Volume 6, Chapter 77 – A Lie That Covers the Sky

A huge stone was pressed against her chest. Evelyn felt a suffocating sense of oppression. She let out a soft breath, and the water vapor contained within turned into a white mist in the cold.

“Staying in the room all the time won’t help me find an answer. I’ll just go out for a walk.”

As if escaping, leaving the burden in her heart in the room, Evelyn opened the door and walked aimlessly through the church’s underground.

Then, she soon saw something she didn’t understand.

In the corridor, whether they were paladins, priests, or nuns handling miscellaneous affairs, they were all kneeling together on the spotless red carpet. Holding the church’s holy relics in their hands, they were chanting prayers in a low voice mixed with ecstasy, their bodies trembling uncontrollably with excitement. At the same time, the church holy relics they were holding were emitting a golden light. When the light enveloped them, they soon stopped trembling, and the ecstatic expressions on their faces gradually calmed down, leaving only a peaceful and serene look.

Evelyn had seen such a scene many times. This was the manifestation of divine power.

But for some reason, what had been a commonplace sight in the past now seemed very strange to Evelyn. In the past, she had only purified the believers one by one. She had never seen the believers being saved on a large scale, at the same time, like this. If Evelyn had to describe the scene she was seeing, it was less like a ‘miracle’ and more like something had forcibly changed the will of the people.

…It should just be eliminating the negative emotions in people’s hearts, right?

Shaking the strange thought from her mind, Evelyn casually patted a church member who had already been saved by the side of the corridor.

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“Excuse me.”

The nun who was called immediately stood up and bowed respectfully to Evelyn.

“Ah, it’s Your Holiness the Pope. Please speak.”

“What are you doing?”

“The Goddess has just bestowed her grace again. We are thanking her.”

“Bestowed her grace? Just now?”

“Yes, just now. His Holiness Julius has just finished the two week long oracle ceremony and has made the Tower of Ymir emit its former brilliant light again. The Goddess has also finally felt His Holiness Julius’s sincerity and has once again scattered her grace upon the human world.”

At this point, the nun’s face once again showed excitement, but it quickly subsided, and then she became excited again, repeating this over and over. The strange change in her facial expression gave Evelyn an indescribable sense of discomfort, as if the person standing in front of her was a puppet with a human skin, which made her feel terrified.

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Subconsciously, Evelyn withdrew her hand, but the nun grabbed her hands with an even more excited expression.

“Th-This is… wonderful! Lady Evelyn! Your divine power has also returned! It must be that the Goddess saw you use the divine-era magic and was pleased with your future, which is why she has once again bestowed upon you the divine power you had used up!”

“My divine power has returned?”

Feeling the trembling, warm palms of the nun, Evelyn looked at her held right hand—when she had touched the nun, her hand had indeed emitted a faint golden light, the same as the church’s holy relics. However, the nun did not know the truth. Her divine power had not been consumed because she had used the divine-era magic, but had disappeared on its own without any warning one day two weeks ago. It was definitely not a case of the Goddess being pleased with her and thus bestowing her with magic power again.

Did the divine power return on its own?

Why?

Evelyn re-sorted what the nun had said in her mind.

In an instant, a chill ran down Evelyn’s spine, as if countless ants were crawling on her skin. She couldn’t help but want to hug her shoulders. Fear and disgust welled up in her throat at the same time. She even had the uncomfortable feeling of her stomach convulsing violently.

It was like when you were looking for something in the dark and suddenly touched something sticky and soft, like a piece of rotten meat. The physiological discomfort made Evelyn withdraw her hand as if she were fleeing. She retreated step by step, completely ignoring the nun’s dazed and confused expression. As if the nun would turn into a demon in the next moment, Evelyn’s beautiful face was gradually filled with terror. After retreating a certain distance, she tried her best to resist the urge to scream and ran straight outside—to the surface—without looking back.

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Bumping into one paladin after another, Evelyn came from the underground to the surface.

A pitch-black night.

According to the church’s doctrine, after nightfall, all non-night watch personnel should be asleep. The luxurious temple on the surface was empty. The magnificent and resplendent, vast main hall, besides the light, was filled with a deathly silence and cold. Evelyn first ran to the top floor of the temple and looked out at the city from a place that overlooked the entire Mitters Bayer—the streets were lighting up with one golden light after another. In less than a minute, the golden lights had merged into one, and the entire city gradually began to boil.

This was the scene of the believers being forgiven under the power of a god, with the help of the church’s holy relics. The reason they had merged into one was because there were too many believers on the streets.

Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, Evelyn hurriedly ran out of the central temple. On a street not far from the central temple, she looked up from below at the Tower of Ymir, which pierced the sky and connected heaven and earth.

The Tower of Ymir, which had been dim for two weeks, had regained its former luster. The deep blue light in the dark night was like an ark guiding the lost, emitting a mesmerizing, dreamlike color.

But to Evelyn, this was like a nightmare, and a terrifying scene that continued to be replayed in reality after she had been startled awake from a dream.

She widened her deep green eyes slightly, staring fixedly at the Tower of Ymir. Her teeth bit into her lip. Even when the taste of rust spread on the tip of her tongue, she did not notice it at all.

“No… impossible… how could… it’s definitely a lie… Julius, he couldn’t possibly…”

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While saying this, Evelyn’s legs couldn’t help but tremble. At this moment, she felt as if countless pairs of eyes were watching her. Her head was also covered by an invisible hand. And now, that hand was pulling countless transparent, fine threads. At the end of the threads were connected to her every joint.

Her heart was beating violently. The thumping sound, as if it were about to jump out of her chest, went straight to her eardrums. Her clothes, as if they had been submerged in water, were soaked with sweat. Her whole body was weak, like a pile of mud.

Evelyn kept swallowing. Panting heavily, she uncontrollably retreated away from the central temple, as if the central temple at this moment was no longer a building, but a beast waiting for an opportunity to devour a person.

“Hah—hah—”

A sound like a bellows came from her lungs. After retreating a sufficient distance, Evelyn forcibly suppressed the urge to flee, gritted her teeth, and in a way that was almost self-hypnosis, desperately hinted at herself to stop.

“No… it might just be a coincidence… it’s also possible that I’m mistaken. As long as I go and see for myself… as long as I go there and see, I’ll surely get an explanation.”

Taking deep breaths repeatedly to compose herself, Evelyn endured the feeling of nausea, gathered all her strength, and took a step towards the central temple with her leaden legs.

She had already realized that the so-called grace of the Goddess was nothing but a lie.