Vanna's gaze lingered on this record for a few seconds, the inquisitor's keen sense allowing her to detect something noteworthy in the brief words.

The sudden appearance of heretical sacrifices among ordinary residents, the sacrificial targets pointing to invalid existences, the sacrificial acts completely failing to meet the ritual requirements yet still attracting the attention of transcendent forces, localized mental disorders, and no follow-up investigations...

Vanna suddenly thought of something, put down the file in her hand, and hurriedly flipped through a record she had just seen.

Also in 1889, a little earlier, a knife attack occurred in a street-side shop in the lower city. This was originally an incident for which the Security Bureau was responsible and should not have appeared in the church's archives, but a subsequent investigation proved that the attacker was a "customer" who had suddenly developed a mental disorder in the shop. The suspect claimed to have seen blasphemous shadows on the shop's window and wielded a knife to "fight back" in order to escape the "pursuit of invisible things."

In the subsequent investigation, the church discovered traces of heretical worship in the shop's basement. However, the sacrificial symbols at the scene were chaotic and difficult to distinguish, unable to point to any valid existence. Through interrogation, it was learned that the shop owner, who privately conducted the sacrificial activities, also did not understand mystical rituals at all, and his random sacrifices were guided by "unknown instructions."

Similarly, random sacrificial rituals that were theoretically impossible to take effect, similarly causing localized mental disorders, and similarly without more investigative conclusions.

Vanna frowned slightly. These two events did not seem to be related to the factory leak eleven years ago or the fire that had been erased. They did not correspond in time either. This was not the focus of her investigation today, but the successive appearance of two heretical worship events with similar characteristics in such closely spaced records touched her nerves as an inquisitor.

After a moment, she put down the two files in her hand and continued to search for subsequent files on the bookshelf, this time deliberately paying attention and actively looking for event records that might be related to heretical worship.

After who knows how long, she suddenly stopped.

The third record, still at some point before the "factory leak" accident, occurred on the edge of the upper city. A maid working in a wealthy family suddenly went mad, severely injured three servants and the male head of the household, and then locked herself in the warehouse. When the church guards and magistrates arrived and broke down the door, the maid had already committed suicide.

Sacrificial symbols carved with a dagger before the deceased's death were found in the warehouse, and traces of heretical sacrifice were found in the deceased's room – again pointing to another invalid existence, and the sacrificial process did not conform to any norms. However, in this record, the invalid sacrificial activity did not drive others crazy, but drove the sacrificer herself mad.

This is the third one...

If Vanna was only slightly concerned when she saw the first two records, then when she saw this third record, the expression on her face had become completely serious.

She quickly arranged the information from these records in her mind, analyzing them according to their occurrence time and location.

The events occurred very dispersedly, independently in time, and unrelated in location. In theory, there was no intersection between the parties involved.

Moreover, they were not related to the factory leak that occurred eleven years ago, and no trace of the Solar Heretics was found in the subsequent investigations.

Vanna calmed down and continued to search for subsequent files. Before long, she found the information on the factory leak.

That was a major event, with a wide range of impact, and the number of heretics captured afterward was almost the highest in the past two or three decades. Therefore, the whole incident was recorded in a separate file. The thick file was quite heavy and included a large number of pictures and interrogation reports.

But Vanna quickly finished reading all the contents of the file.

Because she had seen the things inside many times in other places. In the past few years, she had consulted the relevant documents of this old case more than once.

It seemed that even in this archive deep in the church, there was no more information about the factory leak eleven years ago.

Vanna put the factory leak file back. She flipped through it for a while, then suddenly noticed something:

After the "factory leak" accident, similar to the previous three "heretical worship" cases, there were no more records of them.

And that factory leak accident happened in the middle of the year, with a full half-year remaining afterward.

This gave Vanna a feeling, as if those "invalid but effective" heretical worship events all appeared in a cluster before the factory leak, and the factory accident became a node, and all the heretical worship stopped abruptly after that...

Of course, this can also be explained by common sense: after the factory leak, the church and the authorities captured thousands of cultists. This large-scale arrest operation cleared the heretical forces in the city-state, so it was normal that no more heretical worship events occurred in the subsequent half-year.

But for some reason, she always felt that the logic behind these seemingly unrelated events should not be so simple.

She stopped beside the large bookshelf and thought quietly for a long time before returning to the beginning, pulling out the first file about "heretical worship," and pondering as she flipped through it.

These events were too scattered and were buried in a pile of messy disaster records. If she hadn't suddenly gotten fixated on sorting them out today, and had already buried the idea of "there is something suspicious about this" in her mind in advance, she probably wouldn't have noticed anything unusual even when she first got these materials – but unusual is unusual. Once noticed, that feeling of disharmony and awkwardness began to take root and sprout in her heart like a seed, making it difficult for her to ignore the warning in her intuition.

And just as Vanna was carefully looking through the information, a series of unhurried footsteps suddenly came from nearby, along with the faint smell of oil mixed with incense.

Vanna looked up and saw that it was the old priest in charge of managing the archives who was walking towards her.

He walked with a limp, obviously not just his right hand, but his legs and feet were also injured.

"There aren't many people in the archives at this time, so I came over to take a look," the old priest said with a smile. "Did you find the information you wanted?"

Vanna breathed a sigh of relief and put the file back in its original place: "I found some information, but I didn't find the answer I wanted."

"Answer?" the old priest asked curiously. "What kind of answer are you looking for?"

"...How long have you been here?" Vanna did not answer directly, but suddenly asked a seemingly irrelevant question.

"Ah, it's been a long time. Let me think... almost twenty years, I guess," the old priest laughed. "Since that bunch of heretical lunatics blew off one of my hands and a leg with their homemade bombs, I've been in this place." Vanna thought for a while and asked curiously, "Is it usually this deserted here? Do others come here to consult these files like me?"

"It's usually very deserted most of the time – there are people who come to consult the files, but there aren't many," the old priest said with a smile. "Books are people's memories of the world, and this archive is the deepest part of memory – what is stored here are 'old cases' that have been dealt with, or 'secret files' that have been judged as not suitable for public disclosure. After they are sealed, they are buried in the depths of time along with the past history.

"Countless new things happen in the city-state every day, and everyone is busy moving towards tomorrow. Where do they have so much time to come back and flip through these sealed files? And..."

The old priest paused here, raised his head, and quietly looked up at the books that were almost piled up to the dome. After a long time, he said softly.

"And... sealed files are sometimes not just a record of the past, but also some 'history' itself may be sealed in those pages. The past, present, and future of our world are all built on an unstable foundation. Flipping through too many things in this archive is not good for physical and mental health."

"...That sounds a bit like the admonition of the Firekeepers."

"Yes, the Firekeepers like to admonish on this aspect. They guard history and are always worried that something will spread from the ancient times and pollute the foundation of our world – they are overly sensitive in this regard, so much so that some people even think that those End Times preachers who promote the 'doomsday pollution theory' are Firekeepers after their fall..."

The old priest said, shaking his head with a smile: "When I was young, I had close ties with several friends from the Firekeeper sect, and I naturally heard a lot of their theories. Although they are different from the teachings of the Storm Goddess, they are all righteous gods, and some of them are still worth referring to."

For some reason, while listening to the old man's account, Vanna's mood calmed down a little. She had some respect for this senior who had dedicated most of his life to the church, and at this moment, she didn't mind chatting with the old man a little more, so she casually asked, "Do you still keep in touch with those friends now?"

"No contact," the old man slowly shook his head. "One morning, I suddenly realized that I had never known their names, so they must have been martyred..."

(A new month, double monthly tickets have started, everyone give some tickets~~)