Chapter 21: The Third One

Chapter 21: The Third One

“Let a piece of lost history return to the current era… Return, not reappear… The meanings of those two words are completely different. It isn’t enough for me to write out the true history of the Fourth or Third Epoch and spread it for the ritual to be completed…” Klein’s right hand, which held the fountain pen, paused. By instinct, he began analyzing the contents of the Miracle Invoker potion.

After some thought, he found something that perfectly met the ritual’s requirements.

That was: allowing the people of the City of Silver to escape the Forsaken Land of the Gods, return to the Northern and Southern Continents, and let a history lost for two or three thousand years descend upon the current era!

“This isn’t much easier than escaping Amon’s tracking. The only known way to leave the Forsaken Land of the Gods is to enter the Giant King’s Court and open the palace where Dark Angel Sasrir sleeps. That one is the ancient Sun God’s negative personality, ranked first among Kings of Angels, known as the Left Hand of God and the Deputy of Heaven. He might even be stronger than the current Amon… Furthermore, His present state is being watched by various gods… Mm, the one thing slightly better than escaping Amon’s control is that I can make full preparations in advance…” Klein slowly exhaled, feeling that the ritual still held a certain chance of success.

In truth, he knew very clearly that even without him, the City of Silver would continue trying, time and again, to open the door to the Giant King’s residence and find a way to leave that abandoned land. Like moths seeing flame, they would not stop until death.

No matter what, with my “participation,” the possibility of success will definitely be higher than it is now… Klein instinctively wanted to lure Amon over when the door to the place where Dark Angel slept was opened, creating chaos and offsetting the harm brought by Dark Angel’s awakening.

This was a tactic he was quite skilled in.

However, in the end, he rejected the idea, because it was simply too dangerous.

After spending this period of time with Amon and truly witnessing the status of a King of Angels, Klein instinctively began to fear these terrifying existences. He no longer had the idea of using the contradictions between them to create disorder.

Their mere existence alone could bring unbearable damage to the surrounding Beyonders and the entire region!

Under such circumstances, trying to rely on Them to create chaos was no longer comparable to walking along the edge of an abyss, where one careless step might make one slip and fall. Without the resolve to plunge into the abyss and sink forever into hell, it was best not to attempt it.

Unless there were truly no other way, and even escape had become an extravagant hope, Klein did not want to attempt anything similar again.

“As expected, part of a Miracle Invoker’s Beyonder powers comes from history, which is why the ritual has such requirements… How would other Scholars of Yore complete it?” Klein looked at the parchment spread out on the bronze long table and considered possible solutions from another angle. “If it were me, I could only find a way to isolate certain people and certain histories from reality, until they were already forgotten, and only then allow them to return to the current era. That might take three hundred years, five hundred years, or even longer… That truly is an evil act… Heh, somehow it makes me think of ‘The Peach Blossom Spring’…”

After thinking this through, Klein believed that, for other Scholars of Yore, the difficulty of this ritual still lay in whether one’s lifespan could support the matter to the end. Furthermore, that kind of isolation contained far too many possibilities of being accidentally broken.

“The Forsaken Land of the Gods perfectly solves these difficulties, but it brings even greater difficulties… Dark Angel Sasrir… What state is this Deputy of Heaven in now? Is He related to the ancient Sun God’s arrangements for resurrection… The level involved here has already reached the ceiling of this world… Why am I always getting swept into matters like this…” Klein laughed self-mockingly. He could roughly guess that this had something to do with the fate brought by Sefirah Castle.

After all, even the Blasphemer Amon was not very willing to shoulder such a fate.

Retracting his scattered thoughts, Klein returned his attention to the Miracle Invoker potion formula itself.

“The Star Worm belongs to the Apprentice pathway? The supplementary ingredients include high-level spiritual materials from three neighboring pathways… The Worm of Time I had were all made into Fate Siphon charms, with no way to restore them. Ask Leonard’s old man to lend me another one? How can that be called borrowing? I’m planning to exchange an enhanced Yesterday Once More charm for it!

“Where can I find a Star Worm… There aren’t many surviving demigods of the Apprentice pathway in the real world… The Aurora Order’s Secrets Sorcerer, Botis? But I’m in the Forsaken Land of the Gods. I can’t leave to deal with him… I can only ask Madam Hermit and the Queen of Mysteries for help. At the same time, I also need to urge Miss Magician to become a Traveler as quickly as possible… Mm, let her ask her teacher where a Star Worm might be while she’s at it…

“There is actually only one main ingredient: either the heart of the Dark Demonic Wolf, or the Beyonder characteristic left behind by another Miracle Invoker. It is no longer a two-in-one combination…

“Mm, in other words, at this level, there are very few scattered characteristics. They have already completed a certain degree of convergence…

“The Dark Demonic Wolf is also called the God of Wishes. It is a standard angel, a subsidiary god. If I cannot find directly usable material, won’t I have to ‘slaughter a god’?

“An existence at the angel level can already be called a hidden existence, and there is an essential difference between them and Sequence 3…

“Just thinking about it is frightening…”

Klein listed the helpers he could pull in and felt much more settled, as though he already owed enough debt to be fearless.

He lifted the right hand that held the fountain pen and continued recording the knowledge he had obtained earlier.

Most of it was something he already knew, so he treated it as a review.

At the end, Klein wrote a fragment of information in the corner of the parchment:

“Sequence 1: Attendant of Mysteries.

“Main ingredient: One Attendant of Mysteries Beyonder characteristic.”

This piece of information meant that the Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristic was difficult to obtain through any other method. There were only three choices.

“One is on the half-Fool at the main peak of the Hornacis mountain range, together with the Uniqueness. One is with Zaratul. As for the last one, according to Leonard, the True Creator has clues. Where could it be… Right. The northern city-state ruin of Nois, where Little Sun and the others hunted the shapeshifter, seems to hide a high-level existence of the Seer pathway. I wonder whether it corresponds to Miracle Invoker or Attendant of Mysteries…” A thought gradually formed in Klein’s mind. He planned that, after successfully resurrecting and initially shaking off Amon, he would make a preliminary exploration of that ancient city of Nois.

After digesting the knowledge he had just gained, Klein summoned a gold-cased pocket watch from the pile of miscellaneous items and clicked it open to confirm the current time.

Before destroying the Blood Emperor ruin, he had sacrificed many items that were useless in battle above the gray fog to avoid them being damaged.

Even so, after the earlier battle and his final suicide, he had still lost quite a number of things—and all of them were extremely valuable. Just thinking about it nearly made him lose control.

“Groselle’s Travels, Death Knell, Creeping Hunger, Fate Siphon charms, Sunflare Charms, Spirit-Controlling Bullets, Qonas the marionette and his equipment, Enyuni the marionette and his ring, the adventurer’s harmonica… I can’t think about it anymore. Fortunately, I tossed Azik’s copper whistle above the gray fog long ago. Fortunately, I can still summon the historical projections of these items. They’ve merely changed form to accompany me… Uh, Groselle’s Travels may not be possible…” Klein’s temple twitched faintly, and his mood grew heavy despite himself.

He sighed and solemnly mourned these objects, especially the mystical item that had accompanied him for so long:

Creeping Hunger.

After a long silence, Klein forced his attention back to the present. While waiting to convene the Tarot Gathering, he let his thoughts casually drift toward the ancient Sun God, Chernobyl, and similar matters.

Suddenly, he frowned slightly.

“Since this place is my homeland, and there have never been any ‘transmigrators’—only ancient humans released by Sefirah Castle—then do places like the Chaos Sea also have similar existences? Was Chernobyl transformed into a shelter?

“According to Amon’s words and the scenes I saw through divination, the ancient Sun God indeed awakened in Chernobyl. Then was He a ‘transmigrator’ released by Sefirah Castle, or a survivor inside the shelter?

“If it was the latter, then who was the person inside the third opened cocoon here…”

At that point, Klein was abruptly startled, and his pupils dilated slightly.

He already had certain guesses regarding the origin of the elves. It should have nothing to do with Sefirah Castle.

In that case, he had not yet found the correct identity corresponding to the third—or perhaps the first—“transmigrator.”

This “transmigrator” seemed to have left no traces in history!

Without hesitation, Klein’s consciousness sank into the grayish-white fog. With Sefirah Castle’s power, he arrived directly at a rather early segment of history.

It was composed of many fragments of light. The clearest among them was Zhou Mingrui, suspended above the door of light, wrapped inside a transparent “cocoon.”

Beside Zhou Mingrui, because Klein understood Roselle well enough, the corresponding fog of history was instantly illuminated. He directly saw a young man, also hanging inside a “cocoon,” eyes tightly shut.

Without needing verification, Klein confirmed through that sense of familiarity and spiritual intuition that this was the former self of Roselle Gustav—Huang Tao.

Without lingering to admire the Emperor’s true appearance, Klein turned his gaze to the other side.

There, a cluster of transparent “cocoon” swayed gently. The figure inside was faint and indistinct.

Because Klein had already seen the other suspended figures, many fragments of light within this fog of history had been illuminated, weaving with one another and stimulating one another, allowing this unclear portion to be barely visible.

The figure inside was clearly female.

Female… Klein’s heart stirred. He realized that, when analyzing “transmigrators” before, he had overlooked a direction.

A “transmigrator” had subjective consciousness and could completely restrain themselves from leaving traces beyond the era. Yet there was one thing that could not be avoided.

Clearly, Sefirah Castle was related to the three pathways of Seer, Apprentice, and Marauder. After a “transmigrator” descended, they would inevitably form a connection with one of these three pathways very soon.

Klein had not only been drawn into the case brought by the Antigonus family’s notebook, but had quickly obtained the opportunity to choose the Seer potion.

The Intis where Roselle was active had the Secret Order, and he had known Zaratul extremely early on.

Following this logic, the ancient Sun God, who possessed Marauder authority, was indeed one of the reasonable suspects.

Klein immediately conjured paper and pen again and began listing the corresponding names he currently knew. For example, certain figures from the Antigonus family, the Zaratul family, and the Abraham family in the Fourth Epoch; for example, the Kings of Angels around the ancient Sun God.

Before long, Klein’s gaze stopped on several names.

At the very front was the ancient god Flegrea, who clearly possessed Seer authority. Behind Him were His subsidiary gods:

Salinger, God of the Dead, and Amanises, Goddess of Misfortune.

The latter was now also called the Evernight Goddess.