Ch.158158. Helena Valerinus (5)

When the massacre began, after some time had passed.

What unfolded in this heavenly realm was nothing short of an inhuman nightmare.

Countless souls with severely damaged spiritual bodies lay scattered everywhere, randomly crushed or broken beyond recognition.

The problem was that these souls were still alive in this state.

[AAAAAAAGH!!!]

[IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS IT HURTS—!!]

Since they were fundamentally souls—completely disconnected from physical bodies—they couldn’t die without Yuno-Shala’s permission, as she held dominion over all souls.

Therefore, these souls experienced death-level agony without being able to die, their spiritual bodies mangled beyond recognition.

As soul-blood flowed from them, staining the cloud floor red, angels played with these soul corpses like children.

[Haha~♡, Haha~♡, Haha~♡!]

[Yoohoo, ohohoho!!]

They threw the corpses around, processed them into bricks to build blocks, and quite a few even placed the fragments against their lower bodies.

While these angels—like children’s innocence horrifically amplified in the wrong direction—happily played with the souls, covered in blood…

《My lovely children, bring those to me.》

Finally, Yuno-Shala, who had been smiling with a chillingly benevolent expression, opened her mouth, and what unfolded before Helena’s eyes was an even more horrific sight.

The blood-covered angels, the common servants of the pantheon gods, began working together to transfer the souls onto a massive golden platter that appeared before Helena.

Carefully, with delicate yet meticulous hands, they piled up the souls, determined not to leave a single piece of flesh behind.

All the souls of several hundred thousand humans formed a mountain on the golden platter.

《Lift it up.》

Tens of thousands of angels supported the golden platter from below, slowly raising it until it reached just above Yuno-Shala’s waist.

《This feast looks quite splendid.》

Yuno-Shala then spoke with a satisfied, bright smile, reached her hand toward the pile of souls—and began scooping them into her mouth.

One of the fates awaiting the common followers of the pantheon who lacked combat prowess was unfolding before Helena: becoming “a delicious meal and source of divine power” for the gods.

Chomp, chomp, chomp.

With a smile full of happiness as if savoring a heavenly delicacy, Yuno-Shala repeatedly scooped souls into her mouth.

Eating, consuming, gorging herself repeatedly.

Yuno-Shala clearly displayed the true nature of the pantheon gods as “farmers who treat humanity as livestock,” showing how they truly regarded their worshippers.

Even if one devoted everything to the pantheon and its faith while alive, upon death, they would be classified according to the gods’ needs.

If one had decent combat skills, they would be dragged into the gods’ armies; if they had a pretty face, they would immediately become a god’s nth concubine.

Those with exceptional faith or priests would be recycled as angels, and others deemed useful would be repurposed in various ways.

And for those who didn’t fall into any of these categories—ordinary humans with no exceptional qualities—their fate was to have their souls devoured by the very god they had worshipped in life, ultimately giving everything to their deity.

There were no exceptions.

From the moment a soul was guided to a god after death, the right to determine its fate had long passed to the deity.

What made Yuno-Shala’s frenzied massacre unusual even by divine standards was that she could have absorbed these souls much more efficiently without all this.

In other words, Yuno-Shala committed these insane acts simply because she enjoyed the chaotic spectacle.

“Haha, hahahahahaha….”

Helena, Helena Valerinus’s mind, was on the verge of breaking completely.

※ ※ ※

Of course, there was no reason to be considerate of her circumstances, so the scene before her eyes blurred momentarily before changing again.

This time, her gaze fell upon an underground location.

Specifically, a human farm located beneath the commercial district of the Holy City.

Even faced with the shocking sight of men and women bound like beasts, stripped of reason and being bred, Helena Valerinus had given up on everything and just stared blankly.

Before her dead fish-like eyes, scenes explaining the overall operational mechanism of this human farm passed by.

The “livestock” used in human farms were typically prisoners brought in from outside.

“Barbarians” from the northern regions and pirates captured from the southern seas were standard, along with those who had rebelled internally and been suppressed.

Since bringing in the empire’s enemies had its numerical limitations…

The farm operators would either include passing civilians to meet their quotas or risk becoming livestock themselves or having their families captured.

Starting with the poor whom no one would miss, to even citizens with citizenship rights—as long as the numbers were met, that was all that mattered.

The purpose of operating this insane human farm was simply to easily increase the insufficient human population.

Except for Bacchus and the supreme god Jupiterius, the remaining ten—or more precisely, the Empire—used this farm for their own reasons.

For example, in the case of the Imperial Legion under Makius’s jurisdiction, the amount of manpower supplied from this farm was so enormous that most soldiers came from there.

In an era when South Korea, with a population of 50 million, maintained a standing army of about 500,000, how could they operate an army of that size and recruit additional troops?

Naturally, most soldiers were nothing more than “supplied” manpower from the farms.

The method of “producing” humans at the farm was also mind-boggling when examined closely.

Humans were bred, and children born with superior genes became studs, while the rest went straight to the “growth accelerator.”

This magical device, created through the wisdom of Anat, goddess of wisdom and magic, rapidly accelerated human growth while implanting knowledge in them.

Basic common sense, proper attitude toward gods, religious devotion, knowledge for their purpose, and crucially—fake memories created using random numbers.

These children, injected with knowledge, grew into adults (age 20) in just one month and were supplied to the state organizations that had ordered humans.

Of course, the bodies of humans grown so rapidly were unstable, with immune systems typically deteriorating rapidly after about 20 years, leading to easy death…

Most of the manpower produced this way would be consumed before then, and decisively, the average lifespan in this era was only mid-to-late 30s anyway.

In other words, even if they lived their full lifespan, they would die around that age, so there wasn’t much sense of incongruity.

Anyway, while most of the produced manpower was consumed by the military, there were many other places where humans from these farms were used.

When the number of slaves in the empire became insufficient, they were made into slaves and sold; when the agricultural population was depleted, farmers were mass-produced.

It was like a cliché from some SF dystopia, but this strangely advanced madman was no ordinary lunatic.

Additionally, these human farms functioned perfectly for creating high-quality personnel.

The most representative examples were custom concubines for high-ranking individuals, and some were special surrogates for bearing better children.

Of course, modifying traits from the genetic level to produce children was insanely expensive.

Just creating a pretty and obedient concubine with no special functions cost astronomical amounts, and adding magical traits made the cost almost irrelevant.

As a result, such custom human manufacturing was either the extravagance of a very few wealthy individuals or done by those who could afford this insane cost—primarily the chief deities of the pantheon.

From creating high-ranking church officials who would obey their commands, to concubines for fulfilling desires, to—the farm’s highest custom humans created to become apostles.

Injected with every desirable gene, potential maximized to the extreme, and crucially, born with the capacity to become a god’s apostle.

That was Helena Valerinus’s true identity.

All her memories before becoming an apostle were merely fabricated parts of a grand design.

Helena was neither an orphan raised in a temple nor anything else—just a doll, a false idol perfected through the god’s elaborate design.

Her surname was made up, and she became an apostle because she was the most outstanding among those manufactured at the same time. Had she failed to meet the target, she would have been dragged to the farm to become livestock.

After learning these facts, Helena Valerinus had no reason to live anymore.

《How was the truth?》

“…It’s fucking awful.”

The King in Red approached Helena, who had taken all the red pills and finally escaped the lies, and addressed her in a solemn voice.