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Chapter 514 - 511: "Since You See the Lighthouse, Why Don’t You Worship?

Chapter 514: Chapter 511: "Since You See the Lighthouse, Why Don’t You Worship?

Inside the Sacrificial Hall, Su Ming’an sat on a wooden chair, observing the dozen or so clan members who stood before him with bowed heads.

These fifteen individuals were the most devout members of the tribe.

He glanced at Xiber, who had just arrived, and asked her what to do next.

The Lighthouse Church had been established, but how was he to make "faith," this essential element for godhood, become established?

"Hmm..." Xiber murmured quietly, "They already worship you, haven’t you felt ’faith’ yet?"

"No," Su Ming’an knew that if his system had not prompted him, then it hadn’t happened.

"Make them kneel before you and try. Kneeling to you, worshipping you, or chanting your name should all work," Xiber suggested tentatively.

She seemed very uncertain, as there might not have been a precedent for this.

Su Ming’an coughed uncomfortably, feeling rather embarrassed. It would have been less awkward if there had been no audience, but with hundreds of millions watching him play-act divinity in this live stream...

In the past, comments in the live chat would often joke that he was the "Sect Hierarch of the Lighthouse Church," coming to brainwash... to rescue npcs in dire straits.

He had not expected that this would actually come true within the instance.

After a moment of silence, his gaze met with a few clan members who had covertly looked up, and upon locking eyes with him, they immediately lowered their heads again, as if in deep reverence.

Su Ming’an felt that if he now said, "All of you, worship me now," it would be unbearably awkward.

Seeing this, Yamada Machiichi knew it was his time to shine.

He stepped forward decisively, fawningly said, "—Seeing the Lighthouse, why not worship?"

His response was so quick, it could be considered a paradigm of sycophancy.

With a "swish, swish, swish" of fabric, people immediately knelt all over the floor; even the clan leader, Mil, knelt down tremblingly.

Yamada Machiichi didn’t expect these people to kneel at a moment’s notice; he felt somewhat complacent, never having imagined that npcs, who he always had to please, would show him such respect one day.

Su Ming’an glanced at the line of kneeling clan members, then looked back at Xiber, "It still doesn’t work."

Though the Divine Sect was established, and people believed him to be Bai Shen, even after bowing and kneeling, the system still hadn’t prompted him that he had mastered the element of "faith."

"..." Xiber furrowed her brows.

She stepped forward, suddenly pointing at the people below, "—It must be because you are not devout enough! Otherwise, why wouldn’t Lord Bai Shen feel your faith?"

This cry caused quite a stir; the people below immediately began to kneel, prostrate, and knock their heads on the ground, with a few young men crying while saying, "Lord Bai Shen’s wife, you can’t say this about us. We are the most devout; even if you commanded us to die, it’s unacceptable to slander our faith..."

Looking at the strangely dressed young girl on one side of Su Ming’an, and the woman in a red robe on another, they thought both were wives of Bai Shen in the mortal world.

"Don’t call every woman you see a wife!" Xiber immediately bristled.

"Yes, yes," agreed Yamada Machiichi clad in women’s clothes.

Despite his current bout of thrill, pretending to have the power, he would probably still cry upon realizing that the Sacrificial Saintess he was smitten with was played by Noel.

"—You must be harboring doubts in your heart! Have you turned to worship Jiu Shen?" Xiber loudly accused.

"We haven’t, we are wronged..." the clan members moaned bitterly. They truly were the most devout; raised on legends of Bai Shen since childhood, and having witnessed Bai Shen become the sky with their own eyes five years ago, they could not be more devoted.

Xiber’s accusations abruptly painted them as "clan members with potential allegiance to Jiu Shen." It felt like a bucket of filth thrown on them, worse than death itself.

"Lord Bai Shen, you cannot marry such a woman — she’s falsely accusing your most devout clan members," a female clan member with braided hair immediately said to Su Ming’an.

Su Ming’an: "... Is there another way, Xiber?"

He understood the tendency to consider any woman beside a deity as a wife; these unenlightened people believed whatever the outsiders compiled, a pattern that had persisted throughout their lives. Only Awakeners like Xiber could stand distinct from the crowd.

He could sense a kinship with Xiber, a similarity that resonated with his own soul. They were comrades in life and death, but nothing more.

She was a very unique person, and the most unpredictable one he had encountered on his journey so far. Layers upon layers of mist enshrouded her, and up to now, he seemed to have only unveiled a few.

To regard her merely as an ordinary springtime girl with a crush would be an insult to her independent personality and free spirit.

"Let me think..." Xiber pondered for a moment, "then let’s perform all the rituals due for a shaman on you, to see if you can grasp the element of ’faith’."

The Jiu Shen and Bai Shen were formed over long years, and to become a god in a short time one would likely need a great amount of faith.

The dutiful Yamada immediately arranged matters.

"...Go prepare the things necessary for the shamanistic rituals; plenty of meat and fish, roasted chicken, roasted duck, as well as incense! Wine! Grains!" Yamada Machiichi wasn’t sure whether this place was influenced by Western or Eastern culture, but he decided to have his subordinates do it all anyway. When he ordered the various tribe members to quickly get things done, he bore an uncanny resemblance to a grand eunuch standing beside an emperor.

It could very well be said that with Lv Shu gone, Yamada should take the stage.

After a hustle and bustle, the women of the tribe brought grains and preserved salty fish and cured meats, intending to follow the process thoroughly.

First came the music from the bronze drums, followed by the slaughter, the bleeding, the dipping in alcohol, and some children started dancing to a strange curiosity.

Su Ming’an sat on the chair with a blank expression, watching the children dance around him. They threw their hands up, their limbs moving eerily, noodle-like, while chanting an otherworldly, creepy tune from the Underworld. The women, holding torches, cried out the name of Bai Shen, making the name of Laersas known afar.

Clan Leader Mika danced with even more fervor, rallying the young people to shout out loud, proclaiming the name of the newly-established Divine Sect.

"Believe in the Great Bai Shen—praise the Lighthouse!"

"We gather under the illumination of the Lighthouse, whose radiance spreads to every corner of Qiongdi—"

"—you will forget your suffering, mourning, and joy. You will be as pure and joyous as Kalsa among the clouds—"

"—In the name of the pioneers, the Light Pursuers, the Zealots, Laersas grants you the benevolent duties. As the children of god, you should praise the Lighthouse and spread the name of the Lighthouse Church like seeds of a bountiful harvest across the vast lands, to ensure it endures without end."

"—Through this, our ignorance can finally find peace and rest."

Mika raised his hand as if conducting a symphony, while the tribal members shouted out loud.

"Believe in the Great Bai Shen—praise the Lighthouse!"

"Believe in the Great Bai Shen—praise the Lighthouse!"

"..."

Su Ming’an got goosebumps.

At this moment, he felt that even being Metamorphosized wouldn’t be as agonizing as this moment.

Even though these lines were improvised by him on the spot, he hadn’t expected these people to chant with such passion. Some cried with tearful faces, some screamed up to the heavens, some sang loudly, and an old tribal member even wept profusely as he declared that he would forever bask in the glow of the Lighthouse.

...And yet it was all fictitious.

...To the audience, it was nothing but an absurdly comical scene.

But to these people, they devoutly believed in these fabrications as if they were burning their very souls, treating them as the faith of their lives.

Even an odd ritual concocted by outsiders was seen in their eyes as a solemn and devout affirmation.

The tribe members, suspended between ritual and oracle, bound their lives to "Him," suppressing their own subjectivity to the extreme. Even just a made-up phrase could willingly lead someone to die filled with hope.

He had never seen such a world, where even the faith of the Pulaya people in the Cloud City God was much more lucid than this.

In front of him, Clan Leader Mika came forward, intending to sprinkle the wine from his copper cup, and Su Ming’an instinctively stood up from his chair.

"Don’t move," Xiber pressed his shoulder, "The ritual procedure requires the sprinkling of the harvest wine on the deity’s statue. You’re taking the place of the statue now."

"..." Su Ming’an really wished that the outsiders who concocted these rituals had been a bit more reliable.

Wine spilled over him, cold and wet.

Sha La, dressed in ritual apparel, approached slowly, the golden collar around her neck shining brightly in the firelight.

"You send your will, as bountiful dew, to the Eternal World.

"You turn your soul into golden wheat and send it to the fields."

She sang softly, touching the blood of the livestock with her finger, and then touched his fingertip.

"Lord Laersas," she whispered, "... may you bless the people of Qiongdi with a hundred years of peace and prosperity."

At this moment, Su Ming’an suddenly heard a system prompt.

[You have touched one of the three elements of deification, "Faith."]

[Current faith content: 53/10000 (Value full is considered complete control of faith.)]

[You can accumulate faith strength by propagating the name of God, holding rituals, and other such methods.]

...

[Perfect Completion Progress: 70%]

...

Su Ming’an calculated that there were over a hundred people from the twenty-nine tribes, and they had generated 53 points of faith, which might be related to the devotion of these people.

If he wanted to gather 10000 points of faith within the remaining ten days, his time was indeed a bit tight.

Clan Leader Mika said that the news of Bai Shen’s awakening had been spread out, but whether the people from the nearby tribes believed it was hard to say.

Their several neighboring small tribes were in constant strife, sometimes even coming to blows. It was possible that if others did not believe and were unwilling to come, it could happen.

But after discussing with Xiber, Su Ming’an had a strategy to convince others of Bai Shen’s descent.

"... Are you sure you want to use this method?" Xiber asked softly before they set off.

"It’s the quickest and most effective one, right," Su Ming’an said, "My Talent Awakening Formation can only be used three times per instance, and it’s already been used twice; we can’t always rely on it. We need an absolutely trustworthy method for them."

"... It’s going to be painful," she said.

"Painful it is then," Su Ming’an said, "We just need to do this at the beginning. As the Divine Sect grows larger, we’ll just have to wait for the snowball effect afterward."

"... " Xiber fell silent for a moment, then nodded.

Her pale eyes showed a fluctuation of emotion.

...

Using the communication tool Noel had left him, Su Ming’an contacted Noel.

Since the First Tribe had just freed itself from the control of the tentacle monsters and was in chaos, Noel quickly left the tribe and rushed over.

"Need my help with something?" Noel asked.

"Play shaman, impersonate Bai Shen, bite Yamada Machiichi," Su Ming’an said very succinctly.

"... Is it to collect faith?" Noel understood immediately, "Okay, I got it."

After a brief communication, Noel, dressed in a black robe, pretended to be Bai Shen and went to other tribes, while Su Ming’an and Xiber followed far behind.

Noel claimed he was Bai Shen just awakened, but the people of the other tribes did not believe him.

Therefore, Noel said that as Bai Shen just awakened, he could rid the cursed tribe members of the curse. He pulled out Yamada Machiichi, took out a small captured cursed creature, and bit Machiichi.

Those bitten by a cursed creature would have their curse erupt immediately.

Yamada Machiichi’s body became covered in black lines, and he began to rot all over. The tribe members were frightened into retreating repeatedly, almost on the verge of a collective collapse—

But the next moment, Yamada Machiichi’s body returned to normal.

Forget dying from rot—he did not even have a trace of the curse aura left on him.

The curse had truly vanished.

"...You shall forget your suffering, your mourning, and your joy."

"The radiance of faith shall shine upon you..."

Noel clasped his hands together, posing quite the charlatan.

The tribe members were stunned by the scene before them and immediately prostrated themselves.

No one could survive with a fully erupted curse, only a deity could do such a thing.

"—Lord Bai Shen!"

"—He’s not a fake, Lord Bai Shen is truly awake!"

"—Only a deity can eliminate a curse, Bai Shen has come to save us—"

They cried out loudly, weeping with joy, declaring their wish to join the Lighthouse Church; the whole tribe was in the midst of an ecstatic celebration.

And following behind, hidden in the shadows, was Su Ming’an, opening his bloodshot eyes.

On him were the tentacles Xiber had just retracted, which were responsible for absorbing the curse from his body.

...

[Lasting Radiance] Skill, can select one individual to share any damage they receive, with a cooldown time of fifteen minutes.

...

Xiber’s tentacles could purify the curse and induce an eternal slumber, symbolizing the Evil God, and absolutely could not appear before people.

And Su Ming’an’s skill could transfer the damage of someone on the brink of a curse eruption entirely onto himself, and he could withstand the slumber effect of the tentacles.

Thus, their combination formed.

He remotely endured the curse for Yamada Machiichi and had Xiber absorb it.

In the front, where the light was, bathed in the sun, Noel shimmered with radiant light. Standing in the view of the people, he proclaimed the name of the Righteous God Bai Shen, cleansing all damage from those with erupted curses.

In the back, where the shadows lay, the heretic and her companion endured the rot brought about by the curse.

"It hurts, doesn’t it." Xiber held Su Ming’an’s hand, which was gradually rotting and then gradually healing.

In transferring the damage from the curse eruptions, the surging curse would explode out from within his body, tearing his flesh, decaying his limbs, melting his entire body...

But on the brink of death, her tentacles could always pull him back from the line of death.

Su Ming’an, with his vision blurry, glanced at the "Bai Shen" in the front basking in the glow and faith.

"Pain is the least of our concerns," he said, "Carry on."

...

...

[Man is an animal subject to the term "meaning."]

[As for whether it’s correct or not.]

[To them, it doesn’t matter.]

[They are confused, ignorant, selfish...]

[...but respectable.]

[— "Jiu Shen · Reincarnation Memo"]

...