Chapter 36: The Scene in the Prophecy

Chapter 36: The Scene in the Prophecy

Bernadette fell silent for two seconds before responding through the Invisible Servant:

“Uncle Edwards, why are you here?”

She used the way she had addressed him when she was young, hoping to lower the probability of unnecessary accidents occurring.

When her voice echoed through the surrounding air through the Invisible Servant, it was dry and hoarse, completely different from her normal voice.

Edwards’s face was bluish-white, as though he had only just crawled out of a cemetery. There was not the slightest warmth in it.

“I do not know either.

“One time, when I awakened, I discovered that I had returned to this island.

“Perhaps this is my fate—the fate of guarding His Majesty.”

He paused after every sentence, but it did not give the impression that he was out of breath. Rather, it seemed he had not spoken for a very long time, so his throat had “rusted” and was not used to it.

Without waiting for Bernadette to ask, this knight once renowned across the continent more than a century ago added in a tone without much fluctuation,

“His Majesty’s mausoleum is nearby.

“I have always watched over this place, waiting for Him to revive.

“But after all these years, there has never been any movement from the mausoleum.

“There have been no signs of resurrection at all.”

Bernadette had the Invisible Servant look around.

“This wooden house is where you live?”

The skin exposed on Edwards’s body was slightly withered, matching the liver spots that had already existed on him. His voice was low and hoarse, with pauses as he answered,

“Yes.

“I used the surrounding trees as materials to build this house.”

Bernadette’s Invisible Servant looked back toward the direction it had come from.

“Uncle William and the others are not with you?”

Edwards’s cold, wooden eyes moved slightly.

“They suffered contamination long ago and died.

“Now, although they have come alive again, they are closer to a kind of monster than to their original selves.

“Your Highness, you must guard against them and avoid them.

“Other than Benjamin and me, no one else can be trusted.”

Bernadette was silent for a while before asking through the Invisible Servant,

“Where is my father’s mausoleum? I wish to take a look.”

Edwards moved his neck somewhat stiffly.

“All right.”

He then walked step by step toward the wooden house and took out a rusty, iron-black axe from inside.

“I will take you there.” Edwards looked toward the Invisible Servant, which normally should not have been visible, and spoke.

During this process, his expression remained rigid, hardly changing at all.

“All right,” Bernadette responded from the edge of the forest, using the Invisible Servant to make that dry, hoarse voice echo through the surroundings.

Edwards stood nearly 1.9 meters tall. At this moment, he looked somewhat gaunt and dry. Carrying the axe, he walked step by step toward the area behind the wooden house, saying in a tone with no obvious fluctuation,

“It is very close.

“Be careful on the road.”

Bernadette immediately controlled the Invisible Servant, having it follow closely behind Edwards, who was dressed in luxurious clothes.

As they moved one behind the other through the primitive forest, Bernadette suddenly made the Invisible Servant ask,

“Uncle Edwards, what were you worshipping in that open clearing earlier?”

Edwards did not look back. His steps maintained an almost identical rhythm.

“His Majesty.”

Bernadette, who was at least two thousand meters behind him and the Invisible Servant, immediately moved her brows. It took nearly three seconds for her to control her emotions.

Through the Invisible Servant, she continued asking without the slightest feeling in her tone,

“Were Uncle William and the others also worshipping him?”

Edwards’s steps paused, but his back remained facing the Invisible Servant and those Eyes of Mystery Prying.

“No.”

He seemed to be pondering the answer, and his steps slowed.

“I do not know what they were worshipping…”

Bernadette’s eyes narrowed slightly, as though she had seen subtle changes in the river of fate.

She asked no more questions and let the Invisible Servant quietly follow behind Edwards. They moved between enormous dark-green trees and deep-black sharp shrubs toward the mountain peak of the island.

After only four or five minutes, the trees ahead abruptly vanished.

This was not the kind of disappearance where density gradually transitioned into sparseness and then blankness. Rather, with an invisible line as the boundary, the giant trees suddenly ceased to exist.

Beyond that invisible boundary was a mountain several hundred meters tall. Its upper portion was likewise covered by enormous trees of deep green, almost black, such that from afar, it almost fused with the forest and was hard to distinguish from it.

However, on the side of the mountain facing Edwards and Bernadette, most areas had no trees, because nearly half of the mountain had been hollowed out.

Within the mountainside, a black mausoleum stood, displaying the utmost grandeur.

Most of it belonged to the mountain itself. A smaller portion bore traces of artificial construction and polishing, truly interpreting what it meant to use a mountain as a mausoleum.

Therefore, the mausoleum’s shape was not the common pyramid form. It resembled a towering mountain peak more. It was not very symmetrical, but it was absolutely majestic.

Whether because the mausoleum itself exerted an external influence, or because Edwards had cleaned it, not a single weed grew on its surface, nor was it covered in the vines commonly seen elsewhere on the mountain.

This allowed Bernadette to directly see the various words and symbols carved upon the mausoleum through the Eyes of Mystery Prying, and to see the heavy stone door that seemed prepared for giants, nearly thirty meters tall.

Those words and symbols were not unfamiliar to Bernadette. With only brief identification, she recognized them as either from the Civil Code her father had formulated and promulgated, belonging to the new social customs he had founded, or directly depicting design drawings of certain inventions.

Just as Bernadette carefully examined them, above the gray fog, Klein had completely confirmed that this was the final mausoleum left behind by Emperor Roselle.

It bore a certain resemblance to the mausoleum he had seen in the Tudor ruins, possessing the majesty and distortion that belonged to the Black Emperor.

After stepping out of the primitive forest and crossing the invisible boundary to arrive not far from the mausoleum, Edwards stopped.

He half-turned his body, directing his bluish-white face and cold eyes toward the Invisible Servant. His voice did not change as he said,

“Do not go inside.

“That will interrupt the resurrection…”

Bernadette faintly frowned. After thinking for two seconds, she used the Eyes of Mystery Prying to lock onto that mausoleum.

Then her blue eyes, like the sea, suddenly became extremely deep, resembling the surface of the sea before a storm.

Under these circumstances, she clearly lost focus. Her eyes became blank and distant.

She was peering into that river of fate, making a prophecy about her next actions.

Above the gray fog, Klein once again lightly tapped the edge of the mottled long table, amplifying her probability of success, and prepared to resist starry-sky contamination.

Of course, the latter was not strictly necessary, because Bernadette possessed a Grade 0 Sealed Artifact she could control.

In the next second, Bernadette raised her right hand slightly.

Her skin instantly became as white as snow. Her lips became as red as blood. Her hair became as black as ebony.

In her hand appeared an illusory, ancient mirror.

This was Snow White from fairy-tale magic. Bernadette used it to increase the success rate and accuracy of her prophecy.

Silently, she “saw” a scene:

The majestic, solemn, deep-black mausoleum shook noticeably, and the heavy, towering stone door opened.

Then, a massive pitch-black arm stretched out from behind the stone door.

The arm was nearly as large as the island’s trees. Judging by its color and state, it resembled part of a shadow more, but it was not a thin layer. Instead, it was filled with flesh and blood, making it extremely bizarre.

Using its elbow to support itself against the ground, it moved forward with difficulty, as though trying to drag out the even larger and more terrifying parts behind it.

Rumble!

The entire island began shaking.

Bang!

The nearly transparent Eyes of Mystery Prying suddenly shattered.

Bernadette’s eyes then closed, as though she had seen a strong light she could not look at directly, or suffered an injury she could not endure.

Obvious blood flowed from the corners of her eyes, and her face turned much paler.

At the same time, pair after pair of illusory holy wings unfolded upon her body, neutralizing a certain invisible contamination through the fall of pure white feathers.

As expected, she has the ability to resist it. The Emperor’s legacy is truly abundant… Heh. Before I educated Madam Hermit, she liked using her Eyes of Mystery Prying to examine the people and objects around her. There was definitely a certain family influence… In short, it’s all Roselle’s fault! Above the gray fog, Klein secretly relaxed while unable to stop himself from lampooning the Emperor a few times.

Immediately afterward, his thoughts spun rapidly as he analyzed the scene Bernadette had seen in the prophecy:

“After the stone door opened, a terrifying creature seemed to crawl out of the mausoleum.

“This might be Roselle returning from resurrection, or it might be a symbolic image of some disaster, such as an Outer Deity that once corroded this island, or the Primordial Moon that silently contaminated Roselle…

“Mm. Even if it is Roselle, it is definitely not in a human form, but closer to a mythical creature, closer to a deity… Also, I cannot determine whether that terrifying creature has reason, or whether it can communicate…

“There is another important question: Was the stone door opened by Bernadette or someone else, or did the terrifying creature inside the mausoleum do it by itself? If it is the latter, then even if we do nothing, matters may still develop to the step seen in the prophecy…

“Prophecies really are filled with ambiguity.”

Klein casually manifested a gold coin, flicked it upward with a clang, and performed a divination.

The result of dream divination showed that the mausoleum possessed both danger and safety at the same time.

“How am I supposed to interpret that?” While Klein fell into thought, he placed his attention back on Bernadette.

It took Bernadette several dozen seconds to recover. She no longer looked quite so weak.

However, regarding the scene she had seen, she temporarily could not produce a directional prophecy. She could only confirm that the problem was absolutely very complicated.

Because the Eyes of Mystery Prying had shattered, she could no longer use them to see various secrets. She could only rely on the Invisible Servant’s innate perception to observe the basic situation around her.

She discovered that while she had been unable to control the Invisible Servant, Edwards had remained silent and motionless the entire time, as though he had not noticed anything unusual.

After thinking for a moment, Bernadette used the Invisible Servant to say to Edwards,

“Do you still remember the years you spent in Lenburg?”

Edwards’s indifferent pale-blue eyes moved slightly.

“I remember.

“I seem…”

At this point, he seemed to recall something. His expression suddenly twisted, as if he were enduring some indescribable pain.

In that state, his eyes abruptly burst with a strange brilliance.

“I seem, I seem to have already died…”