Chapter 763: The Mysterious Church

A distant, haunting bell suddenly tolled through the quiet town. Even the Archbishops of the Sleepless couldn’t help but tense up at this unexpected event. Daniel and the other two archbishops instinctively lifted their heads, searching for the source of the sound. Meanwhile, Selina Gelphin was the first to notice the town’s strange transformation—

From the far end of the street, houses that had been shuttered and pitch-black suddenly began to light up, one after another, in sync with the ringing bell.

It was as if the abandoned homes had come alive, as if the lifeless town itself was awakening from a long slumber.

The glow of the lights spread rapidly toward them. Selina reacted immediately, shouting back to the small house behind her, “Get out now!”

Inside that house, three priests who had been investigating seemed oblivious to the bell at first. But at Selina’s urgent command, they rushed out, confusion etched on their faces as they watched the lights creep closer.

Within seconds, the house they had been exploring was bathed in a soft, warm glow. The door, which had been opened moments before, suddenly slammed shut as if pushed by an invisible hand.

From inside came faint murmurs, footsteps, the shuffling of furniture.

The eerie scene left everyone on the street exchanging uneasy glances. The three high-ranking priests wearing owl masks tugged nervously at their collars, revealing a flicker of fear.

Gawain frowned and approached the window of the newly lit house. Peering through the cracks in the wooden boards, he tried to glimpse inside.

An owl-masked Sleepless priest came up beside him, seemingly wanting to see for himself. Gawain stepped aside to let him look, and together they stared into the dim interior.

The priest appeared just as baffled.

Inside, the light was warm and bright, yet no figures could be seen. A single lamp sat on the central table in the main room. The empty house echoed with faint, indistinct sounds.

Strange—Gawain thought.

“It’s very strange,” the high priest observing with Gawain said, withdrawing his gaze with a tense alertness. “Aside from the single lit lamp, no residents have appeared. The sounds seem to come from nowhere.”

“…It could be a memory echo,” Archbishop Yuri analyzed calmly. “In abandoned psychic spaces, remnants of collective consciousness can linger—fragments of sounds and incomplete images that loop over time. Given this is an overflow-contaminated zone, such phenomena are likely.”

“…There don’t seem to be any other changes,” Selina nodded after hearing Yuri’s explanation, then scanned the street again. Warm, gentle light spilled from every window and door crack. The iron-black street lamps lining the road had all somehow been lit. The cloud-covered, deserted town was empty, yet illuminated. But the seemingly comforting glow brought no sense of safety—instead, it sent a chill through every visitor’s heart.

Aside from the lights and the mysterious sounds, the town showed no other changes, nor any signs of danger.

Selina withdrew her gaze and asked the priests who had investigated the houses, “Did you find anything inside?”

“Empty, Your Grace,” one replied. “But there’s an atmosphere—like a long-abandoned presence. We suspect it’s some kind of residual emotional resonance…”

“Almost no dust on any objects. Water bottles still hold fresh water. Flowers haven’t wilted. It’s as if someone was living here moments ago, then vanished suddenly. That contradicts the ‘long-abandoned’ feeling, and we don’t know why.”

“Light is suppressed inside. Illumination spells only reach a few meters, and the edges blur.”

“The dark shadows in the corners are strange—no details can be made out. It feels like they hide nothingness, somewhat like the undefined zones in the Dream City.”

Listening to their report, Selina nodded thoughtfully, then turned her gaze toward another part of the street.

Her eyes suddenly froze.

“That church over there…” she frowned, pointing her lantern toward the small square at the street’s end. “Was it here before?”

Several pairs of eyes followed her gesture, all widening in shock—

A quaint, gray-white church with a pointed steeple and two small towers stood silently in view. The interior was dark and still, starkly contrasting with the lit houses nearby. Yet through a front window, Gawain thought he glimpsed a faint, distant light deep inside.

The church itself wasn’t important—what mattered was that before the bell rang, it hadn’t existed at all!

That spot had been an empty square!

The three archbishops exchanged uneasy looks. Yuri raised his hand, tracing a few gestures in the air. Glowing runes appeared beside him. Gawain guessed they were some kind of powerful psychic ward, but then heard Yuri speak in his refined, scholarly tone:

“Surveillance team, are there any new psychic waves detected around us?”

The runes shimmered, and a young female voice answered from within the glow: “Reporting, Your Grace—no new psychic waves observed.”

Yuri nodded to Selina. “Looks like this thing didn’t come from outside, and there’s no new overflow.”

Selina frowned and stepped forward, addressing the runes. “Have you detected any signs of consciousness awakening or secondary dreaming?”

“Reporting, Your Grace, none observed. Monitoring shows no significant psychic fluctuations in your area.”

Selina considered this for a moment before replying, “Understood. Continue monitoring.”

As the runes faded, Yuri hesitated. “Should we investigate the church?”

Selina glanced at the personnel they had brought, then at her lantern. After weighing the options, she nodded. “Check it out. We’ve never seen overflow projections behave this strangely before, and it’s a church… That might reveal the current state of Sandbox One.”

The Sleepless squad cautiously approached the church a short distance away. Gawain blinked in surprise.

So they had a monitoring team supporting them from behind during operations?

He shook his head at the thought and quickened his pace to catch up with Daniel and the others nearing the church entrance.

The small church with its gray-white walls stood quietly at the edge of the square. Behind its dim windows flickered a faint, ghostly light. The door was ajar, revealing a narrow crack.

All the other houses in the town had their doors and windows tightly shut—only this church’s door was left slightly open.

This anomaly raised their guard. Selina and the others didn’t rush inside but began gathering information from outside, trying to deduce the church’s nature.

Selina gently shook her lantern, which emitted a serene white light from its elegant, mysterious patterns. Illuminated by this glow, she leaned close to the church door, carefully examining the carvings on the ancient wood and the murals on the walls beside it.

Gawain’s curiosity deepened. Daniel stepped forward and asked, “Archbishop Selina, what are you looking for?”

“Sacred markings,” Selina replied calmly. “It’s a church, so it should bear holy symbols indicating which deity it worships. Maybe through this, we can understand where the contamination in Sandbox One originates.”

Gawain immediately grasped her intent—and learned something new: the Sleepless still hadn’t identified which god was responsible for polluting Sandbox One!

His curiosity piqued, he joined Selina in scrutinizing the door and wall patterns.

Sandbox One was designed as a world without gods. Minds entering it were carefully adjusted and had memories erased to prevent any recollection or worship of deities. In theory, churches shouldn’t exist there.

In other words, if overflow projections from Sandbox One showed churches or other “holy” elements, it must be linked to divine contamination.

Yet after their inspection, neither Gawain nor Selina found any sacred emblems matching their knowledge.

On the church’s side wall, they found a mural depicting a giant hand covering the sky, with the earth beneath it.

This same mural appeared on every house wall in the town.

Gawain frowned. Could this image be the “holy symbol”—the religious emblem of the town’s “residents”?

Lost in thought, Gawain watched as Selina and the others finished their external survey. After some discussion, they decided to enter the church.

Putting aside his questions for now, Gawain followed Daniel and the others inside.

Pushing open the slightly ajar door, the aged wood made no sound. Daniel, Selina, and Yuri stepped in, their footsteps echoing softly.

The old mage looked up and saw the “Outsider” walking calmly beside them in the dim church, and he relaxed slightly.

Several masked high priests flanked the three archbishops. Some cast illumination spells, others activated psychic shields. Through the flickering, hazy light, the church’s interior came into view—

Rows of empty pews filled the modest space. The worn wooden floor was uneven in places. At the far end stood a raised platform, one step above the floor, holding a wooden lectern for reading sacred texts. Beside it stood a black lamp post, atop which a candle flickered weakly, casting a small pool of light around the pulpit.

In the wavering candlelight, Daniel and the others suddenly noticed a figure clad in gray-white robes kneeling before the pulpit, seemingly praying silently.

The dimness had concealed this figure until now—no one had noticed the kneeling priest before!

Everyone immediately went on high alert. Archbishop Yuri’s hand was surrounded by faint golden runes shimmering in the air. Daniel materialized an ancient-looking staff in his grip. Several masked Sleepless priests either drew their own staves, summoned orbs of power, silently prepared spells, or opened spellbooks filled with arcane inscriptions. Though before them stood only a lone, seemingly harmless supplicant, in this strange “overflow projection,” every one of them treated the figure as a grave threat.

Yet, despite their caution, no one dared to strike first.

Selina made a subtle gesture, signaling the others to stay vigilant. Holding a lantern, she stepped forward slowly toward the kneeling figure at the pulpit.

Only when Selina was just a few steps away did the figure stir. The gray-white robe shifted as the robed supplicant rose slowly to his feet. In the tense silence, the figure turned his head and saw the uninvited visitors entering the chapel.

He was an ordinary-looking elderly man with kind eyes, his beard and hair pure white, his face deeply lined with wrinkles. He seemed oblivious to the charged atmosphere, instead wearing a smile tinged with surprise and warmth.

“Ah, so there are guests,” he said. “On days when the bells ring, visitors to the chapel are rare.”

“Suspected sentient mind capable of communication,” Archbishop Yuri murmured to himself from a slightly withdrawn position, the golden runes flickering around his hand. “Pause and reset the process.”

Gawain cast a faint glance at Yuri.

Meanwhile, Selina stood calmly before the gray-robed elder, her lantern casting a soft, immersive glow. In the most natural tone she could muster, she asked, “What kind of chapel is this?”

The old man’s eyes clouded with a moment of confusion before he answered, “Of course… a chapel dedicated to the divine…”

Selina frowned. “Divine? Which deity?”

The elder’s gaze grew even more puzzled, as if the very question challenged his fundamental beliefs. After a brief hesitation, he replied slowly:

“The divine… naturally… the Overarching Narrators…”

(End of chapter)