Vigilance

Before the Goddess of Storms Gemona's sacred statue, blessed candles burned calmly, while heavenly light streamed down from the dome and illuminated the area around the statue, making the City Bishop in his pitch-black robes seem as though he were bathed in divine grace.

Bishop Valentine raised his head in the light and quietly gazed into Vana's still resolute gray eyes. His words seemed to carry a certain magic. Faintly, Vana heard the gentle sound of waves rising and falling in her mind, followed by a thunderous roar—assisted by an outside force, the Goddess's power finally broke through that veil and exploded within her heart.

Vana suddenly drew in a sharp breath, as though she had abruptly returned to land after suffocating in deep water. Her chest heaved violently, her heart pounded, and the sensation of the divine gaze bore down on her from all sides. In her half-dazed state, she heard Valentine's voice continue:

"The existence of the Lost Homeland is recorded in history, and the prophetic dream you encountered is an objective fact. With both points established, your normal reaction should have been to first assume the threat existed, then seek a solution—but just now, you instinctively questioned whether the Lost Homeland truly existed. That indicates that, subconsciously, you were avoiding the message conveyed by the prophetic dream.

"Judge, your subconscious denial of the Lost Homeland's existence is proof that the ship truly exists—by the look of it, it is indeed drawing close to the borders of the civilized world."

A thin layer of sweat formed on Vana's forehead, yet the "veil" that had always stood between her and the Goddess seemed to have vanished. That instead eased her mind somewhat, while the City Bishop's words made her realize what had happened:

Without realizing it, she had already been affected by the Lost Homeland!

This was precisely a trait possessed by many terrifying phenomena and anomalies: they muddled the cognition of those who came into contact with them, causing instinctive neglect and denial, until the influence they suffered unknowingly grew greater and greater!

Such instinctive neglect and denial were originally self-protective responses in intelligent beings, an instinct to avoid danger. Yet when dealing with anomalies, that instinct could become the source of carelessness, ultimately causing one to unknowingly become a victim of phenomena and anomalies!

As a Judge who often dealt with supernatural powers, Vana knew this sort of thing inside out. But she had never imagined that she herself would fall into such a "psychological trap"—her formidable willpower had not worked in the slightest?

"I don't know when I was affected," she said frankly. Before a bishop who was also a devout believer, she did not avoid the weakness this incident had exposed—being influenced by an anomaly or phenomenon and falling into psychological abnormality was perfectly normal. Shame and concealment would accomplish nothing. "After waking from the prophetic dream, I came straight here. I did not speak with anyone or come into contact with any books or ancient artifacts along the way. I believe I was not exposed to any external corruption during that time."

"But you did indeed display a deliberate avoidance of the prophetic dream just now... so the influence must have occurred earlier," the bishop said, studying Vana's face intently, as if constantly observing changes in her eyes and fluctuations in her breath. "Have you come into contact with anything abnormal recently? It may have been contamination from the Lost Homeland... leaving an Anchor Point in your subconscious beforehand."

"Recently..." Vana frowned, then suddenly recalled the "Sacrifice" who had collapsed at the Black Sun ritual site. She remembered the green flames that had flashed in the other's eyes, as well as her own severed finger.

Her eyes widened as she stared sharply at the bishop. "The day before yesterday, when I led a team to clear out that Black Sun ritual site in the sewers, did I file a report afterward about unidentified contamination at the scene? Did I report the presence of a contaminated 'Sacrifice'?"

The bishop shook his head. "...No. After you delivered those cultists to the Church, you went straight back."

Vana's heart jolted. "Then did any of the others who participated in that operation report anything of the sort?"

"No reports came in—all the case files only recorded matters related to the dark Sun heretics."

Beneath the Goddess's sacred statue, the bishop watched Vana, and Vana watched the bishop.

"It seems we have found the point in time when the contamination first 'came ashore,'" the bishop said softly. His expression remained calm, but his eyes seemed to gather a fierce force like an approaching storm. "In the holy name of Our Lord Gemona, Judge, are your memories of that night still clear and complete?"

Vana took a deep breath. "In the holy name of Our Lord Gemona, I remember every detail of that night."

The bishop nodded, turned to light specially prepared incense, then placed the bronze Incense Burner at the foot of the sacred statue. His voice remained steady as he asked, "What happened then?"

So Vana laid out everything she remembered happening at the sewer ritual site—she omitted no detail. With the aid of the sacred incense, her memories and thoughts became clearer than ever, and the events of that night were as vivid as though she were experiencing them again...

She remembered the Sacrifice suddenly opening its eyes. She remembered green flames dancing in its eye sockets. She remembered the flames landing on her finger, only for her to decisively carry out purification. On the way back to the Church, she silently told herself, the contamination had been completely purified, the contamination had been completely purified, the contamination had been completely purified...

She had murmured those words all the way, and every Guardian Squad member walking with her had murmured them as well!

Not a single person had thought there was anything wrong with it!

Thinking back on it now, what a terrifying and bizarre scene it had been—under the desolate night sky, the Church's Guardian Squad passed through silent, empty streets, every one of them continuously muttering the same sentence to themselves until they returned to the Church.

Yet throughout that process, they still believed they were carrying out their duties normally: guarding the heretics they had just captured, cleaning up the foul ritual site, escorting the cultists back...

"...Spectral Flame falls upon the soul. The physical purification gained by severing the limb is ineffective. What you received was merely deceptive reassurance—the proper course would have been to immediately burn spices, use holy oil to arrange a temporary sacred ground, then invoke the Goddess's power through a prayer ritual to carry out purification of the 'spirit.'"

"...This was my fault," Vana said heavily. "I should have been more vigilant, more alert."

"It was a mistake, but not an error," the old man said, shaking his head. "You possess great power, but as a Judge, you still lack experience. Fortunately, you have now broken free from the influence. That indicates the 'contamination' lingering on that Sacrifice was not very strong at the time. It only interfered with you on a psychological level... Through the incense ritual just now, I can roughly judge its intensity."

He paused, seeming to weigh and assess something. "The Guardian Squad members who acted alongside you should have been affected even less. They merely stood around you, and the influence on them should have faded rapidly through prayer in the Church.

"Overall, the contamination you suffered at the time was dangerous and bizarre, but since its source had already been cut off, the subsequent effects were not frightening. Judging from your behavior just now and the incense's response, even if you had not come today, you would have noticed something was wrong yourself after a few days.

"Compared to that, what we need to worry about more is the future."

"The future..." Vana repeated the bishop's final words, her expression gradually turning solemn.

Yes, the future. This matter was not over yet.

The scene revealed by the prophetic dream was a warning sent down by the Goddess—what she had encountered so far was likely only the prelude to a storm.

"The Lost Homeland has not appeared within the sight of civilized territories for many years. Many believed it had already returned to Subspace and become one of the many shadows in the world's depths, but now it seems that Captain Duncan still clings to the Real World."

Bishop Valentine spoke slowly as he turned and gazed at the Goddess of Storms' sacred statue.

"A century ago, the Lost Homeland fell into the depths of Subspace. Though there is no conclusive evidence, many eyewitness reports mentioned that a great storm lingered in the nearby waters at the time. The ship's fall was, to some extent, affected by that storm...

"Storms are Our Lord's domain."

Vana frowned. "You believe Captain Duncan intends to... take revenge on a god?"

"Hard to say—even for a ghost returning from Subspace, seeking revenge against a god is unimaginable. Gods reside in the divine realm, and the divine realm is hidden above reality. All things in this world can only fall from the upper layers of the world downward; no one has ever been heard of traveling in reverse to the 'divine realm,' which lies at a higher level than reality...

"But if Captain Duncan intends to take revenge on Our Lord's agents in the mortal world... then that is highly possible.

"The holy Storm Cathedral patrols the world on behalf of the Goddess across the Boundless Sea. Most of the time, it sails hidden routes, and no one can locate it. By comparison... the Pland City-State is, aside from the Storm Cathedral, the Goddess of Storms' greatest Anchor Point of faith in the world... and an Anchor Point of faith anyone may visit.

"From that perspective, it would be only natural for that vengeful ghost to choose Pland as its landing place."