Peering into the Truth

They were everywhere.

After the landing party left the coastal shallows and advanced some distance into Holy Land Island, the scalp-numbing sight finally appeared before everyone.

Humanoid figures seemingly formed from black mud could be seen everywhere, "embedded" in all manner of places as if swallowed by the surrounding environment—on the ground, walls, roadside boulders, even tree trunks. They had completely merged with the things that had devoured them, standing motionless across this Holy Land Island, now devoid of living people, like countless eerie sculptures in grotesque styles. And the struggling poses displayed by every one of those "sculptures" told them all one fact—

"They" had once been alive.

Shirley felt her scalp prickle. The black human figures that might emerge from the mist at any moment, fused into walls or the ground, sent waves of goosebumps over her body. Hugging her arms, she carefully followed beside Duncan, trying to avoid the limbs and heads struggling upward from the road as she muttered, "Those cultists... are they all dead? Did they all die here? Then were those things we saw on the sea when we came over also them? Don't tell me the entire Annihilation Cult is just finished like this?"

"Annihilation Cultists are still active elsewhere in the world. They've infiltrated countless city-states, so they won't be wiped out that easily," Vana said casually as she frowned and watched their surroundings. "But at least the Annihilation Cultists in this 'holy land' should all be dead... That fanatical dark cult has finally suffered a devastating blow... At the very least, that's good news."

"Good news, but hardly reassuring," Morris said cautiously. "The key issue now isn't how many Annihilation Cultists died here, but how they died, and how they ended up like this..."

Morris paused, raising his head to survey