The first painting had the richest contents. It depicted a throne constructed with swords and bones, and blood red long windows and tall black columns were behind it. It seemed to be a part of a palace. If she completely submerged her consciousness into it, she could even see the city outside the window with endless spires. What caught her attention the most was the Stone Gate that peeked through the city—if the spires around it were the buildings of Hermes residents, then the Stone Gates at least five times as tall as the church"s Tower of Babel, which completely went against common sense.
What was more unbelievable was that the inside of the gates was black, as if a large and smooth cloth was covering its middle. However, as she looked closely, there seemed to be an immeasurable depth to the darkness... The more she stared at it, the more uneasy she felt.
Zero only focused her attention on the window for a while and soon turned it to the throne.
She did not see the lord of the throne today.
The things she saw in her mind would sometimes change. For example, she could occasionally see an armored warrior sitting on the throne, his head covered with a frightening black helmet, only revealing a faint red light through his eye sockets. However, this was not very common, and the throne was usually empty.
According to the records of secret history, this painting depicted the city where the demons originated from and first appeared—the Northwestern corner of Land of Dawn.
Zero agreed with this theory. The painting"s blood red colors and black spires were very similar to the demons" living environments, and the helmet of the owner of the throne had a distinct demonic style. The only strange part was that its body was exactly like that of a regular human, and not like the strong and horrific bodies of the Fearsome Demons or Lords of h.e.l.l recorded in the Holy Book. Thus, there were many speculations about its ident.i.ty. Some popes believed that it was the source of evil, while other witches thought that it was a member of the demons that guarded the secrets of G.o.d.
The second painting was much more mysterious.
It had few contents, which seemed to keep moving. At least in Zero"s limited number of observations, she had never seen the same scene twice.
This time, she saw water.
The light blue water rippled backward against three large skeletons, which were completely hollow inside, but the water was somehow held outside the bones by an invisible barrier. It was as if the giant skeletons were keels supporting the side ports, and she felt like she was in a boat and looking out through the window—except these windows spanned the entire wall.
Zero was quickly enthralled by the strange scenery in front of her... She was standing at the border between water and sky, with half of her underwater, and the other half floating above. She could see the bright sunlight and spa.r.s.e clouds above her, but her legs were encased in water. Under the sun, she could clearly see the color of the water changing from light blue on the surface to bright green, and then dark green, as it went deeper and deeper.
Suddenly, the scene began to shake, and Zero felt the world tremble below her and almost fell over. She subconsciously tried to open her eyes but stopped herself at the last second. "This isn"t reality," she told herself. "This is G.o.d giving you a sign."
The water was quickly rising and almost drowned out the sky.
Or, perhaps the water was not rising, but she was sinking downwards.
Soon, everything outside the window was covered by water, and she even saw red fish swimming by the skeletons. First, there were only a few of them, but then there were more and more, and the dense schools of fish surrounded the invisible barrier like a red ribbon. The water gradually changed from dark green to a dull black, until the scene was shrouded in a complete darkness and totally disappeared.
Zero broke out of the painting, panting. This was the first time she experienced such a clear vision, and when the darkness covered her eyesight, she felt like she was about to choke. However, she did not find any useful clues—according to the secret history, the contents of the second painting were always changing. Some recorded seeing a giant eyeball, others saw a volcano spewing bubbles and yellow smoke, and others saw a bottomless abyss giving off a faint light. No observers had ever seen the same thing.
She rested for a while and turned her attention to the third painting.
However, there was still nothing in it... it was like the world outside the frame, dark and dead silent.
The secret history mentioned that in the beginning of the first Battle of Divine Will, there was something in the painting... but this recording was so ancient that its pages were tattered and basically illegible. However, she was certain that a hundred years after the Battle of Divine Will, this painting turned black and never showed anything ever again.
The fourth painting was not at all mentioned in the secret history.
It was difficult for Zero to understand as if they were all in agreement to hide something—if even the sole messenger of secrets, the pope, did not have the right to know, then the secret would be unknown to everyone forever.
The painting depicted a wall.
It was an una.s.suming rough gray stone wall.
Parts of the gray paint were chipped off, revealing the cracked stone blocks under it. It had obviously stood here for a long time. Besides this wall, there was nothing else.
After staying in the painting for a while, Zero started to feel exhausted.
Reading G.o.d"s signs took a lot of energy, and even she could not do it for a long time.
Zero opened her eyes to disconnect from the sphere of magic power, causing the dark world and giant paintings to disappear, and she was back in the dim small room.
She sighed deeply and stumbled down the stairs, only recovering after drinking off her cold black tea in the library.
Although G.o.d did not give her any response, her anger before was completely calmed. "Isabella knows nothing about G.o.d, but I do."
Zero looked out the window at the busy figures under the tower, and her feeling of control returned. Her experiences during the past 200 years made her disregard everything in this world, but after she became the Pope, she realized that she had only scratched the surface in understanding the world—now, she faced a whole new mystery, and her immortality was perfect for solving it.
Zero felt in her heart that she was the real person chosen by G.o.d.
If she could approach G.o.d, it was worth the 400 years" wait, even thousands of years.