Chapter 79

 “What? You are all just going to withdraw like this? It makes us Divine Academy students look as hypocritical and cowardly as the church...”

The silver-haired boy stood on the steps with his hands spread wide. His expression was exaggerated, disbelief written across his face as he looked at his teammates.

“As future clergy, participating in such secular conflicts is meaningless to begin with. Is there any point in continuing?”

“To be honest, several students died in the last incident. With the church facing so many troubles lately, can you, as captain, guarantee our safety?”

“Yinkong, find someone else who wants to participate. The competition allows team changes since it is academy-based anyway.”

The boys in white school uniforms averted their gazes. Their words were heated, leaving Yinkong with no face at all.

In the end, Yinkong came from the middle district. If not for his S-Class talent, he would not even qualify to lead them.

Yinkong watched his teammates leave without mercy. He shrugged and muttered to himself, “Well, I expected it, but it still stings a little.”

His gaze turned toward the girl leaning against the doorway. Bai Muqing stood motionless, almost blending into the white wall.

Yinkong suddenly let out a laugh. “Now all the irrelevant people are gone. It is just the two of us left.”

Only then did Bai Muqing blink her vacant eyes. Like a statue coming to life, she spoke. “You... what do you mean?”

Yinkong jumped down from the steps and approached Bai Muqing. With a flip of his palm, a thick stack of cards appeared in his hand.

“Want to try? The fortune for the upcoming competition.”

Bai Muqing frowned slightly. She had never liked Yinkong’s little tricks, but this time she felt an inexplicable spark of curiosity.

Perhaps because Ye Zheng had brought too many variables lately, leaving her mind somewhat chaotic.

She casually drew a card from Yinkong’s hand and was about to flip it over when it was suddenly snatched away.

The cards in Yinkong’s hand vanished. He hunched over, one hand clutching his chest as he gasped for breath urgently, as though struck by sudden illness. His other hand held the card he had taken from her.

“Are you sick?”

Bai Muqing said, then immediately realized her words might be misinterpreted.

“I mean...”

“Haha, I am indeed a bit sick. You go ahead and leave first. Let me be alone for a while.”

Yinkong straightened up. Aside from his pale face, he seemed fine otherwise. Bai Muqing could not understand what he was thinking. She nodded at him and turned to leave obediently.

“Wait, Bai Muqing!”

Yinkong’s voice called from behind. He asked urgently, “What were you thinking when you drew the card just now?”

Bai Muqing paused in silence before replying, “Nothing.”

Only after no one else remained in sight did Yinkong sit down on the church doorway steps. He took out that card.

On the card, a god in black robes stood atop the corpse of a giant dragon. His face could not be clearly seen. He raised high a sword gleaming with golden light.

This image was familiar to every person in the empire. It told the story of the God of Hope slaying the demonic dragon and becoming the eternal guardian deity of the empire for centuries.

Yet in all related artworks, the God of Hope always wore white robes. His hair was the same brilliant gold as the divine sword, sacred and valiant.

Not like this card. Clad in black robes, long black hair whipping like a storm, he appeared to have just pulled the sword from the dragon’s body, or to be on the verge of delivering a world-shaking slash toward a decaying world. His posture was like calm thunder about to strike.

Truly... an ominous deity.

Yinkong’s chest still throbbed with pain. He could not tell whether it was backlash from his ability or overwhelming excitement from glimpsing a heaven-shaking secret.

Who exactly was it? Would He be the next bringer of hope, or the next world-destroying monster?

✧✧✧✧✧

“Ye Zheng, stay behind.”

“Just like what you did to me in Blood Flower. Do it again.”

Ye Zheng moved her steps unhurriedly. A breeze passed through the floor-to-ceiling stained-glass windows, stirring her loose black hair. The stray strands veiled a faint shadow between her brows and eyes.

“Your Highness, please tell me, what exactly is wrong with you? What kind of help do you need?”

“For the sake of my own safety, I cannot recklessly approach you any further.”

Ye Zheng stopped at a certain distance. She looked at Sykes, not too close, not too far. He was hunched over the table, face hidden. His right hand gripped the table edge tightly. The thick black glove covering it was cracking inch by inch.

Upon hearing her words, Sykes lifted his face from his arms. Damp golden hair clung to his forehead. His pair of golden eyes locked onto the only living thing in the room.

“Saintess.”

“I heard you heal people regardless of origin or danger. You are supposed to be a true Saintess. It turns out you are just like that Wen Jian, both of you are hypocrites chasing fame.”

Ye Zheng lowered her head and let out a soft laugh. She raised her eyes to look at the increasingly gloomy-faced Crown Prince.

“Sykes, do you also need my salvation?”

The black gloves isolating his power turned completely to ash. Sykes pressed both hands on the table and suddenly stood up. The long table shattered instantly.

“Ye Zheng, you dare?”

You dare call me by name? You dare boast of granting salvation to the Crown Prince? You dare treat the future master of the empire with such condescending disdain?

Ye Zheng understood why he was furious, yet she continued speaking.

“Because this is your request. How could I dare refuse?”

“Do you know how I save people? If it were merely sewing up wounds, that would be a physician, not the Saintess of the empire.”

Ye Zheng advanced slowly toward Sykes despite his raging aura. She stepped across the gradually cracking floor. She slowly spread her arms in a posture like the Holy Mother embracing a holy angel. Her tone grew increasingly fervent.

“Humans are complex beings. Some lack health, some lack spirit, some lack the qualification to be human. So I use my ability to heal people, to inspire people, to kill people.”

“Whether good or evil, I can grant them fair salvation!”

“Now, Sykes, tell me, what do you lack? Do you need my healing, my inspiration, or my, urgh!”

Sykes could endure no longer. His golden eyes turned bloodshot, the whites vanishing entirely. Rampant power exploded outward. Even the stained-glass windows shattered completely.

He let out a low roar and flashed forward, attempting to strangle the arrogant girl before him.

The girl had anticipated it. She deftly dodged his right hand. Sykes’s eyes darkened. His iron-like left hand seized her fragile neck in that instant. He tightened his grip, ready to savor the Saintess’s dying expression.

Suddenly he felt a tightness around his own neck. The suffocating sensation made him instinctively loosen his hold.

Sykes looked down. A flowing water-colored chain had somehow wrapped around his neck.

He grinned. A trace of contempt flashed in his bloodshot golden eyes. His right hand grabbed the chain.

It did not snap as he had expected. He tugged again. The water-colored chain finally reacted. It tightened sharply, nearly choking him.

Veins bulged on his right hand. His face gradually twisted. The aura around him grew even more violent, like a predator being toyed with by its prey.

But in the next moment, the prey yanked the chain. Sykes was forced closer. He saw clearly the cluster of excited flames dancing in the Saintess’s calm black eyes.

Soon the world spun. He was twisted around, pinned to the ground. Half his face pressed against the cracked floor. The other end of the chain around his neck was gripped tightly in the Saintess’s hand.

Restraint, powerlessness, humiliation. All unbearable emotions surged up. Sykes’s vision turned entirely blood-red.

This level of strength, he could break free easily. He was about to do so, about to destroy everything around him that had witnessed his disgrace, when suddenly a gentle voice came from above.

“As you wished, I have repeated what I did to you last time.”

“Now please be quiet. Only one final step remains.”

Hearing the Saintess’s soft, soothing voice, Sykes momentarily pulled away from his chaotic thoughts. Before he could react, a wet, tickling sensation entered his ear canal, forcing him into complete stillness.

Fine streams of water followed his neck, crawled across his cheeks, and flowed into his ear.

“This is the softest passage into the brain. Please endure for a moment.”

Ye Zheng spoke slowly and methodically. She had returned to being the polite and gentle Saintess. The earlier arrogance and unruliness seemed to belong to another person entirely.

From ears you could reach the brain the fastest, and therefore could also kill a person the fastest through it.

Sykes’s body was entirely composed of Dragon Bone, and she had already become extremely proficient at controlling the power of Dragon Bone. This meant that approaching an out-of-control Sykes multiplied both the danger and the intensity exponentially.

Earlier, Sykes had clearly lost control of the Dragon Bone’s power. The force that had originally been contained had overflowed to such an extent that even she could easily seize it.

Ye Zheng stared at the now-quiet Sykes. She slowly closed her eyes, sensing the information conveyed to her by 【Stream】.

It was still the same as last time. Aside from the power being even more out of control, there were no other discoveries.

Ye Zheng opened her eyes. A trace of disappointment flashed through her gaze. She had no choice but to use 【Stream】 once more to soothe Sykes’s violently surging body and calm him down, just like last time.

She withdrew the water chain and poked Sykes. He rolled over and lay flat on the ground. The blood threads had faded from his golden eyes, and he appeared to have returned to normal.

“Your Highness, how do you feel?”

“...It was useless. I did not remember anything more.”

Ye Zheng raised an eyebrow. What exactly did Sykes want to remember? What had she made him recall last time? It had caused such a peculiar change in him.

Sykes said nothing further. He calmly got up from the floor and straightened his disheveled clothes. Without glancing at Ye Zheng, he walked straight to the door of the meeting room and then paused.

“Saintess, as you said, can someone like me truly be saved?”

He asked.

“What kind of person are you, exactly?”

Ye Zheng replied with a smile.

“Violent, evil, born with original sin, someone who should not have been born. I mean, even such a villain would not be abandoned by the divine, right?”

Sykes, with his back to her, let out a cold laugh. “Such people are only judged by the divine, killed, and cast into hell.”

“Being judged, killed, and cast into hell, how is that not a form of salvation? Unless the divine refuses even a single glance, that would be true abandonment.”

“Only when the divine watches over you, cares for you, and sees your struggling soul through the turmoil of desires and impulses, do you receive the opportunity to be judged and to be killed.”

Sykes’s hand suddenly gripped the doorframe. He seemed about to turn his head, but forcibly restrained himself.

“How absurd. People from the church are always so irritating.”

He strode out impatiently, yet the girl’s voice behind him still lingered in his ears.

“If you ever need anything, please come find me. The Saintess does not discriminate by origin or good and evil. She only grants every person fair salvation.”

The stained-glass windows depicting the God of Hope had already shattered. Ye Zheng stood quietly by the window. Sunlight bathed her figure, making her appear like a figure from a colored legend.

✧✧✧✧✧

In the lower district, inside a certain remote abandoned factory.

“My lady, you are a saint. You are the chosen one who will lead us to overthrow all conspiracies and injustices. You are the true incarnation of the God of Hope in the legends.”

“If you annoy me again, I will kill you all.”

“You are all so annoying. The one I want to kill is the Pope. You ants, get lost.”

Inside the dust-covered factory, men and women gathered. They trampled on scattered fragments of Peace Coupons. The Pope’s smiling face on the paper was torn into pieces and ground black under their feet.

Hearing the golden-haired girl’s threatening voice, the crowd quieted down. Until someone shouted loudly, “Kill the Pope.”

Waves of “Kill the Pope” chants rose up. Sela, sitting atop a tall piece of metal equipment, finally showed a spark of interest in her eyes.

“Take down the church?”

Sela shouted down at the people again, testing them.

“Take down the church.”

“Take down the church.”

The voices grew even more excited and fervent. People waved their hands wildly in fanaticism.

Sela clapped as though she had discovered an amusing toy. “Destroy the empire.”

The crowd fell silent for an instant, as if shocked by Sela’s words. But soon their eyes blazed with even greater excitement.

“Destroy the empire.”

The girl burst into loud laughter. For the second time, she felt that the outside world still had some interesting things.

At the same moment, inside a certain tavern in the lower district.

A black-robed youth lifted the curtain and walked into the deepest part of the small tavern. A pair of green eyes smiled brightly as they looked toward the teammates who were drinking juice. The four of them were excitedly discussing something.

The youth leaned against the wall and knocked on the wooden table, producing a few dull thuds.

“I am here.”

“Zhao Mei.”

The girl with the orange high ponytail turned her head and saw the familiar figure. She called out loudly.

The members of the Cloud Soarers team stood up, their faces full of joy. The last teammate had returned. It was time to dive back into the tense and thrilling rhythm of the competition.

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Authors Note

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Everyone, please do not argue. Peaceful discussion. I know this book can easily spark heated debates, so I have been holding back from reading comments much. Today I checked the backend and saw that out of over ten thousand comments, most were arguments. I was actually happy when I screenshot it to commemorate reaching ten thousand comments.