Chapter 1135: 122. Facing

How long a road did it take for an ordinary person to evolve into a hero?

This was a question very much worth pondering.

Of course, Marcie did not know either.

But she knew that from a very, very long time ago, she had been working hard to become a true Pioneer, to become a hero like Lord Alan, someone who brought light to Annabawei.

Although Lord Alan had now fallen, she still treated the past glory of that hero as the goal she struggled toward.

She worked hard to collect all kinds of information about Pioneers, worked hard to measure herself against them, worked hard to fight, worked hard to become stronger.

In her record book, what was written was not only the heroic epics of those Pioneers, but also the road of her own growth.

In that poor little village, through that endless black night, every word in the book had been written with her sweat and painstaking effort. Even if she failed and never became a Pioneer, that record book alone would have great value.

Although she was sometimes so clumsy she could trip while standing still, although “genius” ideas were always popping up in her head, although she would get carried away at the slightest excuse until her nose practically pointed at the sky and even Muen was no longer worth putting in her eyes.

Even Muen admitted that she was terrifyingly stubborn.

And in truth, her talent was not poor. In a barren place like this, for her to have trained herself to the point where there was fighting aura inside her body solely by relying on herself, one could imagine she had not focused only on theory.

Talent was only one of the reasons she had been able to make it this far. What mattered more was that she had never given up.

She had been born in a remote little village, and she had not given up.

Her parents had left this world when she was very young, and she had not given up.

She knew perfectly well that this road was incomparably difficult. Compared to staying in the village and inheriting Grandma Meg’s mantle, it could be said that she could not see any future on it at all... but she still had not given up.

She dreamed of becoming a Pioneer. She dreamed of becoming that unprecedented hero, leading the people of Annabawei out of the black night.

She was exactly that kind of rigid, foolish, naive person.

And now, she, so full of flaws, she, who least resembled the heroes in her own impression, had actually, by the arrangement of fate, finally stood in the place closest to the culprit behind all of this, the Goddess of Night.

Could it be... that hard work really could bring people enough luck?

Marcie took a deep breath. The smell of blood poured into her nose, thicker than when she had first arrived here.

Behind her, the ground was full of her companions’ corpses and blood.

Of course the road she had walked had not been easy. As the distance closed, those evil believers had also grown increasingly frenzied. Some even directly self-destructed, all to block her steps, to prevent a mere mortal like her from transgressing against the lofty Goddess.

But those throwing their lives away were not only the evil believers.

The Pioneers had also begun to disregard everything. Techniques? Experience? Schemes? None of that mattered anymore. They used their flesh and blood, their bodies, their lives, to cling desperately to the many evil believers and keep them from approaching Marcie even a single step.

In truth, overall, the evil believers’ total combat strength was still stronger than the Pioneers’. They were more numerous. Some had once been Pioneers, and their strength was greater as well.

But in this contest of pure will, the evil believers ruled by madness were actually gradually losing to the Pioneers who advanced by relying on courage and resolve.

The evil believers’ steps were intercepted, their attacks cut off. Clearly, the one passing through their midst was only a little girl as insignificant as a rat. Clearly, as long as two or three ordinary evil believers, or one evil believer who had once been a Pioneer, could stop her, even kill her... yet for a time they had no way at all, and could only allow her to use her nimble figure to shake them off amid this chaotic battlefield, step by step, pressing closer to the Goddess.

In the end, Marcie was just like this, walking along a road paved from corpses and bones, arriving before the Goddess’s divine throne.

Her body was covered in blood. The enemy’s, her own... and even more of it belonged to her companions.

The soles of her feet were ice-cold as well. The feeling of stepping on her companions’ corpses made her want to retch.

But her heart was incomparably hot. Even her heartbeat had begun pounding with unprecedented violence.

She lifted her head and looked at the Goddess of Night, who was now close enough to touch.

The old woman with a head full of white hair was nailed there so sorrowfully upon the false divine throne. The wound made by the sacred artifact still had not healed after several hundred years, and the blood flowing from it had already stained the entire ground a dark, blackish red.

She was in an utterly wretched state.

In fact, if one did not care about the anger and madness on her face, did not care about her identity or what she had once done, Marcie would actually feel that she was a little... pitiful?

No, no.

Marcie shook her head hard. At a time like this, she absolutely could not let some compassion that came from who knew where affect her. The ones who were truly pitiful should be the countless residents of Annabawei who had been trapped to death in the black night for these past several hundred years.

Yes. She had not come here this time to communicate or persuade. Her companions were still falling one after another behind her. Any moment of distraction from her was a desecration of those people who had died to pioneer the road ahead.

She had come to demand an explanation for those people who had died silently and humbly—

“Child... are you going to kill me?”

On the divine throne, the Goddess’s lips moved. She gazed at the human girl not far away, the girl who carried a heart of transgression.

Marcie froze. She had not expected the Goddess of Night to actually take the initiative to speak to her.

And those words... were actually rather gentle?

She rubbed her eyes hard and discovered that, at some point, the ferocity in the Goddess of Night’s eyes had dimmed. A gentle expression gradually floated to the surface, struggling against that madness.

It was as if she had suddenly become another person.

“Yes, Goddess. I’m going to kill you.”

As Marcie answered, she began climbing the base of the divine throne.

The divine throne stood high above, its base several meters tall. Fortunately, ever since she was little, Marcie had followed the uncle next door down into the valley to mine. She had climbed even the steepest cliffs, and back then, she had even been carrying heavy warmstones on her back. This naturally did not count for much.

Very soon, Marcie arrived before the Goddess.

Face to face.

She was able to observe the other party even more clearly. She discovered that the other party’s condition seemed even worse than she had imagined. That already-pale skin was covered in tiny, broken cracks, like an old clay jar that had shattered and then been pieced back together.

“Good, child. You’ve done very well.”

The Goddess smiled. Her smile was gratified and kind. She raised her hand and pointed at her own chest, and Marcie discovered that her fingers were just as withered and thin, nothing but a layer of skin wrapped around bone.

“This thing in my chest has already nailed my soul to death. But over these past several hundred years, it has not fully taken effect, because at the final moment, that little fellow named Alan held back. Four hundred years ago, he originally had the chance to kill me completely, but he gave it up himself.”

“Huh? Gave it up? Why?”