Does the mechanical girl dream of the Messiah?

According to common sense, all followers of darkness are evil.

But she remembered another teaching. In God's holy scriptures, tolerance and careful consideration are also important contents. The contradiction here made her secretly distressed. If God asked her to tolerate that figure and treat the child who was similar to herself as a simple and lonely person, should she do so?

In a trance, Lunisia had arrived near the center of the town.

A relatively intact building, which was much larger than an ordinary house, was standing in front of her. It was like the corpse of a giant beast, quietly opening its mighty yet dilapidated mouth. The wooden door had long since decayed, leaving only a dark doorway. Even with the moonlight, not a single thing could be seen inside.

She turned around suddenly and did not find any strange figures behind her. The corpses were still corpses and did not come back to life.

This made her secretly relieved.

——I really hope they are still alive, but if they come back to life as corpses, they will become zombies...

She picked up a thicker branch from the roadside, took out cotton cloth from the sealed pocket in her waist bag, and tightly wrapped it around the end of the branch. She then took out a bottle of lamp oil mixed with pine oil from her waist bag and poured it on the cotton cloth, making sure it was completely soaked with grease. Finally, she took the exquisitely crafted flint from her belt, held the copper-clad handle, and with a "click", sparks fell on the cotton cloth, igniting it, thus making a torch.

She could also use light to illuminate the place, but she was unwilling to waste her limited spellcasting opportunities in such a place - for a junior paladin like her, the spellcasting opportunities provided by each sunrise and sunset were not abundant.

Confusion made her careless, and she raised her head again in carelessness.

The empty eye sockets were looking into her eyes.

Chapter 15: The Empty House

Lunicia was startled, a chill suddenly rushed up her spine to her brain, but she did not scream, did not retreat in panic or fall, and even the torch in her hand did not shake. She simply raised the shield on her right arm at the first possible moment and stood in front of her to block any possible danger from the front. At the same time, the long sword drew a regular semicircle behind her, and then pointed the tip of the sword forward - if anyone wanted to take advantage of the possible shock to attack from behind, the previous move would be enough to make them tired of defending.

Nothing happened.

After the clinking sounds of armor subsided, the surroundings fell into silence again. The zombies still did not move - although they had a strong desire to attack, they did not have the wisdom to conceal their whereabouts, and their footsteps would be immediately detected by Lunicia.

This is just pure scaring of yourself.

Even so, she was unwilling to let down her guard. She still held the torch, the shield in front of her, and the other hand tightly grasped the hilt of the sword. The town was full of a weird atmosphere. Except for the figure on the top of the spire, which made her relax a little, everything else showed unspeakable evil and horror, which made her nerves highly tense.

In front of her, in the small brightness created by the fire, a corpse was hanging upside down.

It was in a very advanced stage of decay. Although it had not completely turned into dry bones, what remained were only some "leftovers" still hanging on the bones: a few pieces of cloth, almost completely dehydrated and highly decayed minced meat, and a layer of strange, dry and cracked skin that barely wrapped around the head. The condition of this corpse was much worse than those mummies that had turned into zombies. Lunicia was almost completely certain that they could not move like zombies.

However, to be on the safe side, Lunicia carefully raised her sword and poked a few holes in the corpse. There was no strange touch like those zombies. The tip of the sword only felt like stabbing a pile of dust. It made sense. The torso of this corpse had no room to accommodate anything. Its abdomen was cut open, and its internal organs had long disappeared. There was only a layer of dry skin covering the spine.

The cultists seemed to have a special liking for rotting corpses and had no interest in the technology that could drive skeletons.

Lunicia raised her head and held up the torch, trying to see clearly what was happening on the beams.

The thing tied around the ankles of the corpse was not an ordinary rope that would rot easily, but a black metal wire with spikes that was directly cut into the flesh and bones. The noose made of the metal wire showed signs of loosening, and it looked like it was not hung up after the corpse was almost completely rotten, but had been tied around the ankles when the flesh and skin were intact.

On the thick wooden beams used to fasten the wires, Lunicia discovered something else that made her feel cold all over.

Dark red marks completely soaked the wood, and one skull after another lay on top of the beams, fixed to the beams by sharp stakes pierced from top to bottom. In the dim firelight, remnants of skin, flesh, and hair could be seen, proving that they were nailed in before they decayed into skeletons.

At the junction of the metal wire and the wood, you can clearly see the roughness and scratches caused by friction, which proves that the metal wire experienced quite violent movement after being hung up, so that it left marks on the beam.

As for what was going on...

—Were they hung up while still alive, and then struggled to death...?

Lunicia didn't dare to think further for a moment.

She only felt that beyond the icy chill, a fiery emotion was churning and swirling in her mind, eroding those parts that were still cold or gentle.

The hotter her mind became, the colder her expression became.

As the light extended, the scene inside the building became clearer and clearer.

There is not just one almost rotten corpse hanging upside down here - this place is like a jungle of corpses. Corpses that have almost turned into skeletons are tied up at the ankles and hung on criss-crossing wooden beams. Not every beam is filled with skulls, only the main beams are treated like this. Even so, the number of skulls pierced by sharp stakes is still horrifying. I wonder how many people died here.

There was a small path between the corpses. With a cold face, Lunisia held a sword in one hand and a torch in the other, and walked straight inside.

This is a fairly spacious hall, but it seems too crowded because of the many hanging corpses. The items that were originally here seem to have been cleared out. Lunicia can also see traces of some objects being moved on the thick dust on the ground. They may be tables, chairs, cabinets or something like that, and they look quite large.

Apart from the jungle of corpses, the only things left on this floor were doorways and windows. Only one of the three doors had collapsed due to years of disrepair, and became the way for Lunicia to enter. The other two doors were almost intact and sealed with some kind of blackened wood and fixed with iron spikes. The windows made of wooden squares and gray glass also received the same treatment. They were nailed shut with layers of wooden boards to ensure that no one could open them from the inside or outside, letting in light and vision.

In the darkness, the only thing that can attract people's attention, besides the light, is the deeper darkness.

The stairs quietly extended towards the second floor. Due to the angle limitation, the torch in Lunicia's hand could not completely illuminate the entire staircase. There was always a long section in complete darkness without any lighting. This kind of environment where she could not see her hand in front of her face except for the small area where she was standing made her feel extremely stressed.

In this environment where vision is no longer reliable, she can only rely on her hearing as much as possible, hoping that it can catch every sound coming from the darkness, so that she can be mentally prepared when unknown things come from the darkness.

The footsteps are climbing, step by step, step by step.

The light is spreading, but that doesn't mean the darkness is fading away. They are simply exchanging positions with each other. The more does not become less, and the less does not increase. It's like some kind of weird equation, and the shadows seem to be wriggling with life.

Lunicia once heard from a respected predecessor that in the world outside the Divine Court, the further away from the lights of civilization one is, the more one must not let oneself fall into darkness.

And in places she couldn't see, ripples like water gently contracted and expanded, like the sigh of a noble lady. It was quiet here, as if something was blocking the entry of things crawling in the dark corners and out of sight.

The walls on both sides of the stairs were inlaid with lamps, which were oil lamps made of glass. This kind of pure transparent glass was not uncommon in places like Arkham, the former steam engine city, and Ambrisburg, the current capital of Zerhal. It was said that luxurious places like the former Hyperborean would even use pure natural crystals for windows.

The glass lamps had been smashed, with only a few fragments remaining in their original locations. The oil lamp structures inside had also been destroyed beyond recognition, and it was obviously impossible to light them again.

This did not discourage Lunicia, as she had not expected anything like this in the first place.

Climbing upwards step by step, in the darkness like thick fog, a wide and long corridor stretched out in front of her eyes, and one rotten and collapsed door after another was quietly open. There were no corpses, no bones, as if everything before was just a horrifying illusion. This is the reality, those doors like huge mouths are the reality.

Chapter 16: Dead Silence

Lunicia felt fortunate that the stairs in this building were carved entirely of stone, just like its exterior structure, rather than being hollow wooden stairs. Otherwise, she would have to be doubly careful to prevent herself from stepping on a rotten part and spraining her ankle from the loud noise, which would have alarmed something hidden in the darkness.

She raised her torch and illuminated the signs on the wooden door frames. The text on the signs was written in a variant of Danuan, also known as Little Zeelandic. Little Zeelandic is a mixture of Zeelandic and Danuan. It is more casual than Zeelandic and much more elegant than Danuan. Therefore, it is widely used in various informal occasions involving the beliefs of Levina, Orion, and Hedi.

This is indeed in line with the tradition of the Principality of Mariai: the beliefs here are quite mixed. In addition to the belief in the Twelve Gods, there are many local beliefs that are still popular, but the mainstream is still the worship of Angus, Hasar, Heti and Solomon. It is not surprising to find that the little Zeelandic language is also used by Heti believers here.

She recalled, but she didn't see Hedy's holy emblem - a circle of wheat ears wrapped in green leaves - in the lobby on the first floor. It was probably either because the faith was loose and it had not been established, or it had been destroyed by the cultists.

The latter possibility was not high. Lunicia had also read a lot of investigative materials on cultists. Although she did not write down any specific information about them or their objects of faith, she did write down some of their usual ways of doing things.

For the holy emblem of this kind of righteous god, they are accustomed to making some slanderous and defamatory "creations" and then hanging them up in a conspicuous enough place, rather than simply destroying them in secret.

This formal layout gave her some insight.

This building is probably a facility like the "Town Hall" of this town, so the layout appears so exquisite and well-organized.

The second floor looks much tidier than the first floor, of course, only relatively speaking.

She walked carefully into the room closest to the stairs. The environment here was in much better condition than she expected. Although the drawers of the table were opened and the contents were poured out on the ground - the purpose of this was probably to find valuables - the whole room was not damaged, and the debris that was poured out was not burned.

Lunicia used her fingertips wrapped in her nails to gently wipe away the dust on the debris and picked up a page - the paper had turned seriously yellow and brittle, and there were many traces of insect bites on it. Although there was not much content that could be recognized, there was still some.

She could read Little Zeeland and Zeeland without any problem, but as the saying goes, even if she knew every word, she couldn't recognize them together. She basically couldn't understand the contents of the papers. She could only judge from the exquisite terms and tables that these papers were reports left over from the government office here.

This further confirmed her judgment, but it was not very helpful in understanding what was happening here, at least the information provided in this room was not helpful.

There is no doubt that if she wanted to review what happened here further, the mayor's office would be her first choice.

She walked out of the room slowly and walked along the corridor, lighting the rooms she passed from time to time with a torch. Whether it was the sign on the door or her vague experience, she knew that a place like the mayor's office was naturally at the end of the corridor and was the largest and most luxurious room in the building except for the hall.

Letters and diaries, if you can find these two things, you can understand a lot of things.

The other rooms looked almost the same. Chairs were smashed or overturned, empty drawers were thrown aside, and the contents were poured onto the floor. There were also some scattered small boxes that looked much more exquisite than ordinary objects. They were probably jewelry boxes or something like that - of course, they had been emptied out.

There were no corpses, not even the corpses of mice or insects. The entire second floor was empty, with only thick dust covering the ground. This emptiness made people feel creepy.

This seemed to be a completely different kind of horror from the forest of corpses.

That feeling was extremely uncomfortable. In this dead silent environment, Lunicia could only hear her own footsteps. She always felt that something would suddenly appear from the darkness that was beyond the reach of light. However, nothing appeared. This did not mean that she could let down her guard. She had to continue to struggle and hold on.

The corridor was not very long, but it seemed to be infinitely extended in the silent darkness.

Especially when she passed the public toilet, the feeling was particularly prominent. In the darkness where there was only the sound of footsteps, there was suddenly the sound of dripping water. She didn't want to take the initiative to step into the particularly dark space, but she didn't want to give up any clues, so she could only step in with a torch.

The overall structure of this building is closer to those towns influenced by Arkham, and it was most likely built by immigrants from Arkham, so the bathroom naturally adopted a "new structure" close to the Arkham style, with a public washbasin and separate toilets for men and women.

There was obviously no capacity to install a large enough glass mirror here, so only a few metal mirrors were installed on the washstand - they were now covered with thick dust and were of course unusable.

Lunicia came forward, holding the torch in one hand and inserting the sword into the short scabbard of the leather belt with the other hand, not fixing it to ensure that it can be drawn out immediately when needed, then reached out and wiped the dust off a mirror.

Even after the dust was removed, the mirrors were undoubtedly affected by violence and time. The images they reflected were no longer clear, but rather became very strange. Whether it was Lunicia's own face or the light of the torch in her hand, they all appeared distorted and untrue in the mirror. Parts that shouldn't be stretched became too stretched, some places were quite blurry, and in some places another face appeared...

——……!

Lunicia suddenly drew the sword from her waist and stabbed it straight behind her!

Nothing at all.

There is no feeling of hitting an object, no sound.

Nothing at all.

Lunicea turned around and saw nothing. There was only darkness that stretched to who knows where, mixed with the sound of dripping water.

Ta, tap.

The sound didn't seem to come only from the darkness before their eyes.

Boom, boom, boom——

Several quick muffled sounds came from behind her. Lunicia had a memory of this sound. In her memory, the tap sometimes made such empty sounds. She turned back and found that the tap in the wash basin had been turned on at some point. Of course, no water came out. The water supply to this deserted town had been stopped long ago. The river had dried up, and even the water tower in the town had collapsed. The tap could only make intermittent strange sounds that only came when there was no water.

In the darkness, the sound was like something howling, and it made people feel creepy.

Lunicia said nothing. Even though she was getting more and more nervous, her expression did not change as she looked around vigilantly.

Still nothing appeared.

Nothing at all.

Chapter 17: Hanging Illusion

It was precisely because nothing happened that Lunicia felt more and more nervous and uneasy.

She saw clearly that in the metal mirror, there were several faces that did not belong to her. But when she looked again, those faces had disappeared, which made her wonder if she was seeing an illusion.

Lunicia reached out and turned the faucet handle, stopping the empty clanging sound. With the residual light of the fire, she discovered that it was not true that nothing was flowing out of the faucet - some dark red substance was slowly flowing out of the pipe, but it was too sticky and never dripped down.

The slime gave off a pungent fishy smell, which was difficult to see clearly in the dim light.

Lunicia raised the torch, held the sword in hand, and walked towards the inside of the toilet.

The toilet in this building also used a stone structure, and its shape was still similar to Arkham's, but it was not as luxurious as the toilet in Arkham, which was covered with tiles. She instinctively walked into the women's toilet on the right, which had two rows of squat toilets separated by painted wooden boards, and the wooden door was closed without exception.

This made her eyelids jump.

The sound of dripping water clearly came from here.

In theory, just like the taps at the public washbasins, there should be no water in the water supply system here, as the entire town has long been abandoned and the water supply system has been completely damaged.

If that’s the case, why are the water pipes here still leaking and dripping?

Lunixia took a deep breath silently, walked to the wooden door closest to the edge, got ready, and then kicked it hard. With a loud cracking sound, the wooden door, which was already in poor condition, was kicked in two by Lunixia, and wood chips flew everywhere with the heavy blow of the metal sole.

Nothing at all.

Putting the torch inside, the space between the wooden boards was completely illuminated. There was still nothing inside, only empty squatting positions, no people, no bodies, and nothing else. Lunisia frowned, raised her right hand, and easily cut off the rusty metal brackets with her long sword. The stone water tank that was barely fixed fell down with a loud noise.

As common sense would have it, the water tank was empty, except for the mechanical structures that were still intact, and a thick layer of dust - the dust had been shaken out during the fall, raising a choking smoke screen. There was nothing suspicious, not even a spider web, let alone water.

Tick, tick.

The sound of water did not change at all, it still sounded again and again at a fixed frequency.

Lunicia covered her mouth and nose with the back of her hand and pricked up her ears, hoping to hear which squatting position the sound of water came from, but to no avail - this kind of thing should have been quite obvious and could be heard without even careful listening, but now it was completely impossible to tell, and she didn't know what the problem was.

It's not the degeneration of perception, nor the slowness of thinking, but that imagination is covered by a layer of fog and cannot be achieved even if you seek for it.

She felt her scalp tingling, but was unwilling to retreat, so she had to bite the bullet and continue exploring - her method was still simple and crude. She kicked the door of the squatting position open, and without saying a word, she poked inside with her sword, and finally put the torch in to see what was inside.

One, two, three...

Without exception, every squatting position was empty.

There were no people, no bodies, and nothing else.

According to Lunisia's inexperienced guess, something should happen at this time, something suddenly rushed out from the pitch-black darkness and hit her face. Her idea was in vain. She always felt that there must be something behind the "next door", but the fact was that there was still nothing behind the next door. The number of wooden doors that were still closed was constantly decreasing, and the pressure in her heart was constantly increasing.

If something really happened, it would release the pressure. Now she had no other choice but to hold her breath.

The eighth, the ninth...

Before long, there was only one door left in front of Lunicia that had not been smashed open.

She let out a long breath that she had been holding, and without making any preparations, she gritted her teeth and kicked the wooden door in front of her into two pieces.

Tick. Tick.