Chapter 154: The Great Ascetic Beauty
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“Apocalypse Church? Why would you bring up that name? Did you encounter them?”
MEI on the other end of the communicator sounded somewhat surprised and puzzled.
“Mm, the person I’m looking for might have been taken by them, so I’m asking.”
“That’s not good news.”
MEI sighed and began sharing intelligence about the Apocalypse Church:
“The Apocalypse Church is a new religious sect that emerged in Eastern Europe after the end of the First Eruption. Its founder seems to be someone named Otto, advocating the theory of Honkai evolution — he believes that Honkai eruptions are not disasters, but rather a pathway to help humanity evolve. From past perspectives, it’s an undoubtedly heretical theory… but now, it seems they might be the more correct ones.”
This familiar intelligence made the pink-haired girl raise her eyebrows slightly.
Well… this hits right on the mark.
When Jiang Qiao first heard this name, she felt it was familiar.
As a result, when this church’s doctrine came out… isn’t this exactly the Honkai cult that was running around everywhere in the neighboring second game’s DLC chapter Zero Era? Even the founder is the same.
Of course, she wasn’t particularly surprised by this.
After all, when the forest is big, there are all kinds of birds. The world is so vast that all sorts of thoughts will become popular. Honkai evolution theory is just one ideology that inevitably appears on humanity’s path of opposing Honkai.
It’s just that the founder being Otto, that old bastard again, made her somewhat unable to keep a straight face.
In the Current Era, he’s the Overseer of Schicksal, and in the Previous Era when there was no Schicksal, you directly created an Apocalypse Church. What a veteran religious manipulator, completely inseparable from religious faith, huh?
However, Otto really got it right this time. From the perspective of the Cocoon, Honkai as a trial is indeed a pathway to help humanity evolve—in this aspect, perhaps Dr. Mobius could even find some common ground with him.
After all, among the various Stigma Projects that Mobius formulated, wasn’t there one that played with Darwinian evolution theory’s survival-of-the-fittest screening?
“Although it’s classified as a cult, the Apocalypse Church’s behavior is quite proper, often providing free relief to the poor. So the Apocalypse Church has a very good reputation among the people, which has caused considerable trouble for various countries.”
“But recently, this sect seems to show signs of extremism. Fire Moth has received quite a few reports about the troubles this sect has caused. I’m planning to send Sakura to investigate.”
MEI’s voice revealed helplessness and fatigue.
With the occurrence of the Fourth Eruption, Fire Moth’s influence in various countries has further increased, with massive growth in scale and funding. Under the maneuvering of Vill-V and Mobius, the leadership of Fire Moth has gradually fallen into her hands — this is definitely not a good thing.
She has to oversee all matters big and small in the organization. The current MEI has already entered the state of Dr. MEI who commands all humanity ahead of schedule, at least in terms of workload. She even wonders if she’ll die from overwork at her desk someday… oh wait, she’s a Herrscher now, she won’t die from overwork. Ah, what truly wonderful news.
MEI, who doesn’t think this is good news at all, is already planning when to create an AI to assist herself. If this continues, even if she doesn’t die from overwork, she’ll eventually suffer from mental exhaustion.
“Mm… understood. In that case, I’ll investigate along the way.”
【Elysia】, who had ended the communication, looked toward the distant church, her delicate face thoughtful:
“Apocalypse Church, huh…”
…
For Aponia, this could hardly be called an ‘ordinary’ day.
Possessing the ability to see others’ fates, she has always been troubled by this ability.
As a nun, Aponia has always tried to change the endings of those she sees being toyed with by fate.
Those homeless people, those sick and abandoned people, taking them in at the sanatorium was one of her attempts.
At some point, she began to see more and more people heading toward destruction, toward irredeemable hell.
Although in this Twilight Street, baseness has always been a means of survival, when exactly did it start becoming something instinctual?
Feeling sad about this change, but what she could do seemed to be only using her innate ability to try to save the people of this land.
But just like in the past, despite being well-intentioned… the final results were still so unsatisfactory, even implicating the entire sanatorium.
On this day, the Apocalypse Church, which had connections with the wealthy, stormed into the sanatorium and took away everyone, only that mischievous child escaped the calamity.
Aponia felt fortunate about this.
“Burn her! Burn her!” “Burn this witch!”
The angry shouting nearby, the cacophonous voices revealing surprisingly consistent information, that being the massive pyre erected in front of this Apocalypse Church.
Just like the witch trials popular in medieval Europe, the woman named Aponia now seemed to face the same ending.
Those faces that were already detestable in daily life became even more agitated with flying spittle.
— The wealthy had never liked this disgraced nun who liked to take in lowly sick people everywhere. They had countless times planned to tear down that sanatorium that was like a garbage dump, but each time they mysteriously returned empty-handed.
And now, with Domination particles gradually spreading, at the moment when the Apocalypse Church’s tentacles reached this area, they finally got their wish to break through this layer of ‘protection’ and tied that witch-like ‘Aponia’ to the stake.
Past persuasion had now turned into equivalent reactive force.
And those fanatical religious zealots belonging to the Apocalypse Church looked at those tied to the stakes with malicious and hostile gazes, especially at Aponia.
For religion, what’s most intolerable is not traitors — but heretics!
Undoubtedly, Aponia was exactly such an existence.
She advocated beauty, giving people discipline and obstructing the freedom of desire.
Although none of these fanatical religious zealots could be called complete ‘Herrscher of Domination,’ they were all puppets dominated by desire.
But they could clearly feel that Aponia was a heretic, the greatest enemy of domination.
Perhaps the results brought by discipline are often so unsatisfactory, even making things worse.
But undoubtedly, this power of ‘discipline’ was the greatest enemy of ‘domination.’
It blocked humanity’s desires inscribed in their DNA in an extremely rough manner, and also constrained the domination that drove human desires like a fish bone stuck in the throat.
Like so-called natural enemies.
Able to sense that undisguised baseness, Aponia bound to the stake felt no fear of life and death, only sadness for the people around her at this moment.
She didn’t even feel a moment of ‘hatred,’ only regret, only despair. This emotion didn’t come from life and death, but from — I didn’t save anything, I didn’t change anything, I accomplished nothing.
Wanting to work hard to change others’ fates, but being toyed with by fate instead, achieving the opposite effect.
Is such a self full of sin?