Gospel of Blood

Nice also looked at the book cover.

For a moment, both the person and the cat were silent. Charlotte only broke the silence when she looked at Nice with a disgusted expression.

Nice coughed awkwardly and quickly shouted.

“Misunderstanding! It’s all a misunderstanding! Lady Charlotte, this is just a random title I came up with to cover my academic research! I’m not a pervert! Really, I’m not! Please believe me!”

Charlotte’s face showed a thousand doubts.

She casually flipped through the “grimoire” and glanced at a few pages. As she read, her expression towards Nice turned even more disdainful.

“Nice, from today onwards, you’re not allowed to come within three meters of me without my permission.”

Nice: …

“Misunderstanding! It’s really a misunderstanding! Oh no, maybe there is a bit of personal interest, but this book is really just a disguise! If you don’t believe me… if you don’t believe me, try inputting some magic power. You’ll definitely see something different!”

Nice continued to defend himself.

Input magic power?

Charlotte raised an eyebrow.

She picked up the “grimoire” again and tried inputting some magic power into it. Then… the text in the “grimoire” changed once more.

This time, it was the content page that changed.

Charlotte noticed that the content, which could have landed its creator in jail for several years, had transformed. The words and pictures had all changed.

The book’s content had shifted from various racial appreciations to explanations of Gods, gossip, and research on the nature of divine power and faith.

It included information on Artemis, the Moon Goddess, Aphros, the Goddess of Beauty, and several well-known and lesser-known minor Goddesses.

Especially the Goddess of Beauty, Aphros.

Much of Nice’s research in the book centered around this minor Goddess, who seemed to have “cooperated” with Nice in quite a few experiments.

Wait…

Minor… Goddess?

(T/N: It’s a word-play that’s thankfully translated across languages pretty well. Minor could mean lesser significance, but it could also mean… u know.)

Charlotte soon noticed a common theme in the various illustrations.

She looked down at herself and then at the evasive Nice.

For a moment, both the person and the cat were silent again.

“Nice.”

“Uh… yes?”

“From today onwards, without my permission, you’re not allowed to come within ten meters of me.”

“…”

Under Charlotte’s gaze, which was like looking at non-burnable garbage, Nice slinked into a corner, trying to lower his presence.

Charlotte, meanwhile, continued flipping through the “flavorful” grimoire.

She had to admit, although the grimoire’s content had a criminal flavor, the hidden parts about the Gods were thought-provoking.

In this grimoire, Nice’s research on divine power was deep and… rather blasphemous.

It contained many theories Nice had never shared with Charlotte, including some experiments on the Gods that would definitely lead to execution in Myria.

Contrary to Myria’s accepted belief in the Gods’ creation, Nice believed that divine power and even extraordinary power were foreign, invaders that changed the world of Myria.

Moreover, Nice posited that magic power, source power, mental power, and divine power were all different manifestations of the same underlying force.

According to Nice, this force had strong permeation and assimilation properties, capable of merging with and transforming the material world, ultimately manifesting as magic and divine arts.

This… was the basis of Nice’s theory that Gods were parasites.

Additionally, the “grimoire” detailed Nice’s theories on “laws.”

Nice believed that the “proficiency” with which different powers merged and transformed was what the Gods called “laws.”

When this “proficiency” reached a high enough level, it formed a “primordial essence” in an intermediate state between different powers.

This “primordial essence” appeared flame-like but wasn’t actual flame; it was called “divine flame.”

When divine flame advanced further, it created an organ for power transformation: the “divine core.”

After reading the grimoire, Charlotte fell into deep thought.

Honestly, she had heard similar theories from Nice before, but seeing such detailed arguments for the first time was eye-opening.

The section on laws, in particular, almost overturned Charlotte’s understanding of divine power.

She now understood why Nice hadn’t shared these thoughts before. They were more shocking than what Nice usually said.

However, based on her own use of divine power, Charlotte found some truth in Nice’s theories.

Some of her longstanding questions seemed to find answers in an instant.

She had to admit, Nice was a genius in the field of magic.

If Nice’s research was accurate, it nearly bridged the gap between the extraordinary and the divine.

For Charlotte, a Demigod who came into her power late, this even pointed the way to condensing a divine core.

It was truly incredible.

The method to enhance divine power and condense a divine core, something Charlotte had sought in various ways, was found in Nice’s notes.

T/N: I feel like this is supposed to be divine persona according to the terms in the previous chapter, but I will use ‘divine core’ to follow the original text for now.

Of course, this was assuming Nice’s research was correct.

Even Nice himself wasn’t entirely confident in his research, often using words like “speculation” and “conjecture” in the grimoire.

With this in mind, Charlotte had a strange thought.

Instead of searching for divine records to explore the growth of Gods, perhaps… she could get more effective information from Nice.

This was indeed a case of looking too far for answers.

Thinking of this, Charlotte couldn’t help but ask.

“Nice, how much do you actually know about the Gods? Why haven’t you mentioned this research before?”

Nice didn’t answer.

Charlotte looked up and saw him shrinking into a corner of the palace, far away… pretending to be dead.

Charlotte: …

“Why are you so far away?”

“Um… Lady Charlotte, didn’t you tell me to stay ten meters away?”

Charlotte: …

“Get back here.”

“Alright…”

So, Nice rolled back over obediently.

Charlotte: …

She looked at him, half annoyed and half amused, then composed herself.

“Answer my question.”

Nice looked pained.

“Well… Lady Charlotte, you never asked before, and this kind of blasphemous stuff, I didn’t dare to say! It’s even more shocking than saying the Gods are parasites! Besides, shouldn’t you know more about these things than I do? Also, my research… has some flaws that don’t make sense.”

Charlotte paused and said,

“My use of divine power does indeed have some similarities with your research, but… I’ve never seen such theories before. Your research… makes me very curious.”

She looked at Nice curiously and asked.

“Nice, since your research on Gods is so deep, haven’t you thought about becoming a God yourself?”

Nice sighed.

“If I hadn’t tried, I wouldn’t be in this state now.”

“Hmm?”

Charlotte raised an eyebrow.

Nice had always avoided talking about how he became a black cat, but now… maybe because one secret after another was being exposed, or maybe because Charlotte’s “restored” power was growing stronger, he seemed finally willing to speak.

Charlotte looked Nice up and down and asked.

“Are you saying that your current form is the result of a failed attempt at becoming a God?”

Nice answered honestly.

“That’s… partly correct. I did try to use my research to become a God, but… I failed.”

“My theoretical approach should have been correct, but it seemed to lack the most critical step. During the power transformation, I found that what Gods could easily do, I couldn’t achieve under the same conditions.”

“It’s like trying to open a door with the same key as the Gods. They can open it, but I’m restricted by some unknown qualification… unable to open it.”

“I must have overlooked something, something that determines it’s impossible for me to become a God by my own power.”

An unknown qualification?

Charlotte pondered.

This made her think of the lucky mortals in Myria’s history who had become Gods.

Throughout history, apart from those “born” Gods, those mortals who became Gods didn’t seem to rely on their own power but inherited other Gods’ “legacy.”

Even Charlotte had inherited the Gospel of Blood.

So… does becoming a God really require some sort of qualification?

Of course, if such a qualification exists, Charlotte now likely has it.

But what concerned her was, if becoming a God requires a “qualification” as Nice suggested… what is the essence of this qualification?

If it’s a “qualification”, who or what determines it?

Charlotte couldn’t figure it out.

However, this wasn’t something she needed to consider right now.

She just kept it in mind for the future.

“So… what was the other half of your reason for failing?”

Charlotte looked at Nice again and asked.

Nice’s eyes suddenly became evasive again.

“Hmm?”

Charlotte raised her tone slightly.

Nice swallowed and laughed dryly.

“The other… reason… the other reason… was probably because I was being hunted by the God of Contracts and the Goddess of Beauty and had to hide in this cat container prematurely.”

Charlotte: …

Considering the divine spells Nice usually practiced and the various experiments in the “grimoire” requiring Gods’ “cooperation”, she could guess why he was being hunted.

Charlotte was about to tease him, but suddenly she felt a premonition and heard prayers and calls from afar.

The voice belonged to Sebastian.

She realized that it must be about the meeting with the Northern Archduke.