The Holy Scripture and the Stellar Conspiracy

Unbeknownst to Allen, the gentle flutter of his wings had already set in motion a tempest of monumental proportions.

At this very moment, he sat in an interrogation room belonging to the Heretical Inquisition, a chamber as frigid as a morgue, utterly engrossed in a novel.

No, that wasn’t quite right; it was ‘The Holy Scripture’.

A suspect, one accused of heresy, was ravenously poring over the very core tenets of their faith, right there on the Inquisition’s hallowed ground?

Such a sight caused even the most seasoned guard knights, accustomed to countless strange occurrences, to feel an involuntary twitch at the corners of their eyes.

****

The Church, without a shadow of a doubt, constituted the most profoundly concealed core of the world within ‘Stellar Love Song’. It stood akin to a colossal tree, its roots sprawling across the continent and its branches caressing the celestial dome. ‘The Holy Scripture’, in turn, represented its innermost rings. Within its very lines, there lay the unconscious potential to allude to truths buried by the relentless march of time, truths powerful enough to utterly shatter established understanding.

In his previous cycles, Allen recalled his academy teachers mentioning during history lessons that ‘The Holy Scripture’ had been passed down from an ancient age of myth. Its contents were remarkably rich, having been augmented numerous times, and the precise date of its compilation remained lost to history.

In a peculiar sense, ‘The Holy Scripture’ transcended the definition of a mere religious text; it functioned more as a living chronicle of history.

The developers of ‘Stellar Love Song’, seemingly wary of sensitive subject matter, had deliberately omitted the specific contents of ‘The Holy Scripture’ and any detailed lore concerning the Church from the game itself.

This same pattern, Allen noted, had regrettably extended into the real world as well.

Throughout his previous cycles, Allen had searched in vain for any books pertaining to the Church within the academy’s extensive library.

This conspicuous absence, he realized, was clearly a deliberate act of suppression by the academy.

He had only managed to glean insights into the Church’s origins from a single volume, titled ‘The History of the Founding of the Kingdom of Lorraine’.

‘The History of the Founding of the Kingdom of Lorraine’ was a historical account penned by a court scholar, distinguishing it from the speculative unofficial histories that often circulated among the common folk. Consequently, its historical data possessed a considerable degree of credibility.

The book chronicled that the Kingdom of Lorraine’s history commenced with a cataclysm of apocalyptic proportions. This disaster had, almost instantaneously, annihilated every thriving human nation across the continent, leaving behind nothing but desolate ruins and indelible scars upon the earth.

Human civilization, it seemed, harbored a deeply ingrained collective subconscious memory of some grand catastrophe. It was hardly uncommon for such disasters to serve as the genesis of myths or historical narratives, though Allen, of course, remained uncertain as to the veracity of these numerous accounts.

More than a millennium ago, Camille Durand, the visionary founder of the Kingdom of Lorraine, while human civilization yet flourished, put his faith in the dire prophecy of a madman who vehemently declared the world’s impending demise.

He embarked on a desperate endeavor, constructing an ark to weather the coming apocalypse, pouring nearly all his energy and vast fortune into the monumental task. In doing so, he became an object of widespread ridicule, dismissed as a mere jester by the world.

The prophesied day arrived precisely as foretold, yet the apocalypse itself showed no discernible trace.

Camille Durand’s grand undertaking was irrevocably reduced to a jest, and all who knew of it derided his perceived foolishness.

Yet, just as Camille Durand’s resolve began to falter, the very madman who had prophesied the doom sought him out and declared: “The wicked shall assuredly not escape their due punishment, but the lineage of the righteous shall find deliverance.”

“The apparent deviation in the prophecy was, in truth, a chance bestowed upon humanity by God. Alas, mankind failed to cherish it.”

Just as the madman had prophesied, following the ark’s completion, humanity’s descent into depravity reached unprecedented depths.

Mankind had lost the impetus to progress, instead channeling its finite energies into relentless internal strife.

As resources dwindled inexorably, the desperate struggle for survival ignited a brutal war over the dwindling remnants of what remained.

Innumerable lives were extinguished in this conflict, and countless fortunes dissolved into nothingness.

Until, at last, the apocalypse descended.

In their terror, people met utter annihilation. Yet, Camille Durand, against all expectations, welcomed those who had once ridiculed him into his ark, and within its confines, they safely weathered the cataclysm.

Once the disaster had subsided, the very madman who had foretold the apocalypse willingly unveiled his true identity.

He revealed himself to have been an ordinary, nameless individual from a forgotten age, a time when humanity had utterly abandoned its faith.

Yet, one fateful day, he received a divine revelation. God informed him that malevolent entities, lurking in the profound depths of the stars, had fixed their gaze upon humanity, and that mankind was on the precipice of utter annihilation.

His sacred task was to rekindle the faith humanity had forsaken, to employ the prophecy of doom to ignite a sense of urgency within mankind, and to seek a path to salvation.

He embraced this mission with alacrity, becoming the inheritor of the ancient Church’s will and the progenitor of the nascent Church.

He was none other than Saint Leon, the final holy figure chronicled within the pages of the modern ‘Holy Scripture’.

Camille Durand, the inaugural King of Lorraine, forged a solemn covenant with Saint Leon. Together, upon the desolate lands left in the wake of the apocalypse, they would toil with immense hardship, clearing forests, reclaiming barren earth, and establishing a kingdom. For generations, their descendants would stand as guardians over the ark of salvation, which had, by then, become the sacred sanctuary of the Church.

Legend held that after a millennium, this very ark would once more bear humanity, setting forth on a renewed journey.

When Allen had finished reading that book all those years ago, his numerous questions regarding the Church had not diminished in the slightest; instead, they had proliferated exponentially.

‘An age of forgotten faith… disaster… saints… an ark… the apocalypse…’

‘What in the world is all this?!’

Logically, a single-player otome romance game should not, by all accounts, possess a world with such profound and intricate lore.

Yet, the world of ‘Stellar Love Song’ operated with a complex, yet remarkably self-consistent, logic. Every seemingly absurd phenomenon within it found an explanation.

The answers that had eluded Allen in his previous cycles, he now mused, might very well be concealed within the pages of ‘The Holy Scripture’ he held—a text the original game had conspicuously neglected to mention.

For a meticulous lore enthusiast like Allen, the prospect of meticulously unraveling the hidden intricacies of ‘Stellar Love Song”s original settings was anything but tedious; it was an exhilarating pursuit!

‘This is three thousand times more thrilling than devouring the most satisfying webnovel!’

Harboring a profound sense of bewilderment and a nascent thrill, Allen drew a deep breath and slowly opened the weighty cover. The ancient script and the yellowed parchment pages swiftly consumed his attention, drawing him into their depths.

He became utterly immersed, occasionally furrowing his brow in profound contemplation, at other times unconsciously tapping his fingertips lightly against the edge of the pages. His entire being radiated an aura of intense focus, utterly incongruous with the frigid confines of the interrogation room.

****

The very genesis myth that opened ‘The Holy Scripture’ delivered a staggering blow to Allen’s understanding!

“In the primordial expanse, naught existed save the boundless void. From a profound slumber, God awoke, and perceiving His solitude, conceived the notion of creation. What God wrought was but a ‘gentle nudge’—this, the primordial impetus, formed the very bedrock of the cosmos’s inception. From this, the sun, moon, and stars began their ceaseless dance, and the vast rivers of stars flowed forth…”

This passage, when interpreted, conveyed the following:

The cosmos, it posited, did not burst forth from chaos or explosion, but rather originated from the inaugural awakening of ‘God’s’ consciousness.

Amidst absolute nothingness and profound silence, God experienced a profound loneliness. Consequently, He resolved to bring all things into being.

The very first action He undertook was described as ‘a gentle nudge’.

It was this primordial, utterly inexplicable ‘impetus’ that endowed the silent void with its initial momentum, giving birth to the sun, moon, and stars, setting them into motion, and thus forging the boundless cosmos!

‘The Prime Mover…’

Allen murmured, his voice barely audible, imbued with an almost uncontrollable shock.

The vast store of knowledge he possessed from before his transmigration unequivocally informed him that the concept of a ‘Prime Mover’ for the universe’s genesis remained, even in the technologically advanced 21st century, among the most cutting-edge and fundamentally unresolved mysteries in both physics and philosophy!

Even the venerable Newton, in his later years, had attributed the ultimate cause of cosmic motion to ‘God’s First Push,’ while modern cosmology’s Big Bang theory remained perpetually stalled at the intractable question of ‘what existed before the singularity!’

This very ‘Holy Scripture’, held as an irrefutable truth by medieval adherents, had, from its very first lines, precisely struck upon humanity’s ultimate philosophical inquiry regarding the cosmos?!

‘The sheer volume of information right from the start is absolutely insane!’

Allen forcefully suppressed the tumultuous waves of astonishment churning within his heart and continued to read.

God, having fashioned the universe, still found it too desolate. Thus, “He scattered the seeds of life amongst the boundless stars, desiring to imbue the solitary cosmos with vibrant vitality.”

‘Pfft—’ Allen nearly choked, a surge of incredulity almost making him spit out blood.

‘Scattering life among the stars? To fill the universe with vitality?’

‘This understanding… it’s far too advanced!’

‘This isn’t merely advanced understanding anymore; this is like rocketing the entire worldview straight into an age of interstellar colonization!’

‘So, according to the Church, humanity isn’t the sole intelligent life in the cosmos?’

‘Is life merely ‘God’s standard decor package’ for the universe?’

‘This narrative is utterly disparate from the provincial, superstitious beliefs that loudly proclaim ‘God favors only us and this land beneath our feet’!’

A bead of cold sweat traced a path down Allen’s temple.

To the people of this era, such a creation story would undoubtedly appear immensely grand and profoundly mysterious. They would, however, remain utterly oblivious to the revolutionary implications embedded within its narrative.

God’s work, it seemed, was not yet complete. He observed that these nascent forms of life appeared to lack a certain essential spirit.

“God, partitioning a portion of His own divine will, enveloped ‘an existence from beyond the material realm’ and imbued it within life. Thus, humanity was fashioned.”

“An existence beyond the material world? Wrapped in will?” Allen’s brows furrowed into a tight knot, his mind’s ‘CPU’ whirring with frantic intensity. “This… this resonance… why does it sound so remarkably similar to Gnosticism?”

Fragments of knowledge, idly gleaned during a philosophy elective in his previous life, now shimmered with sudden clarity.

Gnostics, he recalled, posited that the material world was a vile prison forged by an evil demiurge, while humanity’s true essence—a divine spark—originated from a sacred realm beyond the material. Only through the acquisition of ‘true knowledge’ could one escape this prison and return to their original source.

The description in ‘The Holy Scripture’ was practically an official endorsement of Gnosticism, albeit cloaked in different terms!

No wonder the fanatics of the Scarlet Spiral Cult ceaselessly screamed, “The world is a cage; death is liberation,” engaging in human experimentation as if it were performance art. It turned out they were practicing a twisted, inverted version of the ‘Nine Yin White Bone Claw’ derived directly from the Church’s orthodox scriptures!

Their condemnation as heretics, rather than infidels, stemmed precisely from this root.

Allen suppressed the tumultuous surge of thoughts and continued reading.

The subsequent content of ‘The Holy Scripture’ delved into territory Allen found more familiar.

After humanity’s creation, God fashioned a perfect paradise for them, a gift for His creations.

Satisfied with His handiwork, God then sought rest.

Before His slumber, God earnestly cautioned humanity: “Never listen to the whispers emanating from the depths of the stars! Those are malevolent voices, excluded by My will, and they will lead humanity to depravity and ruin.”

Initially, innocent humanity heeded God’s teachings, flourishing and multiplying in paradise, their civilization prospering day by day. However, comfort and the passage of time gradually caused them to forget God’s warning.

Eventually, a ‘great clever one’ was seduced by the alluring whispers from the depths of the stars. He betrayed God’s teachings, guiding those malevolent entities hidden in the stellar depths to the path leading to humanity’s paradise…

Thus, disaster descended.

Paradise was reduced to scorched earth under the invasion of evil forces.

Survivors were forced to abandon their home, adrift in the dark cosmos.

Ultimately, they arrived at this current planet, commencing an arduous and eternal struggle against the ‘celestial demons’.

The latter half of ‘The Holy Scripture’ chronicled how, during their long flight and struggle, successive generations of ‘saints’ guided the remnants of humanity to survive in this new home, resisting threats from the stars.

Yet, the forces of evil proved too formidable. Human civilization repeatedly reached glorious zeniths, only to be repeatedly annihilated by immense catastrophes.

Human civilization became trapped in an eternal cycle of intertwined struggle between light and darkness, justice and evil.

The saints firmly believed that one day, the slumbering God would awaken once more. His supreme will would dispel the darkness among the stars, bringing ultimate salvation to long-suffering humanity and guiding them back to the lost paradise of God.

The very end of ‘The Holy Scripture’ contained a crucial prophecy:

In the final age of darkness, God’s messenger shall awaken within a ‘blank vessel’. He will bring an end to this ceaseless cycle of destruction, re-guiding lost humanity onto the path back to God’s paradise.

When the messenger completes his mission, God will fully awaken, and His light will illuminate the cosmos, eternally banishing the evil lurking in the depths of the stars.

****

Allen slowly closed the weighty ‘Holy Scripture’, the cold sweat on his back having soaked through his patient gown.

A deathly silence pervaded the interrogation room, broken only by the thunderous drumming of his own heart in his ears.

‘Absurd? Bizarre? Deeply disturbing!’

‘What kind of religious text is this?’

‘This is clearly a ‘Human Origin Report’ and an ‘Exodus from Earth’ document, encrypted layer by layer with religious language!’

The sheer volume of information it contained was suffocating: Gnosticism, the universality of cosmic life, threats from the stars, the cyclical destruction of civilizations, and a slumbering ‘God’ along with a prophecy of a savior messenger…

What made Allen’s scalp crawl the most was that ‘The Holy Scripture’ made no mention of specific concepts like ‘Earth’ or ‘the sun is the center’ throughout its entirety. Yet, it explicitly used terms like ‘planet’, ‘universe’, and ‘stars’!

This implied that the person who compiled this ‘Holy Scripture’, or the source of their knowledge, clearly understood that—

The world humanity inhabited was a planet suspended in the vast cosmos!

This was an astronomical worldview far beyond what humans in an unenlightened age could possess!

He suddenly remembered the ‘great catastrophe’ mentioned at the beginning of ‘The History of the Founding of the Kingdom of Lorraine’.

Could that be the tragedy described in ‘The Holy Scripture’, where the previous civilization was destroyed by ‘celestial demons’?

If human civilization was indeed trapped in a cycle… then, was his own cycle also connected to this?

Where exactly was the paradise God created for humanity? And why must humanity endure this horrifying cycle?

Did ‘malevolent entities in the depths of the stars’ truly refer to the evil gods worshipped by cultists, or was it a metaphor for extraterrestrial civilizations beyond humanity?

Was the Church truly an ancient organization, as ‘The Holy Scripture’ claimed, that had weathered countless cycles of destruction, guarding the embers of human civilization?

Allen couldn’t help but feel fortunate that the deity who had granted him the cheat-like trial card seemed somewhat similar to the slumbering God.

He was like someone who, half-asleep, vaguely heard Allen’s voice, casually handed him a blessing to get rid of him, and then went back to snoring. Naturally, there would be no after-sales service.

Conversely, the celestial demons mentioned in ‘The Holy Scripture’ were quite patient. Initially, they slowly beguiled humanity with evil whispers, and only destroyed them once humanity had developed considerably.

The former seemed to be just going through the motions, while the latter appeared to be troublesome thrill-seekers.

‘Indeed, even if gods truly exist, it’s not necessarily a good thing for humanity.’

‘To create human happiness, we must rely entirely on ourselves!’

A torrent of information slammed against the dam of Allen’s mind, but a sharp question emerged like a jagged reef—

‘What about the Crests?!’

‘The Holy Scripture’, from beginning to end, eloquently spoke of creation, paradise, destruction, saints… yet it utterly neglected to mention the most fundamental and core power system of the ‘Stellar Love Song’ world—the Crests! It was as if they didn’t exist at all!

‘This is too bizarre! It’s like a martial arts manual that extensively discusses inner cultivation techniques but completely ignores any actual moves!’

Allen’s thoughts raced like lightning:

‘When did Crests appear?’

‘The Holy Scripture’ didn’t record them, implying they might not originate from ‘God’s’ initial design, but rather emerged as a ‘new phenomenon’ during the long cycle, or even within this very cycle!

Allen instantly thought of Livia von Stern, the protagonist of ‘Stellar Love Song’.

‘Why was Livia’s cheat-like Crest specifically ‘Stellar’?’

In ‘The Holy Scripture’, ‘stars’ were the source of ‘evil whispers’! A derogatory term!

‘Was her unparalleled, impossibly powerful stellar energy truly divine in its origin?’

‘Or rather… did a terrifying conspiracy lurk behind her brilliant starlight?’

In the original game, Livia’s path to becoming the Demon Lord, the destructive power she wielded, that posture as if connected to some vast and cold will…

‘Now, recalling it, didn’t it perfectly align with ‘The Holy Scripture”s description of ‘malevolent entities in the depths of the stars’?’

‘She wasn’t a Demon Lord at all; she was more like a ‘vessel’ chosen by ‘celestial demons’ or an ‘apostle’ of civilization’s destruction!’

‘The Church possesses ‘lost legacies’ far exceeding this era, yet they strictly suppress technological development. What is their reason?’

Allen had previously speculated that the Church did this to maintain its rule.

But upon closer consideration, the Church’s fierce opposition to Crests, even at the cost of offending the sword-wielding nobility who possessed them, wasn’t that undermining the very foundation of its rule?

If not to maintain power, what was the meaning behind their actions?

A chilling conclusion solidified in Allen’s mind.

‘The Church is afraid! They fear that human civilization will develop too quickly, once again drawing the ‘stars” attention and triggering the next cycle of destruction.’

‘Do they deny the divinity of Crests because they know that the source of this power is, in fact, bait thrown by ‘evil gods’?’

Once he accepted this premise, the entire story of ‘Stellar Love Song’ was dramatically inverted!

As the protagonist of an otome game, Livia von Stern, that dazzling, overpowered heroine, could theoretically have had an additional route to become a saintess.

However, in the game’s plot, regardless of the route she took, she would always become an enemy of the Church.

Clearly, she could absolutely not be the ‘messenger of God’ mentioned in the prophecy!

Her once-in-a-millennium Stellar Crest was perhaps not a blessing, but a coordinate! A countdown to the restart of the destruction cycle!

‘Hiss…’ Allen gasped, feeling his soul freeze over.

All his previous cycles, all his struggles, all his ‘death endings’, seemed minuscule as dust before such a grand, despairing script.

Even more despairing was the ending of the original ‘Church Route’—

“His gaze finally fell upon this planet, and thus humanity perished.”

This inexplicable plot-kill would trigger at a fixed time in the game, with no way to avoid it!

Only now did Allen realize that its trigger time was after all other routes had concluded!

‘What did this mean?’

‘It meant that this wretched ‘Stellar Love Song’ game had no such thing as a ‘Happy End’!’

‘No matter how the players (and he) chose, no matter how they struggled, they would all ultimately lead to the same destination—the extinction of humanity!’

‘The only difference between Allen and the other characters was dying sooner or later, and in different ways!’

With this thought, Allen’s resentment instantly vanished.

‘So everyone dies, huh? That’s great! Dying together is a Happy End!’

Had Allen not entered the cycles, he could have found a small stool in hell, munched on melon seeds, rewatched the original plot, and waited for Livia to join him.

At that point, he would undoubtedly clap for Livia with glee, openly mocking her:

“Congratulations, congratulations, our grand heroine has finally finished her role. Aren’t you happy and surprised that we get to meet in hell?”

Livia would no longer be able to kill Allen, the annoying villain, and they could torment each other in hell until the very fabric of existence wore away.

“Hahaha… hahaha!”

Allen couldn’t help but let out a string of suppressed, dry laughs, his shoulders trembling slightly.

Such a fantasy was truly pathetic.

‘Stellar Love Song’ wasn’t an otome game at all; this thing was clearly written to spite society, wasn’t it?

To ensure sales, the developers didn’t dare explicitly state the true ending, yet for their twisted ‘artistic pursuit’, they deliberately included this ending in the Church route.

No wonder the Church route was the most difficult hidden route to access in the original game; it turned out the developers had hidden a massive, unpleasant surprise there!

Allen had naively believed that in this cycle, he could survive by blending into the Church.

Now, it seemed, he had merely leaped from a minor, inevitable death trap into a far grander, species-encompassing slaughterhouse of ultimate demise!

The truth of the world, like an iceberg slowly rising from the dark abyss, revealed only a fraction of its monstrous and despairing outline, yet it was enough to crush the sanity of any mortal mind.

‘Damn it!’

‘What should I do?’

‘How did humanity survive the apocalypse last time?’

The contents of ‘The History of the Founding of the Kingdom of Lorraine’ flashed through his mind like lightning!

‘It was that Ark of Salvation!’

‘The Church’s holy site!’

Allen instantly seized upon this lifeline!

He drew a deep breath, regaining his composure.

In any other cycle, he wouldn’t have been able to escape the destruction of the entire world.

But in this cycle, he had entered the Church route!

He had not only deduced the truth of the world but had also found a method of survival!

There were at least fifteen years remaining before humanity’s destruction!

‘That’s enough!’

‘Ten thousand years is too long; Allen only lives for the present moment.’

‘Never underestimate humanity’s will to survive!’

Even if Allen had to start as the lowest-ranking cleric in the Church, he possessed the confidence to climb all the way to the top.

His past nine hundred ninety-nine cycles had accumulated a remarkably solid and invaluable wealth that would allow him to survive—

He knew all the plot events of the original game!

With these memories alone, he could render immense service to the Church. With such merits, why would Allen fear not gaining access to the Ark?

It seemed that the slumbering Creator, far from minding Allen’s disparagement, was even willing to grant him a path to survival.

‘Merciful Lord! I understand, You are the best God! I will never disparage You again!’

‘I love You!’

‘So, um… could You extend my cheat a bit longer?’

‘I don’t even ask for a permanent card; a fifteen-year cheat isn’t too much to ask, is it?’

Without distant worries, one is bound to have immediate anxieties.

Allen considered that humanity’s doom was still over a decade away, but his own might be just days away.

His mood instantly plummeted again.

‘Sigh, why is this happening!’

‘As a villain, can I really not escape a death ending?’

‘It’s all your fault, Livia von Stern!’

‘As the protagonist, you can’t even save the world! What a completely useless person!’

Just as Allen was pondering how he would handle the Inquisition’s interrogation, the iron door of the interrogation room clicked open.

The inquisitor who had questioned him earlier returned, his face still devoid of expression, merely stating in a businesslike tone:

“Allen de Laval, you may leave.”