The Return from the Other Shore, Volume Five: The Pillar and the Witch (3)

Humans are emotional beings.

When you're sad, you cry; when you're happy, you laugh; when you're angry, you argue; when you're frustrated, you become depressed.

But... how do humans know what sadness and happiness are?

There's only one answer—personal experience.

It is through experiencing various minor setbacks—losing money, being scolded by parents, being bullied, and so on—that one comes to understand, "Ah, this is sadness, it's so painful." Similarly, it is through being cheated, experiencing setbacks, and witnessing intolerable things that one comes to understand anger. The same principle applies to sadness, confusion, and heartbreak.

But what if there really was someone in this world who grew up in a world isolated from negative emotions?

Prayer you grow up in an incredibly pure environment from a young age.

There was no pain, no sorrow, no anger, no impure emotion.

From the moment of her birth, she was nurtured as a seed of Goddess, never leaving the Cathedral of the True God, and day after day instilled with false doctrines and formulaic virtues. Everyone who educated her treated her with pure goodwill, Prayer that as the core of the core, she must remain absolutely pure, and that all negative emotions were unnecessary.

This has been the consistent Prayer throughout history, and there has never been a mistake.

But now an unexpected situation has arisen.

The current person is Prayer love, but it's an unrequited love that can never be fulfilled, and the object of that love is none other than her best friend's Guardian Knight.

Having grown up isolated from the world, she didn't even know that this was "love," so she was confused.

The difference in their social status meant that her beautiful wishes were destined to remain unfulfilled, which is why she was sad.

She was jealous because the man she liked only truly cared about her best friend.

That so-called friend even caused him to be punished and forced him to make enemies of everyone, so she was furious.

If Prayer were an ordinary child who grew up in the outside world, this level of negative emotions wouldn't be a big deal; at most, she would just throw a tantrum.

But for overly pure Prayer, even such a small amount of negative emotion is like a deadly poison.

More importantly--

"Poor child... helpless child... unable to do anything, only able to watch helplessly as everything that belonged to him slowly slips away..."

--That voice.

The voice of the Supreme God.

Always full of love, yet always able to accurately hit the weakest spot in the heart, like cutting the most fragile mucous membrane with a knife.

The shift in her emotions created cracks in her once-flawless heart, and those words, like sharp knives, gradually widened those cracks.

"Where is the beautiful world we were promised? Where is the happy life we were promised? Look at all this, how tragic! Your friends are to be executed, your beloved is gone forever, the Church, your home, is being destroyed. Your pathetic faith can't save you at all. Think about it, what do you have left?"

I... have nothing left...

"Nothing left? That can't be right, there's still something very important left."

The most important thing...?

"Isn't the root of this series of tragedies, which is more important than anything else, right inside you?"

My body?

"That's right, the things passed down through generations of Prayer, the Divine Item that have always resided within you, the very foundation of your cult, you bunch of idiots— the Truth Incantation!"

In the church, which had been turned into a mess by Tianlu and Yu Jie, Zane Simon was the first to notice the Goddess's strange behavior.

"My Lord Prayer! What's wrong!?"

Zanla Simon noticed it immediately afterward.

"Sir! Are you feeling unwell? You look like you're in a lot of pain!"

As the Guardian Knight of the Prayer and the second and third seats of the Templar Knight, the two incredibly loyal brothers immediately approached the Prayer who had suddenly knelt down.

Boom!!!!

Then they were simultaneously thrown back, flying more than ten meters until they crashed into a dilapidated wall and came to a stop! The two brothers groaned as they got up, and were shocked to find that their bodies were being burned by holy light!

"What's going on!?"

"Lord Prayer!"

Not far from them, Prayer's body, kneeling on the ground, was trembling violently. She hugged her upper body tightly with her arms, and her face grew paler and paler! But strangely, her expression was calm, as calm as if she were performing a daily prayer.

A faint silver light emanated from her body, along with pure white runes. The runes resembled both antique carvings and elegant penmanship, layered upon each other, arranged in neat rows, exuding a sense of orderly beauty.

Swish!!!

The silver light grew increasingly dazzling, eventually converging into a bright white pillar that shot straight into the sky. Countless pure white runes flew in all directions, illuminating the dilapidated church as if it were a celestial palace. Prayer's body gradually blurred in the light, her flesh—from skin to organs—dissolving into the white light, finally transforming into a life-sized sphere of light that floated in place.

The Brother Simon were so astonished they couldn't close their mouths; they had no idea what this meant and were at a loss for words.

"Hey... brother, Lord Prayer... turned into light?"

"No way! How could this happen—"

Zane quickly stepped forward and reached out his hand towards the orb of light, but at that moment the orb of light trembled violently, a small crack appeared in the middle, and a small ball of light emerged from it.

The light was pure white, and although it was a radiant light, it had the texture of a liquid or a soft solid, constantly changing its shape. Sometimes it transformed into a cross of light, sometimes it twisted into the shape of wings, and sometimes it became the halo of an angel. This transformation lasted for nearly a minute before it stopped.

Its form was also fixed on a rune.

At first glance, this rune seemed no different from the one that had previously appeared on Prayer's body, but the oppressive aura it exuded was worlds apart. The Brother Simon were already drenched in cold sweat after just a few seconds of staring at it, their bodies feeling as if they were about to collapse...

... Feeling weak?

Before they even realized it, the two of them were already lying on the ground.

"What... is going on?"

"Strange... I feel... completely weak?"

The two tried desperately to move their limbs, but no matter how hard they gritted their teeth, they couldn't move them; not even a finger trembled! The weakness grew more and more severe; their limbs were powerless, their vision blurred, and even their consciousness became hazy. This was definitely not just ordinary physical weakness! They could feel—something deeper, something more primal, was being stripped away from them!

The rune flickered quietly a few times. At first, the flash was a little dim, but after a few flashes it became clear and bright, just like... a girl who had just woken up and was trying to shake off her sleepiness.

In fact, she is indeed a teenage girl.

The white light of the runes converged, forming a phantom image of a young girl. The girl was very petite, with a flat chest and hips; she had soft, white, shoulder-length hair with cute curls at the ends, and what was even more striking was the pair of cat ears on her head—these cat ears were soft and droopy, like the ears of a Scottish Fold cat.

"Woo... mmm... meow?"

It also made a sound, though like its body, almost no one could perceive it.

The girl opened her still sleepy eyes, looked around, and then--

"Hey, hey... where am I... who are these people lying on the ground...?"

Not only the Brother Simon, but also the surrounding paladins Divine Spellcaster collapsed to the ground, wisps of white light eroding their bodies. The girl—the personification of the Truth Incantation— could tell at a glance that these people had lost not only physical strength, but also their life force as their very essence!

"W-wh-what's going on? Why did this happen as soon as I woke up? MacArthur... MacArthur? What have you done... Huh?"

The Truth Incantation raised an eyebrow, covered his forehead with his hand, closed his eyes, seemingly sensing something, and a few seconds later—

"How... how could this happen! MacArthur actually used my power to construct such an outrageous 'order'... and... he even activated the 'order's' final defense mechanism, forcibly draining the life force of believers and infusing it into the innocent girl at its core!"

She frantically looked left and right, trying to help the fallen person up, but her body was only a blurry image; she couldn't touch the real person.

"What do we do, what do we do... If this continues, the believers will be in grave danger in less than an hour. Why... MacArthur, didn't you say you wanted to create a world without war? Why did you design it like this...?"

If we use a computer analogy, the constructed order is the operating system, the first Pope MacArthur is the editor, subsequent Pope are the operators, the three Goddess are the CPU, and the Truth Incantation itself is both the language used to write the system and the entity that provides the energy to make the system run.

However--

"Stop! Stop! Waaah... It's no use... MacArthur, you bad guy..."

Logically, the Truth Incantation should provide the energy to keep the order running, so the order should stop operating once the Truth Incantation cuts off the energy supply. However, no matter how hard the Truth Incantation tries, this "last defense mechanism" shows no sign of stopping!

"This is outrageous... So that's how it is, MacArthur... You've included hundreds of millions of followers in the order... This way, at crucial moments, you can directly extract their life force as driving energy, and even if I cut off my own energy supply, it won't work!"

MacArthur used the Truth Incantation to establish order, but the Truth Incantation itself could not stop the order!

"What should we do... If this continues, we'll all die, who can—!"

Truth Incantation's eyes lit up. She looked in a certain direction, and her previously droopy cat ears stood up.

"This fluctuation... there's no mistake! It's Luo-chan! After so long, I can finally see her again! With her help... if... uh..."

The cat ears that had been standing up drooped down again.

"This is troublesome. I don't know why Luo-chan always dislikes me... I clearly want to be friends... No! Now is not the time to worry about this! Lives are at stake, I can't afford to make another mistake..."

"Can't we keep making the same mistake? I'd rather make that mistake a little longer."

"Huh!?"

A woman's voice suddenly rang in her ear, mature, alluring, and dangerously captivating.

The essence of the Truth Incantation was suddenly bound by an inexplicable force. It rose uncontrollably along the towering pillar of light, flying towards the highest spire of the entire Cathedral of the True God!

"Unfortunately, after so much preparation, I've already infiltrated the order of the Divine Law Cult. Now, the manipulator of this new order isn't the Pope or the Goddess, but me! Poor Truth Incantation, though you possess immense power, you're also the only Divine Item whose abilities are unrelated to combat! But don't worry, I promise... I'll give you a more suitable battlefield right away!"

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Shin-chan is so cute, but as someone who's not into lolis, I have absolutely no interest in her...