Coin of Desire

"The moment the money for indulgences falls into the vault with a clink, the soul of the sinner the buyer is concerned about will immediately fly from Purgatory straight to heaven."

Wei Xiuming toyed with the three coins and uttered a sentence mockingly, causing Nick Fury, who was sitting opposite him, to get a headache again, because the person who first uttered those words was Pope Urban X.

Having witnessed the dark side of the world, Nick Fury's most profound conclusion was that none of the Three Factions of Apocalypse were good people.

Just like many times before, Wei Xiuming's statement was certainly not unfounded; these three coins must be related to the sect that originated in the first century AD. It's known to be the sect with the most followers in the world, with a large and powerful population. If this matter is indeed related to them, then it's terrible.

This was several days after Conglomerate B received the auction invitation. The auction had long since ended, and the items sold at the auction were of two kinds: several Gaia Memory and some coins that were said to possess great power.

Furthermore, SHOCKER's representatives even livestreamed how to use these two items, which received a very positive response, leading to outrageous price increases. Nick Fury spent a fortune to buy three coins from SHOCKER's auction; if he had bought just one more, Conglomerate B's cash flow would likely have dried up.

The transaction volume in that single day exceeded the total annual GDP of some small countries. Although the cost of the Gaia Memory and the coins is unknown, this SHOCKER made Shocker a fortune.

"When coins are dropped into the cash register and make a clinking sound, it only increases greed and avarice."

Nick Fury's response to Wei Xiuming was Martin Luther's Ninety-five Theses —knowledge from high school textbooks across the ocean. How ironic that a group of "unbelieving" people had to study religious history.

"Yes, the sound of coins represents desire." Wei Xiuming placed three coins on the table between them. "I think you should recognize what they are."

"Those coins in the underground space of the Old North Church, those stolen by the Hell Ambassador."

Although it was just a fleeting glimpse, the coins were deliberately taken away by the Hell Ambassador, leaving a deep impression on Nick Fury. Before Wei Xiuming left the underground base where he was researching the Tesseract, he had already conducted preliminary research on the three coins, but gained nothing except knowing that the substance that made up these coins was not a metallic element, but an element that does not exist on Earth.

"Five hundred years ago, after Martin Luther defined the sale of indulgences as greed, some people seized the opportunity, took his concept, and minted a batch of coins, using them as a tool to embody desire."

Wei Xiuming slowly explained the setting he had written, "This desire prop can stimulate and Absorbing Man desires. After being implanted into the human body, it can grant the person powerful strength until the desires are exhausted. Human desires are endless. The more one obtains through that power, the more one wants. During this process, the host's behavior can continuously charge the coin until the day the soul is exhausted, burning oneself to provide energy for the coin's transformation."

"Intercepting concepts... using desire as power, is this something humans are capable of?" Nick Fury asked.

He had witnessed individuals directly confronting spaceships with their own strength, but that could be explained by scientific principles. Could such conceptual entities truly be manipulated by humans?

Although he had witnessed it firsthand during the auction's live stream... a homeless man was implanted with a coin and instantly transformed into some kind of powerful monster, only to revert to human form after the coin was removed.

Wei Xiuming picked up a coin and said, "In an era almost like primitive society, humanity relied on its own strength to repel aliens who were like gods. So what can't they do?"

"In this world, magic and miracles exist, and it's not uncommon for people to gain immense power by signing a contract."

"Of course, the appearance of these Coin of Desire was not part of the Shield Brotherhood the future of humanity, so they were eliminated by them. After all of them were collected, they were sealed away, relying on the power of time to wear them down... Their plan is almost successful. In just a few years, these Coin of Desire will completely lose their function, until that underground space is discovered."

Upon hearing this, Nick Fury interjected at the opportune moment. "Is this something from your time?"

"Yes," Wei Xiuming said, "The person who created the Coin of Desire had descendants. How could he tolerate having his life's work confiscated by the Shield Brotherhood? His descendants inherited his will, searching the world for information about the Coin of Desire, and successfully released Coin of Desire that had developed self-awareness... Their anthropomorphic forms are called Apostles of Desire. Just by standing there doing nothing, the accumulated desires of billions of humans will make them incredibly powerful."

Nick Fury put on deerskin gloves, carefully picked up a coin, and said, "I can hardly imagine that scene."

"It's not hard to imagine that desire is a driving force for human progress, but without enough power to satisfy that desire, one will fall into an abyss. When the Apostles of Desire evolves to its extreme, the final result is a black hole that devours everything, sucking pedestrians into the sky, uprooting skyscrapers, and tearing the earth apart... Perhaps even the person who created the Coin of Desire did not foresee this outcome."

Wei Xiuming spread out one hand and said, "However, it's fortunate that the SHOCKER got these coins. After all, they are not that person's descendants and do not possess the technology to obtain the Coin of Desire. They can only rely on what they have to mend and patch things up... I estimate that the Coin of Desire they possess will not be very usable over time, and the power of desire stored within them has long been exhausted."

"The reason SHOCKER sold these coins was to fuel his collecting desires and keep them going?"

As he said this, Nick Fury was tinged with envy... Although Conglomerate B's hair growth tonic and cosmetics business was extremely profitable, it couldn't compare to the SHOCKER of getting others to pay them to work for free.

Nodding in agreement, Wei Xiuming replied, "This is the only method they can use... It's clumsy, but it works."

At this point in the conversation, Nick Fury suddenly became alert. "What about the descendant of the man who created the Coin of Desire? What if he finds out the Coin of Desire is in SHOCKER's hands and collaborates with him..."