Chapter 209 Congratulations on passing the first test
Going deep underground along the uneven steps, narrow and gloomy cells are lined up along the corridor.
The dim candlelight, the grim-faced guards, the thick smell of blood lingering in the air, and the weak cries of the dying heard from everywhere made this place seem even more terrifying.
At the end of the corridor stands a white marble statue.
The Earth Goddess smiled lovingly, cradling, crawling, and resting on her head, several children of varying sizes. Some had wings, some had sharp fangs, and some swung long tails, looking like half-human, half-beasts. They giggled and tugged at the Goddess's dress, bathed in the glow of maternal love.
The old man in white robe led Xiao Tang through the corridor, turned next to the statue of the goddess, and walked a little further to a torture chamber.
All sinners in the temple, after being imprisoned in the cells, will basically be punished in the torture chamber.
The place was filled with all kinds of strange torture instruments, and on the walls hung damp human skins, which were peeled off from the bodies of people with very serious sins. They were piled up layer by layer, covering the surrounding walls, and it was impossible to count them.
Seeing Xiao Tang's eyes sweeping over the human skins, the old man in white robe smiled.
"Isn't it a bit spectacular? Skinning is a form of punishment with a very long history."
"If a person's sins are serious enough, these methods must be used to completely cleanse his body and mind, allowing his soul to enter the world of the dead in a clean state and avoid eternal damnation in hell."
Xiao Tang didn't say anything, but just turned his expressionless gaze away from the human skins of different sizes and fixed it on a wooden rack in the center of the room.
A man was hanging there with his head hanging down and covered in blood.
The clothes had been basically torn into strips during the torture, soaked with blood, and draped over the body, unable to cover the body. Therefore, the hideous wounds and scars all over the body, as well as the wooden spikes and steel spikes that had not been removed from the body, were very eye-catching.
The old man in white robe signaled the guard in the torture room with his eyes.
A guard grabbed the man's hair and lifted his head up, revealing his face.
A face with bruises and swelling, a collapsed nose, ulcerated eyelids, and only the left eye could be opened a crack appeared in front of Xiao Tang.
"Is this the spy you are talking about, messenger of God?" Xiao Tang asked.
The old man in the white robe nodded. "Yes. He has been hypnotized. He recognizes you."
Mental hypnosis is a method of mind control used by the Temple. It is performed by a psychic who is good at hypnosis. After hypnotizing the target, they ask questions and try to get the truth out of the other person while he or she is asleep and defenseless.
"Right, Silver Wing, you know him?"
Xiao Tang replied: "I know him."
The white-robed envoy nodded, expressing satisfaction with Xiao Tang's answer.
Said: "He is a very good spy, but to us, he is a sinful enemy."
"Yes." Xiao Tang said.
“He exposed the presence of the Holy Spirit.”
"Then he deserves death even more." Xiao Tang's face was icy. "Please let me kill him with my own hands to show my loyalty to the Holy Spirit."
"This is the reason why I invited you here. So, let's get started." The old man in white robe smiled.
The silver light in Xiao Tang's hand was condensing, first into a shield, and then gradually condensing into a solid ball of light.
The powerful energy fluctuations made several guards in the room feel suffocated, and one even fell to the ground.
"Oh?" The divine messenger narrowed his eyes. "I thought you could choose to skin him. Given his sins, beating him to death would be too easy for him, wouldn't it?"
Xiao Tang said in a grim tone, "As you said, peeling his skin will cleanse his sins and allow him to continue to bathe in divine light after death. But I want him to fall into hell forever."
"Yeah?"
The angel's eyes were deep.
At this moment, the man on the wooden frame had a dim look in his eyes, which were barely open.
"Xiao...Xiao Tang." His voice was as hoarse as an old bellows from the torture, but he still struggled to squeeze out each word, "Don't, don't take the wrong... road, go back quickly, you..."
Xiao Tang interrupted him, "You are the lost wanderers, sinners who have strayed from the right path and refused to accept the Mother Goddess's care. In this broken world, joining the temple and becoming a follower of the Mother Goddess is the only correct path. Unfortunately, you no longer have the chance to atone for your sins. Your sins are too great, and you must die."
The ball of light whizzed towards the man.
Right in the chest.
The man's chest was smashed into a piece of paper, and his entire torso was sunken.
He spat out a large mouthful of blood and his body twitched a few times.
Then he became motionless.
Xiao Tang retracted his energy and did not show any excessive expression from beginning to end.
Clap, clap, clap. The old man in white robe clapped his hands slowly, and the smile on his face deepened a little more than before.
"A quick and decisive kill is quite acceptable. Congratulations on passing the first test. The fact that you were able to attack someone you knew well in the secular world shows that your loyalty is quite trustworthy."
Only then did Xiao Tang show some expression, which was anger.
He looked at the other person with dissatisfaction: "The Holy Spirit has long believed in my loyalty. Are you unwilling to trust the Holy Spirit's perception, and instead think that your own judgment is better than the Holy Spirit's?"
"Watch your attitude. I'm a messenger of God." The old man in the white robe smiled faintly. "You're just a watchdog that the Holy Spirit has recently taken a liking to. Do you have the right to question me?"
Xiao Tang was silent.
Then he bowed and said, "Please forgive my impoliteness. It's just that I am devoted to the Temple and do not need any further tests. I dared to kill Ye Qi, let alone a mere spy."
"Haha, Ye Qi is your earthly rival in love, killing him will not show anything. This latent psychic named Guo is a touchstone for you." The white-robed envoy laughed.
"I have participated in the naming ceremony. This kind of test is a blasphemy against the Holy Spirit!" Xiao Tang was angry again.
The naming ceremony is a spiritual blessing bestowed upon the high-ranking members of the Temple under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. During the ceremony, the Holy Spirit conducts a thorough spiritual examination of the named individual, confirming their 100% loyalty before spiritual baptism.
Those who have participated in the ceremony are definitely among the most loyal believers of the temple and their reliability far exceeds that of others.
This is a supreme honor.
In fact, among the one divine envoy, four messengers, and six holy spirit guards in the Temple of City C, only Xiao Tang and another person have been given names.
So his anger is quite justified.
A ball of light condensed in his hand, with silver and golden light intertwining.
He said solemnly, "God's Messenger, I challenge you to a duel of life and death! My loyalty and the dignity of the Holy Spirit cannot be violated by anyone, even you, the God's Messenger!"
"Young man, why are you so anxious? You know that challenging me will only result in death."
The messenger raised his hand, and a beam of energy pressed on the ball of light, causing Xiao Tang's ball of light to burst silently like a bubble.
"Don't be in a hurry to die. The Holy Spirit still likes you very much. If you are loyal and flawless, you will still be of great use to you. Okay, go back to the Holy Spirit. Our noble Holy Spirit is not a very patient person." The messenger of God ordered.
He also reminded Xiao Tang: "Make the Holy Spirit happy as soon as possible, time is running out. If you still can't make her happy within an hour, I think you are not qualified to be a guard. I can help you change your position."
The white-robed divine messenger turned and floated away.
Xiao Tang suppressed his anger, stood there in silence for a moment, and quickly left and hurried back to the hall.
He left without even glancing at the corpse on the wooden frame.
The body, its torso flattened, was thrown into the corpse pit as usual, piled together with the bodies of many sinners and mutant failures.
The morning light shines on the pit of corpses.
Bodies in various states of death were intertwined and entangled, like a scroll of hell.
boom!
Rumble!
A huge explosion sounded in the temple base without any warning.
One sound after another, in every direction.
"God's messenger! The granary was bombed! The training ground was bombed! The wall was bombed! The prayer hall was bombed! The two messengers leading the prayers were seriously injured! There are many other casualties, and they are being counted!"
The subordinates came hurriedly to report, making the white-robed messenger of God, who had just returned to the room and wanted to have a cup of coffee, furious.
"Is the enemy attacking?"
"No...no, right? I didn't see any enemies."
"That means there are spies! Go find them! Go catch them!"
"……yes."
The subordinate left in a hurry.
The messenger took out two guns from the secret compartment of the cabinet, checked the bullets, and put them on his body, hiding them under his white robe.
Then he grabbed a handful of crystal cores and put them in his sleeves before leaving the room and heading towards where the Holy Spirit was.
The crystal core was for the continuation of his supernatural powers, and the bullets were for supplementing his attack methods in case of an emergency. Since the interior of the temple was no longer safe, he had to ensure his own safety.
"Hey, maybe there were too many explosives? It's a bit noisy..."
Qiao Lan, wearing a white believer's vest and fleeing with a large group of believers, quietly took off his noise-canceling earplugs after the chain explosions, rubbed his ears, and shook his head.
The explosion was so loud that even though she was wearing soft earplugs with strong sound insulation, she still had some tinnitus.
The ability of firearms expertise would increase the tolerance of her eardrums, so that continuous shooting would not damage her ears. So she quickly used a little bit of her ability to increase her mental strength to a state of focused shooting.
So, the buzzing ears finally felt better.
After her hearing returned, she looked around.
This was a large number of believers gathered around the prayer hall for morning prayers. After the hall was destroyed, they fled in panic and no one noticed her.
"The Bloody Dawn Base is attacking—"
Qiao Landuan ran around in the crowd, imitating some particularly frightened people and shouting loudly.
I wondered, aren't these believers' resolve strong enough? Shouldn't they remain calm even in the face of a catastrophe, shouting "Hail Goddess" even with a gun to their head? Why are they so panicked after just a few explosions?
As expected, from the outside, the believers are extremely fanatical, but when you look deeper inside, you will find that it is not a monolithic place.
"Quick! Hurry to the side of the divine envoy! The divine envoy will definitely protect us!"
Many people were shouting and running in a certain direction.
A divine messenger? He's the ruler of this city's temple, right?
After Qiao Lan sneaked in here, he secretly inquired about some superficial internal information and knew the importance of this messenger of God.
But before burying the explosives, she didn't have time to figure out the location of the messenger of God, so she only attacked the granary, the wall and other places.
After the explosion, there was chaos and someone happened to lead the way.
Qiao Lan then followed those people, intending to see what the messenger of God looked like, wondering if there was any chance to make a move.
I was running around in the crowd when I suddenly felt something strange on the palm of my hand.
She clenched her hand subconsciously, then opened it and saw a small piece of wood.
Who threw a piece of wood into her hand? Even with her vigilance, she didn't notice it beforehand!
"Fortunately it wasn't poison!" she thought to herself.
Clenching a fist is a subconscious action when one feels something in the palm of one's hand. If this is poison, she would have clenched it in her hand before she could react, so she would have been poisoned.
Running quietly in the crowd, she turned the small piece of wood over quietly to check, and found a few scribbled words on the back, which looked like fingernail marks, as if someone had hurriedly carved them on the wood. They were so hasty that the horizontal and vertical lines were not straight and it was barely recognizable what they were.
Corpse, pit, J, Guo.
There were only four words, one of which was a letter, which puzzled Qiao Lan.
But she immediately reacted and broke out in a cold sweat.
A corpse pit? There was a corpse pit here, too. She had heard about it when she had been asking around.
Guo...
Could it be that Old Guo, who has hidden superpowers, has sneaked in?
This word made Qiao Lan think of Lao Guo first.
Is Lao Guo hiding in the corpse pit, or...
Qiao Lan didn't dare to think about that possibility.
Is J the initial consonant of the pinyin jiu? Let her go to the corpse pit to save Lao Guo?
Looking around, Qiao Lan couldn't find the person who had played the wood chip for her. Who had secretly recognized her in disguise and passed on this message?
Is he a friend or foe? Is he setting a trap to lure her in, or is he just trying to give her the news out of kindness?
Doubts swirled in his mind, but Qiao Lan had already taken action.
Even if it's a trap, she has to go. Lao Guo is an important person!
"The enemy is bombing everywhere, attacking our key locations! Wuuwu, where else will they bomb? Where can we hide safely? Wuuwuwu... Ah, is it safe to go to the corpse pit? The enemy won't bomb a place like that, will they?"
She pretended to be panic-stricken and muttered to the believers who were running with her.
At this time, the people at the front of the chaotic team had already run to the residence of the divine messenger. The team was a little commotion because the divine messenger was not there.
Therefore, Qiao Lan's words were timely.
Some believers were actually persuaded.
"The Messenger of God is not here. He might be fighting the enemy. Why don't we..."
So this group of people turned around and ran towards the corpse pit, pointing out the destination to Qiao Lan.
This group of fleeing believers, two or three hundred people, ran to the corpse pit and stopped at a distance.
The strange and terrifying postures of the corpses in the pit scared many people and they dared not approach.
Some people even vomited.
"Goddess, please shine your holy light on us and protect us..." someone muttered to give himself courage.
Many people echoed and praised the Mother of God.
But the fear was not relieved much.
Qiao Lan was quite puzzled. Are these believers really the same kind as the believer warriors who attacked the Crimson Dawn base?
She had heard that the believer warriors were fearless and had a perverse bravery, but the group of people in front of her were too cowardly.
But she didn't have time to think about these things. She pretended to be trembling and curious, and pulled two believers to walk towards the corpse pit.
“!!!”
She didn't need to get too close to recognize Lao Guo among the corpses at the top of the pit.
——Uncle Guo?!
At that moment, Qiao Lan thought of the paper man.
Lao Guo's head and limbs are all there, but his torso...
Like a piece of paper, a deflated balloon.
How could he become like this!
Those wounds, the blood, the torture instruments that hadn't been removed yet... Who tortured him!
Who crushed him?!
J, jiu, save your ass! He’s already dead, what’s there to save! Qiao Lan’s blood was surging all over his body. He gritted his teeth and squatted on the ground, pressing down on the ground.
The corpse pit was connected to the ground, so she could use her mind to collect the corpses into the space.
When a corpse appeared in the space, her last glimmer of hope was shattered. This space did not accept living things. If Lao Guo entered, it meant he was dead.
Who did this?!
She stood up and scanned the smoke-filled temple base with a gaze that was almost spitting fire.
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