Chapter 250: Reversing Divine Spirits and Divine Embryos

“Reversing Divine Spark?”

“Exactly, or you could understand it as creating a god.”

With that, Xi Fu Lin shifted her tone.

“Of course, 【Blood of the Cross】, being a magic constructed on the principle of 【Subversive Creation】, surely won’t follow the usual rules of divine birth, but rather takes a detour and goes down a crooked path.”

The Blue-haired Girl raised two fingers.

“The birth of a god requires two conditions to be met.”

“First, there must be a certain 【Concept】 that has evolved over endless time into a 【Divine Spark】, which is the essence and foundation of a god. Normally, every god must possess their exclusive and unique Divine Spark.”

Glancing at the earnest Miss White Fox paying attention, Xi Fu Lin’s gaze shifted slightly above the blood pool, as if noticing something, but soon disregarded it and continued speaking.

“Second, there’s the divine soul. If we describe the Divine Spark as a container that can hold liquid, then the divine soul is the content inside. The stronger the concept represented by the Divine Spark, the larger the container’s capacity. As for the divine soul… while generally speaking, the strength of both is proportional, there are certainly exceptions.”

“I mentioned earlier that the fervent faith gathered by believers is, in essence, a power that closely resembles the divine soul. It can fill the liquid weight within the 【Divine Spark】 container, making the god stronger, and in extreme cases, it can stretch the container itself, allowing the 【Divine Spark】 to evolve.”

“That’s why most gods spread their blessings and establish sects—to collect faith, after all, 【becoming stronger】 is almost a biological instinct, even for gods.”

“But…”

The Goddess narrowed her beautiful eyes.

“Even if you fill in the divine soul abundantly, if there’s no fundamental 【Divine Spark】 as the core, it would just be a rootless floating entity, a scattered power that can’t gather or cohere.”

“The divine soul is, broadly speaking, a form of power that you can also understand as the embodiment of the god walking in the material world. From this perspective, it’s the divine soul that carries the core Divine Spark.”

“Remember, when I broke free from the seal, I quickly coalesced into a new body. That was because Withering Goddess had sent me most of the filtered pure divine soul power to support the new【Life】 Divine Spark.”

“Um…”

Miss White Fox scratched her ear.

“It’s a bit complicated, but I can somewhat understand.”

The general idea is that the divine soul is the shell of the god, while the Divine Spark is the core, but the shell can’t form without the core, and the core also needs the shell’s help to exhibit its actual effects… right?

Xi Fu Lin nodded.

“As long as you can understand that, to return to the original point, while both are necessary parts of a complete god, ultimately it’s the Divine Spark that is the root. After all, you need to obtain the container first before you can gradually add liquid into it, but the reverse doesn’t work.”

“However… the 【Blood of the Cross】 created by Exmont has subverted this rule.”

…

“I see… I see!”

“If the 【Blood of the Cross】 is a temporary container made of sinful blood, carrying countless beliefs, ultimately forcibly condensing them into a true Divine Spark, then if it reverses its structure, with the 【Blood of the Devout】 transforming into the container, filling it with dying hatred, despair, war, and slaughter…”

“Then, it reverses the forbidden magic 【Blood of the Cross】, creating a polymer without a core, which could be called a 【Divine Embryo】, becoming a carrier for embedding outside Divine Sparks, and the forbidden magic 【Reverse Blood of the Cross】… I got it!”

In the underground laboratory, Ella Light, wearing scholar attire with noticeable dark circles under her eyes, suddenly slapped the table, bursting out in joyful exclamation.

“This must be the true face of the 【Blood Disaster】 on the Sacred Berghen Mountains!”

Before her lay a torn and tattered piece of ancient parchment, pieced together from various fragments, with at least one-third of the writing blurred, depicting a complex bloody magical array and dense explanatory texts.

On the other side was a relatively new sheet, seemingly hand-drawn by someone, resembling a magic array blueprint.

Since the fall of the Holy City and the outbreak of the holy war, Miss Xī had left the holy capital for nearly two months now.

With her strong support and help, Ella’s previously slow research due to external conditions had recently made incredible progress, moving out of the Holy Academy to set up a private underground laboratory, and many valuable intelligence pieces were obtained with the secret aid of the Cecelia Family under Miss Xī’s arrangements.

This blueprint, which has probably existed for at least hundreds of years, was not gathered by Ella herself but rather handed to her by an unexpected elderly visitor.

Though she appeared to be a wobbling old lady, she claimed to be a member of the Cecelia Family, and indeed carried the direct lineage emblem of that divine family, proving her identity as a divine descendant.

The old woman brought Ella many precious “forbidden books” and research materials related to faith-based magic, including this fragment of paper that had been preserved in a small wooden box but was already in disarray.

Although it felt somewhat absurd and unbelievable for such a prominent family, one of the three divine descendants, to support her in uncovering the roots of the Church of the Goddess, since Miss Xī had said the Cecelia Family would help her before leaving, it was indeed as such. Ella could only marvel at that powerful figure’s far-reaching influence while gratefully diving into her research.

Only after receiving more intelligence and assistance did Ella realize something.

She wasn’t the first scholar trying to delve deeper into the essence of faith-based magic. Those who came before her had either given up halfway under external pressure or had completely vanished from the world. Yet many of their findings were secretly retained by a high-ranking member of the Cecelia Family.

Thus, after managing to restore the content of the blueprint as much as possible and referencing other studies on faith-based magic, she deduced the earlier conclusion.

Ella carefully compared it with the prototype design of the 【Blood Disaster】 magic array drawn for her by Miss Xī before her departure, deep in thought.

“Well… let’s rework it from the beginning. According to what’s on this, the magic known as 【Blood of the Cross】 constructs a container from the blood of the 【Rebellious Sinner】, gathering the devout faith as forbidden magic…”

“This conclusion, when combined with my earlier inference that the essence of faith-based magic uses the power of faith as a medium, exchanging mental energy for magical power…”

“Does 【Blood of the Cross】 have some close correlation with faith-based magic?”

Pacing back and forth in front of the experimental table, the Light Tribe Girl seemed to be speaking to herself.

“Let’s boldly hypothesize, if faith-based magic is indeed secretly facilitated by 【Blood of the Cross】, which aims to absorb the power of faith…”

“Then, the failure of faith-based magic to operate in the Sacred Berghen Mountains area was due to a similar but contrary and more powerful forbidden spell temporarily covering and suppressing the 【Right Position】, causing believers in that region to be unable to use faith-based magic… Does that have any gaps?”

After several rounds of iteration, Ella still couldn’t identify a more feasible possibility than this hypothesis.

“It’s quite logical… but the most important issue now is still the lack of practical evidence.”

After all, Ella had never witnessed the so-called operation scene of 【Blood of the Cross】 and had not yet discovered why this magic could simultaneously cover nearly the entire world, allowing followers of the Church of the Goddess to freely use faith-based magic regardless of their location.

Although this couldn’t constitute a flaw in her current theory, if she couldn’t find an answer, everything she had previously conjectured would remain a castle in the air.

However, if she could find another area where faith-based magic had similarly failed and personally seek out the differences with normal regions, perhaps she could touch the truth.

With that thought, Miss Ella turned her gaze to the other side of the experimental table, where lay certain intelligence contents deemed worthy of attention, also sent by the Cecelia Family.

She focused on the topmost piece, a confidential letter marked “Top Secret.”

This was an unknown directive personally issued by the Holy Pope August Lambert to some forces under his command, intercepted by high-ranking spies inserted by the Cecelia Family, and had ultimately arrived in the hands of Miss Ella.

“The Lambert family and the Holy Spirit Path, huh…”

She reached into her experimental robe’s collar, gently brushing something concealed between the valleys of her bosom, the sapphire-like brilliance in her eyes gradually strengthening.

“It seems a risk is necessary.”

   

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