"Now, you understand why in later generations, temple murals depict white doves surrounding the Seven Gods, and why the white dove holds such special symbolic meaning in the Faith of the Seven."
Before Holy Mother Dany finished speaking, Archbishop Matthew, kneeling below, once again shone with intense golden light. He entered a state of enlightenment, his soul ascending, as he murmured, "Great compassion and mercy are both the cultivation that perfects oneself and the act of spreading truth, goodness, and beauty into the world. In the end, it bears the flower of truth, goodness, and beauty, making the world, and one's own state of mind, more perfect."
Even though she had expected something, Dany was still stunned. The old priest's transformation was simply too astonishing. His soul had completely turned golden, and the power of faith surged wildly around him, gathering toward him before merging into his being.
Holy Mother Dany felt somewhat at a loss. This was the first time she had witnessed such a situation.
Her original goal had been very simple: to put on an impressive act before the believers and then trick Matthew, who had been speaking ill of Saint Dany behind her back, into going to provoke Stannis.
However, Saint Dany now felt somewhat reluctant to send the old priest to his death. If he really died…
Well, it didn't seem to matter. Once he entered heaven, she could still study his peculiar soul.
When the fluctuations of Matthew's soul gradually calmed, Dany decided to press on and finish the story's conclusion.
What if he could ascend once more?
"What is happening to me?" Matthew looked around, examining his hands and legs.
Only then did he notice his abnormality: his soul body had absorbed a vast amount of divine power, turning him into a radiant little golden figure.
"You listened to my teachings and gained insight, allowing your soul to ascend. This is the ultimate pursuit of the Faith of the Seven: to let believers complete their flaws. Thoughts transform the soul, and the soul in turn influences the body. From within to without, one achieves perfection."
Without formal instruction, Holy Mother Dany had grasped the highest essence of religion: persuasion.
And the highest level of persuasion was turning falsehood into truth.
"I feel power, light, and all that is beautiful," Matthew said with his eyes closed, his face filled with bliss.
Suppressing the urge to immediately pin him to a laboratory table for study, Dany slowly continued, "After feeding my flesh to the eagle and the white dove transforming into a human, the story did not end."
Matthew immediately cast aside all distractions and listened solemnly to the Holy Mother's teachings.
"That eagle was not satisfied after devouring one of my divine bodies. After I spent a hundred years condensing a second divine body, it came again."
"Did it chase another white dove?" Matthew asked in anger.
Holy Mother Dany said, "No. It was a demon, and demons are the most cunning. Why would it use the same trick twice?
That time, it entered the body of a starving tigress with its divine soul.
The tigress brought several weak cubs before me and said: I am too hungry and too exhausted to hunt. If I die, my cubs will surely die as well. Please hunt a fat deer for me.
I said: I cannot bear to kill living beings.
The tigress said: If you do not kill, we will starve to death. To avoid dying miserably, we will have no choice but to devour one another. If I give my flesh to my cubs, they may eat their fill once, but they will still starve eventually. In the end, I will have no choice but to eat them to survive. How can you bear to watch a mother devour her children?
I said: Even a tiger does not eat its own cubs.
The tigress said: That is only because it has not been driven to extreme hunger.
I said: I wish to redeem you and your cubs.
The tigress said: That is easy. You have flesh on your body, so lie down and let us eat you!"
"Evil fiend!" Old Matthew gritted his teeth.
"Sigh. As the saying goes, if I do not enter hell, who will?" Holy Mother Dany displayed a compassionate expression, her entire being seemingly radiating a sacred light of fearless sacrifice.
"Holy Mother, this cannot happen twice!" the old priest cried out.
Ignoring him, Holy Mother Dany said calmly, "Facing the tigress's request, I immediately used the first form of the Holy Mother Divine Palm, 'First Light of Sacred Radiance,' striking across thousands of mountains and rivers to reduce the true body of the harpy hidden within the Great Pyramid of Slaver's Bay into minced flesh."
"Gah—" The old priest's furious expression froze.
"Immediately after, without waiting for the harpy to wail or beg for mercy, I used the second form, 'Follow Me Into Hell,' to completely deliver its divine soul from suffering.
Finally, I used the harpy's crushed remains to feed the starving tigers."
The old priest's face twisted, at a complete loss for words.
He said nothing, but Dany continued staring at him.
The result disappointed her. The story's supposed climax failed to move Matthew.
"Great compassion and mercy are not foolish weakness. I am the Holy Mother, possessing boundless compassion, but also the wisdom of an old crone who understands all things. When necessary, I can also become a warrior and act with thunderous force. Now, do you understand?"
"Thank you for your guidance, Holy Mother. I now understand how to handle the relationship between the Faith and Stannis.
I carry great compassion and am willing to sacrifice myself to redeem demons, but I will not allow evil to take whatever it pleases." Old Matthew's gaze was firm and full of confidence.
"Very good! In the past, I bestowed upon Moses the 'Sword of Moses' to part the Green Fork River. Today, you bear the responsibility of leading believers to migrate and seek refuge. I shall pass on to you three forms of the Holy Mother Divine Palm."
"What is the Holy Mother Divine Palm?" the old priest asked, both delighted and confused.
Holy Mother Dany did not explain further. She simply tapped his forehead, knocking his soul unconscious.
Then she shed the persona of the Holy Mother, adopted the stance of a research monk, and began studying Matthew's ascended soul.
This was not the first time Dany had encountered a believer's soul ascending.
In the past, the High Sparrow had possessed the highest level of devotion, reaching 250 points. After being resurrected by the Holy Mother, his faith further ascended into an inconceivable state of a "true saint." There was no longer any barrier between the Holy Sparrow and the Seven Gods. He could transmit faith power at 100% efficiency and also utilize it fully.
Why was Holy Mother Dany unwilling to grant healing magic to all priests who believed in the Seven Gods?
Efficiency.
If a low-level priest had a devotion level of 20 and generated 100 points of faith power per day through prayer, only 80 points would reach the faith space of the Seven Gods.
If he were granted holy healing, and Dahei took a 50% cut as usual, only 40 points of divine power would leave the faith space. However, due to heavy losses during transmission through the line of faith, the priest would receive only 15 points, or even less.
If Dany simply collected faith power from him without granting holy healing, she effectively saved 25 points of divine power, which meant a 25% reduction in losses. This was, in essence, capitalist logic.
It was like a certain automobile factory that, due to a severe "plague" at the beginning of the year, had to suspend operations. Although it merely stopped making profits, it still wailed that failing to resume production would result in billions in daily losses.
After a single ascension, the High Sparrow's daily faith output remained unchanged, as it had already reached the mortal limit, but his efficiency increased to 100%.
In simple terms, when the Holy Sparrow generated 100 points of faith power through prayer, the Holy Mother received all 100 points. When she granted him 100 points in return, he also received the full amount without loss.
Faith power from believers was transmitted to the Holy Mother through lines of faith. The more devout the believer, the "wider" the line of faith.
One could compare the line of faith to a wire conducting electricity, and the High Sparrow was a superconductor with zero resistance.
Now, Archbishop Matthew had surpassed his predecessor in enlightenment, leaping directly beyond zero resistance into negative resistance.
At this moment, Matthew's soul, dyed gold, would generate 100 points of faith power, yet the Seven Gods would receive 120 points. When the Seven Gods returned 100 points to him, he would likewise receive 120.
Had the law of conservation of energy been broken?
Holy Mother Dany had indeed been shocked at first, but after careful study, she quickly made two major discoveries.
First, she found that she could perceive and control Matthew's life imprint, as if his devotion to the Seven Gods had reached such a level that he had offered everything about himself to his faith.
His will had voluntarily opened his life imprint to the Holy Mother, just as ordinary believers open their hearts to the gods, revealing their thoughts and life experiences.
This transformation led to a direct consequence: Matthew could almost fully accept her divine power, divine soul, and the Song of Laws.
If the Seven Gods were to descend upon Matthew, they could exert seventy percent of their power.
The reason it was only seventy percent was because Matthew was still a mortal and could not withstand too much power. The force of the Song of Laws, in particular, would cause his body to collapse.
Beyond being an excellent vessel for divine descent, Matthew himself had truly evolved. His life imprint gave Dany the sense that he had become a "higher life form."
When ordinary people died and entered heaven, their souls remained ordinary, like King Aegon's. Some devout believers, however, would transcend themselves through faith, like the High Sparrow.
Wizards could evolve through cultivation.
Priests, who cultivated by borrowing divine power, could they evolve as well?
The High Sparrow had already proven to Dany that priests could evolve into higher-energy beings through their practice.
Wizards cultivated elements and laws, evolving from the outside in. Priests cultivated the heart, evolving from the inside out through the ascension of the soul.
Priests were quite similar to Confucian scholars. Both studied, researched, and expounded upon a certain path or principle.
However, many priests could only produce "assigned essays" tied to their doctrines, such as desire in the faith of lust or killing in the faith of slaughter.
Before Confucianism became rigid, it revered the ultimate principles of heaven and earth, allowing open-ended exploration. Later, it too became constrained by fixed themes.
If one were to measure the soul levels of the High Sparrow and Matthew using wizard ranks, the High Sparrow was a half-step demigod, while Matthew, after receiving the Holy Mother's "guidance," advanced to a demigod level within a single day.
Originally, the Faith of the Seven had no concept of angels. After the emergence of the High Sparrow, the Dragon Queen artificially established a hierarchy for believers' souls, borrowing from Christianity to create a nine-tier angelic system.
The High Sparrow was only a saint, half a step away from becoming an angel. Matthew, however, had already become a first-tier guardian angel and was even approaching the threshold of a second-tier archangel.
Holding Matthew's life imprint in her grasp, Dany pondered whether she should modify his soul into a winged being.
Earlier, his soul had frantically absorbed faith power from the faith space. Now his soul body was extremely solid and should be able to manifest in the material world.
In the past, it had been difficult for her to perceive human life imprints unless the individual had special attributes, such as surviving even when their soul was nearly destroyed. Altering a life imprint was even more difficult unless the being had already undergone modifications, like the Children of the Forest.
But when a believer's devotion reached Matthew's level, they handed everything over to the divine, unlocking the code of their very existence.
Perhaps this was true conversion.
On further thought, this kind of faith was rather terrifying, almost resembling a demonic path.
Or perhaps there was never much difference between gods and demons, only distinctions imposed by human perception.
(End of Chapter)
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