No Turning Back

"Seeing that destroying the Lesser Evil Spirits was hopeless, Saidaro could only grit his teeth and lead the remaining forces out of the Church district. There are still several thousand believers there now, but they have likely all fallen into the evil god's grasp." Alek spoke heavily. "From the intelligence we have so far, the more unwaveringly one believes in the Sun God, the more easily their soul is drained away and turned into a Lesser Evil Spirit."

At this, he looked toward Taxisis. "She was right. The Church relied too heavily on the Deity, and in the end bound itself to the Deity as well. If Eternal Wing had not raised that argument in the divine hall, I think the losses in this crisis would have been even greater."

Xia Fan pondered for a moment. "Have you ever considered that the Sun God Hera was not some tangible entity that existed from the beginning, but a concept summoned forth by your day-after-day prayers?"

In truth, he had wanted to raise this question long ago.

After all, the Church had come into being far earlier than any record of the Deity appearing in the world.

From what Taxisis had told him, Dragon Wings had always believed in the Path of the Sun. This meant that their original faith had actually been the sun itself, only later shifting to the Sun God Hera.

He had not brought it up before because the question was far too "heretical." At a time when the Deity could be seen and touched, openly questioning the Church's faith would, at the very least, have gotten him expelled from the country.

Alek froze. "What do you mean?"

"In the understanding of Eastern cultivators, consciousness can influence the external environment through qi, and all manner of techniques are