Chapter 87: The Sacrificed

Chapter 87: The Sacrificed

The figure that Mr. Door had formed from collapsed spheres of light froze in place, as though trapped in a fierce inner struggle.

The layers upon layers of doors within Him were only a hair’s breadth away from fully overlapping.

Amid the illusory rush of water, the crimson tide that could still barely squeeze through the cracks of the Door of Flesh surged with increasing ferocity. The blood-colored robe fell heavily once more, seeking again to envelop Bethel Abraham.

Yet as it descended, the brass-colored eyes around Him that had sprouted wings, the young man in flaming armor, the hazy veil of light with its chilling facial features, the earth that had opened its eyes and closed its mouth, and the shadowy woman all vanished at the same time—silently, soundlessly erased from this world.

In that instant, a blazing, dazzling sun appeared above the forest. Day replaced night, forcing all shadows to rapidly retreat.

The blood-colored robe was forced to rise again, scattering even more crimson moonlight and returning the incoming interferences one after another into the embrace of the Mother.

Seizing this opportunity, the light-and-shadow form of Mr. Door closed His slightly illusory eyes and lowered His head.

“All right…” He said with difficulty and pain, uttering His first words after returning to reality.

His figure solidified completely. Then He raised His right hand and brought it to His face.

The next second, Mr. Door lifted His head. Over His right eye was a monocle ground from crystal.

A flash of light erupted from that monocle, illuminating the entire world.

At that moment, every error that had caused seals to fail was corrected; every seemingly normal action developed errors; and every clock skipped forward by several seconds.

The Sequence 0 ritual of the Marauder pathway, Error, was:

To replace someone else during their apotheosis ritual!

And Mr. Door’s return seemed to have directly triggered His apotheosis ritual.

The light immediately receded. Mr. Door had become Amon, wearing a pointed soft hat and a classical black robe.

In the Blasphemer’s hand was a key forged from pure starlight, ancient in style.

Above Him, the blood-colored robe descended, intent on embracing Him within it. Behind Him, the crimson tide furiously squeezed through the remains of the Door of Flesh, trying to fully force its way into this world.

In that brief instant, blood-red moonlight flared, blocking the sun, the night, the earth, the hazy clear light, and the strange white tower outside.

Facing the corruption from an Outer Deity, the corners of Amon’s lips curved up slightly. He extended His right hand and drew from somewhere a mottled, exceedingly ancient stone slate.

The first Blasphemy Slate!

Then He plugged that slate, born from the Chaos Sea, into the remaining gap of the Door of Flesh. He used it as a substitute to receive the falling blood-colored robe.

The first Blasphemy Slate instantly turned illusory, as though connecting to a boundless sea that contained all colors and all possibilities.

That sea surged, swallowing the blood-colored robe and holding back the crimson tide from the cosmos.

The already-collapsed Door of Flesh withered rapidly and soon vanished. A furious, terrifying roar came through and echoed without end.

The next second, the red moon reappeared high in the sky and swiftly lost its color, turning bright and pure. Yet above that bright moon, there seemed to be a vast, twisted crimson figure.

Amon, in His pointed soft hat and classical black robe, adjusted the monocle over His right eye. He waved toward the crimson figure and the bright moon watching Him, then, still smiling, gave a slight bow to His surroundings.

…

Inside the Cathedral of Bones, where a giant cross stood erect and countless skulls watched with hollow “eyes,” Adam, dressed in a simple white robe, glanced at the lightning beyond the stained-glass windows, which showed no sign of stopping. He slowly rose, walked to the puddle of flesh and blood Klein had left behind, bent down, and picked up the ancient, mysterious mirror.

Then He turned and walked toward the second Blasphemy Slate.

…

The first figure Zaratul summoned from the fog of history was still Roselle Gustav, dressed in a dark-red coat embroidered with golden threads, his chestnut hair slightly curled.

For this Attendant of Mysteries, there were not a few angels He had known across His long life and could summon. But those stronger than a Sequence 1 Knowledge Emperor were few indeed—for example, the ancestor of the Antigonus family before becoming half of The Fool; the Angel of Fate, Ouroboros; and high-ranking members of the Red of War Legion, who could indirectly borrow the power of the Red Angel.

Under the current circumstances, however, Zaratul believed summoning the historical projection of Roselle Gustav first was the safer choice.

Before becoming half of The Fool, the ancestor of the Antigonus family had likewise been a Sequence 1 Attendant of Mysteries. He would be suppressed by an enemy who had further control over Sefirah Castle, whose status surpassed most Kings of Angels, and who was nearing that of a true god.

After Zaratul chose to cooperate with the Rose School of Thought and Adam, the success rate of summoning Ouroboros, the Angel of Fate, would undoubtedly plummet. It was not suited for an emergency attempt.

As for the Red of War Legion’s high-ranking member who could borrow power from the Red Angel of the past, because the ability was not directly possessed, the practical effect would not be much stronger than Roselle Gustav, the Knowledge Emperor.

By comparison, Zaratul would of course choose the historical projection most familiar to Him and easiest to summon.

His plan was to seize the opportunity created by Gehrman Sparrow “roaming” directly here without having prepared historical void projections in advance. He would use Roselle Gustav the Knowledge Emperor, a high-ranking member of the Red of War Legion, and Suah the Abomination to entangle the other party, thereby creating enough time for Himself to produce a miracle.

No sooner had Roselle’s figure appeared than one complex, illusory symbol after another condensed within his eyes. He was about to pour massive amounts of chaotic, useless knowledge into the target’s mind and burst His head apart.

At the same time, Zaratul used the numerous connections He had arranged in advance to shift His position—this swamp was His home ground. While doing so, one slippery, transparent tentacle after another pierced through His hooded black robe and extended into the fog of history, summoning the high-ranking member of the Red of War Legion.

It was at this moment that Roselle Gustav’s historical projection suddenly turned its head. Through the subtle connection between them, it looked toward Zaratul’s true body.

Zaratul’s mind was instantly stuffed full of redundant information and useless knowledge. His head nearly exploded outright, and His thoughts became briefly unable to turn.

He froze there. Even the light in His eyes had no time to change.

The historical projection of Roselle Gustav, the Knowledge Emperor, whom He had summoned, had betrayed Him!

Klein was both surprised and unsurprised by this outcome.

He was unsurprised because this had been something he had arranged. The Worm of Spirit in Sefirah Castle had already “grafted” Roselle’s present state together with the hidden state Klein himself had once experienced.

He was surprised because Adam had actually failed to warn Zaratul to be careful of Roselle Gustav.

After sensing that the situation contained a strange degree of coincidence, Klein’s preparation had been to use the connection between The Fool symbol and Roselle Gustav’s seal. Through the corresponding prayer point of light, he had turned a Worm of Spirit, carrying certain words and a certain will, into radiance and thrown it to that sleeping fellow transmigrator, waking him and granting him, through a miracle, a brief amount of power sufficient to temporarily suppress the Mother Goddess of Depravity’s corruption.

At the time, the worst-case scenario Klein had guarded against was this: something unexpected might happen to him, preventing him from contacting Sefirah Castle, while the Worms of Spirit inside Sefirah Castle and the other Worms of Spirit scattered in different locations might lose control and fall into madness, leaving him unable to save himself.

If the Worm of Spirit he had given Roselle underwent an abnormal change, Roselle would know something had gone wrong. He would then use the Black Emperor’s power over the distortion of order to keep that Worm of Spirit lucid for a certain period of time.

As for what method of self-rescue the Worm of Spirit and Roselle would discuss and produce, even Klein himself did not know.

That was the true reason he had been able to deceive Adam.

With his experience in the Hall of Honesty, Klein knew that when facing a Visionary, he would have no secrets. Any method of self-rescue he had considered in his mind—whether accumulated in the past or freshly produced in the present—would be seen and heard clearly by Adam.

At his level, the only way to avoid this was for even him not to know how he would save himself.

Of course, Adam the Visionary unquestionably knew that Klein had a Worm of Spirit inside Roselle Gustav’s Black Emperor mausoleum and understood that his fallback would necessarily originate from there. But He could not pry into it, because that place had been corrupted by the Mother Goddess of Depravity. It was a god eroded by the cosmos. To peer into Roselle Gustav’s thoughts was equivalent to peering into an Outer Deity.

That was the gap in status.

Precisely because of this, Klein had been able to calmly ask about all kinds of secrets and decipher the second Blasphemy Slate. On one hand, the knowledge truly was enticing. On the other, he had been stalling for time, waiting for the other side to complete the self-rescue. At the same time, he had not allowed his mind to become fully idle, lest he involuntarily begin thinking about how he would save himself.

Because of this, Klein had come to suspect that Adam had shared so many secrets with him not only for certain reasons he still could not guess, but also to guide him into thinking about how he would save himself, thereby finding clues and stopping him in advance.

Therefore, the repeated questions and answers inside the Cathedral of Bones had themselves been a battle on the mental level. Klein had to control himself at every moment, not allowing his thoughts to stray.

Under such circumstances, Adam had clearly known that there might be a problem with Roselle Gustav—yet He had not reminded Zaratul!

Whatever the reason, Klein had no intention of letting the opportunity before him slip away. He immediately raised the Staff of the Stars in his hand and skillfully simulated the power of Amon’s Worm of Time.

Dong!

The phantom of an ancient, mottled stone clock appeared. Its face was divided by grayish-white and bluish-black into twelve asymmetrical sections, each section containing different symbols representing different times.

Dong!

One of the three hands at the center of the stone clock jumped. Zaratul’s true body froze completely in place.

Klein immediately transformed into a vortex of worms, one that extended countless slippery tentacles. At the center of the vortex was the phantom of a strange door of light.

The door of light remained still. The vortex spun rapidly. A terrifying suction force raged, forcibly drawing the Beyonder characteristic from Zaratul’s body bit by bit.

This was the method Pallez Zoroast had once used to deal with Amon’s avatar: relying on status to forcibly converge!

Bits of Beyonder characteristic flew out, faster and faster. By the time Zaratul broke free of the frozen time and the bursting pressure inside His mind, He could no longer pull away. All He could do was look on with despair and rueful resignation as His body was lifted entirely and fell into that deep, dark vortex of worms.

A few seconds later, the vortex once again outlined a body. Klein’s feet stepped onto the ground.

Within the fog of history, Zaratul’s figure appeared again and again, but it could not retrieve the Beyonder characteristic from him. In the end, it could only fade away in gloom, unable to fully revive.

Using the ritual effect that had not yet completely vanished, Klein directly devoured Zaratul’s characteristic!

He needed to do so in order to reduce the influence of the Celestial Worthy within him!

…

While the Cathedral of Bones was still rising and falling amid the ocean of thunder, Adam, dressed in a simple white robe and with a pale golden beard, abruptly appeared at the edge of the sea region of the ruins of the battle of gods.

The sea immediately parted, revealing a road that led directly to the place stained with the ancient Sun God’s blood, directly to the projection of the Giant King’s Court, and directly to the Forsaken Land of the Gods.

In the depths of the Forsaken Land of the Gods, atop a certain mountain peak, a gigantic cross stood erect. Upon it hung a half-visible, half-illusory figure.

(End of Volume 7)