Chapter 85: The Source of It All

Chapter 85: The Source of It All

“April 9th. I just returned from Countess Valignan’s masquerade ball, and for some reason, I suddenly feel rather empty.

“A woman, a woman, and yet another woman. Monotonous and mechanical movements, perfume scents impossible to distinguish from one another, the warmth of tangled limbs—these things can only bring a few seconds of pleasure, followed by endless boredom, revulsion, emptiness, and numbness.

“What joy is there in living like this? Is the meaning of each day’s existence only for this?

“I cannot continue this way. I must break free from this decadent state.

“Also, a reminder to myself: do not habitually write Arabic numerals in the usual position.”

…

Emperor, even you have moments of reflection and youthful melancholy? That does not match the image I have of you at all! Klein nearly raised a brow as he read.

His gaze moved downward and landed on the second diary entry:

“April 11th. Countess Valignan invited me to a private salon. She told me that Madame Julia would also attend.

“Ha! That conservative blond beauty who married over from Loen will also be there?

“I truly look forward to it!

“I have imagined what she looks like in bed for a very long time. May her husband, Viscount Derion, not mine.”

Emperor, did you forget the diary you wrote the day before yesterday? Tsk, so this is what “really fragrant” means, right? Also, you wrote the wrong character. It should be “mind,” not “mine”! Klein could not help roasting him a couple of times.

“April 14th. Recently, I have attended activities far too frequently. I am somewhat unable to keep up…

“This is no small matter!

“Although I am still young, I must guard against the risk of decline in that area. Restraint. Restraint!

“Archaeologist has improved my physique and effectively enhanced certain abilities, but this is not its specialty. It is merely incidental.

“If I continue advancing in Sequence, the changes brought by my previous potions should deepen as well. That is one direction to work toward.

“I hear Apothecaries can concoct medicines with few side effects. Perhaps I should find a few and consult them.

“Also, I really must exercise restraint. Indulgence only causes the threshold to keep rising, while the degree of satisfaction becomes inferior to normal.

“Calming down and thinking about it, there are still many things I can do. Humans are always like this—bound by desire, unable to see what is truly valuable. Why did I transmigrate here? What secrets are hidden in the depths of the starry sky above? Where does the original consciousness come from? If self-awareness simply originates from consciousness, then before I became Huang Tao, who was I? To whom does the most essential part of me belong…”

Emperor, are you explaining to me what “lustful as a wolf beforehand, philosopher afterward” means? Heh. So even you worry about that kind of issue. I thought you had certain attributes fixed in place… Thank goodness you did not teach Chinese to your children. Mm, probably not. Otherwise, after they saw this kind of content, what would they think? Zaratul prophesied that your eldest daughter, Bernadette, would fall out with you and betray you. That was not without reason… Of course, not teaching them was more a form of protection… Klein was successfully amused by Roselle’s diary, but on the surface, there was not the slightest change in him.

To him, Emperor Roselle’s diary was both a book of knowledge and a collection of jokes.

With a thought, Klein flipped to the next page:

“October 2nd. Zaratul came to visit me again.

“He hopes that I, who have already entered the domain of half-god, half-human, can fulfill my promise and help him steal that dangerous Sealed Artifact from the Church.

“It is a notebook from the Fourth Epoch’s Antigonus family. A Grade 1 Sealed Artifact!”

At this point, Klein’s pupils contracted beyond his control.

This should be the notebook later lost by the Secret Order.

This should be the notebook that caused Klein Moretti’s death and allowed him, using the other man’s corpse, to successfully awaken in this world!

This was the source of it all!

“So it did not initially fall into the hands of the Secret Order. Instead, it was sealed within what was then the Church of Craftsmanship—the later Church of the God of Steam and Machinery. Through Emperor Roselle, Zaratul successfully stole it…

“Right. The Secret Order member inside Creeping Hunger feared Zaratul greatly and considered him an undying abnormal monster. Does that mean Zaratul used the notebook to obtain certain benefits, but then an accident occurred, changing him from a ‘person’ who could communicate normally with Roselle into a monster? Was that why the Antigonus family notebook was later lost?

“Of course, it cannot be ruled out that Zaratul deliberately let it be lost…

“Mm… Was it because Zaratul became a monster that the Secret Order lost all its mermaids, forcing later Faceless to risk going out to sea? Did Rosago succeed because he attempted to enter that ocean transformed from the ruins of the gods’ war?”

Thought after thought flashed through Klein’s mind, making his heart grow exceptionally grave.

Even so, he did not conclude from this that the Antigonus notebook incident he had encountered was closely related to Roselle, because the direction he had always suspected was the law of Beyonder characteristic convergence, and certain later details also fit similar logic.

Does all of it involve the upper levels of the Seer pathway? Klein’s gaze swept almost imperceptibly over the quiet, boundless gray fog and took it in.

Was it caused by this? he asked himself once more in his heart.

Stabilizing his emotions, Klein continued browsing the rest of the diary entry.

“Heh. I will decide based on the situation. If it is easy to steal and carries no real risk of exposure, I will give it a try. Otherwise, I will simply pretend this never happened.

“Even if Zaratul exposes me, it does not matter. With my current identity, status, Sequence, and influence, as long as I am willing to turn back and repent, the Church will not do anything to me.”

The other two entries on this page recorded Roselle’s thought process as he conceived plans to steal the notebook, but none of them seemed to have much chance of succeeding. However, Klein knew that he had ultimately obtained that notebook and handed it to the leader of the Secret Order, Zaratul.

After a brief pause, Klein turned the page.

“December 10th. Once again, I attended that ancient and secret gathering.

“At the gathering, I discovered that they bear tremendous hostility toward the Fourth Epoch’s Solomon Empire, and their position on this is extremely unified.

“I raised this question, and old Mr. Hermes answered me frankly. In the Fourth Epoch, the Solomon Empire’s ally and supporter was the True Creator.

“That is very real.

“I suppressed the urge to ask what exactly our organization had done in Fourth Epoch history. But when I left that palace and returned through the dream, I discovered that old Mr. Hermes’s route overlapped with mine to a certain degree this time.

“This ancient human who survived from before the Cataclysm must know a great deal. I made some friendly conversation and sincerely asked him a question: why does the organization hate the True Creator? Is it merely because He uses the sacred title of ‘Creator’?

“Old Mr. Hermes chuckled and said, ‘We are not such shallow creatures.’

“He asked me in return: ‘Do you clearly understand the specific abilities of Shepherds?’

“Of course. That was my answer.

“He then asked meaningfully:

“‘If you were to choose one among all the current gods and have them develop toward becoming the omniscient and omnipotent Lord, who do you think would be most likely?’

“This… The first thought that flashed through my mind was the Shepherd pathway, capable of devouring, shepherding, and commanding the souls and characteristics of other Sequence Beyonders, and the end of that pathway is precisely the True Creator.

“So that is how it is…”

Although this page contains only one diary entry, the information content is massive… So the Solomon Empire originally belonged to the True Creator’s camp… Mm, in the Tudor family’s underground ruins, there were humanoid statues of six orthodox gods. Although that cannot confirm whether they were worshiping gods or blaspheming gods, it can establish one thing: the six gods participated in the affairs of the three great empires, and in the later period were closely connected to the Trunsoest Empire… Three great empires, representing three different divine camps? Klein attempted to interpret the hidden truth of the previous epoch with his own archaeological discoveries and historical knowledge, but before him, the fog remained dense.

Regarding the question from Hermes, the oldest master of mysticism, Klein’s answer was close to Roselle’s.

As Sequence levels rose, Saints and Angels of the Shepherd pathway would be able to shepherd more and more souls and use more and more Beyonder powers. In the end, if the True Creator could shepherd the deities corresponding to the other twenty-one Beyonder pathways, then, in a certain sense, He would be equal to the omniscient and omnipotent Creator.

There are still many secrets hidden inside the Sequence pathways… Klein flipped to the fourth page of the diary.

This page recorded Roselle’s behavior after consuming the Savant potion. He had read and studied extensively, solidifying the foundations to an extremely firm degree and raising both the breadth and depth of his knowledge to a new level.

During this period, he had almost no entertainment. Study was his greatest entertainment.

In one of the entries, he wrote:

“…When a person knows for certain that hard work will definitely bring gains, and can directly see how much has been gained, that person will surely work as furiously as I am right now.”

Is that not precisely the essential attraction of many games? Klein turned past the final page of the diary and began reading the ancient-god legends provided by Little Sun.

Throughout the entire process, the towering palace remained silent. Whether Justice or The Moon, everyone was thinking about what they would trade and discuss later.

The Hermit Cattleya, encountering this kind of situation for the first time, showed no nervousness or unease. Instead, she carefully analyzed the information revealed by the scene:

“This is not the first time it has happened… Mr. Fool has a habit of reading Roselle’s diary at the Tarot Gathering… The members are actively or passively collecting it for Him, but it cannot be confirmed whether payment has already been made in advance…

“He truly can understand Roselle’s diary… Is He searching for secrets that have sunk into the river of history?

“Just now, The Sun mentioned that the information he submitted was legends of the ancient gods… That preliminarily matches my earlier speculation…”

At that moment, Klein had roughly finished browsing the new ancient-god information.

In the Second Epoch, in that age of darkness, every ancient god had subordinate “gods,” just like the Dragon of Imagination, Ankewelt, and His child, the Dragon of Nightmare, Alzuhod.