Chapter 464 - 426: God in the Bowl

Chapter 464: Chapter 426: God in the Bowl

"Rumors?"

Edmond sneered as if he had just heard a joke. He wasn’t concerned in the slightest about those ant-like commoners. In his view, as long as the core secret was safe, this level of unrest was nothing more than a minor nuisance.

"No need to make a fuss. The memories of the rabble are shorter than a goldfish’s. Give them a little something sweet, and they’ll forget all about their fears."

Edmond turned, casually adjusting his cuffs, his tone contemptuous and certain.

"Follow the old rules. Send word: to appease the masses, starting tomorrow, double the soup kitchens in the Lower City District. Indulgences and Holy Water will be sold at half price for one month. Also, inform the Marquises. Have them issue a joint statement with the Holy Temple, saying that Moros sacrificed himself to suppress a lurking demon and was a Guardian of the people."

At this, the Archbishop couldn’t help but laugh.

"Just watch. As long as those wretches have their hands full of free bread, they’ll forget everything they saw last night within a month. They’ll go right back to kneeling on the ground, singing praises of our benevolence."

The Grand Inquisitor looked at the Archbishop’s confident, arrogant expression, opened his mouth, but ultimately didn’t dare say another word. He could only bow and withdraw.

What Edmond didn’t know was that his usual tactics for dealing with the "rabble" would, this time, become the very catalyst that pushed the Holy Temple into the abyss.

...

「Late at night, at the Silent Villa.」

In the study’s fireplace, flames leaped and crackled.

Velin sat in a high-backed chair, holding a secret report that had just been smuggled out of the Holy Temple.

Simon stood opposite the desk, his fat face filled with excitement, his small eyes shining with a startling intensity.

"My lord, you’re a genius!" Simon wrung his hands, his voice cracking with excitement. "That old fox Edmond really did order an increase in the Holy Water supply! All the print shops in the city are working overnight to produce new indulgences, and I hear they’re adding ten more soup kitchens in the Lower City District."

Velin looked at the parchment in his hand, his fingertips tapping lightly on the desk.

TAP. TAP. TAP.

The rhythm was brisk, cheerful.

"Fear makes smart men stupid." Velin tossed the secret report into the fireplace.

Tongues of fire licked over the parchment, instantly turning it to ash.

"He thinks he’s buying people’s hearts." Velin watched the dancing flames, the firelight reflecting in his eyes. "What he doesn’t know is that he’s pouring oil on a pile of dry kindling."

"So, we..." Simon asked tentatively.

Velin stood up and walked to the window.

Outside, the spires of the Radiant Grand Cathedral were still brightly lit against the night sky, like a colossal spider squatting over the city.

"Since they’ve taken this step, it’s time for us to make our move."

Velin turned to face Simon, the smile in his eyes so cold it sent a shiver down one’s spine.

"Execute phase two of the plan."

He took a thick stack of documents from a desk drawer.

This was the latest product of the advanced research methods from the White Tower Territory combined with the forbidden knowledge unearthed by the True Origin Sect after centuries of infiltrating the Holy Temple.

Simon took the stack of documents.

On top was an illustrated "experiment guide."

The steps in the guide were appallingly simple: take a bowl of the sacred Holy Water distributed for free by the Holy Temple, add three drops of cheap, sour vinegar, then place a piece of raw pork inside and let it sit for half an hour.

And below the instructions, a gruesome illustration depicted the horrifying results of the experiment.

"This is..." Simon’s face turned white as a sheet the moment he made out the contents of the illustration. A powerful wave of nausea shot up his throat, churning his stomach so violently he almost threw up his dinner.

"This is the true face of their so-called ’Holy Water’ after this latest plague."

Velin walked over to the liquor cabinet and poured himself a glass of red wine. The crimson liquid sloshed in the glass, resembling some future about to spiral out of control.

"Distribute this. But remember, be discreet. Don’t get caught." He took a small sip of wine. "Have these ’little home experiment’ flyers appear silently on every street corner tomorrow morning. Mix them in with the trash heaps at the market, slip them under the greasy table legs in the taverns. Even if the Holy Temple tears the city apart, they must not trace this back to us."

He raised his wine glass, toasting the towering cathedral outside the window as if in premature mourning for the collapse of a behemoth.

"I’ve even thought of a title—"

Velin said softly, his tone as gentle as if he were reading a bedtime story.

"’Three Simple Steps to See God in Your Bowl.’"

...

The morning mist had not yet dissipated, and the air in Zelheim’s Lower City District was thick with the sour stench of rotting vegetables and last night’s slop.

In the alley behind the Old Cripple’s Tavern, a few ragged children were squatting in a corner, clutching a handful of paper slips that still smelled faintly of fresh ink.

"Hurry up."

The oldest of the children, their leader, whispered, stuffing the slips of paper into the soles of his tattered shoes. "Don’t let anyone see, especially not those guys in the white robes."

"Got it, boss."

The children scattered.

They were like a pack of inconspicuous rats, scurrying into the sewers of the massive city.

Under the cutting boards at the market, beside the greasy table legs in taverns, in the cracks between the stones of the public washing pools...

Flyers with crude drawings were spreading silently through the city’s shadows.

The title was simple and blunt, printed in the cheapest ink in large letters—"Three Simple Steps to See God in Your Bowl."

"What the hell is this?"

The butcher, Buck, slammed his cleaver down, shattering a large bone on his cutting board, and casually picked up a piece of paper that had landed nearby.

He couldn’t read, but the pictures were self-explanatory.

The first drawing: a bowl with vinegar being poured into it—the bottle had a picture of grapes on it, so it was obviously common household wine vinegar.

The second drawing: a piece of raw meat being thrown in.

The third drawing: dense, wriggling lines bursting out of the meat, filling the entire bowl.

Next to it, a line of crookedly written words: "Vinegar + Raw Meat + Holy Water = The Truth."

"Ha, who drew this? Disgusting."

Buck casually crumpled the paper, about to toss it into the stove as kindling.

"Mister Buck."

A young apprentice buying some offal at the counter suddenly spoke up. He was an apprentice from the alchemy shop next door and loved to mess around with all sorts of strange things.

"What is it?" Buck glanced at him.

"I happen to have some vinegar." The young apprentice pulled a glass bottle from his coat. It was pyroligneous acid, used for cleaning test tubes, and its smell was even more pungent than edible vinegar. "And you have Holy Water, don’t you?"

Buck froze for a moment.

It was true; a small tin flask hung at his waist. It was the "divine grace" he’d gotten from the church yesterday. For peace of mind, he took a small sip every day before opening his stall. He hadn’t had any yet today.

"Don’t be ridiculous. That’s a gift from God."

Although Buck grumbled, his hand froze in mid-air.

’That Cardinal who turned into a monster last night...’

The image was too deeply etched in his mind.

Cardinal Moros’s stomach bursting open, that crazed look as he devoured a table leg—it had replayed in his head all night long.

"Just try it."

The young apprentice goaded him. "It doesn’t cost anything, anyway. If nothing happens, won’t that just prove the Holy Temple is innocent?"

A few of the older women shopping for groceries also gathered around.

"Yeah, try it."

"My husband kept saying his stomach was bloated after drinking the Holy Water yesterday."

"Hurry up, Buck, stop dawdling."

Buck was cornered.

"Fine, we’ll try it! But if nothing happens, you’re buying five pounds of meat!"

He gritted his teeth and unfastened the tin flask from his waist.

The clear liquid was poured into a transparent glass pickling jar.

The young apprentice unscrewed the vinegar bottle.

A pungent, sour smell instantly filled the air.

FZZZ.

The vinegar mixed with the Holy Water, creating a few small bubbles.

Buck sliced off a small, dark-colored scrap of meat—the kind of poor-quality cut he could never sell.

PLOP.

The piece of meat sank to the bottom.

The crowd of onlookers held their breath.

One second. Two seconds.

"See? I told you there was noth—"

Before Buck could finish, the words caught in his throat.

Inside the glass jar, the piece of dead, raw meat suddenly twitched.

It wasn’t a ripple from the water.

The meat itself was moving.

Immediately after, the surface of the meat began to swell with a series of small, rippling bumps, as if something underneath was struggling violently to get out.

"Ah!"

One of the women screamed, covering her mouth.

HISSS—

A faint tearing sound.

A thin, white, hair-like thing burrowed its way out of the red meat.

It writhed violently in the acidic liquid, struggling frantically.

Then a second one.

A third.

And countless more.

In just a few seconds, the thumb-sized piece of meat had "spat out" innumerable white threadworms. They tangled together, tumbling and knotting in the murky liquid, forming a sickening white ball.

BLEGH—

Buck couldn’t hold it in any longer.

He doubled over and vomited violently into the sewer drain.

The Holy Water he drank yesterday, along with the bread he’d eaten for breakfast, all came back up.

But he felt like he couldn’t get it all out.

He felt as if countless tiny things were burrowing in his stomach, in his intestines, crawling up his esophagus.

"This is... divine grace?"

The young apprentice was pale, and the vinegar bottle in his hand fell to the ground and shattered.

"Those are fucking worms!"

Buck straightened up, his face flushed and his eyes bloodshot. He grabbed the glass jar and smashed it violently on the ground.

CRASH!

Glass flew everywhere.

The ball of white threadworms was still squirming on the muddy ground, its vitality appallingly tenacious.

His eyes crimson red, the butcher Buck raised his boot and stomped furiously on the twisting mass of white worms in the mud, crushing them again and again, as if trying to grind the world-deceiving "divine grace" and his own fear deep into the filth.

"Shh! Buck, stop! It’s the Holy Temple’s patrol!"

Someone on the edge of the crowd suddenly yelled in a terrified, hushed voice.

Then, from a distance, came the sound of unified footsteps and the crisp clang of armor.

Buck’s raised foot fell stiffly back to the ground. The fury in his crimson red eyes rapidly faded, replaced by the common man’s instinctual fear of authority.

The young apprentice reacted the fastest. He casually stuck out his foot, kicking the muddy puddle of glass shards, rotten meat, and flattened worms into a nearby drainage ditch. Then he shouted at the top of his lungs, "Mister, this piece of meat looks good! Wrap it up for me!"

"R-Right, on it! I’ll cut it for you now!" Buck replied gruffly, slamming his cleaver down hard on the cutting board, trying to cover his guilt with the loud noise.

The crowd, which had been in an uproar moments before, scattered like birds. The older women bent their heads, pretending to pick through rotten vegetable leaves, while the men quickly pulled down their hat brims and hurried away. In just a few seconds, the street returned to a false calm, as if the scene had never happened. Only the pungent smell of vinegar remained in the air, a scent no breeze could blow away.

A few seconds later, a squad of priests in white, gold-trimmed robes, flanked by two fully armed Templar Knights, walked past the butcher shop with grim expressions.

The middle-aged deacon leading them paused his steps.

He stopped in front of Buck’s meat stall. His gaze lingered for a moment on the white slime that hadn’t quite disappeared at the edge of the drainage ditch, and he sniffed at the acrid smell of vinegar in the air, a smell that only served to highlight what it was trying to conceal.