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

When Benedict stood up, he noticed that the frost was rapidly melting, centered around Pius. Melting water droplets slid down the face of the Madonna, confirming that the vision he had just seen was not an illusion.

The old pope walked to the wall and placed his withered palm on the mural depicting the fire of Sodom and Gomorrah. Dante's image of hell began to flow under his touch—it was a secret door.

"Follow me closely." Pius' voice suddenly became serious. "On the road ahead, you will need to witness the truth about the church with your own eyes."

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

"squeak----"

Pius waved his hand, and a hint of white frost formed in the air. Under an invisible force, the bronze door of the secret room slammed shut behind him. A cold wind blew across the back of the new Pope's head, and strange noises seemed to be coming from all directions.

Pius lit a candle, and the flame cast a distorted shadow between the two of them. The stone steps of the corridor seemed to be gradually descending, but Benedict always felt that something was wrong with his feet on the steps.

"Chat with me." "Please go ahead."

"Do you want to know how I knew about you in the first place? It only took a few hours from your conviction to your trial. The Roman Catholic Church is not that efficient," he said.

"...Is that your special power?" Benedict guessed as the two of them walked downstairs.

The corridor behind the secret door was initially no different from a church. Niches on both sides housed the remains of past bishops and honored saints. But Benedict soon noticed something unusual—

The inscriptions on those niches seem to be slowly changing?

The Latin prayer gradually twisted into some kind of barbed cuneiform, and the shadow behind Benedict seemed to be reflected in the dark eye sockets of the human skull.

Without having time to think about the terrifying scene just now, Pius continued:

"After this ritual, those with powers like ours will fully awaken. Your strength will be increased by dozens or even hundreds of times, strong enough to allow you to sense some mortals with similar potential in the mortal world. However, the price is that you will never be able to leave this city."

"why?"

Pius did not answer him and continued, "I don't know. All the popes who left this city died. Their ending was the same - disappearance or assassination."

"Is it—that made it dry?" Benedict had a guess in his mind and pointed his finger upwards.

"The Lord doesn't care, but something else in the same place as the Lord does. Perhaps it was willing to save us before completing that deal, but the Pope made another brave decision, and humanity has been paying the price for that choice for hundreds of years."

Benedict saw what seemed to be some writhing patches of filth on the wall and wanted to touch them with something.

"Don't touch it!" The candle in Pius's hand suddenly burst into flames, illuminating the area.

There was nothing, nothing on the white walls.

Pius pulled out a roll of parchment from the inner pocket of his divine robe. The yellowed pages were covered with burn marks.

In 1346, the Lord of Flies unleashed the Black Grail. Tens of millions were infected and became carriers of the plague, unleashing the worst plague in our history. The living fell, then rose again, and the Corpse Wars began.

In 1429, Pope St. Clement VIII made a difficult decision. Humanity had been pushed to the final step of falling into the abyss by hell. He had no choice but to surrender to God and dedicate all the people with special abilities like you that he could find at the time to God, so that God would bless Joan of Arc.

Then comes the history you are familiar with. Saint Joan of Arc expelled the Black Holy Grail from the European continent and was canonized as a living saint, but the price was that all people like you in the future would be dedicated to God on the day they came of age.

It’s scary, isn’t it?

As the two continued forward, the old pope's face grew older, and the light from the candle in his hand grew dimmer and dimmer. The steps that should have led to the depths of the corridor in the light now stretched into a bottomless abyss of darkness.

The walls on either side of the stone steps began to be covered with blood vessel-like protrusions, pulsating regularly with their footsteps, returning to normal as they approached the candlelight. Benedict stepped onto a slippery step and looked down to see dark red mucus oozing from the cracks—clearly, fresh blood that had not yet coagulated.

"Is this an illusion?" He did not choose to hold the cross tightly, but instead held the gun tightly in his hand.

"It's worse than a hallucination." Pius's candle illuminated the sudden fork in the road ahead. The left aisle was covered with luxurious Persian carpets, and the ethereal chants of a choir came from the end; the bricks of the right aisle were cracked, and moss like rotting flesh crawled on the walls.

"If you choose the left, you will reach the Kingdom of the Lord, but your soul will be trapped in the cycle of hymns forever. As for the right..." The old pope walked straight towards the decayed passage.

"Are you ready to see where the real 'Them' live?"

"But—how could we—" Benedict couldn't believe it. He had actually walked just two steps to the Lord's Kingdom? Was he crazy, or was this world crazy?!

"Now, let us pay tribute to the greatest sacrifice of mankind - Pope Heathcote."

Pius turned around and stopped to face the blurred portrait on the dilapidated wall on the right side of the corridor. The paint on the portrait had long been mottled and peeled off over time, but the name St. Sixtus IV engraved on the frame indicated that the subject of the painting should be the pope who had a very low presence in history.

Pius pulled Benedict close to him and bowed deeply to the portrait.

"Pope Hescott entered a darkness deeper than this." Pius's voice echoed eerily in the corridor, as if countless others were whispering simultaneously. "Before he entered the kingdom of God, he left behind his last words: 'When we feed Him with millions of souls, who is the devil?'"

In 1477, the great Pope Ciscot, convinced that Clement's creation of Joan of Arc's bargain with God was unjustified—yes, it was a bargain—he left his last words and entered into the Kingdom of God, never to return. To this day, we still don't know what he spoke to God about. Even the next Pope, Urban VIII, who followed him down that aisle, was cryptic.

After Pope Urban returned, he ordered the church to follow Pope Siscot's will and launched a large-scale sacrifice. History books should record that the church sought God's help, but you should know the result -"

Benedict nodded: "Argos, the city that initiated the sacrifice, was carried away by God in light and fire, and nothing remained."

Pius continued to walk to the right with the candle whose light was getting dimmer and dimmer. The sound of their footsteps kept echoing in this increasingly narrow corridor - or more precisely, in the goat path, always with some strange noises in between.

Pius seemed not to hear and continued walking, “What was the content of the deal with Hescot? Saint Urban did not tell his successor, but after the destruction of Argos, Saint Urban immediately stopped the ritual of sacrificing people with special abilities throughout Europe and demanded that future generations not sacrifice people like us.

When he re-entered the Kingdom of the Lord after leaving office in 1492, he told his successor: "The sacrifices and offerings from now on must be completely voluntary, and their body and soul must be devoutly devoted to the Supreme Lord. They must not be forced, otherwise the power of the Lord will not descend."

"Why?" Benedict's inner doubts about God had reached their peak. In this corridor, the church secrets shared by Pius had completely shattered the worldview that he had been taught by the church for decades!

An extremely terrifying guess arose in his mind. Perhaps the popes of all generations were not standing at the pinnacle of human power, but like circus clowns, they were standing on a tightrope playing games with the gods, maintaining a difficult balance.

"because--"

PS: Current update schedule: 180 votes, next update 4.5k!!

Change the bill to early mobilization next week.

Beizhai asks for a wave of votes meow....5k is really burned out meow...

Meow....

Flames Rising: 1914: Chapter 12: Hope Is Not in Heaven... But Here on Earth (5.8k)

"Because only the purest and most firm faith can provide the strongest 'buoyancy' to pull God from the etheric sea - the end of our right path - to a place close to reality."

Pius's withered fingers gently pushed, and the crack in the void suddenly widened. Benedict felt his soul being torn apart by some invisible force, and the world before him began to distort and reshape. He stumbled, and the rotten stone steps beneath his feet crumbled to dust, replaced by endless darkness.

"Welcome to the Aether Sea—of course, I prefer to call it the Sea of ​​Souls."

Pius's voice came from behind him, but it was as vague as if it were separated by layers of water. Benedict looked down and found himself suspended in a chaotic void. There was no entity under his feet, but he could hear the faint roar of the surging tide.

Looking up, countless colorful points of light were spinning like a nebula, with purple, indigo, and blood-red glows interweaving into a vortex, and occasionally the shadow of some huge creature flashed by - perhaps it was an illusion, or perhaps it was some more ancient existence.

Benedict was stunned by the magnificent and amazing sight. He stood there in the ocean with his mouth open.

"The Aether Sea is not just a sea where ignorant travelers like you and me drown. It is another dimension, more fantastic than our real universe. Our reality is a projection of it, not the other way around.

Of course, there are also technical priests within the Church who believe that the 'warp' - that's what they call the Aether Sea - is a projection of reality.

Beneath our feet, the fabric of reality has been weakened to the point where nothing can be added to it, and with just the slightest push—"

Pius stretched out his hand, with gray-white air flowing on his hand. His eyes began to emit bright light, and then he gently pushed towards the void in front of him!

"Clap!"

Benedict seemed to hear the sound of something breaking, and then -

“Wow——” “Squeak—squeak” “&*?@%! 弍邻尔伊鏾凌8尔” “^＆*”

A noisy sound erupted in his ears, and Benedict looked around curiously like a child in the village who had just received internet access, wondering what was making these strange noises.

"Those are projections of souls in the mortal world, and some are native to the ethereal sea."

"Soul... So the human soul really exists! Oh my god..." Benedict muttered to himself, his voice rippling through the void. He tentatively reached out to touch a passing streak of silvery light, feeling a searing pain in his fingertips, followed by countless shrill screams that filled his mind. He jerked his hand back, his knuckles covered in charred cracks.

"Don't touch that shit." Pius' voice was as cold as an ice blade. "Every point of light you see is a projection of a soul—joy, anger, despair, they are manifested here as energy. And energy will always be coveted by something more greedy.

For example, what you just touched was the residue digested by the natives of the Aether Sea."

"Ah?" "Woo——"

As if to confirm his words, a ball of twisted purple-black matter suddenly rushed out from a vortex!

It had no fixed form, its surface covered in flowing spots of light, emitting a soul-screaming shriek incomprehensible to ordinary humans. Benedict (I) ordered Qipasiqisichaket to retreat instinctively, only to find that his legs had been mired in a viscous, dark-red liquid. The liquid was creeping up to his knees at a visible speed.

"Hold on!" Pius shouted, and the candle in his hand suddenly burst into a blinding white light. Wherever the light reached, the dark red liquid instantly evaporated, and the purple-black substance twitched violently as if it had been splashed with sulfuric acid, eventually dissipating into a pool of bubbling pus.

Benedict covered his head in pain. He felt the power. In reality, the experience of using this trickle of power to comfort the people was far inferior to the one he had now. It was as if all the restraints on his body had been untied, but his skinless body, completely exposed to the air, was also facing direct attack from germs.

"That thing just now is the native inhabitant of this space. This is a boundless ocean, and within its surging tides exist numerous evil entities that are not attached to any powerful being.

These repulsive, formless, greedy, and vengeful creatures possess limited intelligence but boundless gluttony. They are the hands of those powerful beings who have taken refuge in the Sea of ​​Souls. Our underlings often carelessly attempt to summon these horrific monsters, hoping to draw their insatiable greed upon their enemies. The greatest problem is that once these monsters enter our reality, they refuse to leave.

"Is this why we've been working to purge heretics and burning people like me in the name of 'burning witches'?"

Benedict seemed to understand something. He had seen some of his kind when he was growing up. Some of them had very powerful abilities and could even distort space, while some couldn't even light a cigarette, but most of them were considered "wizards" and were sent to heaven by the Inquisitor to dig trenches.

He always thought that he was the lucky one because his secret had never been discovered by the church. It turned out that the Pope had already made clear arrangements for him.

"Yes, because people like us are too unstable. This is a sea of ​​emotions, and the boundary between reality and here will change accordingly with the fluctuations of emotions.

Every living thing here has a projection of itself. Once people like us exceed our ability to control ourselves, there is a high probability that we will weaken the boundaries of reality and attract the weirdos in this ocean—look at me.

　Benedict turned around and was startled.

"my Lord!"

Pius no longer looked human—an old bay horse stood beside him, with the candle on its back, the flame swaying in the void like the pulse of a dying man.

The horse's eyes are still human pupils, cloudy but firm.

"Is this your...true appearance?" Benedict's voice trembled.

"No, this is the essence of my soul in the Taihai." The red horse spoke in human language, and the friction of his vocal cords made a noise like sandpaper.

"Every being that enters here will be stripped of their disguise, revealing the soul's most primitive form. And your form—" He paused, "is still taking shape."

"Every Pope must recognize his true nature in this ocean when he takes over. Then you can communicate with and interfere with those special individuals who can also communicate here—or, interfere with reality through this place, just like the monster called God did."

PS: Regarding the setting of the Warp, this book has made some private settings and modifications based on the original Warhammer.

This may sound a bit abstract, but in this book, the ether sea can be compared to the Internet. Ordinary people are those who don’t even have equipment but whose information is sold online; people with special abilities can go online but are just tourists, with a different identity each time they go online; people who realize their nature in the subspace are equivalent to creating a fixed account, and can follow/tag/send private messages to XX/locate and check water meters/order things online and mail them to a certain user.

"Is this the reason why you can still maintain control over Europe even though you can't leave Rome?" Benedict understood.

He looked down at his hands. His skin was gradually becoming transparent, revealing the interwoven silver threads beneath. His flesh seemed to be being disassembled and reassembled by some force.

An unfamiliar feeling surged in his chest, like ice water pouring into his veins and fire burning his nerves. He realized:

"This is my hidden power—the power that the church calls 'blasphemy' and Pius calls 'fire.'"

"You must find your anchor quickly." The bay horse trotted through the void. "The ether sea will devour any undefended soul, especially 'delicacies' like us. So you must hurry, or I won't be able to hold on for much longer."

The light of the candle on the chestnut horse's back grew dimmer and dimmer. As the area illuminated by the light became smaller, endless darkness was pressing towards him, and the noisy, rustling noises in his ears were turning into shrill howls.

Benedict took a deep breath, closed his eyes and carefully sensed his surroundings. In Pius's eyes, the body of the novice Pope was constantly radiating attractive energy.

"So... tempting. Unfortunately, we are all food for the Lord, and I, as His chef, will eventually become a cold dish."

"Revenge is a dish best served cold." Old Ma muttered.

Benedict did not hear Pius's mumblings, his senses rising above the pain that had been plaguing him, above the aching muscles and the itchy, tense energy that flowed through him constantly, venting through his restless soul.

Beyond the body, beyond the mind, into the spiritual realm beyond life. The warp spread out before him. Infinite possibilities beckoned him!

Endless power, overwhelming authority, untold wealth and billions of followers, temptation tugs at his heart and whispers forbidden words in his ears.

His thoughts drifted on the unknown tides, diving deeper and deeper into the ether sea. The chestnut horse floating in the shallow layer of the ether sea and the candle on its back were getting farther and farther away from him. The only connection between the two was the thin thread between them.

Unconsciously, he found himself transformed into a giant ice butterfly. Its translucent wings were covered in intricate patterns, each scale a miniature star. With a gentle flap of his wings, a hurricane of snowflakes swept through the air.

"It's beautiful, isn't it?" A trace of sadness flashed in Pius's eyes. "But remember, the more beautiful the form, the more likely it is to attract predators."

As if to confirm his warning, a deep rumble suddenly erupted from the depths of the vortex. A massive snake head slowly emerged, its pupils reflecting countless screaming figures. The body behind the head stretched to the very depths of the aether sea.

"Lucifer..." Pius VIII's hooves trembled slightly. "It smells a newborn soul."

"Get out of here!" The chestnut horse chopped its hoof, and the candle on its back burst into an even stronger burning light. The power from God descended here. The snake head stared at the old horse and slowly retreated into the abyss.

And Pius paid a price.

A line of saliva flowed from the corner of his mouth. Like a starving man who had been hungry for several days seeing a delicacy slip away from his lips, his instinct drove him madly. The voice in his head kept calling out, ordering Pius to immediately swallow Benedict, this increasingly tempting delicacy.

Pius did not move, although his face twitched, his legs kept shaking, and his face was twisted with tears under the strong desire, but hidden under the madness were those firm eyes.

"Even in death, I will leave this world as a human. Do not try to tempt me, you monster in the guise of the Lord."

A sarcastic chuckle came from the depths of the ether sea, just like the thousands of tormenting days and nights before.