Chapter 1: Crossing Over to Become a Church, Seriously?

Have a little drink to mourn his father.

Then, turn around—only to be dragged into the water and drowned by his girlfriend.

Lynn came to his senses once again.

He was rather grateful that, after all, he no longer had to fear drowning even though he never learned to swim.

Because he had transmigrated into an eighty-eight-foot-tall Gothic Church.

“Tsk~ This feeling is damn weird.”

Lynn could sense the snow melting atop the roof.

He could even smell the musty, deathly stillness lingering in the air…

These weren’t human senses.

It was as if he possessed a god’s perspective—a higher-dimensional awareness.

The price for that was an eternal sense of restraint.

Cold. Heavy. Motionless.

“Come on, congratulate me—I’ve finally bought the huge house I could never afford before~”

“Though it’s a little old, a little rotten… oh yeah~!”

Lynn tried to find amusement in his misery.

Then he began to carefully inspect his surroundings.

He called this kind of perception Divine Sense.

Not only could he observe the entire structure of the church, but he could also clearly detect everything within a hundred meters around it.

Very soon,

Lynn discovered a rather touching fact—

This cursed place was deep inside a dense forest.

Completely deserted!

Not a single shadow of a living soul could be seen.

【Beep.】

【Host detected as a church.】

【Divine Sanctuary System activated.】

“?”

“My transmigrator’s starter pack’s finally here!?”

Lynn’s attention instantly focused on a golden panel that appeared in the center of his vision.

【Lynn Church】

【Divine Grade: First-tier Sanctuary】

【Divine Art: Holy Protection Sigil】

【Holy Radiance: 10/∞】

The panel was simple and crude.

Clever as he was, Lynn immediately interpreted the contents: Level, Skill, Experience Points.

Among them, 【Holy Radiance】 was the key to leveling up.

As for its source, Lynn guessed it came from the pious prayers of believers.

After all, he had become a sanctuary—a church.

But the problem was—

Where were the believers?

In this abandoned church that had likely been deserted for hundreds of years, anyone coming to pray would be a miracle!

With nothing else to do,

Lynn tried out his divine art, 【Holy Protection Sigil】.

A golden mark filled with profound Latin inscriptions condensed in the air.

It seemed capable of shielding the sanctuary and blessing mortals—a spell of countless possible uses…

But without anyone to use it on, no matter how dazzling the skill, it was utterly useless.

A deadlock…

Lynn’s days passed slowly beneath the fading sunsets.

Just as the eternal stillness was about to drive him mad, when even his thoughts were about to freeze—

A turning point finally arrived!

One evening,

A familiar yet distant sound of human voices came from afar.

Lynn’s confusion instantly turned into excitement!

His Divine Sense swept out hurriedly—

In the forest not far away, a group of figures stumbled forward.

Their clothes were tattered, their steps faltering.

Their emaciated faces were carved with fear and hunger.

They were refugees—the few lucky ones who had escaped from the Florence Territory, which had been destroyed by the Undead Scourge dozens of miles away.

Half a month ago,

When Baron Gregor Wells was hosting his grand fiftieth birthday feast in his luxurious castle,

As the merchants and guards drowned themselves in wine and music—

An army of ghouls crawled out from the crypts beneath the ground,

Crossed the moat’s drawbridge, and tore apart the decaying city gates.

They easily turned the entire territory into a bloody slaughterhouse!

Out of more than forty thousand inhabitants,

Only a few thousand managed to flee amidst the chaos.

Some, like this group, escaped into this forest known as the Mistwood, hoping its labyrinthine terrain could shield them from the ghouls’ pursuit.

“Aunt Liz,”

A boy’s voice, about fifteen or sixteen, broke the silence, filled with despair.

“How long do we have to stay in this cursed place? I—I’m so hungry…”

The refugees fell silent.

They sat around a campfire that emitted only faint bluish smoke.

In a pitiful, battered iron pot, a murky gray-green mush bubbled weakly.

It was mixed with bitter acorn scraps and carried not a trace of food’s aroma.

At the boy’s words,

Their gazes all turned toward the center of the group—

A middle-aged woman wearing a faded crusader cloak.

A former Knight of the Temple—Liz Hawke!

Her identity as a knight, and the blood-soaked path she had carved with her sword,

Made Liz the only spiritual pillar of these terrified souls.

“I don’t know,”

Liz admitted honestly, her voice low and hoarse.

She casually stirred the fire with her sword’s hilt.

A few sparks scattered onto the blurred cross emblem on her cloak.

“But I do know that the cellars of Florence are now filled with filth!”

It was as if Liz could see through the forest, witnessing that infernal scene.

“They feast on fresh or half-rotten flesh atop the baron’s velvet carpets.”

“With sharpened ribs as wine cups, they drink warm blood…”

Her words stopped abruptly—

Because she noticed the boy’s face had turned pale as paper.

Liz sighed quietly.

Then she gathered her resolve,

Pointing toward the abandoned church behind them, whose silhouette grew more sinister in the dim light.

“Stay near the church…”

“At least, in the name of the Supreme Father, those abominations might hesitate to come near.”

Liz tried hard to make her words sound convincing,

But they still felt hollow and powerless.

Because in her nearly thirty years of life, she had seen too many so-called churches and priests of light—

But miracles… never once descended.

Prayers?

They were merely the last delirious whispers of the desperate.

“Hmph! What good is a church!?”

A man spat, his face twisted with hatred.

“When the disaster struck, those robe-wearers ran faster than rabbits!”

“Servants of God? Children of angels? All bloody nonsense!”

He had seen it with his own eyes—the clergy fleeing in panic.

Faith crumbled before death.

“Maybe…”

“We could try heading back toward the Williams Territory?”

A woman clutching a baby wrapped in rags spoke timidly.

Her headscarf was in disarray, and frostbitten cracks marred the exposed skin of her neck.

The baby in her arms whimpered weakly from time to time.

“B-but I heard the gates of Williams have long been sealed shut.”

“The baron won’t let troublesome people like us in!”

Another woman said tearfully.

She looked despairingly at the pitiful gruel in the pot—barely enough for one, let alone to share among so many.

“We have no bread, no firewood…”

“Are we… really supposed to pray to stones to survive?”

Silence.

Once again, deathly silence shrouded the group of refugees.

Liz remained silent for a few breaths.

The faint firelight flickered across her scarred, fierce face,

Revealing deep exhaustion—and a faint trace of wavering.

At last,

Liz rose to her feet.

Her heavy iron boots crushed the frost-covered grass beneath her.

Step by step,

She walked toward the church’s decayed oak doors.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep