Chapter 156 : Chapter 156
Chapter : 156
As soon as Yan Yunqing said this, the entire attic fell silent.
Merlin's expression was not very good, his old face wrinkled into a ball.
Yan Yunqing happened to glance at it and felt that the wrinkles on Merlin's face looked like a chrysanthemum.
Yan Yunqing's lips twitched, and he averted his gaze, finding it somewhat hard to look directly at him.
Merlin, however, did not notice Yan Yunqing's slight disdain for him. Even if he knew, he would only be smug, because he had deliberately fabricated this old face to avoid trouble.
“Mandiper, the Church of Light……” Merlin's brows were tightly knitted, “And the Eternal God Cult. On the surface, these three have absolutely no connection.”
This, in turn, was even more terrifying.
The more impeccable they were on the surface, the greater their scheme.
“The current faith of the Church of Light, that Goddess of Light, have you looked into her? Is she really a newly born god?” Yan Yunqing asked the question that had been perplexing him for a long time.
“You mean that.” Merlin actually knew about this. “When the Church of Light was re-established and announced the birth of the Goddess of Light, Isabel and I had already investigated. No new god was born. That Goddess of Light was just a reason for the Church of Light to win back believers.”
“The earliest Goddess of Light to appear was just the Church of Light's Holy Maiden at the time in disguise. However, it was still a period of war, the two great empires were fighting back and forth, and ordinary people were not having an easy time. At that time, the Church of Light took in these people, and slowly formed the new Church of Light,” Merlin said.
After the Demon King disappeared, the Eternal Empire held on for a period of time with the support of several retainers.
However, as time went on, people's hearts changed. Coupled with the spread of that prophecy, the initial two leaders of Romunik and Bartovita were the first to stand up and declare independence, unwilling to accept the rule of other races.
Following that, a chapter of war that lasted for more than a hundred years was unveiled.
During this period, the number of casualties was no less than that during the War of the Gods.
In addition to the appearance of demonic beasts, the ordinary people and other races at the bottom suffered the most severe casualties.
At that time, the Church of Light stood up, fabricating a newly born Goddess of Light as an anchor for spiritual faith, taking in and providing relief to those displaced by the war.
As everyone knew, the Church of Light controlled all the light-based magic on the entire Ailman Continent, and many powerful healing spells were light magic.
Furthermore, light-based magic was a natural counter to demonic beasts.
At that time, even if Merlin had discovered the unusual movements of the Church of Light, he did not intervene in their reconstruction.
Judging actions, not intentions, in that chaotic era, if ordinary people were not left with a place to shelter, they truly would not have been able to survive.
What's more, the Goddess of Light presented by the Church of Light was just a fake, completely unable to affect them, as weak as an ant that could be crushed at any time.
Even Merlin had not expected that the new Church of Light, once established with a Holy Maiden posing as a goddess, would now dare to secretly participate in such an unnatural and immoral affair.
Merlin sighed: “I thought the new Church of Light…… would become the true『Light』. After all, I had met that child back then.”
“That Holy Maiden who pretended to be the goddess, she seemed to be only 14 years old at the time…… I asked her if she had ever thought about what would happen if the believers exposed her?” Merlin recalled the past. Although a thousand years had passed and those scenes had long faded in color, they were still vivid in his memory.
She was a thin girl with a pair of beautiful blue eyes, her hair meticulously tied up. When faced with Merlin's direct and sharp question, she showed no anxiety or fear, only firmly telling Merlin.
——“Someone has to stand up and do something for this continent. If it's not me, it will be someone else, so why can't it be me?”
“She said the same thing as you, Nolan.” Merlin's heart was filled with melancholy. “At that time, I really thought the Church of Light might become the next Eternal Empire.”
But Yan Yunqing found it very normal. “You have to know, what this world becomes is absolutely not something that can be changed by a single person.”
“Back then, if the Demon King didn't have like-minded allies and retainers, it would have been impossible to establish the vast Eternal Empire.”
“Perhaps that Holy Maiden you met really had the ambition to save the world, but human life is still too short. She alone could not control the Church of Light's path towards a rotten future.”
The roots of the Church of Light were rotten.
Rebuilt with its past glory and a rotten, stinking core, it could never truly walk towards the『Light』.
“……You're right.” Merlin had to admit that Nolan's insights on certain matters far surpassed people like them.
Even after living for so many years, he could not fully comprehend the human heart, yet Nolan did it with ease.
The attic was quiet again for a while.
Merlin let out a long breath and said: “We will continue to investigate the matter of the Eternal God Cult next.
At the same time, I will also pay attention to the movements of the Church of Light.
Their power has grown too much now, even I cannot easily obtain information from within their ranks. It will take some time.”
“Will Isabel be involved too?” Yan Yunqing understood what Merlin was trying to say.
Merlin nodded: “The reason we found the Eternal God Cult in the first place was because of that dragon bone transaction at the auction house. Now that we've finally found a new clue, Isabel won't give up.”
“What's more, on my return to the academy this time, I also found a crucial clue in that alchemist's notes.”
Merlin said, “The main materials needed to draw that alchemy formation are dragon bones and dragon blood. If our direction of investigation is correct, then probably……”
This was the reason why members of the Dragon race had frequently gone missing in the last century.
Anger was unconcealable in Merlin's expression. Having long been husband and wife with Isabel and having lived with the Dragon race for hundreds of years, he had already developed a sense of belonging to the Dragon race. It was difficult to face such a matter with a calm mind.
Yan Yunqing nodded silently.
It was just that, in this case, the starting time of the Eternal God Cult's plan would have to be pushed back another hundred years…… if the disappearances of the Dragon race members in the last century were really related to the Eternal God Cult.
“Speaking of which, that descendant of the alchemist student you mentioned is also a teacher at the academy. Who is it?”
“You probably don't know him.” Merlin didn't hide it. “He's a teacher for the upper years, and he didn't inherit his ancestor's talent for alchemy. Instead, he's quite accomplished in magical languages. What he teaches now is 'Advanced Magical Languages and Runes'.”
“Clayton Gregory.”
Clayton Gregory?
Yan Yunqing repeated the name in his mind. Why did it sound a little familiar?
He recalled for a moment and suddenly remembered why the surname Gregory was so familiar. A fellow Class A student, the classmate he was most familiar with since coming to Sigret Academy—Quinn's surname was Gregory.
Quinn's full name was Quinn Gregory, and his father was also a teacher at the academy, who happened to teach the upper-year students.
As for who this Clayton Gregory was, Yan Yunqing felt he no longer needed to guess.
It couldn't be such a coincidence, could it……?
Yan Yunqing rubbed his temples, feeling like this world was made up of a huge coincidence.
“What about you? Are you planning to stay in the academy? How much more time do you need for your strength to recover?”
From Merlin's perspective, Yan Yunqing was only at Sigret Academy to learn about the new subjects that had developed over the past thousand years, not to really study.
As for his strength not increasing but instead regressing so drastically during his thousand-year disappearance, Merlin had proactively found him an excuse of being injured.
But Merlin always believed that Yan Yunqing's strength would recover quickly. After all, judging solely from Yan Yunqing's level increase in this short period of time, it really did seem like he was slowly recovering his original strength.
After all, no matter how much of a genius a person was, it was impossible to leap from level forty-something to nearly level seventy in just a few months.
Yan Yunqing rubbed his nose. This question was really not easy to answer. When would his strength recover? He himself didn't know when he could reach level one hundred and eighty and above.
How come transmigrating here had reset his level? If he could have directly inherited the main character's stats from back then, would he still need to be afraid of this and that now?
He could have directly fought his way into the Church of Light, tearing apart the Pope with his hands and kicking the Holy Son with his feet. Absolutely no one would have been able to stop him.
Yan Yunqing, who had once spent two months specifically grinding the main character's stats to be on par with the God of Light, thought with great confidence.
It was just a pity that these were all fantasies. After fantasizing, he still had to face reality.
“Hmm…… my strength will still need some time.” Yan Yunqing answered the question about his strength vaguely. “As for whether I will stay at Sigret Academy after this.”
Yan Yunqing pondered for a moment, then brought up a digression instead, “Calculating the time, the『Descenders』are about to appear.”
Merlin was taken aback, then also did a mental calculation, his expression turning grave. “Indeed. The『Descenders』…… Hmm, from your expression, could it be that you already know what『Descenders』refers to?”
“I know a little bit about it.” Yan Yunqing replied, “They can be considered a group of people whose behavioral patterns are very difficult to predict.”
“People?” Merlin caught the key point in Yan Yunqing's words. “Are they of the Human race?”
“……In appearance, yes.” Yan Yunqing thought about what game players would seem like from the perspective of an in-game NPC. “But in a sense, they cannot die, and at the same time, they are extremely curious about everything in this world. Peculiar creatures.”
Merlin really couldn't comprehend the『Descenders』that Yan Yunqing described. “Your description…… makes them sound more like a type of undead existence.”
Yan Yunqing felt mentally exhausted: “In short, they are a group of people who are very difficult to control. You'll know when they descend.”
“At that time, I should be leaving the academy.” Yan Yunqing said, “I will blend in with the『Descenders』. If I'm not mistaken, the『Descenders』will definitely have『Talent Skills』as well. When a large number of『Talent』holders appear, the Eternal God Cult will certainly make a move against the『Descenders』.”
“Perhaps I can take this opportunity to figure out the situation with the Eternal God Cult.”
Yan Yunqing and Merlin reached a consensus. They would absolutely not let the Eternal God Cult off so easily, allowing it to kill wantonly.
Yan Yunqing and Merlin didn't even dare to discuss what the Eternal God Cult was collecting『Talents』for. If it were just one or two, they might have thought it was just people in the Eternal God Cult replacing the talents of their untalented children with better ones.
But the scale of their slaughter was too large. What kind of purpose would require so many lives and so many『Talents』to fill?
Yan Yunqing himself couldn't figure it out.
It couldn't be that because the Demon King killed a God of Light, they wanted to create a new god themselves, right?
Not satisfied with just a Holy Maiden pretending to be a god, but wanting to truly create a god……
This speculation was baseless, yet it made Yan Yunqing's blood run cold.
If even gods could be created, those people in high positions of power…… wouldn't they think of becoming gods themselves? If one person took the lead and used this method to become a god, wouldn't the remaining powerful figures want to do the same?
This opening must never be created. If it were, the Ailman Continent of that time would become a true hell.
A purgatory even more terrifying than during the War of the Gods.
And it would be difficult for a second Demon King who could slaughter all the gods to appear in the world again.
Even Yan Yunqing himself didn't think he could do it again. Some things might seem simple through a screen, but when he was deeply involved, he couldn't be as ruthless and decisive as the former Demon King.
The plan to『establish his own force on the Ailman Continent』had to be put on the agenda.
Thinking of this, Yan Yunqing looked at Merlin, “Merlin, there's something I need to ask of you.”
“……”
Volume Six, The Return Journey: A Legend of Sword and Magic