This heretic cannot be burned, he must be hung up and whipped!

Beneath the steel visor, blood began to flow from her features. Her hair and cloak fluttered without a trace of wind. All the sacred ornaments on her body—except for the orichalcum cross that Neos had touched earlier—began to emit a blinding, scorching light. Her skin cracked, and something was wriggling underneath, threatening to tear her apart.

That is the shackle that God has branded on the souls of all believers.

But she could sense a different feeling hidden beneath the endless anger and hatred of that supreme being.

She was too familiar with it. Ever since she became a Paladin, she had slain countless traitors and demons. Some wept bitterly under her sword, some attempted to repent, and some fought to the bitter end. But when they faced their ultimate fate—death—they would all emit her favorite scent—

fear.

"You're actually... afraid... You're actually afraid! Hahahaha!!" "Shut up! Ant!"

Her consciousness flickered in the torrent of the ether sea. The supreme being only needed to blow lightly to crush these humble ants. Her laughter drifted away with the torrent from the depths of the ether sea.

"Who...ahem...is the ant?!"

Although she has tried her best to fight against the supreme being, no matter how strong an individual is, it is like a mantis trying to stop a chariot in the face of the supreme being. What's more, the power in her comes from God. Is this destined to be a losing battle...?

"It's useless. A lowly lamb can never resist a god! Your pointless struggle is meaningless!"

"boom!"

She emitted one last brilliant light from the essence of the ether sea. Hundreds of years of struggle and bloodshed, and eight hundred years of countless sacrifices and dedication of mankind, all came to fruition at this moment.

"You're just a parasite that feeds on faith! You're not some god!"

The waves of the ether sea surged, impacting the solid barriers of reality under the communication of this brilliant light. She wanted to burn everything she had! She used all her strength to open a temporary crack in reality. Although she could no longer control her body in the mortal world, she could destroy it!

"No—damn it! How could you disobey your Lord? How could you break your oath?!"

The supreme being was furious and rushed to stop her resistance. A huge wave surged across the ether sea, and in the next moment, Dominica's faint light would be completely extinguished.

"Snapped!"

Under the influence of inertia, her hand touched Neos' neck, and then froze there, motionless.

The ether sea seemed to be frozen for a moment, and the huge waves that covered the sky seemed to be frozen in time, remaining only a hair's breadth away from Dominica's essence, never to move again.

Then, it began to fall into the depths of the etheric sea, and in the surging chaos in the depths, Lucifer's sarcastic laughter kept echoing.

The reality was calm, all the strange visions on her body disappeared, and the gleaming orichalcum weapons turned into ordinary iron. Only the cracked skin and bleeding veins all over her body showed how tragic the struggle she had just experienced was.

"I will drain your soul and make you suffer eternal torture in the Kingdom of God! Damn cursed one! I curse you——"

The supreme being of the ether sea roared angrily, and the divine power receded like a tide, leaving only this nearly burst "container".

"What the hell is calling me?" Neos suddenly felt vaguely as if he was being scolded.

He listened attentively and found no one scolding him, so he continued to indulge in masturbation, drinking holy wine and blowing it in front of a group of middle-aged men squatting around him, ignoring the movement behind him.

Several pilgrims who were sitting cross-legged behind him suddenly woke up from their dream and were surprised to find that the evil star had touched Neos' back.

"Dominica! When did you come?"

One of the pilgrims asked, only to see blood oozing from beneath Dominican's visor, staining her upper body red.

"Boss - no, a saint!" He quickly poked Neos.

"What are you doing? This stick may belong to someone, but there's no name on it, so you have to seize the opportunity and not get caught—oh my god!"

Neos looked back and was so frightened that he fell to the ground. He had just been bragging in front of a group of pilgrims, and when he turned around, there was a female ghost with blood coming out of all seven orifices standing behind him!

"Sister, what's wrong with you? Hello? Why did you fall to the ground? Someone, help me!!"

----------------

"I'm alive?"

Dominic felt like he was dreaming, like he was crazy, actually going to fight against God, and it seemed that in the end... wait!

"Nyos! ....Ahem! Are you okay?"

The hoarse voice made her even unconvinced it was her own, and her throat was filled with the smell of blood. She opened her eyes and found herself lying on the bed, her body wrapped in bandages, leaving only gaps between her facial features.

"I...I'm so stupid, really."

Neos's sorrowful voice came from the left. Dominica wanted to turn his neck, but found that his whole body was in terrible pain. He had to endure the severe pain and turn his head to see what Neos was doing.

Neos raised his lifeless eyes and continued.

“I only knew that Dominica valued the stick very much and brought it from the battlefield. I didn’t know it was her self-defense weapon!

While she was taking a bath in the cellar, I took away the stick on the wall and asked a pilgrim to stand guard at the cellar door. The pilgrim was very obedient, especially to my every word.

After the pilgrim left, I sat in a corner admiring the treasure and even called everyone over to discuss it, even drinking. But... I didn't notice she hadn't come up for so long. I should have thought it was bad, that I was being treated as a heretic.

I turned around and saw her standing behind me, her hand stretched out, begging for help! Blood was oozing out of her body, and her hand was trying to grab the stick in my hand... She must have known I liked it, so she left her only weapon to me. I -

I am not a human being! ”

He continued sobbing and could not utter a complete sentence.

"Chi-cough! Cough cough!"

Dominicana saw this funny scene and couldn't hold it back, so he laughed and the wound on his body burst open again.

"You really don't look very human," she said.

"Yes! Yes, yes, yes! I'm not a human! I really am not a human! Please forgive me - I will never dare to pick up things randomly again! Snap! Snap!"

Neos slapped his hands hard a few times, smiled awkwardly, and handed the stick to her with both hands, looking at her nervously.

Dominica stared meaningfully at Neos's dark pupils, as if endless power was hidden in that darkness.

She now had no idea who the black-haired young man in front of her was. She didn't understand where this guy came from, what his purpose was, and what he wanted to do to the world, as he hadn't even awakened the essence of the ether sea and his whole body was weird.

"You have to remember this, Neos."

"Please tell me!"

"You are human, and you will always be human."

"Okay, I swear I will never betray humanity. I swear this on my life."

Neos nodded and looked at Dominica firmly.

"Okay, next I'm going to tell you about humanity's greatest strength in resisting for over 800 years. First, I want to tell you that God exists."

"god?"

"Well, this must first start with the ether sea. Corresponding to our reality, there also exists a world. It is more like a projection of matter in reality. Our emotions and souls will have corresponding counterparts in that world—"

"Are you talking about the subspace?" "You know the subspace?!" Dominic was a little surprised.

The more Neos listened to this setting, the more familiar it seemed to him. Before he traveled through time, he was a Warhammer editor, so he knew those settings.

"Oh no, I'm not traveling to the Warhammer 40k universe, am I?"

He admitted that he was a little panicked.

"It's okay, it's not a big deal. Let me first confirm where this place is," he thought.

"Dominica, what is the name of this planet we are standing on?"

"It's called Earth?" She was a little confused.

"Oh, it's fine. Are you sure your name isn't Terra or something like Holy Terra?"

"What's this new word?"

Neos breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed that this subspace might have a duplicate name. He thought for a moment, clutched the cross, looked around, and quietly asked:

"God will bless me—no, will bless this church, won't he?"

"...you guess?"

"Okay..." Neos seemed to have made up his mind and took a deep breath.

"Tzeentch! Nurgle! Slaanesh! Khorne! All of you come out! I know you are watching me! Come out and fight me in single combat!"

Nothing happened.

Dominica looked at him as if he was a lunatic, and the nervous Neos finally let go of his worries.

"Ah, I was scared to death. I thought I was the reincarnation of the Emperor." "What weird things are you talking about again? You need to have awe of the Ether Sea! Names, especially names in the Ether Sea, have great power. If you know the existence of a certain Ether Sea and call out His name accurately, He will know your location immediately!"

Dominicana said seriously,

"So we generally use some pronouns to refer to these powerful beings in the ether sea. For example, the God that the church believes in, believers usually use God to refer to the supreme being in the ether sea."

"You mean...Jesus?"

"No, that's just a figure from biblical legend. We... no, we can't tell His name. Only creatures like us who have been imbued with His power can know His name. In this way, He can easily find us in the world, communicate with us, and give us orders. Just now, He——"

“He——!” “Want——!” “＆%*￥＃,”

Dominica suddenly found that she seemed unable to speak. No matter how she wanted to describe what had just happened, there was an invisible blockade that forced her to shut up.

Neos frowned at her, not understanding what she was trying to say.

"Give me paper and pen!"

Dominica asked for a piece of paper and a pencil, and wrote down the truth about God on the paper. When she came to her senses, she found that her paper was covered with a bunch of meaningless circles.

"What are you drawing?" Neos asked.

"No, I am writing His message, but He doesn't seem to want me to write it down, or rather, He doesn't want you to know Him. You have a special ability that can not only restrain Hell, but also make His power ineffective." Dominic explained.

"Then I hold the pen and you hold my hand while we write. Wouldn't that circumvent the problem?"

"No! It's too risky. You have to know that when I was standing behind you, I was almost controlled by Him and killed you! It wasn't until I touched you that His influence on me disappeared! + Yin Lingyi Chess Master Gud Jiuba"

"You just... said disappear, right?"

Neos raised an eyebrow, his face showing no fear at all.

"Let me meet Him and see what kind of monster this is."

Dominica swallowed, carefully took Neos' hand, and controlled him to write a message.

This time, Neos saw it clearly. The moment he put pen to paper, the yellowed paper turned a deep black, the texture like some monster's skin, with traces of feathers and blood gradually emerging. The light in the room invisibly increased several levels, dust flickered and swirled in the air, and a burning heat emanated from the paper.

Neos was in a trance and saw the angels in the Old Testament. They were twisting, wriggling, crawling, screaming in the dark void, crawling, crawling, crawling towards something in the depths of the darkness...

A tube pierced its shell and sucked out its internal organs, leaving only a broken empty shell drifting in the void, gradually drifting towards... drifting towards a sea of ​​corpses and blood.

When Neos came to his senses, he found that the paper with God's message had been torn into pieces the size of fingernails by him at some point. He wanted to piece the paper together, but found that the handwriting on it was also the same garbled code.

He felt a little panicked, and all the hairs on his body stood on end.

He wasn't afraid of any monsters or demons. He knew that any visible or tangible creature could be knocked down with one shot, but this kind of power...

He indicated that he wanted to try to know Him through words, pictures and language, but he didn't expect that he would be tricked at some point and saw some abstract things.

Neos thought a lot, including using codes, aliases and other things to record His message, but he had a hunch that if he wrote it down, the result would still be the same.

"He is afraid of you, because names are powerful in the etheric sea. Many creatures in the etheric sea are the embodiment of concepts. They can naturally choose to block their concepts from certain groups to protect themselves." Dominica's words revealed excitement.

"We can't tell you His information, but this isn't a problem in the Aether Sea, because He can't stop you from actively obtaining His information!"

Her speech speed is getting faster and faster:

"I've observed you before! You haven't yet realized your true nature in the Aether Sea. No matter how powerful He is, He can't search every corner of the Aether Sea! So He knows there's something that threatens Him. He wants to destroy you, but He can't find you! He can only rely on us 'servants'—or 'eyes'—to find you in the real world!

There's another way to know Him—you have to actively meet Him, but you have to recognize your own ethereal essence through your four senses. However, since your ability just now couldn't fully affect Him, this plan is too risky."

Neos suddenly realized, "I get it. It's like God and I are both internet users. God is a live streamer, and I'm his offline hater. He knows I want to kill him, so he's waiting for me to log in so he can use the internet to open my box. But I never log in, so he can only mobilize his fans to find me—and me! I can block his power, which means that any believers who approach me will be free from his control!"

"This God is nothing more than that!"

Neos laughed foolishly.

The Dominican poured cold water on him: "He exists on faith, just like fire relies on oxygen. And you——"

"You are a vacuum, a fire extinguisher. Those who approach you will be temporarily free from His contamination, but once they leave..." She paused, sadness flashing in her eyes, "those believers will return to God's realm. And the flames, deprived of 'oxygen', will only search more frantically for fuel."

"Then turn the vacuum into a storm." He grinned, his eyes dancing with the enthusiasm of a gambler. "If faith can create a god, why can't we use faith to destroy it?"

Dominica looked at him and vaguely remembered her original oath.

"You'd better pray that your storm is big enough," she murmured. The wound under the bandage began to bleed again, spreading a black flower on the bed sheet.

--------------

Meanwhile Rome

Thousands of miles away from the battlefield in Rome, the dome of St. Peter's Basilica flowed with blood in the sunset.

Pope Benedict knelt before the altar, his knees aching under the weight of the jewel- and gold-encrusted Bible. Stained glass fragmented the light and shadows, stained Mary's compassionate face with a strange purple-red.