Chapter 347: Light Shattering

"Come, taste this. I specifically picked the tenderest batch; I guarantee it's delicious." The old priest placed the clay pot wrapped in wet cloth on the table, adding a large bowl of hot soup to each of the two guests' bowls. "How is it? Did you find what you were looking for?"

"Thank you for your help. These documents are of great significance and will help the monastery understand this land." Dominic scooped peas from the bottom of the soup bowl, stuffed a spoonful into his mouth, and chewed mechanically.

The beans picked earlier that day were crisp, tender, fresh, and sweet; seasoned with only a little salt, they were outstanding enough. But he truly had no appetite.

The spoon stirred in the soup, clinking against the bowl's rim. The foam swirled toward the center, coalescing into shapes that easily provoked associations.

An unexpected dizziness struck, making him feel nauseous and dry-heaving, as if it were not pea soup being stirred, but the soft tissue throbbing within his skull.

"Young man, you don't look well." The priest promptly supported Dominic's upper body to prevent him from plunging headfirst into the bowl. "If you're not in a hurry, it's best to rest for a few days before going on."

"Traversing mountain paths allows for no carelessness. Monte left us too early because of this; I had only been here a few years at the time."

"The entire village spontaneously went up the mountain to search for several days. Unfortunately, not even a body was found."

The priest touched Dominic's palm and forehead; they were chillingly cold. Fine beads of sweat seeped out, and his skin was wet and cold like an eel fished from icy water.

Very bad signs. In the past, patients with similar symptoms were mostly in the late stages of severe trauma or grave illness; life slipped away with the body's warmth, and neither prayer nor medicine could reverse it.

Yet, when meeting the gaze of this young monk, he saw no indifferent expression of consciousness drifting away. On the contrary, those eyes were exceptionally bright.

Peering into the owner's thoughts through them was like seeing brilliant firelight through a glass window.

It was not a candle or torch, but the building's support beams burning fiercely.

And the owner of the consciousness and body seemed completely unaware of his situation, attempting a second time to reach for the water cup within arm's reach.

Field, exhausted, brought the rim of the cup to Dominic's lips and fed him two sips of warm water.

"Don't..."

Before the priest's words of caution could finish, Dominic began to cough violently, proving with facts the danger of feeding patients with impaired motor coordination.

"Sorry, sorry!" Field apologized hastily, unsure whether he was apologizing to his companion and the priest, or to a certain Knight Commander who had repeatedly emphasized relevant first-aid knowledge.

However, this bout of coughing seemed to activate the body's regulatory instincts. The surging breath and heart rate quickly restored color to his face, so he no longer resembled a wet, cold ghost emerging from a rainstorm.

"I think we should return to the monastery as soon as possible. There are the best medical facilities and first-rate doctors there." Seeing his companion improve brought relief, but Field, now calmer, immediately thought of more.

In the event of a sudden acute illness, there was little difference between being in this mountain village chapel and in the wilderness; neither had the capacity to handle it.

We should transport the person to a place capable of further treatment while the condition remains stable.

"Ignore that report. Borrow a donkey cart tonight and leave at dawn." Although there was no direct evidence, he could feel an unsettling tendency becoming increasingly obvious after they made one, or perhaps several, wrong choices.

Even if one were extremely dull, one could not pretend to be deaf and mute to all this or explain it away as pure coincidence.

The monastery was the best sanctuary at this moment, for both body and spirit.

"No."

Field's wrist tightened; looking down, he found Dominic had grabbed him.

"Go to the next destination. I feel we are close to finding it. Very close."

"Finding what?"

"Found two pieces of scrap stone, a few pieces of scrap copper and iron, one shard of a water jar, and half a basket of shrimp and crabs. Unfortunately, they are inedible."

Kup, with his trousers rolled up, stood in the cold, clear mountain stream.

He hadn't expected a stream in the valley below the cliff. His skill at finding things in water came in handy; he easily scooped up quite a few sluggish crustaceans undisturbed by humans for a long time, looking quite suitable for soup.

Unfortunately, this was a place suspected of being "affected." He casually dipped the basket back into the water, and the small creatures blessed by the miracle of life scattered and fled.

Only a few scattered small items suspected of being man-made remained in the basket, waiting to be taken back for craftsmen to identify.

Yves's progress was also minimal. Only two large pieces of stone with traces of artificial chiseling were found on the shore. Perhaps they had rolled down the rock face, stripped of a layer of stone skin, pitted and uneven, destroyed beyond recognition.

The wreckage could prove that a damaged man-made structure indeed existed, but it was far from enough to piece together a tower.

Perhaps the building collapsed in a direction not facing this cliff, so fewer parts fell down.

Yet, neither the mountaintop nor the interior and exterior of the monastery showed any cleared debris, leaving only an empty foundation for people to imagine.

Yves forcibly flipped the stones over a few times. Finding nothing special, he jumped up, sat down to rest briefly, and asked his fellow monk if he would like to hear a new story.

Who would refuse such a request?

Moreover, telling stories from the scriptures was a professional habit of monks; they were happy to repeat those miracles and holy deeds, recited countless times, to anyone.

These stories were mostly outdated, too preachy, telling of how saints were doubted and then healed diseases before the crowd.

"A man brought a patient with a limp. Saint Paul looked intently at him, touched his afflicted area, saw he had faith and could be healed, and loudly said, 'Rise, stand straight on your two feet.' The man jumped up and walked without hindrance."

Kup hid his face behind the basket, emitting a suppressed laugh.

He had seen plenty of the lame. Most were due to improper reduction after fractures, leading to various abnormalities after healing. One could even feel abnormal angles and swollen calluses through the flesh.

With just a word from Saint Paul, the misaligned bones would have to be broken again and reconnected.

Thinking of the scene where the Heavenly Father wielded an orthopedic hammer to smash a lame man's bad leg, he almost lost control again. But with too many monks present, laughing too obviously would damage colleague relations, so he lowered his head, pretending to search in the water.

But Yves was not yet desensitized to such plots; even after listening, she could draw inferences from one instance and make analogies.

"My mentor can do it too."

She had personally witnessed how Mr. Kraft, merely by "touching" a child's elbow joint, made an immobile arm as flexible as before.

This time, the monks also emitted kind laughter; no one would feel offended toward the Heavenly Father due to a child's opinion.

However, they still needed to correct this mistaken view: "Yes, Mr. Kraft is highly skilled in medicine, and the Church has heard of it. But the power of mortals indeed cannot compare to that of the Heavenly Father."

"The Lord's power can cure all diseases, restore sight to the blind, open the mouths of the mute, drive away high fevers from acute patients, revive the dead who have lost life, and even quell plagues upon the earth."

This was indeed undeniable, and others had the scriptures as proof. Yves opened her mouth but could not utter any words of rebuttal.

Kup continued searching in the water, regretting not going to the manor to fetch the two monks stationed there to save time.

The cold stream water had made his calves numb and aching; he was likely about to cramp. Even he, a northerner, could barely stand it. He found a stone slightly above the water nearby, sat on it, and lifted his legs out of the water to drain them.

However, he seemed to have overestimated the stability of the temporary seat. The unstable stone tipped the person to one side, rolling him into the stream. It nearly crushed his left leg; a shift of a few inches would have sent him back to the monastery awaiting a miracle.

The mud beneath the stone was washed away by the current, and several pale yellow objects, originally pressed down, floated up and drifted to his face.

"What the hell?" Kup scooped up one of the unknown fragments. It was so light it defied intuition, feeling neither like stone nor wood; some surfaces were smooth, others rough and spiky, as if broken off from somewhere.

Turning the object to its rough side, he found the texture came from a porous, spongy structure.

It looked like a fragment of bone, yet far lighter than any bone he had encountered before, even lighter than the insect-eaten, rat-gnawed remains in Dunling's underground catacombs that had lain there for countless years.

Kraft had once mentioned that bird bones were lighter than those of ordinary animals, but given this shape and size, he could not imagine what bird could grow like this.

Moreover, perhaps it was a side effect of studying anatomy recently, he felt it looked somewhat familiar.

He stood up, shivering as he walked to the muddy puddle left where the stone had rolled away. Inside were many similar things; the small fragments were merging with the silt and sand, drifting down past his legs, leaving a fine, light, sharp sensation as they brushed against his skin.

"Come over here." Kup waved toward the shore, adding, "Hurry up, toss a sieve over first."