Chapter 71 Pupa Man! Moth Mother! Mother of Insects!
Old Town.

In front of an almost abandoned old house, Hank, disguised as a down-and-out merchant, followed the people in front of the team and carefully entered the dilapidated corridor. Then they walked through the spider webs and walked into a completely abandoned underground secret room from a creaking staircase.

Two priests in gray robes were already kneeling in this underground secret room. More than a dozen believers followed them in and knelt on both sides of a moth-shaped altar.

"Praise the Mother of Change!"

"Praise to the Eternal Mother!"

After all the believers entered the secret room, the heavy door closed and two priests in gray robes said one by one: "Today is the day when the great Moth Mother was born! It is also the day when She blesses all living beings!"

"Dear believers, please join us in praising the glory of the Moth Mother!..."

“Welcome His blessing!”

As the two gray-robed priests on the altar spoke, a group of believers knelt devoutly on both sides of the altar. While kneeling, Hank raised his head slightly and his pupils shrank for a moment, because he saw a vague outline of a moth beyond the naked eye.

This is a true cultist!

He tracked for a week and finally found the cultists' lair.

There have always been cults in the real world, but most of them are just people who know a little bit of mysterious knowledge and pretend to be gods to cheat people out of their money. But the recent ones are a little different. After the human skin book incident, Hank was very keenly aware of the breath of real cultists.

These guys are quite difficult to deal with. They hide in the corners of Dorne, using completely normal identities as cover. Some of them have even been lurking for a long time.

“It’s a polluted transcendent.”

Hank noticed the pupils of the two priests. In addition to the normal human pupils, they seemed to have hidden compound eyes like those of insects. However, they were difficult to see with the naked eye, and even the night watchmen might not be able to see them. Only investigators with high inspiration could detect that something was wrong.

He quietly pressed the communicator inside his clothes. This was a small magic item with the power of communication. It was very concealed and could transmit signals without any obstruction within a certain range.

Hank was in a hurry this time because of the tracking. He had no time to notify others to come for support, so he could only use this method to send signals.

"Next, please ask our most devout believers to accept the blessing of the Moth Mother!"

One of the priests stood up.

There were men, women, young and old among the gathered believers, including rich businessmen, poor people and even nobles. Amid the envious eyes of others, a boy of fifteen or sixteen years old stood out. His right arm seemed to have some congenital disability, and looked deformed, not fully developed at all. Everything from the wrist to the fingers was twisted, and three of his fingers were about the same size as a baby's.

"Praise the great mother of all changes!"

Another priest led the boy to the center of the altar. He glanced at the believers kneeling around him and chanted, "You are the mother of my old self who controls life and death, and you are also the mother of my new self who controls eternal life and change!"

"You are the light chaser in the darkness!"

"You are the seeker in the eternal night, and you are the guide who leads everyone to eternal life!"

"You are a generous, kind and great moth mother!..."

The gray-robed priest's expression became more and more excited, and the believers around him seemed to be infected, becoming excited and pious all of a sudden. Hank's mind was slightly shaken, but he recovered in an instant. This was a fanatical ritual, a supernatural power.

"Come here, kid."

"Welcome the new life that the Moth Mother has bestowed upon you!"

At the call of the gray-robed priest, the young man with the deformed right arm walked over with a nervous look on his face. He lay flat in the center of the altar. As the priest cut his arm with a dagger, strands of blood seeped into the altar, and a strange totem that looked like a moth emerged under the altar.

"Praise the great Moth Mother!"

"You are both death and rebirth!"

As the priest called out loudly, other believers also shouted excitedly. A cold sweat appeared on Hank's forehead, and he nervously followed the actions of others.

He caught a big fish today!
This is not an ordinary group of cultists, these are cultists who serve and follow the old times.

And they actually summoned the power of the old days.

Thin white filaments extended from the bottom of the altar. At first they looked like thin hyphae, and then became like activated silk. The crystal white filaments wrapped around the right arm of the boy on the altar, and then gradually turned into a white cocoon that completely wrapped his deformed arm.

The young man lying on the altar seemed to have fallen into a deep sleep.

When Hank moved his gaze slightly, his pupils shrank instantly, because he saw that the boy's congenitally deformed arm was melting in the white cocoon.

Flesh, blood, and bones are broken down, reshaped, and recreated.

When the gray-robed priest used a dagger to cut open the white callus on the boy's arm, a new, white, healthy and complete arm had grown back.

There were bursts of exclamations!
Even though their minds were affected by the ritual, many believers could not help but become agitated. Among them were commoners, merchants, and nobles. One of them, an old man in his 50s or 60s who looked like an aristocrat, excitedly took off his hood, knelt down and crawled to the altar, and said devoutly and fanatically: "Priest, please grant me a new life!... I am willing to offer half of my wealth to the Moth Mother!..."

"No! ... All! ... I am willing to give all my wealth!"

A gray-robed priest helped up the young man on the altar. The young man looked at his new arm, and was so excited that he couldn't say anything. His lips trembled but he couldn't speak.

Another priest walked up to the old man and said in a gentle tone: "The Great Moth Mother does not care about money and wealth."

"He only cares about a pure heart and the courage to pursue the light!"

“Do you have the courage to pursue the light?”

This sentence immediately stumped the old man in front of him. He looked at the young man not far away who had completely recovered his normal appearance, and he struggled and hesitated inside. He didn't know what light was, and he didn't crave for light. He just wanted a new life to save his old and illness-ridden body.

The gray-robed priest saw his hesitation and said slowly, "Do you want to accept the trial of the Moth Mother?"

"Chasing the light of eternal night, the light of darkness, the last light..."

The old man dressed as a noble was trembling all over. He didn't know if he would chase the light, but he knew he was dying and even the best doctors couldn't save him. The believers around him became fanatical.

Under the altar, Hank in the crowd was trembling slightly. Although other believers were also trembling, they were trembling with excitement, while Hank was trembling with fear.

These are no ordinary cultists; they are followers of the old times, cultists who have received the gifts of the old times in the form of human beings.

Such a terrifying enemy has not appeared in Dorne for nearly ten years.

"no!"

"We must notify headquarters immediately, they are in too much danger!" Hank's breathing was rapid.

On the altar.

The old man dressed as a noble was still hesitating, but the young man beside him stood up excitedly and said to the old man: "As long as you believe in the Moth Mother devoutly, you will receive Her gift!"

"Look at my hand, it has completely recovered to normal."

"Praise the ever-changing mother of death and rebirth!"

The old man looked at the healthy arm that the boy had grown back, his eyes full of passion. Finally, he stretched out a dry and old arm and said tremblingly: "I am willing to accept the trial of the great moth mother!"

The gray-robed priest smiled.

He extended his hand as an invitation and said gently, "Come on. Go up to the altar, receive the blessing of the Moth Mother, abandon your old self, and embrace the new life!"

The old man took off his robe and walked up tremblingly.

"The believers."

"Please witness this moment! Witness the miracle of the Great Moth Mother! Witness the birth of an immortal!..." The priest's fanatical words made the believers around him tremble.

eternal life?

Even the legendary Destiny cannot achieve eternal life!

Hank watched the changes on the altar, and one hand had already touched his pistol.

hum.

The entire altar trembled slightly, and as the old man lay on the moth-like altar totem, thin white silk threads reappeared, and those silk-like threads completely wrapped him up, and within a few minutes he turned into a complete pupa man!

"Embrace death and rebirth! Embrace the changes of life!"

"Let us pray for him."

"Please pray that he can pass the test of the Moth Mother!" The gray-robed priest also knelt down.

In Hank's sight.

After the old man on the altar was wrapped in silk and turned into a pupa, he began to tremble slightly, and then fell into a deep sleep. In his dream, the reflection of the moth overlapped with his flesh, and then his body began to melt bit by bit, first the flesh on his face, then the eyeballs, bones, brain, internal organs and so on.

In the end, his entire body melted into a pool of turbid, wriggling blood inside the white silkworm cocoon!
"Dead?" Hank's body trembled slightly.

wrong!

Not dead yet.

The completely melted flesh and blood did not die completely. Under the influence of some force, it began to reshape, to be reborn, and to condense a new body.

At first he still looked like a human, a younger and healthier middle-aged man, but soon his body began to change.

He does not desire the light, nor does he have the courage to follow the light!
The Moth Mother abandoned him.

His body is changing and no longer looks like a human!
Beside the altar, the two gray-robed priests looked at each other, with a hint of disappointment on their faces.

A loser of the trial.

The old man failed the test of the Moth Mother, but they will continue to maintain the ceremony.

A strange and terrifying creature that looked like a combination of a moth and a human was reborn in a silkworm chrysalis. It had segmented arms, a human-like body, and gray-white wings that had emerged from the cocoon behind it. Its huge eyeballs were the compound eyes of insects, and its facial contour was 70% similar to that of humans, but its lower jaw was a completely split mouthpart.

It turned into a pupa trapped in a white cocoon.

But the other people around seemed unaware of this, their eyes blinded by the illusion.

"Complete metamorphosis!..."

"The law of life of insects."

"This is the ancient authority in the realm of life." Hank lowered his head, not daring to act rashly.

Life forms are reshaped.

Between death and rebirth, the old self is destroyed and the new self is reshaped, remaking mortal flesh and blood into a new body, the mother of immortality and change, this is a terrible power that only the old days can possess.

But unfortunately, the recipient of this ritual did not survive the trial and ultimately failed to emerge as a butterfly!
Inside the pupa man there is only a monster with a twisted appearance and full of hatred for life.

Those who pursue light will not favor those who do not have the courage to embrace the light.

………………

(End of this chapter)