Chapter 1136: 123. Pierced Through

“Huh? Gave it up? Why?”

Marcie frowned in confusion. From the Goddess’s way of putting it, Lord Alan had possessed the chance to completely end the black night four hundred years ago? Yet he had chosen to give it up himself.

Could there be some hidden story behind this?

“Because he was polluted by me.”

The Goddess smiled gently, pulling Marcie’s thoughts back. “The other me’s power of Pollution is very strong. Haven’t you already seen that? That Alan... and those believers.”

“The other... Goddess?”

Marcie’s heart jolted, and she suddenly understood the abnormality of the Goddess at this moment.

So that was it. No wonder the current Goddess was so easy to talk to, and looked completely unlike someone who had gone mad.

What had appeared before her now was not that evil Goddess of Night... but the divine personality that symbolized daytime, symbolized kindness, symbolized the Goddess who had protected Annabawei several hundred years ago!

The endless Long Night enveloped all of Annabawei. Logically speaking, this divine personality should have already been completely suppressed by the evil divine personality, yet the kind Goddess had broken free of that suppression at a time like this and taken the initiative to tell her the way to kill herself.

Just as President Theodore had said... the kind Goddess still loved them!

“You... if I do this, then what about you?” Marcie’s voice trembled.

“Now is not the time to care about that kind of question.”

The kind Goddess shook her head. “I stopped caring about things like life and death long ago. In fact, death would be a kind of release for me. Over these years, I have already experienced too much pain, so much that you cannot imagine it. Come, child. This is only completing what was left unfinished four hundred years ago. It is not that difficult. As long as you drive this completely into my soul, the black night shrouding Annabawei will disappear entirely.”

Simple words were the most heartbreaking.

Marcie felt as if her heart had been fiercely squeezed. Stepping forward over her companions’ corpses and bones had already pushed her mental pressure to its limit. Yet after successfully reaching the end, what she faced was actually having to personally kill this kind Goddess. It was truly... far too cruel.

But this was also something that had to be done. Because for the Goddess, kindness and evil were both one body.

She could not possibly separate this kind Goddess out alone, and even more could not give up her own actions because of one trace of kindness from the Goddess.

The blood behind her, those corpses, those roars, were still urging her forward.

“Hurry. I was never her match to begin with. I’m about to be unable to suppress her.”

The kind Goddess’s tone suddenly grew urgent. “Quickly, do it!”

“Understood!”

Marcie was not an indecisive person. Seeing this, she no longer hesitated, directly threw herself toward the Goddess, and reached out to grab the sacred artifact in the Goddess’s chest.

However, right then.

The terrifying fury in the Goddess’s eyes poured out completely. The face that had been gentle just now instantly became incomparably twisted.

“You... how dare you?”

She screamed, her eyes seeming about to be completely covered in blood red. “You are my child... my children, how dare you betray me again? Clearly, for you... for you...

“Die!!”

The Goddess’s arm suddenly swung toward Marcie. It was clearly as withered as a dried corpse, yet Marcie felt a terrifying fishy wind surge toward her. At the same time, the shadows were cold enough to pierce bone, condensing into night and enveloping Marcie. Marcie’s teeth chattered, and she felt as if even her soul were being frozen.

That hand continued reaching forward. Its movement was very slow, but Marcie felt her whole body go rigid. She could not dodge at all.

So this was the Goddess?

Even though her lamp oil had already run dry, she was still not someone an ordinary little girl like her could resist.

She was too weak, without the slightest power to fight back.

It was over... she was going to fail everyone’s expectations...

That thought instinctively appeared in Marcie’s mind, and then...

“Huh?”

The Goddess’s arm suddenly froze.

Marcie looked over in confusion and discovered that struggle had once again appeared on the Goddess’s ferocious face. She stared fixedly at the transgressor and betrayer before her, but her trembling hand could not swing out no matter what.

Inside her body, another consciousness was fighting her for control!

“Thank you, Goddess!”

Marcie forced her nearly frozen body to move, activating every joint, mobilizing every muscle.

An unprecedented tearing sensation filled her whole body. Marcie was in so much pain she almost cried out, yet she still kept urging herself... a little closer, a little closer. Just a little closer and it would be enough.

Unfortunately, the time the kind Goddess bought was too short. The evil Goddess regained movement once more, and her withered palm slapped toward Marcie’s chest.

Before it had even arrived, Marcie already felt somewhat unable to breathe.

Marcie’s eyes were already full of despair. She planned that even if the next attack shattered her body to pieces, she would still, at the final moment—

“Marcie!”

At that moment, someone roared.

Marcie turned her eyes in astonishment and saw a familiar figure appear at some unknown point on the Goddess’s other side, gripping the large firewood knife in her hand and chopping down toward the Goddess’s arm.

It was Landa!

Marcie was incomparably surprised and delighted. She had not expected that Landa, whom she had lost track of earlier, had actually relied on herself to reach this place too.

Landa’s current appearance was far more miserable than Marcie’s. On this road, she had not had other Pioneers protecting her. It was only because her own presence was already not strong, combined with the Pioneers’ strengthened offensive and Marcie drawing attention, that aside from a few small fry, no evil believers had actually managed to block her.

After she dealt with those few small fry, although she had already suffered considerable injuries, once she discovered the situation here, she immediately rushed over.

“I’ll cover you, go!”

One strike.

Another strike.

And another.

Landa vented the rage she had accumulated for so long, and it was also as if she were venting the rage long accumulated by the innocent people who had died in Annabawei. She kept chopping, kept chopping, kept chopping, as though she would never know exhaustion.

The firewood knife continuously hacked into the Goddess’s arm. The old blade was nowhere near as hard as the Goddess’s flesh, and cracks soon appeared on it. The cracks quickly shattered completely, and in the end, only the handle of the firewood knife was left. Landa simply threw the handle away, lunged forward, and tore viciously with her teeth.

This little girl, who had been shy and bashful when they first met, who would hide more than half of her body behind Bear King, had gone mad at this moment, like a wild beast. Her eyes were bloodshot as she kept biting, kept tearing, until even her teeth were stained crimson.

And this life-disregarding assault of hers actually did make the Goddess’s movements slow down. The Goddess was too weak, so weak that she could not even ignore the attacks of ants, which made the Goddess furiously enraged as well.

“Ah!”

She screamed and suddenly swept her arm. Landa’s body was then sliced open by her with ease, like a piece of tofu.

Flesh split apart. Blood gushed wildly, exposing nauseating innards and stark white bone.

Landa shuddered. The intense pain nearly made her faint. She, whose nature was weak, had long since burst into tears, yet she still clutched the Goddess’s arm tightly.

It didn’t hurt... it didn’t hurt...

Compared to the pain Bear King had endured, compared to the pain Annabawei had endured for several hundred years, this little injury... didn’t hurt at all!

“Marcie, hurry!”

She let out her final roar.

Of course Marcie would not let this chance slip by. The instant the Goddess’s arm swept away, she had already thrown herself recklessly toward the Goddess’s chest.

Marcie felt as if she had slammed into a rock.

Even after bleeding for four hundred years, even after weakening to this point, the Goddess’s body was still far stronger than theirs. Marcie felt as if every bone in her body was about to fall apart, and unimaginable agony continuously stimulated her nerves.

“Cough, cough...”

She coughed up blood. Her vision blurred. A Goddess was still a Goddess after all. Mere contact was enough to heavily injure her.

Combined with her previous wounds and exhaustion, Marcie felt that she was almost unable to hold on. In the ten-plus years she had lived, this was the moment when she most wanted to collapse, most wanted to sleep, most missed Grandma’s warm embrace.

The Goddess’s hand reached toward Marcie again. That was the only hand she could move, but as long as it touched Marcie, it would be enough to make her flesh burst open, her bones snap, and leave her powerless to continue forward.

The crisis of death lay before her, but at this moment, Marcie... still revealed a smile.

She lowered her head and looked at her own hands.

They were a pair of small, thin, trembling hands.

In the past, in all those wonderful stories, the ones who completed heroic feats and turned the tide absolutely would not have had a pair of hands like this.

Yet at this very moment, this pair of hands was gripping, with all its strength, that sacred artifact like a withered branch!

What met her grip was a coldness beyond Marcie’s imagination, like thousand-year ice that had never melted, freezing her skin until it hurt.

But her heart was incomparably hot, because she felt power from the sacred artifact, power enough to kill the Goddess and rewrite Annabawei’s ending!

“No... no!”

Realizing something, the Goddess’s face turned miserable. Her fury and savagery actually transformed completely into fear at this moment.

The lofty Goddess of Night was actually begging.

“You cannot do this. Please, you cannot... if you do this... it will...”

“I don’t care what happens!”

Marcie interrupted the Goddess. Flames that had been suppressed all this time surged out from her eyes. She raised her voice.

As if declaring it to everyone, she shouted sternly, “Goddess of Night, look... the people of Annabawei have had more than enough of the black night you brought!”

“We—need light!”

Pff.

Marcie gripped the sacred artifact tightly, stepped forward, and advanced!

The greatest step she had ever taken as a Pioneer, as a hero!

And so, the sacred artifact sank completely into the Goddess’s body, completely... piercing through her soul!