He remembered many things, all twisted with his soul, memories he had forgotten.
He recalled once being a merchant with a happy family. He worshiped the great Goddess of Life, spending an evening each week at church with his family, praying to the goddess and thanking her for her protection.
He remembered a familiar place name.
On a certain night, a group of guards holding torches barged into his home, set it on fire, and Count Jialan requisitioned his property. He was unjustly accused and judged by the Chief Priest of the church. They locked him in prison to await death, where he lived for an unknown duration in darkness, eating rats when hungry, until one day, the followers of the Celestial Father orchestrated a prison break that saved him, the lost lamb.
From that day, he became the most devout follower of the Celestial Father.
In those chaotic memories seemed to lie one last mystery.
He forgot his name and could only catch some blurry silhouettes.
"Mr. Evans, Count Jialan, and the Chief Priest of Dark Furnace City are dead; their despicable souls are destined never to return to the Celestial Kingdom."
He heard a call from reality, those blurry silhouettes dispersed at the same moment, and the mass of flesh saw the presence standing in front of him. That cold light brought the answer to the question.
Yes, his name was Evans, but that was a very long time ago.
"Congratulations, you are completely healed."
The blood-chilling ice covering the shop dissipated, and the golden light faded away, "However, I regret to inform you that your body is unlikely to recover in the short term."
Upon hearing this, Evans stared blankly at his overly short limbs, for the first time feeling his body somewhat absurd, like those special performers in a circus trying to catch eyes, and before this, he firmly believed it was the most perfect body—the whispers existing in his mind told him so.
Ethan was satisfied with the results of his research. In his view, Mr. Evans was a critically ill patient, worse than the scarlet plague was the state of his soul. Bazatous, out of some wicked pleasure, twisted Evans’ soul into a "ball," making all his emotions and memories overlap.
This was the reason why Evans was always mentally confused and emotionally extremely unstable. Repairing this broken soul consumed quite a bit of his energy.
Evans crawled excitedly, almost pressing his face to the ground; he couldn’t restrain his emotions, so moved he wanted to cry.
It was a gaze utterly different from the Celestial Father, no longer whimsically twisting his soul into strange states as if it were a toy.
The Divine Spirit examined his soul, remembered things about him, and when Evans heard his name, he gained an indescribable happiness and satisfaction.
This was what he originally imagined about the Divine Spirit.
The false existence meticulously woven by the church now appeared truly before him.
This left Evans in a state of disorder, he could hardly discern whether he was seeing the Celestial Father’s Divine Spirit or a legitimized god.
Ethan did not linger in the shop; he intended to return to Ximu Town, having found the answer to the second trial.
Old Ba provided him with much inspiration.
A new "plague" was about to arrive.
At the same time, outside the Empire’s border, Wolf Head Castle.
"Isn’t there a problem with the tracking technique you mentioned?"
Under the night sky, a white cat questioned the red-haired wolf beside her, "Why did you lead us into someone else’s territory?"
The cat hadn’t seen Ethan for almost two days, and worse still, they hadn’t encountered any trace of high-level magic creatures. Now she heard that an unknown disease had appeared in Ximu Town, and regretted not being by Ethan’s side at this critical moment.
And all this was the fault of the big dumb wolf beside her, claiming she smelled the scent of high-level magical creatures, and ultimately led them to Wolf Head Castle.
To infiltrate the castle, they temporarily formed a cat, dog, and chicken team, avoiding the patrols of the guards.
"Don’t be angry, I feel we are very close already."
The red-haired wolf whispered. She admitted something was unusual this time, but her sense of smell and premonition told her that unexpected supreme magic creatures could be found here, "Haven’t you noticed? The atmosphere here is a bit unusual, like the feeling of... preparing for war."
Mass production of military equipment, troops training late into the night, and the soldiers’ eyes.
It’s not a good omen.
Wolf Head Castle was a stronghold occupied by bandits, filled with followers of the Hunting Goddess. For the past hundred years, the bandits from Wolf Head Castle had been a bane to the border, raiding caravans, committing arson, murder, and plundering.
"During my time as the Knight Commander, I ordered the Kingdom Army from Gear City multiple times to cooperate with the border towns to eradicate these roving bandits at Wolf Head Castle, but Gear City always paid lip service. Now it seems they are likely colluding with these people."
Ever since she became the Knight Commander, she had experienced extreme restrictions, needing to report and get approval to leave the capital, sometimes waiting several days for a series of procedures without a result, truly frustrating her to the core. Had she been back in the border region, she would have led troops to flatten Wolf Head Castle long ago.