CHAPTER 495: CHAPTER 427: WHAT ON EARTH HAS BEWITCHED YOU?! (TWO IN ONE)

For the Logos people, the significance of Summit Day was unparalleled by any other festival and nearly equaled that of Rebirth Day. In the ancient times, it was because Al ascended the high mountain and received the oracle from God that the Logos people were able to free themselves from their first existential crisis, giving birth to the world’s first Prophet.

The priests had begun their preparations a month before Summit Day; in the Pattern Garden, they wrote down all the thoughts and knowledge they had gathered over the year onto papyrus and held three grand sacrificial ceremonies under the witness of King Nimirda.

The first took place at noon in the square in front of the Palace, the second at dusk, and the final one inside the Palace, a ceremony that only the King and the priests attended—it was the most important of rituals. At that time, the priests would throw the papyrus into a bonfire, while King Nimirda was to kneel before the Holy Scripture, praying to God with the utmost humility, pleading for the promised anointing.

The night of Summit Day.

King Nimirda watched the bustling activity inside the Palace. Maids were still frantically cleaning the dust in the hall before the ceremony, while the priests either bowed their heads in meditation or recited prayers over and over. The guards, bearing ceremonial responsibilities, were stationed from the outside to the inside of the Palace, lined up alongside the stairs, having stood there for nearly half a day.

Almost everyone here was busy preparing for the most important ceremony of the year, without any complaints or regrets.

In the Palace, everyone was exhausting all their energy on this ceremony.

For this was not just a ceremony but a plea to the Divine.

The Logos people left the idyllic Nus Kingdom, left it in pursuit of a better realm, for the anointing spoken of in the Scriptures.

But until now, they had received nothing.

King Nimirda caressed the throne beneath him while in the center of the Palace, a stele inscribed with the Holy Scriptures stood tall, silent and solemn. The piety of ancient times seemed to reach the Logos people through the fine text, allowing them to worship the same God as their ancestors.

Looking at those steles, Nimirda recalled the words of the "Twin Kings Book."

When King Dertulian led his people across the sea, the Gods stirred up storms before them, their majestic forms appeared before them, repeatedly forcing Dertulian to yield to the Gods.

The Gods said, "We are your new Gods, worship us!"

But King Dertulian rebutted their words, even if the Gods punished him with thunder and lightning, he remained unmoved, and in his final moments, as he was dying, he whispered,

["Lord, I believe only in you..."]

After that, God demonstrated His power, performed miracles, turned King Yarlessto into a swan, leading the Unihorns to calm the storm, and even mended Dertulian’s body, not even a single hair fell out.

King Nimirda sat on the throne, staring blankly.

His pet snake coiled around his wrist, tucked its head beneath itself, and its eyes were tightly closed, seemingly in deep sleep.

The snake slept soundly; it was not the same one as before but a descendant of the snake King Nimirda had first tamed.

King Nimirda muttered to himself:

"Am I truly another Dertulian?

Lord... have I done enough to atone for my mistakes?"

Lost in the busy Palace, no one noticed King Nimirda’s mutterings. If anyone had heard, it would have drained the color from their face, and they would have knelt down frantically, covering their ears, desperately trying to throw those words out of their mind.

Those words were too dreadful.

What did they imply? They implied that the Holy King of Logos doubted himself, that the sovereign, revered for his supreme wisdom and grand intelligence, doubted he had erred, that the King they regarded as divine was like anyone else needing to atone for sins before God.

That was enough to cause the Logos people in the Kingdom to lose their faith.

King Nimirda’s gaze was vacant, his consciousness drifting into a void, as it had been these past years.

He was much weaker than before. Now in his four-hundred, in the middle age for Elves, his spirit had prematurely entered its twilight years. After years of toil, his Kingdom nearly drained all of his vitality.

Inside his chest, was a heart struggling in despair and slowly withering away.

King Nimirda became increasingly bewildered. He once shone brightly because of his achievements; now they were gone. He once firmly believed in his mission, now it all had dissipated, leaving him only with endless regret.

"Every mistake... must be faced..."

As King Nimirda whispered this, the maids exited the Palace, the priests were ready for the ceremony, and the guards of the ceremonial team stood tall, everything prepared for this grand ritual.

King Nimirda came to his senses, stopped his despondency, and solemnly rose from the throne to face this ceremony of pleading for the anointing from God.

The snake, startled by King Nimirda’s movement, quickly slithered down, coiled itself on the throne, raised its head, and hissed as it flicked its tongue.

The priests approached, King Nimirda removed his crown and handed it to the High Priest, and a priest offered him a pure white stole embroidered with thorns.

King Nimirda went to the center of the Palace, facing the burning brazier and the altar, and knelt on the ground, his cloudy and majestic eyes reflecting the stele before him.