Foreign Land Reclamation By a Vegetable-growing Skeleton
Chapter 1624 - 1185: Lord, Help Me!

Chapter 1624: Chapter 1185: Lord, Help Me!

Igniting a Faith Fire for no apparent reason? Anthony’s only feeling was confusion, not joy or excitement like picking up a cheap advantage. For most people, discovering a Faith Fire would be an extraordinary stroke of luck, but Ange and his kind didn’t see it that way.

Blank God Statuses could be cultivated; what need was there for a Faith Fire? For Faith Fire to grow into God Status, it required many conditions—lots of Faith Elemental Force, a stable group of followers, and a bit of luck.

Compared to Blank God Statuses, the biggest advantage of a Faith Fire growing into God Status was the potential awakening of Divine Techniques. But the problem was that Ange had so many Divine Techniques that he had to carefully select which ones to keep—discarding the less useful ones. A mysterious Divine Technique held little appeal.

Yet it emerged abruptly, capturing everyone’s attention.

The Faith Fire was quite conspicuous, especially in South Coronet’s perspective. Even without direct eye contact, it could be sensed. Not even the Holy Light Balls could overshadow it. At such a critical moment of escape, a Faith Fire drawing enemy attention suddenly appeared. Anyone unaware of the context might think Natalia was trying to harm him.

However, upon contacting the information within the Faith Fire, Anthony realized Natalia wasn’t attempting to harm him—instead, she genuinely believed his nonsense and saw him as the God Star.

A faith without its deity is excruciating; all your devout fervor yields no response. Everyone tells you that the massive Fireball in the sky is our god—it radiates light and protects all beings. Half a lifetime of devout prayer and worship yields not a single answer.

Whenever you prayed, you couldn’t help doubting whether the God Star truly existed. Yet the elders assured you: the God Star was overwhelmingly powerful, and only the most devout faith could catch its attention.

The theological system is inherently self-coherent; all believers perpetually deceive themselves, patching up logical holes for illogical beliefs.

You say: God cannot create a Giant Rock that he himself cannot lift. And the response will be: God lifts it when he wants to and doesn’t when he doesn’t—the change itself aligns with God’s will.

But no matter how meticulous the logic, nothing could compare to a simple divine reply during prayer: "Hey, who’re you looking for?"

Having spent half a lifetime praying without getting a response, Natalia, in the throes of despair amid a world crumbling around her, suddenly witnessed a God Star descending upon her, saying, "From now on, you’re my messenger."

At that moment, Natalia’s heart surged with excitement, almost to the point of bursting. If not for the healing cycle, she might have fainted outright. And when Anthony dropped her off at the stone forest, she grew even more thrilled.

In her eyes, Anthony was attempting to protect her by leaving her behind and diverting the enemy’s attention. How could such a God Star not be loved? How could she not dedicate everything to it?

In that instant, with the most devout belief and the most fervent posture, Natalia was ready to burn herself and pray to the God Star. Such fervent devotion was known as fanaticism; such posture was called sacrifice—a rare occurrence like Oke’s, now encountered by Anthony today.

But Anthony wasn’t catching any of this; he was sprinting away frantically, carrying the glaring Faith Fire. Hesitating about whether to crush it, the Faith Fire suddenly exploded into a large burst of bloom.

The Faith Fire itself was akin to a small bloom—it granted the qualification to ascend as a god. But transitioning into Divine Fire required many more conditions. Back when the Church of Light’s Fire Stealers had stolen numerous Faith Fires, only a few—such as Guliani and Dyson—had successfully converted them.

During this process, the Faith Fire would slowly grow, from a small bloom into a large bloom, until it met all the necessary conditions.

But what did it mean to satisfy the conditions? What would happen if the conditions weren’t met and the Faith Fire failed to transition into Divine Fire? Death... After dying of age or illness, the Faith Fire would extinguish alongside you.

This process was fairly lengthy. Yet now, as Anthony toyed with the idea of "should I crush it," the small bloom suddenly grew into a large bloom—this transformation was incredibly swift, happening in the blink of an eye.

But it wasn’t finished yet. The large bloom surged a few times, contracting violently inward, igniting Divine Fire, morphing into a God Status. The intense fluctuation of godhood spread outward, broadcasting the emergence of a new deity throughout the world.

Anthony was on the verge of insanity. It was as though he’d left home to find a coin pouch on the ground. Inside was a single coin. Thinking of discarding it, he realized the coin was a Space Ornament. Inside this Space Ornament was a Magic Crystal Card. Assuming the card had no balance, he went to the issuing bank to discover one billion crystals were loaded onto it.

That was Anthony’s gut feeling—he had been forcefully given something, and refusing it was not an option. As the Divine Fire ignited, an abundance of information flooded into his mind.

Above the city, countless humans knelt upon rooftops, craning their heads toward the sky and bowing in prayer. Their gazes followed a speck of light streaking across the heavens, within which Anthony saw himself.

At this moment, every surviving intelligent being in the world offered their unwavering faith and earnest prayers to him, imploring for his protection and salvation.

Of course, they weren’t really praying to him but to the God Star. However, Natalia’s ignited information linked everyone’s faith directly to him—in other words, he had stolen the God Star’s believers.

Anthony slammed the God Status into his chest, rationalizing that unwanted gifts should not be wasted. Though accepting the God Status would entail bearing divine responsibility, wasn’t he already shouldering such a burden?

If he’d done it without rewards, why turn away when benefits were at hand? As the God Status entered his body, Anthony immediately felt Divine Power flowing endlessly within him—so much that his eyes nearly bulged: "What a surge! So strong!"

Faith from tens of millions of people poured into Anthony’s body all at once. In such desperate times, the collective faith was exceptionally devout.

Previously, when the City of Light’s tens of thousands of inhabitants erupted in a wave of faith during their despair, it had created an invasive pathway for the God of Arbitration into the Divine Aspect of Light. And now, the devout belief of tens of millions not only nearly overwhelmed Anthony but also constructed a pathway to some distant place for him.

Fragments of images flickered in Anthony’s consciousness, revealing angles of the Origin World’s center surrounded by lands from all directions, enclosing him.

Anthony’s expression brightened as he murmured incredulously, "I... I’ve become the God Star?" The perspective of those fragments clearly belonged to the center-space’s giant Fireball, and Anthony’s consciousness was projecting directly into it?

But before he could digest this revelation, sudden alarms flared behind him. Anthony quickly swerved, throwing Holy Light Balls behind him as he frantically dashed forward, shouting internally, "Lord, help me!"

The faith frenzy, the masterless God Star, the interconnected web of faith—all of this was reminiscent of the earlier divine battle between the God of Arbitration and the great Lord. This time around, the great Lord had far more experience—Lord, help me!