Chapter 473: Little Goddess of Holy Light
It was that familiar feeling of the world spinning again.
Although the sensation of being forcefully dragged into another space wasn’t comfortable, Qin Chu actually felt relieved at this moment. At least it indicated that the Goddess of Holy Light hadn’t been completely eliminated by the Seven Abominations of the Void.
The seal hadn’t been reinforced to the point where Qin Chu couldn’t contact the Goddess of Holy Light.
And the Goddess of Holy Light hadn’t weakened to the point where she lacked the strength to even pull him over… Regardless, this was a good thing.
Although Qin Chu could anticipate that unbearable weakness awaited him again, the ‘charge’ stored in his body would once more be drained completely by the Goddess of Holy Light.
Qin Chu wondered if he had a bit of an M-tendency. Clearly, this was a very bad and uncomfortable process, yet he actually felt somewhat happy at this moment.
The passage of time had become very strange. Qin Chu didn’t feel much time had passed, seemingly just a brief instant, before the bizarre, distorted sensation disappeared.
Qin Chu’s figure reappeared inside a cage.
But… what the hell?
Qin Chu was a bit stunned when he saw the surrounding cage.
He seriously suspected he had come to the wrong place.
Originally, the cage was enormous, like a mountain, and the bars constituting it were like colossal stone pillars reaching the heavens.
But the cage at this moment barely allowed Qin Chu to stand upright; slightly tiptoeing would make him hit the bars overhead.
The colossal stone pillars had all shrunk to the thickness of a thumb, completely lacking their original grandeur.
Qin Chu couldn’t help but clutch his hair. Wasn’t this just an ordinary prison cell? Although some familiar chains were still wrapped around the outside of the cage, Qin Chu still seriously suspected he was in the wrong place.
Looking around, there wasn’t even a single person in sight.
This… couldn’t be that they set up a cage and locked him inside, right? Was the hand from before not the Goddess of Holy Light’s, but some Evil God’s? Had he still fallen into the pit dug by the Seven Abominations of the Void? This was too terrible.
“What are you looking at? I’m right here!”
Suddenly, a crisp voice entered Qin Chu’s ears.
Qin Chu’s expression changed abruptly, his gaze instantly shooting towards the direction the voice came from.
But there was nothing before him.
His expression grew increasingly grave, his brows knitting tightly together.
Invisibility?
He couldn’t sense even the slightest fluctuation.
As expected of the Seven Abominations of the Void. If they want to hide their presence from me, my current self truly cannot detect them.
“Hey, where are you looking? Here.”
That crisp voice came again, faintly tinged with some dissatisfaction.
Tsk, truly unreasonable.
Teasing me like this, I haven’t even gotten angry yet, and you’re getting angry first?
Qin Chu didn’t respond, still frowning deeply, his gaze scanning the cage, searching for the speaker’s figure.
Then…
His calf was kicked hard. It hurt a bit.
Subconsciously, Qin Chu’s gaze finally shifted downwards in front of him. He was then surprised to find a tiny figure, only reaching his knee height, had appeared before him at some unknown time.
It was a little girl.
Her cheeks were rosy, exquisitely carved like jade. Golden eyes sparkled, long eyelashes fluttered. Though young, she already possessed an air of refined, otherworldly beauty. Her silver hair was even longer than her height, spread out on the cage floor.
She was so exquisite she didn’t look real, more like a perfect, delicate figurine. Because she was just too small, Qin Chu hadn’t noticed her immediately.
Although this little girl was cute, she seemed very angry. Her cheeks puffed out like a little pufferfish, her teeth clenched together, grinding audibly.
Qin Chu’s brain stalled for a moment.
Looking at the little girl’s adorable appearance, the layer of milky-white light surrounding her, that iconic silver-white hair like a long waterfall, and some inexplicably familiar aura… he felt that this person before him seemed somewhat similar to the Goddess of Holy Light he had encountered several times before.
However, if the Goddess of Holy Light’s temperament was gentle and steady, then this little girl before him was mischievous and elfin.
Could it be… the Goddess of Holy Light’s daughter?
Tsk, as expected of the Goddess. Even the daughter she bore is so beautiful.
If she really is the Goddess’s daughter… then she’s definitely someone I can’t afford to offend. Speaking of which, didn’t this little brat just kick me?
But considering she’s the daughter of a god, I’ll be magnanimous and not hold it against her.
His eyes darted around. A gentle, gentlemanly smile appeared on Qin Chu’s face, and he even squatted down.
Unfortunately, this little girl was just too short. Even squatting, Qin Chu still had to lower his head. He reached out his hand and gently patted the little girl’s head twice: “Little girl, where’s your mommy?”
Undoubtedly, Qin Chu’s action greatly displeased the little girl. Feeling offended, she swatted away Qin Chu’s impolite paw. She also seemed puzzled by Qin Chu’s words, tilting her head and frowning: “Huh? Mommy?”
“I mean the Goddess of Holy Light,” Qin Chu explained. “Your mother is the Goddess of Holy Light, right? That very tall, very big woman…”
As Qin Chu spoke, he gestured with his hands. His gaze towards the little girl even held some pity.
Could it be this child has been locked in this cage since birth? Completely ignorant of the outside world, doesn’t even understand what ‘mommy’ means? How tragic.
The little girl seemed rather helpless. She rubbed her forehead with an air of premature world-weariness, her large eyes glancing at Qin Chu with slight vacancy, seemingly speechless at this man’s intelligence.
After a moment, the little girl finally spoke: “I… am the Goddess of Holy Light.”
Pfft…
Qin Chu almost choked.
You are the Goddess of Holy Light?
Stop joking.
Impossible, absolutely impossible, okay.
Bang…
Seemingly sensing the offense in Qin Chu’s expression, the little girl kicked him again.
This time, Qin Chu finally managed to keep his expression steady, staring again at the little figure before him: “You really are the Goddess of Holy Light?”
Actually, Qin Chu hadn’t entirely dismissed this possibility. After all, she was the most powerful native god of the Heavenly Continent; changing forms shouldn’t be difficult.
It was just that during Qin Chu’s limited interactions with the Goddess of Holy Light, she had always appeared as a figure thousands of meters tall. Suddenly transforming into such a tiny thing, the contrast was simply too great.
If it were just a change in appearance, that would be secondary. What truly made it hard for Qin Chu to believe this little brat was the Goddess of Holy Light was the stark difference in their temperaments and personalities.
The Great Goddess of Holy Light was elegant, noble, filled with majesty, yet radiating a warmth that calmed the body and mind.
The Little Goddess of Holy Light was mischievous, playful, and cute.
It was precisely because of the strong contrasts in various aspects that even though the thought of this little girl being the Goddess of Holy Light had surfaced several times in Qin Chu’s mind, he had quickly extinguished it himself.
Compared to her being the Goddess of Holy Light, Qin Chu would rather believe she was the Goddess of Holy Light’s daughter.
The little girl placed her hands on her hips: “Of course! Would I lie to you? I am the Goddess of Holy Light.”
Her tiny body and tender face tried hard to put on a majestic expression, which only made her look cuter.
“Still don’t believe it, right? You and I agreed that you would come over every seven days to replenish my energy. Why did you miss the last two appointments?” The Little Goddess of Holy Light widened her round eyes, staring at Qin Chu, reprimanding him for breaking his promise.
Alright, she even knew about that. She was undoubtedly the Goddess of Holy Light.
Although Qin Chu had already squatted down, he was still looking down at the Goddess of Holy Light from above.
This posture seemed somewhat disrespectful. Qin Chu simply sat down on the floor. He was actually trying very hard to adopt a respectful posture, but it was impossible. She was just too mini, and her mischievous, cute temperament really made it hard for Qin Chu to feel respectful.
Qin Chu helplessly explained what had happened before. It wasn’t that he was unwilling to fulfill the agreement, but he simply couldn’t.
During this period, forget providing energy to the Goddess of Holy Light, Qin Chu himself was half-dead.
Although the Little Goddess of Holy Light was a bit dissatisfied, there was nothing to be done about it, so she had to endure it.
“Then, Goddess… cough cough, Your Excellency, can you tell me what happened to you?” Comparatively, Qin Chu was more interested in why the Goddess of Holy Light had turned into such a tiny figure.
Recalling the fluctuations he had sensed from the vortex earlier, Qin Chu actually had a rough guess in his heart.
“Fought a battle with those seven ugly abominations.”
The Little Goddess of Holy Light answered somewhat sullenly, clearly very displeased. Seemingly tired from standing for a long time, she simply imitated Qin Chu and sat down on the ground, wrapping her lotus-root-like arms around her knees, her long silver hair spreading out on either side of her body.
The Goddess of Holy Light hadn’t just shrunk in size; it was more like an all-around regression. Even her personality had become more childlike, and her emotional fluctuations were richer than before.
Although, in Qin Chu’s opinion, this version of the Goddess of Holy Light was easier to approach.
Then, the Little Goddess of Holy Light glared fiercely at Qin Chu again: “Isn’t it all because of you…”
“Because of me?” Qin Chu pointed at his nose.
“Nonsense, who else could it be? You are my only servant now.” The Little Goddess of Holy Light bit her lip lightly with her pearly teeth. “Just some time ago, while trapped in the cage, I sensed an unusually high frequency of communication among the seven ugly abominations. I suspected they were plotting something.”
“As a deity, I have my own senses.”
“Although I didn’t know exactly what they wanted to do, one thing was certain: their target was you.”
“So, I deliberately stirred up resistance within the cage, firmly attracting all the attention of the seven ugly abominations here… Since you can appear here, you should have successfully overcome this crisis?”
Chapter 474: Embracing the Goddess
Listening to the Goddess of Holy Light’s words, Qin Chu roughly understood what had happened in the Void.
The Goddess of Holy Light sensed the Seven Abominations of the Void were plotting something. Using her divine power, she foresaw that this plan might target him. Thus, she initiated resistance within the cage to attract the attention of the Seven Abominations.
However, the Goddess of Holy Light was not at full strength after all; she was currently in a phase of power depletion.
Although Qin Chu could provide some recovery, it was clearly insufficient.
The result of the battle was the Goddess of Holy Light’s defeat. She failed to break her restraints and, due to further energy depletion, her body shrank to its current size.
However, it seemed the situation wasn’t much better for the Seven Abominations either. Although they won the seven-against-one fight, it could only be described as a pyrrhic victory. At the very least, they no longer possessed the ability to completely eliminate the Goddess of Holy Light while she was extremely weakened; otherwise, Qin Chu wouldn’t be able to see her now.
Recalling the strange, mysterious threads within Sylph’s body and the divine statues forming a trap in Athena’s soul world, Qin Chu was suddenly alarmed.
At that time, the Seven Abominations of the Void must have been suppressing the Goddess of Holy Light.
If not for the conflict here, what he would have faced in Athena’s soul wouldn’t have just been five statues, but potentially the descended wills of five gods.
Previously, just confronting the will of the God of Blood, Death, and Darkness had left him half-dead. If he had faced the wills of five gods simultaneously, he wouldn’t even know how he died.
A wave of fear washed over Qin Chu, cold sweat beading on his forehead.
“Those seven ugly abominations…” Qin Chu asked cautiously.
“Ugly abominations?” The Goddess of Holy Light smiled; the term was quite fitting.
“There are seven of them, after all. Their situation is much better than mine. However, for some time to come, they probably won’t have much strength to interfere with the lower world. This should be good news for you, right?”
It was indeed good news.
“However, don’t get happy too soon.” Glancing sideways at Qin Chu, the Goddess of Holy Light spoke again: “Their losses are ultimately less severe than mine, and their recovery speed is also faster than mine. Do you understand what I mean?”
The smile on Qin Chu’s face gradually faded. Of course, he understood. This was good news, but also a crisis.
The Goddess of Holy Light had been imprisoned for too long. This time, to hold back the Seven Abominations and prevent her only servant from being killed by them, the Goddess of Holy Light had no time to consider the power consumption, nearly exhausting herself.
Once the Seven Abominations recovered before the Goddess of Holy Light, the weakened Goddess wouldn’t require much power to suppress. They could then turn more attention towards the Heavenly Continent, and his crisis would arrive again.
Worse still, perhaps the Seven Abominations would seize this opportunity to gain the ability to completely destroy the Goddess of Holy Light.
Once the Goddess of Holy Light died, Qin Chu could forget about playing; he might as well surrender immediately, although the other side probably wouldn’t accept his surrender anyway.
And compared to the Goddess of Holy Light, who could only recover energy through Qin Chu, the Seven Abominations clearly had more ways to recover.
Understanding this, Qin Chu’s brow furrowed tightly as well.
“In short, the help I can provide you in the coming period will be extremely limited. You must be extra careful yourself. I don’t want my only servant to die so inexplicably.”
“However, what exactly did you do? When I was fighting those seven fellows earlier, I could clearly feel that the power of faith was much more abundant than before, even richer than before the Evil Gods’ erosion?” The Goddess of Holy Light was somewhat curious.
The Goddess of Holy Light’s words made Qin Chu feel a bit helpless. It seemed that even without the invasion of Evil Gods, the faith on the Heavenly Continent was just so-so.
You are the most powerful native god! How did you manage to make faith so scarce?
Qin Chu briefly explained. The expression on the Little Goddess of Holy Light’s face became so strange that Qin Chu didn’t even know how to describe it.
Eggs, milk, bread?
The Little Goddess of Holy Light suddenly felt a wave of fatigue wash over her. What was this?
It felt as though the millennia, tens of millennia, of hard work by the gods had all been in vain.
As a deity, she didn’t want to interfere too much with the world. She gave humanity ample autonomy, allowing people to develop according to their own will.
But seeing weak humans struggling to survive under the attacks of savage beasts, she couldn’t bear it. She taught humans, enabling them to master the power of elements and gain the capital to fight against the beasts.
She guided humanity, teaching them to think.
Step by step, from savagery to civilization.
She didn’t directly give humanity anything. She hoped that under the guidance of the gods, humanity could become an independent race, capable of surviving safely in this world even if they lost the protection of the gods one day.
The gods thus gained the faith of humanity.
But, all of this seemed less effective at garnering people’s gratitude than the eggs, milk, and bread directly distributed by Qin Chu.
What irony.
Perhaps it was precisely because her form had shrunk and her personality had become more humanized that the Goddess of Holy Light experienced such severe self-doubt.
And Qin Chu understood the reasoning behind this very well.
The saying “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”… sounded reasonable, but it wasn’t applicable to everyone, at least not to the vast majority of people on the Heavenly Continent.
Directly giving someone a fish would, at least at that moment, earn their sincere gratitude.
Teaching someone how to fish seemed like giving them a means of livelihood, but this method wouldn’t yield immediate results. Before they could catch fish themselves, they would still suffer from hunger, and might not feel much gratitude towards you.
Even if one day they did catch a fish, there could be two outcomes: first, they would be genuinely grateful for your help and teaching; second, they might feel it was the result of their own hard work and had little to do with you.
In Qin Chu’s view, the people of the Heavenly Continent were significantly more likely to have the second thought.
Perhaps the first generation who learned to fish would be grateful for the Goddess of Holy Light’s guidance, but the second, third, fourth generations? As generations passed, they were no longer mastering livelihoods under the Goddess’s guidance but inheriting them from their parents and grandparents. Faith in the Goddess of Holy Light would naturally decline over time.
Teaching someone how to cultivate power would never garner as much gratitude as directly bestowing power upon them.
Teaching someone how to hunt would never garner as much faith as directly gifting them food.
This was the Heavenly Continent.
“But, by doing this, aren’t you raising those humans like livestock?” The Little Goddess of Holy Light pursed her lips, muttering softly.
“Is there a problem? I provide them with food, they provide me with faith. Both sides get what they want. It’s a win-win,” Qin Chu had his own explanation.
“Livestock being raised?”
“To put it bluntly, countless people wish for such an opportunity and don’t get it.”
The Goddess of Holy Light frowned tightly: “But won’t this also cause problems? Over time, people will take the free food for granted…”
“Once the food you provide is insufficient, or the quality isn’t good enough, it might even cause chaos.”
“Faith will also decline.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Qin Chu shrugged, completely unconcerned about this issue.
“As long as these people are kept struggling just below the line of subsistence, then this free food will be indispensable to them.”
“At the same time, just pick out some examples every so often, kick them out on the grounds of insufficient piety, and let the remaining believers witness how miserable these people’s lives become. They will naturally become more pious out of fear.”
“As for chaos and troublemaking? When you hold the power to kill them at any time, chaos is never a problem.”
“A deity must not only show mercy but also demonstrate strength.”
“Mercy doesn’t necessarily exchange for faith, but fear absolutely can.”
The Little Goddess of Holy Light stared blankly at the man before her.
Is this really my servant?
Although she had long understood that this man was definitely not a good person, such ruthless thoughts still made the Little Goddess of Holy Light feel somewhat strange.
Qin Chu could see the thoughts in the Little Goddess of Holy Light’s mind. He just shrugged nonchalantly: “Your Excellency Goddess, times have changed.”
“Your methods no longer work.”
“Moreover, you know better than I do what kind of situation we are in now.”
“Following your methods, how long do you think it will take for you to recover enough strength to fight the seven ugly abominations? Will those seven monsters give you enough time?”
Although her benevolent nature made it difficult for the Little Goddess of Holy Light to accept Qin Chu’s words, reason told her that Qin Chu’s methods were definitely the most effective.
She didn’t want the humans she guided to end up being raised like livestock, but she also understood that if she couldn’t recover her strength, eternal destruction awaited the Heavenly Continent.
The Little Goddess of Holy Light tacitly approved Qin Chu’s methods.
“Do as you see fit.”
Then her large eyes looked towards Qin Chu. Qin Chu understood it was his turn to be the power bank.
However, previously when the Goddess of Holy Light absorbed power from him, she directly enveloped his entire body with her hands. With a body thousands of meters tall, her palms were wider than blankets to Qin Chu.
But the current Little Goddess of Holy Light could probably only barely cover a small part.
Just as Qin Chu was wondering how the Goddess of Holy Light would draw power from him this time, the Goddess suddenly stood up, turned around, and faced away from Qin Chu.
Then she sat directly in Qin Chu’s lap.
“Hold me.”
A cool voice came from the Little Goddess of Holy Light’s mouth.
Eh?
Ehhhhh?
Qin Chu was shocked. What was this situation?
Directly hold the Goddess of Holy Light? That’s not quite right, is it? Isn’t this blasphemy?
He was a very devout believer, after all.
