Lord of Prayer - Chapter 401 - 259: Light of the Cosmos, the Starlight of Life’s Miracle
The same source…
After a long silence, Zhou Chen let out a breath. He wasn’t overly shocked or flustered, but he wasn’t exactly calm either.
To think he’d participate in a Sword Forging Competition only to end up with an extraordinary item that shared the same source of Power as the Wish Bottle. No matter how he looked at it, this was no coincidence. It was hard not to think of “destiny,” as if everything had been fated from the start.
But in reality, this event wasn’t that strange. At its core, it was simply the mutual attraction and completion between Powers of the same source. Many Ascenders and Crowned Kings who possessed Authority Objects had encountered similar situations. It was unavoidable.
The weight of an Authority was enough to influence not only one’s own fate but the fate of others as well.
What truly unsettled Zhou Chen was the origin of this Santa Claus gem.
—It came from the Old Era.
This meant that the Power of Prayer existed during the Old Era. So, who had once held this gem? Who had amassed the immense Power of Prayer needed to sustain Akita Town’s Reboot for decades?
The gem and the Wish Bottle were items from the same source, and both came from the Old Era. Was there some unknown connection between them? How did they come into existence? Were they created by someone, or did they simply appear out of thin air?
On the Obsidian Throne, Zhou Chen slowly toyed with the Ruby in his hand, lost in thought.
Setting those questions aside for now, he had now truly inherited the identity of “Santa Claus,” gaining many Abilities and Artifacts.
Things like Santa Claus’s Wish List, Santa Claus’s Gift Bag, and a Reindeer Sled. It was safe to say he was now the genuine Santa Claus. With this identity, helping people achieve their wishes would seem perfectly natural and justified.
’I’m the great Santa Claus, so what’s wrong with helping people fulfill their wishes? Nothing at all.’
’Perhaps the one who first held this gem was the real Santa Claus?’
Zhou Chen stroked his chin. “Let me see the true origin of this Ruby.”
Upon acquiring the gem, he had also inherited the wish value stored inside it—an amount so vast it could keep Akita Town in its Reboot cycle for several more decades. He was now, one could say, filthy rich.
As the Wish Star Seed burned away, a series of images appeared in Zhou Chen’s mind.
In a pitch-black room, a child stood by his bed. Outside the window was a silent, snowy night. He gazed at the starry sky, streaks of undried tears still on his face.
Tonight, he had learned the cruel truth that “there is no Santa Claus in the World.” For a child, this was undoubtedly a major blow.
The child refused to accept this fact, so he made a wish upon a falling star.
“Shooting star, shooting star, I want to make a wish! I wish that Santa Claus is real!”
The falling star glowed faintly, as if in response to the child’s wish.
Then, the scene changed. Drifting snowflakes, lit-up Christmas trees, cheerful music, piles of gift boxes, a burning fireplace, a warm room… and all the children full of hope every Christmas, along with everyone who believed Santa Claus existed…
A brilliant radiance drifted up from them, transforming into a vast tide of light that surged toward the distant, cold homeland of Santa Claus. It caused this universally known, imaginary legend to evolve into reality, coalescing into a crystalline gem that embodied the concept of “Santa Claus.”
This gem was found by a local resident in Santa Claus’s homeland and was sold and resold many times before finally being acquired by an antique dealer. Later, the legendary agent Jack Reeves, on a mission in Finland, unexpectedly obtained this gem, which possessed Supernatural Power.
At this point, the flashback vanished. Zhou Chen looked stunned; so this was the gem’s true origin.
’What on earth was that shooting star…?’
A moment later, Zhou Chen made another wish, determined to understand the true nature of that shooting star.
The scene reappeared before him. He returned to the night the child had made his wish on the shooting star. As the perspective zoomed in rapidly, the star’s true form was revealed.
It was an indescribable, beautiful, sparkling thing.
The light was so intense that Zhou Chen couldn’t see it clearly, but his senses told him that this ball of light was beautiful—a collection of all the good things in the World.
It was “Love,” “Imagination,” “Poetry,” “Fairy Tales,” “Faith,” “Dreams,” “Passion”…
It was—
—Miracle and Hope!
Zhou Chen reached out, subconsciously trying to touch this light, but it was merely a phantom of past history. He grasped nothing.
He came back to his senses and continued to watch, wanting to see where the shooting star finally landed.
The shooting star streaked across the night sky, traversed more than half the planet, and finally plunged into the depths of the Pacific Ocean.
The flashback didn’t end there. Time sped up rapidly. After an unknown number of days and nights, a salvage team arrived.
“Is this the spot?”
On deck, an agent in a black suit smoked a cigarette melancholically. “We’ve already checked seven locations. Can’t we catch a break? The sooner we get this done, the sooner we can clock off.”
“Hard to say. This entire area of the sea is saturated with residual Energy from that UFO, but this is one of the spots with the strongest Energy readings. We might get lucky,” another agent in a black suit, fiddling with a device, shook his head.
“Let’s hurry it up. Ten minutes ago, HQ sent a warning that there’s a situation over in Egypt. Some Mummy broke out of its tomb and is trying to end the World. It even fucking resurrected the Sphinx…” The smoking agent blew a smoke ring and cursed, “Ever since Noah’s Ark got out, it feels like the whole World has gone off the rails. If God really exists, he must be a shitty game designer.”
