Yarra's Adventure Notes-Chapter 1393 - 179 Divine Punishment

"Uh, could you put your finger down first?" Pannis gulped down a mouthful of saliva, met eyes with Vivian, and watched with a cold sweat as her finger almost reached his face. He forced an uglier-than-crying smile and said in panic, "It’s a bit hot here, haha, right, a bit hot. It’s not yet time to light a fire for warmth. I think it’s better to put out the fire now. Otherwise, it’s easy to get a heatstroke. Even if that doesn’t happen, it would be so awkward if we accidentally burned down someone’s room."

"This is the first time I’ve heard that stone houses and stone furniture can catch fire," Vivian said, but she still lowered her finger. Although the girls seemed vicious, they didn’t actually feel that angry. It was more about making a point. Since the point had been made, there was no need to continue, so Vivian just snorted heavily, extinguished the flickering flame at her fingertip, and said looking straight at Pannis, "We’re short on time now, so I’ll allow you to continue the story from where you left off last time. But don’t think you can just muddle through it. When we have more time in the future, you will have to tell us the rest of the story personally."

"Ha, ha, ha, of course," Pannis wiped the sweat from his forehead and said with relief, "Definitely, I’ll tell it."

The formerly tense and serious atmosphere, which had been due to Catherine’s demeanor, had silently vanished with the girls’ intentional or unintentional commotion. Everyone, including Pannis and Catherine, relaxed their posture. Catherine picked up the sweet wine Pannis had passed her, took a sip, gently swirled the glass, and looked at her sisters reflectively, with a faint smile on her lips. Feeling the gaze, Lina suddenly turned her head and, at an angle where Pannis couldn’t see, made a playful face at her and winked mysteriously. Their eyes met briefly in the air, and in that short moment, they clearly understood each other’s thoughts.

"Actually, the rest of the story isn’t complicated," Pannis paused for a moment, pushed the sweet wine bottle aside, and grabbed his preferred strong liquor instead. Downing a big gulp, he slumped into the chair, propped his chin, and slowly said, "When we converted physical attacks into energy attacks and assaulted the Soul of Danacus with high-intensity energy, we triggered Divine Punishment."

"Wait a moment," Catherine raised her hand to interrupt Pannis’s narrative, "Didn’t the previous attacks trigger Divine Punishment?"

"No, they didn’t," Pannis shook his head, "Previous attacks were mostly physical and went right through his soul without really hitting him, hence they couldn’t trigger Divine Punishment. As for the few energy attacks, being only probes, they were of very low intensity. To a Deity, such intensity doesn’t even count as an attack, so no Divine Punishment was triggered. Of course, nobody told us this; it was just our guess at the time, but I believe our guess was very close to the truth."

"Alright then," Catherine thought for a moment and nodded in agreement, "So, what exactly is Divine Punishment?"

"Heh, each Deity governs different rules, so Divine Punishment varies accordingly," Pannis said with a wry smile, "Danacus governs the Power of Death, so naturally, his Divine Punishment is related to death."

"I see," Catherine also showed a similar wry smile, looking at Pannis with a hint of pity, "It seems you had already experienced the sensation of death even before you were hit by the Reversed Death Curse. No wonder every time the Death Curse took effect, after you came back to life, you seemed completely unfazed. You truly had gotten used to it, heh. But considering the fear and pain when passing through Death’s Gate, it’s something you could never get used to, no matter how many times you try."

"It seems you’ve already guessed it, the Divine Punishment from Danacus is death, a spiritual death," Pannis sighed and said softly, "Every attempt at an action that could be considered an attack on Danacus is followed, within the next few seconds, by a mental journey from life to death. Every imaginable method of dying—being burned, drowned, poisoned, crushed, flattened, starved—you have the chance to experience each distinctly. Of course, there is no physical harm at all, but the agony of dying and the fear of death itself are fully imparted onto the mind, making the attacker unable even to distinguish between consciousness and reality."

"Blessings of Denia," Lina whispered as she traced a square in front of her chest, "just passing through Death’s Gate once, I nearly fell apart, and you’ve gone through this... many times? Blessings of Denia, and it lasted only a few seconds each time; otherwise, one would surely break down completely."

"A few seconds? Yes, just a few seconds," Pannis said with a self-mocking smile, "But each of those seconds during the experience of death felt as if they were stretched to infinity in the mind. Towards the last few times, each experience of death felt longer than a lifetime."

"That must have been... very hard on you," Catherine said in distress, "Perhaps I shouldn’t have forced you to recall such painful memories."

"Perhaps for most people, after experiencing it a few times, they would mentally admit to their own death, and then their bodies would truly follow suit and die," Pannis shook his head, "Fortunately, our wills are strong, and we wouldn’t easily accept our own death, so we managed to endure each experience of dying. However, we have no way of combating the Divine Punishment; we can only attack the enemy time and again, then bear the burden with our willpower."

"How... how many times?" Vivian’s face had also turned ashen. The mage girl had come close to death several times—though she had never truly died, she could faintly sense the pain and fear of death’s approach. Hence, she was the one who could best understand what Pannis was feeling and visibly the one who looked the worst.

"I don’t know, it’s countless," Pannis said with a wry smile, "Everyone was very strong. After initially understanding the horror of the Divine Punishment, it took less than a minute of discussion before we decided to continue our attacks because it seemed like they were having some effect."

"Seemed like?" Catherine asked softly, "I have a bad feeling about this."

"Hah, indeed, it was just ’seemed like.’ Later we found out that Danacus was just toying with us," Pannis said through clenched teeth, "Indeed, the Divine Punishment is terrifying, for there is nothing more fearful to any creature than to die over and over again. But for us, as frightful as the Divine Punishment is, it wasn’t enough to drive us to despair. What truly drove us to despair was the discovery of another problem."