Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 716 Broken
In the sealed illusion, the path leading to the summit of Lengyuan Mountain has been transformed by the locals into a spiraling pilgrimage staircase.

During his pilgrimage, Milo encountered the green-robed woman from the Temple of the Hook, who had also entered the illusion.

"You really did have designs on the sealed artifact."

...

After removing the cloak, Milo was finally able to see the strange woman who had been staring at him the whole time.

Her face was pale and haggard, and she possessed a weathered air that was extremely incongruous with her age. In her eyes, a variant of the hook totem was clearly visible. It was a twisted pattern of several fingers interlocked together, which seemed to be constantly rippling and changing with the waves.

She's probably a role similar to that of the Eye Saint or Blood Saint in the Church.

She was the only one who noticed the connection between Milo and the Crybaby early on, and is also the only apostle of the Hooked Finger Temple to enter the sealed illusion realm.

...

When confronted with the questioning of the Holy Maiden, Milo did not give any response.

He noticed that in some dark corners of the distant city-state, there were still some sculptures with smashed heads. The sculptures were also in the shape of a saint wearing a cloak, and the cloak had a hooked finger totem on it.

The truth is self-evident.

There was never a belief system about the Lord of Fear here. Hooked Finger used illusions to deceive the Weeping Ghost, and then used the residual warmth of the Weeping Ghost's burning to bless the people. He then stole the people's faith from the thicket, attributing the warmth brought by the flames to Hooked Finger, and thus enjoying the faith from these illusory souls.

This is the true meaning of the seal's existence.

Strictly speaking, this is not a sealing method targeting either the Crybaby or the Forbidden Fire.

It is a ranch of faith.

...

What Milo couldn't understand was how the Temple of the Hook drew upon faith from a fabricated world. They didn't even need real souls…

Does the law of conservation of energy not exist in mysticism? Or is it that faith is conserved?
Ok……

That's right, this is the Dreamland, a world formed by dreams, which cannot be judged by ordinary standards. In this respect, the Dreamland and the Abyss have something in common.

...

What the Scarlet Witch did was usurp the faith of the people in the illusion.

Look at the terrifying totems carved into the walls of that priestly dynasty city today…

The Scarlet Witch's preaching has spread to the virtual world.

……

It's no wonder that the Holy Maiden of the Hooked Finger Temple harbored hostility towards Milo.

Because she is the medium through which the power of faith is transmitted between the temple and the sealed illusion.

...

The long string of speculations and conclusions above flashed through Milo's mind in an instant.

In fact, fear had already condensed on the surface of his body, and he was approaching the saintess above the pilgrimage route at top speed.

The guidance he had received along the way had successfully opened his closed senses and instincts. Milo had not participated in any battles, so from beginning to end, he was just an ordinary, weak human in the eyes of others. And this was the moment he had been waiting for.

Heaven knows if these clergy serving in the temple give a passionate and rousing speech before every fight.

Anyway, before Milo grabbed the Hooked Saintess by the neck and smashed a large section of the pilgrimage route with her frail body, she was indeed about to open her mouth and say something.

Perhaps it's a temple tradition.

But Milo, being an outsider, didn't care about such things.

If one had to describe Milo's style in a concise way, it would be—"not a knight."

...

The usurpation of the faith pastures of the Hooked Finger Temple is something they cannot forgive.

However, usurpation is a gradual process that cannot be accomplished overnight. Even today, there are still some souls in the priestly dynasty of the illusion who serve the Hook Finger.

That was the foundation that allowed the Holy Maiden to fight against Milo.

...

The battles within the illusion are by no means merely battles on the level of spiritual vision or physical destructive force.

Ultimately, they are just spiritual consciousnesses and do not possess any real physical basis.

So visually, it appears as two humanoid creatures passionately fighting each other midway through the pilgrimage route, but the real conflict is between two different belief systems within the priestly dynasty.

...

Every punch Milo delivered to the Hooked Maiden transformed into an invisible sin, descending upon the Hooked Maiden's followers of the Priestly Dynasty—an inescapable calamity etched into their destiny, ultimately manifesting in various forms such as disease and injury. Similarly, the Hooked Maiden's counterattack was the same.

Plague, hatred, chaos, war, and a host of other elements began to ravage this once peaceful and tranquil land, triggering and causing endless death...

At this moment, Milo and the Hooked Finger Saintess have become the only two rulers of this world.

Any clash or conflict between these two supreme wills manifested as tangible calamities upon the people of the priestly dynasty.

...

Only at this moment did Milo fully understand what the Scarlet Witch meant by "faith plunder" that she had mentioned long ago.

In the eyes of those in power, faith is the ultimate goal, and the blessings bestowed are merely a necessary means to achieve it. No one cares about the souls of those at the bottom who have been harvested, especially since this is a fabricated, illusory world.

But at least, crybabies really do exist, right?

...

When the warm world it desperately maintained, which it had been holding together at the cost of its soul being burned, began to fall into chaos, with order collapsing, decaying, and rotting, and hatred and death filling every corner of the world, this hypothetical world, which was actually a deception and called a seal, had already ceased to exist.

Because the belief that sustained the priest king in continuing to play the role of a weeping man had vanished.

The world created by the Hooked Finger Temple and the promise of hope bestowed by the Scarlet Witch no longer hold any meaning.

...

Only at this moment did he finally see the tragic ending that had happened countless years ago.

Thus, the last vestiges of goodwill and reason finally collapsed when faced with reality.

……

...

The promised world of gentleness shattered on the day the one who was supposed to fulfill it arrived.

I wonder if the Scarlet Witch foresaw this outcome.

But without a doubt, the pastures of the "planting" faith no longer exist.

...

The gentle sun hanging high in the cold plains began to boil and rage, radiating indiscriminate hostility, and the flames finally turned from the warm and soft orange-red to a sinister black flame.

"turn out to be……"

Milo finally understood the problem about conservation he had been facing earlier.

The faith generated by these illusory individuals within the sealed illusion is not without origin; it all began with that sun, that so-called forbidden fire.

However, when the weeping ghost willingly endured the pain of being burned, the forbidden fire revealed the gentle power of "life," bestowing vitality upon everything in the illusory realm, including the faith generated by this dynasty.

To put it more bluntly, the method of hooking the temple can be summarized as follows:
They found a powerful but unstable energy source (the forbidden fire), which was difficult to use directly. So they created a machine (the priestly dynasty in the illusion) to transform its unstable power (faith). The one responsible for "pacifying" this unstable power was the last priest king, also known as the Weeping Demon.

The brilliance lies in the fact that the Temple of the Hook retains a portion of the Weeping Demon's consciousness, allowing his kindness to balance with the gentle world within the illusion. In other words, the false world he created by burning himself, in turn, constantly comforts and encourages him to continue burning…

This story may no longer be suitable to be summarized with words like sadness.

But those in power don't care about these things.

The same applies to the Scarlet Witch and Milo.

However, when the seal collapses and all the causal relationships created by the deception are severed one after another, the "those in power" will have to bear the wrath.

Oh, to be precise, the priest king's will no longer exist; his soul has been chewed up.

The forbidden black flames raging high in the sky have already demonstrated their power to grant "life" over a long enough period of time, and now they are about to spread the part that can interpret "death".

...

Black flames continued to spread throughout the illusory world.

The blue sky was the first to be burned, followed by the mountains, vegetation, pilgrimage routes, and finally the priestly kingdom and the entire land.

This illusory world is like paper; wherever the flames reach, they devour everything, leaving behind only the real, frigid wilderness.

On the pilgrimage route, now only half-built and suspended in mid-air, Milo stared blankly at the magnificent scene of black flames raging, a symbol of death.

For a moment, he seemed to feel an indescribable, magical force pulling him along, like guidance, or even more like a seduction.

A chilling truth is that this is not merely an uncontrollable force; it may even possess the divine qualities of a superior being, for Milo has sensed the influence of it…

...

Almost every wisp of flame in the black flames that symbolize death spirals, which may be the initial form of the black flames of death.

As it turns out, its dark side may not have only fully resurfaced at this moment.

Even in the warm era when the will of the crybaby still existed, traces of the spiral had already appeared within the priestly dynasty...

Milo looked down at the broken spiral pilgrimage path beneath his feet. Wasn't this the one built by the people and believers of the priestly dynasty?
Aren't they worshipping the sun that bestows light and heat? Why then does the pilgrimage route bear the shadow of deathly flames...?

……

However, reality didn't give Milo much time to think about these issues.

The sealed illusion was instantly destroyed, and the wills of Milo and the Hooked Finger Saintess returned to their respective bodies.

The latter's first reaction upon waking was to plead for help from the other temple apostles, who were located on another mountain peak.

"Stop him! Stop the usurper!!"

"The sharp edge of the golden tree! You must stop the spread of disaster!"

"I am willing to offer up my faith, sealed for a hundred years, to the Golden Law! As long as you kill him!!"

...

(End of this chapter)