Volume 6, Chapter 78 – Racing Against Time

Forcibly suppressing the nauseating feeling of disgust, Evelyn stepped into the underground of the central temple, which in her eyes was already an ominous place. Perhaps because of her disgraceful appearance when she had rushed out before, the people in the temple underground, upon seeing her walk in again, had faces filled with worry. One of the older nuns stepped forward and asked.

“Your Holiness the Pope, are you not feeling well?”

Almost pushing the nun aside, Evelyn took a deep breath, calmed herself, and said with a forced composure.

“It’s just that the divine power has returned, and I was a little overjoyed. Where is Julius now?”

“His Holiness has just finished the oracle ceremony and is now in the Inquisition Hall, giving instructions to the paladins.”

“Is that so? Don’t tell Julius about my gaffe just now. I don’t want him to know about this embarrassing incident.”

“Yes, Your Holiness the Pope.”

The old nun gave a wry smile, but upon closer inspection, Evelyn found a sense of relief hidden in her eyes. Combined with the sky-high lie she had just detected, one of Julius’s spies must be this old nun, who had been monitoring her movements through her.

Waving her hand without changing her expression, Evelyn signaled the old nun to retreat and walked step by step towards the fifth underground level.

She was going to the Tower of Ymir.

If one were to look down from a high altitude, the entire Mitters Bayer was built around the central temple, and the central temple, in turn, was built around the Tower of Ymir in the very center. Although the surface of the Tower of Ymir was covered with a barrier that could withstand a full-power blow from a demon lord, Evelyn, as the next Pope of the church, had received permission to enter from Julius long ago. If she wanted to enter the Tower of Ymir, she only needed to pass through the sky bridge connecting the central temple on the surface to the Tower of Ymir, and she could easily walk into the tower. However, Evelyn could not now enter through an entrance that could be seen by others.

She was going to the Tower of Ymir not to pray, but to find out the true nature of the divine power.

What exactly was the divine power? In the past, Evelyn, like everyone else, had believed that it was a power bestowed by the Goddess, because only a god could cause a miracle of such a wide range and from which everyone could benefit. Even until the divine power had returned to her again, Evelyn had thought so. But now, her heart was filled with only doubt.

If the divine power she possessed was something she had had since birth, and the Goddess, seeing her mother’s devout faith, had bestowed her grace upon her child, that is, her, then after the Goddess had taken back her divine power, there was no reason to bestow her grace upon her again. It was worth noting that her faith in the Goddess was lower than that of any believer in the church, to the point where she could use the statue of the Goddess as capital for lying and swearing. There was no reason for the Goddess to bestow her power upon her again.

Of course, this could also be that the Goddess had shown great mercy and thus had bestowed her with divine power again. But instead of placing her hope on something illusory, Evelyn was more concerned about another coincidence that was too much of a coincidence.

That was the Tower of Ymir.

On the night before she had lost her divine power, the Tower of Ymir had almost self-destructed due to the battle between Julius and Yisi. Because its magic circuit had been destroyed, the Tower of Ymir had lost all its functions for a short period of time. And on the second day after that, she had lost her divine power—to be precise, not just her, but the divine grace of the entire Mitters Bayer had disappeared. Even the most devout believers who knelt and prayed could not get a response from the Goddess.

If she had lost her divine power because of her lack of faith in the gods, then how to explain the other believers?

At that time, in order to escape the church, she did not have the extra energy to think about it. Now, in retrospect, the suspicious points in it were too large to be ignored.

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And then, today, the divine power had suddenly returned to the masses and herself. And along with the divine power, the Tower of Ymir had also been restored. If she could not even detect the strangeness in this, then she would not be worthy of the name Evelyn.

The divine power disappeared after the Tower of Ymir was destroyed, and reappeared after it was restored.

Not to say absolutely, but the true nature of the divine power was very likely related to the Tower of Ymir. As for whether the Goddess had injected the divine power into the Tower of Ymir, and the Tower of Ymir had then spread it, or the even more frightening possibility that the true nature of the divine power was one of the effects of the Tower of Ymir… only by seeing and checking with her own eyes could Evelyn draw a conclusion.

If it were the former, Evelyn might not encounter anything. But if the true nature of the divine power was the magic formula of the Tower of Ymir, then Julius would never let her continue to live. This was a truth that was sufficient to shake the foundation of the church. No matter how great her value was, Julius would not allow a second person who knew the truth to appear. Therefore, Evelyn could not enter from the entrance that everyone knew, but from another hidden entrance that would not be noticed.

That was the fifth underground level.

Evelyn had seen Julius walk into the fifth underground level and then appear in the Tower of Ymir before. Therefore, the fifth underground level was very likely connected to the Tower of Ymir. Or rather, just from the structural position, the Tower of Ymir had originally pierced through the church’s underground. It would be strange if there was no connection.

Some might think that this was the end, but this was just the beginning. Besides the divine power itself, what frightened Evelyn even more was her own existence.

What kind of existence was she?

An ordinary person could only obtain the grace of God by praying to the Goddess through a church holy relic, while she was directly the embodiment of the grace of God. People did not need to pray. As long as they touched her, she could eliminate the negative emotions in their hearts. If the grace of the Goddess was originally a lie created by the successive Popes with the Tower of Ymir as the source, and the root of the grace was actually the Tower of Ymir, then what was Evelyn Anna Ymir Shalu? A human? An angel? Or a magical item with self-awareness? Another Tower of Ymir?

“Silver hair…”

While quietly walking towards the fifth underground level, Evelyn reached out and grabbed her own silver hair. The silky smooth touch flowed through her palm. Under the light of the surrounding magic lamps, it reflected a moonlight-like, lustrous color.

But this was a place that had long puzzled Evelyn.

Just as it was impossible for someone who was not a direct descendant of the Pescia bloodline to have completely white hair, Evelyn had never seen a person with silver hair like hers—not only pure silver, but she had never even seen a person with silver mixed in their hair.

At first, Evelyn had attributed the reason to the world she lived in being too small. Outside of Mitters Bayer, there might be many people with silver hair. But after asking one foreign merchant after another, she could say with great certainty that there was no one in the human world with silver hair like hers.

In the past, when she knew the truth, she had not taken her silver hair seriously. It neither affected her normal activities nor did it cause her to be discriminated against. It even made her quite outstanding. But now, when she began to think about why the divine power had only appeared in her, the characteristic of silver hair had further deepened her suspicion.

Why was she the only one with silver hair?

Suddenly, she shook her head.

“No, Yisi also has completely silver hair…?”

Before she could finish, Evelyn’s voice gradually weakened.

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According to Yisi, her silver hair was not something she was born with, but the result of putting two necklaces together.

Like a tightrope walker about to reach the end when the rope suddenly breaks, Evelyn’s heart skipped a beat, her lips trembled slightly, and she muttered in a low voice that she herself did not notice.

“Me… too?” Her voice was so hoarse that it didn’t sound like a woman’s. Evelyn shook her head as if in fear. “No, impossible. I have parents. My memory can’t be deceiving me. And maybe I was wrong from the beginning. The divine power was just injected into the Tower of Ymir by the Goddess, and then released by the Tower of Ymir… No matter what, the church can’t possibly have told such a lie, hehe…”

Although she said that, Evelyn’s smile was as ugly as if she were crying. The speed of her legs gradually increased. After passing the third level, it was already no different from running.

Passing through the deathly quiet fourth level, Evelyn stood before the fifth level.

Just like in the past, there were only two large bronze gates with no decoration in the vast space. And in front of the gates, two paladin-like puppet golems were standing motionless.

I’ve already become the Pope of the Ymir Church. I should be able to go in with my rightful authority, right?

Having prepared herself mentally, Evelyn held the Staff of Divine Retribution in one hand and the pure white, cross-shaped divine staff that symbolized the papal authority in the other, and walked up to the two stone statues.

“Step aside.”

Just like last time, there was no response.

With a livid face, Evelyn brandished the cross-shaped divine staff in front of the two stone statues.

“I am the 24th Pope of the Ymir Church, Evelyn Anna Ymir Shalu. I now command you to step aside!”

Still no answer.

The oppressive feeling in her chest made it difficult for Evelyn to breathe. She used deep breaths to compose herself and no longer focused her energy on communicating with the stone statues, but walked straight to the corner between the fourth and fifth levels of the church, where the stone statues could not see.

“So it’s still under Julius’s control. I was too naive.”

If Julius was keeping the fifth level a secret from her, then there was no need for her to cooperate with him. Julius had not shown any sincerity from the beginning. She was just a tool in his hands.

A sense of confrontation welled up in her heart. A defiant smile appeared on Evelyn’s face. She switched the two divine staffs to her left hand and took out a thumb-sized white crystal from her pocket, playing with it between her index finger and thumb.

“Fated… no, it must have been deliberately arranged.”

The appearance of the teleportation crystal was too coincidental. After knowing that both Yisi and Julius wanted to use her, Evelyn had already treated all the ‘coincidences’ as deliberate arrangements by them. Just after she had proposed to Yisi that she wanted a teleportation crystal, the crystal had appeared in her hands. In addition, the puppets that should have been guarding the library had been smashed, making it convenient for her to take the crystal out. Besides this being Yisi’s preparation, Evelyn could not think of a second possibility.

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“I see… you knew from the beginning that I wanted the teleportation crystal to go to the fifth level, didn’t you? No, maybe you’ve already figured out what’s on the fifth level.”

If that were the case, Julius had already lost the contest from the very beginning.

“Although I’m being used as a pawn, the feeling of figuring out the divine power and my own origin step by step is surprisingly not bad…”

Instead of being driven by others, it felt more like she had the initiative in her hands. Evelyn clenched the magic crystal in her palm tightly and infused it with magic power.

“The destination… since it’s something designed by Yisi, she definitely wouldn’t just send me to my death like this. If you make me appear in a wall, I won’t let you go even if I become a ghost.”

After muttering under her breath, Evelyn no longer hesitated. She relaxed her whole body and, enveloped in a wavering, trance-like feeling, disappeared along with the two divine staffs.

Her vision changed in an instant. When she reappeared, before her was a familiar yet strange scene.

When she had just become the successor to the Pope, she had come to this underground passage that seemed to lead to an endless abyss, with no end in sight.

The passage, which was wide enough for two carriages to pass side by side, was pitch-black. Although it was the deepest underground level, the air was abnormally dry and fresh. The walls were gray, and the ground was free of any dust.

Bending down slightly, Evelyn observed her surroundings.

“The feeling of being watched… is gone.”

Unlike the last time she had come, she did not have the feeling of being stared at by countless pairs of eyes now. The surroundings were so quiet that even the sound of her own breathing was exceptionally loud, as if she were the only living creature here.

“It has come to this. There’s no turning back. The only possibility of escape is to find the path to the Tower of Ymir, then enter it, and then walk out from the sky bridge. Finally, I’ll go and find Yisi. I should just do as she says, right?”

Both were being used as pawns, but the benefits Yisi brought her were clearly greater. If Yisi failed, she would continue to be used by Julius and would forever only be a Pope on the surface. She might even be killed by Julius because she was an eyesore. But if Yisi won, she could become the real Pope, and Julius would never have a chance to turn the tables.

“…The reason Yisi gave me the teleportation crystal was to let me figure everything out on my own and then go and answer her? To make me take such a big risk… No, if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes at the right time, I would have surely found it unacceptable and would not have believed Yisi’s words. Damn it, I’m being treated completely like a child.”

Helpless, yet at the same time, she felt a sense of respect for Yisi. If Yisi hadn’t given her the opportunity, she might have been kept in the dark for her entire life. No matter what the true nature of the divine power was, after seeing the stone statues still not reacting even after seeing her, the Pope, she knew what to choose.

“The alchemist—the magic medicine Yisi gave me, there are still two bottles left. The magic medicine for restoring magic power… two bottles. And then the life recovery medicine and the stamina enhancement medicine… that’s enough.”

Taking out the small bottles of magic medicine one by one from her chest and tying them to the thin rope around her waist, Evelyn first took out the stamina enhancement medicine and drank it, then quickly walked towards the end.

Coming here meant that she could be discovered and killed by Julius at any time. Any act of wasting time was self-destruction.

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Not caring about the echoing footsteps, Evelyn ran quickly.

There were no forks in the road.

Just a blind sprint.

As if time had lost its meaning, the scenery before her did not change at all. The surroundings were all gray walls, and ahead was only a darkness with no end in sight. An ordinary person, having persisted until now, would have thought they had stepped into a maze with no exit. But Evelyn had not found the glass bottle she had thrown on the ground at the beginning. In other words, it was just that the scenery was too similar, and the road was excessively long.

After an unknown amount of time, Evelyn finally ran to a place where there was a change.

A fork in the road to the left and right.

Neither side had an end in sight.

Left? Or right?

No matter which one of them it was, one must be connected to the Tower of Ymir. Without any criteria for judgment, her choice was actually only one.

—Look at each one.

Since they had appeared on the fifth level, which was forbidden by Julius, their respective ends would surely not be simple.

She chose the left.

She continued to run.

Unlike before, this time, Evelyn quickly arrived at the end.

An unusually wide and huge space, so large that it didn’t even look like an underground world.

“Did I choose wrong? But… this is really… an unexpected discovery.”

As if she had walked into the belly of a monster, in this huge space, it was filled with the flesh and blood that had gestated the demons that Evelyn had seen before.

Or rather—angels.

But what surprised Evelyn even more was that she had a strange sense of familiarity with this place.