Chapter 3: The Power of Wishes

Chapter 3: The Power of Wishes

Klein had originally believed that the power of “wishes” could be used as he pleased, so long as he did not exceed a certain upper limit. Who would have thought that its effects did not come solely from the Beyonder characteristic itself?

To put it simply, a Miracle Invoker first had to collect and fulfill all manner of wishes. Only then would he be able, in battle, to turn a corresponding situation into reality by making a wish to himself. Moreover, at the very beginning, the wishes Klein could fulfill were all quite small. He had to accumulate them step by step before he could create “miracles.” It was not something he could use however he wanted.

“Mm… If I want to transfer my position through a wish, like the Dark Demonic Wolf, Kotar, I’ll need to have fulfilled many similar wishes from others beforehand, gradually moving from simple to difficult… There is a way to take a shortcut in that regard. I can use Creeping Hunger and the Staff of the Stars to fulfill the corresponding wishes. I don’t have to begin with the very simplest ones…

“Speaking of which, the wish power is somewhat like using anchors. It belongs to the type that gathers many into one. Since the believers’ cognition of a deity can effectively influence that deity, becoming a kind of ‘positioning’ and helping Them resist the Primordial mental imprint inside Their Beyonder characteristics, then similar wishes from different spiritual creatures can indeed help me create ‘miracles’…

“This may have something to do with the collective sea of subconsciousness. It isn’t very scientific, but it is certainly mystical enough…” After understanding the general nature of the wish ability, Klein also gained a preliminary idea of how to act as a Miracle Invoker.

He would walk through the real world as the highest-level “Magician,” allowing different people to witness “miracles” and fulfilling their wishes.

“No wonder the Dark Demonic Wolf was once called the God of Wishes… Once that kind of faith spreads and many people voice their wishes through prayer, allowing the Miracle Invoker to respond from afar, acting really would become much simpler and save a great deal of time. The problem is, the potion is called Miracle Invoker, not God of Wishes. What needs to be acted is not a deity. There is still a significant difference between the two…

“I can wander through different countries, letting different people witness ‘miracles,’ while partially fulfilling the wishes of believers in The Fool’s name. Then I can see which method is more effective…

“However, the acting principles of a Miracle Invoker definitely won’t stop there… I also need to actively create things in reality that are nearly miraculous and leave behind corresponding legends?” Klein lightly tapped the edge of the mottled long table with his fingers, silently muttering to himself.

During the self-examination just now, he discovered that the potion had already been digested by more than half immediately after he consumed it. After all, he had created “miracles” many times already; even “resurrection” had reached three instances.

Of course, Klein believed that this was extremely opportunistic, because the miracles he had created and the acting he had completed in advance had relied mostly on Sefirah Castle.

“It’s almost as if someone arranged it all beforehand…” Klein sighed inwardly. Instead of feeling relaxed, he became even more solemn and vigilant.

As for who had arranged it, he had a suspect:

The “Mysteries” mentioned by the Ancient Sun God—the one suspected to be The Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.

What made Klein even more puzzled was that after he advanced to Sequence 2, became an angel, and completed his qualitative transformation, The Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings had not appeared. Nor had He shown any initial signs of awakening inside Klein.

This was completely different from what Klein had expected.

“There isn’t even the slightest trace, aside from the inevitable contamination from the Primordial mental imprint. Mm, that should be the mental imprint left by the Primordial within the Beyonder characteristic… Could it be that after arranging everything, The Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings truly died completely, leaving Him no ability to affect me or resurrect through me? If that’s really the case, I must thank Him properly!” Klein mocked himself with a few words. Then, carrying both caution and doubt, he stood up.

With a shift of thought, he appeared directly above the grayish-white clouds and arrived before the strange light door.

After glancing at the many transparent “cocoons” hanging above his head, Klein slowly stretched out his right hand, reaching toward the light door.

Now that he had truly become the master of this mysterious space, he had clearly recognized a fact the moment he returned: the strange light door was the core of this place. It was Sefirah Castle in the truest sense, while the boundless void around it belonged to the divine kingdom inherent to Sefirah Castle.

As for the ancient palace, the bronze long table with twenty-two high-back chairs, and the items normally manifested by the Tarot Club members, Klein believed they were manifestations of the power of wishes.

In other words, when he had wanted such a palace and such a meeting place, Sefirah Castle had fulfilled his wish.

And because his wish had lacked concrete details, Sefirah Castle had extracted a scene from similar wishes in the past. Klein suspected that both the ancient Greek-style palace and the long bronze table with exactly twenty-two high-back chairs had once been manifested by the existence suspected to be The Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.

Inch by inch, Klein moved his right hand until his palm pressed against the edge of the light door.

This time, his hand did not pass straight through. It touched something solid.

All at once, the light door trembled faintly. The “cocoons” hanging above it, each containing a human silhouette, began swaying with the same rhythm.

Above the grayish-white fog, within the boundless void that had only ever held an ancient palace, skyscrapers rapidly rose one after another. Cars appeared in succession, and pedestrians were abruptly born into existence.

Among them, within an apartment complex, inside an ordinary rental room, a not-very-bright energy-saving lamp lit the window.

This was the city from the old days before the First Epoch, the city before disaster struck.

It was the place where Klein had once lived.

After looking around, Klein sighed and made everything disappear before his eyes.

“As expected, I can now use Sefirah Castle’s power in a preliminary sense… Relying on this, if I’m above the gray fog, I am already close to the level of a King of Angels. Moreover, the authorities I display aren’t limited to ‘miracles’; they also include a portion of a Planeswalker’s power and part of the power of a Trojan Horse of Destiny…

“If I return to the real world, besides further using the aura of Sefirah Castle, I can also directly request a portion of its power… This should allow me to construct an embryonic divine kingdom, within which I can reach the level of Sequence 1… Unfortunately, in reality, I still cannot use the high-level Beyonder powers of the Marauder and Apprentice pathways…” As Klein evaluated his state, his gaze shifted to the transparent cocoons hanging from the light door.

In the end, he still did not release the people inside, because that would inevitably be exploited by Amon.

After confirming the situation in all aspects, Klein returned to the ancient palace and sat down in the high-back chair belonging to The Fool.

He remembered that some of his memories had been sealed, so he summoned that sheet of paper from the pile of miscellaneous items.

Unfolding it, Klein’s gaze grew focused. His lips moved slightly, and he murmured to himself,

“Great Old Ones, Outer Deities, the cosmos, the Creator, Above the Sequences… So that’s how it is…”

At that moment, he completely understood the meaning of the previous divine war. He understood the possible source of the apocalypse. He understood why the seven deities had tacitly allowed the Black Emperor’s birth, and why they had ignored the Red Angel evil spirit’s return to reality.

Judging from the information provided by Leonard and Miss Justice, Loen had obtained the final victory, and the God of Combat had very likely fallen… In other words, the Goddess succeeded, but I don’t know what conditions She still lacks to reach the Great Old One level above the Sequences… I’ll summon Arrodes later and ask about the specifics of every aspect, so I can grasp the current situation… Thinking of this, Klein recalled various past details and linked many matters together.

“That Earth Mother—whoever She truly is—was able to successfully play the role of the Giant Queen, Omebella, for thousands of years without being exposed. That would have been impossible without the help of Concealment… Hiss, has the Goddess been planning this since the Third Epoch, or even the end of the Second Epoch?

“This feels… this feels even more terrifying than Amon…

“Mm. Concealment can only hide traces, mislead corresponding prying and divinations, and so on. It can’t make someone else perform an impersonation. The Earth Mother could impersonate Omebella without making the God of Combat suspicious, so there may have been other factors… For example, some existence may have helped Her steal the fate of the Giant Queen. In that era, there was only one being who grasped a similar authority and had the qualifications to take part in such a matter: the Ancient Sun God, the second-generation Creator, the father of Amon and Adam…

“If that’s true, then the Goddess and the Ancient Sun God must have had a cooperative relationship very early on, lasting until the Primordial awakened within that new Creator… This also explains why the first existence the Dark Angel Sasrir considered when seeking allies was the Goddess. Of course, Concealment was an equally important factor…

“From the moment She obtained the Uniqueness of the Death pathway, the Goddess had already begun laying Her trap. On one hand, She had me take over the Artificial Death faction’s forces in Backlund from the Numinous Episcopate, creating the false appearance that everything was normal. On the other hand, She didn’t do much about people or things that might notice something was wrong, causing information to leak. This way, in the God of Combat’s eyes, it looked as though the Goddess was doing Her utmost to conceal a secret, but because She was digesting the Uniqueness and lacked sufficient control, She failed to accomplish it as She wished…

“After that, whether She tacitly allowed George III to become the Black Emperor or aided me in disrupting his ritual, the Goddess didn’t care how things ultimately turned out. Her main goal was to display a state in which She was incapable of directly interfering with reality, further deepening the impression that She was accommodating the Uniqueness of the Death pathway…

“There are many, many similar details…

“As for the God of Combat, because He had a rather deep understanding of the Goddess, He certainly wouldn’t fully believe the situation. So He chose to proceed steadily: first shaking the Goddess’s anchors so that Her mind would be eroded and She would have to devote most of Her attention to resisting contamination, and only then joining forces with the Earth Mother to besiege the Goddess…

“And that… happened to fall straight into the Goddess’s trap…

“In other words, the true purpose behind the Goddess’s many previous performances wasn’t to dig a pit in the matter of the Death pathway’s Uniqueness, but to make the other deities focus their attention on that matter, thereby overlooking the possibility that there was a problem with the Earth Mother…

“She is truly terrifying…”

Klein sighed from the bottom of his heart. Compared to the Goddess, he felt that the brothers Adam and Amon were a level less frightening.

He shook his head, manifested a pen and paper, and wrote down a warning to himself:

“Always remember that you are he, not He.”