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Heir of the White Lotus (Web Novel) - Chapter 1923: Gods and Men
Chapter 1923: Gods and Men
This chapter is updated by JustRead.pl
Amidst a sea of monsters, Adam found himself on an island of serenity.The broken temple was that island.
Silence reigned within its weathered walls. No growls echoed through the halls. No claws scraped against stone. The horrors that prowled the city seemed to instinctively avoid this place.
Near the domed ceiling, a ring of stained-glass windows depicted the celestial bodies. Though many of the panes had long since shattered, the surviving fragments still caught the crimson moonlight, scattering muted hues across the ancient floor.
At the far end of the hall stood a raised platform. Upon it rested a towering stone statue of the sun. A great circular disc formed its head, ringed by carved flames.
At its center were the stern features of a man’s face, with eyes, a nose, and a mouth chiseled into the stone. Cracks spidered across its weathered surface, yet an air of dignity still clung to it.
Adam arrived before the statue and looked at it intently. He then took out the talisman and glanced at its surface. Etched upon it was a celestial sphere split cleanly in two, one half depicting a sun and the other a moon.
He returned his gaze to the stone statue and murmured:
"The sun god."
Indeed, this temple had once been dedicated to the sun god.
Even after years of ruin, a faint sense of solemnity lingered within its walls, as though the sanctuary still remembered the prayers once offered beneath its dome.
If Isaebella’s words held any truth, then this city, which had once been the royal capital of King Louis’ kingdom, had worshipped the sun god in ages past.
And judging by the runes carved on the mysterious talismans, Adam suspected there had once been a deity associated with the moon as well. Perhaps there was a temple somewhere in the secret plane dedicated to this deity, and he just hadn’t found it yet.
He wasn’t particularly interested in theology, but history had taught him one thing.
Where there was enough suffering, faith was never far behind.
When people were surrounded by death, famine, war, and monsters beyond their understanding, they searched for something greater than themselves. A god. A saint. A higher power willing to listen when no one else could.
Hope was a precious commodity.
Religion gave people that hope. It promised meaning in suffering, justice beyond death, and the strength to endure one more day.
Perhaps that was why faith flourished most in people’s darkest hours.
After all, only those fortunate enough to live comfortable, secure lives could truly afford to dismiss the need for it.
Adam sighed, his thoughts drifting back to religion on Tron.
It had never been particularly widespread. But he did find traces of it in his journey around the planet following the Great World War.
Most people placed their faith in themselves, their families, or the institutions that governed them. Even so, there were scattered communities that worshipped nature — the sun, the moon, the stars, rivers, mountains, and forests.
They offered prayers for bountiful harvests, favourable weather, good health, and the strength to endure another day.
Magi were different.
They didn’t pray for miracles. They sought to create them.
A Magus devoted himself wholly to the pursuit of the Way and the mastery of arcana.
Every spell learned, every breakthrough achieved was another step toward understanding the laws that governed the universe. Rather than kneel and pray before the unknown, they sought to unravel it.
To a Magus, knowledge was faith and magic was the closest thing to divinity.
He thought of the Laughing God and the Goddess of Death, the only two divine beings he had ever crossed paths with, albeit indirectly. He had inherited the relic of the former and visited the divine kingdom of the latter.
Adam wondered if their believers still existed.
No. He was certain that all the undead in the Underworld still worshipped the Goddess of Death.
As for the Laughing God, he knew of at least a few remaining believers in the form of those four-armed snow beasts he had encountered in the spirit world.
Beyond that, he knew very little.
And there was little point dwelling on beings so far beyond his reach.
He was, after all, only a mortal.
His thoughts wandered to the race that called themselves Gods, the ones who had secretly ignited the war over the Eternal Soul Lotus more than fifty thousand years ago.
He knew almost nothing about them. Only that they were the most mysterious, and perhaps the most powerful, faction in the universe.
Adam sighed.
He was still a pawn in the grand scheme of things. A pawn in possession of an artifact that the Gods had their eyes on. Just thinking about it made him shudder.
So much talk of gods and men had nearly made him forget why he had slipped into the abandoned temple in the first place.
To rest.
But how could he?
The moment he had started studying the statue of the sun god, something had felt... off.
The temple was too quiet. Not just empty, but unnaturally so.
Every instinct he had honed through countless battles warned him that something was watching. He couldn’t see it. He couldn’t hear it. He couldn’t even sense any hostile aura.
The Sphere of Resonance worked on overdrive, but he still couldn’t find anything. The feeling of being watched refused to leave.
That was why he had purposely lowered his guard since approaching the statue, hoping the watcher would attack. But it hadn’t.
Adam slowly, cautiously turned around and swept his gaze across the rows of broken pews, the cracked stone floor, and the weathered stone statues lining the walls.
His eyes narrowed as he intently studied the statues of the angels.
Still... nothing.
"If you’re there," he murmured in the dark of the night, "you might as well come out."
Only silence answered him.
He frowned, thinking to himself:
Was I imagining it?
He was so sure that something was watching him, yet there was nothing inside the temple to support that feeling. Even the statues that he had found suspicious seemed perfectly ordinary.
Instead of relaxing, he turned even more cautious.
Adam turned back around, hoping to explore the two doors he had noticed behind the statue, on each side of the raised platform. Perhaps they would lead to chambers where he could learn more about the temple, or at the very least, find a more suitable place to rest.
But right as he turned around, his eyes widened, and his breath got caught in his throat.
Crouched atop the statue of the sun god was a white werewolf. It had a crown of wooden antlers and red eyes that reflected Adam’s terrified visage.
Its maw slowly parted, and it said in a guttural voice:
"Praise... the... sun."
