Chapter 20: Facing

Chapter 20: Facing

The avatar Klein created was based on his current state, not Dwayne Dantès, Sherlock Moriarty, or Merlin Hermes, lest cognitive obstacles appear.

After experiencing the mutation brought about by Adam, he had become even more cautious in such matters.

Glancing at the avatar, Klein’s thoughts stirred, and its face turned completely blank.

The avatar then extended its right hand, mobilized Sefirah Castle’s power, and grabbed toward the main body.

Again and again and again. After failing more than ten times in succession, it finally drew out a faint bit of dark light from the main body.

At last… Klein sighed inwardly and extinguished the thought of applying this attempt to actual combat.

Under circumstances where he offered no resistance at all and opened his body and mind, the avatar still had to borrow Sefirah Castle’s level and power, spend so much time, and fail so many times before finally succeeding. Its practical value in battle was self-evident.

As more and more of the Beyonder characteristic left his body, Klein felt his entire being lighten, as though after carrying a heavy burden for a long time, he had finally set it down.

Of course, his mental state also fluctuated to a certain degree. After losing the pull of Zaratul’s lingering spirit, the Celestial Worthy’s awakened will more forcefully corroded his mind.

This was within Klein’s expectations. Therefore, he did not panic in the slightest. Relying on the self-recognition he had long since stabilized, his sufficiently tenacious will, and his ample number of anchors, he gradually resisted the contamination from the Celestial Worthy’s will and found a new balance.

At the same time, after the still-undigested Attendant of Mysteries Beyonder characteristic within Klein had basically entered the avatar, the blank, featureless face of the latter suddenly twisted. A pair of dark, lightless eyes and a faintly visible long white beard grew out.

At that moment, it was exceedingly close to Zaratul.

However, it had no way of bearing the madness brought by this Attendant of Mysteries Beyonder characteristic. Its body swiftly headed toward collapse. Transparent, distorted worms crawled out, and slippery, evil tentacles extended one after another.

It lost control on the spot.

Klein did not let things continue. Without hesitation, he moved his finger and transformed the avatar into his own marionette.

The process of losing control was interrupted.

At this point, he had completed all preparations. His main body was in a state where the potion had been fully digested and could accommodate The Fool Uniqueness. At the same time, he possessed a Sequence 1 marionette.

Klein leaned back against the chair and ran through what he was about to do one more time in his mind, checking whether any fatal omissions existed.

“As for the struggle between the gods, what I can do is limited to this. From here on, I can only do my best… Hmm, have I been too optimistic about the earlier stages? Because I have the Goddess’s help and the water of the River of Eternal Darkness as support, I subconsciously think there’s no need to worry about the ancestor of the Antigonus family causing some accident?” After examining everything, Klein felt that he was still not cautious enough. There was a faint trace of arrogance and carelessness.

After thinking for a moment, he created another avatar, its face likewise blank.

Once that was complete, Klein stood, drew Creeping Hunger from the fog of history, and put it on his left hand.

This was a preparation for any small-scale battle that might occur. In such scenarios, Flash was faster and more convenient than Grafting.

Straightening his collar, Klein slowly looked around. His gaze finally fell upon the strange door of light tinged blue-black, and upon the humans hanging there, each wrapped in a transparent cocoon.

As he swept his gaze over them one by one, it came to rest on the three broken transparent cocoons.

The next second, Klein’s figure vanished and appeared within the grayish-white fog of history. Step by step, he walked to the era before the First Epoch, into the layered cities of the old world.

He stood atop a barely standing ruined skyscraper and looked down at the rubble of collapsed buildings, public transport flattened into iron pancakes, and cars piled one upon another.

Amid the silence, his gaze swept across the remaining rooms. It seemed to pierce the barrier of history and see, inside them, one electric light after another turn on.

The gentle glow of those lights spread outward, illuminating glass, illuminating buildings, illuminating streets, illuminating one corner of the ruins of an old city.

After staring for a long time, Klein withdrew his gaze and took one step, returning to the real world.

Immediately afterward, he directly Teleported to the summit of the Hornacis mountain range and “saw” the ancient palace there, shrouded in mist, dilapidated and overgrown with weeds.

His marionette and avatar appeared ahead and slightly to the side, like two guards.

Facing the ancient palace, Klein pressed down on his top hat, raised his right hand, and snapped his fingers.

The summit of the Hornacis mountain range instantly turned dark and deep. One illusory star after another appeared all around.

Klein had “grafted” this place to the astral world.

Without further hesitation, he brought his marionette and avatar to the main entrance of the ancient palace.

The marionette, whose appearance was now rather close to his own, went one step ahead. It bent down, stretched out both hands, and slowly pushed the heavy stone doors.

Amid the grating sounds of friction, the doors opened bit by bit, revealing the scene inside.

Unlike the last time Klein had delivered the Trunsoest Brass Book here, the interior was now pitch-black. It was impossible to see either the many corpses hanging from the hall, or the cluster of transparent worms coiled upon the giant stone chair.

No guesswork was needed. With the intuition of a Seer at the level of a King of Angels, Klein confirmed that this was the change brought about after the Evernight Goddess used the water of the River of Eternal Darkness to place the ancestor of the Antigonus family into a state of eternal slumber.

After the marionette and avatar entered one after another, he too slowly passed through the doors and stepped inside the palace.

The pitch-black darkness immediately rippled and changed.

Buildings emerged all around. Figures walked through the streets. Voices drifted outward, causing the entire environment to suddenly come alive and gain a measure of bustle.

People ignored Klein, his marionette, and his avatar, heading to different places on their own and discussing various matters with one another.

They and the buildings were dim in color, nearly black-and-white, like an old photograph from deep in history that had suddenly come alive.

This made Klein think of black-and-white holographic projections, of scenes from the gaps of history, and of dreams made real.

He walked through such a town, following the street that gradually sloped upward.

The closer he drew to the heights, the more magnificent the buildings became. Enormous stone pillars supported exaggerated domes.

The people living in this “old black-and-white photograph” were generally tall. They seemed to study, work, and rest normally.

The scene here continuously shifted, revealing the birth of infants, the growth of children, the confusion of youth, the worries of adulthood, the pressure of middle age, and the sorrow of aging.

Of course, these were interwoven with one another; it was only that at certain times, one became the dominant theme.

As Klein went deeper, he began to see some of the town’s residents pass away.

Their relatives showed little grief. They carried the dead back home, placing them on beds, beside pillows, as though the corpses were still alive.

By the time Klein was about to leave the town’s range, those dead rose from their beds. They left their relatives, walked out of their homes, and step by step followed the street toward the highest point.

There was likewise a city there. It seemed to be the city of the dead, the final destination of all life, the kingdom of eternal slumber.

It was very close to the place where ordinary people lived. The latter was distributed from the mountainside to the summit, while the former was located at the summit itself.

Others might be surprised by this state of affairs, but Klein immediately understood what place this was and what such a scene meant.

Because he directly saw the Spirit Body Threads on those dead.

At the instant they were about to die, their Spirit Body Threads drifted toward the summit and were controlled by an unknown existence.

In other words, they became marionettes.

That was why the dead could leave their homes on their own after dying for a period of time, breaking away from their families and heading toward the summit.

And this perfectly matched the details Klein had once read in Research of the Ancient Ruins of the Hornacis Main Peak:

The Nation of Evernight belonged to the “Mother of the Sky” of the Darkness pathway, but at the summit, there was a marionette town used by the ancestor of the Antigonus family.

Thus, the residents of the Nation of Evernight respected and feared the night. They believed in the Mother of the Sky. At the same time, they believed that death was not the end, and that their deceased relatives would protect them in the night.

Indeed, death was not the end. The “city of the dead” was right beside them, at the summit. One could walk there.

And the dead would continue their lives there in the form of marionettes.

In the eyes of ordinary people, this was unquestionably equivalent to still being alive.

The country of the living and the city of the dead were thus connected, located at either end of a road that was not very long. The distance between life and death was so close—close enough to make them neighbors.

This also explained why the Nation of Evernight had no burials. The dead did not need to be buried at all. They became marionettes and went to the summit.

This should be the former Nation of Evernight… Klein nodded lightly and climbed step by step to the summit within the dark environment.

What entered his eyes was indeed a seemingly normal town, but every single person here was a marionette.

Passing through the marionettes, each dressed differently and bearing different appearances, Klein entered the magnificent palace ahead, a palace built as though for worshiping a deity.

At the deepest part of the palace, upon that enormous stone chair, a figure rested both elbows on the armrests, head leaned back against the chair.

His face was rather young, yet His long hair was already half white, one half concealed and one half obvious. His outer form was male. His eyes were darker even than Zaratul’s and contained an indescribable vicissitude. His features were all fairly handsome, yet tufts of coarse, black, wolf-like hair grew on his cheeks, giving people a contradictory impression of both age and youth, both reason and madness.

This was the ancestor of the Antigonus family. This time, He no longer appeared in mythical creature form, but sat upon the giant stone chair in His original appearance.

At that very moment, His eyes were half open and half closed, as though He were resting. Inside the hall, corpses dressed in either rough or luxurious clothing hung suspended.

They were like an upside-down forest, swaying gently in the wind.

“After entering a state of eternal slumber, the ancestor of the Antigonus family has finally, for a brief time, broken free from losing control and madness, returning to His former appearance?” Klein stood in the center of the hall, gazing at the target of his trip, and could not help sighing.

The Nation of Evernight and the city of the dead he had just seen—the scenes he had just experienced—were all Antigonus’s dream.

A dream after a separation of more than a thousand years.