Chapter 431: The Compromise of the Death Shadow

Chen Yu crouched on his throne, his tiny eyes fixed on Leone below the steps.

"You're living as a parasite inside one of my subjects, capable of taking over her body and consciousness at any moment. If you were sitting in my position, would you trust an unknown soul based on just a few words?"

Leone thought for a moment, then broke free from Lya's embrace, landing on the floor. She lifted her small face to meet the gaze from the throne.

"I wish to become a collaborator with the Empire. I know how to deal with the newborn deity of the Sun Divine Kingdom, and I hope the Empire can help me restore my body."

Chen Yu was somewhat surprised.

How could she know what was happening in the Forge Region from such a great distance?

Chen Yu's gaze lingered on Leone for a moment, then shifted to Casimir.

Casimir shook his head slightly, indicating he had never mentioned the details of the Forge Region to Rem.

He then looked at Lya, who also wore a bewildered expression, clearly knowing nothing about the Sun Divine Kingdom's affairs.

That was strange.

Chen Yu started mumbling to himself.

He knew that Rem's daily activities were mostly confined to the Dark Realm. With her current level of Teleportation, she couldn't even leave the Dark Realm's boundaries.

And the anomaly in the Forge Region was still an Empire secret, never released through any public channel. Even most of the court mages only knew that "something went wrong with the Sun Divine Kingdom," not what was actually inside it.

Where did Leone learn about the existence of the Death Shadow?

If she could really perceive changes in the Forge Region from such a distance, then her status was probably much higher than he had anticipated.

He was starting to take an interest in Leone.

"You shouldn't have any way to know about the Forge Region. How did you find out that the Sun Divine Kingdom had birthed a Death Shadow?"

Leone didn't beat around the bush.

"Sun Ignis and Lady Magia once established a mutual protection pact in ancient times. Even after Lady's fall, that pact still lingers, protecting us."

"But now, I've caught a scent of death within the sun's protection. It doesn't belong to Ignis, nor to any imagery associated with the sun. There's only one possibility: Ignis has been consumed by a new deity."

"The sun is transforming into an image of destruction and death."

Chen Yu blinked his tiny eyes, falling into thought.

The pact between Magia and Ignis—this was indeed the first time he had heard of it. But given how thoroughly Oros had recounted the history of the Divine War, if this pact had played a key role, he should have mentioned it.

Still, Oros had said himself that he didn't have deep knowledge of the internal agreements within the Human Pantheon. The Silver Dragon had focused more on the movements of the Giant Pantheon, only having a rough understanding of the pacts among human gods.

Chen Yu shook his gel body. "Unfortunately, Lady, the Empire has no magic to help someone restore their body. Even if you can help eliminate the threat of that deity, we can't help you."

Leone simply said, "That is my home. I uphold the ancient order and peace. Whether or not I can restore my body, I will help the Empire eliminate the Death Shadow."

At that moment, Chen Yu's opinion of her shifted slightly.

He had originally thought that eliminating the death deity was Leone's bargaining chip, something to trade with him.

He hadn't expected her to willingly take the initiative to help the Empire deal with the threat of the death deity system.

Without any unnecessary preamble, Leone laid out her plan directly.

"I can guess your plan, but maintaining a church that has lost its core will consume far more resources than you expect, with minimal results."

"Sun Ignis has fallen. His church is already a hollow shell. Pouring gold coins and manpower into that empty husk will only delay its collapse, but it can't reverse the decline of a deity that is already dead."

"What we truly need to do isn't to patch up the old ruins, but to build a new structure beside them that can counterbalance them."

"Let the rise of a newborn deity offset the birth of another. Let the imagery of night replace the sun, let the protection of darkness cover the souls that lost their shelter after the sun fell."

That sounded much cheaper than Celeste's suggestion of "restoring the sun's faith." Although the faith of the night wasn't as upright as the sun's, it didn't require funding new churches in every town. It could even spread in the markets of the Dark Realm.

But he also knew that any operation involving faith carried risks.

Once a new deity gained a foothold, could it turn against the Empire? That was something he also needed to consider.

After some thought, Chen Yu asked, "What do you need?"

Leone said, "First, the Holy Chalices left behind by the Xirik Church."

"Those chalices were used to carry the prayer rituals of the New Sun Church. The cups are already soaked with the residual power of divine beings."

"I need an artifact tainted with the aura of an old god to serve as the center of the ritual, using its residual power to bear the first spark of the new deity's birth."

The Empire had indeed seized many of the Xirik Church's shadow chalices, but they were still stored in the church cellar.

If Nilly's Shadow Slime hadn't formed a connection with those chalices, they might have already been melted down and sold as gold.

"Second, the sun's remnants. The sun fragments are the last traces of Ignis's existence. Only by using them as a medium can the chalice be bound to the sun itself."

"When the night replaces the sun, the newborn deity will naturally grow from the old foundation."

As for sun remnants, he actually had a spare.

The Soul Crown that Casaric had painstakingly forged was still lying in his treasury.

He had been wondering what else it could be used for besides being a souvenir. Now, it turned out to be useful.

Chen Yu weighed these conditions repeatedly in his mind and finally hopped down from the throne.

"I can tentatively trust you and let you try."

"If the Night Church established in the Dark Realm can inherit the sun's faith as you promised and curb the growth of the Death Shadow, I will seriously seek ways to help restore your body after that."

Leone didn't press further. She simply nodded lightly.

Chen Yu's gel belly swelled, and he spat out a golden crown.

He casually inspected it, then tossed it gently toward Leone.

"Catch."

Leone reached out a small gel hand and caught the crown.

The cool metallic touch made her inhale lightly. She lowered her head, gazed at the sun fragments embedded in the Soul Crown, and carefully put it away.

As Chen Yu landed back on the throne, he turned his gaze toward Casimir, who stood below the steps, and sent a telepathic message.

"Watch her."

Casimir met his gaze, nodded slightly, placed his hand on his chest, and bowed in a church salute.

"As you will."

"At least we didn't have to fight."

Lya, standing beside him, let out a sigh of relief. Then she bent down and picked up Rem, who was still on the floor, hugging the crown and examining it.

"Miss Leone, I will supervise you on behalf of His Majesty. Don't try any tricks."

Leone seemed unable to resist Lya's embrace and just bubbled in response.

...

A few days later, an abandoned little church in the Dark Realm was reactivated.

Workers cleared away the collapsed stones and broken statues, rebuilt the collapsed walls, and opened several narrow skylights in the dome, allowing the faint glow of the city mushrooms to cast dark blue light through the newly installed stained glass onto the interior.

On the pedestal at the center of the church, where Ignis had once been enshrined, a new statue was placed.

It was the silhouette of a woman, her face hidden in the shadows of a hood, impossible to make out clearly.

Her hands were folded over her chest, cradling a crescent moon made of slime in her palms. At her feet spread several rings of gel-like ripple patterns, shimmering faintly in the candlelight.

On the base of the statue was an inscription written in the Common Tongue: "After the sun sets, the night descends, protecting those who walk in the darkness."

The Night Church was officially established on this day.

The deity it worshipped was called the Night Lady, with divine domains covering mystery, wisdom, dark protection, and slime.

As for why the domain of slime was included, Leone's explanation was quite straightforward.

The Night Lady should naturally be a fusion of human form and slime. This would allow the Night Church to simultaneously absorb the faith of both slime and human races.

Slimes would naturally feel close to her because of her slime origin, seeing her as one of their own.

Humans would also be willing to pray to her because of her protective domain, and upon seeing the slime elements, they would naturally think of the Empire's emperor, who also came from slime origin.

When Chen Yu read this draft, he couldn't help but silently admire that this woman truly was the Magic Goddess's chosen one. She was practically born for faith work.

He also sought the opinion of the elder figure, Viola, on the feasibility of the Night faith.

This Senior Figure gave a positive assessment, indicating that Leone wasn't pulling any tricks behind the scenes.

As he had anticipated, the Night Church was implemented quite smoothly in the Dark Realm.

This region was perpetually sunless. The residents were already accustomed to living in dim light and didn't have the instinctive fear of the concept of "night" that people in other parts of the continent had.

Add to that the collapse of the Sun Church, and this area had been in a state of faith vacuum. The residents had long been without a collective object of prayer.

The emergence of the Night Church happened to fill that gap.

The first batch of baptized believers were mostly low-level people who had been disappointed in the Sun Church.

They found new solace in the Night Church's chapel, transforming the unease of groping in the darkness for too long into a sense of security.

The number of believers grew rapidly in the first ten or so days.

After the Night Church gradually gained a foothold, Chen Yu decided to visit the Forge Region again to see firsthand the current state of that Death Shadow.

When he passed through the Gel Teleportation Gate leading to the Northern Territory, the cold wind and snowflakes smacked him in the face.

He shook off the snow stuck to his gel surface in midair, flew into the Forge Region, and landed in front of the observation station.

The mage on duty today was still the same old mage from last time. He was crouching in front of a rune monitoring station, recording a few sets of data. Hearing the *plop* sound, he quickly looked up.

"Your Majesty? Why are you here?"

"How's the situation now?" Chen Yu asked.

The old mage said with surprise, "It's very strange. I don't know what happened, but the commotion coming from the Sun Afterimage has decreased significantly over the past ten or so days."

"This might be a good omen, or it could be an unknown change."

Chen Yu crouched beside the monitoring station and watched for a while.

He guessed that the Night faith might be having an effect, but it shouldn't be this obvious.

Unless the Death Shadow had sensed the newly born Night faith and realized it was being weakened.

Maybe it was planning to do something.

He thought about it and decided to go in and see for himself.

When the Fissure opened at noon, the gel avatar slipped inside and landed on that familiar black earth.

Compared to previous visits, the oppressive feeling in the space of the Divine Kingdom had noticeably lessened.

He stood still, not moving recklessly, and just extended his Divine Sense to try to catch the changes around him.

What surprised him was that the mass of Darkness didn't surge toward him like before.

It was huddled behind the scorched black ruins not far away, like a big lump of crumpled shadow, slowly tumbling but never crossing the invisible boundary.

Huh?

Was this Death Shadow afraid of him?

Chen Yu tentatively hopped forward a small step, and the shadow shrank back a small step.

He hopped another step, and the shadow shrank another step.

Chen Yu stopped, his tiny eyes fixed on that constantly churning darkness.

Or rather, the Death Shadow wasn't afraid of him; it was trying to show him goodwill.

This primal consciousness seemed to want to talk to him, just didn't know how to start. It hadn't learned the Common Tongue.

He thought for a moment, secreted a gel communicator, placed it on the ground ahead, then retreated a short distance.

The mass of Darkness was silent for a while.

After a moment, a tentacle made of pure darkness extended, stopping not far from the communicator, as if testing to confirm the device was safe.

It first touched the gel lightly with its tip, then retracted like it had been burned. Then it extended again, this time completely enveloping the gel.

A slow, sluggish voice came through.

"You brought... a new... smell."

"I mean no harm... I want to leave here."

Chen Yu's gel body tensed slightly. This thing could actually talk.

But what did it mean by wanting to leave here?

"You are replacing me... but I just want to leave here."

"I can make a deal with you."

"I can lower my divine rank to demigod, abandon the residual Divine Kingdom, and leave Zeyarila forever. I will not become an enemy of the Empire. As a condition of exchange, I will lend a hand once when the Empire needs help. This is my payment for allowing me to leave this cage."

Lowering one's own divine rank was akin to semi-suicide. For a deity still in the making to propose such a condition meant only one thing: it truly sensed its own death, and it didn't want to just disappear like that.

But this thing wasn't being honest.

On the surface, it said it meant no harm, but in reality, it had already devoured several of his gel avatars.

If it weren't for the emergence of the Night faith, it wouldn't even have considered negotiating.

"No, I cannot trust you. You are nothing but a primal consciousness born from the imagery of death."

The mass of Darkness was silent for a long time.

"I can swear by death itself. When my existence is downgraded, breaking the oath will cause my Authority to collapse."