Chapter 18: My Anchors

Chapter 18: My Anchors

In an instant, Amon saw the grayish-white fog and the ancient, majestic palace above.

As long as He reached out and passed through the final obstruction, He could truly touch Sefirah Castle, directly taking residence there and, in essence, stealing it.

But at that moment, a huge bluish-black palm suddenly appeared above Amon’s illusory figure, blocking His path into Sefirah Castle.

The Amon illusion instinctively turned His head and followed the palm with His gaze. He saw that one-eyed giant, already dead, his entire body rotten and oozing pus.

Bradell, called the God of Honor, still had not the slightest life in his exaggerated vertical eye. Grayish-yellow cursed fog continuously seeped out from his body.

But unlike before, behind him were now one nearly illusory black tube after another, extending toward infinity and connecting to some unknown place.

Bang!

The dozens-of-meters-tall bluish-black giant instantly condensed a greatsword made from orange-red twilight radiance. Holding it in one hand, he abruptly cleaved down toward Amon’s true body, which stood at the edge of the deep ravine.

After wandering unconsciously for thousands of years, this youngest son of the Giant King, dead from a curse, suddenly erupted with unimaginable power.

The “Twilight Greatsword” pierced through the void and directly jumped out at the position where Amon, the Angel of Time, stood. It tore apart everything nearby and transformed into a storm capable of destroying this barren plain.

Amon did not move. He remained standing there. No matter how the orange-red “blade” storm raged, it could not harm Him in the slightest.

He seemed to have once again made use of some “error” in this world.

However, Amon in this state could no longer transmit His own ravings into Klein’s mind. Klein finally obtained a trace of peace.

He paid no attention to his condition, which was about to spiral out of control. Amid the clear, realistic, layer upon layer of prayers around him, he recovered a little lucidity. Then, he immediately turned his thoughts, resonated with the crimson “figure” at The Fool’s seat above the gray fog, and reestablished the connection.

Without hesitation, he chose to return to Sefirah Castle!

At this moment, the illusory figure of Amon attempting to infiltrate above the gray fog was still being blocked by the bluish-black hand of Bradell, God of Honor. It could not break through that enormous obstruction in an instant.

This King of Angels wearing a crystal monocle, His avatar and main body at the same time, opened His mouth and spat out one word:

“Evernight.”

Yes. This was help from the Evernight Goddess, but it was certainly not without reason!

Although Klein had not been very confident about this, he had always treated it as one of his trump cards. He merely believed it might not be effective, that the probability was very low, and that it could only be expected as one thread of dawn at the moment of deepest despair.

After truly entering the Forsaken Land of the Gods and gaining independent space to think, he had worked hard to search for “resources” he could use. Then, he remembered a matter:

The former Chief of the City of Silver.

This Demon Hunter had tried to switch to Sequence 3 Ferryman of the Death pathway, only to encounter mutation and become a monster inside the mausoleum he built for himself.

That mutation had been connected to nearly illusory black tubes. Klein had seen the same things on the Numinous Episcopate’s Artificial Death.

In other words, the mutation of the City of Silver’s former Chief was very likely related to Artificial Death.

This indirectly explained one issue: for some unknown reason, aside from the True Creator, the newly “revived” Artificial Death could also exert influence on the Forsaken Land of the Gods.

And the current Artificial Death, to a certain degree, could be considered equivalent to the Evernight Goddess!

Based on such reasoning, Klein suspected that the Goddess could, through the Death pathway’s Uniqueness, exert a comparatively low-level influence on certain things within the Forsaken Land of the Gods.

In addition, regarding the matter of the City of Silver’s former Chief, only three people had participated directly: the current Chief Colin Iliad, the demigod elder Waite Chirmont, and the Shepherd elder Lovia. They were either Sequence 4 saints or important believers of the True Creator, and it would have been impossible for them to be parasitized by Amon without noticing.

As for Derrick Berg, the only person who received feedback afterward, he had been under The Fool’s gaze and was not a target of Amon’s parasitism either.

In other words, Amon did not know the crucial point that the former City of Silver Chief’s mutation involved black illusory tubes.

Therefore, even if He could grasp the external situation and guess that the Evernight Goddess had obtained the Death pathway’s Uniqueness, provoking the God of War into an intense reaction, He still had no way of knowing this could bring a certain variable to the Forsaken Land of the Gods.

After reaching this understanding, Klein consciously did several things in this direction without holding too much confidence:

In the city-state that worshiped the Phoenix, he did not take away the remaining Death pathway Beyonder characteristics, hoping to leave a road sign with them.

After summoning Zaratul’s historical projection, he did not rush to kill himself. On one hand, he feared that Amon might still have the ability to stop him at that time, which would delay other arrangements. On the other hand, he wanted to summon the projection of Arianna, Servant of Concealment, to inform the Evernight Goddess of the exact situation.

After completing these two things, Klein had not known what the final result would be. More of his attention had still been placed on the fact that Amon’s avatar had long since been replaced by the main body.

When they reached the final destination and he saw that wandering angel corpse, a thought had just stirred in Klein’s heart before Amon’s introduction distracted him. Only now did he understand that the Goddess had long since used the Death pathway’s Uniqueness to preliminarily control that youngest son of the Giant King, dead and cursed for thousands of years, patiently waiting for the opportunity.

And the secret power pervading the Forsaken Land of the Gods had helped Her hide the illusory black tubes very well.

Suddenly, inside the ancient palace above the gray fog, at the very top of the long mottled table, in the seat belonging to The Fool, the crimson “figure” that had sometimes twisted and sometimes scattered finally took shape, revealing Klein’s appearance, with black hair, brown eyes, and a rather scholarly bearing.

With a single thought, Klein’s consciousness and spirit body returned to Sefirah Castle!

He then used Sefirah Castle’s close connection to his own body, along with the resonance amplification brought by the Tarot Club members’ prayers, to directly see himself in reality—eyes unfocused, about to lose control—and the illusory figure of Amon, who had just used Error to bypass the obstruction of the bluish-black palm.

Amon’s head, wearing the crystal monocle, lifted. His gaze met Klein’s, who was seated in The Fool’s position.

Klein beckoned, taking the Sea God Scepter into his hand, and raised it.

The entire gray fog boiled, and all of Sefirah Castle shook.

Majestic, terrifying power gathered, transforming into a surging torrent of lightning. Illuminated by the blue-green gemstones lighting up at the same time, it poured down madly, drowning Amon’s avatar and Klein’s own body.

Deep, rumbling thunder rolled outward. Terrifying silver-white lightning tore apart everything it enveloped.

Amon’s illusory figure disintegrated. Klein’s body was destroyed.

He had finally succeeded in killing himself.

After completing this strike, Klein, high above the gray fog, immediately severed the connection between Sefirah Castle and the real world, lest Amon’s main body create some new accident.

Immediately afterward, he began waiting for the “miracle,” waiting for “resurrection.”

Beside the deep ravine whose bottom held gray-white, heavy buildings, Amon’s main body adjusted the monocle carved from crystal and stole the curse maintaining the “existence” of Bradell, the young son of the ancient god.

The bluish-black giant immediately rotted rapidly, quickly turning into white bones. The nearly illusory black tubes did not persist. They directly shrank back into the depths of darkness.

Amon, wearing a pointed soft hat and classical black robe, stood where He was. He raised His head and silently looked into midair for several seconds, as though gazing upon Sefirah Castle across the fog of history.

Finally, He pinched the monocle carved from crystal. As the corners of His lips slowly curved upward, He muttered in a low voice:

“Interesting.”

…

Inside the ancient palace, at the very top of the mottled long table, Klein sat in The Fool’s seat, carefully looking down at the grayish-white fog below.

He discovered that the Beyonder characteristics contained within his destroyed body had unknowingly entered the gaps of history and combined with the projections of Worms of Spirit from the past, giving them substance.

As long as the consciousness of Klein upon Sefirah Castle was willing, those Worms of Spirit could immediately burrow out of the fog of history and reconstitute his body in the real world.

The essence of the “miracle” of resurrection from death was a deep-level use of the power of the past.

Is a miracle realized with the help of the past and the future? Klein frowned slightly, attempting to analyze exactly where the “miracles” of a Miracle Invoker came from.

After thinking for several seconds, he swiftly pulled back his attention and tried resurrecting above Sefirah Castle. He then discovered a problem.

The resurrection of his body could only happen in the real world, and it had to be within a certain range of his remains. As for his spirit body, it could be reborn directly above the gray fog, but Klein’s spirit body had not been destroyed. It was sitting in The Fool’s high-backed chair.

“Obtaining help from the past is effective. The resurrection count I’m consuming now is borrowed in advance from after I become a Miracle Invoker… For the moment, it looks like there’s only one such chance. Hiss… Amon should be guarding my ‘corpse’ right now. I need to think of a way to escape this predicament… His sense of time is different from other people’s. He is a very patient God of Mischief… Mm, this state can only be maintained for three days. After that, I won’t be able to borrow power from the past to resurrect… If there’s really no way, I’ll just abandon the body and become a dead spirit directly!” As Klein’s thoughts spun, although he was still somewhat troubled, he was now in the most relaxed state he had been in for the past several days.

He had finally escaped that nearly hopeless situation.

Looking one by one at the high-backed chairs whose symbols had lit up behind them, then at the crimson stars that were swelling and contracting, Klein exhaled and leaned back against the chair in relaxation. A slight smile unconsciously emerged on his face:

“So these are my anchors.”