"Darling, time to get up for work. What's going on today? It's so late and you haven't gone out yet..." One of them returned inside and shook awake her husband who was still sleeping.

"Didn't they say there's some Whale Transformation Disease today? No need to..." The groggy man woke up, speaking slowly while rubbing his eyes, then noticed black lines covering his wife's body.

"Ah!" He startled instinctively, followed by a stinging sensation.

"What's wrong, darling?" As the woman asked with concern, the man opened his eyes again, and the so-called black lines had completely vanished.

"Probably just a nightmare." The man composed himself as the dizziness in his head gradually faded. Though he felt like he'd forgotten something, that didn't matter.

What mattered was that it was so late today and he still hadn't gone out to work - this shouldn't be happening.

The man quickly grabbed his tools and went outside, discovering that surprisingly everyone had woken up late today.

The originally somewhat quiet village suddenly became lively again.

Everything seemed no different from usual.

Only if one's perspective were normal would they realize there weren't any normal villagers left in the entire village.

All these villagers were covered in masses of wriggling black lines, each looking like a dark humanoid figure.

(Image from the game series Rusty Lake)

Yet in their own eyes, these black lines didn't exist at all - they were still normal humans living their productive lives.

The old priest walked toward the church, followed by a massive black-line entity.

Inside the church, Isabella opened her eyes.

Divine Art: Divine Slumber Technique.

A divine art that uses faith power to assist in hibernation, allowing believers' souls to approach the divine existence through the grid, enabling rapid mental recovery with some ability to heal soul damage.

Although the grid was clogged, only communication was affected - performing such divine arts wasn't too problematic.

"Why is it so noisy outside?" Isabella frowned. Because of the earlier discovery of Whale Transformation Disease, when they organized search teams early in the morning, they had advised villagers to stay home today.

Could it be that these villagers couldn't even stay home for just one morning and half an afternoon before becoming restless?

Her inner unease reached its peak at this moment.

Isabella immediately got up and then noticed writing left by Naimes on a wooden board nearby.

Naimes said he was going to find the village guard and others to locate Whale Transformation Disease patients first, thereby disrupting the old priest's experiments.

As for being left alone in this half-collapsed church, Isabella didn't find it particularly problematic.

She wasn't some delicate young lady.

"Naimes went out to secure Whale Transformation Disease patients. With the old priest's experiments being interfered with, he'll most likely take initiative."

Thinking this, Isabella didn't go out to investigate the noise but immediately went to the church's statue area. She then pulled out a small knife she carried, cut her finger, and quickly began writing on the statue.

Secret Technique: Blood Prayer Script.

A technique evolved from ancient blood sacrifice.

Using one's own blood to write sacred ciphers on divine-related objects would pour one's spirit into them, attracting the god's attention.

Of course, in most cases, the god wouldn't notice such prayers.

Often only Saints could use this technique to communicate directly with the god.

So Isabella writing the Blood Prayer Script now had only one purpose—

"The statue is now filled with my spirit. The Blood Prayer Script should last about fifteen minutes." Googlᴇ search novel(ꜰ)ire.net

"During these fifteen minutes, other priests will find it difficult to access the statue's faith power. That means for the next fifteen minutes, only I can borrow the statue's faith to perform divine arts."

"But why has the statue's faith power decreased somewhat?"

The statue originally contained seven hundred years worth of faith power. Performing divine arts didn't consume much faith - faith acted more like participating in catalytic reactions.

Yet now the statue's faith power had dwindled to only five hundred years.

Before she could ponder these questions, Isabella sensed approaching danger and immediately cast a spell.

"The Oath God exists in this world! The trajectories of all things follow divine patterns! By divine authority, I command you to reveal yourself in light!" Isabella raised her arms, holding them upright before her as spiritual energy gathered along them, forming magic arrays.

Holy Spell: Divine Manifestation!

An intangible yet substantial wave burst from Isabella's hands, surging toward surrounding objects.

Then a formless mass was affected by this wave, its true form forced to reveal itself before Isabella's eyes.

It was precisely the old priest and the massive black-line monster behind him.

"Your holy spell fundamentals are quite good." The old priest smiled as he offered this praise.

"Teacher, it really is you." Although discovering Big Black in the church had basically confirmed the old priest's involvement.

Isabella had deduced the entire reason behind everything.

But when the old priest actually stood before her in this circumstance, she still felt deeply troubled.

"Blame yourselves for interfering with my experiments." The old priest showed no shame or similar emotions.

"All this is wrong! You taught me to walk the divine path—"

"This IS walking the divine path." The old priest interrupted Isabella's emotional words. "Everything I do follows divine guidance."

"Moreover, the bloodline experiments were only suspended back then, never completely abandoned."

The old priest slowly revealed information Isabella found hard to accept: "The bloodline experiments were paused due to insufficient funding. From beginning to end, I never received any punishment from the church."

"This experiment itself was church-approved and permitted."

"My experiments made significant progress in recent years."

"These three years, Op 'accidentally' obtained many controlled supplies."

"Do you really think the church didn't know about all this?"

"The Oath God's church neither upholds commandments nor maintains holiness!"

Isabella stood frozen in place. She had known the church wasn't entirely clean, but she had believed only some impure individuals had mixed among the clergy members.

But now it seemed she was the minority?

Countless black lines shot forth, making swishing sounds through the air.

However, the next moment, as these black lines approached Isabella, they suddenly began to burn.

The seemingly stunned Isabella now radiated powerful holy waves around her.

Divine Art: Sacred Flame!

A defensive-attack divine art where any malicious attack approaching would trigger the waves, igniting sacred flames.

These ignited sacred flames could then be controlled for counterattacks.

Let me say it again - she, Isabella, was no delicate young lady.

While arguing with the old priest, she had already begun preparing divine arts.

The Blood Prayer Script only lasted fifteen minutes - she wouldn't waste it!