Starlight Overflowing

Clearly, the news Duncan had suddenly revealed had dealt quite a blow to the popes' worldview—they stood there for quite a while before recovering, and in the end, they still hadn't really recovered.

After withholding the information related to Alice Manor, Duncan briefly told Rune and the others about his exchanges with the Black Sun and the Abyssal Lord.

He was not worried that this information would "contaminate" those present. On one hand, his followers had all been baptized by his "spirit fire," and the facts had proven that this gave them extremely high resistance to mental corruption. On the other hand, the popes present dealt with mental corruption almost every day anyway, so their resistance was presumably quite high. They would not go mad just from hearing a few ramblings from ancient gods—if the bishops had still been present, he definitely would not have mentioned any of this.

Helena and the others exchanged glances. After a brief moment of thought and hesitation, all three pairs of eyes fell on Rune.

The short, plump elf old man immediately looked a little awkward. "...Why are all of you looking at me?"

"You are the most learned among us," Helena said with complete sincerity.

Banster nodded along. "You often possess unique insights and near-prophetic sharpness in the more abstruse fields of occult studies."

Frem said nothing. He merely continued staring at Rune without blinking.

Rune fell silent for several seconds with a complicated expression. Then, after a moment of thought, he seemed to remember something and turned toward Duncan, who was watching from the sidelines. "Are you certain that you heard clear, rational voices from the Abyssal Lord and the Black Sun?"

"Of course I'm certain." Duncan spread his hands. "They were as rational as our conversation right now."

"Then my second