Stray

The clumsy and heavy wagon creaked away, and Nemo's eyes were glued to the cage in the dark until it disappeared behind the growing denser of dead trees.

"Trouble?" He finally regained his senses and turned his face to Vergil beside him.

"The sacrifice will be prepared a week in advance, but there are still two weeks before the new moon." Duran Fergil's voice was low. His complexion and hair were already quite dark, and his white teeth stood out even more in the night. "If the sacrifice has arrived, the Silent Knight will also come back early. We must hurry up - once the sacrifice officially begins, the Silent Church will be completely closed."

"...What will happen to the sacrifice?" Nemo pressed Shajiaomei to the bottom of his tongue and clenched the staff in his hand.

"I don't know, the practice is different every month." Virgil's voice was flat, "Don't worry, they are dead."

Nimo looked again in the direction where the carriage disappeared, but did not answer.

"It should be too late now." Vergil looked at the magnificent building not far away with a very complicated expression. "There is no sign of blockade, we can probably catch up. After a while at the church... Well, you don't need to pay special attention to anything, I think you are in a very good state now - there are too many types of superior demons, and the alienation of demon warlocks is all kinds of strange. They don't have time to determine the true class of every casual visitor."

"Are there many conflicts among believers?" Nemo immediately confirmed.

"It's hard to say." The tall man sighed softly, "That's what I'm worried about... You are known as a demon warlock, and demon believers shouldn't take the initiative to provoke you, but you'd better not be with a real demon Warlocks clash."

"Got it," Nemo replied simply.

"As for the demon information you want to know... The library is open to everyone, but how much you can see depends on your strength. After sunrise tomorrow, I can guide you." With the paintbrush in your hand, "Actually, you don't need to be too tense. The Church of the Abyss is a little different from general religions. Most of the believers are more egoistic, and they won't love each other happily. It's just three days as a visitor, and the possibility of exposure is very-"

"You don't need to say it." Nemo had a bad premonition, and he quickly interrupted the other party's words.

"You will remember to call me 'Duri' later." Fergil took care of his clothes, not taking off the strange materials on the belt. "What should I call you? It's not suitable to use your real name here. Since it's a black seal, you must have a familiar pseudonym."

He really didn't. Nemo quickly searched his memory, almost immediately having an idea. "'White,'" he said solemnly. "You may call me that, Fergie . . . Dooley."

"Mr. White." Fergil nodded solemnly, signaling that he remembered.

However, when they really got to the Silent Church, Nemo found that he was not mentally prepared.

Up close, the structure of the Church of Silence appears even more grand and distorted. The long steps lead directly to the door of the church, but there are no marble statues that other religions like to place on both sides - there are gallows-like stone platforms on both sides of the steps, and corpses wrapped in white cloth are hung upside down. The corpse was tightly wrapped, with only a pair of blue-white feet sticking out of the shroud, tied tightly by slings. They hang silent and upright in the air, their faint rancid smell masked by a choking incense.

No other lighting. Under the faint moonlight, the two rows of white cocoon-like things sent chills down the spine.

Nemo stuffed two saffron plums into his mouth, staring at his boot toe as far as possible. But this time his plan didn't work out - after the two stepped on the stone steps, whispering voices instantly sounded from both sides. Nemo's scalp exploded, and the scene he least wanted to see finally appeared—

The two closest corpses began to shake, and the rest remained silent as statues. The two things wrapped in white cloth swayed faster and faster, and finally unnaturally straightened towards the two of them, like iron sinkers attracted by magnets. The whispers under the white cloth grew louder, accompanied by the hair-raising sniffing.

"The taste of the abyss." They whispered in sticky voices, "Pass, pass."

Nemo nearly stepped down a step. He resisted the urge to ask questions, put part of his weight on the staff in his hand, and continued to move forward as smoothly as possible. Out of the corner of his eye, he caught sight of what he thought was a "shroud" shifted position, wriggling very slowly on the surface of the corpse.

"The watchdog of the church." Fergil explained succinctly, and the thorny corpse stayed on his shoulders, as if it had taken root on it. "No bite in general."

Nimo tugged his hood down, narrowing his field of vision as much as possible. The visual effect of the corpses approaching one by one is amazing. Compared to this, he would rather face ten Seymour worms. He really didn't really want to know how these things could bite.

"No stink of surface magic."

"No excessive communication stench."

“…”

"The taste of companionship."

When they crossed the last stone steps, the last two corpses also came to a conclusion. Nemo could feel the undershirt soaking through his back. He shivered and breathed a sigh of relief, looking at the church door in front of him—

The door blinked its countless eyes, looking back at him.

"...I definitely want more money for this mission." Nemo gritted his teeth and looked away.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing," Nemo said in a rare sad tone, uncontrollable. "Let's go, Douri."

Fergil, who walked in front, did not hesitate, as if the eyes on the door were just ordinary decorative patterns. He directly reached out and pushed the door open—a dim light appeared in the crack of the door.

"You go first." Fergil pressed against one of the doors and pressed a few eyeballs with his bare hands. There was a strange square mask on his face at some point, and the black mask was painted with a strange symbol with red paint. "Demon Warlock first, Mr. White."

Nimo stepped through the door of the Church of Silence.

The next second he wanted to go out.

He should really cherish the poor but normal time in Lubiao Town, Nemo looked at the scene in front of him, a little bit about to cry without tears. The interior decoration of the Silent Church is normal, the temperature is slightly higher than the outside, and the light is still a little dim. The indescribable fishy stench and incense were even more intense. And the living things inside—

If you can collect children's nightmares and cook them into a pot of porridge, this is almost the scene. For a few seconds, Nemo even wondered if the always upright knight commander was deliberately trying to trick him. Right now, he was the most conspicuous one because he was "too normal".

The living creatures inside are roughly divided into three categories.

The first category, low-level or intermediate-level demons that move around their masters, pure small aliens, almost no duplicates. The second category is their masters—the demon believers who wear the same masks as Virgil, without showing any face.

The third category has the least number—

The closest thing to him was a black oily mass, with a half-melted human head floating in it. The tar-like thing crawled past his feet, his head floated up and looked at him, and let out a disdainful hum. And there was a middle-aged man more than ten steps away from him. He looked like a normal human figure, but there were a lot of movable tentacles protruding from the eye sockets, nostrils and mouth, and the facial features were almost invisible. There is a similar situation in the front row, but the back is a lady with a graceful figure. From this angle, only the black gauze hat she was wearing and the unusually large head could be seen.

Nemo can clearly feel the strength gap between these "people" and other creatures in the room, these are real demon warlocks.

…He suddenly understood why Virgil didn’t disguise himself as a demon warlock with him. Now he himself felt that he was out of place in this hellish place. And their client may have completely misunderstood his forceful composure, and truly believed that he was well-informed.

Nemo nearly broke the makeshift staff.

"Visitors." The demon warlock standing at the preaching table nodded to them. This one seems to be the most "normal" of the demon warlocks - he just has no facial features on his face, only a mouth. It's pretty normal in comparison.

The masked Virgil bowed his head and saluted, Nemo still stood up straight, but the Demon Warlock didn't seem to mind.

Nimo was caught up in what was behind the preaching table.

It's a lifelike statue of a monster. Compared to the demons he'd seen, it wasn't a particularly huge type, but the twisted appearance far surpassed everything he'd seen. The nave of the Silent Church is amazing in width and height, but the monster statue fills the entire wall of the nave. He couldn't see how many pairs of forelimbs it had for a while, and he could only see that the forelimbs that supported the wall were strong and powerful, and the hooks at the end were like the scythe of death. Its head is not large, only the length of an adult, and it hangs slightly. Several pairs of eyes on both sides of the head narrowed slightly, looking like dragon heads eroded by beholders.

The rest of the statue is equally twisted and beautiful, except for a shivering chill in every taut line.

"That's Ulysses." Vergil said in a very low voice, more like a reminder than an explanation. "The statue of the previous demon king, it is about the size of the deity - if I remember correctly."

And those voices didn't really get into Nemo's head. He stared fixedly at the statue, unable to discern the strange feeling that suddenly surged in his heart.

The demon warlock at the sermon table looked at the two for a while, then looked away as if losing interest.

"Doubt everything." The man with only one mouth continued to speak, and the voice enlarged by the magic circle was gentle and clear, echoing in the large nave. "Those who move first will always be questioned and persecuted. I believe that you have come into contact with many surface religions. They have stopped in the face of power and interests, and will never further clarify the truth of the world to believers."

"Everything belongs to the belief in God, everything belongs to the so-called good and evil. Their eyes are blinded, their thinking is shackled, and they measure everything in the world only by their own cognition. In the face of superficial doubts All you have to do is keep thinking, keep doubting, and ask questions—"

"Why are demons 'evil'? If it hurts people - beasts hurt people, and people hurt people."

"Why do you call the devil 'the devil'? There is no evidence that the power structure of the devil is similar to that of humans. When did this concept appear?"

"Why is there always at the bottom of the abyss... and there is always only such an exceptionally powerful being? Since it is claimed that the Demon King will not come to the surface, why do you want to go on an expedition?"

"Never stop questioning - is the common sense in this world really 'common sense'?"

(m..=)