Chapter 258: Chapter 44: The Ancient Spirit Coin Reveals the Ancestor of Light

The hall was filled with kneeling people.

They were clad in rags, practically naked, the tattered cloth caked with dark-red dust and suspicious stains.

Each was skeletal, their eye sockets as deep as caves. Their faces and exposed skin were covered with the ravages of overwork, old wounds, and the sallow, bloated complexion of malnutrition.

Their eyes were cloudy and numb; only in their depths still burned a tiny, flickering flame named ’survival,’ threatening to go out at any moment.

The scene was strikingly similar to what Murphy remembered of the destitute peasants in the Duval Territory—people exploited to their limits, teetering on the brink of death. In fact, this was even more miserable and desperate.

At the very front of the crowd knelt an elder who, though just as emaciated, wore a slightly more intact, tattered gray robe.

His hair was sparse and gray, the wrinkles on his face like gashes carved by a knife. He held a spherical object carefully wrapped in coarse burlap, raising it high above his head with both hands.

His arms trembled violently from weakness and emotion, as if he were holding up an immense weight.

"Ancestor of Light... I beg you, show us mercy..." the elder began, his voice hoarse and cracked, like sandpaper grinding on stone. "We, your humblest lambs, abandoned on this defiled, scorched earth, offer you our final prayer..."

His voice was thick with sobs, and tears mixed with the grime on his face, carving two muddy rivulets down his cheeks.

The crowd behind him whimpered in response, a low sound like that of wounded beasts:

"Ancestor of Light..."

"Save us..."

"We can’t go on..."

"Those... people from above..." the elder continued, his voice steeped in unspeakable fear and hatred. "They took our last stores of grain, snatched our children for hard labor, and drew strange symbols around our villages... Then, the monsters came... They said it was a necessary price, the foundation for a new world... But O Ancestor of Light, what about our world? We just want to live!"

He slammed his forehead hard against the cold, rough stone floor. With a dull THUD, the skin broke and blood began to seep from his brow.

"We didn’t dare to resist. We hid like insects... but we can’t hide anymore. The stones in the ground have begun to grow hot, the water has become murky and poisonous, and red eyes stalk the night... This last temple, the last pure light you left to guide us, is also about to die out..."

The elder raised his head, his tear-filled eyes gazing at the sphere held high in his hands. From within the burlap wrapping, a pure, milky-white light shone forth, growing fainter and fainter.

"We can’t do anything... We’re too weak, Ancestor of Light," he choked out, his voice nearly a delirious mumble. "Those people from above, they wield terrifying power, enough to move mountains and command monsters... We are merely dust beneath their feet, just numbers in their grand plan that can be erased at a whim..."

"We don’t want to understand their plan. We don’t want any new world... We just want to live. To live like human beings, even if only for one day, with one full meal, for one peaceful night... Please, Ancestor of Light, use your last light to show a way forward for us, the abandoned dust... Even if it’s just to tell us where we can flee to escape their notice and the monsters’ claws for a little while..."

"Please!" the elder let out a piercing wail, like the sound of tearing silk, and prostrated himself once more.

"Please!"

"Give us a chance to live!"

"Have mercy, Ancestor of Light!"

The crowd behind them erupted into cries and pleas that had been suppressed to their absolute limit. They all followed the elder’s example, smashing their foreheads against the cold ground as if to prove their piety through physical pain, hoping to trade it for a slim chance at survival.

Murphy’s attention was completely captivated by the burlap-wrapped sphere in the elder’s hands.

The milky-white light that shone from it... It was pure and warm, carrying a strange power that soothed the soul, purified corruption, and dispelled fear.

’This feeling is quite similar to the Holy Power wielded by the Priests of the Church Court, yet there’s a subtle difference.’

’Is this "Ancestor of Light" connected to the source of the Church Court’s faith?’

’Or is it simply the primitive worship of a similar force of "order and purification" by different civilizations?’

As the elder let out his utterly tragic wail and the crowd prostrated themselves in a desperate tide, the burlap-wrapped sphere finally seemed to be moved by the focused intent that had reached its zenith—a mixture of absolute piety and the will to survive.

HUMMM!

A clear hum, louder than before, emanated from within the sphere.

Immediately after, a beam of milky-white light—incredibly fine, yet condensed to the point of ultimate purity—shot out without warning from the top of the burlap wrapping. As if alive, it gracefully descended, shining directly onto the prostrating elder below!

The pillar of light completely enveloped him.

In an instant, a miracle occurred.

The elder’s sparse, graying hair visibly thickened and turned jet-black.

The deep, carved lines on his face were smoothed away by an invisible hand, his skin regaining its elasticity and luster.

His stooped back straightened, and the outline of muscles appeared on his stick-thin arms.

His dull, despairing eyes became clear and bright again, even radiating a spark of the sharpness and vitality of youth...

In the span of two or three breaths, the elder, who had been on the verge of collapse in his twilight years, was rejuvenated, transforming into a robust, resolute-looking young man of about thirty!

Beneath the tattered gray robe, his once-withered body was now brimming with strength.

The kneeling crowd was stunned, then erupted into incredulous gasps mixed with ecstatic joy and even more fervent hope!

"A miracle! A true miracle!"

"Elder! You... you’re young again!"

"The Ancestor of Light has answered! We’re saved!"

The rejuvenated elder was stunned himself. He stared in disbelief at his own strong, smooth hands, then touched his young face, his eyes erupting with the nearly frenzied joy of someone who had just survived a catastrophe.

"Ancestor of Light! You have answered us! You have granted us power!" His voice trembled with excitement as he raised the sphere, still connected to him by the beam of light. "You have granted me new life, granted me strength! Does this mean I am to lead everyone..."

His words came to an abrupt halt.

Because in the instant he spoke.

CRACK!

A faint yet heart-stopping cracking sound, one that seemed to strike directly at the soul, echoed clearly from within the raised sphere!

The milky-white beam of light that connected him, infusing him with life and strength, shuddered violently like a snapped string, then shattered and dissipated! 𝚏𝕣𝕖𝚎𝚠𝚎𝚋𝚗𝐨𝐯𝕖𝕝.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Through the gaps in the coarse burlap, the already faint halo of light flickered wildly, like a candle in the wind, and then—

It was snuffed out!

It was as if the light source within the sphere, which had persisted for countless ages, had just exhausted its very last bit of Energy.

"No—!"

The joy on the elder’s face—still immersed in the ecstasy of his rejuvenation and newfound sense of purpose—instantly froze, replaced by boundless terror and despair.

He let out a shrill, inhuman roar, clutching the now-dark sphere to his chest as if he could reignite it with his own body heat, with his very life.

"No! How can this be! Ancestor of Light! Don’t abandon us! Please, don’t—!"

But there was no reply.

The sphere in his arms only grew cold, becoming nothing more than a common stone wrapped in rags.

And the youthful vitality that had just bloomed within him seemed to have lost its source. Though he did not immediately revert to his aged form, a deep enervation, rooted in the very Origin of his life, began to spread through him at an even faster rate—a feeling more despairing than simple aging.

"It’s over... It’s all over..."

"The last pure light... is gone..."

"There’s no way out... We’re all going to die here..."

"Those people from above... the monsters..."

The crowd’s ecstasy, a fragile bubble, was popped by this sudden turn of events. In its place was a deeper, more absolute despair and a dead silence.

Weeping, whimpering, and moaning spread like a plague, carrying with them an all-consuming despair.

The glimmer of hope from moments ago had transformed into an even heavier darkness that threatened to swallow everyone whole.

The scene began to shake violently,

like a motion picture with a bad signal, it twisted and disintegrated. The despairing, kneeling figures, the ruined hall, the dark-red sky... everything flaked away, piece by piece, like a fading oil painting.

The last image to freeze in place was of the young elder, still clutching the extinguished sphere. He knelt on the cold stone floor, head thrown back to the sky, the final spark of light in his eyes utterly annihilated, leaving only a boundless void.

Then, the entire vision shattered and dissolved!

Murphy’s body jolted, and he was violently pulled back to reality.

He found himself still standing in the depression within the chasm, his palm clutching a strange, faintly blue ancient coin. Cold sweat had soaked his undershirt.