Chapter 25: The Outer God
What profession on the continent had the most thorough understanding of human anatomy and the deepest research into biological functions?
If your answer is surgeon, you’d be dead wrong. For two thousand years, the Church, which held sway over the faith of the entire continent, had strict control over people’s actions. Among them, dissecting and studying corpses were considered grave sins. Surgeons who wanted to understand the human body had to learn through practical experience, meaning treating living patients and accumulating knowledge through trial and error.
Necromancers, on the other hand, were different. Since the very beginning, they had been the Church’s sworn enemies, and dissecting corpses was their bread and butter. Early necromancers at least adhered to the Four Creeds, but nowadays, even finding a necromancer who followed those tenets was difficult. Respect for the dead? Forget it. If they were curious, they’d just cut it open and sew it back up afterward.
The Church had once burned a group of doctors who secretly collaborated with necromancers, but this had sparked widespread outrage and shaken people’s trust in the Church. So, a hundred years ago, the Church finally revised its prohibitions, allowing doctors and coroners to study donated bodies under Church supervision. Despite this, the experience accumulated by doctors still paled in comparison to that of necromancers, who spent all their time with corpses.
Just by looking at Leona, Abyss felt as if he could see through her flesh and directly into her internal organs. He stood before her, aimed briefly, and two of his fingers, covered in sharp bone spurs, plunged into her stomach.
“Ah…” Leona instinctively let out a soft moan, but it didn’t seem to hurt much.
With a relaxed expression, Abyss moved his two fingers around inside Leona’s stomach, searching for any foreign objects.
“D-don’t… Don’t move around like that…” Leona complained, her eyes tightly shut. “It feels weird… Don’t touch there!”
“Just bear with it a little longer. I’ll be quick,” Abyss said, sticking out his tongue halfway. “You really have more space inside than most people. No wonder you can eat so much.”
“Ah… You touched it! That’s it!” Leona suddenly exclaimed.
Abyss’s two fingers deftly located a hard object in Leona’s stomach, pinched it, and pulled it out. The thumb-sized wound he had created in Leona’s stomach visibly began to heal from both sides, becoming smooth and as good as new in an instant, just as he had promised, without leaving any trace. As an undead whose blood had stopped flowing, Leona didn’t even bleed.
Between his two fingertips, Abyss held a blood-red gemstone. It was polished into a smooth oval shape, translucent, with a cat’s eye-like band of light inside, making it appear quite alluring.
“Is this the thing that cursed me?” Leona snatched the gemstone from Abyss and examined it closely.
“It’s much bigger than an ordinary cherry pit. Did you swallow that whole basket of cherries?” Abyss said, his expression odd. “You must have been a big eater even before you were cursed… Hey, Flora, why is your face so red?”
“Ah… N-nothing…” Flora quickly turned her face away.
Leona glared at Abyss. “If you can’t speak properly, just shut up! Now, is my curse lifted?”
Having secretly confirmed that there was no scar on her stomach, Leona was now concerned about the curse.
“It should be fine now. This gemstone from your stomach reacted to the one I have. I’m going to put them together and see what happens,” Abyss said, taking the red gemstone from Leona and placing it beside the Eye of Fear. “My experience just now was very strange. It felt like some strange and powerful creature was trying to influence me, but I drove it away. It might be slightly injured now. I’m curious about this creature.”
“What kind of creature?” Leona asked curiously. “It wasn’t inside my stomach before, was it?”
“It was more like… hmm… an illusion, a projection of some mentally powerful creature’s will into my mind. I only know that it was very damp and had thin, cold tendrils. It seemed to be trying to take control of my body. Did you feel anything like that?” Abyss said.
“That’s disgusting,” Leona shook her head. “But I did feel the gemstone in my stomach vibrating slightly, as if it was being pulled towards something.”
“A powerful creature…” Flora suddenly fell into deep thought.
Abyss and Leona both looked at her. She was frowning, her head bowed, obviously recalling something.
After a long silence, she looked up and said, “Abyss, have you heard of ‘Outer Gods’?”
“Never heard of them. What are they? Doesn’t our world already have nine deities?”
Abyss tilted his head. Although his knowledge was vast, it was mostly related to corpses and funerals. He was very specialized in his studies.
“About seventy years ago, a group of farmers reported a strange discovery to the Church—they encountered a strange creature in their dreams. This creature had a very bizarre appearance, unlike any known animal, but it was definitely alive. It seemed to lack intelligence but possessed a human-like way of thinking. Every time they fell asleep, it would appear before them, chanting strange poems and transmitting terrifying knowledge to them.”
Flora recounted slowly.
“Whispering… I heard that too,” Abyss said, nodding quickly.
“Some of those who saw this terrifying creature went mad. They killed their friends and family who tried to communicate with it, offering their corpses as tributes to this unknown entity. They gathered day and night, chanting blasphemous prayers and consuming filthy things. Those who reported this were the ones who managed to escape from the village,” Flora said gravely. “According to the records, the Church used Divine Arts to calm those who sought help, freeing them from the nightmares, and sent Holy Knights to eliminate all those who had gone mad, putting an end to the incident. However, afterward, several of the priests sent to investigate the truth in the village also went insane, shouting that they had seen the future, the true gods.”
“What kind of magic is that powerful?” Leona asked incredulously. “Aren’t priests of the Church supposed to have exceptional willpower?”
“What’s so powerful about it? I can easily…”
“Shut up, ABC!”
“Fortunately, after sacrificing several priests and an entire squad of Holy Knights, the source of the strange events was finally identified. The Church discovered a strangely shaped scimitar. This sword possessed a special power that could corrupt the wielder’s mind, but at the same time, it granted the wielder the ability to travel between dreams. In dreams, the wielder would transform into a massive monster made entirely of teeth, tempting others to offer tributes, which would eventually become its teeth…”
Leona grimaced. “That sounds like a scary story to frighten children.”
“But the Church’s records don’t lie,” Flora said with certainty. “The sword is kept in a secret vault in the Church, forbidden for anyone to touch. And this unknown powerful creature was named ‘Outer God’ by the Church because it possessed power far beyond mortals, yet it wasn’t among the Nine Gods of this world. Therefore, it was believed to be a deity from another world. Its origins, purpose, and preferences are unknown, but one thing is certain: it cannot coexist peacefully with humans.”
“So, our enemy might be a monster from another world?” Abyss said, not frightened but excited.
“Or a group of them,” Flora corrected. “The monster you saw wasn’t made of teeth, was it? Since there are different types of monsters and cursed objects, it means the ‘Outer God’ isn’t alone.”
“Wow, this is awesome! I’m so curious!” Abyss clapped his hands.
“Have some sense of social responsibility,” Leona said scornfully. “These monsters could potentially destroy our world!”
“Therefore, I suggest we set off as soon as possible. We need to not only address the threat to the tomb guardians but also uncover the truth behind the two gemstones in Abyss’s possession and the ‘Face of Hell’ mentioned by Leiner!” Flora said. “Otherwise, more people might become victims of the Outer Gods!”
“Then what are we waiting for? Let’s go!” Abyss raised his hand excitedly.
“No way! I’m still hungry! Roast that other leg of pork for me! Otherwise, I’ll roast you!” Leona said angrily, grabbing Abyss’s belt to stop him from leaving.
Held back by Leona’s superhuman strength, even Abyss’s excitement couldn’t move him an inch.
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