A Corner of the Truth

Nora lowered her head in silence.

It seemed the enemy was even more troublesome than she had imagined.

Nora tightened her grip on the Flail. She had originally expected to encounter a cultist gathering, perhaps with one or two sea monsters to deal with at most, but she hadn't expected the place to be crawling with them.

Nora closed her eyes in a moment of despair. Could she really achieve her original goal? Although she was a Burier and had brought all her equipment, the sheer number of monsters...

And Theus had actually let them out. This madman, didn't he know these monsters were mindless?

What am I thinking? Cultists are madmen by nature. Nora gritted her teeth and tried to back against the cliff wall. She felt she understood what Theus meant; the monster before her was just there to test her. Only by defeating it would she be qualified to negotiate with him.

Damn cult leader!

Nora held up her Tower Shield, waiting for a long time, but the attack from the other side never came. She carefully shifted the shield aside, peeking at the situation opposite with her peripheral vision.

She was wearing the thickest White Crow heavy armor, and she had even brought the shield usually reserved for charging into battle. She was confident she could take any attack head-on—yes, even from that massive monster.

If there's only one...

No problem, I can win.

Nora cheered herself on.

Just then, the voice of the Six-Armed Monster came from above: "Hello, my name is Ash."

It could speak?

This, this was impossible. Could it still be maintaining its sanity?

Impossible, that was a monster from the sea.

Nora gripped her shield tighter, but the attack she imagined never landed.

She hesitated for a long time, feeling uncertain, before shifting the shield aside a little more.

When she moved the Tower Shield, she was met with Ash's somewhat confused face. Seeing that Nora remained motionless, Ash decided to bend down to speak with her.

Before Ash could open her mouth to say anything, she looked curiously at the smoke beside her, sniffing it in with a deep breath.

"It smells so good, like seaweed in a coral reef... Hmm, what do you need to know? About the corruption? Or things beneath the Abyssal Trench?"

Nora froze, only then realizing that her Purification Censer was still burning.

She looked at the censer, then back at Ash.

"Not corrupted!?"

Ash looked at her with a strange expression and nodded: "Yes, only Monica among us is corrupted."

Bending over had made her tired, so she stood up straight again, her tall figure blocking the sunset over the distant sea.

Nora looked up, dazed, as Ash gradually stood up, and then...

Clack!

The back of her helmet hit her armor.

Nora took off her helmet in annoyance. She looked at the tall Ash before her with skepticism. Her reason told her the Purification Censer couldn't be wrong, and the other party didn't seem to have lost their mind, but she simply couldn't comprehend it.

Biting her lip, Nora couldn't help but ask: "How are you maintaining your sanity without being corrupted?"

Ash looked at Nora, bewildered, then stepped aside and pointed at Monica: "Only she is corrupted. We are fine. The only one you need to treat is her."

Nora glanced at Ash, but she couldn't see any madness or brutality in her eyes; all that seemed to be there was... confusion?

"This is impossible."

Nora took a deep breath of the purifying smoke from the censer. Hmm, a sweet orange scent.

Looking up again, everything before her remained the same.

Could all of this be real?

This monster from the sea wasn't insane? Was it even... friendly?

No, no, something must be wrong.

Nora felt a sudden panic in her heart. She carefully turned around, watching Ash with a wary gaze, and slowly retreated toward the seaside.

She swung the Flail, and the smoke dispersed. As it touched the seawater, the smoke seeped down in tiny specks, like coffee powder poured into a glass of water.

The Banshees looked at each other. Though they appeared hesitant, they didn't shy away.

The smoke entered the sea and gradually bloomed, spreading around the Banshees.

"Mm, it tastes a bit like sweet shrimp."

"No, only the pearls inside a giant clam have this scent!"

"This is clearly the smell of sunlight within the coral!"

The Banshees argued in low voices. Although their opinions differed, they all agreed it was a wonderful scent.

Theus stood to the side, watching with a strange expression.

How strange, can they smell things even in the sea? he thought randomly. Although Nora's behavior was odd, he didn't stop her; he knew this was Nora's method for dealing with corruption.

During his first meeting with Nora, the information she had instilled into his mind via her censer contained a similar explanation...

Wait, could that thing actually be a censer used for preaching?

Theus cast a somewhat peculiar look at Nora's flail.

Wielding a flail to smash doctrine into your brain—is this what they call preaching?

Well, it was certainly effective; at the very least, Theus now knew quite a bit about the Silent Temple.

If only the process could be a little more gentle...

Watching the Banshees whispering to each other, Theus's eyes suddenly lit up.

He noticed that the corruption on Monica's body was slowly coming to a halt.

The black substances that had been wriggling like leeches seemed to have been plunged into ice water, gradually ceasing their movements.

Meanwhile, a faint expression of pain appeared on Monica's face.

It's working!

As expected of a Burier from the Silent Temple, she really can deal with the corruption!

"Look, everyone!"

"Monica seems to be doing better!"

"Quick, look at the corruption on her!"

"The corruption, it's receding!"

"It actually works! The healing methods on land are so peculiar!"

The Banshees began to look at the flail and Tower Shield in Nora's hands with awe; although they looked strange, they were truly effective.

Nora blushed slightly, feeling as though her earlier wariness had been a joke. Having calmed down, she looked Ash and the Banshees from the sea up and down, her gaze lingering on their scales for a moment before finally settling on Theus: "They come from the sea? Have they lived in the ocean the whole time?"

"Yes," Theus replied, also sensing that something was wrong. "Recently, corruption has appeared in the sea, driving living beings to madness, so I came to..."

"You said corruption has appeared in the sea?"

"Yes, look at Monica, that thing on her body is..."

"I know," Nora interrupted Theus again. The expression on her face was incredibly complex, as if she had seen something inconceivable.

She seemed to want to say something, but found it difficult to speak because it was too outrageous; even Theus and the Banshees beside her could sense this subtle emotion.

"I know Monica is corrupted, and I also know there is corruption in the sea."

Theus and Ash exchanged a glance, both feeling puzzled, but Nora's next sentence left them frozen in place.

"But this corruption has been going on for over a thousand years."