Silent Crown

Chapter 494 The Eternal Dark

Chapter 494 The Eternal Dark

"I am back to life."

After hearing the former Pope's declaration, Ludovic put on a poker face and coldly looked at him.

Resurgence?

Nonsense!

As a member of the cardinal church, Ludovic had already read many classified papers and knew that the so-called "resurgence" written in the Holy Bible was just bullsh*t.

If someone could be brought back to life, there would be no need to elect a new King of Red. Why not just let the first King of Red rule this world for eternity?

If someone wanted to make a dead person "alive" again, Ludovic knew many ways to do so.

People from the School of Modifications would do so by "rebuilding a human body." By putting the basic elements, (iron, calcium, sodium, and kalium, for example), into water, they could make a perfect human body.

People from the School of Choir would do so via "proliferation of flesh." With just a small piece of human flesh, they could create an intact human body.

People from the School of Magic would do so by turning an illusion into a reality; people from the School of Summoning would create a monster with a human body…

Of course, their way of doing so could never be called "resurgence," or at least, not the perfect resurgence.

"I see, the one who died is actually your substitute?" Ludovic said. "I should have been more careful."

The old keeper shook his head and said, "If there is a substitute, I should be the substitute, or to be more precise, I am the previous incarnation of the former Pope, but I am not the Pope, and neither are you."

Hearing this, Ludovic sneered. "If you want to be the Pope again, at least do it like a man! I have known you for such a long time, but I still do not know how much strength you have. I will take this opportunity to test how capable you—the former King of Red—really are!"

Hearing this, the old keeper sighed deeply.

"There is no need. I am not the former King of Red. Why should I fight a human of the Hyakume? Please do me a favor and let me go! I promise I won't take the seat of Pope from you."

The old keeper shamelessly asked Ludovic to spare him. "You have already been elected in the Sixtinum conference. Everyone has seen you wearing the crown on your head and holding the scepter in your hand. You are the new Pope, aren't you?"

The old keeper continued to say, "Although the Pope is just a title, or in other words, you become the new Pope after you wear the pope's robe. Still, there is one last thing you have to do to become a real Pope."

At the same time, the ground began to tremble and crack. Soon, the ground fell into pieces, and the machine operating beneath was revealed.

The iron and steel were rubbing against each other, and iron hammers were striking at the iron and steel-made floor. Beneath this floor, Ludovic saw the boiling lava. The machine was absorbing all the heat rising from the lava and operating very quickly.

A huge winch slowly rotated and lifted an iron coffin from the lava.

Since the coffin had absorbed a lot of heat, it turned red. When it landed on the floor, it didn't give off any heat at all. In fact, something inside the coffin was absorbing the heat.

Ludovic looked at the Holy Ax and found that the crystal clear blood was gone.

At the same time, the coffin began to collapse.

Inside the coffin, there was a huge petri dish in which floated an iron and steel skeleton.

The Holy Blood poured into the petri dish. In the blink of an eye, it turned into numerous red crystals and stuck itself on the surface of the skeleton, covering it.

The red crystals became a layer of flesh.

The machine was making a deafening sound. The flesh was changing color, one moment the color of iron, the next moment it turned green or white. At last, it turned the color of human flesh.

Now what was inside the petri dish was a human body. Muscle, tendon, sinew, organs, skin, and hair, this body had everything.

Suddenly, the petri dish broke and the sticky liquid inside splashed around. The "man" finally opened his eyes and pulled up the long and sharp tube from the back of his head, then he threw it onto the ground.

Even his eyes looked like a human's.

Surprisingly, his face looked exactly like Ludovic's!

The old keeper was chewing nuts, then he coldly said, "You have changed?"

The new-born "Ludovic" nodded and looked at his palm: "I am feeling very good."

At first, his voice was a bit hoarse, but soon, he began to speak fluently and his voice sounded exactly like Ludovic's.

He glanced at the old keeper and said, "Your body is made of really bad material."

"Even if that is true, I don't think you should make that clear in front of my face!" The old keeper sighed. "Although my body doesn't look good, after so many years, I have already gotten used to this body! Besides, without this body, how can you manage to go to the outside world? It is fine that you don't say thank you to me, but you should not dislike my body! You are such a jerk!"

Ludovic was speechless.

Seeing this, the old keeper shook his head and sighed. "The process of copying the real Ludovic's personality is still on? Or you have not got any sense of humor?"

The new-born Ludovic didn't answer the old keeper. Instead, he turned to the real Ludovic, who was wearing a gloomy face and holding the scepter in his hand.

"Now you can give the scepter back to me," he said.

"I see." The real Ludovic looked at him coldly and said, "You are dead, right? You are not even a living thing, you just look like a human. I never thought that all the former Popes were just a bunch of puppets!"

The real Ludovic stared at the old keeper and said mockingly, "I never thought the purpose of holding the Sixtinum Conference was just to find a new body for this damn thing! How about the individuality you have all been so proud of? Does this damn thing also get his own individuality?"

"You call me 'damn thing'? It seems that you have not recognized me yet," the 'Ludovic' said. "How disappointing! Ludovic, you have just mocked me and said I have not got my own stance."

"You are Nibelungenlied?"

The old keeper shook his head and said, "No, he is the 'King of Red.'"

The dim light in the altar began to expand, and soon lit the whole palace as well as the wall behind the altar.

The real Ludovic looked at the wall and found that sixteen crystal boxes were engraved into the wall.

The boxes were filled with liquid that was shining a strange color. Inside each crystal box, there was a brain.

The brains were still working. Some of the brains had withered a bit, but they still looked very fresh.

The strains were twining around the brains, connecting with the brains' consciousness. If looked at from a distance, they looked like grass.

The strains stretched out of the crystal boxes and intertwined with each other and extended to the Alchemy Array. Along the array, they reached to the deepest part of the underground palace and connected with countless brains there.

Every month, some brains would be picked out to become part of the system of the Alchemy Array. Hence, the dead could be reborn in the underground palace, the "world of the dead."

"See? This is the real Nibelungenlied." The old keeper gently touched the crystal boxes and murmured, "This is the 'world of the dead' beneath the Sacred City."

"You guys…" Ludovic was so angry that even his face turned blue. He clenched his teeth and said, "You guys dedicated yourselves to Nibelungenlied?"

"No, you are wrong. We coexist with Nibelungenlied." The new-born Ludovic stared at the fragile strains and said, "Among the three saints, the real body of Nibelungenlied is just a parasite that is similar to the strain. Its consciousness is too weak to exist and can only exist with the help of a human."

"The first King of Red made an agreement with it and integrated part of his brain into Nibelungenlied's consciousness. The strains of Nibelungenlied remained alive by absorbing nutrition from the brains, and at the same time, they also helped to keep these former Popes' consciousness working, and connected all their brains together."

In this way, humanity was able to inherit the scary secrets of the ancient dark era and fight against the catastrophe.

With the help of all the former Popes, the consciousness of Nibelungenlied grew so large that a human could never compete with it. Now it had become the foundation of the Sacred City and the human world.

When a cardinal was elected as the new Pope in the Sixtinum Conference, he would come to this place and became the new "keeper" of the altar ever after.

When the new successor came, he would integrate part of his brain into the consciousness of Nibelungenlied, just like so many of his predecessors had in the past.

From the outside, what people saw was just the huge system of the church supported by the artificial intelligence "Catastrophe ·Nibelungenlied." This system was also a financial system based on the "Black Gold," and under this system, capital could flow freely between the Sacred City and other countries.

The "beacon" was the eyes of the system, which helped to monitor all the happenings in the world. The artificial intelligence that was made up of countless brains helped the cardinal group to maintain the stability and balance of the world.

Just like Ludovic had been told, the "Catastrophe Nibelungenlied" had been recording and witnessing all the happenings in this world, and this was just one of its duties.

In fact, the sixteen brains of the former Popes were the real boss that controlled everything.

With Nibelungenlied as the center, the dead, the living, the saints, the humans, and the catastrophe were all integrated into a whole.

In front of the altar, the puppet, or the "Pope" unfolded his hands and began to speak in the tone of a Pope.

"Ludovic, what you have seen is the real King of Red, which is a combination of all the sixteen former Popes!"

Next to the Pope stood the old keeper. He sighed and glanced at Ludovic and said, "Thanks to you, I now become the seventeenth… as for you, you will have to wait another thirty years, so you can join us in the crystal box."

Ludovic didn't answer him, he just stared coldly at the Pope and the old keeper in front of him and began to sneer.

"Humanity's little tricks never fail to surprise me."

"Just give in, there is no need to put on a show at this moment." The old keeper looked at Ludovic and shook his head. "You have already lost. If I were you, I would say 'this is impossible!' Don't you think it would be more appropriate in this situation?"

"Lost?" Ludovic sneered and dropped his scepter onto the ground. "You are wrong. You are the one who has lost!"

Bang!

Ludovic's body cracked, and soon the crack crawled all over his body. He didn't look like a human at all, instead he just looked like porcelain that was going to fall into pieces. There was no blood nehind the crack, only the infinite dark that led to the abyss.

Dark flame came from the cracks. Both his face and clothes were burnt, and his real appearance was revealed.

On Ludovic's head rested a three-layer crown that had a dark purple gemstone on it. In his hand, there was a scepter. The scepter was made of bone, and there was a holy bone emblem on the end of it. Now the emblem had turned red.

Ludovic was wearing a pure dark robe that was decorated with silver lines. On his robe, there was a scene of hell.

When his flesh was all burnt, his bone revealed. His bones looked very solemn and were decorated with black gold, agate, and amber.

A black fog was swirling on his face, and it looked rather dark and holy.

He still looked like a Pope, a gloomy and bizarre Pope. He was the former "Dark Pope!"

At the same time, the whole Holy Palace of Sarroman was engulfed by the air of the abyss.

"Seriously? This is what you want?" The old keeper wiped away the sweat on his forehead and glanced at the Pope in front of him. "I will leave him to you then!"

Then, he quickly grasped the scepter on the ground, fell into the crack in the ground, and vanished.

"Now, let's begin," the former Dark Pope said.

His voice was very loud and echoed in the world.

His hoarse but solemn and magnificent voice could be heard everywhere in the Sacred City. Moreover, his voice quickly spread to the wilderness in all directions.

From the Permafrost Land in the north to the infinitive sea in the west; from the burning desert in the south to the tens of thousands of mountains in the east; his voice even reached to the dark world and the Aether world…

People in Asgard, Anglo, Burgundy, the Commonwealth of Caucasus, and the Empire of Aurora could all hear the sound; all of humanity, no matter if they were awake or asleep, old or young, man or woman, could all hear his sound.

The infinite darkness soon erupted from the abyss that was at the bottom of the Aether world. Meanwhile, the magnificent ring echoed in the abyss.

Hearing this sound, all the musicians were shocked. They felt like the whole Sea of Aether was boiling.

They had never seen such a scary scene before. In the Sea of Aether, countless waves were created and thousands of miles of wave crest were moving in all directions.

A violent storm blew across the sea and created countless tornados and hurricanes. Due to this, all the musicians lost the ability to practice the musical movements.

The ring was still echoing, and at the same time, the scary Aether wave began to rise from the wilderness.

The catastrophe had come!

In the central palace, sounds of alarm that no one had ever heard before were echoing.

The Silver Tide, the Holy White Storm, the Destructive Flame Rain, the Abaddon Locust Plague… the eight bizarre phenomena all appeared.

The silver Sea of Aether turned scarlet, numerous waves turned into the blood tide, which indicated the doomsday was coming.

Soon, ten burning suns appeared in the sky.

"They are coming! They are coming!" The observers in different countries yelled and screamed.

Hearing the ring of the Bell of Ruin, all the catastrophes in the forbidden area of the dark world woke up.

Following the sound of the bell, they came to the human world.

The beast of chaos, Bahamut, Eagle Wing Mother, the son of spider, Certus, the eyeless snake…

In just a few seconds, more than ten scary catastrophes had already woken up.

Even the Dark Gaia had showed herself again.

In the abyss, all the dark creatures cast their eyes to the physical world and stared at the Sacred City.

In the deepest part of the abyss, an extremely huge and scary figure opened its eyes.

One pair of eyes, two pairs of eyes, three pairs of eyes… countless eyes were blinking in the darkness. This was the body of Hyakume, and it was waking up!

"Your golden era is over!" it said, via the incarnation of the former Dark Pope. Everyone heard its hoarse sound, which was so loud that their souls were shaken. Accompanied with the ring, it seemed that everything was going to be devoured by the abyss.

"From now on! The eternal dark shall befall!"