Faith with a 100% Kill Rate

"This is Imhotep, High Priest of the Broken Lighthouse Temple."

Laganon First to Eat, his head topped with a cooking pot, sat inside the Catholic church. Beside him sat a tall, gaunt old man.

The old man wore robes as black as midnight, embroidered with emerald lines resembling circuitry that formed the image of a lighthouse.

The Broken Lighthouse Temple... Zhou Yun kept his expression unchanged. Based on the information he had obtained by reading minds at the bathhouse, the Broken Lighthouse Temple had recently been investigating wizards within Macragge City.

There was no need to think about it. The wizard they were looking for had to be Zhou Yun.

His previous prophecy had likely drawn the attention of the divinity within Pharos Lighthouse.

"We are waiting for Tatius, High Priest of the Semuneta Temple. We have a small meeting today, and I hope it will not interfere with your... uh, research?" Laganon said to Zhou Yun politely.

The Flying Spaghetti Church, the Broken Lighthouse Temple, and the Semoneta Church were holding a meeting here?

Zhou Yun looked around and finally confirmed that this was indeed a Catholic church. He had not come to the wrong place.

"Of course, we cannot meet in any of our own temples."

Imhotep, High Priest of the Broken Lighthouse Temple, spoke. He had sensed Zhou Yun's thoughts.

"If we met in any one temple, it would symbolize the other two submitting to it. Even if we ourselves did not care, the political consequences would be terrible. The believers would be unhappy as well, not to mention that some ambitious priests under us might use it to stir something up. Personnel matters are politics, after all. We cannot act recklessly."

"But here, in this Catholic church... where almost no one in all of Macragge believes, and which poses no threat whatsoever, it naturally becomes the most suitable place for us to meet."

Almost no one believed, and no threat whatsoever... Wasn't that a little too hurtful?

Zhou Yun looked at Bishop Agrippa. "I thought our church had always rejected polytheism."

Agrippa wore an indifferent expression. "But our church does not reject Denar—wait, what do you mean, our church? Did you pay and get baptized?"

"My Lord baptizes me with his divine power every day," Zhou Yun said solemnly.

He was not lying. The Emperor's psychic power was washing over him all day long... On second thought, it would be more accurate to say it was burning him.

"What does my Lord baptizing you have to do with our church? If you bribe the governor, can you stop paying taxes?" Agrippa said seriously.

Agrippa left Zhou Yun somewhat unsure how to respond.

"I still want that triangular room." As he spoke, Zhou Yun placed a Denar before Agrippa.

"I've been keeping it for you." Agrippa gestured for Zhou Yun to go in.

Zhou Yun did not linger. After nodding to Agrippa, he walked deeper into the church.

Watching Zhou Yun's departing back, Laganon turned to Imhotep.

"Is it him?" Laganon asked.

"Not sure." Imhotep shook his head. "I investigated him. He is Lucretius's student... Lucretius delved far too deeply into research on the era of the King of Sorcery. I am worried."

Deeply? Lucretius's understanding of psychic power was roughly equivalent to the Emperor's understanding of chastity...

"You are worried that he is a servant of the 'Eagle Crystal Flipping Pigeon'?" Laganon asked in a lowered voice.

Eagle Crystal Flipping Pigeon... Tzeentch? The Flying Spaghetti Monster truly had a remarkable talent for naming things.

"It was precisely our Lord who used the obelisk to suppress that King of Sorcery who was on the verge of ascension. I cannot help but worry—" Imhotep suddenly stopped halfway through.

He looked around warily and pulled a metallic cylinder from his robe. A piece of Blackstone was embedded at its exact center.

This was... some kind of device using Blackstone? Had he been discovered?

Imhotep gently twisted the cylinder, and the Blackstone within trembled a few times.

Laganon frowned slightly. He could feel the blessing from the Flying Spaghetti Monster around him growing much weaker.

"You think he is spying on us? That makes sense. If he truly is a servant of the Eagle Crystal Flipping Pigeon, perhaps he really has mastered such complex psychic techniques."

What was so complex about it? Wasn't this just an ordinary lesser psychic spell?

"I am merely worried, not certain. It is only a necessary security measure." As he spoke, Imhotep increased the cylinder's operating power by another level. Laganon even began to feel as though his soul had become hollow.

"What sharp judgment..." Within the triangular room, Zhou Yun's projected will was shattered by the anti-Warp field emitted by the Blackstone.

It seemed that every wizard in Macragge was within the Broken Lighthouse Temple's range of suspicion. They could not determine whether Zhou Yun was the person who had seen the Lighthouse in the prophecy.

Zhou Yun did not intend to contact the Broken Lighthouse Temple yet and surrender the initiative.

He truly wanted Pharos Lighthouse, but he did not trust the divinity within it.

Believe in the Warp, and the kill rate was still not one hundred percent.

But believing in the C'tan was different. The C'tan's kill rate was a genuine one hundred percent.

Just think of the Necrons. Because they believed in the C'tan, they were eaten clean as little snacks, body and soul alike. Then they were expelled as metal skeletons copied with fragments of their memories.

A person could insist that the self transformed into a Daemon Prince by the gods was still himself. He could claim that the self whose soul had been shattered and reassembled was still himself. He could even say that the self repeatedly resurrected by the gods within the bodies of those who killed him was still himself.

But he would absolutely never say that the feces expelled after he was eaten by a C'tan was also himself.

The Necrons had been completely annihilated on both the spiritual and material levels.

Before earning Roboute Guilliman's trust and confirming that Guilliman had grown strong enough, Zhou Yun would not rashly make contact with the Shattered Lighthouse.

In all of Macragge, the only one who could contend with a Supreme C'tan was Robert Guilliman.

After all, even a fragment of Khaine the Bloody-Handed, the Aeldari god of war who had once fought the C'tan, could be strangled to death by Fulgrim with a bare chokehold. Primarchs truly were fascinating things.

Zhou Yun gathered his scattered thoughts after his extended will had been dispersed. After taking two deep breaths and steeling himself, he slowly released his will back onto the Golden Throne.

The piercing burning pain of the Golden Throne surged over him. Zhou Yun's will did not pause at all, projecting almost instantly toward the coordinates he had discovered within the blue-and-gold storm, toward that world steeped in the scent of blood and red sand.

Breathe—

Sand soaked in blood rushed into Zhou Yun's lungs. He heard weapons clashing, deafening shouts, and the low roars of beasts.

He opened his eyes. Sunlight reflected from the hot sand entered them, while the flames descending from the Golden Throne burned away every cell in his body before remolding them. His fatal wounds vanished as a result.

He stretched out an arm, braced himself against the red sand, and slowly rose to his feet...

Silence came first. Then deafening cheers erupted.

"Spectators! An astonishing scene has appeared! Our new gladiator slave, Zhou Yun, did not die—he has stood up!"