Chapter 104: Exaggeration

Chapter 104: Exaggeration

Bang!

When the “shadow” blasted out the air cannon, Klein seemed to have foreseen it. His body suddenly leaned backward, flipping through the air before landing steadily several steps away.

Throughout the process, his right hand remained pressed to the half top hat on his head, making him appear entirely relaxed.

Seeing that neither Enuni nor the “shadow” attempted to pursue or continue attacking, Klein’s smile grew even more obvious.

“Interrupting someone else’s speech is not very polite.

“I originally intended to discuss how to deal with you right in front of you. Now it seems I’ll have to avoid you.”

As he spoke, the left side of his face, formed by transparent worms embracing one another, twitched twice, as if winking at his former marionette and the shadow that had once belonged to him.

Then, still smiling brightly, he walked back to Colin Iliad, Derrick, and Lovia. With a shrug, he said,

“The master of this place does not seem to welcome us. We can only step outside and discuss how to handle their problem.”

Colin Iliad did not look down on this powerful figure at all, even though his manner was exaggerated and he seemed unable to control his emotions very well. When dealing with matters earlier, the man had shown a sharp grasp of details. That was not something a demigod who had lost his reason could accomplish.

“All right,” the Chief of the City of Silver replied to Klein’s suggestion.

Derrick naturally had no objection. Lovia, for her part, remained silent and said nothing.

Thus, four demigods and one Silver Knight marionette retraced their steps and left through the main gate of the Giant King’s Court. At the end, Klein even had the several-meter-tall guard covered in silver armor pull hard on the enormous doors, slowly closing them. He appeared extremely well-mannered.

Throughout the entire process, Enuni, with his layered illusory black wings, and the pure “shadow” merely watched. They made no attempt to stop them, as if an invisible wall restricted their movements.

After a while, twilight faded, darkness descended, and all things waited for the light of dawn to illuminate them.

In that silent, deathly still world, at last, a ray of light rose, bringing long-awaited morning.

At that moment, Enuni and the “shadow” heard a knocking sound from the main gate of the Giant King’s Court.

Someone was knocking.

Knock. Knock. Knock. After several repeated rounds, the door gave a heavy creak and opened inward.

Klein, wearing a black trench coat, kept the corner of the right side of his mouth lifted. He entered the Giant King’s Court first and climbed the staircase step by step. Colin Iliad and the other demigods, along with his marionette, lagged half a step behind and followed to the side.

After ascending halfway up the stairs, Klein stopped. Looking at Enuni and the “shadow” more than ten meters away, he said,

“Please forgive me for not waiting for you to say, ‘Come in.’ Perhaps you were too far from the door and couldn’t hear my knock.

“You know how it is. As a gentleman, I only knock with my fingers, not with my palm.”

As soon as he finished speaking, Enuni, who had not uttered a word since the beginning, opened his mouth.

“Next, you will deal with the ‘shadow’ yourself and have the people of the City of Silver entangle me.”

“Mm?” Klein gave an exaggerated, ringing nasal sound, as if waiting for Enuni to explain further.

At the same time, he raised his left palm and pressed it to his face.

The transparent, twisted worms suddenly writhed. Some drilled inward, some crawled out, completing a rapid exchange.

With his face shrouded in shadow and his slightly curled black hair falling to his shoulders, Enuni continued in a deep voice.

“You didn’t summon images from the fog of history in advance because you know the ‘shadow’ can summon a projection of the Staff of the Stars, simulate the Time Angel’s ability, accelerate the flow of time, and disperse your angel helpers.

“Likewise, the reason he hasn’t made preparations is the same.

“And if you summon Saints that can last longer, he can do the same, canceling you out.”

“I hate playing cards against myself most of all!” Klein nodded heavily, expressing agreement, and laughed aloud.

Enuni’s blurry face, whose features could not be made out, swept over him and the three demigods of the City of Silver.

“So, you turned the gatekeeping Silver Knight into a marionette beforehand, intending to use it as the weight that tips the scales.”

“The problem lies with him, not with me. He actually has no target available to make into a marionette. Or perhaps you could sacrifice yourself?” Klein said to his former marionette Enuni, the corner of his mouth lifted.

Enuni withdrew his gaze and instead examined Colin Iliad, Derrick, and Lovia.

“The premise of you and the ‘shadow’ canceling each other out and you relying on a marionette to win is that they can entangle me.”

The moment he finished speaking, the two sides of the polluted marionette’s shoulders—contaminated by the power at the place where the Dark Angel slept—began to squirm. A head grew out from each side.

Both were covered in shadow and had shoulder-length black curls, but one gave the impression of youth, the other of old age.

Before Klein and the others could react, the body on Enuni’s right side suddenly split apart, allowing the “old” head to take one-third of his torso with it.

The separated body wriggled rapidly and became complete in an instant. On the shadow covering the surface of its head, a pair of eyes emerged, their pupils vertical and pale gold.

All at once, the grand staircase leading to the ancient god’s residence collapsed downward, becoming a barren and deathly silent plain. At the end of the plain stood a city with black walls and weeds growing upon them.

The City of Silver!

The scene was so realistic that Derrick’s heart tightened. He worried that some unknown enemy had dragged them, the demigods, to the City of Silver to destroy that city-state. Lovia’s gaze froze the moment Enuni grew two heads, and her body trembled slightly, as if she had sensed the aura of an absolutely high-ranking being.

Colin Iliad looked around. Crossing the two straight swords in his hands, both covered in dawnlight, he pushed them forward and said in a deep voice,

“This is false.”

At that moment, Klein covered his mouth with the left palm made of transparent worms, yawned, and asked Enuni’s main body with a smile,

“Are you stronger in dreams?

“Or can this let you cross the boundary and launch attacks?

“Mm, if it were me, I would definitely consider using a dream to entice the enemy, making them step into my attack range on their own.”

As soon as his words fell, the barren plain and distant city disappeared at the same time, and the grand staircase bathed in dawnlight appeared once more.

Then, the body on Enuni’s left side also split apart. The “young” head took one-third of the flesh with it.

The shadow shrouding “his” face was quickly replaced by brilliant golden light, and within “his” eyes seemed to be two miniature “suns.”

“Sun?” Klein first voiced the question, then laughed so hard that he bent at the waist. “Haha! You want to use a Domain of No Darkness to break the Silver Knights’ Light Concealment? Right, we do have three Silver Knights on our side. They’re worth taking seriously. But have you considered how the ‘shadow’ feels? You haven’t. You only think of yourself! He’s nothing but a pure shadow. Do you know how much he’ll be weakened inside a Domain of No Darkness?”

At this point, Klein laughed even louder, to the point that the Spirit Worms on his transparent left face crawled considerably faster.

“Hahahaha! Also, have you thought about your own Beyonder powers in the domains of filth, degeneration, and darkness? Have you seriously considered how much negative impact a Domain of No Darkness would bring you?”

When he finished laughing, Klein straightened his back and asked seriously,

“So what should I call you now?

“Little En? Little Yu? Little Ni?”

Enuni’s main body, its face still covered in shadow, slowly inhaled.

“If you had chosen the Hunter pathway, you would definitely be stronger than you are now…”

Before he finished, the layered illusory black wings behind him suddenly spread open. They expanded continuously, blotting out the sky and enveloping the entire grand staircase.

A faint shadow instantly covered the place. Then Enuni directly crossed the previous invisible boundary and descended before Colin Iliad, Lovia, and Derrick.

He actually had a way to break through the restriction!

The young version of him—the split-off Sun Saint—raised both arms in the same spot.

The light of dawn immediately became blazing, illuminating every corner of the majestic staircase, leaving no shadow where anything could hide.

Domain of No Darkness!

However, the shadow boundary around them did not recede. The illusory black wings covering Enuni’s main body helped him block the pure sunlight.

As for the “shadow,” it seemed to have been draped in a cloak. Although it dimmed quite a bit, it showed no obvious weakness.

At the same time, the elderly body split off from Enuni pushed its right palm toward Klein.

A violent yet illusory gale suddenly surged around him, carrying invisible, varied intentions as it howled toward Klein and his Silver Knight marionette.

Mind Deprivation!

It could leave a target stunned, fill them with fear, drive them into fanaticism, or make them lose part of their reason.

And Klein, at present, had lost the wholeness of his spirit. He stood on the verge of losing control; even his emotions and reactions were difficult to manage properly. If he suffered the effects of Mind Deprivation, there was a very high chance he would lose control on the spot and collapse into a monster.

Enuni understood his condition and had seen through his weakness. At the very start of the battle, he had made the split-off Spectator Saint use an area attack that was difficult for Klein to defend against and nearly impossible for him to withstand.

The gale stained with all sorts of emotions and wills instantly “swallowed” Klein, yet the mad adventurer whose body was half normal and half horrifying showed no contorted expression, no surfacing divinity, and no bodily collapse. Instead, his right eye, which had carried an exaggerated smile, suddenly became extremely calm.

While waiting for the City of Silver’s exploration team, he had already summoned Miss Justice and asked her to supply him with a clown-like virtual personality born from his own habit of inward mockery, making his spirit whole for a certain period of time!

This was why Klein had still been relatively rational when leaving the guards’ residence, yet had become so exaggerated and mad when meeting the City of Silver’s exploration team.

Moreover, this virtual personality could take the place of his main self and endure several attacks in the Mind domain.

The coldness in his gaze rapidly faded. The corner of Klein’s mouth on the right lifted, symmetrical with a climbing, curving Spirit Worm on the left.

It was a sincere smile.