Chapter 320: Sincere Prayers Bring Deities Down

Old Osric had been a stonemason in Fenmoor city for forty years, carving countless statues of the God of Light for the Church throughout his life, yet when nearing death, he was kneeling before a headless statue.

The statue lay inside a ruined Shrine on a high mound outside the city wall, which the locals commonly called the abandoned temple. The temple’s roof had collapsed before he was even born, and the upper half of the statue was broken missing somewhere, only leaving intact the long robe trailing the heel.

Three days ago, when demonic creatures from the Northern swamp flooded down, the City Lord immediately ordered slamming shut the city gates. The rich, officials, and the whole crowd of Church monks were all inside, while the poor citizens outside the wall had to run for their lives to heaven, having to drag each other climbing up this mound, because in the entire area outside the wall, only exactly the temple was built of stone.

And strangely enough, the demonic creatures just pouncing up to the threshold would shrink their feet back like stepping on red hot coals, therefore the crowd of men holding meat cleavers, pitchforks, and carrying poles managed to hold the temple door throughout three days and three nights. However, the standing people were getting fewer day by day, while wounds were getting more day by day. By this morning, Wat the butcher guy had his arm clawed tearing open half of it yet still had to stand, because behind his back were his wife and three children.

When people inside the temple began calculating seeing who would die first, old Osric crawled out hugging the statue’s feet. The old man carved stone his whole life, looking at the carving lines he knew whose statue it was. The God of Light statue always wore golden shoes, standing on a sun disc, while this statue was actually barefooted, standing on a tree root clump, the robe hem entirely touched leaves and leaves.

When he was little, the old man once heard his grandma sing lullabies about a Deity walking barefooted, wherever He walked grass grew to there, and she said that Deity was the Nature Deity.

"Nature Deity, please have mercy on us!"

The entire temple looked at the old man like looking at a senile old man. But with death imminent, then praying to anyone was fine, wasn’t it? Therefore, even the dyer family’s widow knelt down following, then the children, then even several women who normally still cursed the old man as a heretic. The men crowd outside the door unable to kneel then both slashed and mumbled praying following, praying to a Deity whose face was round or distorted no one even knew.

After a while, on the pitch-black demonic aura dome suddenly opened a pair of purple eyes. The eyes were as large as two lakes, looking down at the mound once then closed. The whole temple was dead silent, then the dyer family’s widow bawled out crying that it’s over, even the king of the demonic creatures also personally came to see the prey’s face already.

She just finished the sentence then before the threshold there were two more people.

The person walking ahead was tall and large, draped in a dark-colored cloak, purple hair, purple eyes as well, around his body flashed several lightning bolts as thin as hair strands. The person walking behind was more slender, sleeves still rolled high, two hands completely white with rice flour, on his body still faintly smelled the fragrance of fried shallots.

[What the hell kind of Demon King even leads along a private chef like that?] Wat thought, his hand tightly gripping the meat cleaver.

Sane completely didn’t bother casting a single glance inside the temple. He looked up at the demonic aura dome currently plunging down onto the head of Fenmoor city, frowned like a person getting kitchen smoke stinging eyes, then snapped his fingers.

A purple lightning bolt ripped tearing the sky dome open then split out into thousands of branches, every branch embedded completely deeply down into the head top of a demonic creature. There was no thunder sound at all, only hearing a sizzling sound like someone had just dropped fat into a hot pan, thus the whole demonic wolf pack currently pouncing up the threshold turned into black ash, the wind blowing passing was blown cleanly away.

The demonic creature as large as a windmill standing commanding at the swamp edge just tilted its neck roaring getting half a sound then extinguished completely, because another lightning bolt had already pounded it down into the mud like pounding a stake.

The demonic aura dome was torn into halves. On the soaring high cloud layer, the Law kid just poked his head out intending to scold, seeing clearly who it was then shrank popping back in identical to the old way. The noon sun poured crashing down onto the mound, blinding to the point the men crowd had to raise their hands up covering their eyes, because for three days now this whole city no one had seen the sun.

"The Demon King... fights demonic creatures huh?" Someone stammered.

"Fighting for prey you know!" The dyer family’s widow hissed, hugging tightly two children into her chest.

The slender person already stepped over the threshold. He didn’t say any sentence, only squatted down pressing the flour-sticky hands onto the stone floor. From the crevices under the statue’s feet, lush green vines sprouted up, crawling to the spot of every single injured person.

Where the vines wrapped to, blood stopped flowing to there, the claw wounds tearing skin tearing flesh just like that closed their mouths like a shirt flap just having been sewn by someone. Wat widened his eyes looking at his arm, the spot this morning still exposing even the bone now only remained a pale pink streak, slightly itchy like having just been bitten by a mosquito.

Then that person stood up, placing a hand onto the broken spot of the statue.

This carving line he recognized. When the Great World was still not yet smashed into pieces like now, people carved his statue using raw stone, completely not inlaying gold inlaying silver at all, finishing carving then let the grass grow covering up the statue feet, thus it was considered as having offered a tribute.

From the broken mark sprouted up a sprout, the sprout reached high then twisted again into half a human body made of living wood. The two arms spread out turning into two leafy branches, the hair was a luxuriant leafy canopy covering tightly the entire collapsed roof spot, while the facial features were faintly blurred like a person standing behind a fog screen. On the branches dangled several crystal clear lamp fruits exactly identical to the ones in Coal Wharf alley, Sane standing outside the door conveniently flicked into every fruit a purple speck.

Old Osric tilted his neck looking at the leafy canopy, then again looked down at the spot that person had just sat. The stone floor several hundred years not managing to sprout a single moss blade, now grass had sprouted fuzzily green into two footprints.

"The Nature Deity!" The old man yelled to the point his voice cracked: "I told you so already! Wherever walking to grass grows to there!"

"You guessed blindly rather!" Someone argued.

"Guessing blindly but hitting spot-on then is still hitting spot-on!"

The whole temple knelt bowing down to the ground. Over two hundred foreheads knocking ’clack’ down onto the stone floor in exactly one simultaneous turn made Kaelen startled stepping backward, stepping right onto his husband’s foot.

Sane stood behind his wife’s back, crossing his arms looking at the currently kneeling crowd. Faith threads flew up thick like spider webs after the rain, every single thread popped straight into Kaelen’s palm, not a single thread bothered casting a glance at him.

"I fight, you enjoy." He mumbled.

"Who told people not to carve your statue." Kaelen held back a laugh.

Sane thought for a moment, then turned to the old stonemason.

"You can carve statues right?"

"Yes... yes I can sir."

"Carving adding one statue standing beside this one." He said: "Taller by one head. Under the feet carve for me a few words, God of War, mate of the Nature Deity."

Kaelen nudged his elbow into his ribs once. Old Osric then knelt dead frozen there, his mind spinning dizzily.

[The Demon King... ah no, that Sir is also a Deity huh? And Deities also get married huh?]

Right at that moment, the church bell inside the city wall suddenly rang a bustling bout. The city gate opened a crack, an envoy guy riding a horse galloped arriving at the mound foot, his hand raising the sun-embroidered flag of the Church, reining shouting loudly that thanks to His Eminence the Bishop staying awake throughout three nights praying, the God of Light had sent lightning eliminating demonic creatures, the citizens outside the wall having sincerity then tomorrow morning bring offerings into the church giving thanks.

The whole mound was dead silent.

"Lightning of the God of Light but actually is purple color huh?" The dyer family’s widow asked loudly.

"These past three days the God of Light overslept huh?" Wat asked even louder.

The envoy guy flushed his face purple his ears, just opening his mouth intending to scold then the flag in his hand caught fire ’sizzle’ once, burning entirely exactly the embroidered sun in the middle, while the pole still remained intact. He looked up, meeting the purple eyes currently looking down from on the mound, thus the horse automatically turned its head running disappearing toward the city gate, even faster than when galloping out.

The whole mound burst out laughing loudly together, laughing to the point tears flowed out, these past three days this was exactly the first time having people daring to laugh loudly.

At that time it was past noon. Kaelen saw several children keep staring intently at his two flour-sticky hands gulping their saliva ’gulp gulp’, then finally suddenly remembered this entire mound had endured starvation for three days.

He pulled from the space pocket out a copper pot as large as a bathtub, Sane then went chopping the rest of several rotten beams collapsed at the wall foot making firewood. Today cooking chicken porridge.

The rice must be roasted first. Kaelen poured rice into the cast-iron pan, stirring evenly on low heat until the rice grains turned ivory color, rousing the fragrance like new green rice flakes, cooking like that the grains would newly bloom fast while not getting mushy.

The prepared chicken was dropped into the cold water pot along with several crushed ginger branches and several dry shallots roasted scorching the skins, boiling on medium heat, foam floating up to wherever scooping to there for the broth to be really clear. The chicken cooked then scooped out shredding into threads, while the sweetly rich boiling broth then poured the roasted rice into, simmering until the rice grains burst out like blooming flowers, thickening again into a smooth white porridge pot.

Stirring the pot was Sane’s job. He borrowed the rowing oar of the ferryman old man, stirring whichever lap was proper that lap like currently drilling an army, stirring to the point the entire bottom of the huge pot not having a single rice grain daring to stick.

Kaelen seasoned with fish sauce. The fish sauce smell just rose up, the whole mound was already buzzing.

"What smell that is so strange?"

"Rotten fish smell what else smell!"

"Rotten fish yet fragrant like this then I beg to eat rotten my whole life!"

Every scooped-out porridge bowl was also sprinkled with a pinch of thinly sliced scallions, several shredded ginger threads, a handful of shredded chicken meat, a spoon of golden crispy fried shallots, finally was a pinch of ground pepper. The dyer widow woman’s little girl got the first bowl. She hurriedly slurped a spoonful, scalding burning her tongue yet resolutely refused to spit out, the spicy pungent pepper making her tears her snot flowing streaming.

Sane scooped separately one bowl, shoving into his mate’s hands.

"Since morning you haven’t eaten a single bite."

"I am not hungry."

"Your six cake rolls I ate completely already, you take what to be full?" Sane blew ’puff puff’ the porridge spoon, bringing it right to his mouth: "Open up."

Kaelen glared at him, finishing glaring still obediently opened his mouth. Over two hundred human beings currently slurping porridge ’slurp slurp’ suddenly all stopped their spoons looking.

[Turned out the Deities being together with each other are also completely no different from humans...] Wat thought, finishing thinking again bent down slurping further, because cold porridge then was a waste.

Afternoon fell, the people on the mound eating their fill then rolled out sleeping like dead, because these past three days no one had dared to snatch a wink of sleep. Several lamp fruits on the leafy canopy had also brightened up adding a few notches, thanks to old Osric whole life carving words onto tombstones, this afternoon holding the coal stub sitting teaching getting a few children to personally write their names onto the leaves.

Kaelen sat leaning his back against the base of the half stone half tree statue, opened his palm out. Besides the bright bundle in Lyra with the small halo in Cathalan, now an entire wide sea region away had just sprouted adding a new bright speck, as large as a bean grain, exactly the mound he was sitting on.

Old Osric sat beside, recounting that in the past everywhere in this region every village also had a temple worshipping the barefooted Deity. Then the Church rose up, saying that was an evil god, dispatching the stonemason guild going smashing completely. When the old man just learned the trade, the whole guild even received orders carrying old statue stones back to prop up the church foundation, because statue stone was good stone, throwing away then was a waste. This temple alone lay solitary outside the wall, the worker crowd smashing getting half a statue then the sky poured rain, the whole bunch ran back then no one bothered climbing up a second time, therefore newly remained the lower half.

Kaelen hearing finishing then closed his eyes. Through the statue base behind his back, he felt very many tiny warm specks lying scattered all over this kingdom. The specks lay under river beds, the specks stuck in fence walls, and the most numerous were lying under the foundations of those churches, just smoldering like red hot coals buried in the ash stove.

"Baby." He opened his eyes, burst out laughing: "This entire kingdom, every church is currently sitting on a coal stove."

Sane pulled him leaning onto his shoulder, looking toward the gold-plated bell tower inside the city wall.

"Then we go poking the coal playing right?"