Chapter 31: Conceptualization

Chapter 31: Conceptualization

Hearing Amon’s words, Klein’s heart sank.

Before this, he had not been worried that Amon would turn the Lamp Genie against him, because Amon was a top-tier “swindler.” None of His promises could be trusted. Meanwhile, the Lamp Genie had suffered at the hands of the previous Lord of the Mysteries, and could be considered a victim of similar matters. He would surely deal with Mr. Error with the greatest possible vigilance.

This was the consequence of lacking credibility.

Sometimes, lies, fraud, and shameless refusal to honor promises could indeed raise short-term gains. But in the long run, honesty and trustworthiness still brought greater returns.

Yet now, the Trunsoest Brass Book had just formulated the rule: “Fraud is forbidden here.”

And after Amon made His promise, He had not been punished!

At the same time, neither Klein nor the Lamp Genie had discovered that He had exploited any loophole in this matter.

This powerfully proved that Amon’s words just now were true and valid. They came from His heart and were not fraud.

The Lamp Genie could even rely on his own status and special traits to distort that sentence to a certain degree, changing “I can promise” into “I promise,” making it impossible for Amon to go back on His word. If He did, He would suffer damage from rules at the level of a Great Old One.

This made Klein wonder whether the clause “Fraud is forbidden here” had been quietly guided by Amon to be formulated by the Trunsoest Brass Book, or whether the Lamp Genie had deliberately made it so, in order to make every existence who might become the Lord of the Mysteries promise to send him back to the stars.

To the Lamp Genie, this was a guaranteed profitable deal, because Klein himself already owed him a promise.

In some other situation, Klein would still have had time to communicate properly with the Lamp Genie and rebuild trust. But now, Amon’s threat was right before his eyes and would not give him any opportunity to resolve this problem.

If he chose to continue trusting the Lamp Genie, it would be equivalent to placing his life in the hands of this Outer Deity and allowing the other party to manipulate it. In the battle that followed, as long as the Lamp Genie used the Trunsoest Brass Book to formulate rules that looked fine on the surface but were actually biased toward Amon, Klein—already at an immense disadvantage—would swiftly lose and die, with no chance to reverse the situation.

In the blink of a thought, Klein made his choice in this contest.

A semi-transparent dark cloak instantly surfaced around him, and a strange, twisted mask covered his face.

The Fool!

Invisible ripples spread outward from within him, instantly enveloping the Lamp Genie, the Trunsoest Brass Book, the entire wilderness, and Amon.

Authority of “Blind Stupidity”!

The monocle of Amon’s true body briefly lost its luster, as if He had lost His sight. His gaze grew dull along with it.

The Trunsoest Brass Book’s speed in writing new clauses noticeably slowed, as though it would need fifteen minutes, or even several hours, to figure out what rule it should formulate next.

The Lamp Genie’s blurry, twisted, pale-gold figure wavered, then abruptly withdrew into the golden kettle-like lamp. No one knew whether he was avoiding something or simply reacting by instinct.

Seizing this opportunity, Klein attempted to leave Sefirah Castle while preparing to graft himself together with a certain thing.

The instant his consciousness began to sink, the monocle ground from crystal appeared at the edge of Sefirah Castle, blocking his “path.”

Even after briefly suffering reduced intelligence, Amon still seemed to remember to prevent Klein from leaving Sefirah Castle.

His eyes quickly regained clarity, though they remained tinged with darkness. His mouth widened little by little, and He laughed uncontrollably.

“I ‘wrote’ this matter into my instincts. That is a very good way to resist the effects of Blind Stupidity.”

Clearly, He had once again cheated the rules and deceived Himself, causing instinct to believe that this was what He wanted to do.

Klein was not discouraged. He immediately completed the Grafting he had long since prepared.

In the starry sky, a massive star radiating light and heat suddenly dimmed slightly.

Above the wilderness under the “Eternal Day” effect, an orange-red sun carrying an aura of destruction and a heavy feeling descended from the sky.

The entire wilderness cracked and curled inward at once, as though it were rushing directly toward that star.

At the same time, every object here was ignited, including Amon.

In the next second, the surrounding void contracted around that real sun. All things either broke apart or were directly vaporized. Only the Wishing Lamp and the Trunsoest Brass Book remained in the flames, barely enduring, yet undamaged.

Klein, who had been floating in midair, had long since vanished.

He had grafted himself to that star.

Of course, what he had grafted himself to was only the concept of a star, not its physical body. Otherwise, with The Fool’s defenses clearly inferior to most Sequence 0s, and with his comparatively fragile body, he would have been swallowed by the real star and died on the spot.

The Fool was an extremely specialized deity. He had the ability to destroy a star, yet could not face one directly. His strengths and flaws were equally obvious.

Furthermore, under normal circumstances, a concept could not directly influence the surrounding environment and harm enemies. It was not as if writing down words like “great mass, great gravity, high temperature, intense heat, fusion” would create similar effects. However, Klein, Mr. Fool, controlled the authority of Fooling.

He made the surrounding environment change according to the concept of a star!

This was both intense “change” and a kind of Fooling.

Under the close-range illumination of the “star,” Amon’s body, wearing a pointed soft hat and classical black robe, had been completely ignited and was beginning to vaporize.

At that moment, His figure distorted slightly, instantly becoming stained with brilliant starlight and turning extremely illusory, as if He had transformed into a “Star Door.”

At this instant, Amon no longer resembled a physical living being. He was closer to an aggregate of symbols such as “roaming,” “astral passage,” “key,” and “door.”

This was the ability of a Planeswalker to travel to different planets and different worlds through the astral world. They could transform themselves into symbolic signs and thereby effectively make use of the astral world.

At the level of Sequence 0 Door, a similar ability had qualitatively transformed into “Conceptualization.”

Amon had turned Himself into a conceptual creature, avoiding the damage brought by the “star.”

Behind Him, a figure suddenly appeared. It was Klein, dressed in a trench coat and top hat.

Almost simultaneously, Amon’s thoughts slowed for an instant.

His Spirit Body Threads had been seized by Klein.

Klein had used the chaos brought by that “star” to undo his own combination with the corresponding concept. Then he quietly grafted the locations of both sides together and arrived behind Amon.

Originally, without this conceptual “reorganization,” the “star’s” influence on the surrounding environment should have stopped at once. But Klein had fooled time, causing the effect from the previous two seconds to linger until now, thereby deceiving Amon.

If possible, what Klein most wished to do now was deepen his control over Amon’s Spirit Body Threads and turn Him into his marionette. But he knew very well that under the current circumstances, the chance of success was extremely low. On one hand, Amon could endure the damage and steal His Spirit Body Threads back. On the other, He might exploit the connection established through those Spirit Body Threads and create a “bug,” influencing Klein in reverse and parasitizing him.

Without absolute certainty, Klein did not want his actions to become reckless.

His main purpose in seizing Amon’s Spirit Body Threads was to cause a certain sluggishness in the other party’s thoughts.

This was the expression of the Fooling authority at the stage of marionettization. In Klein’s present state, he was naturally more willing to use a lower-level method that could still produce results. It placed less burden on him and would not severely affect his mental stability the way directly using the authority of Fooling would.

At this very moment, his enemies included not only Amon, but also the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings inside him.

Of course, Amon was the same. If He no longer suppressed it after becoming half-mad, the Celestial Worthy would have already revived within Him.

After causing Amon’s thoughts to briefly slow, Klein had three choices.

The first was to use the opportunity to leave Sefirah Castle. But he did not know whether Amon’s instinct was still operating and still preventing him from escaping.

The second was to summon images from the historical void. But this would not be of much use. In this divine battle, existences at the level of angels could already play only a very small role. Perhaps they could not even withstand Amon’s gaze, much less their historical projections. Even if Klein wanted to use this to pass on information, there would be insufficient value, because the other deities could not enter Sefirah Castle and could not provide help.

The third was to seize this opportunity and impose a certain sufficiently useful influence upon Amon’s true body.

Klein chose the third option almost without hesitation.

He wanted to take the chance to graft Amon together with Sefirah Castle and that door of light tinged with blue-black.

Klein felt that Amon’s half-mad state was not bad enough yet. It merely made Him rather talkative, and at certain moments, perhaps unable to grasp timing properly. Klein wanted to make Him a little more insane.

Once Amon was reorganized with Sefirah Castle, the Celestial Worthy’s will inside Him would clearly strengthen, and the chaos in His mind would significantly intensify.

When that happened, Amon would lack sufficient reason to restrain Himself. His actions would lean more toward instinctive reactions rather than results reached through thought.

For Mr. Error, who excelled at deception, this would be fatal.

Of course, Klein would maintain this Grafting for only one second. Beyond that limit, the one he faced might no longer be Amon, but the Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings.

At that point, the other party would surely accept the “gift” of Sefirah Castle without hesitation. With a sefirah, two Uniquenesses, and the corresponding Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristics, His status would allow Him to beat down Klein, a single-pathway Sequence 0 Fool.

Originally, Klein could rely on the Fooling authority to lower Amon’s intelligence. However, first, his current state did not allow him to use power of that level for long; second, Amon, as a dual-pathway true god and the wielder of many authorities, could only be affected by Blind Stupidity for a rather limited amount of time. Therefore, Klein had no choice but to take the risk and use this Grafting.

And madness would accompany Amon for a long time, until He found a new balance—or met the finest “psychiatrist.”

In an instant, as that cold, semi-transparent mask once more emerged upon Klein’s face, a strange door of light tinged blue-black also surfaced on Amon’s body.

Sefirah Castle.