In the first few minutes, Heidi did not get up from the sickbed rashly, but carefully observed the situation around her, listened to the movement outside the room, and then raised her wrist to check the number and color arrangement of the colored stones on the bracelet.
After doing all this, she subconsciously reached out and touched the "amethyst" pendant on her chest - the slightly cool touch coming from her fingertips conveyed a reassuring power.
Thinking of the true origin of the pendant and the source of the protective power, the psychiatrist's face looked a little strange, but she quickly suppressed the strange feeling, leaving only a helpless sigh -
"Fate is truly incredible..." She couldn't help but mutter softly.
"Yes, in your eyes, fate is really incredible."
A strange and deep voice suddenly came from the side, which woke Heidi up instantly and her muscles suddenly tensed up.
She turned her head sharply to look in the direction where the voice came from, only to see a figure in an old dark brown robe sitting near the window of the ward. The old robe concealed almost all the details of the other person's outline, and the thick and wide hood cast all his facial features in shadow. One could only judge from the hunched posture, low voice and a few wrinkles on the edge of the hood shadow that this person seemed to be an old man.
The sun was slanting into the room. Tiny dust particles were floating and moving slowly in the glow of the setting sun. The light left mottled and intermittent projections between the folds of the mysterious man's robe. In a trance, the figure seemed to have a phantom, translucent texture.
Who is this? When did he appear here? Was he here just now?
A series of terrifying questions instantly emerged in Heidi's mind, and her hand subconsciously reached for the suitcase next to the bed.
However, before her hand touched the suitcase, the deep and hoarse voice came from the window again: "Don't be so hostile, Miss Heidi, I am not your enemy today - and your golden cone and pistol can't kill a temporary traveler. Sit down, I just come to chat with you, just to help you relieve your boredom."
Heidi still took out the pistol from the secret compartment of the suitcase with an expressionless face, pointed the gun at the other party and said in a deep voice: "...Who are you?"
The figure in the robe did not answer Heidi, but slowly raised his arms and carefully examined his hands in the sunlight coming in from the window, as if he had suddenly discovered something interesting. He placed his arms in the sunlight and observed them repeatedly.
The sleeves of the old robe slid down, and the arms were dry like branches and wrinkled like cracks.
Heidi looked at the other party's strange behavior with a vigilant face, and suddenly noticed the strange state of the arm in the sunlight - it really became transparent from time to time, and there were a few moments when she could even see the sunlight penetrate the arm and shine directly on this side.
"It's incredible... I almost forgot what sunlight looks like..."
The man in the robe exclaimed with an incomprehensible feeling in his tone. Then, he suddenly turned his head, as if he was talking to Heidi, or as if he was talking to himself: "... before the fourth long night begins, things will change. The sunlight will become gentler, and the 'borders' that were once clear-cut and established by the sunlight will also become blurred. Those who were once exiled, forgotten, erased, and changed will be allowed to return to this world for a short time - we will bathe in this dusk together, waiting for the moment when the sun sets..."
The voice of this uninvited guest was low and slow. It was more like he was facing a written chapter and slowly reading the ancient words on it rather than talking to anyone.
Like a preacher, he is reading destiny to the world.
Heidi listened to the other party's chanting, which seemed to have a mysterious and bewitching power. Suddenly, she vaguely thought of something and her eyes instantly became sharp: "The Preacher of the End?!"
The robed figure finally raised his head. In the dim shadow cast by the hood, a pair of strange golden eyes looked at this side calmly: "Miss Heidi, you have established a connection with the promised ark. Have you seen the end of the journey?"
"I'm not interested in the instigation of cultists." Heidi's voice was cold and hard. She put a little force on the trigger with her finger, but her other hand subconsciously grabbed the amethyst pendant on her chest. A sense of tension gradually spread in her heart.
She was unsure - although she had dealt with mental patients and their mental illnesses, as well as monsters and shadows that appeared in nightmares, she had never dealt with a "rare enemy" like the End Preachers. There was little record of these warp lunatics in the mortal world, and the self-defense courses at the martial arts school affiliated with the Academy of Truth did not include any targeted training for these cultists. She didn't know how effective the gun in her hand would be, nor did she know whether the extraordinary power she possessed was effective.
However, the uninvited guest did not react at all when he saw Heidi's obviously hostile behavior.
He seemed very different from the Preacher of the End that Heidi had learned about in textbooks.
"We smelled something unusual, Miss Heidi, right after the promised ark came," he said calmly, even politely, "a huge, boundless void appeared after the end of the world, and there was nothing there... We were looking for ways to avoid the end of the world, but now it seems that beyond the end of the world is a vast nothingness that is even more terrifying than the end of the world... You came into contact with Him, and now you have become a part of this void, which makes us very curious... What happened?"
The words of this uninvited guest sounded mysterious and difficult to understand, like one riddle after another, as if he was rational but had lost the ability to communicate normally with ordinary people in the long and chaotic time. However, even so, Heidi still caught some specious information from his words and couldn't help but be moved.
She frowned slightly.
"You're talking about... Duncan Abnomer? You're saying that he brought some kind of 'void'?"
The old preacher slowly stood up from his chair. In the sunlight, his figure was much taller than Heidi had imagined. Even though he was hunched over, he was still like a giant. "I don't know. We only know that the void has appeared and is expanding. Perhaps one day, it will cover the entire night sky of the Fourth Long Night..."
Heidi became nervous because of the other party's sudden action, and raised the muzzle of the gun in her hand slightly: "Heretic, what do you want from me?"
"...We are eager to know the true nature of this void." The other party actually answered her question seriously, but soon he shook his head, "It's a pity that I seem to have come at the wrong time."
Heidi was stunned when she heard this, and subconsciously asked: "What does this mean?"
The other party did not answer, but slowly turned around and looked at the sunlight outside the window.
"What do you mean by the fourth long night you mentioned just now?" Heidi asked immediately afterwards.
The uninvited guest just waved his hand.
"During this window period, we can only have limited communication - it's time to leave," the End Preacher said softly, and stepped towards the sunlight, "We may meet in the next window period, or we may not, depending on how fast the void expands... But no matter whether the next window appears or not, we will meet again sooner or later... Dusk is approaching."
His figure finally became completely transparent and melted into the sunlight in an instant.
Heidi was stunned.
If the memory in her mind had not been so clear and solid, if the touch of the pistol and the amethyst pendant had not been so distinct, she would almost have thought she had just had another dream.
And then, as the breath of the End Preacher completely disappeared, she suddenly felt that the "atmosphere" in the room had subtly changed.
It seemed as if some kind of blocking force had faded from the room.
There were hurried footsteps coming from the corridor outside the ward.
※※※
On the Lost Homeland, in the captain's cabin, Duncan sat quietly at the navigation table, still recalling the information he had seen and sensed in the previous strange dream.
After an unknown amount of time, Morris' voice suddenly sounded from the side, interrupting his thoughts: "I thought you would consider letting Heidi join this ship."
Duncan raised his head and glanced at the old man with a smile: "Didn't you say before that you didn't want her to get too close to the Lost Homeland?"
"At that time... I was a little nervous about this ship," Morris smiled awkwardly, then shook his head, "and Heidi didn't know anything about us at that time. Now that she knows, there's no need to be more shy about it."
Duncan thought for a moment and said seriously, "Indeed, but after careful consideration, it seems that this ship does not need a psychiatrist."
Then he turned his head, glanced out the window, and said casually: "Who here needs psychological counseling? You don't need it, Agatha doesn't need it, and I don't need it either. Vanna's will is so strong that even I am shocked. Shirley's sanity is bound to Agou, who is a deep demon. Nina is a fragment of the sun. Alice... Alice has no mind at all. Is there anything else? Goat Head?"
The goat head on the navigation table turned his neck immediately when he heard his name: "Ah, great captain, your first mate is always tough and reliable, and will not be defeated by so-called psychological problems. Moreover, I have studied many psychology courses on my own and I am fully capable of self-..."
"Shut up."
"oh."
"So, you see," Duncan turned to Morris and spread his hands, "If Heidi comes, the person on this ship who is most likely to need a psychiatrist is probably herself."
Morris thought about it for a moment, then silently picked up the pipe and muttered before putting it in his mouth: "It seems so..."