Chapter 626

Chapter 11 The Cause and Effect Part 1

“…”

I curled up in the chair, reading the last few paragraphs on this page repeatedly. The more I read, the more my mind went blank. I could no longer focus on those words. With a “snap,” I closed the book, rubbed my temples, closed my eyes, and tried to digest and think about these matters.

Spirit essence… Sacrifice… Angel’s egg… Wait a moment…

Angel’s egg, does it refer to some kind of power that can turn heretics into monsters?

Like Teresa in the royal city, like the clown…

Hmm, quite possible…

But what exactly is that thing?

… Don’t know.

Anyway, it definitely isn’t that meaty mass, otherwise those disqualified ones would have turned into monsters long ago and wouldn’t have been so easily killed by me…

And the goddess’s promise, the eradication of the abyss… The abyss is the power of the Mother Goddess… I guessed this when I was in the Dragon Homeland… But why?

Why would the Mother Goddess do this?

Is it because she has also gone mad like the Sin Goddess?

The anger of the gods…

But what exactly are they angry about, even going so far as to go mad?

I don’t know…

There’s too little information to deduce…

But that woman wants the Sin Goddess to regain her divine power and restore order disrupted by the church, and I shouldn’t be wrong about this.

That’s why she went to Woodward Forest to awaken that divine body…

“Sigh—”

I let out a long breath.

My head is such a mess…

But now I finally understand a bit.

Those people listed and then crossed out, Eluna had the intention of sending them to their deaths from the very beginning…

After she realized that the Door of Truth had completely vanished, and that almost all who remained were true villains… After realizing this, she began to take desperate measures.

The war in Silgaya was the final gamble of the Door of Truth and that woman.

This content was probably written some years ago, at least before 1181. At that time, the dancer had just made this decision. She started gathering the remnants of the Door of Truth, and from January 1181, the so-called “sacrifice” of the goddess’s spirit essence officially began. The specific methods were unclear, but she must have found ways to avoid the church’s notice and secretly prepared a lot during these years.

Since then, there have been heretics active in West Continent, secretly carrying out a series of covert operations… By then, the dancer had already been preparing for the upcoming war…

She dared to be so bold, believing she saw hope, and risking everything to make this move, because apart from the indispensable factors, there was also the goddess’s “spirit essence” making a promise to her… She firmly believed in that promise…

Spirit essence…

I remember that woman mentioned this to me when I was in the Dragon Homeland.

She said the church calls this the “spark of fire”…

It should be something akin to the spirit or spiritual body of a god, or perhaps the brain, thoughts—these kinds of existences… In many fantasy novels, they might call it the “divine soul” or “divine core”… According to my understanding, it’s roughly like this.

And the corpse that awakened in the Dragon Homeland was the fleshly body of a god… These two can be separated… Without the spirit essence, the fleshly body is just an empty shell devoid of thought, which is what that woman told me.

So…

That spirit essence wants to use the Door of Truth and Eluna’s hands to revive its fleshly body, right? Then, through some method, fuse the spirit essence with the fleshly body, only then can it truly regain its divine power.

However…

“It deceived me…”

I recalled the despondent words that woman said to me when she was in utter despair in the Dragon Homeland.

“The establishment of the Door of Truth, the generations upon generations of persistence by so many people, turned out to be nothing more than a sad and laughable dream, an utterly complete deception that we firmly believed in…”

“A thousand years of anger, a thousand years of pain, I underestimated what it endured too much…”

“Even gods can go mad after endless torment and destruction…”

The fragmented memories echoed in my ears as I held the book close to my chest, the curled-up girl’s starry eyes flickering in the light of the flames.

After a moment, she took a deep breath.

… So it’s like this.

So that woman meant this…

“… Heh.”

A cold laugh drifted through the empty cellar.

Now I understand everything…

It’s that spirit essence.

It’s the goddess’s spirit essence that deceived that cold-hearted dancer.

It made a promise to her, promising that if it could help me resurrect and regain divine power, I would clean up the abyss, eradicate the chaos power spread by the Mother Goddess in this world, and restore the order of the world… Perhaps it even promised the dancer that I would return humans a peaceful and stable homeland… Something like that.

Perhaps, using similar promises, it has been deceiving the upper echelons of the Door of Truth all along.

In any case, the dancer firmly believed in its promise.

Maybe that woman never imagined that one day the gods would deceive humans…

Unfortunately…

From the current results, the Sin Goddess has long gone mad. It doesn’t want to restore the order of the world; instead, it plans to destroy everything… Perhaps after destroying everything, it will establish a new order, but that is clearly not what the dancer wanted.

She was played by the gods.

So it’s like this…

If this is really the case, then everything seems far more complicated than I thought…

East Continent…

Judging from the words written by the woman, perhaps the erosion of the abyss in East Continent has exceeded my imagination…

She mentioned the Red River… I remember Carlos once told me that his hometown seemed to be over there… Right, Carlos!

He also came to East Continent!

But if the truth is like this, then what…

Would he come here for?

I started to recall the words Carlos said to me before he left, but I couldn’t remember clearly, only remembering that he seemed to ramble on about a lot of things, veering off topic before getting to the point… But I know, his teacher, the Sword Saint gentleman, has been staying here doing something… He should be looking for his teacher… So, what is the Sword Saint gentleman doing here?

… Spirit essence!

They’re looking for that spirit essence!

No mistake!

And this matter must be related to the church… No, it must be the mission granted by Angel. He has been searching for this, and finding it would completely crush the Door of Truth; they all know this!

But…

They’ve been hiding this from me…

Carlos, you’re hiding this from me too…

You… didn’t tell me…

With a “snap,” I threw the book onto the table.

Why…

Could it be…

Do you all know that I’m a product of an experiment…

What do you all see me as?

What do you all want me to do…

Is the internal struggle within the church also related to this…

What am I thinking? Of course, it matters. Think about Nero’s attitude towards me back then…

That old man must know that I was a test subject too.

He definitely wouldn’t agree with Angel’s methods, but he had no better way to stop him. So, he was willing to do anything to eliminate me in the capital, even if it meant involving innocent lives. Even if he had to become a sinner, he wanted me dead…

After that, Angel and Carlos arrived.

The reason behind that battle was far more complicated than what I initially thought…

Angel used me to eliminate perhaps the most stubborn enemy within the church… Looking back now, the experiments must have proceeded much more smoothly after that… I cleared the path for him… Later on, there was only Cardinal Saint George left. Oh, the war in Silgayan South, the entire Third Knight Order under Cardinal Nero was wiped out, and the people from the Coin Guild were also accused of crimes. When we were in Alethein City, a few people were executed… I remember it clearly…

I should have noticed something was wrong back then…

“Hah…”

I trembled, exhaling deeply.

It was getting cold, so I curled up tighter.

How foolish was I…

It took a long time for my emotions to calm down.

Teresa…

I thought of Teresa again.

I remembered her writing in her book that she saw a deity…

Teresa must have known the truth. She couldn’t accept such a truth, so she chose to join the Gate of Truth…

Deity…

Did she see a divine body? Or a spark, or something else… What kind of event could make her make such an extreme choice…

I must understand clearly…

Only by clarifying everything can I avoid being used as a tool again, manipulated without realizing it…

I picked up the book again.

Elona’s notes started from before 1181. She probably hadn’t met Teresa yet, so I might find more information about Teresa here…

Flip…

The book opened to the previous page I had read.

[January 1181, the sacrifice officially began.

On this day, I met the clown. I talked to him for a long time.

The clown is the person I despise the most. He has absolutely no humanity. My father valued him, but I never spoke to him. I hated him, hated his eyes. But now, I had to sit with him because our goals were temporarily aligned. He needed my strength, and I had to use his methods.

I had no other options.

I told him everything without reservation. I knew I couldn’t fool this man. He had an angelic egg inside him and knew that none of those people could survive. But this madman was extremely interested in this matter. He was truly evil, wanting to see more people die in pain in Westland.

The clown hates the church.

From my father, I learned about his past.

He yearned for all the believers to die, which aligned with my intentions.

The clown agreed to keep this confidential and promised to bring more believers to me. Nowadays, this man’s influence over the Gate of Truth is much stronger than mine. He agreed to deceive those evil people into the altar, offering more robust flesh and blood, which I was naturally glad to see.

The clown’s only demand was that the war in Silgayan would be entrusted to him. I agreed to his request, in fact, it suited me perfectly. I wasn’t good at coordinating wars.

The clown could do better than me.

And many more civilians in Westland would die as a result.

But I had no choice.

February 3, 1181

Things were worse than I expected.

None of the first batch of people who received the blood sacrifice survived the ceremony. They all died, their flesh nourishing the goddess and restoring her power. This was perhaps the only thing to be grateful for.

I needed more believers in the revival phase. The goddess’s essence required more nourishment from blood tainted by the flames of sin. But after this accident, people started questioning me.

The clown killed those people.

We lost many believers that night, and the evil people the clown promised to bring didn’t show up.

He had to find more people for me.

He had to.

May 1181

This month, the town watchmen had a long talk with me.

Mayor Robert noticed what I was doing. He seemed quite serious, likely thinking hard about it. In the end, he decided to negotiate with me. After hearing my statement, he went back without saying a word. I felt uneasy, worried that he might resist and disrupt everything.

But it turned out well. The next day, he started having people follow me.

I gained more assistants.

They made conditions though, refusing to allow sacrifices of townspeople. That was fine; I never intended to sacrifice them anyway. Unpurified bodies couldn’t be used for sacrifices.

July 1181

The goddess awakened again. The clown kept his promise. More believers participated in the second sacrifice, but the results were still unsatisfactory.

Fortunately, the essence absorbed enough blood, and it fell asleep again. Next year, when it awakens, it will bestow more believers with the power of the sacrifice.

Things are always moving forward. The first person to survive will eventually appear.

March 1182

I discovered that the clown had secretly arranged actions in Westland related to the Lone Fruit Grass.

He wanted to stir up trouble in Westland before the war began. Silgayan, the Valen Empire, and Isenbel seemed to have been sent people by him. I was angry at his recklessness and lack of consideration, but the clown was very firm. He advised me not to interfere and warned me never to try to meddle in his actions because he wouldn’t make mistakes.

He said my father used to handle things that way too.

I almost fought him.

But after calming down, I thought seriously about it. If his actions succeeded, they would have a very favorable impact on us. Westland would be thrown into chaos, and the church leadership would be in disarray. At that point, our actions would face less pressure.

It was a gamble.

So, I decided to let him proceed.

All these actions were aimed at advancing our plan, adding weight to the future war, even if it was just a little bit. Our chances of winning would increase.

Maybe the clown was clearer-headed than me on this issue.

But, more people would die…

I couldn’t think about that anymore.

September 6, 1182

Still, no one survived this year.

It was different from what I expected, and I felt very frustrated. Meanwhile, the doubts around me grew louder, even the clown couldn’t suppress them.

We conducted a large-scale purge that night. The fires spread from the town to the desert. The next day, I noticed a change in the mayor’s gaze when he looked at me.

October 18, 1182

Incredible!

The famous saint, Teresa Anthony, who was almost chosen as a church saint, actually approached me!