Chapter 1308: Vanished Without A Trace
Translator: Atlas Studios Editor: Atlas Studios
The huge catastrophe that was disastrous enough to destroy Anril vanished with the descent of the Divine Punishment, and countless streams of power of faith immediately appeared in the continent, the Endless Ocean, as well as the faraway and mysterious eastern continent. They condensed into a majestic torrent of power of faith that charged out of Anril, and surged into Lin Li’s body immediately.
Is this what it feels like to be a god!? Lin Li quietly tolerated, or rather enjoyed, the infusion of the nearly endless torrent of power of faith. The Divine Fire in his body, too, burned more and more vigorously under the infusion of power of faith, rapidly transforming into Divine Power.
However, Lin Li knew through the mark left by Geresco that he was nowhere near the peak of the Divine-realm, and could only be considered an elementary god at best. During the era of myths when the gods had yet to be suppressed, his realm would be at best that of the servants of gods. Only when the Divine Power was condensed into godhood could he become a true god of a world.
Of course, Lin Li no longer had any flaws now, and it was only a matter of time before he reached Godhood.
While absorbing a large amount of power of faith, Lin Li discovered a bizarre situation. As a god who could receive the power of faith, he could also clearly sense the source of the power of faith, which was one of the most basic abilities of a god. That was to allow the deity to know where most of their followers gathered so that he could obtain more power of faith..
While Lin Li was continuously absorbing the power of faith from Anril, he discovered that the power of faith in the eastern continent was surprisingly more massive and purer than that from Anril and the Endless Ocean. Lin Li found it incredible that there were so many of his believers on the continent that he had never set foot on.
Although Lin Li wanted to start condensing his power of faith to achieve Godhood next, he couldn’t help but want to see what the mysterious eastern continent looked like before that.
There were many legends about the mysterious eastern continent in Anril. It was said that there was initially only one continent in Anril, and was dominated by the ancient wyrms and the Titans. However, in the battle between powerhouses, Anril was shattered, and the eastern continent was one of the largest parts thereof.
It was said to be mysterious only because it was difficult to reach smoothly by sea with the current navigation technology of Anril. The Gilded Kingdom in the Endless Ocean happened to be located between the two continents, so it had always been serving as a transit point. That was the reason that some people in Anril knew that humans and other intelligent races were living on another continent.
However, the other land’s situation couldn’t be understood so easily. After all, even the voyage on the sea from Anril to the Gilded Kingdom was full of danger. For ordinary people, even the Gilded Kingdom was full of mystery, let alone the faraway eastern continent.
Lin Li once had the idea of going to the eastern continent to see what it was all about. On the one hand, he wanted to see if there were any similarities with the East in the world he belonged to before he transmigrated. On the other hand, he had also once promised Ina that he would help her go to the Eternal Shrine to find her mother.
Over the years, Lin Li hadn’t managed to find a single clue on the Eternal Shrine in the Endless Ocean, so the Eastern continent that he had never set foot on before was the only possible place left.
Hence, before calming himself down to condense his Godhood, Lin Li decided to first fulfill this promise. Otherwise, it would take him a long time to condense his Godhood.
Although the Endless Ocean could no longer be a hindrance to Lin Li today, he still could not descend to Anril with his true body at will. Thus, he could only use the method that was most often used by other gods to descend to the eastern continent. Fortunately, the five Dragon Aspects of Anril were no longer around. Otherwise, it would be troublesome even if he used a manifestation.
Lin Li turned around and returned to the Omniscient Tower. Shortly afterwards, a ray of light darted out from the City of Destruction, and fell straight into the eastern continent of Anril, the place where the power of faith was the densest.
When Lin Li’s manifestation opened his eyes and looked down, he saw thousands of uniformly dressed believers worshiping him under the lead of several old men, each with pious devotion in their eyes.
“Great Lord of Eternity, your light and glory are eternal and immortal, shining on us as we proceed forward…”
Thousands of believers prayed to their god with devotion, praising and thanking him for saving the world.
Apart from continuing to receive a large amount of power of faith, Lin Li didn’t put much thought into the praises of those people. However, he noticed that the believers had mentioned a Lord of Eternity when he was hearing their prayers, so he wondered if this was the Eternal Shrine.
Soon, from the power of faith of the believers, Lin Li confirmed his suspicion that this was indeed the Eternal Shrine that he had been looking for, the origin of the Brilliance Shrine and Darkness Shrine. Furthermore, the Eternal Shrine also had an extremely high status in the eastern continent, just as the Supreme Council did in the continent of Anril.
The eastern continent was much smaller than Anril1, and it was roughly only about the size of two Breezy Plains. There were no kingdoms in the entire continent, so the humans and intelligent races were all ruled by the Eternal Shrine. However, the Eternal Shrine’s ruling policy was almost without any harsh laws.
After a long time, the believers finished their prayers and left one after another, leaving only the few old priests of the Eternal Shrine who led the believers in prayer. On the other hand, Lin Li’s manifestation came out of the tall statue, and appeared in front of the old priests, thus startling them. They didn’t expect that the god they believed in would actually descend and appear in front of them.
However, the one taking the lead, who should be the Pope of the Eternal Shrine, bowed to Lin Li respectfully without the slightest fear after seeing Lin Li appear, as if he had expected everything. He said, “Lord of Eternity, you have finally arrived!”
Hearing this, the several old priests at the back also reacted and hurriedly bowed to Lin Li. At the same time, they each had an extremely fanatical expression. After all, not everyone could be so lucky as to see the deity they had believed in all their lives descend in front of them with their very own eyes.
On the contrary, his reaction aroused Lin Li’s curiosity. After sizing him up carefully, he suddenly thought of someone. He said, “I should be calling you the pope of the Eternal Shrine, or rather Prophet Willen of the Brilliance Shrine!”
It turned out that Lin Li discovered that the person standing in front of him actually had a slight resemblance in appearance to the Retribution Knight Rodhart, and he couldn’t help but think of the legendary Prophet Willen who had vanished after sealing Rodhart.
After hearing Lin Li’s question, the man’s expression didn’t change much, and he merely calmly replied, “Lord, I am High Priest Willen of the Brilliance Shrine and also Prophet Willen of the Brilliance Shrine.”
Only then did Lin Li realize that there wasn’t a pope for the Eternal Shrine, but seven high priests. Apart from Willen, there were also the High Priest of Darkness, the High Priest of Holy Flames, another four high priests who each represented an element, as well as a High Priest of Chaos. However, in the current Eternal Shrine, there were only Willen, the High Priest of Light, and the four Elemental High Priests. The positions of the two High Priests of Darkness and Chaos had been vacant since the Dark Age.
Seeing that Willen had admitted his identity, Lin Li didn’t have any intention to make things difficult for him. Thus, he merely nodded, and said, “Well, no matter what your identity is, I am descending this time to find out about the Eternal Shrine and to look for someone.”
“Who are you looking for, Lord? As long as he is on this continent, we will definitely be able to find him as long as we do our best,” said an old man behind Willen who had a flame painted on the chest area of his robe. It was none other than the High Priest of Holy Flames, Gorona, and he frantically responded when he heard that Lin Li was about to give instructions.
Lin Li smiled and ignored his interjection. Instead, he reached out, and took out a half of an iron arrow before saying, “I don’t know that person’s name, but I’m very certain that she is from the Eternal Shrine. She probably visited Anril 20 or 30 years ago. If she’s still alive, bring her here.”
When the several high priests heard that the person Lin Li was looking for was someone from the Eternal Shrine, the expression on their faces immediately became less tense. After all, even with the status of the Eternal Shrine in this continent, finding someone aimlessly with barely any clues wasn’t something that could be done in a short period of time. However, by the time they saw the half of the arrow in Lin Li’s hand, they couldn’t help but have a change in expression.
“What, is there a problem?” Lin Li noticed the change in their expressions, and couldn’t help but feel his heart sink as he wondered, Is Ina’s mother no longer alive?
“No, no, please take a seat while we go bring the person here, Lord,” the several high priests said in unison. They then respectfully excused themselves to go find the person Lin Li wanted to see.
On the other hand, the High Priest of Light, Willen, remained beside Lin Li with a calm expression as usual. He then led Lin Li into the hall of the shine at the front of the square.
“Willen, tell me more about you. There were many speculations about your disappearance in the Brilliance Shrine, but I’m afraid no one would have thought that you had actually come to the Eastern Continent, and became the High Priest of Light of the Eternal Shrine.” Lin Li did not have the attitude of a god at all. He casually found a seat in the hall and sat down.
Although Lin Li behaved casually, Willen did not dare to act recklessly, and respectfully stood to the side instead of sitting down without permission. It was not only because they regarded Lin Li as the Lord of Eternity, but also because of their awe of Lin Li’s great strength. Even though Willen’s strength was already at the peak of the Sanctuary-realm, or he could even be considered a demigod, he was still too far from Lin Li, a god who had ignited the Divine Fire.
After hearing Lin Li’s question, Willen seemed to organize his thoughts before he slowly revealed the reason he had come to the eastern continent.
In fact, Lin Li had already more or less guessed that Willen’s main purpose for coming to the eastern continent was to find a way for his brother Rodhart to recover. That was also the reason that when Willen first stopped Rodhart, he chose to only seal Rodhart instead of purifying him.
However, Rodhart became a Retribution Knight due to the contact with the death aura of the Immortal King. Later on, he even obtained an arm of the Immortal King. It could be said even the Immortal King could not restore Rodhart to his original form, let alone Willen. Thus, Willen couldn’t find a way to save Rodhart in the Eternal Shrine until Lin Li purified Rodhart.
Besides, when Willen was in the Brilliance Shrine, he was known as the Son of The Holy Light in addition to being a prophet, which was the very reason that he was the High Priest of Light of the Eternal Shrine. If he was the Darkness Incarnation, as said by the people of the Darkness Shrine, he would probably be the best candidate for the High Priest of Darkness in the Eternal Shrine.
After chatting with Willen, Lin Li soon heard the sound of hurried footsteps coming in from outside. Clearly, the people of the Eternal Shrine really didn’t dare to delay when facing the orders of a god.
With the sound of footsteps, a few of them walked into the hall of the shrine. Apart from the high priests who had just left, there was another haggard-looking woman who was about 40 years old. She shared a vague resemblance to Ina, and Lin Li was almost certain that he had found the right person.
However, once he scanned Ina’s mother’s body with his mental strength, Lin Li frowned, and asked the high priests in a deep voice, “Can any of you explain to me what is wrong with the condition of her body!?”
“Lord, please forgive me. Lilia was once the saintess of the Eternal Shrine, but she lost her purity when she traveled to Anril for training. Therefore, she was subject to punishment upon returning to the Eternal Shrine. Thus, she was stripped of her title of saintess, and was to be confined for life.” Seeing that Lin Li was obviously enraged, the several high priests were so frightened that they almost knelt on the ground, not daring to hide the real reason at all.
Lin Li hated the concept of a saintess the most. The gods could have any beautiful women they wanted, why would they need a group of mortals to take it upon themselves to choose a woman and make her serve as saintess? Forcing a woman in her prime to give up her future and abandon her own happiness just for the sake of an ethereal deity was such a perverse system!
However, Lin Li had obtained a large amount of power of faith from the Eternal Shrine, after all, so he didn’t hold it against them. He merely raised his hand, and a pillar of light from the void shone on Lilia’s body. Not only did it heal the ailments in her body, it even helped raise her power to the Sanctuary-realm.