Nightmare Light

Chapter 190 Gratitude and Kneeling

"I do not want."

Lin Wang smiled and patted Shi Xionglue on the shoulder: "You can keep it."

As he said this, a smile played on his lips, his expression natural and relaxed, as if he were refusing something he didn't like to eat.

Shi Xionglue never expected that Lin Wang would refuse such a treasure.

He opened his mouth wide and stared at Lin Wang for a good ten seconds before saying, "Lin Wang, do you want to know what you just refused?"

Shi Xiong raised his voice slightly: "This Holy Army, perhaps not powerful on its own, but when combined, can almost easily conquer any city in the mortal world and destroy any temple!"

"With such power, you would be one of the strongest people in the entire mortal world! Even..." Shi Xiong glanced around, "...even the strongest among them!"

"With this scepter, you can easily become a powerful bishop of the temple!"

"Cook, you don't know this," Lin Wang said with a smile, shaking his head. "I recently refused to become a secular emperor... let alone a cheap bishop?"

Lin Wang shook his head, his gaze calm and profound: "I have absolutely no intention of worshipping a goddess."

Shi Xiong opened his mouth slightly.

His first reaction was that Lin Wang was bragging.

But then I thought: This northerner did indeed refuse the scepter... Could it be that he was telling the truth?

With such a huge temptation right in front of him, this young man could easily refuse...

Shi Xionglue couldn't help but think more highly of him.

At this moment, the Night Wanderer had already organized the surrounding skeletons.

The densely packed dead, like an army, halted their march, turned, and dispersed to both sides, revealing a passage leading directly to the temple.

The path of the living is paved by the dead.

The lay priests and priests in the temple did not come out immediately; they remained vigilant and hesitant.

"Cook, you'll be in charge of bringing those people out later," Lin Wang said to Shi Xiong.

Shi Xiong tightened his grip on the scepter and said to Lin Wang in a half-joking manner, "Brother Lin, do you know? I am the Godslayer. For the past hundred years, my goal has always been to kill Luo He."

"Now that you have received Luo He's inheritance, my next task is, in a sense, to kill you—under these circumstances, you handed over such a weapon to me so easily?"

"They could transform into a god-slaying legion that will fight you to the death... Aren't you afraid?"

Lin Wang remained calm: "Why should I be afraid? I have no intention of becoming a god."

He looked at Shi Xiong and smiled slightly: "Besides, are you sure that after everything that's happened, you really can bring yourself to do it?"

Shi Xiong remained silent for a moment. Lin Wang had asked him this question once before.

If he were to do it again, would he really be able to bring himself to do it?
After a long while, Shi Xiong shook his head slightly: "Maybe I can't do it now, but if one day I really find evidence that you are an evil god, I will still take action—leading this entire Holy Army to launch a relentless attack on you."

"I'll scratch you!"

Lin Wang grinned: "Alright, not now... let's go."

The two turned around and walked side by side toward the temple.

"Meow, go lock up the mouse first!" the cat girl said to Lin Wang, picked up Little Yellow Spring, and jumped back into the tree fern space.

Lin Wang and Shi Xiong walked to the front of the temple and looked into it through a gap in the wall. The lay priests and priests looked at each other, then huddled together, watching the two of them.

After a long while, a representative was selected from both the priests and the laymen and walked toward Lin Wang.

The priest chosen was a middle-aged Crusader with dark skin and a weathered, resolute face.

Beside him was Bai Xiaoxiao, an "old acquaintance" of Lin Wang.

Two "representatives of the masses" walked up to Lin Wang and Shi Xionglue.

"Brother Lin Wang..." Bai Xiaoxiao was interrupted by an officer of the Holy Army before she could finish her question.

"Gentlemen...may I ask you, are you responsible for the anomalies surrounding these dead outside the temple?"

As if afraid that the two might misunderstand, the Crusader officer said again, "Please don't misunderstand, we just want to confirm the safety of the temple... and so many of us."

His gaze fell on the scepter in Shi Xionglue's hand, his expression changed, but in the end he said nothing, his expression serious and meticulous.

Shi Xiong glanced at Lin Wang briefly.

Lin Wang cleared his throat and said to the crowd, "The Lord of the Underworld has been defeated, and Vice-Bishop Zhao is dead. Now, the dead on both sides of the River Styx are also under my command..."

He recounted the whole story in one breath, and with each detail he mentioned, Bai Xiaoxiao beside him would exclaim "Ah?" By the time he finished, the young, unsophisticated female teacher's mouth was agape, wide enough to fit an egg.

"So many things...so much has happened?" She stared blankly. "You killed a bishop and an immortal? And now you can command all the dead in the River Styx?"

“Strictly speaking, we didn’t kill the old woman; she killed herself… Huang Quan Gong didn’t actually die either, but… well, you could say that’s about right.”

The Holy Army officer standing to the side breathed a sigh of relief after hearing Lin Wang's words: "I understand."

After saying that, he drew a triangle in front of his chest with his hand, then pounded his chest forcefully: "My lord, the Crusader Shadowwalker Chapter obeys your command!"

Behind him, hundreds of priests pounded their fists on Shi Xiong's chest in unison: "Obey my command!"

An atmosphere of impending doom rose to the sky.

Immediately afterwards, the leading priest turned to Lin Wang and knelt on one knee: "On behalf of all humanity, I thank this sir for his contribution in saving so many of us!"

“It’s true we were enemies before, but that was because of military orders… but we have our own thoughts and judgment.” He looked up and winked at Lin Wang: “We saw everything you did in your battle with Huang Quan Gong.”

Behind this soldier, hundreds of Crusader soldiers knelt down in unison: "Thank you for saving us!"

Shi Xiong's face twitched slightly: "Good heavens, this guy has more prestige than me, the one holding the scepter?"

Bai Xiaoxiao blinked, a smile slowly spreading across her face. She followed suit and knelt on one knee next to the Holy Army officer, saying, "Thank you, Brother Lin Wang, for saving my life!"

The next second, thousands of laymen in the square also started to move in a chaotic manner—some knelt on one knee, and some even knelt on both knees: "Thank you Lin Wang/Brother Lin Wang... for saving our lives!"

I even heard a voice saying, "Thank you, King Lin Wang..."

"Don't kneel!" Lin Wang took a step forward, his whole body bursting into white flames, and his huge and deep voice carried far from the flames.

"You can thank me, but you're not allowed to kneel! Stand up!"

Some laymen dawdled and were unwilling to stand up, so Lin Wang simply took a step down, and the extremely cold ice surface spread towards these laymen.

These lay teachers then reluctantly stood up.

Watching Lin Wang's every move, Shi Xiong seemed to understand something. He seemed to understand why this tall young man was so indifferent to the scepter.

(End of this chapter)