Chapter 103: Who Is Becoming a Sinner?
Walking into the room, Isabella placed Sylvia’s head on the clinical desk, while the gaze of the gray-haired puppet pierced through the dense whiteness, looking toward the mountain ridge that connected to the sky.
Tils was located on the southern foothills of the Ulpus Mountains.
On clear days, one could stand at the highest point of the small city and gaze out at the east-west stretch of that continuous mountain range.
It marked the boundary between the northwestern end of the Kingdom of Savia and the southwestern end of Ulpus.
After watching for a while, Sylvia withdrew her gaze and casually placed the gray-skinned book, entangled in her hair, onto the desk and opened it.
Staring at the line of words on the cover, she gradually fell into silence.
By rights, the Book of Truth was something only members of the Church of Omniscience would produce, as the aura it carried must closely resemble the divine nature of Wisdom.
But this Book of Truth gave her a completely different feeling. The spirituality that emanated from it was also very familiar to her—
She had once sensed it on that war golem.
This was the seventh Divinity—Victory! That is, Mechanical Divinity!
As her expression grew increasingly strange, she used her hair to turn the pages of the book and stared at the words that emerged on the blank page.
These words did not belong to any language she knew, and yet she could understand them.
Unfortunately, after a week of study, only the first page of the book— the one recording the Ten Divinities— could display words.
Starlight leapt, spirituality flowed in; after a few rounds of attempts, the gray-haired puppet sighed and closed the book again.
She had two guesses about the origin of this book:
First, it was left behind by a compiler who had converted to the God of Machinery.
Second, it was left behind by the God of Machinery himself.
According to records, the God of Machinery emerged during the late period of the Koinsprache Empire, whereas the All-Knowing God had appeared in far more ancient times.
Hmm... maybe it wasn’t impossible?
Suppressing her curiosity, Sylvia turned her gaze to Isabella, who was taking off her coat:
“How was it? How did the trip feel?”
“Mm... not bad, I guess?”
The blonde girl tilted her head slightly and smiled as she said:
“I’ve taken a steam train before, but that was with my family, returning from the capital Clionde to Alova.”
“This was my first time traveling without a guardian.”
Seeing the genuine smile on her face, Sylvia slowly nodded:
“But won’t your parents really be worried?”
Upon hearing this, Isabella fell silent for a moment, then shook her head:
“Maybe they will. I only left a letter.”
For a moment, the room grew a little quiet, and Sylvia just looked at her:
“I’ve told you, your father is very likely an elf—mm... or at least has elven blood.”
“Otherwise, in that dream, he couldn’t have become the bearer of understanding divine nature.”
“I don’t know about your brother, but you—I'm certain you’re purely human. A human with no bloodline of any extraordinary race.”
“And the divine nature that was originally within you—we initially suspected it was the work of the Full Moon Sect, but after subsequent events, we believe it might not be that simple.”
“I know.”
Isabella’s voice lowered slightly:
“But he’s my father.”
“……”
Sylvia sighed and didn’t continue speaking.
At that moment, the flames in the fireplace burned quietly, crackling with soft pitter-patter sounds.
Under the glow of the gas wall lamps, the scenery outside the window grew increasingly blurred, until it was entirely replaced by the reflection of the room’s interior.
“You should go have dinner now.”
No one knew how much time had passed before Sylvia finally spoke.
“Mm.”
The blonde girl responded dully, then turned and left the room.
Watching her push open the door and walk away, the gray-haired puppet turned her head back once again and continued studying the book in her hands.
However, at that very moment—
“Hmm?”
Her expression froze, then turned somewhat dazed, with a hint of confusion.
“Someone is trying to step onto the Sinner path?”
“This…”
Without her guidance, someone was actually attempting to set foot on the Sinner path!
It had to be known that this path, aside from Lust, Pride, and Greed, was incredibly rudimentary. It didn’t even qualify as a proper Parasite Path, as she’d once called it.
Moreover, the ritual for converging the relevant powers, along with the corresponding extraordinary materials, had never been leaked!
So then, who exactly was attempting to take this path?
Loruze? Unlikely.
She had said she would personally assist him with his advancement once her condition had stabilized.
Realizing she couldn’t make sense of it, she gave up on thinking and instead allowed her spirituality to rapidly rise.
Soon, the scene before her eyes shifted rapidly, finally settling into that vast, boundless sky, filled with countless brilliant stars.
At that moment, she reexamined her own Spiritual Star—
Its main body was formed from four dimmed hues of the Divinity of Kingdom, interwoven with brilliant starlight threading through it.
And on the outermost layer, there was a sheen of deep purple light.
Hmm… even now, she wasn’t quite sure what exactly she counted as.
A mixed divinity should, by definition, qualify as an Outer God.
But if one spoke purely of the concentration of Divinity of Kingdom, no one in this world could surpass her.
Beyond that, it seemed that her outer divine nature had partially merged with the Divinity of Kingdom.
Still, what was worth celebrating was that her Spiritual Star was no longer a “stateless” entity. It now had a “registered identity” in this world.
Because of that, she could now receive replenishment from the Sky of Spirituality and was no longer subject to her previous restrictions.
After giving her Spiritual Star one last glance, Sylvia muttered softly to herself in her heart:
Great. A complete mishmash.
After mocking herself, she allowed her consciousness to withdraw from the Spiritual Star and, guided only by instinct, began to wander aimlessly through the Spiritual Realm.
As the weaver and creator of this path, her control over it had reached unimaginable levels.
This was something even the high-level beings on the Thirty-Two Extraordinary Paths could never accomplish.
Even on the nine—no, ten—paths directly under the True Gods, the True Gods themselves couldn’t reach such a degree.
As she drifted through the Spiritual Realm, gazing at the unchanging scenery, her thoughts began to scatter:
She was already a true Apostle—no, an Outer God—so did that mean she could now bring true completion to the Sinner path, so that it would no longer exist merely as an extraordinary path parasitizing others?
It seemed plausible, but she would have to wait—wait until her condition gradually stabilized.
Feeling the waves of howling echoing at her ears, and the alien sensation born from her body's incompleteness, she couldn’t help but let out a sigh.
Just as her thoughts were drifting aimlessly, a Spiritual Star quietly appeared in the distance.
At that moment, she instinctively turned her gaze toward it, and a sudden clarity rose in her heart—
That was it!
The one attempting to become a Sinner was the owner of that star!
Only… wasn’t it a bit ridiculously large?
Staring at the crimson star, only slightly smaller than her own, Sylvia fell silent.