Chapter 16: A Grand Stroke

Chapter 16: A Grand Stroke

After weighing the golden bird-shaped ornament in his hand, Klein quickly returned to reality. He casually chose an open, empty place, arranged an altar, and held a sacrificial ritual.

For the moment, he had no intention of deeply exploring the other secrets hidden in Calderón, the city of the dead, nor the River of Eternal Darkness and the blurry figures wandering within it. He still had something far more important to do and a crucial question he wished to ask the Evernight Goddess.

Before long, the ritual was complete. The candle flames combined with the spiritual materials, forming a Door of Sacrifice and Bestowment.

Without hesitation, Klein placed the golden bird-shaped ornament into the wind, letting it pass through the slowly opening mysterious door and vanish into the boundless darkness.

The next second, he keenly sensed that he had been forcibly dragged into a dream.

At the center of the dream stood a Gothic palace that seemed to have fused with the surrounding darkness. Its details were exquisite and its colors dim, yet it remained undeniably magnificent.

Klein passed through clusters of night vanilla and deep sleep flowers, entering the palace.

At the deepest point of the hall, the Evernight Goddess sat upon an ancient high-backed chair, still wearing that layered yet not overly elaborate dark-black gown.

The brilliant points on Her gown echoed with the lights on the palace dome, walls, and pillars, creating a quiet, dreamlike starry sky.

The Evernight Goddess, Her face seeming to be veiled behind layer upon layer of gauze, held the golden bird-shaped ornament. She slowly stood, descended the steps, and came before Klein.

Her voice sounded like a serenade:

“What do you wish to ask?”

Klein politely removed his top hat and gave a slight bow.

“I wish to know whether the grayish-white fog shrouding the River of Eternal Darkness is related to that Lord of the Mysteries.”

In other words, the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.

Although the Evernight Goddess’s head could not be clearly seen, Klein intuitively felt that She seemed to smile.

“Yes. And it is not only the River of Eternal Darkness that is shrouded in grayish-white fog. The city behind that door in Bansy Harbor, and the entire Western Continent, are shrouded in it as well.”

Klein hesitated for a moment.

“Is it a seal?”

The Evernight Goddess’s dream projection nodded.

“Yes. Apart from Sefirah Castle and the Chaos Sea, all other sefirot were sealed by that Lord of the Mysteries in the Western Continent.”

The River of Eternal Darkness, the Brood Hive, the City of Calamity, the Shadow World, the Nation of Disorder, the Knowledge Wilderness, and the Key of Light were all sealed into the Western Continent by the Celestial Worthy? Isn’t that a little too much? What an enormous undertaking… No wonder the city behind the door in Bansy Harbor was like the former Magic City… The City of Calamity must have influenced that city in reality, along with Bansy, and to a certain degree, those places changed because of it as well? Klein felt both enlightened and amazed.

When he had seen the scene behind the door in Bansy, he had already suspected it was related to the Western Continent. And based on the clue that Bansy had been the home of the Red Angel Medici’s family, he had suspected the city behind the door to be a projection of the sefirah, the City of Calamity.

After a moment of silence, Klein did not conceal his feelings. He sighed openly.

“That Lord of the Mysteries was even more powerful than I imagined…”

“How could a Great Old One who could be called a pillar of the cosmos perish without a sound?”

The Evernight Goddess’s dream projection shook Her head.

“It was not without sound.

“From some clues that exist now, it can be inferred that He perished together with that ancient God from the old era.

“The corpse of that God formed the first Blasphemy Slate within the Chaos Sea, and beside the slate lay the Uniqueness of the Marauder pathway.”

In other words, in the middle of the First Epoch, the Lord of the Mysteries and that God fought an extremely intense yet outwardly quiet battle, and in the end, both fell? This explains why the ancient Sun God possessed or grazed the Marauder pathway’s Uniqueness when He walked out of the Chaos Sea. It had been torn from the Lord of the Mysteries by the God of the old era… Amid his many racing thoughts, Klein asked with some doubt, “Why did They want to kill each other? Both were pillars, and Their pathways were not adjacent. There should not have been an irreconcilable contradiction that required one of Them to die.”

The Evernight Goddess’s dream projection replied in a gentle, soothing voice, “Convergence is instinct.

“The higher the level, the stronger the instinct.

“That Lord of the Mysteries and the God of the ancient era both possessed an uncontrollable instinct to converge back into one and become the incarnation of the entire universe—the original Creator.”

The more powerful, the more insane? Apart from being cunning, mighty, terrifying, and full of wisdom, the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings also had this side? Klein thought for a moment and said, “From an essential standpoint, that Lord of the Mysteries and the ancient God should both be different aspects of the original Creator?”

The Evernight Goddess’s dream projection said, in a tone that seemed to soothe the mind, “It may be more accurate to compare Them to different personalities of the same existence.

“The original Creator was the creator of the universe, and also its end. He was day and night, holy light and fallen abyss. He was the aggregate of all contradictory concepts and symbols.

“Therefore, He naturally possessed an uncontrollable tendency toward splitting. And once He split, an intense tendency toward convergence would arise.

“In histories older than the era in which we once lived, the sleeping original Creator had already naturally split into multiple personalities. They were also in a state of sleep, but They began using the authorities and Beyonder characteristics They controlled to indirectly influence the world, making many preparations for the true division that would follow the original Creator’s awakening.

“Among them, the most powerful and most active were God and the Lord of the Mysteries. The latter had another honorific name in the Western Continent.

“In the early to middle First Epoch, They should have gained control over additional, multiple sefirot through different means. This made Their instinct for convergence even stronger, to the point where They could no longer control Themselves and took action against one another.

“According to the ancient Sun God’s research, a pillar is the highest level at which one’s state can remain stable. If a Great Old One surpasses that limit, even by accommodating just one additional sefirah, They will inevitably be controlled by the instinct of convergence, and there will be no reversing it.

“No one knows the exact details of that battle. Even the Seven Lights of the spirit world have no way of learning them. We only know that after it, two Great Old Ones who could be called pillars vanished completely, while all sefirot other than the Chaos Sea and Sefirah Castle were sealed into the Western Continent by the power of Sefirah Castle—a region once ruled by the Lord of the Mysteries.

“This arrangement led to a problem. Before the Lord of the Mysteries and God reappeared, lifting and breaking the seal over the Western Continent, no Sequence 0 in this world could become a Great Old One and resist the Outer Deities.

“As the apocalypse draws nearer, this problem forces all true gods to cultivate either a Lord of the Mysteries or a God. And the previous Lord of the Mysteries and God are highly likely to awaken within Them.”

This… So sealing the other sefirot was something the Celestial Worthy deliberately did, preventing later Sequence 0 true gods from deliberately avoiding His pathways and strangling the birth of a new Lord of the Mysteries? And as long as a new Lord of the Mysteries is born, He has a very high probability of reviving and awakening completely… Isn’t that too sinister and excessive? In a sense, this arrangement isn’t afraid of being known at all. The more existences who know about it, the more they’ll tend to support a Lord of the Mysteries as soon as possible, lest only a few years remain before the apocalypse and they have no time left to master their corresponding sefirot and become Great Old Ones… The more Klein thought, the more terrifying he found the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.

He could not help sighing inwardly:

“As expected of a pillar-level Great Old One who reduced the Lamp Genie to his present state…”

Klein then asked, “Why not cultivate a Lord of the Mysteries during the Fourth Epoch?”

In truth, he already knew the answer. As time passed, the wills of the Celestial Worthy and God, as different personalities of the original Creator, were also constantly weakening. The closer it was to the apocalypse, the weaker Their corresponding wills became, and the more likely a successor would be to resist and suppress Them rather than directly lose themselves.

The fact that Adam had waited until recently to advance to Visionary was proof enough.

The Evernight Goddess’s dream projection carried a hint of amusement.

“At that time, Amon and Bethel were both unwilling. They both wished to make all kinds of preparations and wait until the apocalypse drew near before attempting it.

“As for Salinger, He intended to indirectly make use of the River of Eternal Darkness, fuse with the Red Priest Uniqueness, and create a new path to Great Old One status. Then He went mad and could no longer restrain His desire for convergence with the Twilight Giant and Darkness pathways.”

Death was also forced into having no other option. On one hand, there were only a little over a thousand years left until the apocalypse. On the other, the River of Eternal Darkness had been sealed by the Celestial Worthy, a pillar, leaving no way to attempt to control it… Too sinister. Too outrageous! Klein could not help condemning the Celestial Worthy once again in his heart.

At that moment, the Evernight Goddess’s dream projection continued, “As time passes, the seal over the Western Continent gradually weakens. Those sefirot, either instinctively or consciously, make use of the Uniquenesses and high-Sequence Beyonder characteristics within the ranges of their own symbols to indirectly corrode them and influence the outside world.

“The first to seep out power was the River of Eternal Darkness. In the Second Epoch, through Gregrace, it formed a tributary in the outside world. Later, by the Fourth Epoch, more sefirot began leaving traces in the Northern and Southern Continents and the islands of the Five Seas.

“This is an important factor hidden behind many mutations of the Fourth Epoch.”

So even in the Fourth Epoch, the various sefirot were indirectly exerting influence through the seal… No wonder Adam said my understanding of Fourth Epoch history wasn’t deep enough… Looking at it this way, Bansy Harbor preserving elven customs wasn’t only because that place had once been an elven settlement. There were additional factors too… Klein pondered for several seconds, then smiled.

“I more or less understand.”

“Is this why You have always helped me?”