Chapter 696: The mysterious coin

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Translated by: La0o9

Edited by: Dr.Lock

Proofreader: Arya

The Holy Church of Death.

An ancient coin was being twirled among 5 fingers of a hand, moving up and down. (1)

The flexible fingers changed its movement suddenly and flicked the coin.

Ching———

As the coin landed on the large round table, it didn’t fall to the ground right away, but rather it began to spin.

Within the solemn great hall of the church, everyone held their breath and said nothing.

The coin continued to spin attracting everyone’s gaze.

A while later, a dignified voice resounded.

“This was supposed to be the most important matter to the Church, but after the appearance of the path to Godhood, everyone simply forgot about it for the time being”

The voice went quiet.

A black-clothed man stepped forward and knelt down by the round table.

“I’m sorry, Pope, this was due to my own carelessness. I, Greyhan, express my sincere apology to everyone here” he spoke.

Greyhan, one of the eight Cardinals of the Holy Church of Death.

He was lowering himself greatly to admit his mistake.

The atmosphere of the great hall became a bit less tense.

With a voice full of consideration, the Pope spoke: “Greyhan, I heard that your disciple was killed, I understand your grief”

“He did not perform his duty to the best of his abilities, death is the only escape from his sins” Greyhan replied.

“Now, what do you intend to do next?” the Pope asked.

“I will personally return, seek out the person who ruined the grand plan of our Holy Church and take back that card” Greyhan answered.

“Personally? Has your Tree of Divinity been lit?” the Pope asked.

“It is still a bit from completion” Greyhan sighed.

The rest of the people around couldn’t help whispering among themselves.

If Greyhan were to do this personally, he would have to give up on lightning his Tree of Divinity half-way through.

This would be the same as giving up walking on the path to Godhood, the greatest form of punishment for oneself in these times.

But who could he blame?

In fact, if it was not to light his Tree of Divinity, Greyhan wouldn’t have left Drifting Sand world.

If the path to Godhood hadn’t appeared, he would have continued to remain in that world and continued to protect that crucial card.

But now, it was just known that all the means they used to restrain that card had already been destroyed.

Several thousand years of the Church’s time and effort; wasted.

Making such a big mistake, Greyhan deserved this punishment.

Hearing that, the Pope deeply sighed.

He was very pleased with the current situation.

Greyhan has always been known as a capable person.

Now I can simply give Greyhan a helping hand and gain both the gratitude and loyalty of a Cardinal in power.

While thinking that, the Pope muttered: “God’s Teachings”

As they heard these words, everyone in the room quickly stood up and knelt on one knee.

The Pope carefully took out a metallic black box.

And opened it.

Oong!

A heavy shroud of darkness emerged out of the box and quickly enveloped the entire hall

In the darkness, the teachings of the Death God from countless years ago directly resounded within everyone’s hearts.

The shroud of darkness only lingered for a single breath’s worth of time before disappearing.

Everyone had a look of enlightenment.

“Are you all clear?” the Pope asked

“Yes sir” a Cardinal answered: “When the path to Godhood appeared, all apostles must walk the path as their number one priority, we may not stray from or violate the path”

The Pope looked at Greyhan and smiled: “The path to Godhood is the path that the Gods showed us, we cannot violate it, so you do not need to leave for now, stay here until you’ve finished lighting your Tree of Divinity”

Greyhan appeared extremely grateful.

—–if they had a choice, who would willingly give up the chance to become a God?

A voice suddenly came: “Pope, sir, I object”

Everyone turned back to see that it was a Cardinal who usually didn’t get along with Greyhan.

He angrily protested: “After so many years of preparation by the Church, we finally got a once-in-a-thousand-year chance to capture that card at her weakest, but Greyhan let all of that go to waste, shouldn’t he be subjected to some sort of punishment?”

The Pope amiably replied: “The reason why Greyhan left Drifting Sand world was because he heeded the call of our God, he returned to light his Tree of Divinity”

“While the matter of the card was something that the Church planned by itself”

“When comparing the two, Greyhan returning at the will of God was the correct choice”

“Perhaps God didn’t want us to look into that secret in the first place and summoned our devout Cardinal Greyhan back”

The Cardinal’s lips twitched, still unwilling to let things go: “But still, Greyhan——-”

The Pope cut him off and spoke curtly: “The path to Godhood is the order of God, or do you think that your personal views are more important than God’s will?”

With those last words, the Pope’s tone was already cold.

The Cardinal hurriedly answered: “Not at all, that is not the case”

The Pope glanced around.

No one else objected.

This was God’s Teachings, something that the Death God himself arranged countless eons ago.

Who would dare to violate the will of God?

With the tacit agreement of everyone, Greyhan slowly stood up and spoke gratefully: “Thank you, Pope”

“You don’t need to, the will of God is above all, it will not be violated” the Pope replied.

At this point, the atmosphere in the hall slowly calmed down.

That’s right, the Gods have already arranged for all of this countless years ago.

How would a God not be able to predict their Church’s own direction?

Perhaps God really did not want the Church to look into the secret of that card.

Everyone silently thought that.

They couldn’t help but glance back at the round table.

The spinning coin on the table was finally slowing down.

If your sight was good enough, you would be able to tell what was depicted on the two faces of the coin.

The ‘head’ depicted a sleeping young girl.

Around this girl were various mysterious and mystical runes.

The runes were protecting her at the very center.

The ‘tail’ of the coin depicted constantly surging primal chaos, the more you looked at it, the faster your heart would beat. (2)

Indeed, this was one of the 1001 types of numbered coins, the third-ranked coin: [Sleeping Girl].

If this #999 coin appeared elsewhere, it would be hard for most to even recognize its true name.

Because there was only one each of the three highest-ranked coins.

———-and also because there wasn’t even the most basic information depicted on this coin, unlike the others.

This was one of the three most mysterious coins of the entire Strife Zones.

This coin doesn’t represent wealth.

It represented a secret that far exceeded what could be measured by wealth.

If Gu Qing Shan were here, he would be shocked to notice as the girl depicted on the coin looked exactly the same as the girl that he rescued.

Unfortunately, it would be a long time until he finally found out about this.

The Pope’s voice resounded in the grand hall once again.

“Then this matter will be settled here, Greyhan will remain and continue to light his Tree of Divinity as God willed him to. The rest of you as well, before lighting your Tree of Divinity, none of you may leave”

“Issue a huge bounty to the entire Strife Zones for that man”

“All followers should make achieving Godhood their highest priority, leave everything else aside for now!”

“Next”

“Anna will soon return”

“The path of Godhood was opened jointly by her and Su Ke Er of the Church of Fate, this represents the favor of the Gods, as well as peerless honor”

“Discuss among yourselves, how we should reward her”

…

Drifting Sand world.

The great desert.

Within a sand dune covered by countless layers of formations.

Gu Qing Shan made a hand seal.

The sand and gravel parted ways to show the ice crystal inside to him and the white-dressed girl.

Within the ice crystal, a beautiful woman covered in blood and wounds had her eyes closed, fallen into a coma as she was lingering on the verge of death.

The Lord-class Combatant, Yun Ji.

“This is the one you wanted me to save?” the white-dressed girl asked.

“Yes, please take a look at her for me” Gu Qing Shan said.

The white-dressed girl came forward and knelt down in front of the blue ice crystal.

“[Divine Power Frost Crystal] huh, how nostalgic”

The white-dressed girl slowly tapped the surface of the ice crystal and commented while being full of emotions

Gu Qing Shan’s eyebrows twitched and hurriedly asked: “You know what this is? Then can you tell who performed this technique?”

The girl shook her head: “This Divine Craft is ancient, and there are quite a few Divinities who can use it, so I have no way to determine for sure who did it”

“Next, I’ll try to heal her, don’t say anything for now”

“Got it” Gu Qing Shan replied.

The girl began to draw card after card from the void of space.

She stuck each card on the outside of the ice crystal, then quickly gathered all of them.

Within the ice crystal, Yun Ji’s expression visibly became better, her wounds were also starting to heal.

Seeing that, Gu Qing Shan was joyful.

But the girl put all her cards away and stood up: “It’s not good, I can’t save her”

Gu Qing Shan froze.

He encouraged: “What you did just now seemed to have healed her a bit, don’t give up, maybe you can try again”

The girl shook her head: “The current me won’t be able to do anything”

She took out a book and drew a card from it.

The girl looked at Gu Qing Shan and sighed: “Seeing how you saved me, I will release my wisdom”

The card scattered into a cluster of lights and gradually got absorbed into the girl’s body.

She stood still without moving.

But her aura clearly changed.

Her gaze became solemn, her movements also gained a sense of indescribable holiness.

The girl didn’t explain anything and placed her hand on the ice crystal again.

“Show me your secret, o’ technique of Divinity” she muttered.

With the girl’s actions, the ice crystal became unstable, shaking horribly.

Gu Qing Shan was faintly alarmed.

If the ice crystal broke now, Yun Ji would definitely die without a doubt.

But if the girl was able to shake this ice crystal formed from divine power by simply touching it, she must’ve found some sort of solution.

For now, Gu Qing Shan didn’t even know if bringing the girl here was a good idea or not.

While he was still unsettled, the girl had pulled her hand back and stood up again.

She wiped the sweat off her forehead and told Gu Qing Shan: “The situation is very complicated, you must listen clearly to what I’m about to say”

Gu Qing Shan nodded.

The girl explained: “On the outside, this is only a single ice crystal, but in fact, there wasn’t only a single of these crystals. According to what I can feel from the Divine Power, there should be a total of 381 ice crystals”

Gu Qing Shan kept silent.

Most likely, Lady Darksea only managed to save only that many people, the rest of them must’ve died in battle and got their souls eaten by the monster.

The girl continued: “These 381 pieces of Divine Power ice crystals form a closed cycle-like structure. This cycle structure allows them to form an energy absorption tool—– similar to formations that cultivators like you use”

“This formation-like tool has the ability to absorb various types of power within the void of space in the Strife Zones to replenish its own expenditures”

“This way, the ice crystals will be able to exist for a long time, sustaining the final breath of those stored inside and keep them from dying”

“But this is also where the problem lies, only when someone has the ability to heal all 381 of these heavily wounded people all at once, will all the ice crystals release and awaken each person fully healed”

Gu Qing Shan seemed to not understand: “Why do it this way? Why couldn’t they be saved one by one?”

The girl looked closely at the ice crystal and had a look of praise.

“In truth, this Divine Craft can be used so that they only need to be saved one by one, but the user purposefully set it up so that they have to be saved all at once, this has its own profound meaning”

“What kind of profound meaning?” Gu Qing Shan asked.

“Until your power grows to an exponential degree that allows you to save everyone at once, there is no meaning in saving them at all. If that’s the case, they might as well be temporarily hidden so that no one can find them—— I think this might be what the user wanted to convey” the girl told him.

“How did you deduct so much from that? That’s illogical” Gu Qing Shan replied.

“Because of the wound—— her wound came from an eerie source, something that the Divinities feared, mortals cannot defeat it, and all things will be destroyed by it” the girl softly answered.

Note:

(1) Coin twirling: Check this video to see what’s being described

(2) primal chaos: there are two words for “chaos” in Chinese, but they mean very different things.

“混乱” is “Chaos”, an adjective that by itself means the state of disorderly, not being arranged and what generally you think of when you hear that you have to babysit a young, disobedient child.

“混沌” is ”Primal Chaos”, a noun that describes the state of all beings before anything else. In the Chinese myth of origin, everything – deities and gods included – began from the “primal chaos”, it’s not “nothingness”, but rather “everything at once”. If you are familiar with the Big Bang theory, primal chaos would be the state of the universe immediately after the big bang.

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