Ashes Of Deep Sea

Chapter 207: Chapter 211 “Blessing

The familiar car had overturned on the road, seemingly involved in an accident midway to the Cathedral, with Fenna’s uncle trapped inside. Fenna, already somewhat dazed from exhaustion, snapped to attention in an instant and rushed to the car.

Then, she noticed the arm hanging out of the car window twitching slightly; the blood-soaked palm seemed to rise a bit as she approached.

Her uncle was still alive!

Reacting instantly, Fenna steadied the car with one hand while she used the other to break the deformed door frame. She then leaned in, supported the warped internal structure, and examined Dante’s injuries. Doing her best to avoid causing further harm, she extricated her uncle from the vehicle. Immediately after, she summoned the nourishing sea breeze with her dwindling energy, trying to restore some vitality to the already delirious Dante.@@novelbin@@

The suffocating hot wind still rampaged through the streets, with scorching ashes and floating sparks making the city-state seem like hell. Fenna opened a shield of protection, with a formidable force resisting the deadly environment around her. After laying Dante down on the ground and administering first aid, she finally saw her relative, who had depended on her for eleven years, slowly open his eyes.

“Ah… Fenna… you’ve come back…”

These were the first words Dante uttered upon opening his eyes.

“Yes, I’ve come back,” Fenna initially didn’t notice anything off about Dante’s expression “come back.” She unconsciously moved forward to hold his hand. “How do you feel now? Can you stand? I’ll take you to the Cathedral…”

“No… don’t bother with me, this burden,” Dante shook his head slightly, clasping Fenna’s hand with a faint force, “I should have expected this day… They would come to collect the price… You must leave before they find you… Leave Prandel, to a place where no one knows you…”

Hearing her uncle’s whisper, Fenna suddenly froze, realizing that her uncle might know something even she was unaware of, causing her voice to tremble slightly, “What do you mean? Who are ‘they’? What price are they collecting? You… you knew what was happening in the city-state?!”

Dante strained to open his eyelids, his ruby-made artificial eye shattered unbeknownst to him, blood flowing down from a wound on the edge of his eye socket. The remaining human eye reflected the raging fire on the streets. After a few seconds of silence, he finally spoke softly, “The Doomsday Preacher… and the forces behind Subspace… Fenna, do you remember the fire from eleven years ago?”

“The fire eleven years ago…” Fenna’s eyes widened slightly, “You actually remember that fire?!”

“How could I forget… It burns before me every day,” Dante gave a bitter smile, “Yet I thought I could deceive myself for a lifetime.”

Chaotic thoughts swirled in Fenna’s mind, as if forgetting her own fatigue and pain. She stared intently at her uncle’s now clouding eyes, with connections about the fire, Black Sun, Subspace, and Doomsday Preacher surfacing in her mind. Before these clues could overwhelm her, she finally asked, “But what does this have to do with Subspace and the Doomsday Preacher… And me, how am I connected? Why do ‘they’ want to find me? What ‘price’ do they want to collect?!”

After voicing her flurry of questions, Fenna somewhat regretted them, feeling not as though she were speaking with her uncle, but rather interrogating a criminal. However, Dante seemed not to mind; he just took a few breaths and spoke almost deliriously in a low voice, “When that fire erupted, I glimpsed a sliver of Subspace’s projection. In that moment of extreme and dangerous truth, I made a wish to Subspace.”

“You made a wish to Subspace?” Fenna looked at Dante in shock, “What wish?”

“I wished for none of it to have happened, hoped that you… would come back to life.”

Fenna’s entire expression froze.

Dante quietly watched his niece, his face appearing to cry yet bearing a bitter smile. Slowly raising his hand as if to caress Fenna’s hair, his lips moved, his voice deep, “Fenna… you’ve grown up… I’m so sorry, truly sorry. I couldn’t save you that day…”

“But I remember you taking me away from that fire…”

“What I carried out from the fire was mere ashes,” Dante whispered, “It happened in an instant, too quick to react, you just turned into a little pile of ash… I desperately wanted to escape that nightmare, to return everything to before the disaster struck. Any help would do, gods or devils, even Subspace… Then, something responded to my wish. It took me many years to understand what exactly had answered me at that moment…”

Fenna seemed unable to hear what Dante said afterward.

She slowly raised her hands, looking at her own flesh-and-blood body.

After who knows how long, she finally broke the silence, “So, my survival is, in a way, a result of a blessing from Subspace?”

Dante slowly closed his eyes, unable to answer the question and only able to tacitly agree in this manner.

“Then… how did I become a Saint?” Fenna asked next. She was asking her uncle but seemed to be questioning herself as well, “How could the Storm Goddess allow someone who survived only because of a blessing from the Subspace to become her Believer, and even bestowed upon them great power and protection?”

“I… I don’t know,” Dante slowly shook his head, “Perhaps only the goddess herself can answer your question, but… how can we…”

Fenna fell silent, her mind more chaotic than ever before. The beliefs that had sustained her for so many years had developed an irreparable fissure in that instant, leaving her unsure how to face her own faith, and even how to confront her own “existence.” However, after a moment of silence, she slowly stood up as if talking to herself and softly said, “Regardless, someone must stop this invasion of reality, we must… bring everything we know back to the real world.”

“Fenna, you will die,” Dante suddenly opened his eyes wide, using all his strength to push himself up, “You can’t stay here anymore, the reality’s foundation here is fracturing, you must leave Prande, leave this illusion, until it completely vanishes from your memory—listen, if your survival truly is the result of a blessing from the Subspace, then correcting history may cause you to vanish into thin air, such a paradox is not something mortals can…”

But Fenna just quietly looked at her uncle, her gaze gentle and calm.

“Uncle, didn’t you say you loved this City-State, everything about it?”

Dante paused slightly, determination returning to his face: “…Of course, that’s why I will stay here, facing fate with the City-State, whether I survive or die I am prepared, but… but you are different, Fenna, you can’t…”

“I am the same,” Fenna softly interrupted him, “I also love this place and am prepared for everything… just as you taught me since I was young, where my duty lies.”

Dante silently watched Fenna, standing in front of him, his only relative in this world, whose figure was as imposing and firm as a seawall ready to face a massive wave.

He knew his words would no longer have any effect.

So he sighed softly, using his last bit of strength to support himself and slowly shuffled to lean against a nearby streetlamp.

“Then go,” he said softly, “I will be here… waiting for your return.”

Fenna lowered her head to look at the uncle before her.

In her memory, her uncle was still a towering and resolute mountain, but since when had he become so much shorter than her?

She gently bent down, her voice tender and soft: “…If all goes well, the Prande you know will return to the real world, and then… don’t forget about me.”

Dante didn’t say anything more, just gently nodded.

Fenna straightened up.

However, in the next moment, an unsettling tremor suddenly came from afar, interrupting her movement, followed by a terrifying explosion and the grating sound of buildings being ripped apart and collapsing.

Fenna looked in shock towards the direction of the sound, never having felt as scared as she did in that moment, and the next second, the sight before her eyes confirmed the source of her unease.

She saw a fiery blaze shooting up around the direction of the cathedral, the explosion’s blast nearly scattering the scorching cloudy sky, followed by a bizarre and blinding flash, as if a small sun was gradually rising from beneath the ground, aiming to melt everything from below upwards.

Then, even more terrible things occurred.

She heard more explosions, more piercing noises; she saw flames rising up into the sky from various parts of the City-State, each massive fireball appearing like a small sun floating above a sea of flames, and each location where a fireball rose signified a cathedral.

Even the incessant bell ringing that had persisted through the fiery melting of the city gradually died down, the City-State’s sheltered islets succumbing one after the other.

Fenna felt nearly blank, and the next second, driven by instinct, she charged towards the direction of the largest flash, towards the Storm Cathedral at the heart of Prande.