Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 488 Firewood
After turning Itakua, who sought revenge for his mother, into the furry Wendigo, the only remaining question is how to leave this hellish place.

What gave Milo a bad feeling was that the last time he left the Abyss World, it was because Itakua destroyed the world he was in, which was the only apocalypse he witnessed.

But this time the situation is different. Milo's hatred level is greater than the world's hatred level, so the moment he entered, Itakua's mission had already changed.

So who will accomplish the task of destroying the world?
……

Milo didn't know how far things had progressed in the real world, but he wasn't worried. His primary task was to get out of the abyss as quickly as possible.

His first choice to eliminate was the church, but to his surprise, the church's high bridge leading to the prayer square in the Abyss world was tightly closed.

"It looks like the script has changed again this time."

Milo reached out and placed his hand on the cold, massive stone door.

The instant his palm touched the giant gate, the prayers and wails of the Golden Rule believers, along with the low growls and hisses of wild beasts, mingled together and flooded Milo's ears.

However, when he looked up at the sky behind the stone gate, he could see that the clouds in the sky were still reflecting the holy light projected from the inner square.

At this moment, Wendigo rolled over from the high bridge behind it. It crashed headfirst into the stone gate, breaking its short, thick limbs and head out of the fur ball in its body. It stared at the stone gate for two seconds, then turned and gave Milo an inquiring look.

“No, no, no, you definitely won’t like the smell of stones. We’ll just climb over the wall and go in.” Milo understood immediately and rejected Wendigo’s “eating” suggestion.

He felt it was necessary to correct this guy's bad habit of chewing on things indiscriminately.

……

The mere Stone Gate could not possibly stop two Shadow Order Great Old Ones.

And so, one man and one dog—no, one man and one dog—easily entered the pilgrimage site of the Golden Rule believers.

However, apart from the warm-colored bonfires, no believers were seen in the prayer square, unlike in the real world where there is always a constant flow of worshippers.

The open square was covered with snow that reached above an adult's ankles. Almost every fifty meters, there was a bonfire set up on a high platform. The wind and snow had not extinguished it, but the firelight could only reflect a holy warmth on the surface of the more gloomy dark clouds. Up close, however, one could not feel the heat of the flames. In fact, the biting cold emanating from the flickering flames was stronger than the wind and snow of deep winter.

Because what was piled up on the high platform as fuel was not firewood, but the bones of the dead.

...

"To be honest, this art style is more in line with my expectations for the church."

In fact, six years ago, before Milo arrived in Nanwei City, he had this idea of ​​the church.

Compared to the religious systems in the real world—which evolved from ancient academic institutions composed of a group of scholars.

Milo was actually more inclined to believe that the evil cult, which appeared glamorous on the surface but hid a horrifying truth behind it, was actually a different story.

Perhaps in this Abyss world, the Church will appear in the very form that Milo initially envisioned.

...

Because the clergy who soon appeared before him and Wendigo had faces that made him physically uncomfortable.

The general description is that the official's face, arms and other exposed skin are pale and withered. He has a hood over his head and is carrying a burning kerosene lamp. He is wandering aimlessly on the snow in the prayer square.

By the faint light of the lamp in his hand, one could see that beneath the tattered hood, the official's two eye sockets were empty and pitch black. His eyeballs had long been gouged out, and now, what seemed to be inside the eye sockets were arthropods resembling centipedes, their tentacles occasionally twitching in the deep darkness.

And Milo saw more figures like this after he went deeper into the church.

Although Milo firmly believed that the Abyss was an illusion and illogical, he still felt that if a cataclysmic disaster was inevitable, it would certainly be related to the Church. After all, the end of the last Abyss journey, the destruction of Itakua, also began with the Church.

……

"On the other hand, you are only at the level of an Old One, and there is still a certain gap between you and a true god. Why should the task of destroying the world be entrusted to you?"

Milo didn't treat this as a question to Wendigo; it was merely a soliloquy during his thought process.

The church officials were wandering aimlessly like zombies, completely unaware of Milo passing by.

Among the many clerics wandering around with lanterns, Milo spotted a very few pushing carts into the depths behind the church.

So he followed.

After bypassing the familiar corridor, Milo paused briefly as he passed the Star Clock Tower, but he quickly realized that there was no will of the Eye of Thought inside the tower; in other words, Daisy was not among them.

Within Milo's psychic vision, all he could see were the stiff bodies of chorus nuns piled up together; they were not dead, but they could not be considered alive either.

But Milo didn't care and didn't linger.

……

He and Wendigo followed the blind cleric pulling the cart through the dark, gloomy corridors, past the dusty cathedral, past the clergy's monastic quarters and the incoherent scholars' missionary quarters, and finally through a small path into the dark, primeval jungle deep within the church.

Then came the familiar downhill road, followed by an old elevator platform, leading to the ruins of the previous era, the "unseen land" as described by the scholars of the contract, the place where Pumeru ended, and the origin of the Church.

...

Here, Milo finally understood why Prayer Square seemed so empty.

Because the worshippers who should have been in the square and the cathedral were now lined up in an orderly fashion, making their way step by step toward the altar at the deepest part of the unseen land.

It seems that in this generation of the Abyss world, the Church no longer serves and fears the blood of the Old Gods.

Because he could not hear the familiar proverb "fear the blood of the old gods" in the believers' low murmurs and babbling. Instead, he heard some strange and obscure phrases. Even Milo, who was "well-read," could not identify which era's language they were using.

Blood worship and taboo elements have disappeared from within the church.

Perhaps neither the Monsis school nor the Cainhurst clan could thrive in this abyss.

However, although the element of blood is gone, the totem of the Eye of Thinking is still everywhere.

Milo recalled the blind clerks who were like wandering corpses, and then he remembered a proverb from the choir that served the Eye of Thinking in the real world: "To chew one's tongue makes one's words clearer, and to lose one's eyes makes one's vision broader."

……

The believers stepped deeper and deeper into the unseen land.

Finally, at the deepest altar, Milo saw the vessel of the Eye of Thought, who had the face of an aged version of Daisy, with some kind of arthropod also dwelling in her eye sockets.

Under her manipulation, the followers of the Golden Rule formed long lines, like countless columns moving horizontally across the ground, and orderly marched into the depths, finally collapsing their bodies at the edge of the worship pit.

The firewood used for the bonfire burning on the high platform in the prayer square where Milo had walked before was made from bones dug out of the worship pit.

(End of this chapter)