CH 113

Chapter 113: The Dream of the Holy Nun (III)

The abandoned church was located at the border of the Twilight Township, an area deserted and overgrown with weeds.

From a distance, the dilapidated church, which was about to be overtaken by the sparse woods, seemed to be frozen in the sunset, gradually broken under the wheel of years, and finally forgotten.

At the edge of the roof, a string-thin moon was bathed in the sunset. Qi Leren recalled that the day when he received the task in the Nightmare Game, there was also such a string-thin moon hanging in the twilight.

Qi Leren took a deep breath, stepped on the rubble, and walked to the church.

The door of the church had been in disrepair for a long time and opened with a gentle push. The breeze from the door aroused the settled dust, sending it flying under the golden red afterglow. The image of the game overlapped with this scene, both familiar and unfamiliar. The image of the computer screen in his memory became a real scene at this moment, giving a feeling of absurdity.

Through the rows of pews, Qi Leren came to the depths of the church.

There were two doors here, one to the left and one to the right.

At that time, Qi Leren had randomly chosen the door to the right and walked along the forest path. He’d come to a cemetery, where he had received a mission to go to the Holy City. The reason why he’d known this mission was special was that the mission’s text colour in the game was different from other tasks.

As a save scummer, Qi Leren had actually saved files when choosing to go left or right, but after entering the right door and receiving the task, he didn’t reload the file but instead continued the game. The NPC Rudd had told him that he and his comrade-in-arms Arnold were eroded by the Devil’s energy after the Battle of the Holy City and their fighting power had declined, so they didn’t have the strength to return to the Holy City. Now, the Holy City is shrouded in fog, but Arnold has a mission item which would allow people to pass through the fog and enter the Holy City. He hoped that players could dispel the fog and let the people trapped in the Holy City be free.

At that time, Qi Leren hadn’t known much about the Holy City. After getting the task items, he’d rushed to the Holy City and then died for the first time in this game, getting a Bad Ending…

Qi Leren looked at these two identical doors carefully. They were embedded in the wall from left to right, waiting for his choice.

Qi Leren knew that he should make a decision quickly. If he caught up now, he might still catch the man who took away the drunken NPC and even take over the task before him. But so what? If the other party, like him, had played the Nightmare Game in the real world and happened to trigger the main task, then his secret was no longer only his secret…

Therefore, it was important to leave this kind of responsibility to others.

But…

A faint unwillingness made him hesitate.

Qi Leren helplessly felt that this tangled situation was probably retribution for his rare procrastination… Although him dragging out triggering this task hadn’t been from laziness, but because he was thinking of his own safety.

Forget it, he would go to the left door this time. The choice was always his Qi Leren turned away from the door on the right and went straight to the wooden door on the left.

The wooden door was pushed away. Ahead was a sparse forest shrouded in sunset, weeds covering the gravel path on the ground, and Qi Leren easily identified the path and headed into the forest. In the setting sun, the wind blew this barren woods, far away from the factories that roared all day long. The air in this area was fresh and the sound of insects, birds, wind, and bats’ flying turned into a natural music in the ear.

Qi Leren walked forward with his heart in his hand. As he walked deeper and deeper, the forest in front of him gradually grew thick. In the deep twilit scene, he vaguely saw the high and low tombstones in the misty clearing ahead, and a hazy figure in the fog.

His foot stepped on the wet ground, and the dead branches were broken. The birds in the branches sang, and the man turned around.

The open space in the forest, the worn tombstones on the wet soil, and the man in the sunset… were like a story and a dream.

“Ning, Ning Zhou?” Qi Leren swallowed. He never expected to see him here.

Ning Zhou, wearing a cloak, looked at him quietly. The soft sunset blurred the blue in his eyes, and Qi Leren couldn’t help but think that he saw tenderness. But in the blink of an eye, those eyes were frozen by rational coldness, leaving only empty calm.

“Why are you here?” Qi Leren couldn’t help but ask.

Ning Zhou backed away a little, revealing the tombstone behind him, which was well maintained unlike those around it that had been damaged and broken. It had a name engraved on it - Maria.

Qi Leren suddenly remembered Ning Zhou’s life experiences. His mother was a hierophant of the Holy See, and his father was from the first group of players to enter the game… He was raised by his mother, and after Maria died he was sent to the Holy See in Neverland and embarked on the same path as Maria.

He remembered what Chen Baiqi had said. The thirteen-year-old Ning Zhou couldn’t even learn a holy light cure. Even if he went to the Holy See, he wasn’t able to learn magic well…

What was Ning Zhou like as a child? Maybe he also had the same experiences as ordinary children, and grew up freely and happily in the sunset… until Maria died.

Qi Leren hesitated for a moment and walked silently to Ning Zhou’s side. There was no photo on Maria’s tombstone. There was nothing but a name. It was hard to imagine that a field master should finally be silent in such a deserted churchyard.

“She always wanted to go back,” NingZhou suddenly said.

Since just now, Qi Leren had been waiting for Ning Zhou to say something, but he didn’t expect Ning Zhou to talk about Maria’s wishes.

“Go back to the Holy City?” he asked in a low voice.

Ning Zhou nodded shallowly: “But she had been unable to go back and dare to.”

Although he didn’t know the reason, a feeling of melancholy welled up in Qi Leren’s mind. He was almost sure that Maria was the Holy Nun who had never been named in the Nightmare Game.

After the Holy City’s enchantment collapsed, the Holy See withdrew from the Holy City. She stayed behind and used a mysterious method to protect the people in the Holy City. Now Qi Leren knew that this power should be called a “field”, but at that time, the game did not describe this method figuratively, instead describing it as “The Dream of the Holy Nun”.

This Holy Nun, who was unwilling to give up the Holy City, broke out with amazing power. She was favored by the gods and pulled everything in the Holy City into her own “Dream”. The Dream suppressed the raging demons and made them unable to harm human beings. Even the Devil was killed by this Dream and slept deep in the cathedral.

However, the Holy Nun finally collapsed herself, and when she died, her Dream would not be woken again. Her Dream imprisoned both human beings and demons, and even the Old Devil who had invaded the human world for the first time was imprisoned in her Dream.

Maybe even her own soul had been forgotten there.

The surviving walking dead was finally defeated by time, and her bones were buried deep in the soil.

However, Qi Leren knew that until the moment before her death, she still wanted to go back and personally end the “Dream” she had created in order to let the people trapped in the Dream return to reality. However, she had been weak for too long, lingering on her deathbed for more than ten years, and finally returned to heaven.

At this moment, Qi Leren wanted to do something for her and for him…

“Do you want to go back to the Holy City?” Qi Leren asked him.

Ning Zhou nodded silently.

“Then leave it to me!” Qi Leren showed a happy smile to him. It seemed that it was a very happy thing to be able to help Ning Zhou. This was indeed the case. “I happen to know how to get to the Holy City. As long as I find something, I can pass through the fog outside the Holy City. So let’s go to the Holy City together!”

The breeze was harmonious, the afterglow was tender, and Ning Zhou, who stood in the deserted cemetery, did not ask him how he knew how to get through the fog, nor how to get the key item. He just nodded his head without doubt.

He shouldn’t have agreed. Ning Zhou knew this clearly. Every step closer was a step toward the abyss; to stay one more second was to drink poison to quench his thirst. In the depths of his heart, her appearance has faded away, but his appearance has become more and more vivid. Meeting again and again was like a colorful brush that filled his outline with color, and he was about to come out of the painting.

The demon lurking in his soul lured him with moving words, which made him hesitate, doubt, shake, and drowned him in sin.

God wanted his followers to love their own kind, men, women, old people, and young children alike.

God praised love and blessed couples who were united by love, but God did not allow men to fall in love with men and women to fall in love with women.

Man’s love could not exceed that of the Lord. Only the Lord loved everyone.

Therefore, he should restrain himself and stay away from him, but his inner desire and yearning couldn’t be suppressed. Just like after the long extreme night in Neverland, when he and the other followers had stood on the glacier, singing and chanting against the cold wind, waiting for the first sunshine after the endless night. At that moment, the joy and yearning in his heart came from his soul and was irresistible.

He could only say to himself: This is the last time.