Chapter 84

Lia also noticed Michel's abnormal behavior and turned her head to look at Lian, asking with her eyes whether they should knock him out directly.

At this moment, Lumian spoke, asking Michel, "Is the parish priest not here?"

Michel's eyes suddenly became intense: "The parish priest is resting, but you can pray with me." His face was filled with pleading.

Lumian "hesitated" for a few seconds, then reluctantly said, "Alright." Miguel looked excited and happy, turning to the others and saying, "What's wrong with you? Coming to the church to pray is something every believer should do. What is there to be afraid of?"

His implication was that since they had not been discovered after leaving the basement, what was there to worry about now?

As a believer of the Eternal Sun, coming to the church to pray was a normal thing to do.

As for taking a shortcut through the side door, that was a minor issue that could be ignored. And what did the parish priest and the few servants resting for too long have to do with them?

Lumian knew that such an excuse could only fool ordinary people, but it would definitely not deceive the regular parish priest. However, the regular parish priest would surely pretend to be confused before receiving the blessing.

It was impossible to expose the truth unless Lian and the others showed a stance of immediately reporting to higher authorities and ending all the abnormalities in Cordu Village.

As long as Lia and the others continued to wander around the village, chatting with people, and acted as if they had not gathered enough intelligence from the church basement,

the parish priest would be very willing to maintain the status quo. Plus, with the underground altar destroyed by Lian, it would take some time for them to repair it.

Lumian estimated that the parish priest would have no hope of receiving a blessing in the next few days, and the earliest possible time would be the day before the Quatrain Festival.

Once the Quatrain Festival began, any abnormalities would be suspected, and "normal" would become the biggest issue.

Hearing Lumian's words, the assistant parish priest, Miguel Carigou, nodded in agreement.

"Yes, yes! No matter what you have done in the past, as long as you pray sincerely and are willing to repent, God will forgive you."

"Is that so? If I now repent to the Eternal Sun and say that I strayed from the path and believed in an evil god recently, and now want to return to the right path, what would happen?" Lumian, though disbelieving, appeared very sincere and walked towards the altar.

Miguel led the way with quick steps, almost as if he were about to fly.

Seeing such a fanatical and devout clergyman, Lia couldn't help but turn to Valentine, who had a rather complex expression.

This should have been a state that Valentine would highly approve of, but he was also very clear that the assistant parish priest was clearly abnormal.

Lia, having finished observing Valentine, took two steps to catch up with Lumian and whispered in his ear, "When you said those things, did you consider that half of the people here are not believers of the Eternal Sun?"

"Aren't you?" Lumian was somewhat surprised.

This was not because he was perceptive and understood Lia's hint, but because among the five people present, excluding the abnormal assistant parish priest, the remaining four included Valentine, who was definitely a believer, and Lumian himself, who barely counted. Given the vast wilderness and the undead in it, he had to admit that Lia's association had some merit.

Arriving at the village entrance under the elm tree, Lian looked around and said, "We shouldn't provoke that lady. In the matter of breaking the loop, even if she is not a helper, she won't become an enemy. We just need to keep an eye on her movements and see if we can use the specific time points she mentioned."

Isn't it because we can't obviously fight her? Lumian suppressed his urge to speak and instead asked Valentine, "How many minutes are left?"

He was worried about missing the time, which would trigger the loop and restart everything.

Valentine took out a gold-cased pocket watch, opened it, and looked at it: "Ten minutes left."

"That's good." Lumian sighed in relief and waved to Lian and the others. "I'm going to find Aurore. If you have nothing to do, help find Sibyl Wen and Morley's whereabouts, and investigate who is spreading the news about the changing constellations and the upcoming good fortune. If you have any leads, come to my house. Goodbye, my cabbages!"

This was exactly what Lia and the others planned to do, so no one objected.

After bidding farewell to the joint investigation team and walking towards the edge of the village, Lumian fell into deep thought.

After completing the exploration of the church basement, he had a complete hypothesis about the sudden changes in Cordu Village.

The cause of the loop was undoubtedly the group led by the parish priest. They had secretly worshiped an evil god for at least half a year, secretly sacrificing many locals and foreigners in the church basement. Then, they raised their arms, crossed them in front of their chests, and slightly bowed their heads and bodies.

Lumian was somewhat stunned. You still say you are not a believer of the Eternal Sun. Lia, sensing his gaze, turned her head and smiled, "When performing a mission, pretending to be a believer of another church, the gods will not blame me."

She pointed to the other side with her mouth. Lian, from the Mechanical Heart, also crossed his arms in front of his chest, appearing very sincere.

It turns out that during missions, one can have flexible moral boundaries. Lumian wanted to tease Lia and Lian about this.

But since everyone had started praying, he couldn't fall behind. Once he also assumed the posture and closed his eyes, the assistant parish priest, Miguel Carigou, solemnly recited from the holy book, "God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light!"

In the church he often visited, listening to the familiar prayers, Lumian suddenly felt a bit sad.

In the past, when he came to pray, he just followed the crowd, never concentrating, and often looking around and whispering. Now, he wished everything could be back to the way it was.

Even if he had to pray sincerely, an activity he used to dislike, he now missed it immensely. When Lumian and the others left the Eternal Sun Church, the regular parish priest and the servants were still not awake.

Lian glanced in the direction of the castle and sighed, "That lady is much stronger than I imagined."

"How strong?" Lumian asked curiously.

Lian thought for a moment and said, "Seems to have touched the door of divinity, but also seems not to have."

You seem to have said something but also seem not to have. If not for needing Lian's help recently, Lumian would have already spoken his mind.

However, in the realm of mysterious heretical knowledge, he could roughly guess what Lian meant by the "door of divinity"!

Sequence 4! The half-god said, "I think Mrs. Pualis's appearance was a bit strange, and she had already told Lia and the others about the legends of the Otherworld and the Lady of the Night."

"I have the same feeling," Lia said with a smile. "Like a Frankenstein's monster, and one that hasn't been stitched together successfully yet."

Lian nodded in agreement. "We actually have some understanding of the Lady of the Night. In the region between Intis and Fennepot, there have been many appearances in recent years, some called the Lady of the Night, some called the Lady of Mert, some calling themselves the Benevolent Mistress, and some the Malevolent Mistress. But so far, we haven't caught any of them, and our understanding of them is still lacking."

Lia, walking towards the edge of the village square, said, "I thought of something from the description of the Otherworld."

"What?" Lumian never thought asking was embarrassing.

Lia turned to look south and said, "In the Earth Mother Church of Fennepot, there is a saying: 'Souls return to the earth.' The souls return to the earth." The words immediately came to Lumian's mind.

Lia nodded lightly, her bells jingling softly as she whispered, "Lian is from the Mechanical Heart, and I am from the Eighth Bureau, neither of us belongs to the Eternal Sun Church."

Lumian had heard his sister mention that the Mechanical Heart was part of the Eternal Sun Church, specifically the branch responsible for handling supernatural affairs.

The Eighth Bureau, in full, is the Eighth Bureau of the Intis Intelligence Republic Security Committee, the largest official organization in the Republic dealing with supernatural matters.

"I thought you were sent by the Church?" He sat down on a chair and asked curiously.

Lia sat down next to him and said with a smile, "In recent years, there have been many dangerous supernatural incidents in border areas, especially in disputed territories. So when we received the request for help from Cordu Village, we took it very seriously. After preliminary investigations and intelligence gathering confirmed there was a real problem, the higher-ups decided to form a joint investigation team to investigate the specific situation in Cordu Village, to provide the most reliable reference for subsequent handling. Who knew this..."

She suddenly stopped, unable to continue, and shook her head in disbelief. The abnormalities and horrors here were beyond her imagination.

Sometimes she felt that Valentine's idea of reporting everything and requesting the destruction of Cordu Village was correct.

But she didn't want to die, so she had to suppress her professional instincts and moral principles.

At this moment, the assistant parish priest, Miguel Carigou, picked up the holy book on the altar and looked at the four people preparing to pray.

Lia had received many blessings. Before the Quatrain Festival, she had relied on the shepherd's skin to bring three extraordinary beings to Yerberry, including the parish priest and Spenne, who received the blessings. The former became a very powerful extraordinary being.

So they started a grand ritual at the beginning of the Quatrain Festival. In the final stage of the ritual, the mysterious existence known as Fate accepted the large-scale sacrifices and prepared to fulfill the requests of the parish priest and others.

But at this moment, something went wrong, and the ritual was not completed. The power involving the past, present, and future scattered, causing the time loop.

As for why something went wrong, Lumian remembered a statement the mysterious lady had once made.

"You were already someone who was about to be heavily polluted. Fortunately, the mark left by the great existence was triggered, and the corresponding power descended upon you, sealing the source of pollution and forming a balance."