The nuns continued to pray, but the words seemed to be growing hollow.
At this moment, slowly, slowly, a certain emotion that should not appear slowly flowed out of them, as if the darkness around them had a mouth full of sharp teeth.
Fear, this emotion is slowly injected into their psychology like poison, but few people can detect it.
Velez's hand held the bolter tightly, and soon she began to hear other noises - it sounded like some kind of sound, like the echoes of hymns and poems in her memory, like this boundless blackness.
The sound of water splashing.
Once she thought she heard gunfire and immediately ran towards the source of the gunfire.
But the sound disappeared before she could run away, and things in the water bumped into her again and again, and she had to stop and kick them away, pushing them aside.
"team leader?"
Behind her, the other team members hurriedly caught up.
Velez shook his head, indicating that he didn't find anything.
Sometimes, the lights will emit a strange light under the water, as if there are many eyeless cave creatures under the water showing their hungry fangs.
There seems to be no end here, but of course, after all, the space station is as big as a city, so there must be...
Then Velez saw something.
It was a pillar, a strong and wide steel pillar joined by rivets. The pillar extended all the way up and into the darkness.
The appearance of the pillar is completely dark and completely smooth, and there are no ladders or signs on it. There are only glistening frosts as cold as ice and snow.
And some words were engraved on it.
What is it?
Velez blinked, wondering if the darkness was starting to play some tricks on her or start teasing her.
But no, she could see nothing in the darkness. The words were like pale, cold shadows, and they felt like they were real.
It read in slanted Gothic:
The Emperor's light has been extinguished—
Pure, severe cold spread down Velez's back.
She turned around, instinctively raising the weapon in her hand because of those words, but she couldn't see anything.
Under the weak searchlight illumination, it felt like there were a thousand pairs of eyes, a thousand questions hidden in the darkness, and a thousand invisible tentacles reaching towards her like ruins hidden in the water.
What exactly went wrong here?
They found no trace of the crew, no signs of fighting, not even bodies.
Velez tried to tell himself that these words must have been written by some lost crew members, who were scared and alone, without the backbone of their faith.
But what if not?
What if these words were written by something else?
Velez stood there, his heartbeat began to accelerate, and the ripples on the path he had just walked on had returned to calm.
She stared at the water, alert for any fluctuations or ripples on the surface, and then she used the radio channel to contact the other teams, but there was only a crackling sound - a static murmur occupied her mind and chest, and the adrenaline in her body began to affect her.
Scream, tell her to hurry up!
The nun instinctively felt that there was something near her——
Something that knew exactly where she was.
But Velez is not afraid, for she has sisters at her side to guard her back and bolters to destroy her enemies.
Because the Emperor will never abandon them.
Suddenly, there was another sound of splashing water, and it got closer and closer.
It’s an unmistakable sound…
There really is something else here!
The blood flowing through her ears began to boil. She nervously raised her ears and listened carefully. She was very sure that the sound this time was definitely real. It was not those suspicious sighs or the conjectural sounds in her mind.
Holding the bolter like a talisman, she prayed to the Emperor's light and His mercy.
"keep alert."
The procession of nuns stopped, and everyone's nerves were trembling.
Suddenly, there was another splash, an extremely small ripple of water, like a windless whisper passing over the surface of the black water, mocking the narrow range of illumination provided by the nun's armor.
【You cannot forgive them...】
The litanies came back to Velez like a flood, filling her mind with the light that symbolized courage. Only strength and courage are the best weapons in the darkness...
Wow——
The sound came again, coming from her right.
"I am a servant of the eternal light. I have no fear, no fear of alien species, no fear of heretics, no fear of creatures from the depths of destruction..."
Reciting the war prayer silently, Velez clenched the weapon in his hand and moved forward.
Soon, she found the second beam, which was also engraved with words, but this time the words were jagged due to anger and pain, and they were shorter.
Save us - that's what it says.
Save you from what?
She turned around again, once again confused by those words, and darkness tried to invade her thoughts like a plague.
What happened to this empty space station?
Velez tried to stay calm. She reviewed the team's status information again. Everyone was fine, but their breathing and heart rate were generally faster.
So far they haven't found any bodies, at least not here.
The nausea came back, and the back of her throat stung again. Images of rotting corpses floating on the water without eyes flooded into her mind. Those exposed bones, tangled piles of wires, and lumps of rotten and bloated flesh.
Again and again.
She could see the ripples rising from the water's surface, and could hear them gently lapping against the beams made of cold steel.
No matter what it is, the other person is very close to her.
Then, finally, she saw the light emitting an extremely faint light.
The light came from above, from some channel, at an incredible height above her head, but the light did not shine directly on the water in the bilge. There was something else in its path - something very large.
At first, she couldn't make it out, it looked like some huge, bulky blur, but as she got closer, she realized what it was.
It was a pile of things, roughly in the corner of her head. She stopped, her mouth filled with nausea and discomfort.
Then the armor's light illuminated something grotesque: corpses, bloated, expressionless and rotting corpses, hundreds of them.
"Oh my God!"
The young nuns screamed in surprise, some covered their mouths, and looked at this scene with pale faces.
Velez stood still, she could see the broken and rotten badges on the corpse, and she tried hard to pray in her heart - pray for them, pray for herself.
But she couldn't speak.
Then, she stepped forward. Wherever the armor's illumination reached, she could only see a few barely intact faces - young officers, almost only older than boys, many men wearing torn imperial robes.
The servitor, rusty and motionless.
What's left of their flesh and blood has rotted away and they have been dead for some time.
Suddenly, a deep and loud laughter made her turn around.
It was a woman, but she didn't have the breath of a living person. She was wearing a tattered officer's uniform, but now it looked more like a dirty rag.
Velez noticed that the other person seemed to have a collar around his neck, and that his whole body exuded a cold, hateful aura.
If I must describe it, I can only say that it is like the soul being sealed in ice - but this description is not appropriate.
Velez couldn't express in words what she really felt. She had captured many witches, but none of them felt as threatening as this woman did.