By the time the two men reached the back of the artificial mountain, night had already fallen. The exact time was unknown, but Cardinal Adam had indeed worked up an appetite from the walk.
The back of the artificial mountain differed from the front—where there was a sloping pile forming a two-hundred-meter high mountain, the rear had become sheer cliff faces.
The exposed stone stood flat and vertical, showing no possibility of climbing whatsoever.
The surrounding forest grew dense, and the arrival of night plunged everything into pitch blackness. If not for the two Holy Knights following behind them with torches, Cardinal Adam might have feared encountering man-eating beasts in this place.
His Holiness the Pope seemed to have calculated the timing perfectly, or perhaps he sensed something, as his tightly closed eyes that had been resting slowly opened.
"Adam."
"Your Holiness, I am here." Cardinal Adam bowed respectfully with a bent waist.
"You claim to always study the Church's scriptures—do you believe these texts are true or false?" The Pope's spirit seemed less vigorous than in the afternoon, his weary eyelids struggling to remain open as he squinted at the dense forest ahead.
Hearing the Pope's question, Cardinal Adam responded with some hesitation: "Well, I believe they are true, Your Holiness. And they must be true."
"This is not an examination now, Adam.""Then I still believe they are true, Your Holiness. When most of the content in the book corresponds with reality, whether it's true or not becomes meaningless for the text itself."
Cardinal Adam replied respectfully in a low voice.
The Pope seemed finally exhausted, his spirit visibly wilting before their eyes.
In truth, today's physical activity likely equaled his typical movement for an entire month.
Adam's gaze fixed on the pitch-black mountain forest ahead, and without the slightest hesitation, he pushed the Pope's wheelchair forward into the darkness.
As the two advanced, the Pope's vitality visibly diminished.
His eyes could no longer open fully, leaving only narrow slits that still watched the darkness ahead.
As Bishop Adam ventured deeper into the forest, they hadn't gone far when they indeed discovered a small path that appeared man-made.
Continuing along the forest path further inward, they soon reached the edge of the cliff.
A fissure that seemed as if the cliff had split open appeared before Adam's eyes. The crack wasn't large, just enough to allow their passage.
Additionally, two Holy Knights stood guard at the entrance of this cliff fissure.
Surrounded by complete darkness, these two Holy Knights stood silently on either side of the cave entrance like statues, with even dust covering their steel armor.
If not for the occasional steam-engine-like exhaling sounds, Adam would have truly believed these two Holy Knights had perished.
To think the Vatican concealed such a place!
Adam looked at the surroundings with wide-eyed novelty, a bold speculation quietly forming in his mind that he still didn't dare confirm.
Perhaps because Adam was pushing the Pope, their entry encountered no resistance whatsoever.
The Holy Knights following them carried torches that illuminated the path ahead and revealed the scene within the cliff fissure.
Contrary to Cardinal Adam's expectations, under the torchlight, clearly visible cave paintings could be seen on the rock walls on both sides of the cavern.
These paintings didn't appear to be carved in modern times—their style and imagery better matched ancient tribal cultures.
Small figures existed on the walls in an abstract style, some gathered together, some in worship poses, others with circles drawn above their heads. The most prominent was a small figure hanging on a cross with half a wing—this represented the classic ancient depiction of God.
If Norton were here now, he certainly wouldn't understand the content depicted here.
But the well-read Cardinal Adam could comprehend it.
These paintings strikingly depicted scenes from the book "Ascension" that Norton had previously seen.
As mentioned before, the general story was that God developed desires, spent the night with the Lamb, then the Lamb's blood attracted vampire progenitor Kuba who hid in mountain caves. Kuba felt great dissatisfaction with God—"We're both your sons, why are you so partial?"
Thus he grew wings on his back and killed God in the sky.
Then God's eldest son Divine Cause retrieved God's body, nailed it to a cross, and exposed it to sunlight daily, calling this ascension.
The small figures in these patterns depicted this entire process. The figure representing God not only had a small circle drawn above its head but also only had the left half of wings on its body.
The small circle above the head likely represented death, since in the previous painting when God was still alive, there was no circle above his head. Additionally, the sun was depicted using concentric circles.
This was relatively easy to deduce.
However, what puzzled was that only one pair of wings appeared throughout the dense illustrations.
Neither the figures representing Divine Cause nor those representing Jonah had wings. The single pair of wings that appeared had the left half on God's body and the right half on vampire progenitor Kuba's body.
If Norton stood here making deductions, he would likely think it was simply because God and Kuba had wings.
After all, the book had already detailed how Kuba grew sun-shielding wings on his back. Since God was Kuba's father, if the son could grow wings, the father must have them too.
But within the Holy Church, growing wings on one's back actually carried another meaning.
That was: Divinity!