Chapter 256: Captain, Lost!

Chapter 256: Captain, Lost!

The white clothes on those corpses, which had not yet completely rotted, were light divine robes.

The thousands of corpses lying neatly in this corpse pit were believers of the Light.

Under the invitation of the Dark Moon Patriarch, Bernard, they had once come to Dark Moon Island and made immense contributions to its development.

Just as General Taafman said, the reason why the ancestor Bernard could become the hero respected by everyone on Dark Moon Island today was by no means just because of his love story, but because he was great enough, because he had achieved enough accomplishments; only on this foundation would his love story be enthusiastically talked about by later generations, cited as a beautiful tale and legend.

Under Bernard’s governance, Dark Moon Island achieved substantial development, turning it from a small force isolated on the sea into a power within the region that could not be ignored; nowadays, it was even able to hold talks and reach a cooperative relationship with the Church of the God of Order.

All of this was the foundation laid and the framework established during the Bernard era.

Karen had not read those two notebooks, but he could roughly guess that to be able to attract such a large-scale force of the remnants of the Light to Dark Moon Island to reach a cooperation, Bernard must have promised something.

And for these remnants of the Light, possessing a foothold, a base, and a stable starting point from scratch was a temptation they simply could not refuse.

However, they would bound to be cautious because they knew the sensitivity of their identity; but despite this, they were still invited to the island by Bernard, and within this, Bernard's personal factor must have played a huge role.

But when the matter was finished, when this group of the remnants of the Light had contributed their strength and blood to the development of Dark Moon Island, they were lured and slaughtered here.

This stone monument was the tombstone Bernard had erected for them.

On the tombstone, their contributions were affirmed, and Bernard did not conceal his own shameless betrayal.

This island was not far from Dark Moon Island, yet it was permanently sealed; even if you sailed right past it, you would not see its existence.

This was not Snake Island, but a Grave Island;

It not only buried the corpses of thousands of believers of the Light, but also buried the secret of the true rise of Dark Moon Island, as well as the filthy, dark side of the widely praised ancestor, Bernard.

Ophelia bit her lip, her heart extremely conflicted right now.

Of course, Karen believed she would recover quickly and would not "collapse" because of this matter, and it was impossible for her defense to even break down.

After all, as an ancestor, Bernard had made outstanding contributions to his descendants and the islanders of Dark Moon Island; as a strong contender for the next Patriarch of Dark Moon Island, even though she was still very young, it was impossible for her not to know the dark side one had to face when occupying a high position.

It was just that the story of the ancestor Bernard was too beautiful, so beautiful that when it truly linked with reality, a sense of discrepancy emerged.

This sense of discrepancy existed on Karen's side as well.

Because the "Bernard" he was familiar with and knew was merely a pitiful young patriarch who bitterly pursued Puer.

Even though Puer was extremely repulsed by his entanglement, mocked and ridiculed him in every way, and even threw him directly onto a dangerous isolated island for a "forgetting each other in the ocean," he was still obsessed with this love that moved only himself.

Oh no, he had also used his lies to weave a beautiful dream; in this beautiful dream, he had not only moved himself, but also moved generations of people on Dark Moon Island.

So much so that when Ophelia stood before Puer’s tombstone at the Wien Manor, her eyes actually turned red.

This was a ridiculous person, this was a pathetic person, and you might even develop an emotion called sympathy toward him.

But it was exactly such a person who, at this moment, let Karen witness the cold blood beneath his mask.

Karen had interacted with people from the Church of the Light; they were very prudent, they were very careful, and they possessed a natural distrust of their surroundings; yet with such a group of people, Bernard still successfully utilized and betrayed them.

Ophelia spoke, "I’ve only just started reading the notebooks; I think there should be a record of this part at the ending."

"Unfortunately, the answer was uncovered in advance."

"Is it unfortunate?" Ophelia murmured.

"Probably, this is also the reason why your uncle required the Dark Moon blessing to be upon you when he indicated for you to look at these things; these things cannot see the light."

Ophelia nodded and said, "The person you are chasing, is he a remnant of the Light?"

"Yes."

"He knows about the teleportation formation in uncle’s villa."

"From the look of it now, yes."

"What is his identity?"

"I don’t know."

"You are still hiding things from me."

"Yes, there are some things I cannot tell you."

"We are of the same clan, aren't we?"

"I am still looking for a sense of belonging, and now is not the time to discuss these things either; how do we get back?"

"That stone monument is just the receiving point of the teleportation formation."

"Your uncle’s villa, who was its previous owner?"

"It has always belonged to the palace’s property; direct descendants can obtain the right to use it."

"Which means, in the past, that villa might also have belonged to the ancestor Bernard?"

"Uncle said that the villa once belonged to that person; that person should be the leader of this remnant of the Light... this team of Light believers."

"The house is very large, and it didn't necessarily house only one person, so this place can never be a one-way teleportation; the formation to teleport back to Dark Moon Island must also be on this island.

Look, these corpses are arranged very neatly, which clearly shows they were handled after the killings; those people who handled the corpses and left the tombstone would definitely have to go back.

Perhaps, when the ancestor Bernard was alive, he would also come over from time to time to take a look."

"Take a look?"

"To commemorate his old friends; this doesn't conflict, even though he betrayed and murdered them."

"Then let us begin searching; I want to leave this place, and this place should not be made public either."

"The way you say that makes it sound like you want to silence me."

"You are a descendant of the ancestor Bernard; it is only right for you to protect the brilliant reputation of the ancestor Bernard."

"Perhaps I can learn from the poet Rozin and leave behind a copy of 'Karen’s Secret Diary,' to be published fifty years after my death."

"This moment is not suitable for wit and humor; my heart is stifled with anger because of your concealment tonight."

"I know, I know, so I wanted to help distract your attention."

Ophelia reached out her hand to grab Karen’s collar; Karen's eyes narrowed as he kicked off the ground with one leg to dodge away.

"You heard everything I said to my uncle tonight; I said that I have a good impression of you."

"I also have a good impression of you; you are very beautiful and also cute."

"Perhaps I can learn from the ancestor Bernard and bury you here as well; this is a good place to bury feelings of shame, isn't it?"

Hearing this, Karen licked his lips;

He knew she was angry.

Given her status, from meeting in the afternoon to meeting at night and up until now, to have forcefully endured until now before showing signs of an explosive venting was already very rare.

"I can do it, even if you also possess the bloodline of the Dark Moon, and you hold a high position in the Church of the God of Order, do not truly infuriate me."

"Okay."

Ophelia nodded and said, "Now, find the teleportation formation."

"Okay."

Karen knew clearly that she just had anger in her heart, that she just felt uncomfortable in her heart; under this premise, unless he was willing to coax her, anything he said would be a sin.

Fortunately, Karen believed she was merely speaking out of passion, confident in her ability to master her own emotions.

The teleportation array could not possibly be situated on the shore, so the two of them pressed forward into the thick of the jungle.

The island swarmed with snakes; as they walked, their soles repeatedly crunched against discarded snake skins strewn upon the ground, brittle to the touch, and Karen finally understood the true origin of the term "snake-skin bag."

Yet, despite the dense, rampant vegetation, the island seemed devoid of any other animal life, leaving one to wonder how such a vast multitude of serpents managed to survive and propagate.

A hillside rose at the center of the island, not particularly steep; Ophelia scaled the rocks ahead, Karen following close behind, both scanning the surroundings for any sign of a cave as they ascended.

At last, they reached the summit, where they could look down upon the entire island, encircled on all sides by the vast sea—a vista that evoked a chilling sense of isolated, abandoned despair.

"Let us split up to search. I shall go this way, and you take the other; we will reconvene here in an hour," Ophelia suggested.

"I do not agree to separating," Karen said, breaking the silence he had maintained throughout the journey. "It invites mishap."

To separate in an unfamiliar and hazardous environment was practically lending a hand to misfortune, forcibly setting the stage for disaster to strike.

Ophelia, however, seemed to misinterpret his meaning, replying, "I will not abandon you and teleport back alone."

Karen glanced at her, feeling a sudden urge to laugh, but he suppressed it, striving to keep his tone perfectly even:

"I have never once worried that you would cast me aside and leave on your own."

"Then why..."

"I am timid, I am frightened, and I am afraid of the dark."

Ophelia stared at Karen for a long moment before she could only nod and say, "Very well, let us go this way."

Karen and Ophelia began their descent, Ophelia leading the way and Karen following.

Halfway down the slope, Ophelia halted her steps, for a cave mouth had materialized before them.

"The teleportation array is very likely inside," Ophelia said as she drew a night-luminescent pearl from her pocket, stroking her fingers across its surface; the pearl instantly flared with a brilliance no less intense than a searchlight.

The two entered the cavern, which proved to be surprisingly dry; by all rights, this should have been a natural den for the serpent hordes, yet there were no snake scales or skins to be seen, nor any of the foul, fishy stench that usually accompanied them.

After walking some distance inward, a door appeared ahead—a door fashioned of solid stone.

Karen stepped forward to push it, but Ophelia anticipated him, extending her hand first and thrusting the stone door open.

The luminescent pearl floated upward, drifting into the chamber and illuminating the environment within.

Inside stood a hearth, topped by a single cooking pot.

The hearth was small, serving no greater purpose than to prop up that solitary pot.

Deeper within lay a stone bed and a stone cabinet.

The place was, to all appearances, a dwelling that was rudimentary yet lacked for nothing; Karen even spotted a large jar in the corner which, in all likelihood, served as a chamber pot.

The luminescent pearl floated higher, revealing a chandelier carved of stone hanging above; it must have once held oil, though it was certainly past the point of being lit now.

"The direction we came from might be wrong; the proper entrance should be over there," Karen noted, pointing toward a door on the opposite wall.

Ophelia walked over and pushed it open; beyond the door lay a grander space filled with a row of tables and chairs, resembling a drawing room.

As the luminescent pearl drifted further to illuminate the darkness, two figures abruptly materialized ahead.

The appearance of these two figures instantly threw both Ophelia and Karen into a defensive posture, though they quickly realized it was a false alarm—they were not living men, but two human-shaped stone statues.

Facing the two stone statues stood a pair of stone sarcophagi.

"This is the statue of our ancestor, Bernard," Ophelia said, pointing to one of the carvings. "But this other one looks incredibly familiar."

Karen stepped closer to examine it, discovering it was the statue of a woman.

The woman wore a cowl, a string of gemstone necklaces draped about her throat, a long gown, and boots, while her hand clasped a magic wand.

Was this not Pu'er!

"It is Pu'er," Karen said.

"Ah, so it is. In the Palace of Yearning that Ancestor Bernard constructed for Lady Pu'er, I saw her statue; it is indeed her."

Karen noticed that the two hands of the statues were clasped together, standing close like a pair of lovers.

This detail made Karen instinctively uncomfortable; had Ophelia not been at his side, he would likely have smashed Bernard's statue to pieces then and there.

Now, he could truly appreciate the sentiment Pu'er had expressed about this man being utterly annoying and disgusting; Bernard was truly a narcissist of the most repulsive order.

"What of these two stone sarcophagi..." Ophelia murmured, looking at them. "Are they meant to symbolize that Ancestor Bernard and Lady Pu'er were to be buried together in death?"

"We can open them and see," Karen suggested.

Ophelia hesitated for a moment, but ultimately nodded.

Karen bent down, gripping the edge of the stone sarcophagus lid, and began to exert his strength to push; a harsh grinding sound echoed, stirring up a flurry of dust.

Finally, Karen managed to push the lid open by a small fraction, revealing an empty interior devoid of any corpse.

"It must be purely symbolic," Ophelia remarked, reiterating her earlier conjecture.

Karen remained noncommittal as he moved to the second stone sarcophagus, bending down to grip the lid with both hands and beginning to push.

To Karen's surprise, this movement did not stir up dust the way the previous one had.

This meant that this stone sarcophagus had very recently been opened by someone!

Who was it, who could it be?

Captain, is it you?

Had the Captain already been here? Then where was the Captain now?

After all, the three of them had teleported together; it was highly probable to be the Captain.

Karen pushed the sarcophagus lid fully aside; this coffin was not empty, for within it lay the stark figure of a female corpse.

The corpse had dehydrated into a mummy, yet it still retained a semblance of her former features, and the garments she wore were the sacred robes of the Light.

"It is not Lady Pu'er," Ophelia noted.

Of course it wasn't; Pu'er was likely asleep in her large bedroom bed at this very hour, so how could she be lying here.

Karen shook his head and said, "It is his wife."

"His wife?"

"This is not a symbolic arrangement; it should be the arrangement of two families, signifying the friendship and bond between them."

"The one who left behind the journal?"

Her uncle had left her two sets of journals: one belonged to Ancestor Bernard, and the other belonged to "him," and "him" was the leader of this band of Light believers.

"It should be," Karen said, pointing to the statue of Bernard. "He used this method to perpetuate their friendship. These two statues—one represents Bernard himself, and beside him is Lady Pu'er, the woman Bernard self-indulgently believed should be his other half.

Opposite them, within the two coffins, should be that 'him' and 'his' wife."

Ophelia noticed that Karen had omitted any honorific when mentioning "Bernard" this time, but she merely assumed that Karen had simply not yet developed a sense of belonging to his own lineage and the Dark Moon Island.

In truth, the loathing Karen harbored for Bernard had escalated to an absolute peak.

Just how shameless must a man be to play such a game of house, arranging things in this manner after causing the deaths of another man's subordinates and wife?

Truly, utterly brazen.

"Is it only his wife?" Ophelia asked.

"He must have escaped, instead of being murdered by Bernard."

"Escaped? Then the person you were pursuing? Is he his descendant?"

"As things stand now, you could say so."

That "he" was likely the descendant of the mad Pope, a scion of the Philias family who had perished at the bottom of the sea, only for the Captain to discover his corpse, consume it, and to some extent, fuse with him.

Thus, calling the Captain his descendant was not entirely inaccurate.

Once, Philias had led a vast host of light-worshiping faithful to collaborate with Bernard, aiding him in the construction of Dark Moon Island, only for Bernard to betray and slaughter them all upon its completion.

Philias's wife had also perished in that betrayal, though Philias himself managed to flee.

Whether he met an untimely death while fleeing from his pursuers, or survived for a time before dying in the undersea cavern,

was a truth Karen had no way of knowing.

Yet, guided by the prompts within the Captain's "memories," Philias was undeniably this very "he."

No wonder the Captain refused to wait even a single day, insisting on breaking in to uncover this secret despite the return of the current master; the secret kept here was truly of paramount importance to "him."

"The teleportation array doesn't seem to be here," Ophelia remarked, her mind still preoccupied with their return.

"It should be just outside. We entered through the back door earlier, so heading out this way leads to the main entrance."

Composing his emotions, Karen slid the coffin lid back into place, securing it shut before standing up and gesturing for Ophelia to follow him out.

Beyond lay another stone door, and upon pushing it open, the view outside instantly cleared, directly facing Dark Moon Island.

Beneath the concealment of the trees outside lay a platform where the marks of casting were clearly visible, and the teleportation array was situated right there!

"Someone is there!"

Ophelia called out in warning.

Karen noticed it too; a figure stood on the platform, his head topped by a stag's head.

The Captain!

Karen breathed a long sigh of relief; the Captain was waiting here for them to return together. Finally, tonight's adventure—or farce—could end. He sorely missed the soft bed of his standard hotel room and really should have gone for a soak in the hot springs tonight instead.

Yet, what happened next caused the heart Karen had just set at ease to instantly leap back into his throat.

"Eliza, you have left me, Eliza..."

Was the Captain mourning Miss Eliza?

"Jennifer, you have left me, Jennifer..."

Jennifer?

Instinctively, Karen thought of the woman lying inside the coffin he had just pushed open.

At that moment,

the Captain turned his head toward the spot where Karen and Ophelia stood.

A sudden dread welled up from the depths of Karen's heart; the moment the unfamiliar name "Jennifer" escaped the Captain's lips, Karen knew something had gone terribly wrong.

The Captain reached up and removed the stag's head he wore.

What it revealed was neither a face wrapped in black gauze nor the Captain's own face, but a raw, crimson, and bloody countenance.

The Captain

had stripped away his mask.

The Captain's gaze fell upon Ophelia, and taking a deep, theatrical breath, he bared his teeth in a sinister grin:

"The scent of the Dark Moon lineage... yes... that is the scent... heh... Dark Moon... must perish... the bloodline of the Dark Moon... must be exterminated!"

The Captain

was lost.

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Please read the next chapter when you wake up tomorrow morning, and please cast your monthly tickets, as the competition at the beginning of the month is quite fierce.