Chapter 494: I Erect Altars! Cast Idols! Build a Divine Kingdom!

"You are the Primal Pope? What nonsense are you spouting!" He finally saw it for what it was—Su Mu was trying to usurp the throne!

Even though they all worshipped the Primal Angel, human nature was inherently selfish. Cultists constantly competed with one another, vying to prove who was the most devout and who held more of the deity's favor.

"Nonsense?" Su Mu slowly raised a hand. "Then let me show you the Primal Divine Cult I founded!"

He clenched his fist. The prayers of a million believers suddenly echoed through the void, and a massive projection slowly unrolled behind him like a sprawling canvas.

The magnificent, sacred Holy Brilliance City manifested in a bird's-eye view. Countless tightly packed buildings blanketed the earth to form the shape of a colossal eye—a mark left upon the land by a god.

Right at the center of that eye, a towering cathedral pierced the clouds.

Su Mu stood atop the cathedral, gazing down at the stunned crowd with cold indifference.

In the projection beneath his feet, millions of densely packed Primal Cultists emerged from every corner of Holy Brilliance City. They knelt in devout worship, chanting the true name of the Primal Angel!

An endless tide of faith boiled over!

"Is... is this an Illusion Technique?" Heilong asked in shock.

"This is not an Illusion Technique!" The horror in Zero's eyes had frozen over. "This actually exists. It is merely being projected through an Illusion Technique. Every cultist in that image is a real person. The aura of faith radiating from millions of people cannot be faked.

But... where exactly is this place? How could such a city of miracles exist in this world?"

There was another thought he kept to himself: Why do I, as the Primal Pope, know nothing of such a place?

"Pride! Who exactly are you?" Zero demanded in sheer disbelief. "The heretics are at the height of their power, slaughtering God's people across the globe. How could such a place possibly exist in this world?"

"I come from Hell, arriving here... to seek miracles." Su Mu gazed indifferently at the crowd as he slowly revealed his origins.

"Hell? Where is that?" Zero faltered, completely ignorant of such a place.

"Above the surface lies Heaven. Below the surface is Hell."

"Below the surface!? You mean the nightmare forbidden zone sealed by The Gods!?" Zero was instantly horrified. He had never imagined that humans still survived in that nightmare wasteland, let alone a branch of the Primal Divine Cult... Did the people there call it Hell?

"That is right. I come from beneath the surface, the barren land abandoned by The Gods. Do you have any idea how despairing life in Hell is? The people there could not be touched by the radiance of the Primal Angel. It was I!"

Su Mu's tone suddenly swelled with passion. His gaze sharpened, sweeping across the hundred thousand cultists present like a deity from above.

"I measured every inch of Hell with my own two feet! I spread the radiance of the Primal Angel throughout the underworld, refusing to abandon a single child of God! I spent a century gathering them together to erect altars, cast idols, and build a divine kingdom! I established the largest sect in Hell—the Primal Divine Cult!

This city of miracles stands as the ultimate testament to the efforts of myself and millions of cultists! I named it... Holy Brilliance City, praying that it would forever be bathed in the sacred radiance of the Primal Angel!

I did not do this to prove my own greatness. I did this to show the whole world that every inch of land under the heavens belongs to God, and every soul upon these shores is God's subject!"

His impassioned and fiercely hypnotic words struck like thunder. At this moment, Su Mu looked exactly like the Primal Angel's proxy in the mortal realm, blazing like an eternal sun that commanded everyone's absolute attention.

Su Mu's speech carried on. "Do you know what God's children in Hell long for the most? They yearn to ascend to Heaven—the surface world where you stand now. They yearn to be truly bathed in the radiance of the Primal Angel. That is their lifelong dream!

It is my dream as well! And so, I have come!

Yet, upon truly reaching Heaven, everything I saw and heard appalled me to the core. The Primal Divine Cult here is chased down like rats crossing the street! The cultists who ought to be sitting in cathedrals offering devout prayers... are being slaughtered like livestock!

In Hell, such a thing is absolutely unimaginable! Down in Hell, if a single person dares to slander the Primal Angel, our Primal Divine Cult will mobilize in full force and hunt them to the ends of the earth!

You... have disappointed me beyond words."

Su Mu let out a heavy sigh, a touch of desolation coloring his face. He looked exactly like a devout pilgrim who had weathered countless hardships and trials to finally reach Heaven, only to discover that Heaven was even worse than Hell. He exuded a faint, tragic sense of shattered faith.

His words plunged the hundred thousand cultists into a dead silence. Some fell deep into thought, some clenched their fists, and others had red, teary eyes. They thought back on everything they had suffered over the years. It was exactly as Su Mu said—every day they lived like rats crossing the street, hunted by all. They had watched fellow cultists fall into pools of blood countless times, completely powerless to stop it.

Yet they never imagined that in Hell—where conditions were vastly harsher and the distance to God so much further—the cultists had achieved far more than they ever did, even treating Heaven as their ultimate lifelong pursuit. The mere thought of it filled these believers with burning waves of shame.

Seeing the hundred thousand cultists fall into deep reflection, Su Mu laughed inwardly. As an illusion master, manipulating hearts was his exact specialty. The world widely believed that zealots possessed unshakable willpower, completely unaware that they were actually the easiest demographic to brainwash.

When dealing with a zealot, one could never deny their faith. Instead, one had to play along with it, and then gently steer them off course.

Zero's expression was also rather grim. As a fellow Primal Pope, this stark comparison truly made him lose face.

Even now, he did not doubt Su Mu's identity. In his mind, someone possessing such dense Primal Divinity was completely and utterly one of their own. Furthermore, the projection the man had conjured genuinely carried the aura of faith from millions of people. That simply could not be faked.

"Pride, actually..." The moment Zero opened his mouth, Su Mu cut him off.

Su Mu shot him a sharp, piercing glare and snapped, "Shut up! As the old saying goes, an incompetent general dooms his entire army! It is your undeniable fault that Heaven's Primal Divine Cult has fallen into such a pathetic state!"

"I..."

"What exactly have you been doing all these years? Here, in the place closest to God, the Primal Divine Cult you lead only amounts to a pitiful hundred thousand people?"

Zero's face flushed through shades of green and white. "That is because there are simply too many heretics here..."

"A failure always looks outward for excuses rather than looking inward for the cause! So what if there are many heretics? Should the Primal Divine Cult simply stop expanding? Should God's radiance simply stop shining? The greater the hardship, the harder you must push forward! If the conditions are right, you strike! If the conditions are absent, you forge them yourself and strike anyway! Even against an army of millions, I would march onward without hesitation!

Your behavior makes me seriously doubt your faith."

Zero's expression instantly warped at those words. For a zealot, having their faith questioned was the absolute most intolerable insult imaginable.

"Hold your tongue! My devotion to the Primal Angel is absolute! It is not something you have any right to question!"

"Hmm..." Su Mu murmured, nodding thoughtfully. "My apologies. I misspoke. After all, anyone capable of entering this place is naturally the most devout cultist of the Primal Angel."

Zero was about to retort when he suddenly froze. Why did those words sound so incredibly familiar? Wasn't that exactly what he had said to Pride when the man first arrived? How had the tables completely turned?

"But what use is devout faith?"