Ice Vapor Goddess

Chapter 4 Rescue
Xilun awoke from the biting cold, his limbs numb and sluggish as if out of his control. His hands, pressed against the ground, throbbed with dull pain, and he failed several times when he tried to lift them.

His long eyelashes were covered with ice crystals, and as soon as he opened his eyes, melting ice water flowed into them. Beneath his thin bishop's robes was frozen blood.

A steel bone pierced Ober's wrist, wounded his side abdomen, and then pierced his chest.

The guard captain who disliked him had stopped breathing; only the lingering warmth of his corpse remained to protect him. Xilun didn't know why he had lunged forward—was it out of habit, loyalty, to protect him, or to protect the will of God on earth?

But he could no longer answer.

Siron opened his mouth and weakly uttered in a hoarse voice, "Jehovah... Rapha."

A surge of divine inspiration appeared, and golden holy light unfolded behind him, then converged into a stream of light that enveloped his entire body.

His bodily functions were perfectly mobilized, with no wasted calories or malfunctioning cells. His wounds healed quickly, and he gradually regained his strength. However, he experienced waves of hunger, and his fat also decreased significantly.

"Uh..." Xilun struggled to sit up, crawling on the ground and step by step out of the wrecked carriage covered with snow.

He also saw his suitcase and took out his dry winter clothes from it.

The ring emitted a faint light, and the bloodstains and snow water on his robe fell away. Then he put on an Urst coat over it.

The wind and snow outside had subsided, and the ground within sight was covered with a thick layer of snow. Countless lives from the summer had perished in this cold.

The Northern Holy See resembled a snake severed into several pieces, bearing heavy wounds. A section of the red mercury train had burst into flames for unknown reasons, with raging fires burning across the sky, much like the legendary Sodom and Gomorrah.

Sylvanas, her body weakened, leaned on her staff and headed toward the place where the fire was burning.

It's so cold here; there's only a chance of survival if you're near a fire.

As he passed the food truck, Xilun took a few pieces of frozen vegetables and ate them raw, and then wrapped them in some bread and warmed them in his arms.

【Holy Healing】is not healing energy from the void, but rather the command of the body by the will of "divine thought," mobilizing the body at an excessive frequency. Therefore, each healing session requires the consumption of calories, and by this time, Xilun was already starving.

As for the few loaves of bread that were warmed up, they were for any potential injured people.

He staggered to the side of the fire, by which time the red mercury had gradually burned out, and the fire was gradually shrinking in the wind and snow, revealing the scorched earth and steel below.

Siren coughed and sang with all his might, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty!”

Seven angels appeared, carrying flowers, halos, and trumpets, singing hymns of praise everywhere. This is the divine spell "Hymn Singing," which is generally used in Mass ceremonies and has no other function besides singing.

But they have one more little-known feature—they will automatically fly to a random person nearby, land on their shoulder, and sing in that person's ear.

The seven little angels circled around and each found their target.

Xilun followed in their footsteps, searching, lifting steel frames one by one, clearing patches of snow, but unfortunately most of them had already stopped breathing; they had either frozen to death or perished in the train accident.

Suddenly, not far from the Red Mercury Fire, in a patch of snow, Xiren discovered a humanoid figure with a still-beating heart. It was a middle-aged man with a long beard and medium-length, half-white hair, presumably a rune craftsman on his way to Speyside.

Xilun sang "Holy Healing" to stabilize his life, then pulled him out of the snowdrift, wrapped him in a cotton coat he found in the carriage, and placed him under the sheltered steel plate.

He kept searching, uncovering one corpse after another, and also finding two or three living people.

Suddenly, a young woman's voice came from the distant ruins: "Bishop Delland, please give me some Holy Healing."

Fortunately, the sound wasn't carried away by the wind and snow. Xiren quickly ran over and found the first conscious survivor. After casting a [Holy Heal], her voice visibly improved: "Thank you, these steel plates trapped me... Will you [Stop]?"

“Of course,” Xiren said.

“Please stop me when I lift it,” she said, and slowly raised the twisted steel plate that was trapping her. Once an opening appeared that would allow her to escape, Xiren used a Stop to block the falling plate.

The steel plate trembled against the completely transparent wall. Xilun struggled to hold it up, and after seeing the woman come out, the entire steel frame collapsed with a roar.

“Thank you.” She shook hands with Siron. “Matilda, Abbey of Speyside.”

She was a woman who looked very young, but the white nun's headscarf and wide nun's robe concealed all her features, except for her pair of brown eyes, which were unforgettable.

Seeing that her thin black nun's habit was tattered, Xiren quickly handed her the winter clothes: "This is terrible."

“As expected.” Mathilde glanced sadly at the corpse that Xiren had dug up. “But it came too early. I thought it would be this winter at the earliest.”

Siren grabbed Mathilde in surprise: "You knew all along?"

Mathilde was also somewhat surprised: "You didn't know? Bishops should all know about this, even someone with an honorary title like me knows."

Abbots are not clergy, but they are still very respected, generally equivalent to bishops, and are not under the jurisdiction of the church.

Xiren scratched the back of his head: "I only became a bishop today."

“Alright.” Mathilde smiled. “I wish our young bishop all the best… Two years ago, Mr. Nostradamus predicted the devastating extreme cold disaster, so the Church and various countries have long been building shelters in various places, and Speyside, where we are going, is one of them.”

“I see…” Xilun nodded. Actually, this was mainly the original owner’s fault. Even if the construction of such a massive project as the shelter was ordered to be hidden, it was impossible to keep it a secret. However, the original owner indulged in the pleasures of life day and night, rarely attending Mass and completely ignoring the situation outside.

Although they were chatting, they didn't stop working. Mathilde was also helping to search for survivors everywhere—she was surprisingly strong and agile.

This left Siron somewhat puzzled. The position of abbess was not simple. Most abbesses came from upper-middle-class or noble families because joining a monastery usually required paying a considerable "dowry." Moreover, abbesses needed a good educational background, management skills, social skills, and profound theological knowledge.

Generally speaking, the directly appointed abbesses of such monasteries were either pampered young ladies or ascetics buried in books.

Regardless, with Mathilde's involvement, the rescue operation progressed much more smoothly.

After the last person was rescued, Siren sang Healing for him once more.

But this time, the light behind him was no longer a blurry mist, but rather revealed two small images.

One image shows him celebrating Mass at Winttington Cathedral—where he had served for the past four years—though the image is somewhat blurry.

Another scene shows a gaunt priest digging survivors out of the snow amidst wind, snow, and broken steel frames.

The two paintings floated behind Xilun like drifting mist, resembling oil paintings on the top of a church or scenes of heaven.

The moment these two images appeared, the light of [Holy Healing] burst forth, the brilliant golden light condensing into mist, spreading and passing through the target's flesh and blood, lingering in vortexes on wounds and frozen, bluish-black areas.

Mathilde looked at him with envy: "A sacred site..."

(End of this chapter)