Chapter 73: That Level

Chapter 73: That Level

Who am I? Klein, who had been just about to end his maintenance of the historical projection, was stunned for an instant by Amon’s question.

He controlled himself, not letting his brows furrow. Instead of answering, he asked in return, “You aren’t Amon’s main body?”

Standing at the edge of the “cliff,” Amon took one step forward and smiled.

“Of course not.

“You seem to know my main body, or perhaps some of my other avatars?”

Although the Amon opposite him had not attacked, that single step forward still brought Klein an indescribable pressure. He barely managed not to retreat reflexively and expose his fear.

He gave an “Mm” and answered in a low voice, “That’s why I find it strange you don’t recognize me.”

“Are you very famous?” This Amon, who had crawled out of the voidlike darkness, teased him with a smile. Then He raised His hand and adjusted the crystal monocle over His right eye.

After the action was completed, it froze for several seconds before ending. Amon seemed to be thinking as He muttered, “There are no other mes nearby… Is that truly because there are none, or has the connection been completely severed?”

Did some accident cause this Amon to become independent? No. I can’t believe anything this fellow shows me. He’s a top-tier deceiver… Klein’s heart stirred at first, but he immediately suppressed the corresponding thought and asked instead, “Why did you crawl out from underground?”

That Amon’s expression returned to normal, and He chuckled.

“Guess.”

Whether main body or avatar, that vile personality never changes… Klein inwardly grumbled. Then he probed, “You were exploring the secrets underground.”

Amon nodded lightly.

“Isn’t that obvious?”

He then half-turned and pointed toward the darkness ahead of the “cliff,” the darkness which the light could not illuminate.

“My father crawled out from here exactly the way I just did.

“Ah, right. It has a name. You should have heard of it: the Chaos Sea.”

The Chaos Sea? One of the nine great sefirot, the Chaos Sea… So it really is hidden deep underground… Was the pollution behind the bronze door truly brought about by it? The mysticism knowledge I previously filled in on this subject also came from chatting with Amon… The ancient Sun God was originally a member of this research institute, then fell into the Chaos Sea deep underground during the collapse, only awakening and crawling out in the Second Epoch? Because He was only an ordinary person at the time, and according to the rule that the higher one’s Sequence, the more dangerous approaching the underground becomes, He was instead not affected too severely? Klein’s thoughts spun rapidly. He remembered one thing after another and made guess after guess.

Two or three seconds later, he went along with Amon’s words and said, “So you took the risk of jumping in to search for buried history and the truth of the world?”

“More or less.” That Amon pinched the top and bottom edges of His monocle, His tone carrying a hint of self-mockery. “But I didn’t do it voluntarily.”

“Ah?” Klein expressed his confusion with a simple sound.

Amon smiled.

“Every one of me knows that deep underground is dangerous. None of us wanted to go down ourselves. We tried many indirect methods, including creating marionettes to replace us, but none succeeded. We could not obtain any feedback.

“In the end, under the main body’s supervision, we held a fair vote. Unfortunately, I was chosen.”

…It’s a miracle that Amon hasn’t gone completely mad even now… As expected of the God of Mischief. Even His internal decision-making uses such a prank-like method… Klein restrained the impulse to ridicule Him aloud.

“And then you jumped down yourself?”

“It wasn’t as if I could wait for Them to throw me down.” That Amon spread His hands.

At this point, He seemed to finally understand something and muttered softly, “The Chaos Sea severed my connection to the main body and to the surrounding avatars?

“I became independent?”

Independent… Back in front of the bronze door in the Hall of Truth, I felt every cell and every Worm of Spirit within me birthing a new consciousness, producing selves different from the main body… An Amon avatar directly entering the Chaos Sea would naturally undergo a similar mutation… An independent Amon avatar should be able to effectively sabotage Amon’s main body… No, I can’t believe it… Klein had just used his own experience to preliminarily confirm the Amon before him, but he abruptly warned himself again that he must never believe the God of Deceit.

He smiled and said, “I suspect you’re deceiving me.”

Amon adjusted His monocle and looked Klein up and down for several seconds.

“Whether you believe me or not has no meaning to me. Even if I wanted to find a collaborator, it wouldn’t be someone as weak as you.”

Back in the era of the eight Kings of Angels, were you and Red Angel Medici rather close… Klein had already decided not to believe that the Amon before him had become independent. He tried asking, “What did you discover inside the Chaos Sea?”

“A great many things. Why don’t you guess?” That Amon smiled.

“Nothing at all,” Klein deliberately answered.

Amon shook His head.

“The other mes probably think the same. And because I didn’t come out for a long time and gave no response, they reasonably judged that I had already been corroded and digested by the Chaos Sea.”

Without waiting for Klein to respond, this Amon continued speaking on His own.

“The Chaos Sea is extremely vast. It almost fills the earth’s core and submerges the layer above it. It is also the only sefirah that gives equal weight to reality and illusion, and has a direct entrance in the real world. As for the others, they are either completely illusory and hidden in who knows what place, or absolutely real and coexisting with reality.

“I discovered something very interesting inside it. The first Blasphemy Slate should have been nurtured and born there. But later, certain powers drew it away from underground before it had fully formed.

“My father may have browsed that Blasphemy Slate at the beginning. That is why, when He fell, His remnants condensed into the second Blasphemy Slate.”

So that is the origin of the two Blasphemy Slates? No wonder the ancient Sun God was so overwhelmingly powerful in the late Second Epoch… Klein vaguely felt as though he understood some things and subconsciously asked, “What difference is there between the two Blasphemy Slates?”

Amon adjusted the position of His crystal monocle.

“The second Blasphemy Slate changed some Sequence names and added a portion of new content.

“That content contains secrets that go beyond the Sequences.”

“Beyond the Sequences?” Klein’s pupils widened slightly. He felt that a long-standing guess of his had just been preliminarily confirmed. “Becoming the Creator?”

Amon smiled.

“Close enough, but that description is not accurate.

“I prefer to call that level Above the Sequences. Some true gods name it differently. Some call it the Great Old Ones. Some call it the Outer Deities. Some refer to it as the starry sky.”

The starry sky… The moment Klein heard that term, his spiritual intuition began warning him madly.

He remembered very clearly that Arianna, leader of the Church of Evernight’s ascetics, had once warned him: before reaching the level of an angel, do not attempt to understand the starry sky, because merely knowing about it would bring enormous danger!

Without hesitation, Klein—whose true body was hidden inside a gap of history before the First Epoch—abandoned the maintenance of the projection, stood up from atop the overlapping corpses of old cities, and took four steps counterclockwise in reverse.

Almost at the same time, the violent lightning constantly tearing through the sky above the Forsaken Land of the Gods subsided. The endless darkness vanished as well.

An enormous crimson moon occupied half the sky.

The light on the moon’s surface expanded and contracted, as though it had come alive.

Outside this world, upon the moon orbiting the planet, a scarlet sea flowed. It drowned everything, as if embracing and digesting that enormous natural satellite.

When Klein learned the information of the Great Old Ones, the Outer Deities, and the starry sky, that blood-colored ocean boiled.

It rapidly converged toward the center, piling layer upon layer, finally forming a completely blood-red illusory figure whose exact appearance could not be seen.

That figure was countless times larger than the moon and had innumerable eyes. It looked down upon the blue planet and cast its gaze toward Klein’s true body, with which a connection had been established because of his knowledge!

And as the scarlet sea receded, crater after crater appeared upon the moon’s surface.

Looking up from the ground, the moon was no longer crimson. It was bright, clear, and cold, unchanged for billions of years.

Farther away in the universe, the brown star, orange star, red star, golden star, and blue star all flickered at the same time, as though they had blinked.

Inside the fog of history, blisters rose one after another on the surface of Klein’s body. Inside every blister was a mutated Worm of Spirit. They bore the faces of Zhou Mingrui, Klein Moretti, Gehrman Sparrow, and Dwayne Dantès, each struggling to crawl out.

Klein’s thoughts rapidly turned chaotic. His entire spirit body seemed to be sliced apart by invisible blades. Even so, he endured and finished reciting the final line of the incantation:

“Fusheng Xuanhuang Tianzun!”

Silently, Klein’s spirit body passed through the gray fog and entered Sefirah Castle. The power of the entire space boiled on its own, surging to wrap around him, dissolving strand after strand of black gas, ray after ray of red light, blister after blister, cutting off the invisible connection.

Nearly ten seconds later, Klein finally recovered his clarity after struggling and rolling. Supporting himself against the high-backed chair, he stood.

Inside Chernobyl, Amon, standing at the edge of the “cliff,” pushed up the crystal monocle over His right eye and muttered softly, “His reaction is quick…”

If Klein had been even one second slower, if he had sunk into that state of chaos and failed to end the maintenance of the historical projection in time, that Amon would have been able to deceive the connection between projection and true body and directly appear inside the corresponding historical fragment.

Above the gray fog, Klein sat down and rubbed his temple.

“That Amon was lying after all…

“He should be an avatar left behind to guard Chernobyl. After detecting my arrival, because He could not bypass the historical projection and directly attack my true body, and because He might not possess the strength of a Sequence 2 angel, He hid somewhere between the ‘cliff’ and the Chaos Sea, pretending to be an independent avatar that had just crawled out and been separated from the main body. That was the deception…

“On the surface, He tried to make me believe the avatar was independent and could cooperate, drawing my attention to that area. In reality, He hid the danger within His words…

“Even a normal conversation with the God of Deceit will result in being deceived…

“Still, to achieve His goal, He did reveal secrets with enough weight…”