"The Divine Authority of the Master of Murmurs is here." The Flower Maiden's warning suddenly appeared in the Sanctum of the Village Deity. Edrick nodded. He had already expected this and was not very surprised, but he did not expect that such an evil spirit would be hiding beneath this magnificent church.
Edrick continued to search for something.
Flower Maiden: "What are you looking for, kid?"
Edrick replied calmly, "The way out, of course."
"Aren't you tempted by the divine authority here?" asked the Wealth-Scattering Lad in astonishment. "The divine authority here is very pure, much stronger than the one at the textile factory (○'ω'○)ノ."
"How much is it worth?"
"At least 20,000 Faith Essence Points!" said the Wealth-Scattering Lad categorically.
Now Edrick was in a difficult position. It was impossible to say that he wasn't tempted by 20,000 Faith Essence Points, but he knew very well that the higher the Faith Essence Points, the more difficult it would be. Earlier, he had almost lost his life fighting for a textile machine worth 2,000 Faith Essence Points at the textile factory. He couldn't imagine how terrifying the Divine Authority worth 20,000 Faith Essence Points would be.
"With these 20,000 Faith Essence Points, you will be able to unlock new features in the Sanctum of the Village Deity, and you will be able to use more spells," the Flower Maiden coaxed, her words as seductive as the whispers of a demon.
"Moreover, I can sense that something is fighting against the Divine Authority of the Master of Murmurs. If you go now, you might be able to get a bargain," the Wealth-Scattering Lad added, fanning the flames.
There is an old saying that "fortune favors the brave." Edrick decided to take another shot. He followed Flower Maiden's instructions and quietly advanced along the corridor for a while, then turned into the baptismal hall. The night flowed in from the high windows, enveloping the entire octagonal space in a layer of pale blue mist.The marble floor shimmered with a cold, crisp glow under the moonlight. Edrick's footsteps echoed through the empty hall, as if disturbing the long-dormant echoes.
He had tried his best to keep his footsteps quiet, but the unique design of the place and the hard soles of his shoes made his efforts futile.
Edrick looked up at the dome, where the colored glass windows flickered faintly in the dim candlelight, depicting the figures of angels and saints, silently watching over this ancient space.
The baptismal font stood silently at the center of the hall, carved from a single block of Carrara marble. The walls were engraved with relief sculptures of the twelve apostles, though half of their faces had been worn smooth over time. Only the key held by the central figure remained partially visible.
The holy water in the font is covered with a thin layer of ice. Moonlight filters through the stained-glass windows, casting fragments of light on the ice. The indigo-colored glass depicting prophets just happens to dye the ice a deep blue. Silver pitchers and white linen towels are neatly arranged around the font, as if waiting for the next sacred ceremony.
Edrick sensed a faint scent of milk in the air, mixed with the coolness of marble. When the believers chanted here, their tongues would taste a sweetness similar to honey wax.
When he was a child, his father brought him here to worship, and he had tasted it then. Now, as he recalled it, he couldn't help but frown slightly.
There was indeed a sweet taste, and it was not unfamiliar. Edrick knelt down and touched the benches arranged along the walls, then leaned closer to ask, finally confirming—the paint on the benches contained the hallucinogenic substance "black honey"!
"Hehe, they really dared to do that." Edrick looked up at the altar, where seven eternal lamps flickered in front of the triangular holy light. What should have been a symbol of holiness now seemed sinister and terrifying.
"The entrance should be behind the altar," the Flower Maiden reminded him.
Edrick was stunned: "How do you know so clearly?"
If Flower Maiden's resolution wasn't pixelated, she would have been looking at Edrick with contempt at that moment. "The scent is coming from here. Even an idiot can tell that there must be an entrance here."
Edrick's fingertips slowly slid along the stone wall behind the altar. When his palm touched the third carved brick, the rough texture suddenly became unusually smooth, a sign that it had been wiped countless times.
The stained glass in the dome of the church cast broken patches of light in the moonlight, which fell precisely on the center of this brick. Between the gold foil patterns depicting saints slaying dragons, a very fine engraved line could be faintly seen, shaped like an inverted triangular holy light.
Edrick held his breath, and his fingertips suddenly touched the raised relief of a holy mark between the bricks. Before he could explore further, the stone brick emitted a faint sound. Immediately afterward, the entire stone wall resonated with the dull clatter of gears turning, and the confessional on the right side of the altar suddenly slid backward, revealing a dark, gaping entrance.
The sound made Edrick's heart race. It wasn't because of anything else; such a commotion hadn't even attracted the night watchmen. He wondered if they were just too careless or... had they grown accustomed to it?
"It's possible," he thought, recalling that they had only encountered three night watchmen along the way, and they seemed completely indifferent to the events and sounds around them, as if it were all routine.
Upon seeing this hidden passage, Edrick wouldn't be surprised if the Cathedral of Luminous Pragis held any secrets.
Damp cold air swept over him, mingled with the scent of rust and decaying leaves. A few petals of dried roses, the kind used in funerals, lay scattered on the stone steps, oddly still in full bloom, their edges tinged with an ominous purple-blue hue.
Edrick took the candlestick from the altar and held it in his hand. The flame flickered violently in the draft.
From below the steps came the echo of dripping water, once every seven seconds, precise as if counting down.
As the candlelight illuminated the third step, his pupils suddenly contracted—the stone was engraved with mysterious characters, each stroke drenched in dark red, as if carved repeatedly with fresh blood.
Luminathanatos.
Edric saw these characters and wondered if he had misread them, because the name of the only true god worshipped by the Luminous Pontificate was Lumineternos. Of course, it was disrespectful to directly recite the name of a deity, so it was usually preceded by prefixes such as "the only light" or "lord of the world."
Lumen meant light, and aeternus meant eternal and immortal. The name of the true god meant immortal holy light that transcended time.
The Croft family was not devout believers, but they would never mistake the name of the true god. So why was the name of the god carved incorrectly in his holy temple?
Luminathanatos was clearly not a mistake. Such a blasphemous name could not have been written carelessly.
Lumin meant light, but thanatos clearly meant death!
Who was so bold as to dare to blaspheme the name of the god here?
The blood-red characters glowed in the candlelight, and the strokes that should have been dark red seemed to writhe like living creatures, seeping out tiny bubbles along the stone veins. His throat tightened as he suddenly realized this was not ordinary blood.
As the candle flame drew near, the stench of rotting leaves and rust was mingled with the sickly sweet odor of corpse wax, reminiscent of the bloated corpses he had seen last year at the dock, swollen by the tide.
The secret passage spiraled downward, with half-human-high niches embedded in the stone walls every five steps. At first, they were reliefs of saints from the Luminous Pontificate: Saint Peter holding a key, Saint John holding a scroll, but the further down they went, the more blurred the faces of the saints became.
In the seventh niche, the saint's head had completely melted away, replaced by a mass of flesh covered in eyes. The stone eyelids opened and closed eerily, each pupil reflecting the flickering candlelight in Edrick's hand.
"Is this the value of 20,000 Faith Essence Points..." Edrick looked at the flesh tumor covered with eyes and couldn't help but begin to doubt his decision, but when he looked back up, he found that the light at the entrance had disappeared.
"Drip—drip—" The sound of dripping water suddenly changed rhythm, no longer the regular seven-second intervals, but instead dense and rapid like the heartbeat of some creature. Edrick's back collided with the damp stone wall, only then realizing that the relief carvings on the wall had completely twisted: the saint's robe had split into octopus tentacles, wrapping around and devouring its own body,and the angels' six wings had turned into bone-like membranes, with countless crystal-like structures embedded between them, refracting fragmented light as he moved.
At the front corner, the stone steps suddenly disappeared, replaced by an iron ladder extending downward.The surface of the iron ladder was covered in sticky moss, and each step creaked under his weight. Rust mixed with a warm liquid dripped down, and when he raised the candlestick, he noticed that the inner side of the iron ladder's handrails were carved with smaller blood-red letters, densely packed with the words "Luminathanatos," as if someone had scraped them into the metal with their nails hundreds of times.
"Watch your head," the Flower Maiden's warning suddenly became sharp.
Edrick instinctively lowered his head, and heard the soft sound of fabric tearing above him. The dome above was covered with tumor-like protrusions, and one of them suddenly split open, hanging down a wet, slippery tentacle with a writhing ball of light at the end.
The eternal lamp that should have been on the altar was now wrapped in a membrane of flesh and blood, its flame flickering in the pus and blood, casting the surface of the tentacle in a pattern of tiny human faces, each silently opening and closing its mouth as if reciting a reversed prayer.
He clenched the candlestick and stepped back, his boot suddenly hitting something soft. Looking down, he saw several desiccated corpses piled in the corner of the steps. Their ragged monk's robes were embroidered with faded sacred marks. Each corpse was in a kneeling position, but their heads were twisted backward, their empty eye sockets staring into the depths of the secret passage.
One of the corpses was clutching a leather notebook in its arms. The cover was embroidered with the holy emblem of the Luminous Pontificate in gold thread, but someone had carved an inverted Triangular Holy Emblem on it with a knife, identical to the carving on the brick wall of the altar.
The ink on the notebook's pages had faded, but the parchment sandwiched between them was unusually pristine, covered in blood-drawn summoning arrays. At the array's center, in blood, were the words: "Sacrifice death in the name of light."
From the end of the iron ladder came the faint sound of bones scraping against each other, as if someone were repeatedly sharpening a knife and fork. Edrick crept along the stone wall, and the candle flame was suddenly sucked into a crack, revealing the bronze door behind it.
The door was covered with eyeball-shaped protrusions, each eye rotating, its pupils reflecting his terrified face,and the relief on the lintel made his hair stand on end: what should have been a scene of God bestowing blessings had turned into giant creatures with halos tearing at the saints, the halos turning into chains that bound the struggling crowd, each person's chest split open, and instead of blood, dense black worms poured out.
The bronze door suddenly buzzed. The eyeball-like protrusions burst simultaneously, spewing out a sticky black mist. Semi-transparent human figures emerged from the mist, their throats sewn into crosses, their hands holding chalices filled with gold coins. Instead of the image of God, the coins were engraved with the image of a sea monster that Edrick had seen at the pier, eroded by the tide.
The "monk" at the front suddenly turned around, its rotting lips curling into a grotesque grin, revealing a mouth full of curved iron nails.
Edrick finally realized they weren't corpses at all, but some kind of living creatures clad in monk's robes. The swollen lumps beneath their skin writhed back and forth, and tentacles extending from their collars coiled toward the candlestick in his hands. The candlelight illuminated suction cups at the tips of the tentacles, each embedded with a coin glowing with a faint blue light.
"Those coins are pure deity power," reminded the Wealth-Scattering Lad. Edrick had been a little afraid, but now his eyes suddenly lit up.
"That means every coin can be exchanged for Faith Essence Points."
Edric violently swung the candlestick, the flame sweeping over the nearest tentacle. Amid the putrid stench, the monks suddenly emitted a unified low moan, the sound surging from all directions, causing his eardrums to ache.
The fleshy growths on the ceiling of the secret passage began to drip pus and blood. The blood-stained characters on the ground, soaked in the pus and blood, glowed with a幽 blue light, forming the massive words "Luminathanatos."
The hybrid of light and death was now staring at him from every crack in the stone.
He clenched the candlestick and rushed towards the bronze door, but just as his fingertips touched the door handle, he heard millions of voices overlapping behind the door: "Come and sacrifice yourself, child of the docks... Your fear is the incense that feeds me..."
The candle suddenly went out.
In complete darkness, he felt slimy tentacles wrap around his ankles, and the candlestick in his hand had grown scorching hot, as if he were holding a burning sacred mark.
The blood-red words carved into the stone steps now sent a bone-chilling coldness through his nerves, as if someone had carved a new name into his mind: Luminathanatos's sacrifice.
"Take this—broadcast calisthenics!" Edrick responded calmly, striking a pose and performing a set of broadcast calisthenics. A golden glow emanated from his body, making him look sacred and inviolable.
This was what gave him the courage to sneak into the tunnel. The Flower Maiden had said that the Celestial Theodome's broadcast calisthenics were a divine skill that could temper the body and naturally counteract the corruption of the master of murmurs' divine authority.
Those tentacles curled up and twitched away from Edrick, as if they had touched a hot iron plate, but Edrick did not want to let them go: "Hand over your Faith Essence Points!"
Edrick waved his golden fists and frantically beat the pitiful tentacle monks, and Faith Essence coins fell to the ground with a clatter.
Faith Essence +10
Faith Essence +10
Faith Essence +10
...
These tentacle monsters were not actually corpses, but pollution itself. This pollution was deadly to ordinary humans and even more dangerous than the textile factory, but it was suppressed by the Fist of the Celestial Theodome and posed no threat to Edrick. They were beaten to a pulp by Edrick, earning him nearly 1,000 Faith Essence Points and greatly increasing his skill in broadcast calisthenics.
After dealing with these tentacle monsters, Edrick recovered some of his stamina and prepared to continue on his way.
Edrick was even willing to risk his life for money, but the temptation of Faith Essence Points was too great. Just in case, Edrick took the 1,000 Faith Essence Points and spent 100 more to guarantee a reward, obtaining a pile of junk and a random spell called "Mind Cleansing Spell."
At the same time, his Divine Force increased to 75.
The Mind Cleansing Spell was a spell that could calm the mind and resist mental attacks. At the moment, Edrick couldn't imagine any use for it, but the Flower Maiden said it was very useful against the corruption of the Master of Murmurs.
With his confidence boosted, Edrick pushed open the bronze door, but was shocked by the scene before him.