Chapter 702: The Search
In the dead of night, at the edge of the Busairite oasis, in the makeshift camp of the church delegation, Vania stood in her spacious tent, gazing at the half-translucent, virtual nun before her. She couldn’t help but slightly open her mouth at what the nun just said.
“Change to another place? Um… I don’t think that’s a good idea. I just got here not long ago and haven’t really helped many people yet. If I just leave like this, it feels… wrong…”
After contemplating for a moment, Vania replied to Evi, who was still standing there with a sweet, playful smile.
“Are you sure you can handle the problems here? Right now, the root of the issues in Busairite stems from the southern cultists. Even those heretics who have been operating here for years can’t manage it. Are you sure you can deal with it? If you don’t resolve this plague, you won’t be able to complete your promotion ritual. Are you really going to waste your time here? If you change places sooner, you might finish your promotion sooner too, you know.”
Evi’s tone had a hint of coaxing, causing Vania to pause. She took a serious look and said, “Sister Evi, you make a good point. If I want to smoothly promote, I probably shouldn’t waste time dealing with this pesky plague. Changing places might be better… But wait, did I come to Busairite for promotion or for relief?” Vania sounded a little confused, and upon hearing this, Evi raised an eyebrow and continued, “Good question! But from your original task, you’re here to provide relief to fulfill your promotion.”
“Yeah… On the surface, my relief here in Busairite is for promotion, but what is promotion really for? Isn’t it about gaining greater power to shoulder bigger responsibilities and broader reliefs? Relief is for promotion, and promotion is for relief. So in the end, what I really need is relief. Promotion is just a means. I can’t just give up the end goal for the sake of the means… That would be putting the cart before the horse…”
As Vania continued, Evi nodded with a smile, a peculiar glint in her eyes.
“So, Sister Evi, I can’t give up on Busairite so easily! I want to spend some time trying things out, not that I have to resolve this plague, but at least I need to give it my all…”
With a serious expression, Vania looked at Evi, who replied slowly, “Give it your all, huh? So that’s how you feel? Well then, let’s see you try. If you decide to give up later, just let me know…” Evi suddenly warped slightly and vanished.
Vania found herself in silence for a while before thinking, ‘Sister Evi… has started testing me too? I wonder if my answer satisfied her?’
Not long after Vania finished her conversation with Evi, outside her big tent, in a corner of the camp, a pair of eyes was watching intently.
The owner of these eyes was Feith, a spy nun of the church stationed in Busairite. Sitting on a patch of grass, she stared calmly at the distant large tent, deep in thought.
……
‘That Sister Evi… What is she testing for?’
In the camp, in another smaller tent, Doro was seated, having just gathered intelligence from Alima. She learned about Vania and Evi’s conversation in the large tent and fell into a moment of contemplation.
‘My earlier guess was spot on! The Savior Faction definitely noticed something… Evi’s dialogue with Vania holds a lot of testing elements. But is she testing Vania herself or the forces behind her? It’s uncertain—it could be either or both…’
As Doro continued pondering the implications of the testing, she contemplated whether she should proactively contact them.
‘At this level of testing… Better not make any extra moves for now. From how the Savior Faction seems to act, it doesn’t look like they’re in a hurry. If they aren’t in a rush, then neither am I. I’ll just wait until there’s a real need before making a move.
‘Right now, my urgent matter is in that city…’
Doro thought, rising to her feet to gently part the curtains of her tent, and gazed toward the distant world outside, where she caught a glimpse of the shadowy outline of the ancient city in the dark.
……
As the moon fell and the sun rose, the night began to fade.
Quickly, after a night of hurried moments, the Busairite oasis welcomed the dawn of a new day. On the distant desert horizon, the rising sun cast its morning light over the oasis and the ancient city. The delegation camp by the oasis lake awoke in this glow, with wisps of cooking smoke rising from the tents and various voices of morning prayers echoing around.
Across from the camp, the Busairite ancient city also greeted a new day. The weary guards on the walls still focused on watching the distant camp, while behind the walls, the urban area was bustling with residents starting their daily activities.
In the grayish-yellow-toned urban area, various buildings with flat roofs were scattered about haphazardly, and the somewhat uneven streets saw countless citizens in long robes queuing together, almost every main road exhibited similar scenes. They were all heading toward the same destination, the center of the ancient city.
Here, an expansive square stood, lined with several slender towers at its edges. On the north side of the square loomed a tall church, though it somewhat resembled the Church of Radiance, its style was vastly different. Gone were the sharp, pointed structures; instead, it featured many smoother, rounded forms, showcasing more of Northern Ufeiga’s characteristics.
This was the church established by the Savior’s Incarnation Sect in their controlled area to specifically worship the Savior of Radiance. Commonly known as the “Light Salvation Temple,” it provided religious services for prayer and confession to the followers of the Savior’s Incarnation Sect. However, the Light Salvation Temple in Busairite was quite different than before; all marks of the Savior of Radiance had been destroyed, replaced instead with a peculiar sigil resembling intertwined worms creating a circular pattern. Originally robed clerics of the Savior Faction were nowhere to be found, replaced instead by many black-clad warriors in partial leather armor and bright-robed masked monks.
In the early morning, countless citizens from all over Busairite continuously surged into the square before the church. Weak in spirit and light on their feet, they were arranged into several formations, led by the monks as they sequentially knelt before the grand entrance of the Light Salvation Temple to pray. After a brief prayer, they stood and returned, allowing the next formation to kneel in prayer, visibly revitalized after their short devotions.
Inside the opened doors of the Light Salvation Temple was its original chapel, where the altar of the Savior of Radiance had now vanished, replaced by a massive original “idol.”
This idol resembled nothing familiar to the deities of the Main Continent. It was not a refined masterpiece but simply a totem woven together from coarse grass ropes, its overall shape depicting a soaring bird. Although the totem’s form was avian, the thick ropes made it appear like countless writhing maggots, giving the impression that the bird was constructed of endless wriggling worms.
‘The bird’s shape… signifies that disease spreads rapidly like a bird in flight… a testament to the speed of the plague. And the worm’s essence reflects the filth and dirtiness of the disease… I wonder if this interpretation of the totem is correct?’
Observing from her concealed position among the crowd, Doro, through her zombie puppet, gazed upon the church’s totem, ruminating in her mind. She knew this was the totem of one of the three fetal deities, the Plague Vulture.
‘Supreme Ancestor of Eternal Life, Slavers of the Dirty, Plague Vulture… feels like this one embodies more of a ‘worm’ nature than the ‘bird’ deity… Compared to His other two brothers, this one seems to exert a far stronger influence over social affairs… In some sense, it seems more troublesome…’
As she observed the religious activities controlled by the Eternal Life Cult in Busairite, Doro sighed inwardly, controlled her zombie puppet, and left the gathering crowd of the square for other areas.
Striding through the deserted streets of Busairite, Doro’s puppet encountered buzzing swarms of insects, the air thicker with their relentless buzzing. Scattered everywhere were the corpses of various animals and even humans, all abandoned and in a state of decay, emanating a severely pungent odor.
A variety of insects crawled over the rotting flesh, while scavengers circled overhead, greedily pecking at the remains. Each discarded corpse was marked by a rough rope circle, as if forming a small ritual site around it, with no one to manage the decaying bodies in the city.
Blocking out the smell relayed by the zombie puppet, Doro directed it forward through Busairite, heading north. Along the way, Doro utilized her spiritual sight to observe that among the swarming mosquitoes, there were many with high spiritual signatures. She skillfully maneuvered around these flying mosquitoes, evading the eyes of the Eternal Life Cult within the city.
The Eternal Life Cult in Busairite was currently without a Red Tier leader, making it relatively easy for Doro to breach their surveillance, leading her puppet to its destination: a large, charred building in the northern part of the city.
Clearly once ravaged by fire, this immense building was now entirely blackened, with scarcely a sound wall intact, and certain areas showed signs of collapse. Due to its obvious state of disrepair, it hadn’t been inhabited.
Looking at this charred wreckage, Doro paused briefly, then stealthily guided her zombie puppet inside. Weaving through the disarray of the ruins until she found a staircase descending into a dark basement.
Without a second thought, she sent her puppet down the stairs, entering a cramped, dark space with evident signs of collapse in the basement. Doro had the puppet light a gas lamp to further explore the area, ultimately discovering a heavy, abandoned bookshelf leaning against a wall in an obscure corner. She instructed the puppet to push aside the bookshelf, revealing a passageway that descended further down.
Seeing the hidden passage, Doro urged her puppet to enter, quickly righting the bookshelf again before heading down the stairs. After some time moving forward, she finally arrived in a spacious, dark underground chamber.
Here, Doro had the zombie puppet ignite oil lamps fixed to the walls, and as the space brightened, she gradually made sense of the entire area.
This was a vast underground chamber supported by several stone pillars, its edges lined with numerous bookshelves carved directly into the stone walls. These stone shelves held countless parchment scrolls, books, and piles of paper. At the center of the chamber stood a long stone table, surrounded by dusty wooden chairs. The table was not only cluttered with numerous books but also scattered with papers filled with tight handwriting.
‘Found it…’ Doro thought to herself as she observed the scene through her puppet’s eyes.
This was the underground library of Busairite, originally part of the Busairite public library, but with the fall of the Santo Dynasty, fire had consumed the upper portion of the library. Although the main building had been scorched into a precarious structure, the underground library had fortunately survived. This was where the founder of the Santo Dynasty, Santis, had ordered the writing of the history of Busairite. The traces on the stone table seemed to indicate the busyness of work that had once taken place here.
After the Savior’s Incarnation Sect took control of Busairite, their key member, Gemar, discovered this place and used it as a base for various secretive research. Doro had learned of its existence from her trusted subordinate, Alima, and thus sent the zombie puppet to find it today.
As the zombie puppet navigated the underground library slowly, Doro observed the surroundings, ultimately locating a more unusual room that stood out from the surrounding dusty chambers. In this room, the seating was remarkably clean, with little dust at all.
On a large table in this room sat a collection of jars of various colors, some containing bizarre little animals and even body parts, alongside an array of glassware and biological experimental tools. A large cauldron, showing signs of being fed with charcoal, rested on the edge of the table.
Clearly, this was Gemar’s laboratory—the place where she immersed herself in research. One corner of the massive table held various books and densely written papers, seemingly notes from Gemar’s studies.
Having spotted the papers, Doro directed her puppet to move closer and began to read the contents.
