The worst possibility is that even this faith has been polluted. The source of people's faith is no longer the sun goddess who symbolizes glory, but a terrifying evil god.
If you think about it this way, the disasters that humans experienced at that time were far more than what is recorded in the literature.
If it weren't for the "Flamebringer" Fili-Nifhenx who reconstructed the myth of the Sun King and founded the Mechanical Sun Cult, pulling people back from that purgatory of faith, in such a chaotic, crazy, and dark era, people who were like headless flies would have had no choice but to become non-believers if they wanted to survive.
But is it so easy to be a nonbeliever?
There is a lot of evidence that Seran is a religious country, and almost everyone in the country believes in religion. If such a country wants to produce a large number of non-believers, how many aberrations must they witness? How many disasters must they experience? How lucky must they be to survive before they will completely despair of faith?
It was destined to be a road filled with bones, pieces of flesh, and howling. If you close your eyes, you will see nightmares, and if you open your eyes, you will see purgatory. The description of the dead zone is by no means an exaggeration, and it even seems to be an understatement now...
With her fists clenched tightly, Xia Yibing only regretted that she was not in that era, otherwise she would definitely find a way to stop this "tampering of religious cognition" and chop those who planned to do so into pieces!
"It's a pity that Alvin has no memory of this." Hitzfeld shrugged. "She doesn't know much more than us. There must be a lot of truth that was covered up during that chaotic period."
"Eclipse Church?" Xia Yibing squeezed out the syllables from between her teeth.
"It's very likely. After all, Lathresh was destroyed very early. The woman named Harry Schneiter has lived for at least two hundred years. I don't believe she would leave Serlan alone to cause trouble."
"Don't be angry." Seeing the woman's breathing becoming more and more rapid and her fists clenching tighter and tighter, Hitzfeld obediently leaned over to her and used physical contact to comfort her.
"This is what has already happened. It is history. We cannot change it. All we can do is prevent history from repeating itself."
"Maybe." Xia Yibing exhaled foul air from her nose and loosened her fists.
The girl's closeness made her calm down quickly. She hugged her slender waist and put her hands into the girl's hair, slowly stroking her head and neck.
"...What did you just say?" Then she suddenly reacted.
“Don’t let history repeat itself…History? Repeat?”
"First of all, it is clear that it is not easy to tamper with people's beliefs." Hitzfeld leaned against her chest and looked up at her. "To achieve this requires a long-term plan, and it must not be discovered by the ruler of Seran at that time... Don't you think this method looks familiar?"
"Aesthesia..." Xia Yibing narrowed her eyes slightly, "Worm curse!"
"The evil god behind the name I heard might be the mastermind of this plan." The girl nodded. "I don't think it's a coincidence that this book appeared in the ruins of Soth Fortress."
"You mean..."
"The last page of the Book of Roar records the process of the goddess slaying the evil demon and sealing it." Hitzfell approached her again and whispered in her ear, "It records that she contaminated an evil god's eye with divine blood."
Xia Yibing's body began to tremble slightly, and she realized what Hitzfeld was going to say next.
"I mean, if it is possible, that eye came from this cunning evil god..." The whisper beside my ear became more and more psychedelic, "The creation of Xiyang is the manifestation of the goddess, and these two processes are happening at the same time..."
"Then could this place, this red earth plain, be the place where the evil god was killed or sealed?"
"Aisun, this is actually-"
"The goal of aesthesia is to tamper with faith, and the goal of tampering with faith is to revive the evil god."
Hitzfeld's tone was fierce.
"The fact is that the seal has been loosened, otherwise the aesthesia would not have reappeared. This means that in addition to multiple emperor worms, we may have to face a resurrected evil god."
"Of course, so far it is just my guess and irresponsible inference..."
"But Xia."
"Once it happens, we have to accept the reality."
Chapter 71: Top-level understanding
Hitzfeld believed that Xia Yibing was not the kind of person who would be discouraged when encountering a little setback, but she had to face the reality: she was just a human being after all.
She was strong, but that didn't mean she wouldn't get discouraged. The series of hardships the team had experienced since entering the red soil were enough to crush a person's heart. The pressure brought by the emperor worm alone was enough to make people breathless, not to mention the addition of an unknown evil god.
This is a nightmare that is enough to completely crush a person and plunge him or her into the abyss of despair... If these situations happened to Xia, she would not be surprised at all.
So Hitzfeld felt that instead of trusting her companions unconditionally like the protagonists in storybooks - which in fact was throwing heavy pressure on them without warning - she would rather give warnings in advance and then find ways to cheer her companions up.
She was even ready to sacrifice something, which was not surprising, because she understood that kind of despair better and therefore understood all the instinctive behaviors that humans would take in that despair.
"I understand..." With a sigh, Xia Yibing straightened her shoulders, put her in front of him and looked at her.
The darkness was like a veil, and the outline of Hitzfeld's face looked even more alluring under the veil, making people want to taste her.
"You think I'm so shallow?"
"Huh?" Hitzfeld was slightly startled.
"If an evil god suddenly appeared, I really can't say what I would do, but now that I'm warned in this way, I definitely won't be afraid."
The smile on her lips gradually widened. The woman suddenly hugged the girl into her arms, hugged her tightly, and whispered in her ear: "You should remember that there is a course called "The Depth of Fear" in the agent course."
The Depth of Fear…?
After searching his mind carefully, Hitzfeld widened his eyes slightly and roughly understood what Xia meant.
Agents have courses... For this group of people, mental health is even more important than physical health.
Of course, experienced agents like Xia no longer need to attend classes, but novice agents still need to go back and review from time to time.
Hitzfeld knew all this because she had spent some time at Shadow Lion's underground headquarters. She even sat in on classes when she was most bored, and the course that left the deepest impression on her was "The Depth of Fear."
It mainly talks about: Fear is a kind of psychology and emotion that humans have had since ancient times. On the one hand, fear makes people cowardly and retreat in the face of difficulties; but on the other hand, fear can also save lives - expressing courage in the face of an overwhelming disaster is reckless, and life can only be better lived if you understand fear. Fear also hides what may be the strongest power of all things from nature.
A rough explanation is something like... Hitzfeld was not very courageous in her previous life. She was afraid of playing horror and thrilling games, especially playing alone.
But her life experience meant that she lived alone most of the time. When she had tried other games countless times and completed them countless times, so that she knew how to explore and complete them with her eyes closed, she still inevitably picked up those forbidden games on a few quiet nights and started a tense and exciting spiritual adventure.
There is a very strange phenomenon here: she was most afraid when she just started playing, but when she was severely frightened many times and even had goose bumps all over her body, she was not so afraid anymore.
According to her personal experience, it was not that "she was no longer afraid", in fact, she was still afraid. The reason why she was able to control the character to swing the knife at the monster like crazy with goose bumps and fear after suffering a series of shocks and stimulations was more because "she didn't care anymore".
Yes - I've been scared anyway.
The thing I feared the most has appeared. I was shaking and terrified. I have even died many times in the game.
And then? That's it.
These ugly creatures can't do anything to me anymore - I've died so many times in there, this is the worst thing they can do to me, I'm experienced, I know they can't do anything to me!
The worst that can happen is that I die again!
When she began to understand this, she probably no longer was afraid.
Not only was she not afraid, but she developed a bloodthirsty, crazy, and chaotic mentality. She wished that as many monsters as possible would jump out, and it would be best if she could kill them all in one go.
This is the "depth of fear".
Sometimes the most extreme fear can make people break through the fear itself and burst out with a huge amount of energy or courage. This is probably what people call "living towards death".
"If the Emperor Worm is enough to kill and eat us all, what does another evil god mean?"
The woman's tone now had a crazy tone, and Hitzfeld saw her lick her lips with her tongue.
"I'm not afraid even if ten or a hundred more come... I'll still try to kill them!"
I can rest assured that.
Hitzfeld finally felt relieved and no longer had to worry about Xia collapsing.
"Snapped!"
Then she heard a crisp sound from behind.
I was a little dazed, and after a while I felt a burning pain in my left buttock.
"Xia...you——"
His face flushed, Hitzfeld glared at the woman.
"You actually look down on me and try to comfort me in this way."
Xia Yibing hummed a few times, and suddenly hugged the girl tightly again.
"Although I am grateful that my little angel is so considerate of me, some punishment must be given."
"Get it? If you keep looking down on me like this, it won't just be a slap in the face."
Hitzfeld was so embarrassed and angry that he almost laughed at the woman's anger.
From any perspective, I am the one who performs more maturely on clay.
You big idiot, how dare you take all the credit? That's really far-fetched talk... I guess you just can't save your face!
"Ai~Su~En~~~~"
Just when she was considering whether to take advantage of the situation and mine Xia's mines, a hoarse call suddenly came from outside, seemingly from the corner of the wall diagonally opposite.
The call was so creepy, like the voice of a ghost coming from the midnight, with each syllable trembling.
Hitzfeld got goose bumps from head to toe. After she came to her senses, she ran to the fence with big strides and whispered harshly:
"If you don't want to be a human being, you can bang your head against the wall and die. Stop pretending to be crazy here."
"I can die~" the voice suddenly became normal, "but you should at least let people eat something before they go on their way..."
The only person in the entire team who could play such a childish trick on her was that erratic idiot Mapps Darent.
"When did you wake up?" Hitzfeld's eyes widened.
"Didn't I ask them to bring you food?"
“No.” Darent leaned against the fence on the other side, his cheeks sunken, looking like he was about to die.
"No, dear... they were only given to your Officer Xia. None of us had any, not even a drop of soup..."
Hitzfeld looked puzzled at first, then began to cover his face and sigh.
She remembered... She was using drawing to communicate with the Creeper, and she only drew a cartoon head of Xia.
So that's why only Xia was given food, and the others got nothing...
These honest ugly guys...are really hilarious.
--------
Eat something, there's still one chapter before noon.
Chapter 37: A Past Event - A New Chapter for the Cute Lord "Double-Mounted Hand-Pulled Machine"
Ten minutes later, the guards came in with pots of delicious spider soup and other food and delivered them to the cells where Darent, Leah and Bruce were.
"vomit--"
Xia Yibing was holding onto the railing and retching.
This woman is indeed not as afraid of insects as most girls. Even if a spider the size of a palm falls on her, she can sweep it away without batting an eyelid.
But being afraid or not is one thing, and whether or not you can accept it as food is another. Poor her, she just thought she was eating a lobster seafood deluxe meal, and it was really hard to have her dream shattered.
Hitzfeld sat on the bed and watched her vomit. He realized that she was actually trying not to spit out all the food, and finally he couldn't help but burst out laughing.
"We've eaten more disgusting food before," she said to Xia. "You also told me that you survived on Brays Island by robbing bird nests, eating raw bird eggs and live bird meat. Compared to those, at least they were roasted."
"The nature is different... well... we can't generalize..." Xia Yibing had basically suppressed her nausea, but her face was still a little green. "This is cheating... Even if you told me in advance, I wouldn't do this...!"
This statement had no effect in terms of defense. Hitzfeld held back his laughter and went over to help her sit on the bed. He walked to the corner of the fence and listened carefully to the strange clattering noise not far away.
Eat and drink as much as you want...
She thought of the Saiyan family who stayed for dinner after the World Martial Arts Tournament.
"Didn't you notice that they didn't eat?" she turned and asked Xia.
"No..." Xia Yibing leaned against the head of the bed, holding her arms and shaking, "I thought they sent something to every cell."
"Can I go see Mapes?"
"Go ahead." The woman forced a smile at her.
"You have brought me many surprises this time. There must be some hidden logic in the worm language that I haven't discovered. I will try to completely decipher it within three days."
Nodding, Hitzfeld was completely relieved.
However, it was rare to see Xia Yibing looking like a weak and charming little woman. Before leaving, she couldn't help herself. She ran to the bed, risking being dragged back, and reached out to touch the woman's head twice.
Xia Yibing didn't react at first. When she realized the situation, Hitzfeld had already trotted to the door and was looking for the guard to open it.
I can only smile, close my eyes and conserve my energy.
After leaving Xia Yibing's cell, Hitzfeld turned a corner and looked at the iron gate on the other side of the corridor.
