Witch, Fireball and Steam Evil God

Chapter 478 Wish
Even Ethan was amazed by Mary's extraordinary talent. In just half an hour, she mastered the ability to reverse the transformation. Her compatibility with the power of Bazartos was so high that she seemed to be a born believer in an evil god. No wonder Bazartos had once been so eager to bring Mary under his command. Mary felt as if she had returned to the Crimson Age, where an entire city of flesh and blood creatures awaited her healing.

This changed Barzatos's opinion of Mary.

Old Ba couldn't stand it, so he and Xiao An went back to the hotel and stayed inside.

The only thing that could give Him some comfort was that Mary didn't have the extra magic and energy to change the city corrupted by the goddess of reversed life; there was an even more important mission waiting for them to complete.

Aside from treatment, not everything went smoothly.

For example, every resident of the Holy City who has returned to humanity would gaze at the ruins of the Dawn Crown Cathedral, still floating in mid-air, and ask Mary a soul-searching question—who destroyed the cathedral like this? And who destroyed half the city? And where is His Majesty Carlo now?
It is terrible!

Faced with tricky questions from the residents of the city, Mary could only nervously evade the questions.

Fortunately, the residents saw this as the effect of her using a lot of magic to heal and save people. As for the murderer who destroyed the city and the cathedral, the veiled woman who appeared in the confessional not long ago became their prime suspect. After all, it is hard for normal people to think that the truth behind the destruction of the cathedral was that someone did not control their strength when swinging a sword.

That would be a bit too amateurish.

By the time the last flesh and blood creation had been transformed, it was already pitch black.

Mary wiped away the sweat that spirits don't actually produce with a sigh of relief. Even though the whole day's work of healing was exhausting for her, she enjoyed it. It was a wish she hadn't fulfilled in the past, but she never expected it to be fulfilled at this most critical moment.

Besides the sense of accomplishment from curing the plague, she also rediscovered the joy of exploration.

It was like going back to when I was a child and had just joined the Church of Life. The spells displayed in the library were like an uncultivated wilderness.

After the last grateful resident left, Mary stretched and relaxed. She looked at Ethan, who was flipping through the Holy See's sacred texts not far away, and said, "You actually knew all along."

She felt that Ethan was more like a true prophet than Pope Carlo.

Because they foresaw the more distant future, they remained calm and composed no matter what changes occurred.

"what?"

Ethan looked up and glanced in this direction.

"Carlo was deceived, and there's also the relationship between the goddess and Barzatos."

The free exploration phase is over, and Mary now has to face an even more thorny problem—she spent an entire day restoring the transformed residents of the Holy City to normal, but the woman who looks exactly like the goddess has disappeared. Perhaps while she was in the Holy City healing and saving lives, the woman transformed several more cities.

If this had happened in the past, Mary felt she would have been as anxious as an ant on a hot pan.

But things are different now.

She accepted Ethan's theory that "humans who have been turned into dogs by taking a potion." As long as flesh and blood creations are understood as another way of life, they have no need to race against time. As long as they do not suffer physical destruction, their lifespan is much longer than that of humans.

This means she could easily develop a "ten-year plan" for treating and saving lives, with enough time for them to even travel while conveniently saving lives.

Ethan closed the book and shook his head, saying, "Don't confuse me with a prophet. I can't see into the distant future like Mr. Carlo. I just draw conclusions based on my own observations and some simple reasoning."

"reasoning?"

"Over the years, Carlo has been collecting the remains of the goddess of life, but even as pope, his plan has been carried out far too smoothly."

It went so smoothly that even Ethan, a former fan of tomb raiding novels, found it unbelievable.

Carlo didn't encounter any thousand-year-old zombies in the "tomb" of the Goddess of Life, or, in accordance with the characteristics of the Church of Life... crazy plant guardians, forest spirits, or some other legendary guardian. He simply found the areas where the various remains were scattered, then sent people to set up mining points, and then lured the local residents down to work for the Church for free with "salvation contribution points" as a reward.

“I think it’s more like someone selectively showed him certain parts of the future, and then lured him to gradually excavate the sealed remains.”

"...that woman who looks exactly like the goddess."

Mary immediately thought of the culprit who had transformed the Holy City, and she refused to conflate that extremely evil being with the Goddess of Life.

He's clearly just an upgraded version of the Crimson King, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the goddess.

Although Mary kept trying to convince herself of this, reason compelled her to connect the two people again and again—just like Carlo's delusional words before his death, which pointed out that the goddess of life and other orthodox gods had removed a part of their souls from their bodies in order to create the sublime faith of later generations.

So here's the question: does the part that was removed still count as the goddess of life?

“In my hometown, dismantling a person’s body into parts and distributing them to various places after death is considered a very unlucky act, even equivalent to a severe punishment.”

This is why Ethan spent the entire afternoon perusing the Holy Scriptures: "This book mentions that it was a request from the Goddess of Life herself, to be carried out by the Pope whom she personally chose at the time."

Of course, the sacred texts have made many artistic embellishments regarding the fall of the goddess of life. For example, they define this ritual as a "relic" system similar to that of knights and lords, and believe that the goddess has only temporarily fallen into a deep sleep, waiting to return to them at some important point in the future.

The holy book does not mention the burial location of the remains, and the first pope kept this secret in his grave.

In the tradition of the Church of Life, there has never been a tradition of popes or other saints being divided and buried after death.

Ethan peeled back the sacred veneer of the holy text step by step. "To an outsider like me, it's more like your goddess didn't want to be found after her death, just to prevent madmen like Carlo from appearing."

The prophecies concerning "Resurrection Day" and "the return of the rightful God" were all fabricated by later generations. Ethan was able to see traces of these prophecies at different points in time in the Holy Scriptures. Some of these prophecies were beautiful visions, while others were attempts to seize the right to speak and consolidate his own rule over the Papacy.

The idea that "the Pope is the spokesperson of the goddess" was proposed an era later, and it naturally became a common understanding used by every pope to assert the sanctity and inviolability of their power.

Ethan had no way of knowing whether the current papacy was what the goddess of life had hoped for, but he was absolutely certain of one thing: "Your goddess seems very reluctant to be resurrected."

"why?"

"Perhaps it's because she knew that what would be resurrected would be something ambiguous."

Ethan felt he could answer Mary’s questions using his current knowledge of mysticism. “The reason why the rightful gods fell one after another is because they all removed the part of themselves that was the same as the old gods. This also caused the ‘blessing of eternal life’ to fail. Therefore, their lifespan returned to a level that was not much different from that of the saints, and they could not even make their souls last for several eras like you did.”

"This is not my achievement alone. The Vatican built ruins for me. As long as I don't leave the ruins, the magic passed down by the goddess can slow down the rate at which my soul is depleted."

Mary explained.

"You see, this is the problem. Why didn't your goddess use the same spell to protect herself and the souls of the other upright gods?"

Ethan's tricky question left Mary bewildered: "Why do you think that is?"

"This shows that He was very certain that immortality would have a great influence on their souls, even corrupting and twisting their will... The best proof is that His remains were scattered throughout the far west. He was very certain that if someone tried to resurrect Him in the future, the part that would return to this world would be the one He had eliminated. Perhaps He would have already started hallucinating in His old age."

"Are you saying... that the part that was removed by the gods has actually been alive all along?"

Mary's heart skipped a beat.

“They already possess the blessing of eternal life, but they have lost their physical bodies, so they need to bewitch someone like Carlo to help them regain their bodies.” Although Ethan had long suspected that Carlo was being used by someone with ulterior motives, he never expected that the one who used the goddess’s remains to revive her would be Bazarian herself.

"The prophecies in this book about the resurrection of the rightful gods and the divine right of the church are fabrications made by later generations. However, the only thing about the 'day of destruction' was proposed by the rightful gods. This is true in different faiths and has become a consensus among all people."

Bazalian's appearance answered another long-standing question for Ethan and gave him a new perspective on the prophecy of "Doomsday".

According to the mainstream understanding of the "Doomsday" prophecy, in the seventh era, the evil god will inevitably break the seal and return to this world, bringing destruction to human civilization. This is the evil god's revenge on the rebels.

However, after Ethan met so many Old Gods, he discovered that their hatred for humanity was not nearly that severe, and some had even completely forgotten about it.

After all, for the Old Gods, this world was merely an interesting place in their endless lives, far from being important enough to cause them to become depressed and ill, and to seek revenge on humanity thousands of years later, spanning seven eras.

Perhaps only the person who wrote this prophecy would truly believe that they are that important.

But in reality, Bazartos was always engrossed in his art of flesh and blood. Rather than destroying human civilization, he hoped that more and more young flesh and blood artists would emerge, always bringing him some new ideas.

Ampolis was embroiled in a family dispute, and the anger stemmed from his "mischievous child." The survival or destruction of the Western Continent was of no importance to him. After the family dispute was resolved, he and his mischievous child embarked on an adventurous journey.

Caesarus had been secretly working on his theory of divine resurrection, which resulted in the emergence of Kane, a troublemaker who thrived on chaos. For Kane, the destruction of human civilization was the last thing he wanted to see, as it would mean the world would fall into a state of utter desolation, and even two people fighting would be impossible to find again.

Even Sincarno, widely considered the most worthless of the Old Gods, was only preoccupied with searching for his "ancestor," whom he longed for, while the followers of the Lofik Foundation were only thinking about making money.

As for Argos, this guy even missed the wars before the First Age and had no idea what happened.

However, in this context, "Doomsday" became a consensus among the upright gods.

Logically speaking, they are the beings closest to the Old Gods, and the vast majority of them had direct or even intimate communication with the Old Gods before their "betrayal".

"Were their prophecies about 'doomsday' really a warning against the Old Gods?"

"You mean..."

Mary's pupils contracted, and she immediately understood Ethan's intention.

Compared to Bazarus, who was completely indifferent to the course of human civilization, those parts that were once removed from the body by the gods themselves clearly had stronger feelings for them and even for humanity.

Unlike the Old Gods, they were also born here, but were banished by "themselves".

"Eternal Theater"

Mary suddenly spoke up, "This is the place Carlo told me about before he died. The 'heart' he specifically mentioned is likely the most important part to Bazalian. If we set off tonight, we might be able to reach Oasis City in three days, but before we leave..."

She glanced back at the ruined Church of Praise.

Carlo's torn body was piled up with the monster's flesh and blood.

This state of being torn apart by parasites cannot be restored to its original state by Bazartos, because essentially, it is another life form that emerges from Carlo's chest.

"You pack your things first and wait for me at the city gate. I still have some... cleanup work to do."

........................

Meanwhile, in Oasis City, Lower District.

"Please, please save our children!"

In a simple house, a couple knelt at the feet of a veiled woman.

"Destitute" best describes this family. Such families are not uncommon in the lower city of Oasis City. Because of this, when their children are sick in bed, they can only watch helplessly as their children die.

The only thing in the house that stood out from the old and dilapidated state was the exquisite sculpture of the goddess of life on the table. The sculpture was spotless, as if it had received the most meticulous cleaning and protection.

When children fall ill, the statue becomes their only hope and their only source of emotional support.

The poor in the lower city could not afford the high cost of medical treatment and could only hope for a miracle.

At this moment, the boy lying on the hard bed had bloodless skin, his eyes were tightly closed, and he was trembling all over. These symptoms had lasted for several days, and the couple watched helplessly as his condition worsened day by day, feeling powerless.

But today, their prayers were actually answered.

"We would do anything for you, even our souls!"

The couple pleaded desperately with the veiled woman, treating her as their last hope.

"soul?"

The woman gently placed her hand on the boy's arm, and his furrowed brows almost immediately relaxed.

"I don't need your souls."

Her gentle eyes glanced at the statue on the table. "You are devout believers, but does your goddess never answer your prayers?"

"The Goddess..."

"You want him to recover his health and be able to eat and run again..."

As the crimson energy was continuously injected, the boy's skin gradually regained its color.

The couple stared in disbelief, witnessing the arrival of a miracle.

"I have heard your wishes."

When the couple came to their senses again, the veiled woman had vanished, leaving only her gentle voice echoing in the room.

They watched as the child slowly opened his eyes, their bodies trembling with excitement.

Until the boy opened his mouth, revealing a row of sharp, monstrous teeth.

"hungry."

His voice sounded like a wild beast's growl, "I'm hungry, I want to eat!"

(End of this chapter)