Cataclysm: Undead Dragons and Zero Empire

Chapter 123 Burning Oneself

The bells that signaled the end of the religious council echoed slowly through the lunar temple complex, their lingering sound traveling through the empty corridors before dissipating onto the greyish-white lunar soil.

The attendees gradually emerged from the temple, but instead of gathering together to exchange ideas as usual, they remained silent, each clutching their newly distributed scriptures, and hurried off in different directions from the temple complex.

Each person's face carried a complex expression: bewilderment, wariness, or barely concealed resentment, while those with hesitation and curiosity lowered their heads to flip through the scriptures in their hands.

After the meeting, Terence kept seven priests behind. They were senior members of the Death Faction, people Terence trusted and staunch supporters of.

"Follow me," Terence said without saying anything more, but turned and walked into the depths of the temple. The seven priests followed silently behind him, their black robes fluttering in the firelight like seven flowing shadows.

The temple complex contains a series of small meditation rooms, originally intended for priests to meditate and pray. These rooms have no windows, are simply furnished, and have only a heavy stone door as the entrance.

Terence led the seven priests into different meditation rooms, whispering instructions before each stone door closed: "Remember every step of the ritual, do not be impatient, do not be afraid, recite the prayers I have taught you, the Lord's fire will respond to you, and you must actively approach it."

The stone doors closed one by one, and the seven meditation rooms fell silent. Terence stood in the corridor, feeling the psionic fluctuations coming from behind the doors. He knew that the ritual was gradually beginning.

The first priest to attempt the ritual was named Silas, the youngest of the seven. He held the stone, which was carved in the shape of a dragon's bone, in both hands and began to perform the ritual according to Terence's teachings.

He felt the pulse of his own blood, not just an ordinary heartbeat, but a deeper tremor, as if it came from the depths of his soul.

He touched his own blood with his psychic powers, like touching a cotton wick soaked in oil with a match; it grew hotter and hotter until, in an instant, flames rose up.

Silas felt his blood turning into some kind of luminous medium, each drop emitting a blackish-red light. His vision began to distort, the stone walls of the quiet room disappeared, and he felt himself floating in a void, surrounded only by endless darkness.

Then, he saw the sun.

It hung on the dark horizon, black and red, warm and low-hanging. Silas couldn't help but want to approach it, to kneel in its light, but Terence's admonition echoed deep in his consciousness: stay awake and follow the flame of the Lord.

Silas forced himself to stop his instinctive impulse. "Lord, Most High Father, Your servant offers your soul, begging for Your mercy, begging for Your guidance—"

He felt his blood burning even more intensely, a burning sensation that was no longer gentle but rather accompanied by a stinging pain, as if countless tiny flames were coursing through his veins.

He looked down at his body and, in his spiritual vision, saw his skin becoming transparent, and saw a dark red light shining through from within.

He looked up at the sun again, and this time he saw more details. The sun was not made of pure fire. At the core of the sun, inside the eggshell, there was a curled-up figure.

It was a dragon skeleton, with jet-black bones, folded bone wings, and a ring-like posture with its head and tail connected. The posture resembled death, slumber, or—waiting for birth.

Silas's heart pounded violently. What he saw was not an idol, but a real deity that existed in the universe.

"Lord—," his prayer became more urgent and devout, "Your servant has seen you, your servant offers you everything—"

He felt his blood leaving his body, not as actual blood loss, but as some kind of more essential sacrifice, the burning blood drifting towards the sun and merging into its light.

As the sacrifice proceeded, he felt a response; the sun cast a ray of light upon him, a soft glow like the afterglow of a sunset, a ray that touched Silas's consciousness.

By burning away the impurities, Silas gained a more translucent physical vessel, as if his body had become a transparent glass vessel, a perfect work of art, allowing light to pass through freely.

Psychic energy can flow more smoothly in his body, and his physical body can accommodate more psychic energy and a more powerful soul. This is the path of advancement, and he has taken another step further away from the mortal world.

At the same time, the stinging pain intensified. Touched by the flames, he felt his skin cracking, his lips dehydrating, and his tongue becoming as rough as if it had been sanded.

After the pain subsided, the sun slowly sank below the horizon and disappeared into the darkness. Silas felt his soul being pulled back into his body, and his psychic state was ending.

He felt his psychic energy surging like a rising tide, and then he saw his body, his hands, those once young hands, now covered with black and red scars, with dark residue falling off in a rustling sound.

Silas touched his face, feeling the same rough, scarred skin. He looked like someone about to be burned to death, a survivor who had crawled out of a fire.

Silas understood that these were marks left on him by the Lord's flame, a sign that he had experienced death once and returned to the world through the gates of death, and that the connection he had established with the Lord was a further step on the path of death.

He stood up and pushed open the stone door. After waiting, the doors of the other quiet rooms opened one after another, and his colleagues came out. They looked exactly like him, and the undisguised, almost ecstatic light in their eyes seemed to be overflowing.

Terence looked at them. "You saw it."

"We saw it, Lord Terence," Silas's voice was hoarse and dry, "we saw the Lord, we saw the sun—the Lord answered us."

The other six nodded, their bodies trembling as if they had experienced something transcendent, and Terence examined their scars one by one.

"These scars," he said softly, "will be your glory, and your responsibility."

Others will question you, fear you, and try to understand what happened to you. You don't need to explain to them; you just need to show them your strength.

The seven priests bowed to the leader as if receiving baptism, feeling the surging spiritual energy within them and a more intimate connection with the state of death.

Silas reached out and pointed to a lamp at the end of the corridor. The flame of the lamp went out instantly, and the wick turned into a wisp of smoke.

"Bringing death with touch," Terence noticed the action. "This is a skill that General Howard easily mastered through practice. He was a suitable candidate, a chosen one, but it is a difficult level to reach for ordinary people. You have already taken an important step on the path to death."

Seven priests spontaneously gathered around Terence, their black and red scars standing out starkly in the firelight, like seven walking banners proclaiming the power of the new doctrine.

Other priests would involuntarily stop and stare at their changed colleagues when they saw them, while Terence led them to the temple, where they knelt before the statue and began to recite new prayers.

In other corners of the temple, the priests who were not performing the ceremony were whispering among themselves.

"They've changed—" a priest whispered, glancing toward the main hall. "Do you see the scars on their bodies? They don't look like blessings, they look more like curses."

“Lord Terence says it is the mark of the Lord,” another priest replied, but with the same doubt in his voice. “But who knows? The ritual looks too dangerous; it looks like some kind of self-destructive act.”

"Throughout history, we Deathists have only worshipped death itself and rejected idolatry," an elderly magician joined the discussion, his voice low as if afraid Terence would hear.

"There is only one possibility for Terence to want to create the image of a god: he wants someone to control the power of interpretation, and performing that ritual is a sign of choosing sides."

"Those who performed the ritual—" someone said, trembling, "are now completely subservient to Terence, like puppets being manipulated."

"We cannot perform that ritual," one priest concluded. "At least not until we figure out what it is. Terence's reforms have been too fast and unexpected. This is not normal. We must remain vigilant and uphold the true traditions of the Death Sect."

These discussions circulated like lurking undercurrents in the shadows of the temple. Terence knew of their existence, but he also knew that time would tell.

Deep within the subspace, the dark red sun continued to burn gently, while seven newly emerging strands of faith extended from the real universe, touching the sun's outer shell.

Lin Ziming unconsciously responded to the touches, casting seven flames at them, and then continued his wait, a long and gentle one, like the tranquility before death and rebirth that the universe itself was experiencing.

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