"The great Everlasting Presence, Serena Bright! Good follows you, evil admires you! Light yearns for you, and darkness also hopes for you! You are a being beyond all things, the color with which God has gilded all creation!"
When Yaxiu crawled out of the body bag, he saw countless black-robed believers kneeling with their faces pressed to the ground, singing hymns in fervent voices. That familiar laudation nearly triggered his post-traumatic stress disorder.
So this hymn really was the world's standardized version?!
"I have a strong suspicion we got dragged into this because of you, Yaxiu..." Harvey's aggrieved voice came from beside him, and then he let out a stifled grunt, because the black-robed cultist next to him had stepped on his left arm and flattened it outright—not because the cultist was putting in much force, but because Harvey's left arm was missing a bone.
Last night, facing Gessas's sniping, all of them had handled it miserably: Yaxiu had been forced to stop, Langna and Ronald had covered each other, and Igola had lost a huge chunk of flesh that still hadn't healed. Harvey had it easiest of all—he tossed a bone into the air, and the bullet aimed at his body somehow veered off onto the bone, seemingly leaving the necromancer completely unharmed.
But during the car ride of more than ten hours just now, Yaxiu had already noticed that Harvey's left hand was practically useless; he couldn't even lift it. Seeing it now, there was no mistaking that Harvey was probably the most badly hurt of them all—Igola could at least regrow his own flesh, but Harvey had no way to grow back a bone with his recovery ability.
Presumably the necromancy faction had a miracle for restoring bone; it was just that Harvey had been fitted with a dog collar the moment he crossed the passage, leaving him no time to give his arm a new bone—like someone who finds there's no toilet paper and resorts to his fingers, only to discover once he's out that the water's been shut off. Truly pitiful.
The black-robed freak's chains coiled around the three of them again like tentacles, hoisting them up by their collars, and only then could Yaxiu finally take in his surroundings—what a familiar underground hall!
The hall was over ten meters high and the size of two football fields, and under the light of dense hanging braziers it looked both bright and ancient. The walls were perfectly smooth, covered entirely in strange, gaudily colored murals: crowds queuing up to be slaughtered; six pairs of men and women contorted into a bizarre group posture for copulation; hundreds of people cutting their own throats so that their blood filled a swimming pool; rotting images of creatures of every race.
By any reasonable standard, such brilliant colors paired with content that utterly inverted all natural order should have brought pollution and shock to anyone. Yet after one look, no disgust welled up in Yaxiu's heart, though he didn't like it either—he simply appreciated it as ordinary artistic murals.
"Don't look. It's poison," Igola whispered beside him, and Yaxiu snapped back to himself—the moment he could accept this bizarre aesthetic, could even regard it as normal art, he had already been silently corrupted.
Igola alone had detected his own abnormality, because he genuinely had a professional aesthetic sense—something Harvey and Yaxiu, two artless lowlifes who could admire the shape of their own droppings after answering nature's call, could never hope to match.
The chains on the three of them were tugged, and the black-robed man gestured for them to walk on. Ahead of Yaxiu lay a narrow stone path over water; this underground hall actually had a pool, and in the waters on either side of the path stood four statues: a valiant general, an elegant middle-aged scholar, a kindly old man, and a pure young girl.
They obediently walked the stone path. The believers who had been singing hymns suddenly fell silent and knelt quietly on the ground, and for a moment the only thing echoing through the underground hall was the sound of their footsteps.
When they reached the towering silver-white throne, the chains behind them suddenly jerked, forcing them down onto their knees.
"Are you the ones from another realm?"
From the silver throne, whose back was turned to them, came a sweet, ingenuous voice. They raised their heads and saw the throne swivel around with perfect smoothness, and then all three of them wore looks of shock.
On the silver throne sat a tiny girl who appeared to be less than ten years old. A single lock of her silver-white hair was dyed wine red, giving the color more depth; she wore a very cute gothic dress, black with white lace trim, like an exquisitely made doll.
And yet she had no hands, and no feet.
She was like a doll with clothes pulled over its torso but whose limbs had not yet been attached, set upon the silver throne as an ornament.
Two mechanical arms extended from the throne; the right cradled a cup of steaming drink, the left held a thin comic book. She seemed to be enjoying afternoon tea while reading comics.
"Yes, Everlasting Presence," the black-robed man said, kneeling. "It has already been confirmed with the Book of Gospel. They are indeed people from another realm."
"Thank you for your trouble," the little girl said. "Then bring the other sacrifices over as well. The ritual begins at once—the Four Pillar Gods can hardly wait!"
"Yes!"
Fervor swept through the underground hall in an instant, and even the hanging braziers burned more fiercely. Bound tightly by chains and unable to break free, the three of them could only lie there like fish on a cutting board, watching the butcher grind his knife.
"Yaxiu!"
"Yaxiu..."
Harvey and Igola sent him unmistakable signals at the same time. Yaxiu's face twisted with misery; he knew they must be treating him as their last straw.
After all, in their eyes—Yaxiu, you're a Four Pillar Gods cult leader, and this place is Four Pillar Gods cult too. Surely that brush can't paint two separate batches of Four Pillar Gods?
A flood has washed over the Dragon King's own temple, Moon Shadow has dug up the Blood Saint's grave—one family failing to recognize its own kin! Hurry up and go claim your roots, honorably return as a Blood Return scholar to the Four Pillar Cult branch, and then get us out of this. At worst we'll believe in the Four Pillar Gods along with you and do some heaven-cursing, conscience-killing evil together—so long as we survive first and talk later.
But Yaxiu knew his own business. Heath might really have been some cult leader or other, but he himself certainly was not!
The Four Pillar Gods might know him, but he didn't know the Four Pillar Gods!
Everything Yaxiu knew about the Four Pillar Gods he had learned from the news; the Sin Hunting Hall understood the Four Pillar Gods far better than he did. Yaxiu had never spent a single day as a cult leader—he couldn't even pass as a fake, cut-rate cult leader. At best he was an armchair cult leader.
Yaxiu did want to get on close terms with the cult leader here, but he didn't even understand the Four Pillar Cult's doctrine, nor any of its passwords and jargon. Was he supposed to make the other party believe he was a colleague on the strength of his mouth alone? Not everyone was as gullible as Freya!
And there was one more thing: although Yaxiu no longer clearly remembered the scene when he first crossed over, he was quite certain that the Blood Moon branch—whether in number of believers, scale of its base, or even the presence of its leader—was far inferior to this branch.
Even if they were both branches of the Four Pillar Cult, it was hard to say whether this Everlasting Presence would be willing to take in poor country relatives. She might instead think, "You're a branch leader? Then we must treat you seriously," and then bring out all eighteen kinds of torture devices in turn to attend to Yaxiu, so the Four Pillar Gods would know they truly hadn't mistreated the leader of a brother chapter—and send Yaxiu on his way in proper style.
But to wait for death with his hands tied was undoubtedly foolish, so Yaxiu summoned his courage, raised his head, and said, "Um, hello."
"Hello," the Everlasting Presence said politely, looking down at Yaxiu. "Is something the matter?"
"I am the Everlasting Presence, Serena Bright." She looked at Igola and Harvey. "Do you two want to introduce yourselves as well?"
"No—I mean, I'm also a believer of the Four Pillar Cult," Yaxiu said cautiously. "I'm the branch leader of the Four Pillar Cult in Blood Moon Country. Blood Moon Country is the other realm we came from."
"Oh, is that so?" She seemed a little surprised, and looked him over a few times. "But you look like a good person."
Yaxiu was so angry his face went red—in everyone else's eyes he was a heinous cult leader, and he had explained hundreds of times without anyone believing he was a good man; yet in front of a cult leader, when he claimed to be a colleague, the other party decided he was a good person instead.
Damn it, this world could at least leave him one way to live. When being a cult leader worked against him, he was taken for a cult leader; when being a good man worked against him, he was taken for a good man. Even the boss at his company didn't have such double standards!
Yaxiu tried to speak in a level tone. "No, I really am a branch leader of the Four Pillar Cult. I'm very bad. The authorities charged me with involvement in numerous kidnappings, murders, robberies, and other vicious crimes, and sentenced me to the maximum penalty. I only barely escaped from prison, but Blood Moon no longer has a place for me, so I left Blood Moon and came here."
The Everlasting Presence tilted her head, her small brows curving into a cute arc. "Then prove it to me."
"Prove it?"
A mechanical arm drew a dagger from her skirt and flung it to the floor before Yaxiu's eyes. The chains on his body vanished; though the collar remained, he could move freely.
"I don't know what relationship they have with you, but if you are a follower favored by the Four Pillar Gods, then in your eyes they should also be sacrifices fit to be offered to the Four Pillar Gods." The Everlasting Presence spoke calmly. "Torment them as much as you can. Crush them. Give them despair, delight them with pain, but do not kill them."
"A thing like that should be as simple for you as putting on clothes or eating a meal, no? End Watcher?"
Chapter 181