Chapter 70: A Piece of “Curtain”

Chapter 70: A Piece of “Curtain”

“God… God has come to save us…”

Those words, heavy with tears, echoed at Moon City’s entrance, leaving the waiting residents dazed and shaken.

…

At the edge of the solidified grayish-white fog, beside a quietly burning campfire.

After eating another round of mushrooms, Klein dismissed the iron-black skewer in his hand and raised his head, glancing toward the direction of the deep pit Moon City’s High Priest Nim had described.

He then stretched out his right hand and gently grabbed, dragging out the version of himself from a quarter of an hour ago.

After exchanging one glance, Klein’s true body rapidly vanished, entering the fog of history and sprinting to the era before the First Epoch, where he sat atop the layered corpses of ancient cities.

His historical projection stood, snapped its fingers again and again, and Flashed toward the destination amid rising streams of crimson flame.

When the deep pit that had once been a hill was almost in front of him, Klein stopped. Cautiously, he extended his right palm again and dragged his former marionette Qonas Kilgor out of the void.

The facial muscles of this Fallen Earl with a tough-guy appearance wriggled, quickly transforming him into another Gehrman Sparrow.

Holding a lantern taken from the fog of history in one hand and rubbing his forehead with the other, he muttered quietly, “Why does even a marionette have to change appearance?

“There isn’t anyone else here anyway…

“I must not develop obsessive-compulsive disorder…”

A few seconds later, this marionette projection carried the lantern emitting dim yellow light and walked step by step toward the nearby pit.

As the light floated, Klein saw the target location clearly and discovered that it was actually not very deep. The difference between the bottom and the ground was less than two meters. Of course, compared to the hill that had originally stood there, the change was indeed enormous.

Inside the “deep pit,” the soil was smooth, containing a small number of stones. Many mutated, twisted, unidentifiable plants grew around it. It did not look much different from the surrounding area.

After observing for a while, Klein—who had quietly activated Spirit Vision and Spirit Body Threads vision—slowly entered the “deep pit,” planning to circle every spot worth re-examining according to the route he had mapped out.

As he walked, his brows furrowed slightly, and he gave a soft “Huh.”

He discovered that the turning of his thoughts had slowed to a certain extent, yet it did not affect his ability to think.

It was like the state one experienced after sleeping too much and just waking up: the head heavy and dull, thoughts not active enough.

This was something ordinary people might occasionally experience in everyday life. Beyonders from other pathways might not notice it, but as a demigod of the Seer pathway, Klein could clearly sense the abnormality.

If this deepened further, it would approach the reaction brought about when a Marionettist controlled Spirit Body Threads… Is this an influence left behind by the Dark Demonic Wolf Kotar? No, if it was unintentionally left behind, that would mean He had manifested His complete mythical creature form at the time, and Moon City’s investigation team would have all collapsed and lost control. If He deliberately left it behind, what meaning would there be in doing so? To tell others He had come? Feeling rather puzzled, Klein walked once around the pit without discovering anything else abnormal.

After thinking for a while, his main body, hidden in a gap of history before the First Epoch, took four steps counterclockwise in reverse, recited the incantation, and entered the space above the gray fog.

He wanted to perform a divination!

With a concrete time and location, with the description from Moon City’s High Priest Nim and his own field investigation, and with the help of illuminated historical fragments, Klein believed that the prerequisites for divination were basically present.

They could not be called sufficient, but they were enough for him to attempt it. Moreover, if the incident of the hill becoming a “deep pit” was truly related to Sefirah Castle and to Klein himself, the probability of successful divination would increase greatly, and the revelation would be very clear, free of interference.

Without further thought, having long since considered the details, Klein sat in The Fool’s high-backed chair. He manifested a dark-red round-bellied fountain pen and a slightly yellowed piece of parchment, then swiftly wrote:

“On June 28, 1349 of the Fifth Epoch, the abnormal event that occurred in this place.”

Putting down the fountain pen, Klein grabbed with his left hand and took a clump of “deep pit” soil from the fog of history to use as the divination medium.

Holding the soil in one hand and that piece of parchment in the other, he leaned back against the chair, silently recited the divination statement seven times, and then, through meditation, entered sleep.

Within the gray, hazy dream world, Klein saw that solidified grayish-white fog, saw the hill dozens of meters high, and saw the twisted, mutated plants around it.

A few seconds later, that fog suddenly began to wriggle visibly and swiftly “spat out” a black shadow.

The shadow resembled a huge velvet curtain, madly absorbing every ray of light around it.

It carried a half-transparent quality and grew larger and larger, completely enveloping the hill.

The hill disappeared with it, gone down to its roots, leaving behind only a “deep pit.”

The bizarre plants along the edge of the “deep pit,” likewise covered by it, suddenly sprouted illusory, fine black Spirit Body Threads. These extended toward different parts of that black “curtain.”

The “curtain” became more and more transparent, more and more illusory, until it reached the point that the naked eye could no longer see it. If not for the Spirit Body Threads revealing the actual situation, even Klein would not have discovered that the “curtain” remained spread across the surface of the “deep pit.”

The scene flickered, the dream distorted, and a new image appeared.

A five-person patrol team from Moon City approached and discovered that the hill had vanished, replaced by a “deep pit.”

They stopped and, without hesitation, turned around and left the area. They did not recklessly step forward to investigate.

No one knew how much time passed before, from another direction, an enormous figure suddenly appeared.

It was a demonic wolf covered in dark short fur, with eight legs, standing four to five meters tall.

On the demonic wolf’s forehead was a tuft of short gray-white hair, while pure-black pupils occupied at least three-quarters of its eyes. It was none other than the Dark Demonic Wolf Kotar, not in complete mythical creature form.

The Dark Demonic Wolf lifted His head and opened His mouth, seeming to roar, yet no sound emerged.

The next second, a figure appeared before Him.

It was another Him.

The historical projection of the Dark Demonic Wolf pushed lightly with its eight legs and instantly arrived beside the “deep pit.”

After looking around, He cautiously lowered His head and bit onto that fully transparent “curtain,” the thing that had made the entire hill disappear.

The “curtain” abruptly came alive. It rapidly contracted and rolled upward, wrapping around the Dark Demonic Wolf like a half-black, half-transparent garment placed upon Him.

The Dark Demonic Wolf trembled slightly and seemed to turn into the “garment’s” puppet within two or three seconds.

But this was merely an image from the gaps of history. In the next breath, its maintenance was ended by the true body, and it vanished directly.

Losing its support, the “curtain” instantly collapsed and spread across the ground.

The Dark Demonic Wolf Kotar did not give up. Sometimes He transformed nearby monsters into marionettes. Sometimes He summoned historical projections. He made them advance again and again, suffering all kinds of failures. In the end, His newest batch of marionettes finally picked up and controlled that “curtain.”

The entire process did not produce even the slightest sound. It was like watching a pantomime.

Then the enormous demonic wolf had His marionettes carry the “curtain” closer to Himself.

Just then, the nearby grayish-white fog began wriggling again, forming a vortex comparable to a hill.

That vortex emitted an invisible suction force, making the strange “curtain” and the Dark Demonic Wolf Kotar both tilt toward it!

This scene caused the image in Klein’s dream to develop tangible ripples, and countless points of light burst out, making it difficult for him to see the specific details.

By the time everything returned to normal, the Dark Demonic Wolf Kotar was already draped in the transparent “curtain,” swiftly moving away from the solidified fog once more.

At that moment, Moon City’s investigation team arrived and saw the departing figure of this ancient subsidiary god.

Kotar cast them a glance but did not linger. He disappeared into the depths of darkness.

At that point, the image shattered, the dream ended, and Klein woke.

He sat up straight, lightly tapping his finger against the edge of the mottled long table, silently muttering to himself:

“Before I arrived, it wasn’t that the solidified grayish-white fog had never undergone abnormalities. It was only that Moon City’s watchers never discovered them. After all, this fog stretches for who knows how far…

“What exactly is that ‘curtain’ spat out by the grayish-white fog? When large, it can cover a hill and make it magically turn into a ‘deep pit.’ When small, it can become the demonic wolf’s ‘clothing’ and turn Him into a puppet… It feels a little like a high-level item of the Seer pathway…

“Was it spat out because I entered above the gray fog and completed the binding with Sefirah Castle?

“It also seems capable of turning surrounding plants into its own marionettes… That gives me a familiar feeling…

“Right. Inside the foggy town, the prepared food in the room was problematic. Spirit Body Threads grew from it, extending toward the church at the very center. Once the food was eaten, the person would instantly evaporate and disappear. Mm, they would be hung inside the church and turned into a marionette…

“In other words, at the level of Miracle Invoker, or Attendant of Mysteries, one can make plants, or things that once possessed spirit, grow Spirit Body Threads and use that to turn them into marionettes?

“…Is that ‘curtain’ a Miracle Invoker Beyonder characteristic, or an Attendant of Mysteries Beyonder characteristic?

“Judging from the Dark Demonic Wolf’s behavior, it is very likely the latter…

“Is this the reason that Attendant of Mysteries characteristic has been missing for so long, with only clues and no one able to find it?

“Before Sefirah Castle had an ‘owner,’ did the grayish-white fog unconsciously attract vacant high-level characteristics from the three pathways and contain them? What was it trying to do?

“That suction force was truly strong. It frightened even the Dark Demonic Wolf Kotar so badly that He did not dare linger and only wanted to flee…

“What is He suspecting? What does He fear?”

After this analysis, faint excitement gradually appeared on Klein’s face.

If he could successfully hunt the angel-level existence known as the Dark Demonic Wolf, that would be an incomparable harvest!

Of course, after obtaining that “curtain,” the Dark Demonic Wolf was absolutely more difficult to deal with than before. Klein’s confidence in this matter dropped quite a bit once more.

As thoughts flashed, Klein abruptly remembered something.

“Judging from the timing, when the Dark Demonic Wolf arrived at the northern city-state ruins of Nois, He had clearly already obtained that ‘curtain’…

“He turned the entire city into marionettes and created a city of puppets not to settle there, nor to accumulate helpers, but to prepare the Attendant of Mysteries ritual?”