Chapter 609 - 354: The Pope Appears

So, for the time being, Su Ze didn’t have to worry about the "traitors to the race." His priority was still dealing with the threat of the Nian Race.

Su Ze then used the list to sort his more than twenty captives.

He isolated those on the suspect list. The others, who were not on the list, were moved to a larger room together, giving them some space to move around. However, he still didn’t release them.

Until the threat from the other Nian Race experts was eliminated, releasing these people would only introduce more instability.

To Su Ze’s surprise, the other two Legendary-level experts from the Snowfield Continent and the Flame Emperor Continent were not on the suspect list.

They weren’t members of the Nian Race. Instead, they were the "number-one guinea pigs" developed by Marina and Zhan Meisen—human test subjects being prepared to ascend to the God-level.

This was a welcome piece of good news. At least with these two Legendary-level experts present, the Snowfield and Flame Emperor Continents would have some ability to defend themselves and wouldn’t completely fall under the iron heel of the xeno-beasts.

While Su Ze wasn’t overly concerned with the Snowfield and Flame Emperor Continents, he didn’t want to see them annihilated either.

When the two learned the truth from Su Ze, they were utterly shocked and in disbelief.

They were only convinced after Su Ze presented them with various pieces of evidence.

"Why don’t you two remain as guests on my ship for the time being." Su Ze didn’t let them leave, either.

’Who knew if they were "traitors to the race"?’

The two were helpless to do anything about it and could only resign themselves to being under house arrest on the ship.

As for Deng Sui and Zhan Meisen, whose identities had been confirmed, Su Ze naturally had them imprisoned separately and tortured them to extract valuable information.

He didn’t ask them to identify their accomplices, fearing they would simply lie. Besides, he had a more accurate method of identification and was in no hurry.

Instead, he focused his questions on information related to the Pope.

After a round of physical torment, Deng Sui and Zhan Meisen weren’t nearly as tight-lipped about the Pope as they were about other matters. They broke quickly.

"The Pope has been missing for many years. None of us know where his true body is hidden, but we do know where he’s likely hiding in a state of slumber right now..."

"The Pope... he’s an outlier among our kind. He’s not satisfied with this human body, nor is he content to stop at the Legendary-level. He’s completely focused on returning to his peak. He was a restless soul in his past life and was quite young when he died. You could say he was a fairly well-known genius among the Nian Race..."

As the two spoke, Su Ze began to get a much clearer picture of the Pope.

Back with the Nian Race, the Pope had been passionate about all kinds of research. He spent his days tinkering with all sorts of bizarre things, making him a research prodigy of sorts, somewhat like Liou Wenxin.

The difference between him and Liou Wenxin, however, was that he liked to experiment on himself and undertake risky trials.

To put it simply, he loved to pull stunts and flirt with death.

Unlike the other Nian Race divine spirits who were revived from the Divine Dice, the Pope hadn’t died in battle in his past life. He had researched himself to death.

But because he had genuinely contributed a great deal of research to the Nian Race, they gave him the chance to be reborn through possession.

Yet, unlike the other revived Nian Race divine spirits, once the Pope was reborn, he once again cast aside the mission his people had given him to pursue his own bizarre research.

His people had ordered them to prioritize grooming a member of the Human Race to godhood, meaning all resources for ascension had to be supplied to humans first. Trapped on the small planet of Blue Star, where evolutionary resources were scarce, the Pope could neither ascend to godhood himself nor leave the planet to return to his homeworld until the mission was complete.

As it happened, the body he possessed belonged to a genius from the Evolution Divine Teachings. This led him to begin researching the God of Evolution and the nature of faith itself.

No true God of Evolution actually existed on Blue Star. It was merely a deity born from humanity’s collective imagination at the dawn of the Era of Evolution. The stories were passed down by word of mouth, each retelling adding more vivid, convincing detail.

The founder of the Evolution Divine Teachings then seized this opportunity, rode the wave of popular belief, and wove together various folk legends to create the current image of the God of Evolution.

The Evolution Divine Teachings was likely founded for the simple purpose of making its founder a quick buck. However, the sect unexpectedly grew and expanded, becoming more and more powerful as it attracted an increasing number of Evolvers.

Ultimately, for its role in helping the legendary Lin Hua repel the xeno-beasts and end the War of Evolution, it received official recognition from the Lin Hua Continent, becoming the only sanctioned religion allowed to proselytize there.

By the time the Pope was reborn through possession, the Evolution Divine Teachings had already become immensely powerful.

The Pope discovered that under the populace’s long-term faith, this fabricated image of the God of Evolution had actually begun to exhibit some divine, miraculous properties. This piqued his interest.

After rapidly increasing his own power, becoming a Legendary-level expert, and seizing control of the Evolution Divine Teachings, he began his research in this field.

He discovered that faith was, in essence, a form of offering and exchange of Spiritual Power.

All living things possess Spiritual Power; the only difference is in its strength.

The faith of hundreds of millions of believers on Blue Star caused their Spiritual Power to interact with the image of the God of Evolution. They were constantly offering their own Spiritual Power to the "God of Evolution," which made the image seem as if it had gained a soul, giving rise to numerous miracles.

Ordinarily, Spiritual Power cannot be transferred from one person to another, but it seemed faith provided a means to achieve this.

Although the amount of Spiritual Power each individual could offer to the "God of Evolution" was minuscule, the cumulative total was truly staggering.