Based on Mia's reaction, Lovene was almost certain that the ability to reverse time came from Mia, and the trigger was, in all likelihood, Mia's death.
This kind of ability wasn't uncommon in the novels of her past life.
What she hadn't expected, however, was that even as a bystander, she, Lovene, would retain her memories after time reversed.
Mia obviously hadn't expected this either, believing she was the only one who remembered.
And Lovene had no intention of telling Mia the truth.
After all, a Saintess who knew nothing yet chose to trust Mia unconditionally was far more touching, wasn't she?
“Your Highness, follow me. I know where the source of the village's contamination is.”
Mia glanced at the village chief's corpse, stood up, and walked out of the cabin. Lovene followed her without a moment's hesitation.
The entrance to the cellar was located behind the village chief's wooden cabin, hidden beneath a pile of dry firewood.
Mia pushed the firewood aside, revealing a rusted iron door. Grabbing the ring handle, she gave it a hard tug. The hinges shrieked in protest as the iron door swung open.
Stone steps spiraled downward, with oil lamps embedded in the walls every few paces.
The air was thick with a sweet, sickly smell of decay, like meat left out too long in a butcher's shop, but even more like the stench of rotting corpses.
Following the stairs down, they quickly reached the deepest part of the cellar.
It was a circular stone chamber. The surrounding walls were covered in incomprehensible runes, their spindly branches crisscrossing like blood vessels and extending all the way to the altar in the center of the room.
The altar was black, looking as though it had been scorched by fire countless times. Dried-up corpses lay strewn haphazardly around it, their chests completely hollowed out.
But besides the corpses, there were still signs of life.
To the left of the altar, a middle-aged woman's chest rose and fell with weak, shallow breaths. Hearing someone enter, she slowly raised a withered hand toward Lovene and Mia.
In another corner, a young man slumped against the stone wall, his eyes still open. Seeing Mia approach, he stirred, looking as if he wanted to cry out for help, but he only managed to exhale a puff of gray, lifeless breath.
Mia stood frozen, motionless.
Lovene stepped up from behind her, her gaze drifting over Mia's shoulder to rest on the very top of the altar.
A heart rested there.
However, it was not made of flesh and blood, but was instead a grayish-white stone heart. Although it wasn't physically beating, Lovene could distinctly hear the heavy thud of a heartbeat echoing in her mind.
Mia's voice drifted back to her.
“This heart is the source of the contamination. If we contain it, we can resolve the corruption of this village. It's just...”
She trailed off, but Lovene knew what she wanted to say.
Lovene could already sense it. In the unseen realm, a thread as fine as a strand of hair connected this stone heart to every single body surrounding the altar.
Not only that, but countless other invisible threads stretched even further, passing through the stone walls and soil to latch onto the chests of every villager above.
“I can feel it,” Lovene said softly. “This heart is linked to every single life in the village. If we contain it directly, all the villagers will die.”
In other words, the villagers had actually died long ago. It was only the existence of the stone heart that allowed them to live on like normal people.
Mia said in a heavy voice, “Then what should we do? Purify it? We don't have that kind of power.”
The only way to save the villagers was to purify the heart, forcing it to retract the threads it had cast out.
Yet, the ability to purify the contamination of an outer god was exceedingly rare, and it almost always demanded a terrible price. Even within the Church of the Morning Light, only a handful of people possessed such power.
Lovene turned around, her eyelashes fluttering as she looked at Mia's profile. “Who says we don't?”
She tilted her chin up slightly, her lips curving into a proud, gentle smile. “Don't underestimate me, Mia. I am, after all, the Saintess of the Church.”
She did, of course, possess the ability to purify the contamination of an outer god.
After her magic power reached the late stage of Rank One, she could clearly feel that the church's seal on her soul had weakened significantly. Along with this weakening, a new ability of the Heart of the Saintess had emerged.
And that new ability was Holy Light.
This Holy Light, which originated from the Heart of the Saintess, could purify the contamination of outer gods without demanding any price other than consuming a portion of her magic power.
Seeing Lovene's confidence, Mia nodded silently.
Yet, for some reason, a flicker of unease brushed past her heart.
Lovene turned her head, her gaze sweeping over the corpses on the ground before returning to the stone heart on the altar. Her smile faded slightly, replaced by a look of deep pity.
“But before we do that—” Lovene raised her hand and pointed toward the entrance of the cellar. “Go. Bring the rest of the villagers down here. Among these corpses, there must be many of their loved ones.”
Mia took a deep breath, turned back toward the stone steps, and departed. Lovene stood where she was, listening to the footsteps fade into the depths of the cellar.
Then, she turned back and looked once more at the stone heart on the altar.
The smile on her face slowly vanished.
Summoning the villagers wasn't just to let them reunite with their deceased relatives. More importantly, she wanted to harvest the pain and pity they would feel for her.
After everything that had happened, she had figured it out.
She could no longer harvest a massive amount of magic power from Mia.
If she were to die in front of Mia again, Mia would simply reverse time once more instead of sinking into the grief of losing her.
Her sorrow would be diluted by the knowledge that “there was still a chance to fix it.”
When that happened, the magic power she could extract from Mia might not even match what she had obtained the first time.
Therefore, if she wanted to escape the church's control and secretly increase her strength, she had to extract magic power from other people. At the same time, she needed to maintain her close relationship with Mia.
After all, the ability to reverse time...
...was incredibly important to her as well.
Lovene walked over to the dying woman and knelt down.
The hem of her holy robes dragged against the filthy stone floor, instantly staining with dust and dark grime. She paid no attention to this, however, gently brushing the messy strands of hair away from the woman's face, her expression filled with deep worry.
The woman lay on the floor, her chest barely moving. Her skin had already taken on an unnatural grayish-white hue; she likely had less than half an hour left to live.
Lovene drew a short blade from her waist.
Without any hesitation, the sharp blade sliced across her skin. A crimson gash instantly bloomed on her fair wrist, and blood welled up, dripping onto the woman's dry, parched lips.
“Don't be afraid... You'll get better...” she whispered softly, as if afraid of startling the woman who hovered on the brink of death.
As time ticked by, her crimson blood began to glow with a golden Holy Light. The woman's ash-gray face slowly regained a healthy flush, and her breathing grew much smoother.
The contamination within her body steadily diminished, her life force rekindling. Her consciousness even began to clear, to the point where she could see exactly what the young girl before her was doing.
Noticing this, Lovene's figure swayed slightly, her face turning pale.
Was it... because she had lost too much blood?
Although the woman was too weak to speak, a deep sense of pain and pity flickered in her eyes.
But out of the woman's sight, Lovene's lips curved upward in an elegant smile.
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