The Great Cathedral, ten minutes before the start of the pilgrimage prayer.
"I, the Savior chosen by God, will bring peace and tranquility to this holy land and unleash divine wrath upon our enemies!"
Jacob held up the Bible in one hand and pointed westward with the other: "This land beneath our feet will never fall into the hands of pagans, for the power of the Lord will never perish!"
Large numbers of believers knelt on the ground, following the chants of the catechumens in prayer.
Throat Bone sat in a corner of the sanctuary, touching the skin on his face, and chuckled as he said, "A rather clumsy performance."
Mylis crossed his arms over his lower abdomen, rolled his eyes at Adam's apple, and chose to remain silent.
He shrugged his throat.
Myris spotted a couple with their young daughter in the crowd. His eye twitched, and he asked the man with the throat bone, "If you want to destroy the church, there are a hundred other ways. Why go through all this trouble?"
Adam's apple tilted its head as it looked at Myris: "You still think that I only want revenge against the church because of the tragic deaths of my family?"
Isn't that so?
“My parents, my sisters, death was an inevitable outcome for them.” Throat Bone peeled back the skin at his fingertips, looking at the white bones that gleamed with a bluish light, and slowly said, “Everyone will die; the only difference is the time and the manner.”
Mylis frowned: "They've suffered so much..."
The man with the throat bone shook his head and said, “Humans are strange creatures. When they witness their loved ones being killed by others, they hate the murderer. But when their loved ones are tormented and ravaged by illness and old age, they are helpless and quietly accept it.”
"I do not understand……"
"To put it more bluntly, death has never been a matter of lowliness or nobility. Being killed by one's own kind or dying of old age in a sickbed are both, for humans, the forced termination of their right to live. But what's laughable is that many people consider being killed by one's own kind a tragedy, while being killed by old age is commonplace. But in my view, the god who controls the lives of many is no different from those murderers. What I hate is not these foolish humans, but the god above us..."
Mylis was stunned for a moment, then muttered, "What exactly do you want to do?"
The throat bone didn't answer the question; it looked ahead and simply smiled.
The pilgrimage has ended.
After finishing his prayer, Jacob put down his Bible, nodded behind him, and then said to the believers, "The wise Father has already prepared weapons to defeat the evil spirits outside the city."
Under the hopeful gaze of the believers, a group of believers carrying hundreds of silver platters walked in through the back door.
The thousands of small, date-pit-sized objects on the plate drew murmurs from those around them.
"By consuming these sacred objects, you can obtain supreme power and the glory of the gods!"
Jacob's words amplified people's voices.
Faced with this unknown thing, some believers were skeptical, but many more cheered loudly.
"May God protect us!"
"The power of the Father will sweep away all evil!"
"The end of the devil is fast approaching!"
Looking at the scene before him, Hougu sat up straight and said with a smile, "When humans are drowning, even the smallest twig can become their boat of hope."
Jacob was about to speak when a burst of gunfire from the penitentiary interrupted him.
The crowd in the main hall caused a minor disturbance.
"Oh my god! Have demons invaded the city?!"
"Our army has been defeated!"
Jacob winked at the deacon beside him, signaling the latter to go and see what was going on.
He opened his arms and shouted to the believers, “Time is of the essence! Those lambs who are faithful to the Father, stand before me and receive God’s grace!”
Soon, hundreds and thousands of believers flocked to the area around the pulpit, praying for God's protection.
The catechumens distributed the insect eggs to the believers and offered them bright red wine to help them swallow them.
Jacob looked at the believers around him, made the sign of the cross with his right hand, and said in a deep voice, "By consuming the holy relic in your hand, your body will become God's weapon! And your soul will ascend the ladder to heaven!"
A girl, no more than eight or nine years old, dressed in patched hemp clothes, stared at the reddish-brown "object" in her parents' hands. Her pure, sky-blue eyes were filled with fear as she pleaded softly, "Can I not eat it...?"
The girl's mother roared, "How dare you refuse God's gift?!"
The father grabbed his daughter's chin, pried open her teeth, and forced her to drink the worm egg with alcohol. Then he swallowed another one himself.
In less than a minute, among the people who had ingested the insect eggs, there were first soft moans, which then turned into heart-wrenching screams.
More and more people lay prostrate on the ground, like boiled shrimp, their hands tightly clutching their bodies, their whole bodies trembling uncontrollably.
The girl lying on the ground was tormented by excruciating pain, her sky-blue eyes looking at her mother not far away, her little hand reaching out to touch her beloved.
The next second, the parasite burst out of her eye socket, ending the child's life.
The old man, Myris, turned his head and closed his eyes.
In an instant, amidst the splattering blood and bits of flesh, swarms of black parasites rose from the corpse.
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