Chapter 208: Remains of the Deity (Part Five)
“You, um… what are you saying…?”
The sound of bones cracking echoed from my chest and right arm, while the tumor wriggled rapidly within the thin veil of dead smoke. I gritted my teeth, enduring an unbearable itch, trying my best not to scream, not wanting the dancer to notice.
But inside, I was shocked.
If I heard correctly, that woman just said… the establishment of the Gate of Truth… was a scam?
What does that mean…
Could it be that the plan for the Gate of Truth failed… but isn’t the goddess’s flesh already reviving… what is she trying to pull?
I stared at the dancer’s back.
“So many people have died…”
She kept talking, completely ignoring me, just rambling on as if venting her feelings, or maybe she was simply pouring out some kind of despair that had been bottled up inside for too long.
“Disasters, wars, endless fleeing, unceasing killings… For hundreds of years, how many people have given everything for this? How many heroes have shattered their bones… just for this moment… to calm the deity’s wrath, willing to become demons and even march into hell to make it happen… only to end up… in vain…”
The dancer’s shoulders trembled as she took a deep breath, her voice quivering.
“Naïve, ignorant wishes… have been passed down for centuries… and now, they ultimately look so different… we have become the villains in the eyes of the world, and indeed, we were long forced into a position where we had to rely on villains… with despicable means, gambling on the last flicker of hope, embracing the resolve to face d*ath… thinking that if we could fulfill the deity’s wishes, we could complete the mission that the Gate of Truth has borne for so long, restoring peace to this world and preventing further deterioration…”
“Even if it meant using my body as a medium, I would not mind… because that was my father’s last wish, that is the meaning of my existence…”
Boom, boom, boom…
Amidst the thunderous silence, the rocks trembled, the ground shook, countless boulders floating in the dim sky also quaked, and the dancer’s ethereal figure wobbled slightly in my sight as her words resonated clearly through the collapse of the world around us.
It made my heart tremble too.
What is she talking about…
“Silvya… do you know? I thought that as long as there was enough bl**d as a medium, and with the remains of the Ancient Deity, and with Teresa naming it the Tear of God, that orb’s power… I thought bringing it here would end all hatred and sin once and for all… from then on, this world would no longer have disasters or monsters from the Abyss…”
What is she even… talking about…
Why tell me all of this…
Is she trying to deceive me again… or coax me into doing something…
No, that can’t be right…
She should think I’m about to d*e…
Is it really necessary to go through so much effort at this moment to weave such a complicated lie to someone who’s on the brink of d*ath… is it really necessary…
It doesn’t seem necessary…
She seems to have achieved her purpose…
Thoughts whirled in my mind.
While the woman spoke, the bones in my right arm and chest had reconnected, the prickling sensation in my legs was gradually fading. I quickly looked down to check, noticing the bl**d had long ceased flowing, and most of the gruesome wounds were already scabbed over; some even had the scabs fall off, revealing new skin slowly returning to its previous glossy sheen.
Aside from my dress being tattered and soaked in bl**d, my limbs appeared to have never been broken at all; the wounds were healing perfectly fine, and the thin black smoke rising from me had become more diffuse as I started to use the edge of a nearby rock to stand up.
The woman remained oblivious to my movements.
“I came here with such an ideal, believing that if I could smoothly liberate the goddess from her seal and restore her body to freedom, the great goddess would regain her power and bestow blessings upon this world, which had long fallen into adversity, relieving the people of their suffering and restoring order to the world… I naively thought that even at any cost, as long as I could break the goddess’s seal, everything would get better… under the protection of the great deity… everything would… but ultimately, I made a grave mistake…”
She continued to express her woeful laments as if speaking to me or perhaps to herself.
Even as the world crumbled, the dancer was only venting. Nothing else seemed to matter.
Her emotions were already in turmoil, as if a long-held, unshakeable belief had shattered completely; that shock had utterly taken her down, she lost judgment, lost her cool, and even lost the will to live. How to escape the Land of Dragons, how to return to the real world – all of that was the least of her concerns.
“A millennium of rage, a millennium of pain… I underestimated what it could carry.”
Maybe she knew how to leave, but she wasn’t planning on doing it.
“Even a deity has emotions, has a spiritual anchor. It’s not as humans imagine it, selfless and fearless, looking down on all beings with a transcendent perspective, maintaining order and rules of the world with absolute justice… Even a deity… can fall into madness due to endless destruction and torment… Only now do I understand… but it’s all too late…”
A deity…
Falling into madness.
With my confused mind, I finally managed to catch the crucial information in the woman’s words.
I took a deep breath, my gaze trembling, moving away from the dancer’s unguarded neck to look toward the enormous flesh tumor floating in the distance.
That is the deity… the Goddess of Sin…
This world really does have deities…
And that deity is about to descend into madness…
Despite repeatedly telling myself that this dancer is a heretic, the evil leader of the Gate of Truth whose words cannot be fully trusted, perhaps she just failed and was saying things to gain my sympathy to achieve a deeper purpose.
Even as I told myself this.
But…
I saw it all.
What I saw, heard, and guessed… seemed to be correct…
What demons, what Land of Dragons… this was an outright, millennium-long scam… a grand deception concocted by the Church, perhaps also for the heretics…
I saw all of this, thought about it, and understood it.
And the dancer’s words confirmed everything I had guessed…
She probably wasn’t lying to me…
Even after doing so much evil, the dancer… probably didn’t lie to me… nor was there a need to lie to me…
In my daze, I heard her continue, “Such madness, we can’t stop it, no one can… Silvya, we are all going to perish along with the collapse of the seal… Soon, those outside, the outside world, will also turn to ashes along with us. Diane, having absorbed enough bl**d to restore her fleshly power, will become an invincible, true demon… launching a delayed thousand-year revenge on humanity…”
“…So what.”
I stared at the gigantic flesh tumor in the distance, murmuring softly.
The cracking sounds echoed again from various parts of my body. I wiggled my arms and ankles, slowly stepping behind the dancer.
“So, you just let it all go. Just watch it all unfold…”
The dancer finally noticed, turning around suddenly.
“What…”
She looked at me, her cracked lips slightly parted, and her ashen eyes revealed a hint of disbelief.
“This is what you’ve done—”
In the moment she turned, I struck like lightning, firmly gripping her delicate neck, my eyes blazing, thick black mist swirling from my feet.
