The Players and the Protagonist Want to Kill Me – Chapter 768

Chapter 2: New Century (Epilogue)

Chapter 558: A Pure Soul

Today was destined to be an uneasy day for the people of the Kairid Empire.

In Sol City, Borahan arrived at the Church of Light only to find frenzied believers and corpses scattered everywhere.

Inside the secret chamber of the church, the mutated Carter and a priest lay in pools of blood, the divinity of the Goddess of Order still lingering in the air. The grotesque statue had been shattered by divine power.

…

After half a day of arduous travel, Borahan’s adjutant, Sharna, finally reached a city near Sol City that possessed a teleportation array – Kairin City.

Through the teleportation array in Kairin City, he quickly arrived at the Royal Capital and, kneeling before the King, reported the crisis facing Sol City.

King Kairid, the Legendary Knight Dubois, wore a troubled expression. Similar incidents to the one in Sol City had occurred in Kairid more than ten times. They erupted without warning and spread with extreme speed; eight cities had already fallen completely, and seven others were desperately holding on, awaiting reinforcements.

“I am aware of the situation in Sol City, but my forces are insufficient. I can only grant you the authority to requisition troops from other lords to support Sol City.”

“I shall obey your command, Your Majesty.”

Sharna understood the King’s predicament. He had only learned upon arriving at the Royal Capital that so many cities had been afflicted by a mysterious contamination. Kairid had been in turmoil for a week already. Furthermore, the Temple of Order in the Royal Capital had already begun researching the contaminated.

“Stomp, stomp, stomp!”

At that moment, a knight rushed into the palace. He knelt beside the King and whispered a few words into his ear. Sharna saw the King’s expression change instantly.

“Are you telling the truth?” Dubois exclaimed, his voice barely suppressed. The knight nodded grimly, his expression bitter. Upon closer inspection, a silver armor could be seen beneath his black cloak, engraved with scales and scrolls – the symbol of the Temple of Order, indicating the knight’s identity as a guard knight from the temple.

“Your Majesty, has something happened at the Temple of Order?” Sharna looked up, his gaze subtly sweeping between the knight and the King, his heart filled with foreboding.

King Kairid did not explain directly. His face turned ashen, his jaw twitched, and he then dismissed all irrelevant personnel from the palace until only the Royal Guard Knight Order and his most trusted ministers remained.

“Follow me to the Temple of Order,” he sighed, without elaborating. But everyone could sense that something unimaginable had occurred.

…

It was dusk, and twilight gradually spread across the streets. The Royal Guard Knight Order led the way, with the King and his personal guards following behind, their faces grim. They soon arrived at the Temple of Order, which was already surrounded by its own guard knights, barring even believers from entering. The atmosphere was somber, like a winter night, with only battle flags fluttering in the fierce wind. Sharna pursed his lips, a bad premonition settling in his heart.

They followed the guard knights into the Temple of Order. In the temple’s vast hall, the Pope knelt before a statue of the Goddess. His eyes were filled with profound grief, like extinguished embers. His hand trembled as he gently stroked the cracks on the statue. The once faintly luminous statue of the Goddess had lost its radiance. She held up scales and scrolls, her serene gaze fixed on the distance; her majesty remained, but her divinity was gone. Surrounding nuns and believers wept softly, the temple suffused with suffocating sadness and despair.

King Kairid Dubois walked tremblingly towards the Pope, his steps unsteady like a toddler’s. He almost fell, then “thump,” he knelt before the statue along with the Pope. At first, he couldn’t believe it, but now he had to face the truth.

“Has the Goddess truly abandoned us?” Dubois murmured blankly, his eyes hollow as he gazed at the cracked statue. He had grown up under the Goddess’s radiance. From the moment of his birth, he and his brother had received the Goddess’s blessings. He gained great martial strength and eventually inherited his father’s position as King. His brother, possessing supreme wisdom, took over the temple and became the current Pope. For nearly a century, the brothers had built Kairid into a powerful empire, second only to Andor. They strictly followed the Oracle of the Goddess of Order, maintaining absolute order and cooperating with the Church of Light, becoming the only neutral country on the North Continent.

“No!” The Pope’s face contorted with a mixture of rage and sorrow, his roar like thunder. Dubois had never seen such an expression on his gentle, always smiling elder brother before.

Pope Lux looked at his brother coldly and reprimanded him sternly: “The Goddess has never abandoned us. She merely foresaw the future crisis and left us with hope!” He produced the Book of Order, enveloped in divinity, his ice-blue eyes flashing with divine light. “To prevent us from being contaminated, the Goddess has used her divine power to alter the rules and establish a new order. Our sight, smell, and hearing have been separated from our souls, and the contamination of the defiled will be blocked. But we have one final step to take.”

Dubois watched as Lux put down the Book of Order, which lay flat on his knees. Then, he unbuckled a dagger from his waist.

“What are you doing?!” Dubois cried out. Lux raised the dagger with one hand, tears streaming down his face. He spoke slowly, “I must respond to the Goddess’s sacrifice.” With that, before Dubois’s horrified gaze, he plunged the dagger into his own eyes, slowly slicing from left to right. The intense pain forced a beast-like roar from him.

“You…” Dubois wanted to say something, but ultimately remained silent. All he could do was become a mere bystander. No one’s faith in the Goddess of Order was purer than the Pope’s! He could only watch as his brother cut open his eyes, gouged out his ears, sliced open his nose, tore away the flesh, and slowly carved out the bone of his nasal bridge. Blood flowed down his cheeks; at that moment, the Pope resembled a demon. But the surrounding believers and knights looked at him with reverence. They knelt on the ground, praying devoutly for the Pope, as if on a pilgrimage.

His three senses – sight, smell, and hearing – were severed. One step remained. Lux took a breath and ordered a knight to bring him a needle and thread, then painstakingly sewed his mouth shut, stitch by stitch. He put on a silver mask he had prepared beforehand, covering a face that would make even demons tremble. Now, Lux firmly believed his soul would remain pure, belonging solely to the Goddess!