Chapter 6: Reflection

Chapter 6: Reflection

In most places, the Forsaken Land of the Gods had no roads in the normal sense. But it was not especially difficult to traverse, because vast swaths of it were barren wilderness, with deep black as the dominant color of everything.

Across the wilderness, one could occasionally see stubbornly growing plants. They were bizarre in form and extremely twisted. Klein had no way of telling what their original forms might have been.

Around them, beyond the reach of the lantern’s firelight, the night seemed to possess its own life. Its depths writhed silently, as though it wished to devour everything it covered.

As a Scholar of Yore, Klein merely swept the corner of his eye across the surroundings and saw Spirit Body Threads extending from the deep darkness, one after another. They were illusory, fine, and countless, proving that vast numbers of monsters were hidden in the dark.

Those monsters were extraordinarily quiet, simply watching Amon, dressed like an ancient mage, and Klein, in the image of a gentleman of the current age, as they walked through the barren wilderness under the dim yellow glow.

Klein looked straight ahead, casually carrying the leather lantern, not at all worried about when it might go out.

Just as he and Amon were about to leave the wilderness and enter a hilly region, from the darkness diagonally behind them, a deformed monster with two heads, five arms, and a body curled into a ball of flesh suddenly trembled.

It had become Klein’s marionette.

Manipulating Spirit Body Threads was silent to begin with, and the distance had not exceeded five hundred meters.

The next second, that monster quietly collapsed and lost its life.

Walking to Klein’s left, Amon, who wore a pointed soft hat, smiled. He raised His right arm, spread His palm, and revealed an object.

It was a transparent worm with three-dimensional patterns.

A Worm of Spirit!

Amon had stolen it from that marionette together with the Spirit Body Threads.

Before Klein could speak, Amon casually and easily curled His fingers into a fist and crushed that transparent worm.

Klein immediately felt pain from the depths of his soul, as though his head were about to split apart.

Fortunately, after repeatedly making Yesterday Once More charms and Spirit-Controlling Bullets, he had already become comparatively accustomed to this feeling. His face merely twisted, and he did not lose composure too badly.

Amon maintained His earlier smile and flicked His hand.

“You are too restrained. You can be bolder.”

Having eased from the pain, Klein raised a hand and rubbed his forehead. He felt exhausted in both body and mind, every Worm of Spirit crying out for rest.

During Zaratul’s pursuit, the spirituality Klein had borrowed from his past self had already been mostly spent. Afterward, he had continuously Teleported and used Angel’s Embrace to erase traces, putting himself close to his limit long ago.

After returning to what should have been a safe area, he had originally planned to go above the gray fog, inspect the surroundings, and then fall into deep sleep to recover. Instead, he had encountered Amon’s ambush, suffered parasitism, and been dragged all the way to the Forsaken Land of the Gods. If not for being trapped in a desperate situation naturally squeezing out his potential, he might have fallen asleep on the way or shown signs of losing control.

“I need to rest now.” Klein lowered his right hand and spoke frankly.

He believed Amon would satisfy this request, because the harder he tried and still failed to escape, the more it would satisfy this God of Mischief’s search for pleasure.

“All right.” Amon’s monocled face turned slightly toward one side of the hills. “There is a place to rest over there. We will arrive soon. Of course, I do not mind if you wish to sleep in the wilderness. I merely feel that you humans probably prefer a place that can offer a sense of security.”

“We’ll go there.” Klein originally wanted to directly manipulate the lantern’s flame and complete a jump, but his dried-up spirituality stopped him. He could only follow Amon step by step on foot.

On the way, with the mindset of asking more to learn more, Klein said to Amon, “Why not steal the distance and arrive at our destination directly?”

Amon turned His head and looked at Klein through the right eye behind the crystal monocle. The corner of His mouth lifted slightly.

“I am not the one who wants to rest.”

…Klein closed his mouth and quietly continued forward.

After roughly a dozen flashes of lightning, Amon lifted His hand and pointed diagonally ahead.

“We’re here.”

Less than a hundred meters away, amid the shadow of a hill, several half-broken buildings resembling the tops of spires were scattered about. Around them, more than ten enormous stone pillars jutted from the ground, though they reached only to Klein’s knees. Sparse weeds grew from the cracks between them, their tips dark red as blood.

“Did people once live here?” Klein rubbed his forehead again and asked.

Amon pressed the second joint of His right index finger against the edge of His monocle and smiled.

“This was originally a very large city-state. When the Cataclysm came, the earth split open and swallowed the entire city, leaving only these remains to prove it once existed.”

The destruction of civilization… That thought abruptly surfaced in Klein’s mind. He quickened his steps and reached the destination amid the strange weeds.

After entering a half-collapsed building, Klein instinctively looked around, observing the place.

The gray-white stone walls, cracked with countless fissures, bore murals washed by thousands of years. They had long since blurred. One could only vaguely see that the people of this city-state took pride in entering heaven after death.

Klein adjusted his breathing, tossed away the leather lantern in his hand, leaned against a thick stone pillar, and barely visualized layers of light spheres.

He paid no attention at all to what danger might come from sleeping in such a place and such an environment.

Let danger come even more fiercely! Before falling asleep, Klein shouted inwardly.

Amon, dressed in a classical mage’s robe, glanced at him and casually sat down nearby. Then He snapped His fingers.

Inside the leather lantern, the candle that had nearly burned out stopped melting, yet the dim yellow flame continued to spread its light.

With only a few minutes left to sustain itself, it now seemed as though it could persist for hours, or even days.

This was like an error, an error that violated the laws of nature.

Klein slept in a daze for an unknown amount of time before finally recovering his energy. He woke to Miss Magician’s prayers.

For now, he had no way to respond. He kept his eyes closed and pretended he was still dreaming.

In a state that isn’t deep-level parasitism, Amon should not be able to monitor my thoughts. He can only distinguish whether the thoughts turning in my mind are harmful to Him… Klein’s heart stirred, and he quietly issued a summons toward the grayish-white fog.

From the gaps of history, from his past self, he borrowed a state—one that did not directly target escape.

It was the state of his mind island when Hvin Rambis had invaded it.

This attempt was not stopped, nor was it stolen.

With the help of this state, and relying on the special quality that allowed him to remain lucid in invaded dreams and mental worlds, part of Klein’s self-awareness split off and took residence in the spiritual sky, calmly looking down upon his island of consciousness.

He began examining his mind to see whether there were any abnormal, parasitized thoughts.

After a strict round of discernment, Klein preliminarily confirmed that there was no problem in his mental world.

In other words, even if Amon still had a Worm of Time hidden inside him, it would belong to shallow-level parasitism and could not listen in on his thoughts.

After finding this “safe zone,” Klein could finally release the thoughts he had restrained and suppressed, analyzing his current situation and considering how to save himself:

“Amon is the God of Mischief, and also the God of Deceit. There is no way He is playing this game purely for pleasure… If He really wanted to do that, He could have waited until we met His main body, stolen my fate, and obtained Sefirah Castle before making the attempt. That way, even if an accident occurred, His main objective would already have been achieved, and He would lose nothing…

“What exactly is He hiding behind this matter? If I can grasp the key, perhaps I can find the true chance of survival…

“Also, after He recited the incantation of the Luck Enhancement Ritual in Chinese, He showed no concern about that special language and asked no questions. That is completely inconsistent with the curiosity He has displayed…

“Uh… Later, when He said the word ‘Bug,’ was that deliberate, to test what I would associate with it?

“But He did not steal my thoughts. No, if an entire stretch of thought unrelated to what came before or after was stolen, I would not be able to discover it…”

Klein recalled the situation at that time and, based on the logical connections between his thoughts before and after, confirmed that his thoughts had not been stolen then.

And this allowed him to determine one thing in reverse.

That was: in a state of deep-level parasitism, Amon could listen directly to his thoughts without needing to steal them.

Amon’s performance—that He had to first detect harmful thoughts before manipulating them—had been a deception!

“I knew it. The deep-level parasitism I experienced before seemed a little different from what Pallez described…

“Based on this inference, Amon should have heard all the thoughts I had along the way, including Earth, fellow countryman, and children’s education…

“Truly terrifying…

“Fortunately, when planning the operation to sabotage George III’s apotheosis ritual, I had anticipated the possibility of being parasitized by Amon in a desperate situation. The thoughts I leaked were half instinctive reactions and half deliberately indulged. In that way, I both exposed secrets and ‘earned’ Amon’s trust, while concealing the most important and most crucial matters.

“Just like now, He must already know that I intend to pry more hidden history from Him in order to digest the Scholar of Yore potion as quickly as possible. But He will not know that I am already not far from completely digesting it—only two or three steps, or one opportunity, away…

“Amon deliberately undid the parasitism and is playing this game. Could it be because He once heard about Earth from the ancient Sun God, encountered some hidden secret, and intends to use my attempts at self-rescue to drive me into helping Him complete something inconvenient or impossible for Him to do personally? If that is the case, certain situations will definitely appear next…

“Mm. I have to act as though I have not noticed this and plan my escape as usual.”

“Once I adjust my physical condition, I will make the first ‘attempt’!” After “sleeping” a little longer, Klein opened his eyes.

Amon, wearing a pointed soft hat, sat beside him and looked at him with a smile.

“Have you thought it through? When will you begin acting?”

He behaved as though He were Klein’s accomplice, not the target from whom Klein had to escape.