Chapter 763 — The Phantom Town

In this abandoned town, the doors and windows of all the houses were tightly shut. Within the windows there was neither light nor sound; heavy curtains or crisscrossing planks blocked outside eyes from peering in—yet this very concealment became a kind of enticement, making one unable to resist the curiosity to take a look inside, even when one sensed something uncanny and dangerous.

The Sleeper squad had treated this town with the greatest caution all along, which was why they had first checked the streets for danger; but in any case, to complete their investigation, they would sooner or later have to examine those sealed houses.

The three high-ranking clerics wearing owl masks came to a small house with its door tightly shut. Before they attempted to open it, Selena Gale first shone the lantern in her hand over the exterior of the house, checking for any anomalous data or hidden malevolent minds, and only then nodded: "Open it."

One of the masked clerics pushed at the door, yet the seemingly flimsy wooden plank door did not budge in the slightest.

They began to examine the lock on the door, checking whether anything was jamming the wooden door.

Gao Yang, meanwhile, came up near them, to the window of this small house that faced the street. Crisscrossing broken planks were nailed over the window, with rather wide gaps between them; Gao Song's gaze passed through those gaps and fell upon the interior of the house.

Inside it was pitch black; only the faint outlines of some furniture and utensils could be vaguely made out. Everything seemed shrouded in a heavy black veil—shadowy and indistinct, impossible to see clearly.

A creaking, grating sound came from the direction of the doorway. Gao Yang turned to look and saw that the three Sleeper clerics wearing owl masks had successfully opened the tightly shut wooden door. In the hand of one of them a bright orb of light appeared; the other two each cast protective mind-type spells. The three cautiously covering one another, they stepped gingerly into the small house.

This place was a world projected by the mind; everything here was the result of mental simulation. Conventional spells from the real world were essentially ineffective here—only the power of the mind could take effect. And the spells those three Sleeper clerics used, such as illumination arts and mind-protection arts, must have been a kind of simulated "special effect," employed to produce a relatively strong mental guidance and suggestion, so as to prevent the caster from losing themselves within.

Gao Yang turned over in his mind the many principles for acting within the mental world, and set his feet in motion, keeping pace with the three priests as they entered the little house.

The light-sphere of the Illumination spell cast a pallid glow that lit up the furnishings within the house, yet this radiance seemed to be disturbed and suppressed by some unknown force, so that it could only spread a few meters, illuminating only nearby objects, while everything deep in the house, in every corner, remained shrouded in shadows like thick veils of gauze.

Gao Yang stared at those shadows and felt that deep within them was a vast emptiness, as though the places left unlit were not merely darkness but truly nothing at all; he even found himself entertaining fancies, thinking that if someone rashly stepped into that darkness without light, they would simply fall into the void, their mind annihilated in that hollow.

The three priests charged with searching the house had clearly also sensed the strangeness of those shadowed regions; they cautiously kept within the range of the Illumination spell, and not one of them approached the darkness.

"No dust... but there is a feeling of having been abandoned for many years..." One of the priests brushed his fingers over the square table at the center of the room, and a low voice came from beneath the owl mask. "It seems to be an 'emotional resonance' phenomenon."

"Possible," another priest nodded and said. "Some force capable of influencing people's thoughts is entrenched here, producing this 'atmosphere' of 'abandonment for many years.'"

The third priest examined several other spots. "The furniture and utensils are all placed where they would be for daily use, there is still clear water in the water jug, the flowers stuck in the wooden post have not yet wilted; the people who lived here seem to have left suddenly, not long ago..."

"This should be data leaked from Sandbox One, a projection of one of the towns within the sandbox; and judging from the undistorted state of the projection, this place most likely reproduces the conditions inside Sandbox One fairly faithfully," the first priest said in a low voice. "Inside Sandbox One... is this what it looks like now?"

"At least one town looks like this."

Gao Yang followed beside the three priests, accompanying them as they looked over the conditions inside the little house, but he found no clue worth noting, so he turned and withdrew from the house, returning to the street where Selena and the others were.

While the three priests were inspecting the house, the three from the Church of the Extreme Luminary who had remained outside were not idle either; on the one hand they maintained the mental protection of this area, to prevent any malicious mind hidden deep within the town from attacking the priests who had entered the house, and on the other they kept watch over the goings-on throughout the town, paying attention to whether the town had produced any corresponding changes after the three priests entered the house. In a mental world that involved conscious activity, such "linked reactions" had to be taken into account.

Gao Yang heard Selena Gale conversing with Daniel.

"...This town is not in Sandbox One's 'blueprint,'" the lantern-bearing woman said faintly, "nor in any of the subsequent blueprints derived by extrapolation. It was the history that evolved on its own after Sandbox One went out of control that created this town."

Daniel asked, "Are there other similar 'self-evolved products'?"

"There are," Selena nodded. "We have already observed a mysterious plain, several broken streets, and a mountain that came from who knows where—that mountain floats above Phantom Pivot City. If His Holiness the Pope had not sensed the anomaly in advance and sealed it off in time, it would likely have been exposed directly to the eyes of ordinary believers."

Daniel was somewhat curious. "...These overflowings all seem to be gathered around Phantom Pivot City, but at most they affect only the fringe districts, and have not directly eroded the central district of Phantom Pivot City?"

"Correct. Phantom Pivot City has tight defenses; it is not so easy to invade."

Daniel and Gao Yang, who stood beside Selena, both wore thoughtful expressions at the same time.

Just then, a melodious and mysterious peal of bells suddenly rang out in the town!