A Chosen One’s Resolve, A Cult’s Despair

“Sorry my foot! You’re clearly trying to stifle your laughter; you haven’t stopped!”

“Bang!”

As the two bickered, the door burst open. Lauren and Collins, each clutching a pistol, charged in back-to-back. Only upon seeing Yelica and Yodel did they finally relax.

Yelica: “Danger averted, Gelan. You can come in now.”

“Wife, are you alright!” Gelan, who had been frantic with worry, rushed through the four-person room, throwing himself onto Julie and fumbling to untie her.

“Gelan! You’re back! Are these your friends? Wait, don’t worry about me right now—go check on the children in the bedroom first!”

Relieved by her husband’s safe return, Julie’s initial joy quickly gave way to renewed worry, prompting her to urge him to find their children.

Yelica’s staff glowed with holy light as she chanted a healing spell, poised to intervene at any moment.

Fortunately, the healing spell proved unnecessary; Gelan’s family was safe and sound, completely unharmed.

Leaving the shaken family to their reunion, the quartet began to discuss the assassination attempt.

“It’s a shame we couldn’t keep one alive for interrogation; we might have gleaned some information,” Yelica murmured, scratching her head apologetically.

In her desperation to save Yodel, she had attacked with every ounce of her strength.

Yet, reflecting on it, Yodel, as the God of Death’s Chosen, possessed an immortal body. There had been no need for such haste. A prolonged battle of attrition might genuinely have yielded a captive.

However, Yodel shook his head. “It wouldn’t have mattered. He was already dead before you attacked. He was a living corpse, so no information could have been extracted from him.”

“They turned a transcendent into a living corpse?”

Aside from Yodel, the 穿越者 (TL Note: A person who has traveled from another world or time, often implying they have unique knowledge or abilities.), the other three were acutely aware of the power of transcendents. Even the lowest-ranking transcendent could resist many poisons and curses. Yet, the Everlasting Society had managed to transform a transcendent into a living corpse!

“And it’s not just that…”

Yodel gazed at the top of Yelica’s head.

0/0/0

“…I fear the true mastermind behind this assassination escaped before this body even perished.”

Yodel’s grave expression instantly quelled the celebratory mood, plunging everyone back into tension.

“Rats in the gutter!” Yelica cursed.

“Chosen One!”

Gelan stumbled over, panting heavily:

“My wife said the assassin was my employer—that core member who sold the medicine!”

Another piece of bad news arrived: though the elimination plot had been thwarted, it also meant Gelan’s lead was now completely severed.

Lauren immediately swore. “%#^^*, has the Everlasting Society gone mad? Are they using their own high-ranking members as test subjects?”

“You guessed it. They really did eliminate them,” Yelica muttered, looking at Yodel.

Yodel closed his eyes in contemplation, then abruptly snapped them open, a resolute decision etched on his face.

Before today, his pursuit of the Everlasting Society had primarily been driven by the God of Death’s mission.

However, having witnessed the Everlasting Society’s sheer madness, extremism, and extreme danger, he knew that even if the God of Death were to cancel the mission now, he would still eradicate them root and branch.

He could never rest easy with such a ticking time bomb remaining in the city where he and his sister lived!

****The Everlasting Society’s hidden lair. The old man jolted awake in his bed, drenched in cold sweat.

The recent battle still lingered vividly in his mind. If asked to describe his feelings about it, he could only offer two words:

Powerless.

What was the true origin of that young man? He had been controlling the body of a transcendent, yet he had been utterly crushed!

Despite constantly being on the offensive, he had the persistent feeling that the initiative in the battle had always rested with his opponent, who had simply disdained to exert themselves fully.

Otherwise, there was no explaining why, in a life-or-death struggle, the young man dared to toy with him like a child, allowing each of his attacks to be filled with hope, only for them all to fall utterly flat.

This indicated extreme confidence on the opponent’s part, a strength far surpassing his own, and a certainty of victory from the very outset of the battle.

“What’s wrong? Weren’t you conducting an experiment on remotely controlling a living corpse? Why are you awake?” Balin asked, approaching the old man.

“I’m afraid… Baldy was killed…”

“What happened? Didn’t you say you were going to eliminate an ordinary person? Don’t tell me he turned the tables and killed you instead.”

“Master, we are in grave trouble.” The old man had no mind to answer his leader’s question, his thoughts consumed by trying to figure out the young man’s identity.

“Then speak quickly! What kind of trouble?” Balin roared impatiently, genuinely unable to stand the old man’s riddling manner of speech.

“We’ve been targeted by the Hymn Church, and they’ve brought along a formidable individual.”

Balin frowned. The first part didn’t surprise him much; the Hymn Church had been hunting them for centuries, so a few more days wouldn’t make a difference. But what did the latter half mean?

“A young man with black hair and blue eyes, appearing to be in his early twenties, but with strength comparable to a bishop-level figure of the Hymn Church.”

“Hiss~” Balin drew a sharp breath. The last time the Everlasting Society had been pursued by bishop-level combatants was a century ago.

Now that they were so destitute, huddled in caves, was the Hymn Church truly deploying such power to utterly destroy them?

However, the old man’s thoughts stretched further than Balin’s. “Master, have you ever seen a twenty-year-old bishop?”

“That… that’s impossible. The youngest bishop recorded in history was thirty-one. A bishop in their early twenties…”

The old man spoke with difficulty. “Master, a twenty-year-old with bishop-level combat strength—do you understand what that implies?”

As the leader of a cult that had battled the Hymn Church for centuries, Balin possessed considerable knowledge of them. He quickly grasped what the old man was trying to convey.

“The newly appointed Divine Favor, the Saintess of the Hymn Church, twenty-one years old, with strength… bishop-level…” He uttered these words with palpable difficulty.

The old man leaped from the bed, pacing back and forth like an ant on a hot pan.

“Precisely. He could be another Divine Favor of the Church, someone on par with the Saintess.”

Though momentarily terrified, Balin ultimately retained his composure. “No, that doesn’t make sense, does it? Our cult is in such a state, how could they possibly send a Divine Favor to hunt us down?”

“But what if the Hymn Church knows about our plan? Master, we are using the capital of the Three-Island Kingdom as our experimental ground. If successful, we will command hundreds of thousands of immortal soldiers. Do you truly believe the Hymn Church would stand idly by and watch our resurgence?”

“What? How could they possibly know? Haven’t you taken every precaution to ensure secrecy?”

The mere thought that their pursuer might be a Divine Favor made Balin feel immense pressure, a tension so profound it churned his stomach.

If bishops could reduce the Everlasting Society to such a state, then with a Divine Favor, they might as well just disband.

“Master, there’s no need to despair just yet. The enemy is in the open, while we remain hidden; we are not in a desperate situation. Our immediate priority is to uncover the mole! I can almost certainly confirm that our plan has been leaked, and the culprit is hidden among the core members.”

“A mole as well?!” Balin hadn’t anticipated that external threats weren’t enough; the cult also faced internal strife.

“Absolutely. This assassination attempt was highly confidential, known only to a few researchers and high-ranking members. Yet, that young man was clearly prepared; he knew from the outset that we would be lying in ambush there. Otherwise, there’s no explaining why a Divine Favor would go to Gelan’s house in the slums.

“Coupled with the intelligence that Gelan was taken by the Hymn Church, this was a targeted counterattack against our assassination plot. They just didn’t expect us to send a living corpse as the assassin! That’s why they couldn’t catch a trace.”

The old man fell silent for a few seconds after saying this, then continued with renewed apprehension:

“The assassination plan leaked… the experimental plan leaked… Master, we have a serious internal problem. However, our location should be temporarily safe; otherwise, that Divine Favor wouldn’t have gone to Gelan’s house, but would have come straight here.”

The more he listened, the more Balin panicked, breaking out in a cold sweat. “Quick! Investigate! Everyone must be thoroughly screened! We absolutely cannot allow the cult’s hiding place to be exposed, or we’re all finished!”

An hour later, seeing the vigorous investigation underway, Balin collapsed into his chair, praying they could unmask the traitor before their location was compromised.

At this point, the leader of the Everlasting Society could only console himself with self-deprecating humor:

“Heh, should we really be f***ing grateful that our pursuer is a Divine Favor and not a Chosen One?”