503: Chapter 483 A Frenzied Harvest of Faith, A First Touch of the Rules

Everyone was feeling restless because of him. Zhang Mu figured that if he stayed any longer, their war council would likely struggle to proceed smoothly, so he simply summoned the world light gate and returned to the Holy Mountain.

Stepping out from the light gate, he first went to check on Leah. She was sleeping soundly, her pair of small cat ears twitching occasionally. Zhang Mu smiled and went back to his room to lie down and rest.

The next morning.

Leah had to attend her routine lessons. Initially, she was unwilling and drove away the Pope who had come to respectfully invite her. It was only after Zhang Mu's persuasion that she went to the cathedral sullenly; however, upon discovering Zhang Mu was following along, the smile on her face instantly bloomed again.

It wasn't that Zhang Mu felt Leah needed to study, but simply that the Pope looked too pitiful.

A dignified Legendary powerhouse, the ruler of the Church, with dozens of God's Blessing-level Believers under him, he could be described as below only one god and above tens of thousands on the Saul Continent.

No matter where he went, local empires would always give him a fervent welcome. Yet, he had met his match in Leah, being ordered around all day and not daring to talk back when scolded.

Zhang Mu felt a sense of pity and decided to lend a helping hand.

Of course, Zhang Mu wouldn't wrong Leah out of sympathy for the Pope, so he accompanied her as a study partner, which satisfied everyone.

He accompanied Leah to and from class, sat by her bed at night to coax her to sleep, and meanwhile pondered how to quickly collect faith. Life passed day by day, and in a flash, half a month had gone by.

Leah had to enter the labyrinth again. This was not at the Pope's request but was the will of the deity, which Leah could not refuse.

Once the Little Cat Girl stepped into the stone gate, Zhang Mu used the excuse of being bored from staying on the Holy Mountain all day to go play in the Holy City for a few days while Leah was away. To save the trouble of going up and down the mountain every day, he would stay in the city and not return for the time being.

The Pope had no objection to this, only requesting that he must return to the Holy Mountain before Leah came out.

The two months Zhang Mu spent on the Holy Mountain were the most relaxed time the Pope had experienced in the two years since returning to the Holy Mountain from Lake.

He nodded and agreed with a smile, then went down the mountain, found a small alley in the city, summoned a Portal, and returned to Blue Star.

The plan to collect faith had been organized in his mind countless times. Zhang Mu had a clear goal; after stepping out of the Portal, he immediately flew to America.

Over the next half month, Zhang Mu used various means to stir up a storm.

As for the America statue of god, Zhang Mu placed it in the center of the most bustling commercial street in New Moon City. He thought that with the daily surge of crowds here, collecting faith should be swift.

At first, it indeed went as he expected.

Faced with the statue of god that had descended from the sky—a miracle that humans could never possibly replicate—the American public was almost driven to madness, with every floor tile in the square packed with people.

Some citizens of New Moon City discovered that the flow of worshippers was too chaotic and inefficient, affecting the crowds from other cities that were constantly arriving.

One must know that the latter's jobs and families were not in New Moon City, so they couldn't stay for long.

The people who struggled to squeeze into the square cherished the hard-won opportunity and were unwilling to leave easily. The wealthy used helicopters to transport food and water, while ordinary people without such financial power used their wisdom to satisfy their hunger through various strange methods.

The crowded masses showed no sign of moving, and since out-of-town tourists couldn't get in within their limited time, conflicts naturally broke out.

No one wanted the order in the square to be terrible, as it would hinder everyone.

The New Moon City citizens, who had noticed this before, spontaneously created an organization. Their leader formulated a plan to standardize the worship process, ensuring that everyone had equal time to see the statue of god, focusing on fairness.

After this, the crowd in the square would change every day, which was also the peak period for the rise of faith power.

However, as several months passed, the statue of god never showed any strange behavior, and the American public who worshipped it received no blessings. Consequently, the flow of people dropped sharply, and recently, it had returned to its usual scale.

The statue of god was still there, but in the eyes of tourists, it was no different from other landmark buildings.

Zhang Mu learned the reason through short videos and finally understood why the people in the square no longer paid attention to the standing statue of god.

Zhang Mu naturally could not tolerate maintaining the status quo and began to implement his plan.

In the image of Mr. Gao, he hovered above the square. His massive magic power spread out, temporarily stripping away the five senses of the people wrapped within it, while simultaneously blocking gazes cast from the outside, such as satellites, the eyes of the crowd, cameras, and so on.

The eerie phenomenon lasted only a few seconds. Once things returned to normal, the people who had been "blind" for a moment looked around blankly.

Mr. Gao had already left, and the tourists were safe and sound; it seemed no different from before.

However, the crowd soon noticed an anomaly—the statue of god had come to life.

The stone-textured statue of god contained great power, but its external form was, after all, a dead object. Yet now, the crowd watched in astonishment as the chest of the statue of god actually rose and fell slightly, as if it were a normal human breathing air.

No one understood what had happened. Just as their brains began to process it, the statue of god opened its eyes, stepped out with its legs, and walked down from the top of the building, standing on the floor tiles of the square.

The statue of god was about a hundred meters tall, equal in height to a conventional office building. Even if its body was hollow, its weight wouldn't be light, yet the floor tiles beneath its feet remained undamaged.

Before the people could react, the statue of god lifted a foot and moved forward, walking toward the outskirts of the city like an ordinary person.

The official American teams finally arrived at the scene.

Watching the statue of god, which looked like a "walking giant" patrolling the earth, they didn't dare to act recklessly, but they couldn't just leave it alone either. At the very least, they had to find out the purpose of the statue of god's sudden revival.

The authorities sent two helicopter formations to work in shifts, following it twenty-four hours a day.

As the statue of god moved forward, the expert group urgently formed by the authorities predicted through data analysis that its target was Rochester City, the closest city to New Moon City.

What was it going there for? What was hidden in that city?

This mystery was not something the expert group could solve. America had no other choice but to wait quietly for the statue of god's actions.

The statue of god's walking speed wasn't fast, and due to its body size, humans on the ground even felt it was exceptionally slow. Fortunately, its stride was long enough that its actual speed exceeded that of a plane, and it reached Rochester City in just over ten minutes.

The statue of god entered the city, its legs precisely avoiding high-rise buildings, traffic, and pedestrians. The roads it stepped on remained intact. Seeing this, the residents of Rochester City didn't feel fear in their hearts but rather a slightly excited expectation of what it was going to do.

When the statue of god's footsteps stopped, it was standing in Rochester City's central park.

Residents subconsciously rushed toward the park, gathering at the feet of the statue of god. Strangely, the statue's body suddenly emitted a repulsive force, and everyone was pushed away from the park by a surge of power.

The personnel of the expert group got busy, collecting information for analysis and trying to find out the reason.

The reason soon became clear, though it had nothing to do with the experts' efforts.

Under everyone's gaze, a mass of black mist suddenly condensed out of thin air in the middle of the park. The black mist churned, and hideous-looking monsters jumped out one by one.

calamity?!

The American authorities hadn't expected a calamity to appear at all. There was only a team of a few hundred people near Rochester. Using this force to suppress even a single calamity was a pipe dream, let alone the fact that calamities were still jumping out, and their numbers were about to exceed the Soldiers.

In the command room filled with rows of computers, an officer in military uniform issued continuous orders, preparing to mobilize the nearest large-scale units.

The signalman was about to initiate communication when a sudden exclamation in the room interrupted him. He looked up in confusion and saw everyone's eyes fixed on the giant screen on the wall, so he cast his gaze there as well.

The footage playing on the screen showed the hands of the statue of god, which had been held in front of its chest throughout its journey to Rochester City, now separating and opening to the sides, with the wrists turning so that the palms faced the ground.

Immediately after, pillars of pure white light shot from the palms onto the ground, moving and sweeping. The calamities they touched saw their bodies melt away like Ice and Snow, and the left-behind water stains were evaporated by the sun, leaving not a single trace, as if they had never come to the human world.

The disaster was resolved. While people high-fived each other in celebration, they also understood the statue of god's intention—to eliminate calamities.

The residents of Rochester City had their lives preserved and their property undamaged. Their faith in the statue of god instantly became devout to the extreme—no one knew exactly how long it would last, but at this moment, they were the most loyal Believers.

The statue of god did not stay in place but walked toward the next city, arriving half an hour later and standing still somewhere in the city.

The residents of that city had received official notification and knew that what happened next would not affect their lives. Everyone kept busy with their own commutes, school classes, and attending speeches.

In this way, one city after another welcomed the statue of god. Calamities appeared and were instantly destroyed, until the statue of god's footprints had traversed every part of American soil.

After spending a considerable amount of time, the harvest was naturally bountiful enough.

Zhang Mu used his Mental Energy to connect with the statue of god. Sensing the river of faith that had expanded dozens of times, he nodded in satisfaction and rushed to the next country.

Over the following year, Zhang Mu followed this method to successively collect faith from four countries that "possessed the supernatural."

Among them, China provided the most massive faith power, even exceeding the sum of the other three countries. This wasn't because the Chinese people were more devout toward gods, but simply because China had the most people and a natural passion for joining in on the excitement.

Whether it was a big or small matter, an interesting or boring one, as long as it wasn't ordinary—even if it was just two children arguing—they had to gather around to take a good look.

Having traveled through the four countries, the faith power indeed rose rapidly, the river expanding into a great stream, but it was still far from the goal.

After all, the time was short. A single heavy harvest was a lot, but it couldn't compare to long-term accumulation. The current total had not yet triggered Zhang Mu's comprehension of god-related abilities.

He had already visited all four countries. Even if Zhang Mu did it again and caused a huge commotion, it would be difficult to achieve rapid growth in the short term. He could only leave the people of the four countries there, letting them offer faith on their own, accumulating slowly and steadily as time passed.

Zhang Mu was anxious to become a god, or rather, to master the abilities of a god. He was unwilling to wait idly, so his gaze naturally turned toward other regions on Blue Star outside of the four countries.

The four countries were the top powers of Blue Star with very vast territories, yet placed in the context of the entire Blue Star, the proportion they occupied in the total area was less than ten percent.

Zhang Mu spent a few days conceptualizing in his heart, then brought the statue of god toward other countries.

The first stop was India. Zhang Mu didn't particularly like this country, but it was undeniable that it had many subjects, having already surpassed China in recent years.

Following the previous routine, Zhang Mu walked across Indian territory once, then flew west to a land full of deserts.

The people here had long prayed for the manifestation of their own local gods. Since Zhang Mu couldn't find the time to come here earlier, they naturally received no response.

But it didn't matter; now they had one.

Zhang Mu cast a Transformation Technique, following the images in local mythological stories to manifest an appearance that was eighty percent similar.

Again, he walked the earth and eliminated calamities.

The desert was large and there were many people. Zhang Mu spent half a year and finally finished the entire journey.