Chapter 21: Trojan Horse of Destiny

Chapter 21: Trojan Horse of Destiny

Looking at the half-Fool seated upon the gigantic stone chair, the scenes related to the Nation of Evernight that Klein had just experienced flashed through his mind, leaving him momentarily moved.

He did not know much about Antigonus. Several times, he had even nearly lost control because of the other party’s ravings of “Hornacis… Flegrea…” Therefore, at this moment, it could not be said that he felt sympathy. Rather, he felt a faint sense of resonance.

What had always wandered within that dream was, without question, one of the most beautiful memories of the past.

Even as a natural extraordinary species, Antigonus seemed to deeply cherish that once peaceful, tranquil, and isolated little nation.

Klein slowly exhaled and shifted his gaze away from the man whose face grew coarse, black wolf fur. His eyes fell beside the giant stone chair.

A book formed from thin sheets of brass lay quietly there. Upon it, three rules written in silver mercury-colored words continuously surfaced in alternation.

“0-02.”

“The Trunsoest Brass Book.”

Using an ability similar to Grafting to complete the seal? Hmm, it seems to go a step further than that. It wasn’t merely connecting the beginning directly to the ending rule. It also fooled the intelligence of the Trunsoest Brass Book, making it ignore the skipped middle portion and preventing it from attempting any changes, so it simply repeats the cycle again and again… Klein glanced at “0-02” and muttered thoughtfully to himself.

This gave him a certain guess as to what abilities The Fool would possess.

Without dwelling on it, Klein had the Attendant of Mysteries marionette “graft” together the starting point and the ending point, arriving beside the giant stone chair in a single step and picking up the Trunsoest Brass Book.

On one hand, this was to eliminate possible interference in what was to come. On the other, it was to test Antigonus’s current state.

Seeing that the half-Fool still slumbered and could not escape from eternal sleep, Klein let out a slight breath of relief. He had the marionette take the Trunsoest Brass Book and retreat to the palace entrance, where it waited.

The reason he did not have his avatar take this Grade 0 Sealed Artifact was that he worried the Trunsoest Brass Book, which had a certain connection to a sefirah, might display passive negative effects at the critical moment when he accommodated The Fool Uniqueness, causing the situation to plummet in a bad direction.

—When it came to avoiding the negative effects of Sealed Artifacts, marionettes were absolutely superior to avatars.

This was also why Klein had not brought the Staff of the Stars. He could not leave a ticking time bomb beside him.

Under ordinary circumstances, it would be fine. He could rely on his status, level, and abilities to forcefully suppress the Staff of the Stars. But during the process of accommodating The Fool Uniqueness, he would be extremely vulnerable and unable to interfere with the people and things around him. The slightest accident could cause him to lose control on the spot.

And in order to deal with the possibility that Sefirah Castle might be sealed off and its power unable to be borrowed, Klein had no choice but to bring along a Sealed Artifact capable of providing Teleportation. Therefore, he chose Creeping Hunger.

At this moment, facing a King of Angels who controlled a Uniqueness, Klein felt the human-skin glove on his left palm instinctively tremble.

He immediately stroked Creeping Hunger with his right hand and whispered in a joking tone, “Don’t worry. You’re only an image from the historical void.”

Having used this method to defuse the excessive tension in his mind, Klein looked around and confirmed that there was nothing else he needed to handle.

Immediately afterward, he placed a hand on his chest and solemnly bowed to Antigonus.

When he straightened and raised his head, a complex, mysterious, illusory brand appeared between his brows.

It resembled a strange door of light faintly stained blue-black, continuously spreading a thin grayish-white fog into its surroundings.

The next second, Klein stretched out his right hand. From a distance that was neither very far nor by any means close, he “contained” Antigonus’s body between his five fingers.

His fingers swiftly closed. His wrist twisted, completing the Theft.

He obtained nothing.

This attempt failed.

Klein was not discouraged in the least. He once again began stealing Antigonus’s identity, fate, and self-recognition.

Although he was already an Angel King among Angel Kings, his abilities in theft all came from Sefirah Castle and were currently only at the level of Sequence 1. Antigonus, meanwhile, was a King of Angels who had been contaminated by the Lord of the Mysteries and had accommodated a Uniqueness. There was still a clear gap between the two.

Therefore, even though Antigonus had already entered a temporary state of eternal slumber and was powerless to resist, Klein still failed many times in succession.

He was neither nervous nor disappointed. This was something he could have predicted beforehand. In any case, as long as the Theft had not been completed, the Evernight Goddess would not undo the concealment, allowing the fate of this place to communicate with reality. There would be no external interference. Klein had plenty of time and a stable environment to continue trying.

After failing an unknown number of times, Klein’s inspiration suddenly stirred, and he foresaw something.

Once again, he extended his right hand, closed his fingers, and gently twisted.

All at once, he felt something invisible detach from Antigonus and drift toward him.

At the same time, a glittering river difficult to describe in words seemed to appear before his eyes—a long river split into countless tributaries.

The illusory waters continuously flowed forward, submerging one tributary after another and returning them to the main current.

This was the symbol of fate. It had many different forms, such as a slowly turning wheel divided into many segments, or a giant serpent biting its own tail. At this moment, as fate shifted, what Klein saw was a long river of light.

The next second, fragmented images appeared in Klein’s mind one after another.

A newborn demonic wolf with eight legs lay sprawled upon a hill. Between the short, coarse black fur covering its body, one transparent, twisted worm after another swam back and forth, entering and exiting. He was the youngest son of the ancient god Flegrea, a born mythical creature. At this moment, he was watching his sister, brothers, and some of his kin play among piles of bones. He felt a measure of disdain toward the simple and crude way they handled prey. In his view, suspending prey and slowly enjoying it was far more befitting of their status.

What this demonic wolf, who could be called a subsidiary god, feared most was his father—that powerful, terrifying, and mad ancient god. Although Flegrea had produced many children and separated out many Beyonder characteristics through instinctive mating and reproduction, this process was uncontrolled and could not guarantee progress. Therefore, He remained mad, cruel, bloodthirsty, and filled with the instincts of destruction and annihilation. He had even killed several of His own descendants.

This demonic wolf, who could create miracles and fulfill all kinds of wishes, chased after prey, tearing into or killing them, enjoying the pure joy of it.

He did not have very deep impressions of his father Flegrea’s subsidiary gods. What he remembered most clearly was that he detested the God of Wishes, Kotar, even though this one was also a demonic wolf.

In addition, he disliked the God of the Dead, Salinger, finding Him gloomy and solitary, His whole body exuding a rotten and disgusting aura. By contrast, the Goddess of Misfortune, Amanises, conformed to both demonic wolf and human aesthetics. Her personality was gentle, and She was highly skilled at soothing the mind. She was not so hateful to a wolf. However, this female subsidiary god rarely appeared and was always like a shadow, hiding in places not easily discovered. Of course, the demonic wolf remembered that several of his sisters and brothers strongly rejected Amanises and wanted to take Her position.

The demonic wolf witnessed the fall of his father, that powerful ancient god. He saw the ancient god’s blood splatter all over the Goddess of Misfortune, Amanises. Amid that chaotic scene, a Uniqueness and a Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristic were drawn together and landed in Her hands.

He fled with one of his sisters from the nation where the demonic wolf race lived, hiding everywhere.

Only after losing their father’s protection did this demonic wolf and his sister learn that the uninhibited life they once led was not the norm. Pain and danger were the true themes running through everything. In the end, they crossed the sea, arrived on the Northern Continent, and established a hidden nation in the uninhabited Hornacis mountain range.

He and his sister did not dare expose themselves. They could only gather believers in small numbers and draw together a population. Under such circumstances, he invented a City of the Dead that coexisted with the Nation of the Living, turning deceased believers into his marionettes in order to complete his advancement ritual.

Although those years were filled with worry, they were the most beautiful time in this demonic wolf’s memories. Watching his sister’s believers grow more numerous, watching his marionette town become more and more complete, he seemed to forget the disturbances and dangers of the outside world, gaining the first peace he had ever known since birth.

Under the influence brought by the cognition of believers, he and his sister gradually gained a little so-called humanity.

After the Cataclysm, he finally advanced to Attendant of Mysteries, transformed himself into a human, took Antigonus as his surname, left the Hornacis mountain range, and returned to the real world outside the hidden nation.

From this moment onward, Antigonus’s memories and cognition became increasingly fragmented and shattered. Often, even he himself felt somewhat unfamiliar to himself.

After he accommodated The Fool Uniqueness, this situation became even more severe…

As image after image flashed past, Klein quickly developed a cognition:

I am Antigonus. I am half a Fool!

Boom!

His body changed repeatedly. One moment, he was Klein Moretti, black-haired and brown-eyed, scholarly in bearing, his appearance merging with Zhou Mingrui’s. The next, he was Antigonus, long hair half white, face covered in coarse black wolf fur. Then he became a mysterious figure draped in a deep-black cloak, whose face could not be seen, constantly extending slippery tentacles to the side.

At that moment, Klein’s thoughts descended into extreme chaos. His mental state completely lost balance.

He could barely maintain a certain measure of self-recognition, tottering under the impact of two spiritual storms like raging waves.

At the same time, he also inherited Antigonus’s fate of losing control and going mad, and his body began to collapse little by little.

Prayers and praises immediately rang out beside his ears, one voice after another. They interwove, forming an illusory image that joined this chaotic battlefield.

…

In the Rorsted Archipelago, Bayam, atop the bell tower of the Church of The Fool.

A young man wearing a pointed soft hat and a monocle suddenly appeared there, standing behind the railing and looking down upon the entire city.

Mr. Error, Amon!

The next second, He saw Bayam, along with the distant New City of Silver and New Moon City, vanish at the same time, as though they had been erased from a map with an eraser.

“How boring.” Seeing this, Amon smiled and shook His head, not disappointed in the least.

He had merely wanted to test whether Klein or the Evernight Goddess had fixed a “bug” here.

After ringing the bell, He could to a certain degree already be considered The Fool’s Angel of Time, allowing Him to exploit this loophole and directly steal away part of the other party’s anchors.

Such a Theft held little value normally, but at the critical moment of a ritual, it was extremely useful.

A sudden reduction in anchors would inevitably cause the balance to break, making Klein lose control on the spot!

Amon then withdrew His gaze and raised a hand to adjust the monocle over His right eye.

On the lens ground from crystal, light that seemed to come from the starry sky suddenly lit up.