Ashes Of Deep Sea

Chapter 317: Chapter 321 Snowy Day

A small figure stood at the cemetery gate—a girl who looked to be about eleven or twelve, dressed in a dark brown woolen coat and a black skirt, with warm cotton boots and thick gloves. She appeared to have been waiting at the gate for a long time. As the evening came in Frost City-State, snow began to fall, and her gray knitted hat had already caught several snowflakes, with faint steam rising amidst the twilight snow.

The little girl gently stomped her feet in place, occasionally peeking towards the slope across from the cemetery. When the guardian appeared, she instantly smiled and waved vigorously.

“…Here again.”

Upon seeing the girl, the old guardian couldn’t help but murmur with a hint of impatience in his voice, but he quickened his pace toward the girl.

“Annie,” the old man frowned, looking at the girl in front of him, “you’ve come alone again—How many times have I told you? A cemetery is no place for a child to come alone, especially as dusk approaches.”

“I already told Mom,” the girl named Annie cheerily replied, “She said it’s fine as long as I get home before curfew.”

The old guardian quietly watched the young girl smiling back at him.

Most people disliked the cemetery’s guardian and were even less fond of approaching this eerie and dangerous place, yet life always has its exceptions—such as a little girl unafraid of him.

“Guardian Grandpa, has my father come here?” Annie looked up, her face hopeful amidst the falling snow of the twilight, her gaze not disturbed by the murky eyes that struck fear in most people.

“…No,” the guardian replied as usual, his voice as cold and hard as the wind swirling through the cemetery, “He won’t be coming today.”

Annie wasn’t discouraged, just smiling as usual: “Then I’ll come again tomorrow to ask.”

“He won’t be here tomorrow either.”

Annie still looked up, hopeful, “But he will come eventually, right?”

This time, the typically stern guardian fell silent for a moment until the snowflakes landed on his eyebrows, his cloudy eyes subtly shifting, “The dead will eventually gather in the cemetery and find eternal peace beyond that gate—not necessarily a cemetery of this world, nor necessarily this one.”

“Oh,” Annie nodded, seemingly undisturbed by his words. She turned her head, glanced at the locked fence gate, and asked curiously, “Can I go inside to have a look? I’d like to warm up by the fire in your cabin…”

“Not today,” the old man shook his head, “Cemetery Three is in a special state, guarded by the church’s protectors, and is not open to the public today—you should go home now, young lady.”

“…Okay,” Annie nodded somewhat disheartened and then fumbled in her small bag, handing the old man a small packet wrapped in coarse paper, “This is for you—cookies my mom baked, she said I shouldn’t always be a bother.”

The old man looked at the item in the girl’s hands, then at the snow on her clothes.

He reached out, accepted the cookies, and casually patted the snow off her knitted hat, “I’ll take these. You better head home early.”

“Okay, Guardian Grandpa.”

Annie nodded with a smile, straightened her scarf and gloves, and then started down the path leading to the city’s residential area.

But just as she had taken a few steps, the old guardian suddenly turned around: “Annie.”

“Huh?”

“Annie, you’re twelve now,” the old man stood in the dusky twilight, calmly gazing into the girl’s eyes, “Do you still believe what I told you when you were six?”

The girl paused, staring blankly at the cemetery guardian.

All the dead will come to this cemetery—no matter how far and dispersed they were in life, Bartok’s vestibule will be their ultimate gathering place.

This phrase was written in the scriptures of the church, yet adults and six-year-old children will always interpret the same maxim differently.

Twelve-year-old Annie stood blankly for a long time, the black-clad cemetery guardian stood like a cold, hard iron statue beside the towering, locked gate, with tiny snowflakes dancing between them, the winter chill permeating the dusk.

But suddenly, Annie laughed and waved at the old man with a smile, “Then just think that I came especially to see you — my mother said that elderly people need someone to talk to often.”

The little girl turned and ran off, floating lightly across the snowy path like a sparrow. She slipped at the end of the slope, but immediately got up, dusted the snowflakes and dust off her skirt and warm pants, and quickly left.

“…elderly people…” the old guardian watched the girl disappear, and only after she had run far did he mutter, “That child has a mischievous side too.”

“Piercing a child’s expectations is a bit more cruel than that,” a young, slightly husky female voice suddenly came from beside him, interrupting his mumblings, “You didn’t need to say that— a twelve-year-old child, she already gradually understands, and sometimes, we heart-hardened adults don’t need to burst any truths.”

The old guardian turned and saw the “Gatekeeper” Agatha dressed in black and wrapped with bandages standing at the cemetery gate, which had opened without him noticing.

He shook his head, “Let her keep hoping that her father will be brought to this cemetery, and let her come to this godforsaken place alone in the snowy, bitter cold?”

“Isn’t that better? At least you seemed a bit warm while talking to that child.”

“…that doesn’t sound like something a gatekeeper would say.”

Agatha shook her head, said nothing, and turned to walk toward the inner paths of the cemetery.

The old guardian followed her; he first locked the large gate, then stored the goods he had bought in his guard shack, completed the handover with the daytime guard, and finally came to the morgue area inside the cemetery where he found the “Gatekeeper” who had arrived there before him.

Compared to before, the morgue now seemed much emptier, with most of the stone platforms vacant, only a few on the edges had simple coffins placed on them.

Around those few coffins, at least two church guards stood by each platform, and in the spaces between platforms, black canes were seen everywhere—these black canes were the signature equipment of the Reaper Church guards, who stuck them into the nearby ground and hung sacred lanterns on their tips to maintain small “hallowed grounds” that effectively combat contaminating forces from higher entities.

By now, dusk had deepened, and the snowy weather made it even darker than usual at this hour. In the increasingly dim cemetery, those lanterns hanging on the tips of the canes burned silently like phosphorus fires, releasing a tranquil yet sinister atmosphere.

“We’ve done quite a bit of preparation work here, but it seems that the ‘Visitor’ has no intent of returning any time soon,” Agatha remarked offhandedly after seeing the old guard appear, “Are you sure that the ‘Visitor’ had revealed any intention to come back?”

“You should trust the hypnotherapy skills of professional psychiatrists,” the old guard shrugged and then paused before adding, “I can’t remember most of what happened that day, the buzzing noises are also fading from my mind, but after several sessions of hypnosis, I can recall a bit… The clearest is the ‘Visitor’s’ revealed intent to visit again before he left.”

Agatha fell silent for a few seconds, then softly said after some thought, “But there’s another possibility, such higher beings might have a concept of time very different from humans — His mention of ‘returning’, it might be tomorrow, it might be years later, it’s even more likely after your death, in some form that transcends life and death.”

“…Could you not hope for something good for me?”

“This is the result of the Magistrate Council’s discussion.”

The old guardian hummed noncommittally and glanced over the black-dressed guards in the cemetery and those quietly burning lanterns.

“…I just hope that these arrangements don’t anger that ‘Visitor,’ or be seen by Him as some kind of offence or ‘trap’—after all, we know too little about Him.”

“All these arrangements are just our self-protection,” Agatha said, “after all, although you said you fell into a state of uncontrollable spiritual sight because you inhaled too much incense, we don’t know whether the ‘Visitor’ has any inclination to actively release spiritual contamination — to face a higher Transcendent, we must at least ensure our own sanity.”

The old guardian gave no response, merely pondered for a moment before suddenly changing the subject, “Those samples you took away earlier, have you figured out anything?”

“Are you referring to those Heretics, or that pile of bodies melted into mud?”

“Both.”

“Regarding those Heretics, there’s not much to say, minions of the Obliteration Sect, Transcendents deeply symbiotic with demons—capable fighters, ordinary church guards are quite vulnerable against them, sadly, those heretics clearly lack good fortune, and as for that ‘mud’…”

Agatha paused for a moment, her expression somewhat odd.

“Their ‘evolution’ has actually not stopped to this day, as of when I left the cathedral, those things were still constantly displaying new forms and properties, in the past period, they even momentarily presented similar states to metal and stone, giving one the impression… it seemed like something that those Heretics in their heretic sermons often mention.”

The old guard slowly furrowed his brows, “You mean… ‘Prime Element’?”

“The true essence, the utmost pure and sacred substance, the mysterious gift ‘Droplet of Truth’ given to this world by The Saint—this is how those heretics describe it,” Agatha’s tone was undisguisedly filled with disgust and sarcasm, “Beautiful vocabulary, it’s nauseating how they use it.”

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