Chương 363: An Important Day

"Using the gift of speech I was granted upon crossing over into reality, I shall establish the greatest church this continent has ever seen. Even then, it would be a pitiful homage to Goddess Nebulo, but I am aware of my status as a mere lost lamb. It will take an unimaginable amount of effort for a pitiful existence like myself to be capable of honouring Goddess Nebulo's very existence properly""You know, Mara probably doesn't expect you to do so much.

You should focus on getting something set up without worrying about its apparent quality. Just gather up others like you, and do your thing""Do you really think so? Goddess Nebulo is simply unfathomable to me… Regardless of the truth, I must do my best and beyond to honour her. We must honour our creator. We would be nothing without her""Mmh… Others must also be trying to establish places of worship, no? Why don't you just join forces with one of them?"

"Even amongst us lambs, we can't agree on everything, but I have something for myself that others do not–Goddess Nebulo spoke to me. Her divine presence lingers upon my feeble flesh. I can galvanise assistance easily, but I wouldn't want to disturb the operations of some of my fellows, so I decided to start my own thing, right here" The two speakers looked at an old tower overgrown with vines and thorns. The structure was a lonely one, sitting without any other architecture anywhere nearby.

What it used to be was unclear until it was explored, but regardless of what its history was like, it was situated in a nice secluded spot. People didn't build or venture much in this forlorn section of Rootriska. These plains, forests and other biomes were nestled in between great peaks, only easily accessible via a naturally formed tunnel through the durable stone. This very tunnel was quite large, but infested with monsters and beasts of all kinds that didn't take too kindly to uninvited guests.

This made this whole area one only sparsely visited by adventurers seeking natural wonders to collect, and in recent times, adventurers hadn't been coming much due to being distracted by the bounty on Mara Nebulo's head that kept getting higher and higher to the point of ridiculousness. Nowadays, Mara Nebulo was so omnipresent that the boogeywoman had replaced the boogeyman because of her.

People would see a weird-looking shadow for a fraction of a second and come shouting that Mara Nebulo had tried to drag them into a shadow dimension–Obviously illogical. Any good believer would know that Goddess Nebulo did not have shadow powers.

"I see. That does make sense… Any idea where Mara is, though?"

"I'm afraid my answer will stay the same. I do not know in the least, Miss Sylbi""Aw… I would love to reunite with her after so long, but it seems she's grown even more elusive than I am" Sylbi placed her hands on her hips. The humanoid but undoubtedly abyssal appearance she had taken on a while ago was still in place. She reassembled an impressively tall, almost giant, muscular woman without a face. Under the sunlight, her body appeared a deep shade of blue, a shade which was aptly known as 'Abyssal Blue'.

She could only be mistaken for a human by her silhouette, and even if she were capable of taking on a more convincingly human appearance, Sylbi didn't find herself willing to. Her ability to transform was far from strong. If she didn't feel comfortable in a certain form, it wouldn't last long. After meeting Mara for the first time, she had come to desire a more personal appearance instead of mimicking the looks of a True Void Being friend of hers, so she instead moulded herself into what she currently was.

The other being with her turned to her. He had decided to call himself Sarcousworth, and he was a fleshy mass of skin with an incredible number of arms and hands alongside a large maw with many eyes hidden beneath the flaps of his body. He claimed to have manifested into reality following the destruction of a completed Nightmare Trial. This was one of many ways Mara Nebulo could seemingly 'create life'. Some creatures were directly from Nightmare Trials.

Some were created due to the nearby presence of her nightmares, but used their surroundings to manifest a form for themselves. Some others apparently merely manifested without any apparent reason. For these reasons, the appearance, powers and strength of Mara Nebulo's lambs could vary wildly. Some adhered to her own powers, history, or the like, and some seemed to have nothing to do with her apart from having been created by her influence.

Regardless, all lambs seemed to innately feel a great sense of duty toward their creator, but in the eyes of Sarcousworth, it was currently duty without goal. He and the other lambs were lost. They needed to come together and unite. Only then would they be noticed by their Goddess, and only then would they receive divine orders.

"If I may ask, Miss Sylbi… What is the origin of your relationship with Goddess Nebulo? You are not one of her creations, and you seem to have encountered her long ago, when her status as a goddess was not yet established. What pushed you to regard her so highly from the very beginning? Was her present already majestic?" Sarcousworth was obviously curious about the earlier days of his goddess. If he had a quill and paper, he certainly would have prepared himself to write down everything Sylbi was about to say.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

"Oh, I suppose you wouldn't be aware of Mara's special circumstance concerning her eyes""Mmh? The colour of her eyes? The purple that can be viewed, yet does not exist?"

"Yes, it isn't actually unique to her. It is the defining trait of a certain group of beings scattered throughout the worlds of the Cosmos. I don't know what it's called or the finer details, but I know that it is very rare amongst the near-infinite beings that exist throughout the near-infinite worlds… Perhaps only a hundred or fewer creatures and people have it?"

"Is that so? How do you know of this, Sylbi?"

"Because the Abyssal King is one of them… He… He loves to speak at length about himself, and I guess he got to learn the truth about his eyes""You mean that Goddess Nebulo has contemporaries?! This Abyssal King must be at the peak of his special existence already! He must be an entity beyond divinity itself! Tell me about him, tell me what heights Goddess Nebulo is destined to reach!"

"Huh… Actually, he said that having the eyes doesn't mean that much. He said that he got to meet a lot of the others since, you know, the Abyss is connected to everything… And while they are certainly all notable and some very powerful, most of them weren't actually absurdly strong. Some barely even had powers to speak of, but he had more to say about the ones he found disgusting""Is that so? But the Abyssal King… He must be extremely powerful, no?

To rule over a Great Realm that is said to have a will of its own""Oh, of course he's impressively strong. He owns a moon, and he makes towers pop out of the ground, and… He shoots whales for some reason""Pardon?"

"I mean it literally. He points his finger somewhere, and then a whale is launched forward like a projectile–And it's alive. It is a living being… He shoots other things, too, but mostly whales and hawks""That is a rather bizarre set of abilities to have""That's for sure. I don't know if it's true or if he's just making it up, but he also likes to claim that he is the fastest being–Like, throughout the entire Cosmos""This Abyssal King is certainly quite the character.

He must be quite intimidating""He's actually super short. He's like… One meter and forty centimeters tall. He's also a huge egomaniac. There are like… Only three people he's ever fought that he doesn't talk down on, and one of them, he just insults" Sarcousworth was confused. The more Sylbi talked, the more the Abyssal King sounded ridiculous, despite the simple fact of having such a title being proof of calamity-level strength.

He didn't know whether he should be happy or offended that his goddess had such a man as her 'peer'. Though Sylbi made it sound like the purple eyes didn't actually mean much. They didn't seem to destine one to overwhelming strength at all, and the more he prompted her to explain, the less sense it made. From what she told him, the purple eyes weren't an indicator for anything.

The Abyssal King spoke of peers with strength rivalling his, of peers who weren't even fighters at all, of peers who really just sounded like perverts, of peers who were upstanding heroes, of peers who were so evil and awful beings that his goddess seemed like a beacon of moral goodness compared to them… …

That was without mentioning that some of these peers couldn't even be considered sapient beings, or the fact that a bunch of them were claiming to be the best at something throughout the entirety of the damned Cosmos. The Abyssal King claimed to be the fastest, but another claimed to be the one with the most physical strength, another that he had the strongest offensive magic… The more Sarcousworth listened, the more it felt pointless. There was nothing to glean.

The purple eyes were a rare trait that seemed to mean nothing whatsoever. Especially since Sylbi was dropping bombs whenever he felt like he was managing to perhaps find a common thread to it all.

"I… I don't get it""I don't either. I am just making conversation, Sarcousworth. I don't even know how accurate all of this is. The Abyssal King never struck me as a very trustworthy narrator. He probably changes a bunch of details to make himself look better""Well, even if he does, he is the ruler of the Abyss, no? Could we perhaps get him there to help or something like that?"

"Sorry, he can't enter worlds as he sees fit""It was worth asking…" Sarcousworth scratched his stretchy skin with one of his many hands.

"Anyway, would you be willing to stick around? I am sure that Goddess Nebulo will come here if I manage to build up a nice church to worship her, so it will probably be more efficient than simply wandering around looking for her""You need some muscle, don't you?"

"... Yes, I am not really built to well… Build. We will start from the abandoned tower, and expand outward. We have plenty of materials to work with, and if I am not mistaken, I should be able to get more of my people to gather here soon enough, so construction efforts should eventually pick up pace" Sylbi shrugged.

"I'll stay. My research hasn't been fruitful anyway. Mara probably hides in a populated area rather than the woods or something else""Splendid!" They both turned to the tower, but Sylbi started looking around at the bountiful nature all around them.

"What are you going to call this place? If you are going to develop it, it will need a name when it inevitably makes its way onto maps" Sarcousworth hadn't thought about this at all. He had completely forgotten that a holy ground would need a name for people to identify it. It was especially important since if things worked out, it would probably become a point of pilgrimage.

The nightmare monster thought about it for a few seconds, eventually settling on something rather simple, but effective in displaying this area's allegiance to Goddess Nebulo. He snapped many of his fingers at once.

"I know, we'll call it Nebula! It will be the Holy Church of Nebula!"

"That's a nice name""Of course, it is just one letter different from my goddess's name"