Eruption
Tiff was muddle-headed as he prayed, but he’d already performed this ceremony of repentance in the past. Even if he stammered over his words, there were generally no mistakes.
“It can’t be!” “We’ve found it!”
However, Tiff found that the aura in his surroundings had changed afterwards. The gazes gathered on him were like those of wolves, causing every hair on his body to stand on end in his nervousness.
“What’s going on?” Tiff raised his head, stunned. He immediately saw that the milky white lights from the altar had turned a demonic dark red.
“Foreign force!” Tiff felt his neck being grasped, and his entire body was yanked into the air.
The old bishop in front of him now looked incomparably sinister. He could faintly see his father wailing before he was struck to the ground. Now even the villagers isolated his family members, keeping away from them like they had the plague.
“No! Once more, please try it once more! My Tiff definitely would not blaspheme against the goddess!” The cries lingered in Tiff’s ears, but the grasp on his neck was becoming increasingly tight, to the point that he was feeling suffocated.
At this moment, the palm released its hold on him, and long-awaited fresh air poured into his windpipe. Tears and mucus flowed out of him. “Say it, Heretic! How did you go against the teachings of the goddess?”
Thee bishop’s brows furrowed slightly at the sight of this heretic.
This heretic’s strength was much too weak and was incomparable to the powerful blasphemers from before. Such a small threat would not have warranted the goddess descending and commanding them to act.
“Truth spell!” A dot of golden light flew from the bishop’s hands, disappearing into Tiff’s forehead.
Following which, Tiff found his mouth beginning to move involuntarily, answering all of the bishop’s questions.
Tiff’s life had been very normal to the point that it was boring. When he was asked about the exploration earlier in the day, the bishop’s breathing evidently became rougher.
“Quick, surround the kitchen at the back of this home!”
A tremendous force flew out, and Tiff felt like his body was floating high up in the clouds before falling into a gigantic iron hoop, making his whole body ache everywhere.
With the escort of many soldiers, Tiff and his family members arrived in front of their house.
Immediately after, waves of knights rushed forward as if meeting with some great enemy, finding a mottled iron sword.
“Lord bishop!” The leading knight respectfully offered up the sword with both hands.
The powerful, sinister strength from the iron sword caused the bishop to frown, “A demonic item, or a temptation from the devils? Even appraisal techniques are useless on it.”
Though he had no idea what the characteristics of this item was, the bishop had already decided what would be his current target.
“If I purify this item, the favour and care I get from the goddess should be able to raise my ranking as a priest by a whole grade, right?”
The bishop’s eyes showed how bewitched he was by this notion before he repented piously, “Oh mighty Spring Water Goddess, please forgive your servant for his greed…”
For some reason, there were no strange changes to the iron sword that Leylin’s soul seed was residing in. It docilely allowed the bishop to add all sorts of seals to it, and with numerous knights escorting it, they arrived at the altar in the village.
“This child’s soul has already been polluted by the power of the foreign force…”
The bishop stood before the altar, stating his final judgement on Tiff.
“Burn him to death!” “Burn him to death!” “Burn him to death!” Before Tiff could react, the many villagers began to howl maliciously.
Such a zealous atmosphere and the large difference from what Tiff was used to seeing caused him to break out in tears.
Even his family were bound by the infuriated villagers on wooden crosses that had been made on the spot.
Tiff had a very bad of feeling of what was going to happen.
“No! Please forgive them. I… I did nothing! I only brought an iron sword back. I’m willing to repent for that!”
Tiff wailed and pleaded for the last time, “For the goddess’ sake, you can punish me, but please let my family off!”
“The family of the heretic must also be purified!”
What answered him was the bishop’s grave expression.
Immediately after, amidst large amounts of flames and the cries of children, Tiff fainted in his fear.
“Mighty goddess, your servant piously invites you to descend…”
After burning Tiff’s family at the stake, the bishop began to pray in front of the altar devoutly with his other sacrifices.
As the chief offender, Tiff and that iron sword contaminated by evil needed to be personally dealt with by the goddess herself.
“Hm… is this the path of faith?”
The soul seed in the iron sword was watching all that the bishop was doing, “Using religious ceremonies to spread fanatic behaviour, while gathering the extreme emotions and soul force emanated from the followers…”
Leylin calmly analysed.
In his current state, he basically could not resist at all. Hence, he placed all his effort on gathering intel.
Through this period of observation, the details on the surface of the World of Gods were shown in front of him, clearer than Beelzebub's memories.
“First is the surroundings. Otherworldly power is limited to a very harsh degree. The regular beings here, with even the most common peasant, has a body that surpasses that of regular people in the Magus World by a huge degree, and even by several times. And then, we have the priests and knights here…”
Leylin could clearly sense the strength of another existence’s laws from the priests.
Though this path was very similar to Purgatory World’s parth of offerings, there were still differences.
The chief difference was that the usage of the power of faith was very wide-ranging. Just the slight disturbance he had caused had allowed Leylin to see so many of these so-called priests.
The number of people here were obviously gathered only from the surrounding regions.
If power was to be poured into all of the priests there were, the many dignitaries of Purgatory World would go bankrupt, and yet it was a simple matter for the gods here.
Furthermore, there were differences when compared with the trade of equivalent exchange of the path of offerings. The Sacrificers here all thought themselves to be the servants of the gods and believed they had very low statuses.
This situation aroused Leylin’s interest, urging him to find out more.
“Furthermore… as there are too many, the gods can’t focus on every single one of their followers, unless they are invited to do so or if there are blasphemous souls…”
Leylin watched the bishop that began to pray, the feeling of an existence of laws descending beginning to tingle in the area.
“I need to do something!”
He made his decision, and then placed his focus on Tiff.
Leylin, whose body was now but a broken sword, had no way to resist. He needed some sort of medium.
Come to think of it, this guy was rather suitable.
Blood and fire! And then there were the malicious smiles from the villagers, knights and priest… This was what Tiff saw in his dreams.
The heavy feeling of being suppressed was like a huge mountain, destroying this child’s soul.
In this situation, manipulating Tiff was just too easy for Leylin.
“Hey kid, do you want to take revenge?”
Many flames shot out all of a sudden, converging into a huge face that stared at Tiff.
“Of course! No matter what you are, whether a demon or devil, it’s fine even if you want my soul. Please give me the strength to take revenge!”
Tiff began to weep in his dreams as he knelt.
“How astute. I like it!” The flaming human face smiled evilly, turning into a gigantic blazing winged serpent that disappeared into Tiff’s body.
“Remember. My godly name is Kukulkan— the feathered serpent Kukulkan! Your soul, flesh and everything shall, from hereon, belong to me!”
A voice sounded in Tiff’s mind, and immediately after, he felt as if his body was lit with flames, and felt like it was burning.
“What’s going on?” “This kid’s body is burning!”
The clamour around him caused Tiff to open his eyes once more, but the charred crosses not too far away only resulted in tears of disappointment.
The boiling hot feeling did not dissipate as Tiff stared at his palm. This was no longer like a human. Strangely enough, there were scales with flames around, looking like a palm of vengeance that had come straight from hell!
“So… it wasn’t a dream!” Tiff mumbled.
At this moment, the bishop and knights were startled by Tiff’s appearance. From their point of view, he had suddenly been enveloped by a layer of fire, turning into some demonic thing that had come from hell.
“Kill him!” Holy radiance flickered from the bodies of a few knights as they brandished their large swords and charged towards him.
“Ah…” Tiff yelled, and the seals on the broken sword that Leylin had attached himself to crumbled, and then fell into his hands.
“Die!” The broken sword slashed and created a few mysterious red streaks. Immediately after, the knights’ bodies fissured, with blood and innards flying everywhere alongside the horrified cries of the villagers.
As if there was a limitless amount of strength being poured into from the hilt of the broken sword, Tiff was like a death god as he reaped the lives of the surrounding knights.
“His life rays have gotten more powerful. He’s at least comparable to a level 15 officer!”
“Goddess Bynx, how is this possible?”
“Goddess, please bless us!” The many knights and deity officials yelled in fury.
However, Tiff cared nothing at all for things like this. His mind had already been filled with the thirst for revenge.
One after another, the enemies were destroyed under his bloody red field of vision, which then focused on the bishop.
“Mm! Let’s end this with a final experiment. Innate ability: Devour!”
With Leylin’s will, Tiff’s arm grabbed onto the bishop’s shoulders.
Following which, his flesh began to melt at a visible rate.