Wasteland: My items are infinitely upgraded.

Chapter 311 The Final Conversation, The Winds of Freedom, The Golden Age

When Lin Feng arrived at the secret room behind the cathedral, the bishop had been waiting there for quite some time.

Compared to his appearance in the conference room before, the bishop was now much weaker, and the aura he exuded had fallen from the late stage of the second tier to the early stage.

He's not even as good as Lin Feng, who's at level 22 of evolution.

Lin Feng knew that at this moment, the bishop was truly on his last legs and was about to die completely.

Unlike before, when he would deliberately constrict his breath simply to reduce the consumption of the sacred spring cells in his body.

At the same time, Lin Feng also realized that this would be his last chance to meet the cult leader.

After leaving the Oasis warship and returning from the decapitation operation, the bishop will likely have already passed away.

Thinking of this, Lin Feng couldn't help but feel a little sentimental.

In the past few days, I have witnessed the deaths of several second-tier evolved individuals, especially the bishop and Li Hao, the head of the Li family, both of whom were late-stage second-tier powerhouses.

The bishop before us was someone who had almost reached the third rank.

Even now, strong individuals like them can reach the end of their lives due to the depletion of their vitality and the decline of their brain cells...

This made Lin Feng feel even more strongly that if he couldn't reach the third stage on the path of evolution, then everything was just a death struggle.

It is all in vain if one does not become a king.

Only by opening the gate to the third stage and breaking through the final bottleneck in the evolution of life forms can the individual achieve eternity, replacing the previous method of continuing genes through reproduction.

And now, a second-tier peak expert who is about to reach the end of his life will surely leave behind valuable experience.

Lin Feng took a deep breath, closed the door, and went inside.

In the dim light, the old man put on his yellowed glasses and handed the first edition of "The Holy Spring Cult" to the young man before him:
"You've only read the first chapter. Go ahead and study it properly on the way to the Holy City."

Lin Feng was stunned, clearly not expecting the bishop to leave him such a generous gift before his death, and said somewhat at a loss:

"This thing is so valuable..."

"Wouldn't it be better to leave it to Father Suan?"

His Excellency the Bishop coughed twice:

"Do you know how serious the consequences would be if this thing were found on him?"

Lin Feng immediately realized that this first edition of the Holy Spring Cult was, in a sense, a forbidden book within the current secular-dominated Vatican, especially for the cult's practitioners.

But if His Holiness the bishop entrusts it to me, wouldn't that be putting a hot potato in my hands?
Noticing the unnatural change in Lin Feng's expression, the bishop smiled and continued:
"Don't worry, you're not a church member and have no connection with the Vatican. Even if the church finds out, they'll just burn it down at most."

"But the Vatican will not search you without a reason. Besides, these materials are still well preserved in the temple and the Holy City Library."

"The reason I'm giving it to you is twofold: firstly, I want you to have a better understanding of the history that happened back then, so you can have a more intuitive understanding of the current wasteland situation."

"Furthermore, I hope you can become the savior that the Lord expects, leading humanity out of the fate of being enslaved by the ways of the gods."

Upon hearing the bishop's words, Lin Feng was immediately taken aback. These were not words that would come from a member of the church, especially from a high priest who was acting as bishop...

A faithful follower of the Lord of the Holy Spring.

Seeing Lin Feng's expression change from hesitation to astonishment, the bishop's smile faded, and he gradually became serious, saying in a low voice:

"Remember when I told you why the secularists wanted to revise the Holy Spring Book and falsify history..."

"Tell me your initial thoughts."

Lin Feng narrowed his eyes slightly, thought for a moment, and replied:
"As far as I know, the path to godhood that those gods took back then was called the Shepherd's Way."

"The so-called Shepherd's Method refers to the method used by gods before they embark on the path to godhood. After evolving to the late-stage third tier, which has a maximum level of thirty-nine, they want to become even stronger, but they can no longer contain more primordial power..."

"At this moment, these beings at the peak of evolution have already reached the threshold of the next stage, but due to the limited power of their origin, they are still unable to break through this bottleneck."

"At the same time, the evolutionary path it has pioneered also has considerable limitations, requiring it to absorb the essence of other evolutionary paths to make up for its own shortcomings..."

"But just like the conflicts between different origins, there will be rejection reactions between different evolutionary paths, so it takes a long time to integrate them into one."

"To prevent the emergence of pollution and distortion, which would cause the gods to degenerate into abnormally unstable and mentally unstable evil gods."

"But in this way, the gods will need a long time to complete all the original puzzle pieces. Each time, they will have to go through a long slumber to complete the fusion. During this time, they may even become prey for other gods."

"Therefore, in order to solve these problems, the gods came up with a perfect solution: to form a large force, recruit a group of potential evolvers, and let them absorb the energy radiated from their own origins, thereby evolving into a specific fusion evolution path..."

"As more and more people evolve through this path, many third-tier beings are born. The source substance within these kings is the product of the perfect fusion of their own genes and the origin that follows the gods."

"In this way, we can save most of our energy. As long as we absorb a large amount of the essence of third-tier believers and fuse it together, we can not only solve the problem of limited initial essence power, but also make up for all shortcomings and become the only omnipotent god..."

"But with the emergence of a large number of high-level believers, problems also arise."

"These third-tier believers, especially the powerful ones in the later stages, are a threat to the sleeping gods."

"So they will most likely become food for the gods, or be dealt with before the gods fall asleep."

"Otherwise, while the gods are asleep, they might plunder the source and steal the gods' authority, just like what Lang Ao did to the third-tier body of the wolf king in the Wolf King's Tomb in the Valley of Fallen Wolves."

"This is my initial view: after the Lord of the Holy Spring fell into slumber, the secular faction wanted to usurp divine power. First, they drove away the supervisor appointed by the Holy Lord, the Death Agent. Then, the Undying Saints, together with the archbishops of other holy cities, began to suppress the Primordial Faction, who originally followed the Holy Lord."

At this point, Lin Feng looked at the "Holy Spring Sect" in his hand, then at the old man in front of him, and continued:

"And these views were verified one by one in your subsequent introduction."

"However, I learned these secrets from Bai Ye, the leader of the Salvation Army."

"Back then, the City of Salvation wanted to research pure source matter and promote immaculate evolution. Subsequently, it was suppressed by a joint effort of various top powers. As a survivor of the City of Salvation, Bai Ye naturally had little affection for the shepherding methods of the top powers."

"She herself also followed the path of Immaculate Evolution, wanting to create an evolutionary path unique to herself, and then build a spaceship to escape this hopeless world..."

"I've gone off on a tangent, but that's roughly it."

The bishop coughed and nodded, saying, "She's right. The wasteland is now a world of despair..."

"Three suns hang in the sky, like overseers with whips, constantly lashing at the creatures on the ground, forcing them to keep moving forward and giving humanity no chance to catch its breath or stop developing its civilization."

"Above humanity, there are also the royal cities established by various first-class forces and third-tier kings, which continuously absorb the remaining human survivors or the new generation, becoming containers for spreading their own evolutionary paths."

"Even the top-tier Holy See and the Northern Giants Alliance are replicating this process, leading countless gifted evolvers down the path of fusion evolution, making them forever unable to escape the influence of the Lord they worship."

"Over time, the entire wasteland will eventually become a breeding ground for a group of high-level evolved beings, and human descendants will be nothing more than servants of these high-level beings generation after generation."

"Whether you've painstakingly broken through bottlenecks and become a powerful evolver, only to find yourself facing such a world, you'll feel utterly hopeless..."

"Either continue to work hard and strive to become one of them before the path to advancement is completely closed, or like Bai Ye, choose to escape this hopeless world."

"Of course, there's one last one..."

As he spoke, the bishop looked at the man before him, then suddenly changed the subject:

"Has Zong Shiyue already woken up?"

Lin Feng's hair stood on end instantly, and his hands couldn't help but reach for the armor-piercing cannon and high-explosive rapid-fire cannon at his waist.

But seeing the bishop's calm expression, Lin Feng realized that the other party was already a helpless, dying man...

There's no need to test myself right now, and even if I were to lay my cards on the table, I wouldn't have waited until now.

The bishop's raising of this matter clearly had another hidden meaning.

Lin Feng slowly withdrew his hands and placed them on the first edition of "The Holy Spring Cult" in front of him. He stared intently at the old man before him and suddenly laughed:
"He awoke and made a deal with me. He wanted to leave the ruins of Mount Tai and go to the wasteland to take revenge on the gods who had prevented him from transcending into godhood."

His Excellency the Bishop nodded and continued:
Do you think this is fair?

"As a corrupted and defiled evil god, Zong Shiyue needs a massive amount of biomass to reshape his evil god body in order to complete his revenge..."

"This means that countless creatures in the wasteland, especially humans in settlements, will be corrupted and turned into mutants."

"And this pollution will spread exponentially, like a virus, until it triggers a biochemical catastrophe that sweeps across the entire wasteland!"

Lin Feng's expression remained unchanged, his gaze icy:
"If their deaths can create a free new world without constraints for the survivors, I think it's all worth it."

"There is no change without bloodshed. Even the gods cannot reverse the direction of an entire group by trying to change it from the top down."

"You should know this better than me!"

Hearing Lin Feng's firm tone, the bishop took a deep breath, a hint of relief suddenly appearing on his angry expression, and continued:

"That's right, you're right..."

"This world is slowly decaying, like a stagnant pool that has remained calm for thousands of years."

"If we want to make changes, the efforts of just a few people are far from enough. Only by destroying the foundation of the upper class can we bring them down from their pedestals."

"It's a pity that I only understand this now. It's true that the older you get, the less courage you have..."

While the bishop was lost in his memories, Lin Feng flipped through the book "The Holy Spring Church" in his hand and found the events that happened in the Holy See thousands of years ago when the Lord of the Holy Spring decided to go into eternal slumber.

Sure enough, I found what I had guessed.

The things that could provoke such collective opposition from the entire Holy Spring Church leadership must be far more than just the threat posed by a late-stage third-tier archbishop.

Because these few high-ranking officials alone could not possibly control everything after the Lord of the Holy Spring has passed away.

It must have been a tacit agreement reached by all the high-ranking members of the entire Papacy, all the third-tier bishops, including the strongest among the second-tier members.

For them to achieve their shared interests, the Lord of the Holy Spring would have to do something earth-shattering before falling into slumber.

As the book's contents unfolded, Lin Feng quickly came across the title of a major event, which stood out starkly from the rest of the text:
The title of this article is "The Golden Age".

The record states that after the Lord of the Holy Spring activated and awakened the Agent of Death, he decided to reverse humanity's fate of enslavement and change the future's singular path of evolution...

Over the next hundred years, not only did civilian settlements begin to advocate for Immaculate Evolution, but even the Holy See began to accommodate Immaculate Evolvers and develop Pure Source.

The winds of freedom blow under the rule of the Papacy.

Countless types of superpower genes have been fully explored, with hundreds possessing the potential for the third tier.

Evolutionary pathways sprouted like bamboo shoots after a spring rain, a freedom of evolution far surpassing any previous era, as dazzling as gold shining on barren land.

However, all of this affected the interests of the original high-ranking officials of the Vatican, and the number of priests who took the Holy Spring path decreased sharply to less than 10% of the original number in just one hundred years.

The Lord of the Holy Spring liberated humanity from the shackles of slavery, but placed the Church, which maintained order, on the fire, turning it into an old thing that was about to be discarded.

Therefore, this golden age, swept by the winds of freedom, came to an abrupt end with the eternal slumber of the Lord of the Holy Spring. What the world will face is a more conservative backlash from the old order.

The previously unrestricted evolution of purity was now strictly forbidden, and even pure source matter became a taboo existence.

The original faction, which originally followed the Lord of the Holy Spring, suffered severe internal divisions and was eventually reduced to a small group of loyal believers, gradually becoming marginalized within the Papacy.

This is in the interest of everyone in the Vatican. Even if the bishop had been promoted to the third rank and become a true bishop, he could not have stopped the inevitable trend.

Seeing that Lin Feng's attention was drawn to the content of the Holy Spring Church, the bishop, having regained his senses, coughed lightly and spoke in a low voice:

"Take the books with you."

"I hope that one day you can truly complete the unfinished path that Zong Shiyue once walked, leaving another possibility for the future of humanity."

"Let's go, I also need to complete my final mission."

After saying that, the bishop opened the drawer and activated a mechanism.

The next moment, the background wall of the secret room suddenly fell down, revealing the bow glass of the Oasis warship.

Upon seeing this scene, one word flashed through Lin Feng's mind:
Prism Curse!

(End of this chapter)