Chapter 3228

Hearing this name, Shiler had no emotional fluctuation, and even wanted to laugh.

A small game script is really full of hidden talents. Dagon is on time, Othuum and Nyar came just right, and Yibb didn't stay idle either.

Busy, all busy, busy is good.

Why didn't I find out before that the God of Stories likes to pile up materials so much? You might as well have a family portrait of Outer Gods!

Complaining in his heart, Shiler still asked, "Does that so-called wanderer have anything to do with you?"

Gad nodded and said, "That is me. To be precise, it is one of His clones."

"You said that is your blood."

"Yes, every time I see Him in my dreams, my blood will be driven by Him, leave my body, and wander constantly somewhere in the distance. After I wake up from my dream, the wanderer will also return."

"But..." Gad revealed an ugly expression and said, "I don't know what happened. A few days ago, after the wanderer left, he never came back. This led to me being caught by the Pope..."

Shiler understood. Don't ask, asking means Greed did it.

This whole thing is connected again.

Gad was originally an ordinary investigator. After participating in the hotel incident, he came into contact with the Outer God Yibb and was tempted to become His appendage, and also became the carrier of His split body.

Because he became an Outer God's appendage, he became immortal. The Pope also wanted to be like him to obtain immortality, so he wanted to get the method from him, but Gad had a backer after all. It is estimated that the Pope couldn't really do anything to him, so he could only use him as a signboard for the church's external publicity.

Gad enjoyed the status of Grand Prophet after all and didn't completely tear his face with the Pope. The two maintained this balance all along.

As a result, the Pope's lifespan was coming to an end, and he was completely anxious. Coincidentally, at this time, the wanderer was caught by Greed and couldn't return to Gad's body in time.

This must have caused some influence on Gad, leading to the balance that had been maintained all along being broken, and he fell into the Pope's trap and was controlled by the Pope.

"For these years, I have been troubled by nightmares and almost didn't care about the church's affairs. The Pope manipulated believers in my name. The one you met on the ghost ship should be his person."

"That guy looked like a cultist."

"He is a cultist, and so is the Pope," Gad sighed and said, "He has stopped at nothing for his lifespan. He wants to sacrifice the entire Faraines."

"You said he wants to sacrifice, then there should be a sacrifice object? What god does he believe in?"

"To be honest, I don't know either," Gad shook his head and said, "Logically speaking, if the god he believes in is the same as mine, then he should also obtain eternal life like me, but he didn't. Not only did he suffer torture, but he has also been aging."

"You said he suffered torture?"

"He... I don't know how to describe it." Gad's expression was a bit complex.

"Where is he now?"

"On the top floor of the lighthouse."

"Why Faraines? And why the lighthouse?" Batman finally spoke, asking a question he had been curious about for a long time. He said, "What is so special about this remote small village?"

Gad shook his head, but then said, "Perhaps you can ask your god."

Shiler asked Nyar in his heart: "So why?"

"This used to be a fishing village," Nyar said. "Almost every household was a fisherman, and the fish they caught were the ones you saw in the underground dark river."

"What's special about those fish?"

"That is the gift of the Fish God."

"Fish God?"

"That is Dagon. The villagers of the fishing village used to be believers of Dagon. They obtained fish catches by sacrificing to the Fish God Dagon. These fish were sent out from the deep vortex by ocean currents and all ended up in their stomachs."

"And then?"

"What are the consequences of eating fish that live with Great Old Ones?"

"Uh, mutation?"

"That's a Great Old One, not a biochemical body," Nyar said. "Although it can be considered a mutation, it's spiritual. They will become full of inspiration and more crazy, and their descendants are the same."

Shiler understood. The few people who were lured here by the players should be natural inspired constitutions.

And the residents of Faraines, because their ancestors once believed in Great Old Ones and ate the fish sent by Great Old Ones, led everyone to become inspired constitutions.

"This lighthouse was the place where villagers used to sacrifice to Dagon," Nyar continued. "Lighting the lighthouse in a special way and completing the sacrifice ritual, fish catches will appear in this sea area one after another."

"But what does this have to do with the Pope?"

"This is a history that is not difficult to find."

Saying it like this, Shiler understood. The Pope might have learned about this history before and felt that the credibility was quite high. Now it's probably just being sick and going to the doctor in a hurry. He might feel that he doesn't have many days to live, so he prepared a big one, sacrificing the whole village to see if he could borrow another five hundred years from heaven.

But there is still a problem here. Who is the existence that accepted the Pope's sacrifice before and gave the Pope lifespan?

Shiler had some guesses in his heart, but he still planned to meet the Pope, so he said to Gad: "I'm going up to see the Pope. Are you coming with me or staying here?"

"You're going up? I must remind you, the Pope's personal guard is not easy to deal with. You impostor can't beat the genuine one."

"Why do you think I'm an impostor?"

"Could it be that you are a defector?" Gad said with some doubt, "I have indeed heard that some personal guard members defected from the organization after learning the truth, but most of them died in the pursuit of the Inquisition. Are you that survivor?"

Shiler said in his heart that I don't know who I am either. The background story that Arrogance set for himself wasn't that complicated. This was clearly added by the Transcender.

As long as he goes up to see the Pope and looks at his attitude, all problems will be solved.

But Shiler felt that things weren't that simple, and always felt that something was wrong.

But he still decided to go upstairs. When passing the window, he saw that it was snowing in Faraines again.

When this remote small village started snowing, it didn't have the slightest consciousness of being a remote and desolate place, but seemed to have to snow endlessly until the end of time. Even without mountains, castles, and dragons, the sky-filling flying snow and the buried village had a kind of epic feeling that the world was about to tilt and collapse here.

The Pale Face covered his chest, which was constantly bleeding, and fell into the snow. He saw the blood color dyeing the snow in front of him red. He used his last strength to grip the gun in his hand.

When that figure appeared, he pulled the trigger—there was only the lightest sound.

Between the eyebrows that were always written with elegance and pride, a burst of pain and annoyance twisted in. The pupils under the eyelashes reflected the glaring red until they gradually lost their luster.

A hand picked up the gun and ejected an empty shell from it. The metal sank into the snow when it was thrown down, and then was quickly covered by the snowflakes falling from the sky, as were all the traces, and the corpse was the same.

There was only one room on the top floor of the lighthouse. Shiler walked up the stairs, bypassed the semicircular passage, and pushed open that door.

An old man sitting in a wheelchair was sitting in front of the window with his back to the door. Shiler walked in slowly, but when the old man turned around, Shiler was also stunned.

The Pope's body was covered with dense heads.

His head, neck, chest, abdomen, and limbs were covered with tumor-like protruding heads, as if they were about to break out of his body. Some had already stretched out more than half of their heads, and some only had the outline of facial features.

There were men and women, old and young...

Shiler found several familiar faces inside.

Doctor, Madeline, Jeff...

They hadn't yet grown three-dimensional facial features, just squeezed into the gaps between the tumor-like heads like tattoos, with ferocious expressions, as if they must fight for a place here.

Now Shiler understood what Gad meant.

The Pope had completely become an aggregate of tumor heads. There were at least four or five heads in the position where his head was. Shiler didn't know which one was his original head.

The moment he saw him, Shiler's vision blurred again, his head ached sharply, and the tinnitus was deafening.

He staggered to the nearest table, eased for a while, and then barely recovered. He had to use the Requiem skill on himself to barely restore his mental state to stability.

It was really bad taste. Shiler turned his head away with some disgust, not looking at this disgusting monster. He had already guessed whose masterpiece this was.

Shiler took out the novel Nyar gave him, skipped the previous part, and turned directly to the end.

"... What a terrifying scene this is. Those victims who contributed their lifespan to him lived on his body forever, but they didn't seem to be willing to contribute, but rather wanted to enjoy the results.

This made Lodov realize that the existence that traded with the Pope didn't accept his sacrifice. The one who truly accepted the sacrifice was the Pope himself. He accepted the contributors with his own body and gave them a chance to fight for the position of Pope.

The one who was truly willing to contribute was precisely this Pope.

Lodov believed that the Pope must have said something to that existence, perhaps that they should unconditionally sacrifice their lives for him because he was nobler than them.

The god realized his wish—in such a humorous and cruel way, making the Pope the contributor in his mouth.

Lodov felt the mysterious echo from it, which made him feel a creepy shudder, as if he had touched the wooden stick inserted into the ant nest with tentacles, and also as if his abdomen felt the heat of the boiling water steaming into the ant hole.

It made him feel that there was no way to retreat and nowhere to escape.

Should he fight this monster to the death? But Lodov felt that this was meaningless, because he felt that the eye that appeared above the duel arena was watching here with great interest, expecting all this to happen, so, so...

Lodov felt that this existence had also observed such scenes countless times, on the top of Doctor's head, on the top of Madeline's head, on the top of Jeff's head...

He watched them struggle and dodge constantly, using their toes, which were so short that they were almost imperceptible, to write a story that could be considered a great legend in the eyes of humans, but in the eyes of the high-reaching existence in the depths of the stars, it was nothing more than a trivial thing that could be easily swept into an ugly pile of waste.

That was not an opponent, that was just a warning. He was showing him the end of becoming a loser.

And the real opponent walked out from the secret door behind the bookshelf."

Shiler looked up from the book and turned his head sharply to look at the bookshelf behind him.

Bruce walked out of the shadows, wearing the same golden-patterned robe as him.

"Long time no see, teacher,"

The novel was turned to the next page, and another piece of fancy text appeared.

"Lodov recognized his former student—Matthew. Before he defected, he was his pride.

This brilliant genius student had never hidden his thirst for knowledge. No one had ever been able to get a double degree in psychology and sociology from Miskatonic University so quickly.

And when Lodov realized what his student was actually researching, everything was already too late.

On a snowy night, he heard ancient spells coming from Matthew's room, which meant he was contacting some terrifying existence.

In the empty universe where all existences were silent, he brought a pair of eyes to his ant nest. He heard him call Him—'Nyarlathotep'."