Our Family Has Fallen

Chapter 399: Chapter 269: The Right Eye of Balistan_4

She now inexplicably found herself burdened with debt to Lance, both financial and psychological.

Without a doubt, what she wanted most was to make up for her mistakes and repay the money. Otherwise, she wouldn’t have been so easily swayed by Tamara into becoming an enforcer.

The Nun fell silent after hearing Lance’s words. She was someone who couldn’t hide her feelings; everything was written on her face.

When a look of internal conflict appeared on her face, it was clear she was already wavering. A nun of firm faith, changing just like that after only a few sentences.

This could only mean her moral baseline had been lowered repeatedly. After choosing to eat in the cafeteria that time, there was no turning back.

The Nun began to eat. Mmm, delicious, she thought. To be honest, she was truly hungry.

Lance, meanwhile, seized the opportunity to bring up their previous conversation. Her guard was at its lowest, and discussing such matters while eating would also diminish any sense of solemnity. All his actions were carefully orchestrated.

”I heard you were looking for me about something before?”

The Nun paused, her movements slowing as she continued to chew, then spoke.

”Yes, there’s something I need to ask My Lord’s advice on.”

”Call me Lance,” Lance said with a warm smile. The fish had taken the bait; his efforts in setting up the trap had paid off.

It’s generally unwise to delve into deep topics with new acquaintances, so Lance usually didn’t actively probe into others’ secrets. He only guided them to speak about such things when the time was right.

But the Nun was different. She proactively told Lance about what she had seen and heard in town that day.

Listening to her questions, Lance realized she was doubting her faith. She couldn’t understand why people within the Church would commit such acts—whether it was abandoning civilians to the bandits’ blades or the massacres during the Holy Wars.

The true heretic is probably you, Lance couldn’t help but scoff internally. Everyone else is just playing along; you’re the only one who took it seriously.

”Do you know what religion is?”

Lance decided to use the same theory he had once discussed with Reynard, directly analyzing the situation she faced. From a young age, she had been ensnared in a world woven from lies and deceit.

”Impossible! If God doesn’t exist, how can I perform Divine Arts?” The Nun was agitated. His words were outright blasphemy.

”I’m not saying God doesn’t exist,” Lance explained. ”Rather, the true God has no direct connection with human beings. It’s like how you wouldn’t concern yourself with what an ant on the sidewalk is thinking or doing.

”But imagine an ant, overwhelmed by your colossal passing figure, begins to worship you in a way it cannot comprehend. In its eyes, you become an omnipotent god. At that moment, although worship has emerged, there’s still no actual relationship between you two.

”Now, suppose another ant appears and tells that first worshipping ant that it knows what you, the ’god,’ want. It claims it can reveal your divine will to the first ant, but only if the first ant brings it food.

”Did you ever say such a thing? Does that intermediary ant truly understand your thoughts? Obviously not. The power disparity between you and an ant is too vast for any mutual understanding.

”Yet the first ant, the one being ordered around, doesn’t know this. It only knows you are powerful. Believing it’s under your divine pressure, it toils away, forced to share its hard-earned food with this second ant.

”But does this second ant, the intermediary, actually have any connection to you? Clearly not. All of this is merely a lie it concocted to enslave the first ant.

”Between you and the first worshipping ant, an intermediary has inserted itself—one that monopolizes the right to interpret ’God.’ Even though this intermediary ant doesn’t understand you in the slightest, that system, that construct... that is religion.”

Lance’s words were direct, yet they struck her with such force that she lost her appetite. She sat there, utterly dumbfounded.

No one had ever dared, nor managed, to explain it in such a way before. Yet, his explanation made the concept undeniably clear.