I impersonated God in America

“We have finally obtained a clue about the prophecy, which is extremely rare and precious. If we miss it, we would be sinners for the church.”

The two priests behind him paused for a moment, then moved closer to Bishop Paul, protecting him even more closely.

Seeing the two tense priests, Bishop Paul smiled and, unusually, changed the subject.

"Don't worry, there are armed helicopters that have been prepared in advance not far from us. If danger really comes, we can leave from the sky at any time, right?"

Bishop Paul then prepared to explore a little further.

Suddenly, he saw a gray-brown owl perched on a broken lampshade on a street lamp at a corner. The owl was tilting its head and staring intently at him.

"Long-striped little owl?"

Bishop Paul was slightly taken aback, not expecting to see this variety in such a place.

These small owls are generally widely distributed in warmer regions such as Europe and North Africa, with Italy being one of their important habitats.

This species basically doesn't exist in the United States.

Although there is a species in America called the burrowing owl that is somewhat similar to this small owl, Bishop Paul, being Italian, would certainly not mistake this owl for the real one.

"Could it be that it's kept by a local resident? That's quite a unique hobby."

Bishop Paul was about to continue forward when he suddenly noticed that the owl above was still staring intently at him. The owl then tilted its head and flew away.

For some reason, Bishop Paul seemed to see a strange sense of scrutiny in the owl.

It might just be my imagination.

Suddenly, he heard a series of cries coming from the alley next door. The sounds were extremely complex, and they sounded like a lot of girls huddled together sobbing.

Bishop Paul and the two priests exchanged a glance, frowned, and began to step forward.

Turning a corner through a narrow alley filled with abandoned bicycles and tattered cardboard boxes, he spotted a door not far away, from which one girl after another stumbled out.

One of the girls had a trace of ink visible below her collarbone, like a stamp used in some kind of animal husbandry.

They stopped and noticed that other girls, representing almost every skin color, were still pouring out of the door.

Some of the older girls had a numb look in their eyes and could only be led by the other girls in front of them.

Where are you from?

However, the girls exchanged glances, a hint of fear appearing in their eyes, and then shrank back, not daring to utter a word.

sizzle.

Suddenly, a sound like an electric current snapping came from behind Bishop Paul, and the girls in front of him suddenly looked on with fear and instinctively backed away.

Could it be that...?

The two priests immediately shielded him behind them: "Your Excellency, please be careful."

Bishop Paul turned around abruptly and, sure enough, saw a figure shrouded in black mist standing at the entrance of the alley, appearing and disappearing repeatedly.

This is exactly the same situation as what Bishop Giovanni described earlier.

I never expected we'd meet like this.

"Excuse me, do you need...?"

"Lamb...the conditions are not met..."

Riddlers, get out of New York!

The black fog completely ignored Bishop Paul's answer, instead jumping back and forth between a few words like a broken radio.

The two sides remained locked in a standoff in the alley.

After a while, Bishop Paul noticed that the black mist suddenly stopped moving and then looked toward the red clouds in the distance.

[Should we be able to talk now?]

"Lamb..."

"Hell... serpent..."

Immediately afterwards, the black mist lifted its blurry head into the air, then gradually dissipated from the bottom, carrying a strong wind pressure that caused Bishop Paul to instinctively cover his face with his robe.

What happened this time?

The black mist dissipated faster and faster, and in the last moment before the other party disappeared, Bishop Paul seemed to catch a glimpse of a semi-transparent silhouette wearing white knight's armor.

[Wait? A knight?! Isn't the black mist related to snakes?]

Well, it's good that there's progress. We can ask the prophet when we get back.

"Your Excellency, should we..."

"Sigh, let's finish arranging these children's affairs first. Although it's urgent, we can still find some time."

Bishop Paul sighed, turned around, and placed his hand on the head of a girl in front of him.

“Poor lost sheep, the Lord will not forget His flock. It’s dangerous here. Please wait a moment while I arrange for emergency medical assistance…”

The girl shrank back slightly as she felt the stroking on her head, but did not flinch.

"Wait a minute? A lost lamb?!"

Halfway through his sentence, Bishop Paul suddenly realized something was wrong; a flood of information seemed to explode at that moment.

The serpent of the underworld arrives, darkness descends, but the lost lamb will be guided to victory.

Bishop Paul belatedly looked out to sea.

"snake?!"

Finally, I looked up at the black mist overhead that was beginning to stretch ever higher into the sky.

"Darkness descends?!"

If "darkness enveloping" is not a supplementary explanation for the arrival of the Serpent of the Underworld.

Rather, "darkness enveloping" is a separate sentence in itself...

It's a bit strange that Medusa would be associated with the underworld.

But at this point, according to the Bible, there should only be one event involving the lamb, the serpent, and "darkness" at the same time, right?

Finally, in Bishop Paul's mind, the figure of the knight flashed by beneath the black mist.

"Ah sneeze!"

He straightened up and, trembling, dialed the Pope's private number.

Could it really be what I'm thinking?!

"Does the investigation into the prophecy require our support?"

"No! Your Holiness! Perhaps our previous understanding of the prophecy was completely wrong, and the situation is more serious than we imagined."

"The Serpent of the Underworld has appeared?"

"Perhaps a thousand times worse than that..."

Chapter 86 Underworld and Explosion

Xu Ge stepped out of the crack.

The rift behind him closed itself after he stepped over it, cutting off the last wisp of sea breeze from the human world.

He stood on a familiar yet unfamiliar patch of gravel.

Beneath his feet was a cracked mud road, and a few wooden stakes, worn bare by the sea wind, were stuck crookedly in the roadside. The old fishing nets hanging on the stakes were exactly the same as the ones he had seen on the beach in Sardinia when he was a child.

The distant mountain ridgeline undulates gently along the direction of the Tyrrhenian Sea.

"It looks exactly like Sardinia. Is this the underworld of Sardinia?"

To be honest, this place is a little different from the underworld Xu Ge had imagined. He had always thought that the underworld should be a dark and desolate world.

The result looks more like a parallel world of Sardinia?

Perhaps the treatment in the underworld here is not so bad?

He glanced down at the lantern in his hand.

According to the owl, if you want to find Anna after arriving in the underworld, you must follow Hecate's guidance with the lantern.

But they didn't tell me how to use it?

The thought had barely crossed my mind when the flame of the lamp wick began to tilt slightly to the left.

Xu Ge tried moving the lamp to the left, but the flame still pointed to the original position, only it was more far off.

"..."

So intelligent?!

He followed the light and began walking down the mountain. Olive trees along the roadside were laden with fruit, instantly reminding him of the three rules the owl had spoken of.

First, one must not eat food from the underworld.

Second, one must not attack or resist the gatekeepers of the underworld.

[Part Three: After finding Anna, from the moment you hold her hand, you must not let go or look back until you leave the Underworld.]

As he approached, the bark of the olive tree suddenly split open, and rows of scarlet eyes began to stare at him from the bushes, while the branches of the tree slowly drooped down.

However, Xu Ge remained calm and continued walking forward, completely ignoring the tree demon.

As expected, the other side did not launch an attack.

After passing through the olive grove, the gravel path underfoot began to slowly climb upwards, and a hillside covered with wildflowers came into view, stretching from the bottom to the top of the hill, densely packed.

raging.

The flame of the lantern became increasingly active.

Guided by the lantern, Xu Ge arrived at a small cosmos flower.

It can't be wrong.

With trembling hands, he slowly unscrewed the crystal bottle the owl had given him, and a drop of water fell onto a petal.

The flower stem snapped upwards, and the petals began to close along the veins, sprouting new branches and leaves, weaving into a human-like outline.

Collarbone, shoulders, neck... and finally, Xu Ge's face, which he had seen countless times in the pocket watch photo.

“Anna…”

Xu Ge looked at the blank-faced figure in front of him and knelt down on the muddy ground with a thud.

"Anna, I'm sorry, I'm not a good brother. I've never been a good brother for even a day."

"I shouldn't have brought you to a city like this, a city I can't even stand in myself. I'm sorry, please forgive me..."

"..."

As Xu Ge knelt on the ground, he felt a faint, almost imperceptible stroking sensation on the top of his head, as if it might disappear at any moment.

pat.

The soil on the ground was soaked.

Xu Ge held Anna's hand firmly in his palm, carefully turning his head back to avoid looking back.

"Anna, your brother has come to take you home..."

----------------

"The authorization for the release of the hydrogen bomb has been confirmed, and the warheads have been retrieved from the dedicated stockpile."

"The bomber has entered the drop zone and is expected to arrive over the target within one minute to drop the bomb."

"very good!"

The people in the conference room watched on the screen as Medusa traversed the sea along the stone path she had paved.

"Fortunately, the enemy has no flight capability. As long as our hydrogen bomb can be detonated at a height of several hundred meters, we can maximize its destructive power."

"Although dropping a hydrogen bomb in the middle of the coast would be quite dangerous for New York, there was no other way; it was a necessary sacrifice."

"Indeed, no matter how you calculate secondary disasters, there was no other choice this time."

"And judging from their nonchalant attitude, they probably haven't seen our modern weapons before."