I Really Want to Visit Slaanesh's Palace for Something Mild

They'd isolated all the other temples... No, the other temples had isolated them, hadn't they?

This shabby church was not only on the very edge of the Temple District, but practically at the edge of Macragge itself. Within dozens of meters, there was not another temple to be found besides this church.

One look at Zhou Yun's expression was enough for Agrippa to understand what he was thinking.

"Well, we don't have any money. Land in the core area of the Temple District is terrifyingly expensive. Even if we sold the whole church, it would only be enough to build a toilet—our Lord isn't some toilet god."

Fair enough. Fair enough...

Hearing that, Zhou Yun could not help curling his lips into a faint smile, only for it to freeze almost immediately.

Because he suddenly remembered that he was currently sitting on that shabby toilet.

Agrippa did not notice Zhou Yun's expression. He merely rapped on his iron mechanical prosthetic leg as he spoke.

"But let me tell you, we're the old guard. What qualifications do those temples outside have?"

"Our church was founded before humanity even left Terra. Back then, we had over a billion believers. Do you know who was in our church at the time? Let me tell you—Jesus, the Son of God. You know him?"

"But later, our church discovered that humanity was starting to lose faith, so we stopped proselytizing as much. Then those upstarts went off and started spreading their own faiths."

"So how did you end up in such a state now?" Zhou Yun glanced at the mosaic on the wall. The Golden Knight's eyes were empty; they appeared to have once been set with gemstones, which had most likely been pried out and sold for money.

Agrippa waved his hand helplessly. "Macragge people are like this. They always like believing in many faiths at once, offering faith to many divine beings at once, as though that will let them receive the protection of many gods simultaneously."

"But our church does not believe there are other gods in this world. We worship only the one true God and reject other polytheistic faiths, so naturally Macragge people do not like us."

"Seriously, brother, I think either don't believe at all, or if you absolutely have to believe, then believe in just one... Believe in one, and the chances of running into an evil god are lower. Believe in too many, and it gets dangerous. What if one of them turns out to be an evil god?"

Zhou Yun nodded in deep agreement.

In a purely material world, or in a world where most gods were benevolent, the mindset of believing in more because it cost nothing was not much of a problem. Believe for fun—what if it actually worked?

But in this galaxy, in a world with the Warp, believing in so many religions all at once...

Macragge only got away with it because the veil here was relatively thick. In other places where the Warp was more active, believing in so many at once would have gotten them added to the Warp demons' Crazy Thursday meal deal long ago.

"Isn't your faith a little lacking in devotion?" Zhou Yun had long noticed that this bishop did not seem particularly devout.

His belief in his Lord seemed more like a simple choice than fanatical faith.

"No." Agrippa's expression turned more solemn. "I still faithfully believe in my Lord, just not because of empty myths."

As he spoke, Agrippa looked toward the mosaic of the Silver Dragon and the Golden Knight, remembering the teachings of the previous bishop.

Words once spoken by that bishop, who seemed to know a great deal about history, now came from Agrippa's mouth.

"Religion is born from myth. Myth arises from legend. Legend comes from stories. Stories draw from history. History, meanwhile, is a retelling of reality."

"Reality itself is often utterly ordinary. It merely gets exaggerated from what it originally was."

After repeating the previous bishop's words, Agrippa paused and pointed at the mosaic.

"Just like this mosaic. Perhaps this Golden Knight was only an ordinary soldier who merely stabbed some vicious crocodile or lizard to death."

"But is killing a crocodile not great?"

"A Silver Dragon is dangerous to a god, while a crocodile is just as dangerous to an ordinary soldier."

"He must have possessed tremendous courage to challenge that beast. After he succeeded, people could freely draw water, children could play freely among the reeds, and parents no longer had to fear crocodiles devouring lives."

"Such virtues in reality are equally worthy of admiration and reverence."

Zhou Yun could not help scratching his head.

That sounded very good.

The only problem was that the mural had not exaggerated reality at all.

The Golden Knight in that mural was the Emperor of Mankind.

And that roaring Silver Dragon was an ancient C'tan born from the vast sea of energy at the dawn of creation; the master of the material realm capable of freely twisting the laws of physics, a star-devourer that fed upon suns, the creator of the Blackstone Obelisk Matrix, the embodiment of ruin and destruction in the Aeldari tongue, and the prototype of the Omnissiah in the Mechanicus of Mars—the Void Dragon, a fragment of Mag'ladroth.

The Emperor of Mankind had fought the Void Dragon fragment in the third century AD, ultimately defeating it and sealing it upon Mars.

From the memories Zhou Yun had just seen, the confrontation between the Emperor of Mankind and the Void Dragon had completely exceeded the limits of human comprehension. The Void Dragon fragment had repeatedly unfolded dimensions folded into the microscopic realm, while the Emperor of Mankind had repeatedly dragged the Void Dragon into the Warp.

Even Zhou Yun, who had witnessed the memory of that battle, could not accurately describe its course, because the causal relationships during their clash had been utterly scrambled.

Honestly, compared to the real situation, this painting was an absurd understatement.

When a knight fought a crocodile, saying the mountains collapsed and the earth split would be exaggeration.

When a Warp god fought a god of the material universe, saying the mountains collapsed and the earth split was understatement.

"What do you think of the Semuneta Temple?" Zhou Yun shook his head and turned to Agrippa.

"Semuneta, the goddess of beauty. I have read about their history. In the era before Old Night ended, there was a beautiful woman named Semuneta. She was born into wealth, but she was kind-hearted. Through her influence, she founded Macragge's first relief station for the poor."

"After her death, the poor people she had helped believed that Semuneta had ascended to godhood and become the goddess of beauty in the heavens. That was how faith in Semuneta was born."

Agrippa tapped his prosthetic limb as he continued.

"But I would still advise you not to have too much contact with the Semoneta Church, apart from repaying your debt."

"Why?" Zhou Yun's brows furrowed slightly as he hoped to obtain more information.

"In their own scriptures, they record a moment called the 'Time of First Cry.' After that, the Semoneta Church became somewhat different." Agrippa looked at Zhou Yun. "You should ask your teacher. Lucretius studied that period of history and made an interesting discovery."

"What?"

"The Time of First Cry and the decline of the Witch Kings' rule occurred at almost the same time. You could even put it this way: the Time of First Cry and the end of Old Night happened at the same time."

"...All right, I think I understand." Zhou Yun let out a breath.

So that was what the Time of First Cry was.

He had thought it was when the Aeldari's indulgence gave birth to Slaanesh, the fourth Chaos god who presided over excess, whose first cry rang out through the Warp, destroyed the Aeldari Empire, tore reality open to create the Eye of Terror, scattered the Warp storms, broke the balance between the gods, and left them too occupied to care about mortals, thus ending Old Night.

Zhou Yun silently mourned the beautiful Semuneta for thirteen seconds.

If she had truly existed and been worshipped by her followers into some sort of Warp entity, then Slaanesh had probably already taken over her account and gone public in her shell. Semuneta herself might even be enjoying herself in Slaanesh's palace... Hopefully Lady Semuneta liked jobs involving human flesh harps.

Thinking of that, Zhou Yun no longer felt quite so sorry for Semuneta.

How could Semuneta have it worse than him? He also wanted to get off the Golden Throne and visit Slaanesh's palace for something mild.

After sighing, Zhou Yun turned to Agrippa.

"I want to buy something from you."

Agrippa blinked, then could not stop a smile from appearing at the corner of his mouth. "The bread and fish sauce at our church are both exquisite. You can pay that child Diana. I'll give you a special price: six asses per jar of fish sauce, five asses per loaf of bread—"

"Wait, I'm not talking about fish sauce or bread." Zhou Yun raised a hand to interrupt Agrippa.

"Then what?" Agrippa looked confused.

"Are the holy relics here for sale?" Zhou Yun glanced at the candlesticks, incense burner, and ritual vessels placed on the altar beneath the mosaic.

Those sacred items were all made of ordinary copper and iron, and their designs were even somewhat crude. They also looked as though they had been used for many years.

"...These are our faith. If I sold them, would the Lord still forgive me... You understand what I mean, right?"

"I'll pay more."

"At this point, Lord, you'll just have to put up with it."