The Gentleman at the End

Chapter 115: Chapter 114: The Final Ceremony

Wiping away the marks left on his neck from being strangled,

Yi Chen carried the kerosene lamp in front of him and the suitcase in his other hand, stepping deeper into the depths.

Following a stair-like secret passage, he came to a spacious underground space supported by eight stone columns, with an unusually large stone chair bearing the Fetal Body Seal not far away.

“Is this where new instructors are accepted? For such a crucial area to have not a single person. . .”

Yi Chen approached the highly suspicious stone chair,

and without inspecting it, he smelled a pungent scent coming from beneath the chair,

quickly locating the mechanism at the back of the chair using the Visual Enhancement provided by Little Grape and turned the circular umbilical cord on the Fetal Body Seal, after making a full round.

Click, click!

The stone slab at the seat automatically moved aside, revealing a vertical stone path that led even deeper.

The new life aura overflowing from below was more than ten times richer than that of the village chief’s umbilical cord, and combined with the empty church area, it was enough to suggest that the church’s ultimate secret was hidden below.

“Not leaving anyone outside, as well as such an obvious chair and mechanism, it’s clearly leading me downward, or rather, allowing the arrival of outsiders.

As the village chief said, am I too late?”

Yi Chen had already decided whether to go deeper, but he had to confirm one more thing.

“Little Grape, are you sure you want to go down with me? The situation may have developed beyond control. Once the entrance is blocked, there might not even be a chance to escape, not to mention bringing my body back to Easton Cemetery.

I am not qualified to directly take you down,

You can choose to wait here for me, or you can leave right away.

With your abilities, you should find it easy to survive in this world.”

When Yi Chen finished speaking,

a black furball squeezed out from his collar and bit directly onto his neck, leaving a bleeding tooth mark.

“The reason I followed you was to see the outside world. With such an interesting situation before us, of course I want to go down for a look!

I’m curious about what lies behind the umbilical cord,

Besides~, as long as it’s not ‘Open Source,’ killing this grape here is not easy.

And your friend, he must still be alive… It’s simply impossible to kill that kind of person without bringing down several floors or shedding several layers of skin.

As long as this building remains intact, it means Jin is still alive.”

“Let’s go.”

Yi Chen smiled, smoothing the tooth mark on his neck,

and leaped headfirst into the vertical passage between the chairs, descending smoothly using the friction against the walls.

After dropping about fifty meters, his feet stood firmly on the ground… splashing up some water.

“Water?”

In the pitch-dark stone corridor, there was a clear stream flowing through the middle.

“Could it be that this place is connected to the Underground Lake, in a sense? However, the water that flows here is very clear and even drinkable. It must have been filtered through limestone layers and is not in direct contact with the lake.”

He continued deeper, following the direction of the water flow.

The deeper he went, the more he could feel the aura of new life rushing towards him,

causing the blood and flesh of Yi Chen’s exposed face and palms to twitch, wanting to split and grow new flesh.

‘Gentleman’s Skin’ immediately responded with changes, raising the collar and elongating it to wrap around his face, while Yi Chen donned gloves by himself.

“Are we finally there?”

Yi Chen, like a gentleman on his way to an important meeting, held his head high and chest out, his steps firm.

As he stepped out of the underground passage, the light from the kerosene lamp radiated outward, fully illuminating the scene before him,

at that moment,

Yi Chen, who had been mentally prepared the whole way, suddenly froze, his once-peaceful mind disturbed by the sight before him,

“Am I… right in my guess? The two radically different elements of hanging and the umbilical cord correspond to the [price] behind the new birth.

No wonder I haven’t seen any church members along the way.”

The circular underground space was the final ritual area of the New Birth Church. @@novelbin@@

No less than twenty chosen instructors, including the black-robed aide who had once taken out Yi Chen’s heart, all gathered here… except they were all dead.

Their necks were wrapped with umbilical cords, tied in exactly eight loops, hanging from the top of the rock formation.

The hanged clergymen were evenly spaced, forming a circle around the center.

A fresh, clean “Initial Blood,” free of any impurities, seeped from the instructor’s neck constriction and dripped down into the water trough below, mingling with the groundwater and flowing toward the center.

At the center of the ritual,

lay a giant womb-like organ, the ultimate secret of the Church.

It was approximately half the size of a cargo truck, its semi-translucent sac filled with ‘amniotic fluid.’ The Initial Blood from all members of the Church would partly flow into it, nourishing the “Holy Embryo” within.

From time to time, a woman’s face appeared on the surface of the womb-like organ, corresponding to the “Mother of New Birth” worshiped by the Church.

She could constantly produce “umbilical cords,” sharing new life with others.

While sharing, she also planted the roots of slavery in their minds. When the time came to welcome a new life, these people would have to offer up their lives, their deaths heralding the new birth.

It was also this ‘mother’ that caused the forest disease and the formation of grayification, closely approaching Open Source… but for some reason, she couldn’t break through and make direct contact with the ancient source of illness.

At this moment,

her gestation had reached the final stage,

with only the last of the floating Holy Embryos inside the mother, monopolizing all the resources.

The other nine Holy Embryos had already become its nourishment, and even their skulls could be seen floating within… akin to culturing Gu within the womb, which is the previously mentioned “Combination of Cognate Symptoms.”

The sole Holy Embryo was growing at a visibly rapid pace, soon to descend upon this world as the Divine Son.

Interestingly, it was even dressed in a white skin jacket (with clearly visible stitching), adapting to his rapid growth, enlarging along with him, the material of the jacket being the “Gentleman’s Skin” from the missing squad.

The gestation process had reached the final phase; even if the mother’s body were instantly destroyed, it would not stop.

Moreover, it was impossible to rapidly kill the mother, being a Severe Patient.

As the Village Chief had said, it was too late.

However,

Yi Chen’s attention wasn’t entirely on the “Mother and Son”; instead, he looked above the organ.

Naturally hanging from the top of the ritual area, a young woman’s body enveloped in cyst sacs and bound by multiple umbilical cords, only her head and neck exposed.

Her deep brown short hair brushed past her ears,

her high-bridged nose and thin, moist, slightly red lips,

a Red Lotus Mark imprinted at the bottom of her left eye,

eyes tightly closed, apparently in a comatose state,

her Physical quality had been recognized by the Mother of New Birth, deemed the “Final Sacrifice”—the first delicacy for the Divine Son upon his birth.

At that moment,

a woman’s face emerged on the surface of the womb-like organ; with eyes shedding bloody tears, she gazed at the approaching young man and spoke with a seductive voice,

“My child is about to be born, do you wish to join us?”

As soon as she spoke,

a Spiritual Shock instantly impacted Yi Chen’s brain, as if he were being choked by an umbilical cord around the neck, the sensation of suffocation maxed out in an instant, and his brain also began to suffer from a lack of oxygen.

The very next second! The Emblem engraved at the back of his head began to heat up, steaming vapor emanating from the surface of his brain, forcefully ‘evaporating’ the spiritual invasion within his mind.

“Little Grape! Attack her?”

“Are you sure you want to use Spiritual Shock now? Against such a powerful Severe Patient, it will be effective at most once during combat… Can’t you catch her off guard at a critical moment, like you did with Mr. Li?”

“Use it!”

Suddenly,

Yi Chen’s eyes widened, and along with the Little Grape on his shoulder, they both stared intently at their opponent, returning the spiritual gesture.

Hum!

The mother clearly didn’t expect that the young man would also possess spiritual abilities, her gaze dulled in an instant, her consciousness muddled.

And in that brief moment of the mother’s astonishment,

Yi Chen’s figure swiftly crossed over her from above, accompanied by a flash of silver light!

He cut through the inflated sacs and the binding umbilical cords,

cradling the comatose woman in his arms,

landing behind the mother and continuing to create a distance of over ten meters.

Yi Chen gazed at the woman in his arms and calmly said, “Jin… you’re not just at this level, are you?”

No sooner had he spoken,

the woman’s eyes suddenly opened wide, her mouth already brimming with excited saliva.