Chapter 22: Beginning to Accommodate

Chapter 22: Beginning to Accommodate

Clang! Clang!

In Backlund, Trier, Lenburg, Saint-Milon, and other places, doors and windows closed at the same time despite the absence of wind, shutting tightly.

At the headquarters of the Church of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom, inside a white tower.

Luca, who was on duty in the underground area, sensed this unusual movement and abruptly stood.

As a Prophet, he keenly perceived that something was happening.

The old man, wearing a plain white robe embroidered with brass threads, immediately used a secret technique and arrived in a single step at the entrance to the underground area. He reached out and pushed at the door.

But the door, which should not have been heavy to a demigod, did not move in the slightest at that moment. It was as if it had been sealed shut by an invisible power.

Luca Brewster did not forcibly attempt various methods. Instead, he turned his gaze toward the depths underground.

It was completely silent there. Not the slightest sound came from within.

This isn’t normal… Luca did not need to rely on his Beyonder powers to judge that something had gone wrong here.

Ordinarily, from the deepest part underground, waves of sound would always spread out—sounds that made one’s hair stand on end and sent chills down the spine. But now, they had vanished as if they had never existed.

Others might not know, but as a high-ranking member of the Church of Knowledge, Luca knew that those sounds came from an extremely terrifying Sealed Artifact, one whose exact details even he did not understand. They could not disappear for no reason.

The current situation could only explain one thing:

Either that Sealed Artifact had broken free from its restrictions and entered an even stranger state, or it had been further sealed and could no longer exert any influence on the outside world.

And no matter which possibility it was, it meant that an ultimate danger was hidden nearby, because that Sealed Artifact’s number was:

0-01!

At the top of Bayam’s remaining bell tower, the light on Amon’s monocle gradually faded and returned to normal.

Just now, Mr. Error had displayed His newly obtained Beyonder ability without the slightest concealment, revealing a fact to every existence watching Him:

He had already accommodated the Door Uniqueness and obtained its corresponding authority!

He had used it moments ago to close all things in the world related to the concept of “door,” strengthening the effect of closure to the greatest possible degree.

This caused all items in sealed states within the orthodox Churches and secret organizations to become unusable for a short time, because no one could undo their seals.

Even if a true god descended from the astral world, They might still need a certain amount of time to break the restriction.

Thus, Amon excluded the overwhelming majority of Grade 0 Sealed Artifacts from the divine battle that might occur next, eliminating the need to consider their corresponding interference.

Of course, this influence exerted over the entire world through authority could not be maintained for long unless Mr. Error, Amon, devoted all His energy to it. Precisely because of this, He had not done it in advance. Only after observing the disturbance in Klein’s anchors did He suddenly act.

—The more powerful a Grade 0 Sealed Artifact was, the more terrifying its negative effects tended to be. This was especially true for those capable of affecting the level of gods. Even Sequence 0 true gods might not necessarily be able to endure them for long. Therefore, true gods would not undo their seals until They needed to use them. Otherwise, this would bring Them even greater interference, with gains unable to make up for losses.

After finishing this, Amon placed a hand on the railing, lightly leapt up, and sat atop the bell tower’s guardrail in a manner utterly lacking the image of a true god.

As He gazed at the horizon, He leisurely waited for the concealment to be lifted and for Klein’s ritual of accommodating The Fool Uniqueness to officially begin.

When that time came, He would toll the death knell for his opponent.

…

Within the concealed world of the Evernight Goddess.

Klein’s consciousness, under the successive impacts of the revived will of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings and Antigonus’s self-recognition and mental imprint, was like a sailboat in a storm. One moment it was hurled high, the next it was beaten down; one moment it was corroded, the next it was shoved sideways.

This made his thoughts extremely chaotic. He nearly split into two different personalities—one named Antigonus, and the other named the Lord of the Mysteries.

At the same time, his avatar had also lost rationality and was on the verge of collapsing into a vortex of worms. Only the marionette remained there for the moment, merely uncommanded and standing blankly in place.

The prayers and praises from believers echoed beside Klein’s ears, forming corresponding images of cognition.

They were like a dam, bitterly resisting the flood that surged in.

Klein was not especially unfamiliar with such a situation. After becoming an Attendant of Mysteries and swallowing the Beyonder characteristic related to Zaratul, he had experienced something similar. Thus, once he had just managed to pass through the initial chaos with the help of his anchors, he quite skillfully guided Antigonus’s self-recognition and mental imprint toward the revived will of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings, allowing the two to corrode and entangle with one another.

The raging spiritual storm instantly weakened greatly, and Klein’s self-awareness finally gained a chance to breathe.

Without taking time to calm himself, he immediately drew the divine image formed by his many anchors into the entanglement between the two kinds of spiritual contamination, attempting to find a new balance.

But this was not smooth. Compared to the previous time, the essence, resilience, and degree of madness in Antigonus’s mental imprint were clearly stronger than Zaratul’s. After all, He was a King of Angels who had accommodated a Uniqueness and was called half a Fool.

Moreover, Klein had also stolen the other party’s identity and fate. This brought two additional negative effects.

First, his personality constantly hovered on the brink of splitting. From time to time, he believed himself to be Antigonus and attempted to fuse the other party’s mental imprint with his own mind. Second, he had inherited Antigonus’s fate of losing control and going mad. His entire body was collapsing irrepressibly, producing even more and greater amounts of spiritual contamination.

In addition, Antigonus’s mental imprint and the revived will of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings were not completely irreconcilable. In some parts of the battlefield, and in certain respects, they showed signs of merging into one, as though they had originally come from the same existence.

This preliminarily confirmed one of Klein’s guesses: as a born mythical creature, Antigonus had carried a certain degree of the Celestial Worthy’s will from the moment of birth. Once He advanced to Attendant of Mysteries, this problem suddenly became severe, causing Him to undergo unconscious mutations. By the time He accommodated The Fool Uniqueness, madness seemed to directly become one side of Him.

In other words, before completely losing control, Antigonus was already a kind of spiritual stitched monster to some degree. Part of His self-recognition and mental imprint belonged to the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings, and this could not be separated during the Theft.

Compared to Him, Zaratul’s mental imprint was much cleaner. Only a very small portion belonged to the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings; most came from Zaratul’s intense emotions before death.

The reason for the difference, aside from Antigonus’s additional accommodation of The Fool Uniqueness, was that the former became an Attendant of Mysteries at the beginning of the Fourth Epoch. At that time, the Celestial Worthy’s will had not yet declined and weakened to the degree it had by the late Fifth Epoch.

A new balance could not form no matter what. Klein’s collapse accelerated. More than half his body was already composed of transparent, twisted worms, and one slippery, evil tentacle after another extended from him.

Just as he desperately maintained his self-awareness, refusing to give up as he sought a new balance, his collapsing body, Antigonus’s mad spirit, and the revived will of the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings all entered a state of slumber at the same time.

This caused all changes to come to an abrupt halt and begin returning toward normal.

Meanwhile, Klein’s self-awareness, relying on his own special ability to resist dreams and invasions of the mind, maintained a sliver of wakefulness within this slumber.

That’s right. What I stole was not only Antigonus’s fate of losing control and going mad, but also His current fate of falling into eternal slumber… And I myself can resist eternal slumber to a certain degree… Klein seized that sliver of wakefulness and gained a certain understanding of his current state.

To him, this was the opportunity.

Only now did he fully understand why the Evernight Goddess needed water from the River of Eternal Darkness as a medium before She would attempt this.

It was not only because placing a King of Angels who had accommodated a Uniqueness, along with the awakening will of the Lord of the Mysteries inside Him, into a temporary state of eternal slumber was extremely difficult. It was also because eternal slumber was beneficial to Klein. It created an excellent environment where only a sliver of his will could move, while all other interference fell asleep!

At the same time, Klein also confirmed one thing:

The fact that he could remain lucid when dreams and the mind were invaded did not come entirely from Sefirah Castle’s special nature, because the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings inside him had also fallen asleep at this moment.

Although the degree of this Lord of the Mysteries’ revival was still quite limited, His status and His connection to Sefirah Castle were unquestionably stronger than Klein’s current state. Even He could not completely resist the corrosion of eternal slumber, so why could Klein?

Therefore, Klein believed that part of his uniqueness in this regard should originate from the Evernight Goddess’s blessing—a gift he had received when he descended into this world.

A true god who controlled part of the authority over dreams had bestowed a blessing; combined with the aura, power, and wonders attached to Sefirah Castle, it had formed this special trait!

A gentle song, as though coming from the depths of a dream, sounded. The clarity of Klein’s consciousness deepened further.

He did not hesitate. He immediately adjusted the sleeping imprints and contaminations inside him and found a new balance.

Immediately afterward, he extended one slippery tentacle after another marked with strange patterns, mobilized Sefirah Castle’s power, and began stealing The Fool Uniqueness from Antigonus’s body across the distance.

Perhaps because he was now Antigonus, this Theft did not fail many times before it succeeded.

A translucent mask engraved with The Fool symbol flew out from Antigonus’s body!

The man whose face was covered in coarse black wolf fur remained asleep, as if sunk in eternal slumber.

At the same time, the hazy fog dispersed, and illusory starlight poured into the hall.

This ancient palace abruptly appeared in the dim, mysterious astral world, at the summit of the main peak of the Hornacis mountain range.

The concealment had been lifted. Fate began to interact.

At that moment, in the Forsaken Land of the Gods, atop a certain mountain peak, a faintly discernible shadowy curtain appeared across the surface of a gigantic cross. It opened a rift, and from within walked a man.

He was Adam, dressed in a simple white robe, with a thick golden beard. Pressed tightly against His back was a dense shadow with five heads.

The shadow had partly fused with Him, but had not yet fully become one.

Adam raised His head and looked toward the astral world, where authority and symbolism twisted together. With a peaceful smile, He said to the shadow behind Him, “It seems They still do not know why I chose the Visionary as the foundation this time.

“I have never told anyone about this research result.”

The moment His words fell, His expression turned solemn, and He spoke in a low voice:

“I am the One, and also the Many; the Beginning, and also the End.”

His eyes abruptly turned illusory, and around Him appeared a sea that seemed to contain all colors and all possibilities.

Adam then raised His hand and grasped the silver cross pendant hanging before His chest.

Above His head, a scorching yet illusory sun leapt out. To His left, symbols of lightning, gales, and sea waves interwove into a phantom that seemed to look down upon all things. To His right, a white tower covered in countless brass eyes rose from the ground.

These envisioned authorities and symbols, driven by the Chaos Sea, entered Adam’s body one after another.

At the very end, the shadow pressed tightly against Adam’s back also shrank into His body.

With a thunderous boom, the sea that contained all colors and all possibilities surged high. Adam expanded into a giant figure of light that seemed capable of supporting heaven and earth.

This figure of light slowly walked across the chaotic, void-black surface of the “water.” Raising a hand and pointing toward the astral world, He solemnly declared:

“Let there be light!”

In the blink of an eye, the entire astral world lit up. No concealment could hide any longer. Even the invisible barrier separating the portion of the astral world corresponding to Earth from the complete astral world and the entire universe appeared.

At that moment, one indescribably terrifying giant face after another pressed against that transparent, cracked barrier, silently watching the changes within.