In front of the statue of the storm goddess Gemona, the blessed candles burned peacefully, and the light from the dome shone around the statue, making the city-state bishop in a black robe seem to be bathed in divine grace.

Bishop Valentine raised his head in the light and stared quietly into Vanna's still firm gray eyes. His words seemed to carry some kind of magic. Faintly, Vanna heard the gentle sound of waves rising and falling in her mind, followed by a thunderous sound - with the help of external forces, the power of the goddess finally broke through the veil and exploded in her heart.

Vanna suddenly took a deep breath, as if she had returned to land from the state of suffocation in the deep water. Her chest rose and fell violently, her heart was pounding, and the sense of the god's gaze was overwhelming. In a semi-trance state, she heard Valentine's voice continue to enter her ears:

"The existence of the Lost Homeland has been recorded in history, and the omen dream you encountered is an objective fact. With these two points in place, your normal reaction should be to first assume the existence of a threat and then seek a solution. But you just subconsciously questioned whether the Lost Homeland really existed, which shows that you were subconsciously avoiding the information conveyed to you by the omen dream.

"Inquisitor, you are subconsciously denying the existence of the Lost Homeland. This is the evidence that the ship really exists. It seems that it is indeed approaching the border of the civilized world."

Fanna felt a thin layer of sweat on her forehead, but the "veil" that had always blocked her from the goddess seemed to have disappeared, which made her feel a lot more relaxed. The words of the city-state bishop made her realize what had happened:

Unconsciously, I have been affected by the Lost Hometown!

This is exactly the characteristic of many visions or anomalies with horror tendencies: it causes cognitive confusion in those who come into contact with it, leading to subconscious neglect and denial, so that the impact becomes greater and greater without them realizing it!

This subconscious neglect and denial is the instinctive reaction of intelligent creatures to protect themselves and is a mentality of avoiding danger. However, when coming into contact with abnormalities, this instinctive reaction will become the source of carelessness and eventually lead to themselves becoming victims of visions and abnormalities without knowing it!

As an inquisitor who often deals with supernatural powers, Vanna is well aware of the knowledge in this area, but she never thought that she would fall into this kind of "psychological trap" - her strong willpower has no effect at all?

"I don't know when I was affected," she said frankly. In front of the bishop, who was also a devout believer, she did not avoid the weakness she had exposed this time. It was normal to be affected by abnormalities or visions and fall into psychological abnormalities. Shame and concealment would not help. "I came here directly after waking up from the dream of omen. I never talked to anyone and never touched any books or ancient artifacts. I don't think I was corrupted by the outside world during this process."

"But you did show that you were deliberately avoiding the dream of omen just now... so the influence should have occurred earlier." The bishop stared at Vanna's face, as if observing the changes in her eyes and the fluctuations in her breath at any time. "Have you come into contact with anything abnormal recently? It may be contamination from the Lost Homeland, which left an anchor in your subconscious in advance."

"Recently..." Vanna frowned, and then suddenly recalled the "sacrifice" who fell at the Black Sun sacrifice site, the green flames that flashed in the other's eyes, and her severed finger.

She opened her eyes wide and stared at the bishop. "The day before yesterday, I led a team to clean up the Black Sun Sacrifice Site in the sewer. Did you report the existence of unknown pollution at the site after you came back? Did you report the existence of a contaminated 'sacrifice' at the site?"

The bishop shook his head: "...No, you sent those cultists to the church and went back directly."

Fanna's heart skipped a beat: "Did anyone who participated in the operation report anything about this?"

"No reports have come in - all the files are filled with information related to the Dark Sun Heresy."

Under the statue of the goddess, the bishop looked at Vanna, and Vanna also looked at the bishop.

"It seems that we have found the time when the pollution first came ashore," the bishop exhaled softly. His expression remained calm, but his eyes seemed to be brewing a strong power as if a storm was about to come. "In the name of our Lord Gemona, Inquisitor, is your memory of that night still clear and complete?"

Vanna took a deep breath and said, "In the holy name of my Lord Gemona, I still remember all the details of that night."

The bishop nodded, turned around and lit the special incense, then placed the copper incense burner at the foot of the statue and said in a steady voice: "What happened at that time?"

So, Vanna confessed everything that happened in the sewer sacrificial field in her memory - she did not miss any details. With the help of the sacred incense, her memory and thinking became clearer than ever, and the experience of that night was as clear as if it were relived in her own life...

She still remembered that the sacrifice suddenly opened his eyes, and the green flames dancing in his eye sockets. She also remembered that the flames fell on her fingers, but she immediately purified them. On the way back to the church, she silently told herself:

【The pollution has been completely purified

The pollution has been completely cleaned up

The pollution has been completely cleaned up

……】

She kept muttering these words to herself along the way, and all the guards walking with her were also muttering these words to themselves!

No one thought there was anything wrong with this!

Looking back now, it was such a terrifying and strange scene - in the desolate night, the church's guards walked through the silent and deserted streets, and everyone kept whispering the same sentence to themselves until they returned to the church.

During this process, they still thought they were doing things normally: guarding the heretics they had just captured, cleaning up the dirty sacrificial site, and escorting the cultists back home...

"... the spiritual flame falls on the soul, and the physical purification brought about by cutting off the limbs is invalid. What you get is just a deceptive comfort - the correct way is to immediately burn incense, sprinkle holy oil on the ground to set up a temporary holy place, and then use prayer rituals to call on the power of the goddess to perform the purification of the 'spirit'."

"…This is my fault," Vanna said in a heavy tone, "I should have been more vigilant and alert."

"It was a mistake, but not an error." The old man shook his head. "You have great power, but as an inquisitor you lack experience after all. Fortunately, you are now free from the influence, which means that the 'pollution' left on the sacrifice was not too strong. It only interfered with you psychologically... Through the incense ceremony just now, I can roughly judge its strength."

He paused for a moment, as if he was considering or judging something: "The guards who were acting with you at the time should have been less affected. They were just standing around you, and the impact they were experiencing should quickly fade as they prayed in the church.

“Overall, although the pollution you were exposed to was dangerous and strange, the source has been cut off, so the subsequent impact is not terrible. According to your performance just now and the feedback from the incense, even if you didn’t come here today, you would have noticed something was wrong in a few days.

"We should worry more about the future than this."

"In the future..." Vanna repeated the bishop's last word, and her expression gradually became serious.

Yes, in the future, this matter is not over yet.

The image revealed by the omen dream was a warning from the goddess - what he was currently experiencing was probably just the prelude to a storm.

"The Lost Homeland has not appeared in the sight of civilized territory for many years. Many people believe that it has returned to the subspace and become one of the many shadows in the deepest part of the world. But now it seems that Captain Duncan still has an obsession with the real world."

Bishop Valentine spoke slowly, turning around and gazing at the statue of the Storm Goddess.

"A century ago, the Lost Homeland fell into the depths of the warp. Although there is no clear evidence, many eyewitness reports mentioned that there was a big storm lingering in the nearby sea at that time. The fall of the ship was affected by the storm to a certain extent...

"Storms are the authority of our Lord."

Vanna frowned: "Do you think Captain Duncan wants to... seek revenge on God?"

"It's hard to say - even if it's a ghost returning from the subspace, it's unthinkable to seek revenge on the gods. The gods live in the kingdom of God, which is hidden above reality. All things in the world can only fall from the upper layer of the world to the lower layer. I've never heard of anyone being able to go back to the 'kingdom of God' that is higher than reality...

“But if Captain Duncan wanted to seek revenge on our Lord’s agents in the human world… then it’s very likely.

"The sacred Storm Cathedral patrols the world on behalf of the Lord on the vast ocean. Most of the time, it sails on hidden routes, and no one can find its trace. In contrast... the city-state of Plunder is the largest anchor of faith for the Storm Goddess in the world besides the Storm Cathedral... and it is also a anchor of faith that everyone can visit.

"From this point of view, it is natural for the vengeful ghost to choose to land in Plande."