A gentle ray of light shone upon Xia Lian, helping the Dawn Sect's First Holy Maiden regain some consciousness.
In the preceding dozen minutes, despite Xia Lian still holding the heavy cross high above her head and the holy light around her body never ceasing for a second, she had been in a state similar to a deep coma, fighting against the ancient darkness in the deepest part of her consciousness.
If Xia Lian's will had been a little weaker, or if she had wavered even slightly under that indescribable divine power, she would have been dead by now.
But this elf, who had lived for less than five hundred years, had stubbornly endured, even managing to maintain the divine spell array during the process with a tenacious will akin to nerve-ending necrosis; her faith was beyond description by the word 'pious'.
One must know that the Darkness Goddess had not only initially shattered Xia Lian's mental defenses with a 'Divine Word' but had also continuously eroded the divine spell array covering the entire sky with dark divine power using Yu Cheng as a medium. As the nexus, the elf Holy Maiden had been enduring full 'backlash' almost the entire time. Although the situation improved after the Dawn Goddess intervened, the dark divine power, like an eternal night, had never been quiet for a moment...
“So I'm still alive, huh? Too bad my break doesn't seem to be over yet~”
Xia Lian, who had regained her ability to speak, slowly lowered the Star-Gold Cross in her hand. Her pale cheeks were covered in cold sweat, and her body trembled slightly, yet she still exerted all her strength to maintain the divine spell array in the sky, which was gradually beginning to dissipate.
“You have proven your faith, child…”
A golden 'tear' slipped from the corner of the Dawn Goddess's statue in the sky, then transformed into a holy mist that lingered by Xia Lian's side, nourishing her body, which had been mostly crippled by dark divine power.
Xia Lian was slightly stunned, then playfully stuck out her tongue: “Hehe, it’s great that I didn’t embarrass you.”
This elf Holy Maiden, who had always been favored by divine grace, smiled like a century-old child, just as she had the first time she heard a divine oracle over two hundred years ago.
“Mhm, you've done me proud, girl!”
The divine voice echoing in her mind also carried a smile.
“Goddess, is Wang Yu alright?” Xia Lian, rarely able to communicate directly with the Dawn Goddess, frowned slightly. While continuing to overdraw her body to maintain the divine spell, she asked softly with concern, “I just realized, her power seems to be…”
“Occasionally showing traces of dark divine power, right?”
The goddess statue in the sky seemed to purse her lips slightly.
Xia Lian bit her lip uneasily: “Yes, that was the closest I’ve ever been to dark divine power in my life. That feeling is exactly the same as the aura Wang Yu emits when her divine spells occasionally go out of control. But I can guarantee she’s a good child, so…”
“Don’t worry, I favor that child just as I favor you. As for other matters, you will gradually learn about them later…”
The golden mist slowly dissipated after restoring most of Xia Lian's injuries, and Pa Ke Xi's voice gradually faded.
The elf Holy Maiden slightly raised the corners of her mouth: “Yes~”
...
At the same time.
West City Church.
Mo Tan, sprawled on the ground, struggled to lift his head and asked Yu Cheng, who was kneeling in the resonance array before him, with a wry smile: “Can you move yet?”
“Hmm, still no.” The girl shook her head slightly, whispering, “My stamina is still zero, and even moving a finger is difficult. That negative status called 【Divine Might Lingers】 hasn’t disappeared either. What about you?”
Mo Tan grimaced as he sat up, shrugging: “A little better than you, I can barely move, and I don't have any negative statuses, just pain all over.”
He was still wearing Yu Cheng's rather precious female... uh, equipment, with six metal wings floating behind him, full of cracks, and the golden halo on his head had become dim. Coupled with his expression of utter despair and dead fish eyes, at first glance, he looked like a perverted angel hit in the face with an RPG.
Yu Cheng, on the other hand, looked much better in appearance, but her physical condition was worse. Her stamina had completely dropped to zero, and her snow-white long legs beneath her robe were trembling slightly. Not only could she not move an inch, but she couldn't even perform actions like 'taking a potion from her inventory'.
“By the way, this Goddess isn't going to just leave us hanging here, is she…?”
Mo Tan looked back at the flickering golden phantom behind him, seriously doubting whether a certain Goddess who had said 'I'll be back in a minute' a few minutes ago would keep her promise.
One must know that he and Yu Cheng were in a severely weakened state at the moment; one was challenging all common sense, the other was barely clothed. If a passerby saw them, the consequences would be unimaginable.
“The Goddess will come back~” Yu Cheng seemed to sense Mo Tan's unease and quickly comforted him in a low voice, “If she were to leave, those wings behind you would definitely disappear.”
Mo Tan was about to nod when he heard a crackling sound from behind him, followed by the three pairs of floating cannon-like wings shattering all over the ground...
Shattered all over the ground, can you believe it!?
The next second, the Dawn Goddess statue in mid-air suddenly burst into a flash of light, then slowly disappeared amidst a faint holy song.
Both of them were instantly dumbfounded.
Mo Tan was silent for a long while, then finally gritted his teeth and said, “If it really doesn’t work, let’s just log off…”
“Log off what?”
The golden phantom behind Mo Tan leaned over and laughed, “Afraid I wouldn’t come back to clean up after you?”
Thank goodness, this Goddess finally remembered to come back.
Yu Cheng let out a deep sigh, then very honestly whispered, “Actually, a little…”
“How could I be so unreliable!” Pa Ke Xi put her hands on her hips and snorted.
Mo Tan subtly rolled his eyes. He felt that the Dawn Goddess, who had descended upon him like a ghost, was indeed not very reliable.
She had caused a light explosion simply because she wasn't satisfied with the speed, resulting in Mo Tan crashing straight onto Yu Cheng. Not only was he almost instantly killed by the surging dark divine power on the girl, but he was also almost smited by the system (Yu Cheng told him). Not to mention that terrible idea of swapping equipment... although that terrible idea was indeed quite useful.
However, Mo Tan found it difficult to think of any way to erase his image as a cross-dressing big shot from Yu Cheng's mind, nor did he know how to face this dark history that was destined to be carried to his grave...
“Don’t look at me like that~” The Goddess’s phantom (presumably) gave him a sidelong glance, then slowly said, “I really had no other choice. Do you know how much effort I put into temporarily boosting your physique to the point where you could use Wang Yu’s outfit? Fortunately, Diliya hasn’t paid much attention to the characteristics of you Otherworlders, otherwise, there would have been absolutely no way.”
Mo Tan sighed deeply: “Then I really owe it to your brilliant foresight.”
“Indeed.” The Dawn Goddess didn't hear (or deliberately ignored) the complaint in his words, merely nodding vigorously: “I suddenly remembered that your reliance on equipment is far greater than most people, which is why I came up with this brilliant plan on the fly. I didn't expect that after you became a pervert, your strength would indeed increase greatly, and the power Wang Yu could provide Diliya would suddenly drop significantly. Otherwise, I really might not have been able to finish her off in the shortest time~”
Yu Cheng blinked: “What do you mean by ‘finish her off’…?”
“Just dispersing the consciousness she attached to you, that’s all.” The Dawn Goddess shrugged, saying with a rather regretful tone, “I would have liked to kill her, but unfortunately, killing a deity is simply too difficult. Perhaps you two feel that the beating just now was very effective, but in reality, having a wisp of consciousness dispersed doesn’t even count as an ‘injury’ to our main bodies.”
Mo Tan nodded weakly: “Everything you say is true, but shouldn't we solve our problem first? Yu Cheng can't move at all, and I'm only a tiny bit better than her.”
“Actually, you’re almost there too, it’s just because I haven’t lifted the God Descent yet.” The Dawn Goddess clapped her hands, and then her ‘body’ began to dim at a visible speed: “I will try my best to help you two recover your stamina, but I can’t guarantee the effect…”
“You’re a Goddess, and you can’t even guarantee the effect of helping two mortals recover stamina?” Mo Tan immediately expressed his dissatisfaction.
The Goddess's phantom behind him raised her hands and shot out a mist towards each of them, then rapidly flickered as if her signal was being interfered with, her voice becoming somewhat intermittent: “Nonsense… I… can’t use my… own power in this… world!”
Then, with a 'pop', she disappeared.
Mo Tan immediately felt a strong sense of detachment from within his body. Fortunately, the Goddess's 'treatment' had already begun to take effect, otherwise, he might have just died.
He had been subjected to God Descent for so long at such a low level and without having received divine favor. If Pa Ke Xi hadn't temporarily enhanced his physique and used her last bit of strength to heal him, he would have almost certainly died.
Five minutes later.
The negative status 【Divine Might Lingers】 had disappeared from both Mo Tan and Yu Cheng, so they hurriedly changed their equipment. During this process, Mo Tan spent nearly half a minute, with most of the difficulty concentrated on the 'taking off the dress' part; Yu Cheng helped him with the zipper.
“Here…”
Yu Cheng handed Mo Tan his original equipment, then took the priest's robe he offered her with his back turned. As she clumsily put it on, she softly said, “Thank you, Mo Tan Tong Xue, for everything today.”
“I think we’re both victims.” Mo Tan, busy putting on his pants, said without turning his head, “But I hope you forget today…”
However, before he could finish his sentence, he was interrupted by a figure descending from the sky, followed by an earth-shattering…
“Holy crap! You, you, you, you, you, you guys!!”
Xia Lian, who had rushed over immediately after completing the divine spell array, stared dumbfounded at the two young people before her, her small cherry mouth agape wide enough to fit a duck egg.
Time seemed to freeze at that moment.
“It’s over!”
Mo Tan froze in place as if struck by lightning, his pants only halfway up. Yu Cheng, on the other hand, had her priest's robe half-draped, struggling to reach behind her to pull the zipper.
Mo Tan, who had previously thought 'it would be terrible if someone saw me in women's clothes,' now realized how naive he had been. Because that scene was far from the worst; this was!
Yu Cheng, after several seconds of daze, automatically switched to a 'crashed' state, staring blankly at her Holy Maiden without saying a word.
Xia Lian, after several changes in expression, turned around as if she had seen nothing, whistling as she walked out of the church. Before leaving, she didn't forget to shout, “Just call me when you’re done.”
Mo Tan: “…”
Yu Cheng: “…”
Then, the two, who had been back-to-back, subconsciously turned to look at each other, and Mo Tan immediately covered his nose and collapsed.
Two minutes later.
The two, now fully dressed, reappeared before Xia Lian. Mo Tan seemed dazed, lost in thought, while Yu Cheng, as if possessed by a quail, hunched her neck and remained silent.
“Uh, I’m sorry…” Xia Lian said with an embarrassed smile, tugging at her slightly reddened ears, “I was just worried if something happened to you two, so I forgot to greet you and just rushed in.”
An awkward silence...
“Ahem, but you two also have issues! After all, this place is open on all sides, right? What if someone passed by… right? Luckily it was me who came this time, otherwise, how inappropriate would that be?”
Two awkward silences…
“Tsk tsk, you’re really bold. Just a few minutes after the divine spell array was completed, you two started putting on clothes. I can understand taking them off, but putting them on… sigh, Black Vatican, don’t blame Xia Lian for being blunt. After all, we’re somewhat like family now. I know two good Alchemists, I’ll introduce them to you later.”
Three awkward silences…
“So, shall we go?” Seeing that neither of them spoke, Xia Lian immediately promised loudly, “Don’t worry, I absolutely won’t blab about this today. My lips are sealed.”
Then Yu Cheng remembered how her Holy Maiden had previously ‘reluctantly’ revealed certain details about Ascetic Tom’s appearance to them, and quickly grabbed Xia Lian’s sleeve: “Holy Maiden, it’s not what you think!”
“We are absolutely innocent.” Mo Tan picked up his cross with unusual seriousness and said in a deep voice, “I swear to the Goddess, I absolutely didn’t…”
Bang!
Xia Lian directly kicked him, sending him sprawling, and angrily said, “Are you out of your mind? How dare you lie to the Goddess!”
Mo Tan, who didn't have much stamina left, was instantly kicked dizzy. He struggled for a while but couldn't get up, and then…
A strong sense of incongruity suddenly rose in his heart!
“Not good!”
He immediately guessed what would happen next, so without another word, he sent Yu Cheng a friend message: 'I have an urgent matter here and need to go offline, but since there's an NPC present, I'll definitely faint on the spot. Just find any excuse to explain to Xia Lian!'
Immediately after, he pretended to cover his forehead, then disconnected.
“Ah? What happened to him?”
Xia Lian looked at Mo Tan, who had 'fainted' on the spot, and asked Yu Cheng with great confusion, “Did I upset him?”
“No, no.” The girl, who had received the message in advance, quickly waved her hand, then tried hard to come up with an excuse. Finally…
She had a flash of inspiration and thought of the 【Divine Might Lingers】 negative effect from before, so…
“He must have used up too much energy!” Yu Cheng clapped her hands and seriously told Xia Lian.
“Pfft!”
Chapter 176: End