Late at night, the aura of death filled the dilapidated farmhouse, colder than the chill wind outside the window.
This was no longer a sanctuary, but a small hell filled with despair.
“Kh… Kh kh… “
A series of weak coughs, as if life itself might be snuffed out at any moment, sounded from Anna’s arms.
The child named Thomas, whose face had regained color under her Holy Light during the day, was now a ghastly shade of blue and purple.
Thick black blotches once again crawled across his skin, more hideous than before, like the mark of Death itself branded upon him.
Thomas’s mother’s cries had long since gone hoarse; all she could do was clutch her hair in despair, watching her child struggle on the edge of death.
Yet perhaps even worse off than the child was Anna herself.
Her Sea of Consciousness had been damaged earlier in the day while healing Skinny Monkey; she could not muster even a sliver of Holy Light.
Overdrawing her Spirit Power had left her utterly weak, cold sweat soaking her plain linen clothes, every breath bringing tearing pain.
What chilled her heart even more was when, under the faint oil lamp, she saw the ominous black blotches had spread to the back of her own hand.
At some point, they too had crept upward.
A strand of black hair slipped across her forehead.
She reflexively raised her hand to brush it aside, only to touch a patch of icy, rough skin.
As the woman beside her gasped in terror, Anna knew—the black blotches had climbed onto her cheek as well.
She, like the villagers, had become a sacrifice chosen by the Plague.
“God…”
At last, Anna could hold on no longer.
Clutching the child growing colder in her arms, her knees buckled, and she collapsed heavily onto the cold, hard earth.
Anna closed her eyes, tears mingling with cold sweat as they fell.
She no longer had the strength to fight the Plague, nor even to think.
All she could feel was the swift fading of life in her arms, and the dying flame within her own body.
She tried again and again to summon Holy Light, but only found splitting pain in her mind.
In the farmhouse shrouded by the breath of death, she simply held the child, like the most helpless Mother, and began her last, most desperate prayer to the darkness above.
Her lips moved, her voice broken and weak.
“God of Light… If you truly exist… I… do not beg for my own salvation… My fate, I will bear alone. But these children… these villagers… They are the most helpless… They only wish to live…”
The usual firmness in her voice was gone, leaving only the rawest of pleas.
She pressed her forehead to the child’s cold one, tears falling as if her final warmth could somehow reach him.
“Please… Have mercy on them… Even… Even if it costs my life in exchange…”
“Please…”
Her mind grew blurry, her consciousness sinking toward eternal darkness.
It felt as if she knelt not on the earth, but at the edge of the abyss, clutching an innocent soul as they fell together.
Did the Divine Lord, in the end, still not answer?
***
On the hillside outside the village, Lin En stood quietly, like a statue merged with the night.
His Spirit Power spread like an invisible web, long since enveloping the entire village.
The cries of despair from the farmhouse, the weak moans, and Anna’s near-broken prayers—all were clearly echoed in his mind.
His Spirit Power sensed the black blotches on her face and felt the life force within her rapidly fading.
He saw the small, thin figure step without hesitation into the abyss, intending to offer her own life as the final sacrifice to ignite a thread of hope.
Lin En slowly closed his eyes.
Was it worth it? For these strangers, for a faith so intangible, to burn everything of oneself?
In his worldview, such an act was utterly irrational, devoid of logic.
But…
When Anna’s pure, untainted eyes met her humble, desperate prayer, Lin En realized the heart he thought encased in cold reason had been stirred.
It was not pity, nor sympathy.
But rather… an instinctual response to a goodness so rare, so worthy of being answered.
“Foolish woman…”
He murmured, his voice unreadable—was it resignation or awe?
He opened his eyes, and for the first time, the usual detachment of an observer was gone, replaced by a decisive resolve.
This was not for the study of the Plague, nor for any benefit.
It was simply to prevent such pure light from being snuffed out by this cold darkness.
He raised his right hand, the desperate lamplight within the farmhouse reflected in his deep eyes.
When healing Mother, he had already completely analyzed every secret of Holy Light Magic—from energy structure to particle arrangement, to its purifying aura—with the power of his two Crystal Cores.
He even knew how to purify it, stripping away the impure mental noise used for spiritual manipulation by the Chapel System.
He was already a true master of Holy Light Magic, not a mere imitator.
Now, all he needed to do was amplify this power he had long since mastered to an unprecedented scale.
This was not a simple stacking of energy, but an extreme trial of Spirit Power, computational ability, and control.
His Spirit Power became an invisible blade, constructing within the world itself a vast magic configuration with Entropy Flow at its core.
This was the essence of Holy Light purification—the key to reversing the chaotic disorder of the Plague.
He did not need complicated prayers or rituals.
He simply invoked his boundless Spirit Power, converting it into the purest light and life force, endlessly pouring it into the core of the magical construct.
This energy was clean and pure, without a trace of the low-frequency harmonics used for spiritual control by the Chapel System—only the purest power of purification.
Next came the true challenge: precise calibration and coverage.
To gently blanket a small village with energy powerful enough to purify an army required precision beyond imagining.
The two dazzling Crystal Cores in his Sea of Consciousness hummed, Spirit Power setting the parameters—output strength, effective radius, diffusion speed—ensuring the light would purify without burning a single blade of fragile grass.
What he sought was not a destructive Divine Punishment, but a miracle vast yet gentle enough to embrace the entire village.
As he slowly lowered his hand, the miracle of Sacred Light he orchestrated—grander and purer than any display of the Chapel—descended.
***
At the same moment, as Anna’s consciousness was about to fade completely—
BOOM !!!
A pillar of milky-white radiance, holy and vast beyond description, split the darkness and the farmhouse roof, descending with perfect precision!
The light held no destructive power.
It was infinitely gentle, like the warmest embrace, wrapping Anna, the child in her arms, and every ailing villager in the farmhouse.
The divine aura washed away every speck of corruption, the chill of death instantly scattered.
The pillar paused in the farmhouse, then rippled outward like waves, spreading across the village and bringing all things back to life wherever it passed.
In another corner of the farmhouse, a man sat numbly, holding his wife’s cold hand, watching the faint rise and fall of her chest.
He thought she might stop breathing at any moment.
Then the holy light enveloped them.
He watched, stunned, as the ashen black stains melted from his wife’s face like winter snow under the sun.
Her hand warmed, her breathing grew strong and steady.
The next moment, his wife—whom he thought lost forever—fluttered her eyelids and opened her eyes.
Not far away, a pair of parents huddled around their dying child.
As the light swept over them, the child’s fevered brow cooled, and his faint heartbeat grew strong.
The child stirred in his mother’s arms, and uttered a weak but clear, “Mama.”
The parents looked at each other, disbelief and wild joy in their eyes, then clung to their child, weeping uncontrollably.
An old man curled atop a pile of straw had just endured a fit of coughing, blood staining the dry grass.
He clutched his chest, certain he would soon suffocate.
But as the light poured into him, pain and breathlessness vanished.
He inhaled instinctively, the air crisp and smooth—the first such breath since he had fallen ill.
He stared at his now-steady hands, and tears streamed from his clouded eyes.
All over the village, muffled gasps, cries of joy, and incredulous whispers rose and fell, merging into a song of resurrection.
At the center of that song, Thomas, in Anna’s arms, ceased convulsing.
The blue-purple hue left his face, replaced by a healthy flush.
His breathing grew steady and strong.
And then, with a bright, full-throated wail, he burst into tears—alive and whole.
Anna, too, felt a wave of boundless, oceanic power flood her nearly exhausted body.
It was not the Holy Light she knew—the kind that came only through burning her own life—but something purer, higher, as if gifted directly from the Divine Lord.
She instinctively touched her cheek.
The cold, rough black blotches had vanished without a trace, replaced by smooth, warm skin.
Anna stared at the now lively, wailing child in her arms, then at her own hands—restored, stronger than ever.
She felt the overflowing divine strength within, nearly bursting.
She was stunned.
Tears streamed down her face once more.
But this time, it was not despair.
It was gratitude.
The Divine Lord… had not abandoned her.
In her darkest, most sincere prayer, the Divine Lord had truly bestowed Divine Grace and answered her plea!
“Thank you… My Lord…”
Anna could not hold herself upright any longer.
She gently handed the now-healthy child into his mother’s joyous arms, then turned toward the pillar of light, still lingering.
With the utmost devotion, she knelt deeply, pressing her forehead to the warm, miracle-purified earth.