Su Cheng was completely awake now.
Although she had been in a half-awake, half-dazed state before—
This time, she was nearly scared into a cold sweat.
"No!"
However, their position and posture made her feel as if she were pinned and locked in place by a barb. She couldn't find the leverage to get up; she swayed slightly before weakly falling back down.
Su Cheng took a sharp breath. Fear and pleasure intertwined, combined with physical stimulation, making her tremble uncontrollably for a moment.
The black-haired man tilted his head to look at her, sighed softly, and lowered his hands to caress the young woman's spasming, slender waist.
"...So you do know how to be afraid," he said with a smile, his tone carrying a hint of regret. "What a pity—"
Saying that, he gripped her hipbones and, with a gentle pull, lifted her up.
Su Cheng's breath hitched, and she couldn't help but let out a soft moan as the sound of separating moisture echoed by her ears.
Her knees were still pressing against his waist. She rested one hand on his chest, panting, while the other clumsily tried to fix her buttons.
The deity squeezed the girl's gently trembling thigh, wiping away the traces left on it with the back of his hand.
Su Cheng sprang up as if she had stepped on a spring. Unsteady on her feet, she nearly tripped over the man's bent, long legs.
She took two steps back and realized something was wrong.
Her previously disheveled clothes were suddenly perfectly neat.
Even her belt seemed to be exactly where it belonged.
Su Cheng: "...Just as I thought."
The black-haired man raised an eyebrow in mild surprise, revealing an intriguing expression. "You really know how to give someone a surprise."
Su Cheng sighed. "You might think I'm just putting on an act after the fact, but I actually guessed a moment ago that none of this was real."
"Real?"
The deity, leaning against the steps, gave a soft chuckle. He casually pulled up the robe that had slipped down to his forearms, covering his exposed half-shoulder and back.
He slowly stood up. "The temperature you felt, the taste you savored, your pleasure, your panting, your racing heartbeat—were those experiences not real enough for you?"
The man smiled. "The ways humans perceive the world are limited to only a few."
He cast his eyes down at the young woman before him. "Reality doesn't necessarily have to be a material change; it can also be the resonance of an experience."
His deep, beautiful voice sounded like a slow hypnosis. "Everything I gave you can be more profound than any physical entity. You might even wish to exist there forever."
Su Cheng took a deep breath. "...At the end of the day, because this is the Holy See's territory, you don't dare to come here in your true body. You could only project an illusion."
The deity suddenly fell silent.
They were standing very close to each other.
Su Cheng looked up, her eyes meeting a half-bare, snow-white chest. The pleated fabric hung over taut skin, looking like chains embedded in the scorching rock layers of a volcano.
He looked tall and elegantly built, the lines of his chest and abdominal muscles clearly defined, like a sprawling snowy mountain ridge. They rose and fell slightly with his breathing, gleaming with a polished luster.
...This must also be some kind of illusion.
Su Cheng thought to herself, since gods didn't need to breathe anyway. "So your influence over me is limited, and I can also guess—"
She slowly took a step back. "I am already a God's Favored, so I know at least one thing."
When a deity chooses a human to be their Favored, they don't need to ask for the human's consent at all.
"Even if the one who chose me is a primary god and you are a lesser god, I know there's no difference in the actual process."
Su Cheng murmured, "So everything you did was for a specific purpose. You wanted to make me your Favored, but then realized I didn't meet the conditions."
She wasn't sure what that condition specifically was.
But if her guess was right, gods didn't choose their Favored purely based on personal whims, picking whoever they wanted.
The target had to meet a specific requirement.
Just like—
After she had read through legal tomes and drafted a binding contract, she was chosen as a Favored by the God of Law and the God of Contracts.
This "condition" was likely related to the deity's domain of authority.
"So you tried to seduce me," Su Cheng blinked. "You wanted me to sleep with your illusion. No, not just sleep with it. I'm guessing I needed to display some kind of 'trait' related to lust and impurity during the process to be chosen as your Favored. I don't know the exact details, but your actions make me think I probably needed to abandon certain bottom lines out of desire for you—"
Such as letting him touch her curse.
Or being bewitched by his charm and revealing some secret to him.
And then the condition would be met.
As for what would happen next?
With the mark of the God of Lust added to her body, she might be hacked to death right here in the temple, or, if she were lucky, she might escape.
Or there might be some even more abstract developments.
"I don't know what you want from me, Your Highness."
Su Cheng said wearily, simultaneously turning her head away to stop looking at him.
Otherwise, with a body like that displayed right in front of her, the temptation was simply too great.
"...But I'm afraid I have to reject you. I mean, regarding the matter of becoming your Favored."
As for other things, like him seducing her, she had no room to refuse, as that involved a deity's divine authority.
Unless she was a god herself, or a Favored of the God of Purity capable of using similar powers to resist, it was very difficult to outright reject the temptation.
"...Is that so."
The deity let out a disappointed sigh, yet his expression showed no sadness; he still wore that faint, enigmatic smile.
He bent his index finger and stroked the young woman's jaw, then began to laugh in amusement.
"Very well. It's more interesting this way. It's just a pity we're out of time. Someone annoying has arrived—"
At that moment, Su Cheng suddenly heard the humming sound of space trembling.
A brilliant golden radiance sliced into the hall, ruthlessly shattering the intertwined vines. The red mist permeating the air was swallowed by a tide of light.
Thousands of golden rays burst forth. The entire room shattered like a broken mirror, fragmenting in an instant and dissolving into billions of stardust-like particles.
The figure of the man in front of her was also torn apart, turning into ash-like fragments.
"Foolish clown—"
As a deep, cold voice rang out, Su Cheng saw those fragments hovering and spinning in the air, rolling like a surging tide.
The robust and voluptuous male body no longer existed. In the shadows, more limbs and joints stretched out, forming indistinct, overlapping silhouettes.
And then, they all vanished completely.
Su Cheng slumped onto the floor, feeling a certain power withdraw from her mind. The world before her eyes was completely renewed.
The prayer hall had returned to its original state.
She once again saw the magnificent pegasus statue. Its obsidian base below was wreathed in verdant vines, dotted with faint blue, lotus-shaped crystals.
The edges of the base were engraved with ancient inscriptions. The high-relief characters looked unfamiliar and mysterious.
Amidst the quiet solemnity, those intertwined blue and green hues exuded a vigorous vitality; the eerie dark red from before had completely vanished.
This was probably what the hall was originally supposed to look like.
"...And you."
An icy male voice suddenly came from behind her.
Su Cheng turned her head.
A silver-haired man stood in the temple.
His hair was like a river of frost frozen by moonlight, and his porcelain-white skin radiated a hazy, holy glow. His entire being was bathed in that radiance.
She couldn't see his face clearly, only making out that he was very tall and wore many layers of clothing.
The high, stiff collar tightly wrapped around his neck. On his snow-white battle robe, patterns embroidered with gold thread spread across his broad chest.
The fabric was so well-fitted that it accentuated the full, muscular line of his shoulders.
Su Cheng's gaze paused.
Her eyes fell to his waist, looking at the lean, taut lines cinched by a white leather belt, brimming with tension.
"If you keep looking at me like that—"
The moment he spoke, Su Cheng almost felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up.
The voice was cold, like a cluster of icy flames burning down the throat into the stomach, making all her internal organs spasm in the chill.
"This will be the last time you use your eyes."
He said coldly, "You self-righteous fanatic, if it weren't for your firm will in resisting the darkness, I would not have allowed your second desecration—"
Su Cheng was now absolutely certain of who this was.
"I'm sorry, Your Highness, I'm truly sorry!"
Holding her head, she stood up from the ground. "I'm not thinking very clearly right now. Well, actually, I wasn't thinking very clearly before, either."
Lin Yun had actually done some terrible things to the statue, so he deserved whatever he got.
But she had only thought about it. If she ended up offending the deity himself and being held a grudge against by this guy because of that, it wouldn't be worth it at all.
Su Cheng looked at the figure in the light. "Especially in front of your statue. I guess that's what you meant by the first desecration, right? I want to explain. A lot happened today, and my engagement was even broken off... Well, you probably aren't interested in that. I just want to say I didn't mean to do it."
The silver-haired man said nothing.
Su Cheng guessed he disdained communicating with her.
In the original novel, the God of Purity rarely spoke, and his lines were basically just about wanting to kill the male lead.
Now, even though the gender was different, the temperament was pretty much the same.
"I was simply admiring the statue outside. I thought it was beautiful. Wanting to touch it was just an instinct upon seeing something lovely..."
Su Cheng turned her head. "Look, I also really like this horse statue, and I also want to touch it."
She pointed at the idol in the center of the prayer room. "In fact, I probably want to touch it even more, because it looks so nice to touch—"
The temperature in the hall plummeted.
Su Cheng's words came to an abrupt halt.
For a moment, she felt anger erupting from the deity.
The fury swept over like a surging giant wave, nearly crushing her.
Su Cheng: "?"
What was going on?
Did she say the wrong thing again?
Su Cheng: "...Also, I really don't know why the God of Lust appeared here. I swear, I didn't want this to happen either, or may I drop dead right now!"
She paused. "See, I'm still alive, so it's not a lie. After all, you know I belong to the God of Contracts—"
Su Cheng was just about to say more when her vision suddenly went black.
The figure of the silver-haired man had vanished.
Su Cheng: "..."
It was one thing for the God of Lust to want her as a Blessed One, but he had specifically chosen the Holy Church's territory. She didn't know if he was targeting her or purely trying to provoke his rival.
But since she was currently in the Church's temple, she had to clear her name.
Besides, this matter had nothing to do with her in the first place!
She pondered for a moment. What the God of Purity had said earlier about her resisting the darkness obviously referred to her refusing to become a Blessed One.
It wasn't about the messy things she and the God of Lust did in the spiritual world.
Clearly, this top enforcer of the God of Light also knew that such temptation was simply not something a human could withstand.
In the originally silent space, many noisy voices began to emerge.
Su Cheng turned around and found that a huge crowd of clerics was densely packed in front of the left and right doors of the prayer room.
There were at least forty or fifty people huddled at the doors, craning their necks to look inside.
Yet they seemed to be wary of something and didn't dare to come in, so they were all stuck in the doorframes, inevitably pushing and shoving each other, making the scene look quite comical.
Su Cheng: "???"
The clerics had fanatical looks in their eyes, all staring into the void where the God of Purity's figure had been just a moment ago.
"His Highness has manifested—"
"Is it real?! It's not an illusion, right?"
"Of course it's real! It's just a pity my spiritual power isn't strong enough to see his face..."
"Never mind, seeing it might make you pass out..."
"Damn it, it would be worth it!"
Most of the clerics at the door were quite young, and they were all extremely excited at this moment, discussing it animatedly all at once.
Soon, someone shifted their gaze to the young girl inside.
"...Is she His Highness's Blessed One?"
"Maybe. Just now outside, she triggered the divine statue's..."
"Uh, I thought that was because—"
Su Cheng could faintly hear their voices.
These people seemed to have only seen the manifestation of the God of Purity.
Considering they didn't seem to know the God of Lust had also appeared, they apparently believed the God of Purity had come because of her.
"Oh my god!"
The paladin squad leader who had just been guiding her squeezed out of the crowd with difficulty. "Good heavens, my lady, how did you end up in here?"
Su Cheng smiled bitterly. "You might not believe it, but from my perspective, you guys brought me in here, and then you suddenly disappeared."
"What?" The squad leader was also dumbfounded. "We were walking outside the whole time, just passing by this door, and then you suddenly turned in here! Calling out to you was useless, and then the doors here were sealed."
Su Cheng: "..."
It seemed she had been completely mind-controlled by the God of Lust.
"How could I have brought you in here," the squad leader shook his head. "This is His Highness Cessia's prayer room. It's still under repair right now and hasn't been opened to the public—"
Su Cheng's mind reeled. "What?"
She knew who that name belonged to. "You're saying this is the God of Purity's prayer room? Here?"
"Yes," the squad leader frowned. "Isn't this his statue?!"
He said, pointing at the pegasus divine statue in the center of the hall.
Su Cheng: "?"
Su Cheng: "..............."
