Chapter 481: Blasphemy

"My dear God, what is it that You are doing?"

Within the borders of the Theocracy of the God of Light, a devout believer gazed in disbelief at the catastrophe unfolding in the heart of the kingdom, murmuring to himself. Even as he prayed, he questioned the deity he worshipped, demanding to know why such a calamity had been brought upon them.

"Save me, Father, I beg of you!"

"If you cannot, then please, at least take our children."

On the street before the priest, several ordinary, faithless residents of the Theocracy were fleeing in a blind panic, rushing from the center of the kingdom toward the periphery.

The process by which the nodes were pulled by the power of the God of Light to influence the material world extended outward from the central region, and it was also from the center that those affected were corrupted and twisted by the Void into Void-beings.

This created the illusion that some residents might escape. What the priest witnessed now were a few who had been at a distance from the epicenter, having seen others twisted into Void-beings only to be instantly purified by the power of the God of Light. In their frantic flight, they had spotted the priest and reached out to him as if he were a lifeline.

"I..."

The priest instinctively wanted to say something, habitually reaching out to the deity he worshipped, attempting to draw upon the power of divine magic to save these souls crying out for help.

Yet, as previously noted, this was merely an illusion of escape. As more parts of the "node" were dragged into the material world, the speed at which the peculiar environment expanded accelerated exponentially. Though they had managed to reach this point, in a mere dozen seconds, they were suddenly engulfed by the spreading environment of the Void.

"Please... you... hrrk, gurgle, aagh..."

The pleas they repeated were transformed into meaningless roars before they could even be fully uttered. Their bodies distorted and warped; the deep purple radiance of the Void covered and replaced their flesh, growing and spreading in a chaotic, lawless manner, turning them into abominations that bore no resemblance to their former selves.

No one was spared—not the woman clutching her child, not the man shielding his wife and son, not the young man who had just realized something was wrong, nor the middle-aged blacksmith whose legs had long been stiff, yet who was still running with all his might at the back of the group...

Their bodies were swept over, covered, and devoured by the shifting environment. Then, under the priest's gaze, they were transformed into Void-beings. Even the five or six-year-old girl, thrown toward the priest by her mother and still unaware of what was happening as she flew through the air, could not escape this cruel fate.

Subsequently, the pillar of holy light—a sight the priest knew all too well, representing the power of his worshipped deity—descended from the heavens, reducing these newly formed abominations to ash.

"...will do my best..."

The fragmented words were only half-spoken when they ceased; there was no longer any need to finish them. The beings he had sought to save were now all reduced to dust, and the shifting environment engulfed him as well.

"This is..."

Beyond the impotent rage and the bewilderment of being unable to sense his god, a new sense of confusion took hold.

The moment the shifting environment swept over him, a translucent golden barrier of light manifested around the devout believer, shielding him from the harm of the encroaching environment.

The priest found it hard to comprehend. He was intimately familiar with this protective power, as it was the same he received through his daily prayers. But why would his god, while failing to respond to his prayers, still choose to protect him?

Such scenes were not rare; in fact, every believer within the Theocracy was experiencing something similar. The spreading Void environment turned countless ordinary residents into Void-beings, only for the divine punishment of the God of Light to descend upon them. What should have been a holy kingdom now resembled a living hell.

While the believers could no longer channel the divine magic of their god, they remained protected by that very same power, shielded from the spreading Void.

Beyond the priests and clerics whose power derived solely from faith, most of the Theocracy's subjects were transcendents—knights and mages—while every member of the Paladin corps was a seasoned warrior.

"Screech..."

A Paladin, silent, sprinted across the rooftops clutching several children. He leaped, soaring over several houses at high speed before landing, knees bent to absorb the impact, his boots scraping against the ground for several meters with a harsh sound.

Yet, before this Paladin—a high-ranking official knight—could begin to run again, the Void environment, which was rewriting the material world, caught up with impossible speed. It enveloped the Paladin and the children in his arms, the twisting effect beginning without pause.

In the Paladin's embrace, there suddenly appeared a mass of indescribable chaos, multiple entities merged into one, writhing and shrieking against his chest and shoulders, attempting to bite off the Paladin's arms and head with newly sprouted, jagged teeth.

A pillar of holy light descended, drowning the Paladin's body. When the light faded, the Paladin stood unharmed, while the Void-beings that had evolved from the ordinary residents were utterly annihilated.

The Paladin paused for a moment, looking at his own hands, which were still covered in golden light. He then raised his head, casting his gaze toward the center of the Theocracy, where the God of Light continued the act of dragging something out from the Void. The look in his eyes, hidden behind his visor, flickered with an unfathomable meaning.

......

"Perhaps I should offer an apology. It was never our intention for these ordinary residents to die. However, your connection to the God of Light is deeper than I imagined. The protection surrounding those believers is a result of your influence, isn't it?"

Within the Void, inside the massive sphere of light representing the God of Light, Sura held a conversation with Kieran, the Pope of the Theocracy, in a form beyond description.

"..."

Kieran offered no reaction to Sura's words.

"Believe me, I assure you, once the Utopia is successfully established, such tragic situations will never occur again. Even if these believers are protected, watching these residents be slaughtered must be agonizing. One of the purposes of the Utopia is to prevent this very sense of helplessness."

Sura continued to state his views. Whether or not these words seemed ironic to others, Kieran, whose consciousness was gradually blurring, knew that these people truly believed them.

He did not know how to judge them. Were they scholars blinded by research and knowledge? Scoundrels whose minds were entirely occupied by paranoia? Or were they truly enlightened sages?

Regardless, he would never acknowledge the Utopia organization. He would not debate right or wrong; those were for the audience and the survivors to discuss. What he had to do now was simple: let more people live.

"It seems your understanding of the people of the Theocracy is still somewhat outdated..."

Kieran spoke these words after a long silence, a hint of solace in his voice, before falling into a permanent stillness.

"Hm?"

Sura muttered in confusion, but he soon understood what the other had meant.

The people of the Theocracy were a simple lot. What they pursued and accepted were quite basic things—essentially the most universal demands of sentient beings. They sought truth rather than blindly following someone deemed "correct," and in this regard, they were the same even toward the god they worshipped.

At this very moment, witnessing the actions of that giant figure, countless innocent residents who were not part of the Theocracy had died. Yet, these members of the Theocracy would not, like the believers of other gods, begin to doubt their existence, wondering why their god had forsaken them or why their prayers went unanswered.

"The actions of the 'God of Light' are wrong!" This thought appeared in the minds of these members of the Theocracy without hesitation, and with extreme blasphemy.

After all, it had long been noted that the people of the Theocracy were the most unique among all the religious groups on the continent. They were the most devout, and yet the least devout, of believers.

Once the actions of their "deity" deviated from the path they pursued, acts of blasphemy would be committed by the believers of the Theocracy as a matter of course. They would never hypnotize themselves into believing the deity's actions were correct simply because they were the ones who worshipped it. The moment the deity committed such an act, it ceased to be the object of their faith.

"Go quickly, I will see if I can stop that thing..."

The Paladin from before said to the cleric running past him, his eyes fixed on the giant figure in the heart of the Theocracy dragging the node. That thing was no longer the object of their faith; it was merely a bastard committing cruel acts.

"I leave it to you. Don't push yourself. I will see if I can save some of the residents further out. The Sky Mechanical City has arrived; they should be helping as well."

The cleric nodded, offering a brief word of caution. The light of magic flickered in his hands, and he used his spells to teleport to a position far from the central region.

At this very moment, the golden shields protecting the believers were growing dim, fading away bit by bit. This was only logical; the believers had chosen to stop worshipping their god and had blasphemed against it, so the god would naturally cease to provide any form of power.

Yet, as the Paladin ran toward the center, the golden light, on the verge of vanishing, suddenly became bright once more. Meanwhile, the "God of Light" in the sky, who was dragging the node, began to blur, and its movements grew sluggish.

"This is truly an unimaginable act of blasphemy. Have you 'devout' believers even denied the very meaning of the god's existence?"

In the Void, Sura watched this strange spectacle, his voice carrying a rare trace of emotion.

The massive sphere of light began to split, its power shifting outward to form a new sphere, while the sphere influenced by the Utopia organization grew infinitesimally small...

The believers of the Theocracy had chosen to forsake their "god" without hesitation. Their faith had not vanished; it had collectively shifted in a new direction, carrying the original power of the God of Light to a new place to reconvene.

The original God of Light lost almost all of its original believers, leaving only the few who were members of the Utopia organization, and its power naturally withered away rapidly.

Kieran's efforts could no longer be described merely as effective. What kind of "blasphemous" believers had this man created...