I Like This Dream!

Precautionary chapter, updated around midnight~

"The righteous Urban and those who were willing to follow him went north and dedicated themselves to the gods. Among the others was a righteous man named Tolan, who had a wife and children and wanted to listen to God's will in the world."

"God blessed Urban and those who were willing to follow, and said to them: You will be my shepherds, and everyone on the earth will be my lambs. But you have promised me your life, and you are not allowed to have anything to do with it anymore. People are matched and have children.”

"God blessed Toran and his children and said to them: I will put the crown of the earth on your heads, and all who go with you will be submissive to you. You will be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth."

Interpreting this passage of scripture in a popular and realistic way, Pope Urban I founded the Holy See of Light to maintain the church through religion. The first king Tolan founded the Tolan dynasty to maintain the royal family and nobles by blood. The power of supernatural powers is passed down through blood. Although there are people in the Holy See who have lovers and illegitimate children, they are not visible to the public and cannot be as prosperous as the nobles. From this point of view, the superpowers of the Holy See should be far smaller than the superpowers of the nobles.

but it is not the truth.

The Holy See and the Royal Court have the largest number of superpowers in Yamonan. Even if you remove the speculators who have attached themselves to their power, this point has not changed. In many periods of history, there were more supernatural beings in the Holy See than among the nobility.

Taking into account the factor of holy water, things become much more reasonable.

King Richard I, who forced the Holy See to make an agreement, was a man of great talent. The most important part of the agreement was not the change in status or power, but the mandatory requirement for the Holy See to share enough holy water with the nobles every year. However, out of consideration for the stability of their status, the royal family concealed the truth about the holy water together with the higher-ups of the Holy See. In the end, the Holy See got in the way and an information gap appeared. They forgot the true secret of "divine grace" through long-term confrontation and subtle influence, and eventually the unworthy descendant Richard II emerged, and he himself rejected the holy water of the Holy See.

Alva once believed that the function of holy water was to catalyze the activity of noble blood, but now it seems that this is not the case. Holy water is a mass-produced product. The Holy See can use some means to mass-produce holy water, and it can also use holy water to mass-produce superpowers. They have been doing this for a long time and don't care about the side effects.

No, if people who have taken too much holy water just have a weak sense of autonomy and obey nameless instructions like Lydia showed, the upper echelons of the Holy See will probably welcome this side effect.

"I'm going to Alinggu." An Xu said, "If the Holy See has formed a puppet army, I have to kill them before they kill them. No one can stop me."

Charlotte, the concerned alderman, was not here, and Carina cast a worried look, but no one objected.

"Be careful, you have to face not only the army poured out by holy water." Alva said, "I really hope that the Holy See will extract the raw materials of holy water from some unconscious plants and minerals, but judging from their generosity, the 'raw materials' It's probably alive, like a firebird."

"I know." An Xu nodded and thought to herself, whether she would meet that raw material or not, she would definitely have to do it with Noah. She spoke again: "But it's better to take the initiative than to be knocked on the door. I don't believe that everyone can live in peace."

Alva nodded in agreement, he was also a ruthless person at heart.

"I'll go too." Lydia said suddenly.

Three pairs of eyes were focused on the ascetic in the prison. Her face looked a little pale due to the retching she had just done.

"Sister Lydia, I'm afraid your condition is not suitable for a long journey." Carina said tactfully.

"There might be a fight, and I may not be able to protect you." An Xu said bluntly.

"I'm going," Lydia repeated. "I know where the Great Ascetic Monastery is, and I know what the ascetic monks are thinking. As soon as your protection is removed, you can see the influence of that power on me. ”

Lydia grasped the key points very well. She did not mention that she was a doctor or a healer, nor did she mention her assassination ability. She knew that Anxu did not need these. She makes sense, but it's not necessary. An Xu wanted to say that she could detect the monastery by herself, and there was no need to let Lydia risk it.

An Xu looked into those firm green eyes and finally said nothing, just nodded. Lydia looked pale and weak, but her eyes were very bright, burning like two will-o'-the-wisps. Anxu could see the desperate persistence and pleading in it. She felt that it would be too cruel to keep Lydia out of this matter.

Anxu couldn't stop Lydia, and he couldn't get rid of Chris. "I can already help." Chris said, "You once said you would walk with me to the finish line, but now you are going to risk it alone, leaving me behind?" Anxud admitted that he was right. reason.

The three of them are not bad. Anxu, Chris and Lidya have returned to the golden triangle team that Anxu originally wanted to form. When fighting the final boss, we formed a team of warriors, wizards and priests, which sounded quite dramatic like the early RPG games. They have nannies who are assassins and priests, Paladins who have been upgraded to be particularly resistant, and demigod plug-in output. Thinking about it this way, there is really no sense of tension.

They were well prepared and the three-person team set off that day lightly packed.

They jumped through several teleportation formations until there was no way to go. The holy city of Alinggu and a large number of surrounding counties belonging to the church are wrapped in mountains. There is only a one-way road to enter and exit. When this road is destroyed, entering it becomes very difficult and dangerous, and it takes a lot of time.

This is true for ordinary people.

Sometimes An Xu thinks that every game requires trekking through mountains and rivers and circling the map to get to the Demon King's City. In addition to considering upgrading the protagonist, eight out of ten # nine times it is to delay the plot. That's right, in a game where you only play one final boss, no matter how cool the devil's character is, no matter how brilliant his skills are, and no matter how much skill is required to defeat him, players who have been raised to be naughty will still not have much interest. Because the fun of the game originally lies in this 90% journey.

But if you don’t treat this as a game, it will undoubtedly be more efficient to get to the point.

The team took off.

Anxu is no longer the trumpet who only relies on her physical body to lead people. She can easily wrap the paladin and the grown-up bound milk with mental power, and easily accelerate the flight. This level was not a burden to her at all. She blocked the wind pressure in front of the three people and flew in the right direction.

She did not intend to blindly run into the enemy's gun. The shield surrounding them was so hard that it could withstand small meteorites. Outside the shield, which was about five meters in diameter, her mental tentacles scanned every inch within a radius of more than ten kilometers. The land and the information brought back created a lifelike model in Anxu's mind.

If spiritual power were tangible, people below would probably see a giant sea urchin. The sea urchin's spines were still soft, constantly caressing anything in its path.

Anxu didn't fly very fast, but just like a racing car seemed unhappy in front of a jet, even if they traveled in this relatively cautious way, they approached their destination before sunset. Just a few thousand meters away from Alinggu, An Xu felt his spiritual tentacles touch something. It was colorless, odorless, and intangible, like a giant plastic film, covering a large space in front of him.

She tentatively "poke" the space, and the barrier trembled like pudding.

It was not hard, and An Xu felt that he could easily break through it. It would be better to say that she felt that this thing was so childish that it made people wary, as if the owner of the barrier had never thought of guarding against her.

However, once you enter, it is like breaking down the door of someone else's house. The owner will definitely know that someone is coming.

"We're almost there." An Xu reminded, telling his teammates what he sensed. Then, she dived inside.

An Xu thought about several possibilities. She felt that after entering the undetectable area, she might see the big devil and his army ready, and all kinds of lethal forbidden spells were ready to be unleashed, just waiting to be unleashed on her. . She may also face a ruined city where the great devil has created a dead city, where mourners are everywhere and the people are in dire straits. An Xu even thought about the peaceful situation inside. Maybe she found the right time. Alinggu was just like what she had seen before. Ordinary people could do whatever they wanted, and conspiracies only flowed secretly.

However, after entering, An Xu found that the possibility inside was not what she had thought of.

That elastic and fragile barrier was not the "shell" An Xu expected. She rushed in aggressively, but it felt like she had entered a big jelly. The inside felt exactly the same as the outside. In other words, the area close to the holy city of Alinggu is not a package wrapped in plastic wrap, but a solid gel. After entering the outer layer, the power to prevent detection did not disappear, but Anxu and his party were wrapped in it. Inside.

Anxu was like a pedestrian who ran headlong into the fog, losing the ability to see into the distance.

She turned behind her and back again. The mountains and forests of this generation looked very similar, boundless. Just look at it with the naked eye and you can't see anything.

An Xu had encountered a similar situation before. When she faced off against the giant bird, the realms of the two "quasi-gods" collided with each other, and each other's realms were in conflict with each other. Neither could see the situation in the other's realm. The domain of the giant bird clearly repels An Xu. The collision between the two is like hot oil hitting water, which arouses the fighting spirit of both sides and makes them want to tear each other into pieces immediately. But now things in this similar field did not make An Xu feel hostile, just like pouring cold water into cold oil, there was no reaction, it was just simply incompatibility.

Not Noah? Who is that? What is it?

"What's wrong?" Chris asked. He looked at Anxu who had stopped after spinning a few times, and his expression became serious.

"It's okay..." An Xu said a little embarrassed, "I can't find the direction."

The mountains and forests of this generation are very similar, with the same ups and downs. Without the ability to mentally scan, An Xu can't tell the difference at all. Moving around made the situation worse, and it was not clear which way the person came in just now. where am I? Where do I come from? Where to go? Maze is definitely the most annoying map, bar none.

"Over there." Lydia pointed in one direction and said, "The Great Ascetic Monastery."

Anxu followed Lidia's finger and looked far into the distance. There was a very small line of khaki in the distance, hidden among the branches and leaves of the trees. If he didn't stare carefully, he would have thought it was the exposed ground.

They flew in that direction, and not long after, the most mysterious institution of the Holy See appeared in front of them.

The Great Ascetic Monastery in the mountains and forests is very inconspicuous. Its khaki exterior walls are like the dusty robes of the ascetic monks. Not to mention compared to the gorgeous Aling Ancient Cathedral or St. Andrew's Theological Seminary, even compared to the simple churches in Gospel City, this place is not much better.

Like ruins, like the slum settlements of this era (although the scale is much larger).

Nothing could be seen on the top of the Great Ascetic Monastery, so Anxu and his party descended. They landed at the front door of the ashram and found it open.

"Lydia, is the Great Ascetic Monastery usually open?" An Xu asked.

"I've never seen it before," Lydia said. "There are very few people coming in and out. They all go through small doors."

So the door is open to welcome guests?

One door was wide open, and the other was half-open. It didn't look like it was deliberately placed like this, but it seemed like it had been pushed open as much as possible and then bounced back. They stood at the dark gate. The light in the monastery was dim, and it was quiet and empty inside. It was like a haunted house.

An Xu tried to detect it again, but still got no results. His mental power was severely suppressed in this weird place, and he could only use it within a range of four or five meters away from him. But this suppression is only reflected in the range. An Xu can feel that the power of her attack has not diminished and her defense is still strong. Even if a ghost pounces on her, it will be the ghost who is unlucky. They discussed it, and Lydia took the lead and walked in together.

The ashram was very quiet.

The light here is very good, and the lighting design can be said to be the most like the work of the Holy See in this monastery. Probably the only place. The walls are just embryos made of earth and stone, without any decoration and have nothing to do with beauty. The ground is somewhat uneven, and the rough stones can be felt through the soles of the shoes. Lydia said that no part of the Great Ascetic Monastery used supernatural powers. It was all built by the ascetic monks themselves.

"The floor is really bad and it's not leveled." An Xu complained.

"All floors cannot be sanded. They must be polished with feet. This is part of the penance." Lydia said, "This is the corridor with the most people. We have to walk on this road four times a day, barefoot."

They followed Lydia through the cafeteria, corridors, auditorium, etc., but the places with the most people in the past were empty. There were no lights, and the west-slanting sunlight filtered through various windows, leaving a moderate light inside the monastery. The sun would set in a few minutes, and Chris held up the torch. The light reflected on the rough walls made the place look like a cave.

Lydia had already led them through all the areas where the ascetics were active, without encountering a single living creature along the way. The manna in the kitchen was rotten. Chris sniffed it and said that the food was still fresh, and it only took two or three days to rot. Manna is not very durable and will go rancid in two days at most in this kind of weather.

"It's about the same time as when Lydia suddenly had problems." An Xu said, "Have you been to all the places?"

"There is another place outside." Lydia said.

They went to the last place, the afterglow of the setting sun disappeared on the horizon, and the temperature suddenly dropped a lot. After bypassing the last corridor, opening the small door and going out, the front suddenly became clear. The buildings of the monastery have already appeared here. There is a large open space between the mountain forest and the monastery, with dense cross trees erected there.

A cemetery.

"The Dervishes are buried here," Lydia said.

This really fits the atmosphere of this time period. Will there be a group of skeletons popping up? Anxu looked at the cemetery and mentally checked the seven or eight surrounding graves in a flash. Each grave was very close to each other, as if to save space, and the bones were overlapped into a ball, occupying a small space.

"They were buried standing?" An Xu asked.

"Ascetics don't rest," Lydia replied, "even after death."

"Are all the ascetic monks from the Great Ascetic Monastery here?" Anxu asked again, "Is there no other cemetery?"

"All the bodies that can be recovered are here." Lydia said.

An Xu said nothing, and flew across the cemetery, quickly exploring every grave. The mental power has analyzed every skeleton, and there are thousands of them here. She flew back, landed in front of her teammates, and said with a strange expression: "Lydia, have you seen the elderly ascetic?"

Lidya thought for a while and said, "I have seen a middle-aged man who looks to be in his forties."

"Forty years old." An Xu said, "With so many corpses, the oldest one is forty years old."

There is a joke that goes like this: A man made a wish to be young forever, and his wish came true. The next day the man died in an accident. He died young and will never grow old.

The Dervish Cemetery is like this joke.

Alva said that Anxu's flesh and blood may allow people to awaken supernatural powers, but the side effects will cause premature aging and may shorten their lifespan. Now someone has put similar side effects in front of them, and the number of samples is very large. The ascetics lived in simple prison-like rooms, and lived every day as if they were being tortured. Fortunately, this life of suffering is not long. They are favored by God and will never grow old.

Anxu felt a chill beside this cemetery. Even though she was strong enough not to be afraid of ghosts and corpses, the ability of human beings to torture their own kind still made her shiver.

"Nothing was found." Chris broke the stagnant atmosphere, "Shall we go to the inner city of Alinggu?"

An Xu shook his head and said, "There is still one place left."

This time Lydia also looked at her, wondering where she was talking about. An Xu didn't explain much and took them back to a confessional and demolished a wall.

Behind the wall is empty space with a small room inside. Lidia had taken them around the entire monastery, but the places they walked did not match the size of the monastery that Anxu saw in the sky. Anxu's upgraded brain could already calculate the difference mentally. where. There were no furnishings in the small room. An Xu was too lazy to look for the mechanism and simply and roughly lifted the floor.

The stench hit my face.

The smell of something rotten was unbearable. Compared with it, the smell of rotten manna could be called pure fragrance. Chris subconsciously took a step forward and stood in front of An Xu. This experienced warrior knew the smell, the smell of corpses.

In fact, he didn't need to block it. After the floor was lifted, what was underneath was clearly visible. There was a huge basement about the same size as the ascetic dormitory, with stairs, neatly arranged beds, and corpses along the way.

The furthest bodies fell under the bed, the nearest bodies remained on the steps. An Xu's mental power was rolled up on them, and the information carried by the corpse was received in An Xu's mind.

There are information that can be seen just by looking at them. For example, they are all dressed as ascetics, their limbs are stiff, and they were obviously moving violently before they died.

There are also things that can only be realized by scanning with mental power, such as they all starved to death; they are either alpha or omega, no beta; they were all in poor health during their lifetime; all the omegas among them were...

Pregnancy, recent birth, or multiple births.

An Xu felt cold all over, and then his anger overflowed like lava. Her hands were clenched into fists, shaking from the exertion. Chris called her name worriedly, she reluctantly twitched her lips, and suddenly flew up with Chris and Lydia.

"Is there anything you want to take?" Anxu asked Lidya in a tight voice.

Lydia thought for a moment as if distracted, then shook her head.

"Okay." An Xu said.

As soon as she finished speaking, the ugly but large monastery suddenly burst into flames. The flames ignited as far as An Xu could control, and burned more and more fiercely with the help of the strong wind she controlled. The air was filled with the smell of burning, and the tongues of flames illuminated the night sky brightly, quickly engulfing this historic monastery.

"I know where the other two genders in the ascetic monastery have gone." At this time, An Xu calmed down a little and smiled nervously, "I also know where so many ascetics came from, so I said , if the Holy See does charity and picks up orphans to serve as ascetic monks, why are there so many orphans out there?"

Lydia said that there are only betas in the Great Ascetic Monastery, and those who differentiate into alphas and omegas will be taken away.

Lydia said that the ascetics in the Great Ascetic Monastery were all orphans who grew up here.

Combining the two, the problem is easy to explain.

Only betas are left in the Great Ashram. They are the most stable puppets and assassins and are not easily troubled by sexual desire and fever. As for alpha and omega, they drank so much holy water before they separated, should they waste it? Naturally, the Holy See will not engage in loss-making business. Common people all know that if they want to have meat to eat all the time, it is unrealistic to expect to hunt prey every day. Breeding is much more convenient.

Alpha and omega will be taken underground after differentiation. Here they reproduce, giving birth to future little ascetics, and repeat, repeat, repeat until the end of their lives. If An Xu had probed deeper into the cemetery just now, he would have discovered that there was another cemetery underground containing alphas and omegas. They will never come to the surface again in their lifetime, because priests are supposed to dedicate themselves to the Lord, and reproduction is unclean. These people cannot see the light, and they will remain underground forever from the day they become unclean.

There are prisons above ground and breeding farms in the basement.

Chris's expression froze, and soon turned into indignation mixed with sadness, and he realized what An Xu was saying. Lydia opened her eyes without blinking, not knowing whether she understood or not.

It's probably better not to understand.

When Lydia was summoned by the disembodied voice, all the ascetics of the great monastery were summoned. Everyone who could move ran out, so no one could open the mechanism on it. It seemed that the leaders of the Great Ascetic Monastery were really worried about these alphas and betas. There was no way to open the secret door from below, so these people starved to death inside.

An Xu shook his head and tried hard to pull his thoughts away from the crazy human exhibition hall below. She exhaled and said, "I know the direction."

Those people were already dead, but their newly deceased bodies were affected by the holy water...or should I say infected? The parts infected by the substances in the holy water still retain their activity, like the pieces of flesh that fell from Anxu's body. These living parts are like marionettes, still obeying the call from the distance and restless in the corpse.

An Xu's spirit grasped the threads and followed it to the hand pulling the threads.

Not far from here.