Chapter 2208: Internal Strife and Chaos
The Divine Envoys had long been regarded as the full-time personnel responsible for conveying the Goddess's messages. If believers wanted to hear any fresh news about the Goddess, the first people they thought of were the Divine Envoys. Unlike the Holy Maiden, who served as a symbolic representative, the Divine Envoys were considered the closest to the Goddess.
Today, the Holy Maiden had asked the Goddess, and the Goddess had given a response, but the Divine Envoy denied the Holy Maiden's inquiry. In turn, the Holy Maiden denied the Divine Envoy, even publicly questioning whether he could truly hear the Goddess's voice... Wasn't that tantamount to suspecting that the Divine Envoy had been fabricating things all along?
"How interesting," the Yellow Hair clapped his hands and said. "One fakes it today, the other fakes it every day. Looks like both sides have a pretty good grasp of each other's secrets."
"Are you saying they really can't communicate with the Goddess?"
"Who knows about before, but they definitely didn't communicate today," Xu Huo said.
Judging from the reactions of others, the Goddess Statue seemed to have answered based on the questions posed by the Holy Maiden. However, in reality, the Goddess Statue had maintained its state of having eyes all over its body, unchanged from before the Holy Maiden asked her questions. The spiritual power fluctuations on it actually came from another direction—the nearby player the Divine Envoy had randomly pointed to. Indeed, some player was answering questions on behalf of the Goddess, but it wasn't the one he had indicated.
It seemed this routine was already quite skilled. It was unclear whether the temple often used this trick to fool believers or if it was a necessary measure due to the recent loss of contact with the Goddess.
The Divine Envoy's abilities were called into question, so naturally, he had to prove himself. Thus, the Divine Envoy on the central altar immediately turned around, knelt stiffly before the Goddess Statue, and shouted, "Goddess, if you can hear my voice, please punish this liar who has deceived the Holy Maiden and deceived the temple!"
"Please, Goddess, punish him!" Not just him, but the other Divine Envoys also knelt down.
The people on and off the altar stared intently at the Goddess Statue. After a few breaths, the eyes on the Goddess Statue began to move. They looked toward the high part of the altar, toward the young man shielded behind the Holy Maiden Xue Yi, and fixed their gaze.
"Ah!!!" The young man on the altar screamed in agony, collapsing to his knees in pain. When the Holy Maidens helped him up, blood was already flowing from his eyes!
Compared to the Holy Maiden Xue Yi's questioning of "close eyes, open eyes," this direct attack better demonstrated the Goddess's power. After all, believers often saw outsiders punished like this in the districts.
The Divine Envoys stood up, looking confidently at the Holy Maidens, and said, "The Holy Maiden cannot directly communicate with the Goddess. Being deceived is not your fault. But if you persist in your stubbornness and make a mistake for the sake of a sinner, then I will have no choice but to lock you up first."
The neutral players in the temple now chose a new stance. They knew the Goddess was not a true deity, but on this land, the Goddess in the instance was enough to control everything. The district had been under her protection since the instance first appeared. Since the Goddess stood on the side of the Divine Envoys, it meant the Divine Envoys were correct.
"Bullshit!" A furious shout came from outside the temple. A player flew into the air, pointing at the Divine Envoy, and said, "You are the ones impersonating the Goddess! You impersonate the Goddess to control the temple. Knowing full well that children born from locals and outsiders are healthier, you still force the Holy Maidens to constantly become pregnant and give birth. They could have given birth to healthy children without suffering the pain of early infant death. It's you, using the Goddess's name to harm your own people!"
"Shut up!" A player inside the temple shouted outward.
The female player hovering in the air sneered coldly. "What? Trying to use your trait to silence me? Afraid to let me speak?"
Under the shocked gazes of the temple crowd, she turned to the Goddess Statue and said urgently, "I'll be straightforward. Today, I not only want to expose the hypocritical face of the Divine Envoy, but I also want to kill them. If the Goddess truly stands with the Divine Envoys, she can kill me first!"
As soon as she finished speaking, she teleported into the temple and charged straight at the Divine Envoy on the central altar!
Several players immediately stepped in to block her. After a few rounds of combat, the female player was knocked out of the temple. She landed on a building near the square, showing no fear of being repelled. Instead, she laughed loudly and said, "Look! If the Divine Envoy wasn't wrong, why didn't the Goddess intervene to stop me? It shows that even the Goddess thinks the Divine Envoy deserves to die!"
Regardless of whether the Goddess intervened, using props or instruments could temporarily withstand spiritual interference for a short time. Players and believers who understood players knew this. But in their eyes, the Goddess was more than just an instance boss; she represented absolute strength. No matter how powerful an outsider player was, they would be punished for breaking the rules here, especially those causing chaos in the temple. So even though this female player was wearing props, everyone thought she should have shown some reaction.
After all, "Who can resist the Goddess's power?"
Yes, in the eyes of believers, when the Goddess acted, whether it was an advanced player or a super player, it was useless. But this female player had fought her way into the temple, declared she would kill the Divine Envoy, and the Goddess showed no reaction at all. Didn't that mean...
"Kill the Divine Envoy! Save the Holy Maiden!" The female player shouted loudly. Players scattered among the crowd revealed themselves one after another, quickly surrounding the altar!
Before the believers could recover from the back-and-forth of "truth," chaos had already erupted inside the temple.
They couldn't figure out what was happening, couldn't distinguish truth from falsehood, and were powerless to change the situation. So all they could do was kneel before the Goddess Statue, praying for the Goddess to solve this problem.
The crowd surged and bowed like waves, their prayers and shouts rising and falling like foam, interspersed with the sounds of players fighting high above the temple and the harsh accusations of stranded outsider players against the Divine Envoys.
Some were fighting for justice for the Holy Maiden, some seeking revenge for their children, some wanting to end the era of dual-sex childbirth... These people were entangled with each other, turning a blind eye to the helpless believers kneeling outside the temple begging the Goddess.
"Really not going to intervene?" Xu Huo stared at the Goddess Statue in front of the temple. The statue remained unmoved. The eyes that had been blinking earlier were now all closed, as if unwilling to witness the scene before them.
The Yellow Hair beside him thought Xu Huo was talking to him and couldn't help saying, "You want to meddle in this? They're having an internal conflict, and even the Goddess doesn't care. Why should we? If we make a move, we might end up being targeted instead."
Xu Huo didn't say much, just shifted some of his attention to the altar.
These people were fighting, but they weren't going all out. Most of the Holy Maidens on the altar were ordinary people, and both sides deliberately avoided them, making them a protective shield for the Divine Envoys. The Divine Envoys weren't idle either. Amid the stalemate of battle, each took out a transparent gem, opened it from the middle, revealing the eye carved inside.
The Divine Envoy on the central altar raised the gem high and shouted, "Goddess, please execute the traitors!"
The eye inside the gem opened.