401: Chapter 199 The Night Here is Silent 401: Chapter 199 The Night Here is Silent Hearing the noise in the distance, Wang Yunxiao struggled to open his eyes, looking in the direction from which the sound emanated.
What time is it now…
I don’t know, which is why not having a watch is really inconvenient.
He had dozed off in a corner and didn’t know how many hours he had slept; when he opened his eyes again, it was still dark outside.
The exhaustion in his body had not lessened in the slightest.
His head felt incredibly heavy, like there was a potato stuffed in his nose, making even breathing difficult.
Turning his head, he saw his brothers lying scattered on the ground.
Wang Yunxiao rubbed his eyes forcefully and, observing their chests’ faint rising and falling, finally felt at ease.
The reason the Special Service Section squad had managed to hold on until now was entirely due to the excellent design of their protective gear, which was made to withstand fire, water, poison, and other special circumstances.
Even so, it still couldn’t completely filter out the bacteria and viruses in the air.
But they couldn’t leave yet because the Special Service Bureau hadn’t sent anyone to take over the “contamination source” until now.
Wang Yunxiao turned his head to look at the other side.
The girl, covered in filthy blood and wrapped in a coat, was curled up into a ball in the darkness.
Up to now, she hadn’t shown any obvious symptoms of infection, which actually explained a lot.
Next to her were piled gasoline and firewood, and it would only take a spark to engulf her in flames.
But Wang Yunxiao ultimately didn’t give the order.
He was waiting.
He was waiting not only for the experts from the Special Service Bureau but also for news from Veronica.
Veronica had returned to the Church to search through religious texts of the past for relevant clues.
The interim interrogation conducted on Yan Yu’an’s side yielded no valuable information.
Sir Lyndon, who was lucky enough to survive, could describe the entire experimental plan and the various functions of Sorcery used by the Holy Grail Church in great detail.
However, he knew nothing about the girl who had gestated from flesh and blood.
It’s not entirely accurate to say he knew nothing.
At least Wang Yunxiao now knew what she was.
She was a Divine Aberration.
An outcome of mortals attempting to create a deity with their own power.
Sir Lyndon honestly confessed the origins of the new generation of Holy Grail Church.
From Pangu creating the world…
Well, not that far back, more accurately, from the beginning of the first industrial revolution in the Western world.
As human civilization and scientific and technological progress advanced, traditional religious beliefs of humanity and the realm of mysticism also entered a period of vast decline.
Old myths, because of their narrowness and shallowness, slowly turned into fairy tales.
Old religious beliefs, because they failed to articulate a complete worldview, had to be amended and patched up, giving rise to various sects with differing interpretations of sacred texts.
Ancient Gods quietly fell, and the New Gods were born with the tides of the era.
It was under such historical conditions that people began to attempt to create entirely new religious beliefs, and even entirely new deities.
This gave rise to a number of new religious movements, or rather, it wouldn’t be an overstatement to call them extreme heretical sects.
Among those in the East Asia region, the most famous are certainly the “Moth” and the “Cup” factions.
The theory of the “Moth” drew from the ancient concept of Eastern Qi Practitioners’ Feathered Ascension, with the core idea being humanity’s liberation from the physical body and the soul’s ascension.
Conversely, the theory of the “Cup” also borrowed from the Eastern Cultivation System but was diametrically opposed to that of the “Moth.” It held that humans are the most superior of all beings, that the human body is the Creator’s most perfect work, and that the process of nurturing life within the human body is the sole truth of the universe.
One cultivates the spirit, the other refines the body.
Although the core principles of the two sects are fundamentally at odds, their ultimate goal is strikingly similar—to validate their new theories and to create new deities.
However, the entities they’ve created over the years have, at most, transcended the level of “human” but fall vastly short of the standard for “God.”
Of course, a major reason for this is that the People of Ming have rather stringent criteria for what constitutes a god.
It’s like archaeology, where you dig up a several-hundred-pound bronze ware from your own backyard, already so rusted and adorned with dense carvings and inscriptions.
Then an expert takes one look and tells you the shape is wrong, the patina is wrong, the provenance is wrong, and your village, where not even birds would defecate, has no record in historical texts whatsoever, and it doesn’t have the right feng shui for a burial site.
So they conclude your object is just from last week and worthless.
But if you’re on the other side of the Earth and an old farmer digs up a basket while renovating his pigpen, filled with parchment, the archaeologist immediately lights up and proclaims it a 700,000-year-old Neanderthal epic…
These creations of theirs are hailed as gods elsewhere without a hitch.
But in East Asia, especially in Ming Country, dare to claim that thing as a god, and even the lady selling herbal tea will spit in your face.
Isn’t there a joke on the internet in later generations, asking whether Chu Renmei could beat the Three Pure Ones?
The asker only cares about their own amusement, completely disregarding Ms.
Chu’s feelings.
For the same reason, these creations of theirs can only be called Divine Aberration.
The primary distinction between Divine Aberration and the deities of mythic lore is that they do not possess any specific divinely ordained powers or authorities.
Like the Fire God, Water God, Thunder God, and so forth.
According to Protestant theories, the main reason the Ancient Gods fell is that human understanding has surpassed the powers once held by them.
In the past, people believed the Sun was simply a source of light hanging above their heads.
Now everyone knows that the Sun is a colossal star, exceedingly distant from Earth.
Who just raised their hand claiming to be the Sun God?
Yes, you, stand up and demonstrate how you plant a sun for everyone!
Sun God, deceased.
Therefore, the Divine Aberration they create do not hold specific divine powers; instead, they seek abilities that modify and distort the rules.
I can’t do the job you give me well, but I can offer you advice.
Throughout history, many heroes of grand talent and strategy have lived, yet they often make mistakes late in life, tarnishing their legacy.
Only the nitpickers live on forever!
—Sir Lyndon’s interrogative record was much more complicated, but according to Wang Yunxiao’s understanding, it was roughly along these lines.
Years ago, the “Cup” and “Moth” factions had already been crushed and wiped out in East Asia.
But the Holy Grail Church’s experimental records still remained overseas.
In Sir Lyndon’s homeland, the Duchy of Nederland, there was still a branch that believed in the “Cup” theory, but they could never grow under the suppression of other heretical sects.
So the clever Netherland People came up with a brilliant idea—decades have passed, the People of Ming must have forgotten that long-buried history by now.
Why not head to the Far East, become great and mighty, and attain new glory?