"This prayer is your reward for stopping the spread of the Orlando loss of control incident."
"If you encounter an enemy that cannot be defeated or avoided, you can try chanting this prayer. Although you will be devoured and transformed by the White Worms, the Church will immediately send people to attempt communication with them and trade you back."
"Remember, you must never chant the White Curse unless absolutely necessary."
"Although the White Worms are among the very few Old Ones that can be communicated with, the success rate of completing a trade with them is still extremely low. Do you understand?"
Bishop Byron's gaze was solemn as he earnestly warned him.
"I understand, Your Excellency the Bishop."
Ning Xiuyuan nodded seriously, but inwardly, he could not help cursing the Church's eighteenth-generation female ancestors. What kind of reward is this?
This was basically a worthless promise!
The initiative to save him or not was entirely in the Church's hands. Even if they did save him, judging by what he had said, the success rate was still very low.
In other words, even if they did not save him, the Church could claim that they had sent people to rescue him, only for the White Worms to refuse the trade.
Honestly, instead of giving him this ethereal reward, they might as well issue him a few more Supernatural Bullets.
At least the right to pull the trigger was in my hands.
"Go on. Return and get some good rest. May the Lord watch over you!" Bishop Byron traced a cross over his chest with his right hand, offering the Dawn Ceremony.
Ning Xiuyuan hurriedly returned the salute.
He turned to leave, but suddenly remembered Angela's invitation. He stopped and said, "Your Excellency the Bishop, Sister Angela invited me to practice medicine at the Church Hospital. Do you think that would be all right?"
Bishop Byron smiled. "As expected, everything is arranged by God!"
"Actually, even if Angela had not invited you, I planned to arrange for you to go to the Church Hospital once you had initially fused with the supernatural. I simply did not expect you to possess such extraordinary talent in medicine. Whether you fused with the supernatural or not has become secondary."
Ning Xiuyuan quickly replied, "It is all the Lord's blessing!"
Bishop Byron smiled and nodded. "Go on. You only need to inspect the church's candle flames once in the morning, afternoon, and evening. There is no need to be overly diligent. Remember, light lies in dawn. As long as dawn remains, light will never perish."
"Arthur will heed your teachings."
Ning Xiuyuan nodded, traced a cross over his chest with his right hand in the Dawn Ceremony, and then turned to leave.
Click. The door closed, and the office fell silent.
"I always feel that his faith is not devout enough." A faint voice echoed through the office.
"Heh. You did not have this attitude before." Bishop Byron chuckled.
"His behavior makes me somewhat uneasy." The voice carried an inexplicable wariness.
"Being cautious while in a foreign land is understandable. You are still looking at him through the eyes you use to view heretics."
"Perhaps!"
Bishop Byron shook his head and paced back to his seat. He could not help murmuring, "The night gave me black eyes, but I can use them to seek the light."
The office was deathly silent. No one responded.
After leaving Bishop Byron's office, Ning Xiuyuan found that night had fallen.
He still habitually inspected the church once before returning to the stable.
On the way, he made up his mind. Once he returned to his dormitory, he would consume the Bird-beaked Monster's supernatural characteristic.
The Church's reward had made him see clearly that external forces were unreliable.
If he wanted to grasp his own fate, he could only grow stronger himself.
With that thought in mind, Ning Xiuyuan became increasingly invigorated, and his footsteps unconsciously quickened.
"Clack, clack, clack..."
The crisp sound of footsteps echoed along the bluestone-paved street. Gradually, the sound grew lower and lower, eventually disappearing altogether.
As he wandered through a sea of thought, Ning Xiuyuan suddenly realized something and abruptly stopped.
He raised the Crystal Lantern.
The flickering candlelight illuminated a space three feet around him. The familiar walls built from piled rubble had vanished, and the bluestone road beneath his feet had turned into a chaotic darkness.
In the darkness beyond the candlelight, there were faint, low barks, venomous mutterings, and murmured wails.
At first, they sounded like the distant barking of dogs drifting from a farmhouse late at night. But when he listened closely, they were completely different. They were clearly the low murmurs of indescribable things beyond the limits of imagination!
Ning Xiuyuan remained silent for a moment before setting off again, continuing forward and allowing the unimaginable things in the darkness to provoke and hate him.
After a long while, a sliver of light appeared ahead.
"Whew—"
Ning Xiuyuan let out a soft breath and hurried forward. Just as one foot was about to leave the darkness and step into the light, he suddenly withdrew it.
He looked around. The darkness had quieted considerably, but faint rustling sounds still lingered.
It was as if countless pairs of eyes were watching him.
"Where is this?" Ning Xiuyuan shouted.
The chaotic darkness remained unchanged, without even an echo.
Ning Xiuyuan stood solemnly in silence for a while, then turned and stepped toward the light.
The instant he entered the light, layers of voices suddenly rang out from the darkness. The voices contained only one word.
"Door... door... door..."
Endless echoes, like soul-stealing monsters, relentlessly burrowed into Ning Xiuyuan's ears, even after he had already left the darkness.
"Ghh—"
Ning Xiuyuan drew a deep breath. The voice felt like an icicle stabbing through his soul, chilling him to the marrow and causing unbearable pain!
He could even feel the portion of his supernatural characteristic that had yet to be fused boiling.
He did not know how much time passed before that indescribable pain finally eased somewhat.
"Huff... huff..."
Ning Xiuyuan panted heavily as he surveyed the world before him, but his mind was still reliving the shock and terror he had felt upon hearing the reply from within the darkness.
He did not know whether that "door" had been a response from an intelligent creature or the roar of a monster he had awakened.
But either way, he would know if he tried again.
However...
When he thought of how that single "door" had made him experience pain like being hacked apart by a thousand knives, Ning Xiuyuan considered it and decided to wait until he was stronger before trying again.
Once he had made up his mind, Ning Xiuyuan finished observing his surroundings.
This was a large farm. The stalks of the recently harvested crops had been compressed by balers into enormous cylinders and left scattered across the fields, making them look like building blocks for giants.
He looked around. The farm was vast, with no trace of people or birds.
"Judging by the looks of it, I seem to have returned to that Foundation world."
"Of course. Since there can be one world resembling Earth, it is not surprising that there could be another world resembling the Foundation world."
As Ning Xiuyuan pondered, he spread out the Heart of the Beast.
"Squeak, squeak, squeak..."
Before long, a large group of field mice crawled out of the stalks, squeaking as they clustered around Ning Xiuyuan's feet.
"Hm? The Disease Deceiver's fusion actually enhanced my Heart of the Beast as well. I could only control six before, but this time I can control as many as twenty-seven?"
"No wonder supernatural beings are ranked according to how many supernatural characteristics they have fused. So it turns out the two complement each other."
After marveling briefly at how much stronger the Heart of the Beast had become, Ning Xiuyuan spread the mice he controlled outward in a circle.
At the same time, he kept his hands moving. He took out the sealing bottle he carried with him, unscrewed the Crystal Lantern, and aimed the mouth of the bottle at the Bird-beaked Monster's supernatural characteristic.
In an instant, the Bird-beaked Monster's supernatural characteristic surged upward against the current and slowly flowed into the sealing bottle.
As expected, the process once again drew out the Mad Talk of the Rootless Soul.
--·--
"Do not seal me, my master! I am only a wisp of Rootless Soul. I have no value whatsoever. No, no, no, I have value! My value lies in knowledge. No, no, no, please do not extract my mental body! Wait, how do I know about mental bodies? What is a mental body?"
--·--
Ning Xiuyuan listened for a while. Only after the Rootless Soul began repeating its madness did he shift his gaze to the sealing bottle.
There was very little of the Bird-beaked Monster's supernatural characteristic, barely enough to coat the bottom of the sealing bottle.
Within the lamp oil, it had been a dark-brown fluid. Once it entered the bottle, its color instead grew slightly lighter, taking on a hint of scarlet.
Ning Xiuyuan held the mouth of the bottle beneath his nose and sniffed carefully. A faint smell of blood drifted out, but it was very sweet, carrying an inexplicable allure.
He pondered for a while. Thinking of the helpless predicaments he had faced over the past few days, he gritted his teeth, raised the sealing bottle, and drank it all in one gulp.
--He had had enough of drifting with the tide!
Before you continue