The baptism site for the God of Pain's followers was quite different from what Jia Xiu had imagined.
He had originally thought that, with the manor outside already turned into such a wild dance of demons, the core of this area had to be the most extreme, most twisted place imaginable. Otherwise, how could it live up to the faith's usual style?
Yet there was absolutely nothing eye-searing about it.
At the very heart of the manor stood an exquisite little chapel. Someone could have claimed its architectural style belonged to the Holy Light Church, and people would have believed it.
Brilliant stained-glass windows, spotless marble floors, pure-white decorative stone pillars, solemn frescoes across the ceiling, warm candle flames burning atop silver candlesticks, and even a somewhat smaller yet fully functional pipe organ.
The only thing that was not "Holy Light," perhaps, was the statue on the altar.
The statue was somewhat alluring rather than sacred. Its features were thoroughly androgynous, making its gender hard to distinguish. That fit the God of Pain's setting well enough—"pleasure" brought by pain did not distinguish between genders.
But Jia Xiu felt that scope was a little too narrow. Forget gender—even species did not need to be distinguished.
Jia Xiu now had reason to suspect that the design of this Church of the God of Pain had been copied wholesale from the Holy Light Church.
The worshippers at the ceremony were no longer dressed in outfits that screamed kidney deficiency. Instead, they wore perfectly proper priestly robes and nun's habits—not the sort of modified nun's habits designed for special purposes, searching for that subtle taboo between exposure and restraint, but formal versions that showed nothing but the face. Every worshipper held a candle and cradled a scripture, filling in as a choir to chant