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The sun had just set, but the sky wasn’t completely dark yet, however; to the believers in the Whispering Square, this was undoubtedly the darkest moment of their lives.

They were still devotedly praying for the Goddess’ pity when they got startled by what sounded like the shriek of a pig that was about to be butchered in the next moment. When they looked up, they found that even the Goddess herself was struggling to protect herself.

No, it would be more accurate to say that she had failed to protect herself since her sacred head had fallen and touched the dirty ground.

The culprit was a golden-eyed, blonde, and vicious-looking (from the perspective of a believer) demon who was riding on the neck of the Goddess while showing off her might. She had turned her gaze to the pitiful believers of the Goddess, looking as though she would bare her vicious fangs and devour them all in the next moment.

The kind and honest believers of the Goddess had never witnessed such a terrible scene before.

“Demon! That woman is a demon!”

“O’ Goddess in heaven, please save your pitiful believers!”

“No, the Goddess can’t save us anymore! She’s in danger herself! She has been beheaded!!”

“Run, or we will be eaten!”

“Waaah… Mommy…!”

The crowd turned into a chaotic mess as the cries of worshippers overlapped with noises. The devout believers pushed against each other. But since the crowd was too huge, it seemingly turned into a giant soft creature that was writhing but not actually moving.

Our extremely vicious-looking demon, Lilith, might look very calm on the surface, but she was very panic-stricken by now.

W-What… should I do?! The head fell off! If it was only a minor removal surgery, the collection of faith wouldn’t be affected and that b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲ Goddess probably wouldn’t take any action against me for the sake of old acquaintances. But now the head has fallen off!

The once glittering statue was now reduced into an ordinary slab of lifeless stone. No matter how Lilith looked at it, it didn’t seem like it could collect faith anymore. No one would pray to a headless statue either. As the saying went, destroying someone’s livelihood was no different than murdering their parents. Although Lilith wasn’t sure if the Goddess’ parents were still alive, she was sure that she had destroyed her livelihood.

It’s over, it’s over! Seems like the only way out is to pack up and run back to find the ancestor’s protection! T-That’s… right, isn’t Sae the Spirit Artifact of the ancestor’s original weapon? Surely, she has a way to contact the ancestor.

Lilith looked at Sae with her hopeful eyes, only to find that Sae’s face was even paler than those of the other believers who were acting like they were ants on a hot pan.

As an Artifact Spirit of a former Divine Artifact, Sae naturally knew that it was impossible for gods to personally descend into a world just because of a malfunctioning faith collector. At most, they would only send their Apostle to check up on it, however; right now, even an apostle wasn’t something that they could handle.

In any case, they were very likely to get into trouble before the apostle even arrived. No matter in which world, if a god could collect faith, then it meant that they had enough believers there. With enough believers, a religion or a theocracy could be formed. If either one was formed, then there would be a powerful figure who was born with the blessing of the god to stand at the pinnacle of this world.

This was the reason why religions could always easily occupy a land in a particular world. After all, the churches had an almighty god backing it up.

And right now, they were in Aeria, the largest city in this world’s largest theocracy, where the Luminous Church was located.

This was the city with the highest combat power in this theocracy.

And they were already here.

This was why Sae went pale. Since she had significantly stronger senses than Lilith, she could feel just how powerful the aura from the sky above Aeria was.

Not only that, it was not inferior to a low-rank apostle.

Dark clouds immediately gathered in the originally clear sky. The air seemed to be condensing into a liquid, making it extremely difficult for people to breathe.

“Silence!”

An old but majestic voice rang out from the sky, and instantly calmed the chaotic believers.

A tall and old man dressed in a gorgeous robe appeared in the center of the square with a beautiful girl. It was the Pope and the saintess who had immediately made an appearance when they found out about the disorder.

The Pope scanned the terrified crowd, then spoke in his awe-inspiring voice. “How unsightly it is for the believers of the Radiant Goddess to panic like this over a trivial matter! You have all brought disgrace upon the Luminous Theocracy!”

“B-But… this is no trivial matter.” A believer who was slightly bolder than the rest pointed out shakily.

“No trivial matter?” The Pope, who was already upset for having his precious parent-child time with the saintess interrupted, grew angry. “It’s just a thug stirring up a problem, how serious can it be? It’s not like the Goddess statue was destroyed.”

“But…”

The Pope couldn’t be bothered about etiquette in his anger, as he interrupted the believer by rudely pointing at the Goddess statue and yelling at him, “Do you think someone would really dare to destroy the Goddess statue under her nose, when I am in the seat of power with several dozen experts of saint realm and countless magic circles on standby?!”

“But…”

“No buts! Even if someone indeed has the guts to do it, they can never damage the statue that the Goddess made herself! She has imbued a law in it. Unless it is another being who can manipulate laws like her, they will never be able to destroy the statue! So why don’t you tell me which powerful demigod would be bored enough to come here just to destroy the Goddess statue? Tell me!”

“But…”

“Is there anything you can say other than but?”

“But!”

The believer, who had spit all over his face by now, jumped while pointing behind the Pope with tears streaming down his face. “There’s really one…!”

The Pope fell silent as though he just heard the most ridiculous thing in this world. However, the believer’s expression didn’t seem fake, so he slowly turned his head around like a robot…

“Um… Good evening grandpa, did you have dinner yet? If you haven’t, why don’t you go back and eat first before coming back again?”

The Pope saw an angel. No, more like a blonde devil in the skin of an angel. She was riding on the neck of the ‘indestructible’ Goddess statue. As for the part above the Goddess’ neck…

There was nothing there. The Pope couldn’t see anything because there was nothing there.

There. Was. Nothing. There.

“To hell with eating, I’m gonna kill you!!!”

The dark clouds gathered above them and instantly turned into storm clouds.