Chapter 1496: Origin of Faith

The sky grew dark.

Holding the food in his arms, Anduyin happily followed behind Lin An, secretly calculating today's gains.

Although he didn't quite understand what Lin An was doing, he knew that everyone who spoke with Lin An alone would eventually shout loudly and then silently walk out of the tent.

After coming out, people seemed a bit different.

"Ling An, I want to tell you something."

Without thinking much, Anduyin reverted to his boyish appearance; seeing him hesitate a moment, he carefully tugged at Lin An's sleeve.

"Sir, we harvested a lot of food today; I want to take some to exchange for other things—do you think that's okay?"

In contemplation, Lin An looked at the hesitant Anduyin seeking his approval, and casually nodded.

Although food is important, it is also scarce for him now.

But Lin An knew Anduyin would not waste food, nor would he bring this up for no reason.

Seeing his nod of agreement, Anduyin gratefully bowed to him and then dashed away.

Paying no mind, Lin An watched the boy's retreating back and simply smiled.

He noticed Anduyin seemed to be running toward the place selling women's and children's goods; perhaps Anduyin also has someone he likes?

Skipping this interlude, unlike the joy of Anduyin and the others, Lin An's heart felt somewhat heavy at this moment.

"Faith Power, why is it anger... why is it hatred?"

Silently recalling today's test results in his heart, Lin An furrowed his brows, and even his steps grew heavy.

He never expected that after repeated testing, the final result would defy his expectations.

Unlike the Faith Power harvested in the Amoeba Worm World.

This time, after this batch of scavengers clearly showed signs of providing him Faith Power, Lin An suddenly realized his cognition had been overturned.

When everyone recounted their pasts, opened their hearts, and prayed for divine salvation, the dominant emotion exposed turned out to be nothing but hatred.

"They hate the Awakened Ones."

"They hate themselves for not being ruthless enough, not being cruel enough."

"They hate themselves for missing the early chance to become Awakened Ones due to a moment of kindness and hesitation, or they hate themselves for sacrificing their own interests to help others."

"Under this hatred, after tasting the bitter fruit and becoming ordinary people, when they see hope once, all this hatred is ignited, ultimately turning into Faith Power?"

Lin An's eyes showed a rare bewilderment.

After reaching this conclusion, he also didn't know why it would be this way.

He had not ruled out the possibility that his test sample was too small, that the scavenger group was special and not the most common type of ordinary survivor.

Therefore, their hatred being able to turn into Faith Power does not mean Faith Power is hatred itself.

But upon careful reflection, Lin An recalled his experience in the Amoeba Worm World and believed this was not due to his sample being too small, which caused the result.

"In the Amoeba Worm World, people shouted my name and believed in me when I displayed extraordinary power."

"I once thought this was because they saw hope and believed I could save them. But analyzing its essence, how could it not be their hatred, a deep‑soul resentment toward those nobles?"

"Especially when I executed the high‑ranked, executed those nobles, the Faith Power people gave reached its peak!"

"And the Faith Power I unintentionally triggered in Soviet Russia is essentially the hatred of Soviet Awakened Ones toward blood corpses and monsters; when I killed those monsters, that hatred turned into Faith Power...."

"God, is He a conglomeration of hatred, resentment, and anger? Not a positive emotion?"

"People believe in God merely hoping for a transcendent being to help them kill their enemies!?"

Unconsciously, Lin An couldn't help but look at his own hands.

For some reason, a phrase suddenly came to mind.

Humanity's most primal desire, besides reproduction, is revenge.

Hatred is humanity's strongest emotion.

The essence of human civilization's history is a hatred‑filled slaughter lasting millions of years.

"Kill all Awakened Ones, absorb the lower classes' Faith Power to become a god?"

"No... it's letting the Awakened Ones oppress the lower classes, then killing the Awakened Ones when hatred accumulates to a certain extent."

"No... it's endlessly repeating this process, continually killing all Awakened Ones..."

Muttering softly, Lin An's steps suddenly stalled, as if he had thought of something, his eyes full of disbelief.

"Death battle.."

"... land!?"