrative poem with a specific theme, yet it cannot be connected to the existing story and scenes. This fragmented chanting is like randomly pulling undecipherable fragments from the trash can of a dream and playing them out without any pattern.

During the singing, the priest's hood, which he had kept tightly closed from beginning to end, slipped off his shoulder with the frenzied playing. Inside the hood, a deformed yellow-black mark was revealed, hanging loosely on his shoulder and quickly becoming tattered and worn.

The priest, who was playing the organ with his back to me, uttered a short sentence rapidly between lyric changes in a muffled tone.

"So the saint is also the king."

Then a breathtaking scene unfolded.

His head, which wasn't wearing a hat, suddenly swelled up, becoming larger than ten human heads. Then, the human skin covering it shrank back to a pitiful size, like a piece of torn duct tape, revealing the strange, uneven tissue inside.

Those tissues clearly showed mutated, whitish spinal cord and medulla oblongata, sprouting from the base like roots growing from beneath a priest's robe. The frontal lobe of the forebrain stretched out, transforming into leaves covering the mutated tissue, thinly exposed to the air.

The cerebellum was the main force behind this proliferation. It broke through the limitations of the skull and expanded like an inflating balloon. At the very top, it seemed to have formed a crystal-clear fruit—if you looked closely, you would find that it was the pineal gland in the brain.

The deformed creature instantly broke through the human form, transforming into a grotesque, clawing monster that collapsed onto the organ keyboard, yet still frantically rolled the keys with its hands and feet, singing this terrifying hymn to the indescribable existence...

All of this happened so naturally that I couldn't help but suspect that this magnificent priest's robe was originally just a prison for a deformed creature. Beneath its humanoid exterior, perhaps an unimaginable monster had long existed.

Chapter 403 The King of Light

Amidst the illusory singing, many parts of the organ cracked, the blower experienced turbulent airflow, and the brass pipes broke one by one. In fact, the entire mechanical system—pipes, stops, keyboard, track mechanism, bellows, and body—seemed to be overdrawing its life force, unleashing the most powerful sound that shook the heavens.

The monster of flesh and blood transformed into a wild beast, which was incredibly focused in front of the organ, urging the notes with more seriousness than a predator, and finally displayed an unimaginable miracle in the church.

"Run! Don't look back!"

Suddenly someone grabbed my hand and forcibly dragged me away from where I was, ending this magical performance that I had been watching all by myself.

But my eyes were filled with a distorted vision, a broken kaleidoscope-like view before me, and magnificent hymns replaced the eerie and chaotic music. The entire church seemed to be illuminated by a holy white light, as bright as day.

The dazzling colors behind it instantly pushed the church doors, which were so close at hand, to an infinite distance, so far that all one could see was a small black dot where the doors were.

The person who was pulling me along stopped running, took off his hat, and revealed a serious middle-aged face.

"Mr. Rhodes?"

In a daze, I recognized his face.

"This place is out of control too... What did you just do?!"

Rhodes's question was very serious, with a hint of accusation in his tone.

I shook my head: "I just asked him what happened here..."

Mr. Rhodes' expression instantly fell, and he gritted his teeth, saying, "It really is you... Damn it! You shouldn't have shown up!"

The look of clenched teeth on Rod's face instantly reminded me that he himself was plotting something, so I quickly broke free from his grasp.

"What on earth is going on?! What do you mean 'it really is me'?! What on earth happened in Mineral Town?!"

The hymns behind us grew stronger and stronger, as if they were about to transform into a raging flood, chasing after us two prey who had fallen into a trap.

Rod's expression suddenly froze, and he looked at me with an ambiguous expression, as if he were sizing up a complete stranger, before speaking.

"You...look back..."

Turn back?

I looked at him in surprise. Wasn't he the one who told me not to turn around just now? Why is he suddenly telling me to turn around and look?

"Go see...it seems I was wrong..."

Mr. Rhodes' voice was extremely somber, and his face, obscured by the holy light, revealed deep confusion.

I slowly turned around and, amidst the chaotic vision illuminated by light, the kaleidoscope in my eyes gradually closed, transforming into a uniform image, with all focus concentrated on a strange entity.

He stood solemnly on the terrace.

He had no face, was twice the height of an average person, wore pointed boots, and was draped in a tattered, psychedelic-colored robe with a wisp of silk hanging from the top of his hood.

To me, sometimes he seemed to have wings on his back; sometimes he seemed to have a halo above his head; sometimes he seemed to exhale infinite radiance from his eyes and mouth; sometimes dazzling flames of burning thorns bloomed beneath his feet; sometimes three bright, radiant figures separated from the dazzling light...

Is this God?

I uttered these words with a rapturous intensity, my eyes filled with a mesmerizing glow, as if I were about to merge my very consciousness into the light and offer my greatest faith to the great King of Light.

In such light, Mr. Rhodes actually forced himself to move, using unimaginable willpower to drive his body, step by step walking in front of me, using his body to block the infinite holy light, creating an exceptionally conspicuous shadow in this bright world.

A strange halo seemed to dance around him, while the light emanating from his eyes belonged entirely to another world. And against the backdrop of shadow, I realized that this light was not the sword of light I had imagined, but rather wriggling and flowing from beneath the layers of tattered robes of the emaciated god.

However, this flow lacks the heaviness of worldly water; instead, it is exceptionally flexible, possessing an elegance that is truly extraordinary.

"As expected... you saw it too!"

Mr. Rod's clothes emitted a corrosive, boiling sound. Where the light shone, the outer garment was burned away as if it were alive, while the surrounding fabric continued to wriggle towards the damaged area, mending the damaged garment.

His tone was a mixture of relief and worry, but he suddenly turned around and spoke to me earnestly, word by word.

"Use your most powerful methods immediately! Otherwise, we will all be buried here! The King of Light has already descended; I can only hold him off for a moment. Only a higher being can break through this cage..."

"But...but I have no other means..." I said hesitantly.

Amidst the deafening hymns, Mr. Rhodes roared, "Impossible... Since you can rise from the dead... then you must have surpassed his authority! It wasn't him who chose you, but you who chose this place!"

It wasn't that he chose me, but rather that I chose this place?

These words were like lightning striking through the dark clouds in the sky, shattering the confusion in my heart.

That's right, I wasn't brought here by some great deity, but by two unscrupulous old men pulling the strings behind the scenes. I know that better than anyone!

Behind these two old men stands the terrifying being who sleeps at the end of time and space—the "Ultimate Calamity"!