.......
"A boy?"
Hearing this, the young man froze, looking quite surprised.
"That's right…"
Standing in front of the young man, Yang Cheng looked a bit hesitant before saying seriously, "That boy seemed quite special… only just then did I feel that… I thought I encountered the legendary holy spirit…"
Hearing this, the young man's expression changed.
...
Sounds of prayers continuously sounded out.
All around, worshippers in black robes walked about.
Chen Heng walked among them, looking quite eye-catching.
This was a church and looked like quite a good place.
The structures in the surroundings seemed quite dignified and stately, giving one an austere feeling.
"The Father is doing a prayer; please be quiet after entering…" the Sister said in a soft voice at the front of the hall.
"I understand," Chen Heng replied as he smiled.
Following this, he followed the people in and found a place to sit.
On the pulpit, the Father, dressed in black robes, concluded his prayer before giving a sermon.
After listening for a while, Chen Heng felt quite bored.
Most of the stories that this Father talked about were quite boring. Even though some things sounded quite reasonable, after thinking about some of them, he found that there were many gaps and flaws and did not seem very convincing.
If it was anywhere else, perhaps there would be people directly refuting him.
However, in a place like this, no one would do such a thing.
After all, this was a church and was his territory.
Moreover, the people who sat here were all worshippers.
As for those who were here to have a look, they definitely would not dare to say anything.
After all, if they did such a thing here, it would be equivalent to slapping the church's face in its own base.
No one would do such a thing, and this included Chen Heng.
Chen Heng sat in a corner and continued to listen, looking like he was quite interested.
However, in actuality, he felt that this sermon was incredibly boring.
Nevertheless, this did not matter—after all, he was not here to hear a sermon.
"So it is useful."
Sitting there, Chen Heng looked at the massive statue behind the Father.
The statue was black and was most likely made of metal. It looked like a statue of a middle-aged woman.
This was the main faith of this world, the legendary Holy Mother.
This sermon was about the Holy Mother.
Of course, Chen Heng did not come here to learn more about this religion.
As he watched on, motes of white energy were gathering on the statue, seeming quite eye-catching.
Chen Heng was very familiar with this energy—it was pure faith energy.
For the Divinities, sensing faith energy was almost instinctive.
That was why Chen Heng had come here.
"So the faith energy I sensed from before came from here?" Chen Heng thought to himself.
Before, he had just been hanging around outside, wanting to see how different this world was to his original world.
However, during this process, he had sensed faith energy, causing him to walk in.
From his senses, he could tell that the faith energy he had sensed came from this statue.
The statue was very big, and Chen Heng was quite surprised as to its size.
Ordinarily speaking, if there was no one to take in the faith energy, it would gradually dissipate.
This was the case for the statue.
Sitting there, Chen Heng could tell that the dense faith energy around the statue was not too stable and was constantly dissipating.
However, following this, more faith energy would gather onto the statue.
The rate at which the faith energy dissipated was very quick, but the faith energy around the statue did not reduce and instead increased.
This was quite an interesting scene.
"Having a monopoly on an entire world's faith… not bad," Chen Heng thought to himself as he inwardly sighed.
Obtaining faith energy from an entire world was massive—Chen Heng had experienced this himself before.
In the Mutated Creature World, he had a full monopoly over that world's faith energy.
Compared to him at that point, the Holy Mother's church was even more exaggerated.
After all, even though he had the faith energy from the entire Mutated Creature World, that had just been for a short period. It had been during a crisis, forcing all of humanity to place their hopes in him.
However, at the end of the day, this was not true faith.
After the crisis was over, their attitudes towards him would not be the same.
Even though some would maintain their fervor towards him, most would return to how they were before.
After Chen Heng had left that world, even though there were still some faith threads connected to him, it was just a few hundred thousand. Even though the number grew over time, it could not compare to before.
However, this was not the case for the Holy Mother of this world.
In this world, the Holy Mother Church had been established for thousands of years, and more than one third of the world were regular worshippers.
That was what caused this scene before Chen Heng: Large amounts of faith energy gathered, then slowly dissipated.
Despite this, the faith energy did not decrease and instead seemed to increase.
Undoubtedly, if this Holy Mother had its own consciousness and Divinity, and could use this faith energy, the Holy Mother would be unimaginably powerful.
It was a pity that in this world, Divinities did not exist.
Even the Holy Mother was just something the mortals had made up, like many of the gods that Chen Heng knew about.
As such, this faith energy was all wasted.
As such, in order not to allow this waste to go on, he stretched out his hand testingly.
A faint trace of mental energy extended out.
In the surroundings, a wave of white faith energy was drawn by Chen Heng into his own body.
In the next moment, the two Divinities within Chen Heng's body shined with light.
As if they sensed the abundant faith energy in the surroundings, the Divinities became active and did their best to devour the faith energy in the surroundings, converting it into divine energy.
"Looks like it really is possible."
Sensing the divine energy increasing within his body, Chen Heng grinned and felt quite pleased.
Right now, he was essentially stealing faith energy.
No one dared to do such a thing in the World of Gods.
Once they did this, the corresponding god would immediately sense it.
If the Holy Mother really did exist, Chen Heng definitely would not dare to do such a thing.
However, the Holy Mother was just a construct.
As such, there was naturally nothing for Chen Heng to fear.
Large amounts of faith energy slowly flowed into Chen Heng's body.
Sensing this, Chen Heng nodded, feeling quite delighted.
He had not brought all of his main body's strength into this simulation.
Even though his Divinities had brought some divine energy with them, it was not much.
Now that he had this massive amount of faith energy, he would have some divine energy to use in the future.
This would also strengthen this body.
Even though he had already made up for the damage to his soul, if he wanted to benefit as much as possible, it was better to make this simulation body as strong as possible.
The stronger it became, the stronger his main body would become after this simulation concluded.
As such, Chen Heng continued to sit here.
On the surface, it seemed like he was earnestly listening to the Father's sermon, but he was actually absorbing faith energy and converting it.
Time gradually passed.
In the surroundings, some people gradually left, leaving fewer and fewer people behind.
However, Chen Heng continued to sit there, still looking very focused.
Only after everyone else had left did Chen Heng slowly get up and walk out.
After leaving the church, it had become dark outside.
There were many dark clouds in the sky, seeming like it was going to rain.
Seeing this, Chen Heng frowned before looking in a certain direction.
He could sense a certain aura in the distance.
"Was it here?"
Within an old alleyway.
Yang Cheng and the young man walked here before deeply breathing in.
"Was the entrance that you found here?" Yang Cheng asked the young man as he looked at him.
Meeting his gaze, the young man looked quite frustrated.
"Do you think I'd lie to you about such a thing? I've discovered this place for a while now, but I did not dare to go in."
"You made the right decision," Yang Cheng deeply breathed in and said, "The curse at this place is bigger than I expected. If it exploded out, you might have died here."
"It's that bad?" the young man could not help but frown, "Are we still going to go in?"
"What else would we do?" Yang Cheng asked as he smiled, "Don't worry, we're just going in to have a look; we won't go deep. It should be fine."
He turned and looked ahead with a resolute gaze.
Standing there, they discussed for a while before deeply breathing in and walking in.
The so-called curse was a mysterious existence in this world.
No one knew where the curses came from, but once they appeared, they would cause much death.
No one knew when the Cursed Lands had appeared in the world.
If ordinary people went in and were stained by the curses' aura, they would be infected by the curse, resulting in terrifying outcomes.
However, within the Cursed Lands, there would often be unique things.
Those things were called Cursed Items.
In this world, Cursed Items had unique powers and could do things that were normally not possible.
Their goal was to find Cursed Items.
Following this, the two people walked through the entrance.
However, what they did not know was that the moment they stepped through, many blood-red eyes in the surroundings slowly opened up.
It was as if there were creatures coldly staring at them, waiting for them to die.
However, they did not notice this.
"What is that aura…"
Within the church, sensing that aura from the distance, Chen Heng's expression was calm as he thought to himself.
That aura was similar to that which he had sensed on the middle-aged man's body, but it was much more terrifying.
They had similar characteristics but were also different.
As he prepared to try to lock on to that place, he couldn't find the aura as it had completely disappeared.
Not only this, another aura disappeared with it.
"That aura… it was my mental mark…" he frowned.
He had left behind a mental mark on that middle-aged man's body so that he could find him when convenient.
Until just then, he could sense that person's existence through the mental mark.
However, that person had suddenly disappeared with that aura.
His mental mark was on that person's body, so even if he died, it would only cause some changes to the mental mark. It would allow Chen Heng to know that the person was dead, but Chen Heng would still be able to sense where that person was.
This kind of situation would only happen if the mental mark had been destroyed, or if it was extremely far away from him.
No matter which one it was, there seemed to be a problem.
Standing there and thinking about that strange aura from before, Chen Heng felt quite confused.
After thinking for a while, he turned and left this place.
Outside, it had begun to drizzle.
The sky was covered with dark clouds, creating a gloomy atmosphere.
However, no one sensed that in the air, there seemed to be a savage-looking face.
It looked down at the city below, its eyes filled with desire and greed.
All around the city, fog began to appear, beginning to cover the city.