"Hiss… ha…"
Chu Hao drew a deep breath, dispersing the fragments of the ignited souls, then looked at the angels with satisfaction.
Shrouded in black mist, he manipulated the fog, revealing an evil smile.
"Desire… is like a spring that never loses tension."
"No matter how much you teach people to be virtuous, to perform true good deeds…"
"There will always be the side of evil deep in their hearts. Oh~"
"I almost forgot—you call this evil original sin!"
With that, an endless stream of corrupted souls surged from the black mist surrounding Chu Hao.
Their numbers quickly filled the sky of the entire plane, completely surrounding the angels!
And once these souls appeared, under the operations of the Endless Abyss, they immediately began to dissolve. Everything within these souls began an irreversible decay.
"The longer desires, sins, and original sins are suppressed, the more powerfully they explode once unleashed!"
From the conscious mind to the true soul, these souls dissolved rapidly, leaving only one thing behind:
The seed of faith.
Not just for these angels, but for the true masters of this world—the creators who designed the Trial World—planted in the souls of the beings of this world.
Even now, Chu Hao could not fully decipher the structure of this so-called "seed." It involved the study of souls, a domain only accessible to supreme deities.
Yet, this did not mean Chu Hao could not manipulate them. The Endless Abyss could "corrupt" these seeds!
During the third Trial—the Abyssal Battle against the Magnus Legion—Chu Hao began studying these seeds of faith. He discovered several properties.
---
First, the growth property: the more devout the owner, the larger the seed in their mind-sea, able to illuminate more regions of the soul.
Second, the seed could unconditionally communicate with higher-dimensional beings, converting their overflowed power into what mortals perceive as "divine techniques." The more devout the believer, the stronger the divine techniques.
From these two properties, Chu Hao understood a crucial fact: faith is manipulable!
Faith itself is nothing special; it is merely a tool used by ordinary beings to connect with higher-dimensional entities.
And a seed of faith is just a mark left by powerful higher-dimensional beings in the mind-sea of mortals—like a dog marking its territory.
Hence, the notion of apotheosis through faith is a lie. The higher beings are not strong because of faith—they receive faith because they are strong! Their strength attracts belief, which fuels them further—a positive feedback loop.
This is the true cause and effect.
---
Furthermore, Chu Hao discovered the most critical invention during the third Trial:
When mortals harboring seeds of faith fall and are corrupted by the Endless Abyss, their mind-sea is invaded, and their seeds undergo mutation—a transformation opposite to virtue.
Original sins emerge!
These corrupted seeds generate an unending stream of belief, but now this belief manifests as sin, evil thoughts…
Black, flame-like sins!
The more devout the individual before corruption, the deeper their fall and the more sin they produce.
And the singular property of sin is to corrode the source of the seeds of faith, causing… backlash!
---
"I wonder… how it feels when you experience the backlash?"
Chu Hao watched the angels surrounded by countless sins, emotionless.
Countless souls dissolved before the angels, returning the seeds of faith they had bestowed.
Meanwhile, across the world, all souls already absorbed by the Endless Abyss were sacrificed by demons, their numbers turning the earth and rivers red. Souls fallen into the Abyss would never taste redemption. Their deaths fuel more fallen souls.
The endless sins swept through the world like black flames, with the angels as the initial ignition point.
---
"You…"
One angel, whose virtue was unknown, raised its head from the surrounding sin, glaring at Chu Hao.
"Do you feel no pity for the fall of these souls, for their suffering?"
At that moment, a soul identical to the elf Eldron dissolved before the angel, a tendril of sin wrapping around it, permanently weakening it.
Next, a frail alien dissolved, producing a tendril of sin as well. And then… another… and another…
---
"…."
Chu Hao calmly shook his head at the seven angels, ensnared and immobilized by sin.
"The reason I asked how it feels was merely to study the pain sin produces."
"But if you ask me… I don't care."
He lifted his head, eyes on the Seven Rings of Virtue still rotating in the sky, a cold smile on his face.
"I will not concern myself with the thoughts of these inevitably fallen evil souls, nor will I pity them!"
"Because these souls fell by their own will. Their only fate is to crawl hopelessly in the terrifying mire of the Endless Abyss, seeking a sliver of salvation…"
"But in the Endless Abyss, there is no hope."
"They only fall, endlessly trapped!"
"The Endless Abyss…"
"…is the final destination of these fallen, evil souls. Whether they had faith in life or not, they will fall… forever."
---
"This Trial… I have…"
"Won!"