Suddenly, a dense pain forcefully awakened Langmuir.
The Son of God clutched his clothes in terror, the pain growing stronger and becoming unbearable.
He was in trouble, it was already the night transitioning from the sixth to the seventh day, he was running out of time…
Langmuir gripped the short sword for the third time, but only felt despair.
He was the Son of God, he couldn’t just leave a Demon King who claimed to want to litter the world with human corpses. But he was even less capable of killing a young man who had not yet committed any evil amidst the heavy doubts.
Langmuir held the sword, but he kept retreating step by step. When he left the cave, he fell.
“Cough…!”
A sweetness in his throat, he suddenly turned his head and spat out a mouthful of blood.
The pain inside his body was like piercing his bones, at the same time, another familiar power was awakening from his blood.
Langmuir’s face was pale, trembling as he raised his hand.
His Mana!
Indeed…
This energy that had been in his body for seven days was not disguised Mana, but—
“…”
Langmuir bit his teeth and laughed bitterly, he had guessed it long ago, hadn’t he?
That black, violent flame was clearly almost identical to the energy dissipated when the dimly glowing demonic breath was gathered; there was also the “Demon King” uttered by the demon soldier before his death…
Blessing? There was no blessing from the Goddess at all. Someone had just temporarily sealed his Mana, and injected demonic breath into his blood!
Why could he, as a human, use demonic breath?
Langmuir spat out another mouthful of blood, there was no longer any light in his eyes.
He staggered out, coming to a pit in front of him. The continuous rain had turned the pit into a small mirror.
Langmuir sat down weakly, looking at his own reflection.
His face was covered in scales, horns grew from his head, and sharp scale claws and a long scaly tail had formed.
A sudden fear gripped him tightly, and a chill crept into every pore.
What was real, and what was fake?
What was right, and what was wrong?
Langmuir kept crying, the pain making him whimper continuously. He banged his head against the hard ground, but it didn’t alleviate the pain of his soul and body being torn apart bit by bit.
He even thought of giving up on himself and just dying.
But the Son of God did not let himself die after all.
Like a drowning person desperately grabbing the only remaining straw, Langmuir, on the verge of a complete mental breakdown, clung to a thought as if to save himself.
——The elders had said that it was okay to go back within seven days, even if the Demon King was not killed.
Yes, his time was up.
Langmuir got up from the ground in a panic, his hair was wet, his face was all blood, and his eyes were dilated. He didn’t look like the Son of God, but like a madman.
He started running towards the direction of the barrier cliff.
He didn’t want to betray his people, nor did he want to kill Hun Yao. He couldn’t make a choice, but that was just because… his time was up… he was about to die… that’s why he ran back.
Langmuir was not afraid of death before. If not, he would not have insisted on going to the abyss alone instead of the knights.
However, at this moment, under the huge stimulus of the collapse of faith, it seemed that becoming a “fearful of death” guy was the only way to salvation.
So the Son of God ran away.
He kept crying and running, feeling ashamed of his own despicability and cowardice, but at the same time, he didn’t dare to stop for a moment, let alone look back.
He descended the mountain, and in front of him was a vast wilderness.
Langmuir trekked through the wild grass, each step felt like stepping on a knife’s edge. The holy Mana and the violent demonic breath were wreaking havoc in his body, scales were peeling off from his body with blood, and new ones quickly grew out.
The miasma of the abyss was roasting him like fire, and the opposing demonic breath and Mana seemed to be stirring his internal organs into a bloody mess.
And the Gasuo barrier was always hanging in the sky, illuminating his way forward.
The halo was blurred by tears.
Just like the moon.
When Langmuir returned to the barrier cliff, it was already past seven days.
The Son of God’s running gradually began to slow down to a walk, he almost fainted halfway, and in the end, he almost crawled back to the barrier cliff with the last bit of willpower.
The huge magic array was right in front of him.
Langmuir used the last bit of strength to reach out to it.
His body did not encounter any obstacles, but he knew that his soul would be forever imprisoned in the abyss.
In front of him, a bright light shone.
“Huff…huff…cough cough.”
Langmuir knelt on the ground, pressing his chest and breathing hard.
He had returned to the human world. The warm wind carried a refreshing fragrance, the sunlight was gently swaying like ripples, illuminating the wildflowers blooming on the cliff and the fluttering moths.
Several tall figures were walking towards him quickly, they were the elders of the temple.
Langmuir slowly collapsed and lost consciousness.
Langmuir had a dream.
He dreamt of the Demon King he had left in the cave.
He dreamt that the next morning, the demon’s pursuers surrounded the small cave.
At that time, Hun Yao was anxiously calling him, dragging his weak body, looking for the little inferior demon who was destined not to return.
When the pursuers’ arrows came, the Demon King fell.
It was then that he finally saw the traces of the inferior demon’s claws on the ground.
A small, messy set of footprints.
Oh, the Demon King laid on the ground, pressing his bleeding wound with his palm and thought blankly, so the little guy he had been desperately looking for had already left.
Gone, never to return…
The pursuers raised their butcher knives and chopped at the unyielding demon youth.
The knife light rose and fell in the blood, once, twice, cutting through the flesh, severing the tendons and bones. Ten times, a hundred times, the little Demon King who longed to bring his compatriots to find sunlight and flowers was chopped into a pulp.
When he died, the little Demon King’s crimson eyes were still wide open, unwillingly looking at the footprints. As if asking: Why?
…….
“Ah!”
The blond and fair-skinned youth woke up abruptly, panting heavily for a long time before regaining his senses.
He was wearing a clean white robe, placed in the holy bath of the temple. The holy women were holding a silver pot, washing his limbs with some unknown liquid.
The sound of water was quiet, the light was soft. It was not the dark abyss, nor was there a demon youth in the cave.
“Ah, Lord Son of God, poor Lord Son of God.”
The holy women had tears in their eyes, and they held him sympathetically, “You have suffered in the abyss, haven’t you? Did those evil demons hurt you?”
Langmuir was stunned for a moment, then struggled to sit up.
God, what have I done, he thought.
Suddenly, he heard a plop, scales falling into the water – raising his arm, he saw red spots all over his fair skin, those were the traces of scales that had grown and then fallen off.
He looked to the side, only to see a withered scale tail and a pair of coiled horns placed on the edge of the white marble bath.
Langmuir’s stomach cramped.
He endured the discomfort all over his body, came down from the platform, and stepped barefoot into the water.
“Lord Son of God, where are you going?”
“Lord Son of God, your body is still very weak, you can’t…”
Langmuir walked forward, his face pale, murmuring in a daze, “I want to go back.”
“Go back? Where to?”
The holy women looked at each other.
Just then, the door of the holy bath opened from the outside.
The elder prophet, dressed in a large sun totem robe, holding a scepter, walked slowly, just blocking Langmuir’s path.
The blond Son of God quietly looked at him.
The old man still had a kind smile, his white eyebrows curved, “Lord Son of God, you’re awake.”
But Langmuir suddenly found that in the elder prophet’s usually warm eyes, there was an extra bit of scrutiny, an extra layer of coldness.
The elder slowly bent down, almost close to his face, and asked, “This time, did you kill that hateful demon with your own hands?”
Langmuir shook his head, “No.”
“Then, that honey gold…”
“Also no.”
The elder prophet was silent for a moment, then smiled and said, “It’s okay.”
“The return of our Son of God is more important than anything.”
He reached out his hand as if he wanted to touch Langmuir’s golden hair as he used to.
But Langmuir took a step forward, and the elder prophet touched nothing.
The elder turned his head, “Son of God, where are you going?”
Langmuir: “I want to go back to the abyss.”
The elder prophet sighed. He said to the bewildered holy women, “You all go out first.”
The young girls each bowed to the Son of God and the elder prophet, and walked out obediently like a line of little white fishes. They didn’t ask what they shouldn’t, that was the rule of the temple.
Soon, only the young Son of God and the old elder prophet were left in the holy bath.
The latter sighed deeply again, his expression surprisingly helpless, as if looking at a willful and petulant child. “Son of God, my poor Langmuir, what’s wrong with you?”
“You clearly know that you can’t open Gasuo’s barrier by yourself, you also know that the miasma of the abyss is a chronic poison for humans…”
“What kind of curse did those demons put on you that made our pure and devout Son of God so distracted?”
“…”
Langmuir was silent, his teeth clenched tighter and tighter.
When the elder prophet tried to touch his hair again, the Son of God finally raised his head and asked softly, “Did you lie to me?”
The elder prophet was surprised, “Son of God, why do you say that?”
“You said that the demons are a naturally evil race, and the demonic breath is an evil energy.”
“That’s right.”
“Then why can I manipulate the demonic breath, why can I become a demon!?”
“Of course, it’s because of the grace of God.”
Langmuir was speechless. He never thought that the elder prophet could repeat a lie comparable to deceiving a child with such a calm demeanor!
No, if it were the Son of God seven days ago, he would indeed attribute all the irrationalities to the miracle bestowed by the Goddess. He grew up under such teachings.
“No.” Langmuir’s eyes were cold, “It’s not like that.”
“You lied to me, the teachings of the temple lied to me!”
“A naturally evil race? That’s just a group of poor creatures who are forced to struggle in hell, who have the same seven emotions and six desires as humans!”
“The birth of the Demon King? That’s just a demon child about the same age as me, who awakened his innate bloodline one day, is this also a sin?”
“…”
The elder prophet slowly squinted his eyes.
A chill came over the old man’s face, he raised his scepter and knocked it on the ground with a “thud”.
“Lord Son of God, you found the Demon King, didn’t you?”
“You clearly found the Demon King, but you didn’t kill him.”
Langmuir said firmly, “How can I kill a life that has not yet done evil.”
“Foolish!” The elder prophet shouted angrily.
“Son of God, how long have you spent with the Demon King? One day, two days? Six days, seven days?”
“You actually doubted the faith that has nurtured you for fifteen years for an alien race that you have only been with for a few days… Son of God, you disappoint me too much!”
“Elder! I have seen with my own eyes–”
The old man took a step forward, his voice echoing loudly in the holy bath, “What have you seen with your own eyes?”
“Haven’t I taught you to read the books that record history? Every time those demons crawl out of the abyss, how many soldiers are brutally killed…”
“Don’t you know that your hesitation today will kill many of your people who love you in the future!!”
Langmuir’s pupils shrank slightly.
The elder prophet did not let go of the Son of God’s moment of wavering.
“Ah, those poor citizens of the kingdom. They have devoted themselves to their Son of God without reservation, loving you so devoutly for fifteen years, how can you bear to abandon them?”
The old man slowly paced, using a lamenting tone, methodically tormenting the young boy’s tender heart.
——Yes, in fact, when he saw Langmuir’s miserable state at the barrier cliff, he realized everything.
The situation he was most worried about had indeed happened, but it was not irreparable.
He had personally raised Langmuir from a baby in swaddling clothes to the most beautiful youth in the kingdom. The prophet knew this child too well, knew all his weaknesses and taboos.
“I didn’t!” The blond youth was indeed anxious.
He gritted his teeth, his eyes stubborn, “If my kingdom suffers a disaster, I am willing to give everything for the peace of my people. But the demons I saw in the abyss…”
Thud! The prophet’s scepter struck the ground again.
“——After all, you claim that the demons are not the source of evil, what evidence do you have?”
“Think about the people on this land, if they knew what you have done, how heartbroken they would be…”
“And the Holy Monarch and Queen, your parents; Prince Aiden, who admires you so much. Son of God, how can you be so cruel as to let them see their loved ones become accomplices of the demons?”
“The golden sun is watching you in the sky, she chose you as her child, but how do you treat your own Goddess?..”
Gradually, Langmuir looked at the prophet with a pale face and said nothing.
Water droplets fell from his soaked hair ends, drip-drip, the sound echoed in the quiet holy bath.
Thus the elder prophet thought, it’s almost time.
The angry and cold expression gradually faded from the old man’s wrinkled face, leaving only a faint sadness,
He put down his scepter, squatted down, and gently patted Langmuir’s shoulder.
Come back, my poor Langmuir, the old man thought. Don’t let the abyss take you away, you still have to be that beautiful and pure Son of God.
“Ah, it’s also my fault. You are too young and so kind, too easy to be deceived.”
The elder prophet said, “I know, Son of God, you are not a bad child, you just strayed for a moment.”
“It’s my fault, I shouldn’t have agreed to your willful request, letting you go to the abyss alone, and that’s why you were deceived by the evil Demon King. If the Son of God is forty percent guilty, I, the prophet, should be sixty percent.”
“Son of God, you go to the meditation room and think about it. Confess your sins to the Goddess, ask for her forgiveness.”
“As long as you know your mistakes and repent sincerely, I will not tell others about this, just say you didn’t find the Demon King.”
Langmuir blinked.
Enduring the heart-wrenching pain, he slowly repeated, “…as long as I, repent sincerely?”
The prophet laughed, “Yes, as long as the Son of God repents sincerely.”
Suddenly, Langmuir also laughed. There was a hint of moisture in his eyes, that was a look of despair.
“Elder,” he tilted his head and asked softly, “Are you threatening me?”
