Chapter 320 (1): The More People I Meet, the More I Like Do

Anastasia’s humble dwelling was located in the suburbs of the Western District. It was a rather weathered dark castle, secluded, desolate, with few people around. It had all the makings of a horror film set.

It was located near the Great Cemetery in the Western District.

The castle was empty, with simple interior furnishings. Aside from the rooms that Anastasia used regularly, the other parts of the house remained unfurnished and appeared quite bleak. For a Holy Maiden of such transcendent status, the castle was clearly beneath her, but that was the kind of person she was—she led a simple life with little to no material needs. She knew almost nothing about essential cosmetics that most women couldn’t live without.

She was someone who had risen above base pleasures and lived like an ascetic monk. Her pursuits and mindset were beyond the comprehension of ordinary people.

Wayne couldn’t understand her, either, but that didn’t stop him from feeling the highest respect for people like her. It was precisely because he couldn’t do it that he held her in the highest esteem.

“No wonder I can’t bear the slightest hardship. You’ve taken all the hardships and difficulties.”

They were a man and a woman alone in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by darkness with lightning in the backdrop. Anastasia’s heart raced slightly. Sensing that the atmosphere was going in the wrong direction, Wayne quickly cracked a few jokes to redirect her attention.

It worked well enough. The patient had strong self-control and could calm herself down, given some time.

Wayne extended his thoughts to envelop the entire dark castle. The upper level wasn’t anything to write home about, while the basement was spacious and quite magnificent in design. Complex magic circles formed an extremely tight defense. In the center of the dozens of meters-wide hall was an altar.

The light remained bright, and the tribute never stopped.

The divine figurines worshipped were shaped by Anastasia’s thoughts. There were two, one large and one small. The smaller one was the Pale Nest clothed in yellow, and the larger one was the Pale Knight with an indistinct face.

The Pale Nest was the faith that Wayne had assigned to Anastasia, but because she knew whom she truly worshipped, the Pale Knight took center stage.

“You... you won’t get better at this rate,” Wayne said slowly. His heart ached for her when she kept her head lowered in silence. He debated whether to allow her to face reality. On second thought, though, he shouldn’t. Facing reality came at a price—Senna was the perfect example.

“Mr. Wayne, contacting the Goddess of Darkness requires considerable preparation. Please wait a moment. It’ll take about two hours,” Anastasia said apologetically.

Wayne nodded in understanding. As he saw it, contacting the goddess was no different from having an angel descend for the Church of Heavenly Father. In his homeland’s terms, it was shamanism.

Since the goddess was in a greater league as the ultimate faith of a church, on par with the Heavenly Father, the preparatory work before the contact was even more tedious and complex, with far more formalities to follow.

Devout prayer, ritual bathing, incense burning, garment cleansing, and grooming... One had to wash away the impurities of the body and the distracted thoughts in the mind to welcome the goddess in the purest state.

It was quite short for the procedures to take only two hours, without needing a three-day fast or a grand sacrificial ritual. Wayne could wait that long.

“There’s something else...”

Anastasia bit her bottom lip, too embarrassed to finish the sentence. Reading her mind, Wayne said considerately, “I’ll handle the two statues. This isn’t blasphemy, so you don’t have to blame yourself.”

When Anastasia remained silent, he corrected, “I’ll leave the statues. Don’t worry. I’m not taking your faith from you.”

Anastasia felt as if a great weight had been lifted off her shoulders. She went upstairs to bathe and cleanse her body and mind, preparing to receive the Goddess of Darkness.

Wayne shook his head. Evolution was truly terrifying. He had promised to give Anastasia her independence, and she, too, pursued her autonomy. Yet as time passed, she still ended up on the road of no return. That was Anastasia’s deepest desire.

Wayne imagined the Goddess of Darkness turning green. Objectively speaking, if he were the Goddess of Darkness, realizing that the magical girl he’d raised had been violated by a tentacle monster, he would definitely try to make the tentacle monster pay. Their conflict could not be resolved!

That was especially true since the magical girl was the Holy Maiden, the Goddess of Darkness’s vessel in the mortal realm, perceived as the purest existence. The tentacle monster might as well have reached under the Goddess of Darkness’s dress.

“Terrible...”

Wayne shook his head, going up to the altar in the basement and opening his dimensional storage to store the two statues.

Meanwhile, the Pale Nest was waiting outside the basement. It was Wayne’s thought amplifier and a highly evolved lifeform in its own right. When integrated with Wayne, it was able to spread the voice of evolution across Londan.

The indiscriminate distribution of sweets would lead to a predictable result: chaos.

Two hours later, a black-robed figure approached the altar in the basement. Beneath the robe, the dark elf’s pure body was noble and elegant.

Because of the unknown and mysterious nature of darkness, it usually evoked an impression of terror and evil, thus being connected to oppressive themes like cruel bloodshed and tragic suffering. Anything opposing light and justice would be described as dark. It was a hue that encompassed all negativity in the world. Whatever was bad, no matter in what way, was called darkness.

Anastasia’s dark elf form was the same, combining violence, terror, evil, and lust in one body. But because she was stunning and had an extraordinarily pure temperament, her dark elf form appeared sacred and pure, able to embrace everything in the world.

It was proven yet again that beauty could twist morals. Because Anastasia was beautiful, the darkness she represented didn’t embody evil or fear, but reverence and tolerance.

To avoid making her restless, Wayne left the basement and merged with the Pale Nest to erase his presence.

Before the altar, Anastasia knelt respectfully, her hands clasped and her head bowed in prayer. She murmured passages from the sacred scripture of Darkness. After three failed attempts, she finally sensed the Goddess of Darkness’s presence, her body stiffening.

“Anastasia...” The goddess’s voice sounded in her ear, calm, elegant, and oppressive in an ineffable way.

“Goddess, my thoughts are falling into corruption. I can no longer serve as the Holy Maiden of the Church of Darkness. I hereby beg for your forgiveness,” Anastasia recited the script.

There was no point in hiding the changes to her body and thoughts. Since she was the Holy Maiden, the Goddess of Darkness would notice after descending through her.

In truth, Wayne wasn’t sure whether the Goddess of Darkness had descended through her before. He only suspected it because it was likely. He guessed that the goddess had been paying attention to him.

If the goddess had been in the dark, this would’ve exposed him.

“Anastasia, you have given much to the church. I permit your loss of loyalty, and the Divine Realm of Darkness will remain open to you,” the Goddess of Darkness murmured. After a moment, She seemed to realize something. A part of Her thoughts surged into Anastasia’s body.

The goddess was speechless.

She had been set up!

If She had been set up by a mortal, She would retaliate, but She acknowledged Wayne’s existence as a higher lifeform with advanced intelligence. She thus didn’t consider it a setup but part of the game of push and pull.

She and Her false sisters had played many such games, so She was accustomed to it. After a moment of silence, She controlled Anastasia to look outside.

“Come in, my knight. You’re right. I’ve been watching you for quite some time.”

It was Anastasia’s body and Anastasia’s voice. She looked no different than usual at first glance, yet her temperament had changed dramatically. The cold look in her eyes, especially, looked haughty and arrogant.

Wayne shook his head. Just as he had suspected, Anastasia had contacted the Goddess of Darkness, but because Anastasia was compromised, the goddess had erased the memory.

That question was answered, but a new one arose: in the memories the goddess had erased, was there anything disadvantageous to him? The Goddess of Darkness hadn’t chosen to make him pay after learning about him being chosen by the five goddesses—no, after learning about his theft of the five goddesses’ power. Why?

Wayne stepped back into the basement, ready to ask the goddess directly for answers.

The Pale Nest, clothed in yellow, came up to ‘Anastasia’ with wiggling tendril feet. Maintaining a safe distance, it bowed slightly. “Great Goddess of Darkness, your devout follower, Wayne, is honored but also anxious and fretful to be in your presence.”

“Devout follower...” The Goddess of Darkness smiled faintly. “Are you certain? If you’re certain that you’re a follower of Darkness, I’ll take it seriously.”

“I am certain!” Wayne straightened his tentacled body, his pale voice coming from the yellow-robed figure. “I’m not only a follower of you, but also Nature, Sun, Moonlight, and Death. I worship every one of the five goddesses.”

Well, how devout you are!

The Goddess of Darkness didn’t mock him. The path of evolution always went like this. Mages who focused on one faith would inevitably reach an endpoint, which had already been marked as exclusive by a god. It was a safe path but a limited faith, a stable yet fickle path. The god always had the final say.

Once reaching the Legendary rank, a mage would more or less come to the realization.

Then, the mage would have to choose: what was true faith? A faith in themselves, or a god?

With all the knowledge they had acquired in their lifetime, a legendary mage would’ve incorporated too much faith into their thoughts. They would thus choose one god to serve for life, quickly dispelling distractions and solidifying their future path.

𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

Hexagram, Cross Star, Golden Triangle. The repeated dividing and merging were the gods’ way of consolidating their following. They had long since monopolized everything. Those legendary mages who were arrogant enough to want to control their own destinies, like Marshall, the fallen Lord of the Void, or the free mage Obed, sought a different future because they didn’t want to give a god everything and work for them forever.

Marshall chose the Void, trying to forge his own path. One stumble, and he disappeared down the slippery slope.

The pursuit of Void was too dangerous and difficult. Learning from Marshall’s death, Obed chose a safer path: Hell. There was no god in Hell. His future was promising as long as he avoided the oppressive rule of the Seven Demon Lords.

But then he found a better choice in the obelisk of the God of Storm and Lightning. He ultimately abandoned Hell and decided to tread that path, reviving the faith in the human world to secure a spot at the dining table.

One stumble, and he was gone, too.