Chapter 32: “Mad”

Chapter 32: “Mad”

Amon and that strange door of light were grafted together.

An unconcealable distortion immediately appeared on His face, and the deep darkness in His eyes clearly grew heavier.

At the same time, even more slippery tentacles shot out from beneath His classical black robe. Madness overflowed from Him, plain for all to see.

Just as Klein was preparing to sever the connection between Amon and Sefirah Castle, freezing Him at this current degree of madness, the corners of Amon’s mouth lifted.

It was as if He were saying:

“Congratulations. You stepped into the trap.”

His face was instantly covered by a semi-transparent mask close to The Fool Uniqueness, but even more illusory.

Klein’s mind tightened. Without thinking, he immediately prepared to use the Fooling authority again, regardless of the consequences.

But before he could react, his thoughts abruptly slowed. His entire person entered a foolish state where he no longer knew what he should do.

Fooling!

By relying on His brief reorganization with Sefirah Castle, Amon had actually broken free of Klein’s interference and called upon power in The Fool’s domain.

Such a move went far beyond instinct. It was more like a carefully designed trap.

Amon was still not mad enough!

This dual-pathway true god of Error and Door immediately undid His Grafting with Sefirah Castle, allowing the strange door of light tinged blue-black to rapidly fade and vanish, lest He suffer even further contamination.

After dealing with this hidden danger, Amon raised both hands. Thumb to thumb, index finger to index finger, He formed an oval.

Within the oval, starlight lit up, precisely and completely encompassing Klein’s figure.

Immediately afterward, Amon’s hands abruptly pulled apart, as if He were tearing at something, making the movement look somewhat heavy.

Amid a ripping sound like paper tearing, the region where Klein’s body was located seemed to turn into glass. Under intense impact, countless cracks appeared, shattering piece by piece, inch by inch.

This was a form of spatial degradation and destruction. Klein’s body simply could not withstand it. As the surrounding void collapsed and shattered, he turned, again and again, into countless scraps of paper fluttering through the air, and those scraps were always instantly swallowed by the darkness.

By the time the collapse of space stopped, Klein’s paper figurines had almost been completely exhausted.

Of course, by relying on his own status and characteristics as The Fool, he had also forcibly broken free of the Blind Stupidity effect.

At that moment, Amon had already split into countless figures. Some were pure avatars, some were symbolic-level copies, and some were afterimages left behind after constant Flashing and repeated actions.

At this instant, the sky above Klein’s head and the wilderness around him were all filled with Amons. Dense clusters of figures wearing pointed soft hats and monocles blocked every loophole.

Some of these Amons transformed into ancient mottled wall clocks, a mingling of blue-black and dark green. Some became pure starlight, as though trying to shape a cage. Some extended Their palms, performing Theft at different levels. Some had monocles that emitted light, using various things They had once stolen. Others simulated all kinds of abilities to restrict, interfere, or attack.

—Within the Marauder pathway, Theft was the core skill and one of the main symbols. Unlike the Seer pathway’s manipulation of Spirit Body Threads, as the Sequence increased, Theft not only grew in effect and efficiency, but also obtained conceptual deepening.

From Sequence 9 to Sequence 7, what was stolen were items. At Sequence 6, what was stolen were Beyonder abilities. After advancing to Sequence 5, what was stolen became thoughts and ideas. By Sequence 4 and Sequence 3, what was stolen was life, including parasitic theft on the bodily level. At Sequence 2, the range of Theft could expand to fate, identity, self-recognition, and Beyonder characteristics. As for Sequence 1, even time, anchors, and authority could be temporarily stolen.

Therefore, when Error faced a true god, He would likewise use Theft that had risen to the level of authority.

Amid clangs, the ancient wall clocks all paused at the same time.

This caused the surrounding environment to congeal, making the already shattered wilderness from the “star’s” impact grow utterly quiet. Even destruction was frozen in place.

At that instant, Klein seemed to lose his body, leaving behind only a semi-transparent dark cloak and an eerie, cold mask.

Beneath the cloak and mask, the darkness was thick and impenetrable. Nothing could be seen there, save for slippery, evil tentacles extending one after another.

In this state, Klein seemed to break free of time’s restrictions. Within the frozen environment, he swam like a fish, moving through gaps both real and conceptual as he slipped out of the Amons’ encirclement.

He once again used the authority of Fooling.

This time, what he fooled was time.

The ancient wall clocks vanished with it. In the almost completely collapsed wilderness, time resumed its flow. The Amons each stopped Their attempts and suddenly gathered into one, Flashing behind Klein and giving him not the slightest chance to breathe.

Amon extended His left palm. As His arm pulled back, His five fingers closed.

Around Klein, space was abruptly covered in shadow, becoming like layer upon layer of thin gauze.

These “gauzes” twisted and reorganized, seemingly forming a sufficiently sturdy cage that trapped Klein inside.

Upon the cage, an illusory door surfaced and rapidly wandered, refusing to fix in place.

Yet Klein’s figure abruptly appeared outside the cage, as though he had never been sealed away by Amon using the authority of Door.

He had fooled history, separating the self of the previous second from the self of the following second.

Thus, the one imprisoned inside the cage became his historical projection.

This was a deepening of the Scholar of Yore’s abilities under the authority of Fooling.

Because Klein’s advancement ritual had relied on fooling history, his abilities in similar domains were stronger than his ability to fool time or fool fate.

The moment he escaped the spatial cage, Klein immediately prepared to use the Realm of Mysteries again, creating a new divine kingdom of The Fool to delay for time and find an opportunity to stabilize his mental state. He had just used the authority of Fooling several times in succession, and the fragile balance inside his body was now teetering on the edge of collapse. If he did not stabilize himself quickly, the Celestial Worthy’s will would awaken further.

This was likewise a severe problem.

At that moment, a gigantic monocle ground from crystal appeared before his eyes.

From the monocle, rippling waves of light surged madly forth, instantly submerging him.

Klein’s mental state abruptly stabilized—but the price was losing different emotions and all kinds of desires. Even resistance was no longer something he wished to do. He only wanted to stand there quietly and wait for destruction to arrive.

It was like a normal person being injected with a massive dose of sedatives.

At the same time, within the layers of rippling light, an illusory book surfaced.

The book lay open, revealing a passage:

“Klein Moretti has suffered torment from the mental corruption of the Lord of the Mysteries. He has always been in great pain and is extremely exhausted. After experiencing an intense battle, and after being affected on the level of the mind, he has finally reached his limit and decided to give up, no longer resisting.”

Behind the gigantic crystal monocle, Amon, wearing a pointed soft hat and a classical black robe, quickly outlined Himself, looming like a mountain peak.

He looked at Klein, who had given up resisting. The deep darkness in His eyes lightened, and the corners of His mouth lifted faintly.

“I stole it. How does it feel?”

Klein raised his head and looked toward Mr. Error. After some effort, he finally opened his mouth and said weakly, “You… were deceiving me from the very beginning?”

Amon raised both hands, a smile on His lips.

“What a pity. You understood too late.”

He placed thumb to thumb, index finger to index finger, forming an oval.

Within the oval, starlight lit up, reflecting Klein’s figure.

Immediately afterward, Amon’s hands heavily separated, tearing apart the void upon which Klein and his surroundings relied.

The void cracked like glass, breaking piece by piece, shattering inch by inch, collapsing like a skyscraper in destruction.

Yet all this collapse, all this destruction, swerved around Klein’s body and did not directly touch him.

He was like a small fishing boat sailing safely through a storm, appearing so abrupt, so disharmonious, as if he did not belong there at all.

Amon raised a hand and adjusted the monocle lodged in His right eye socket. The smile on His face faintly faded.

On the semi-transparent cloak covering Klein’s body, dense protrusions continuously emerged, then subsided and vanished.

He looked at the mountain-like Amon, his eyes seeming to darken a little.

“From the moment you entered Sefirah Castle and spoke your first word, you had already begun deceiving me.”

At the time, Amon had said He had taken the risk of releasing His suppression of the Lord of the Mysteries’ will inside Him, thereby obtaining the identity of Sefirah Castle’s owner.

At this moment, Amon surprisingly did not seize the opportunity to continue attacking Klein. He floated in midair, looking down upon Mr. Fool.

Klein likewise made no other attempt. His tone was strangely calm, as though he were brewing something.

“If releasing your suppression of the Lord of the Mysteries’ will and paying the price of being half-mad were enough to enter Sefirah Castle, then Antigonus could have done it back then. Earlier still, Flegrea, the Demonic Wolf of Destruction, could have done it too. You and Mr. Door also had countless opportunities before.

“Clearly, simply reviving the Lord of the Mysteries to a certain degree and combining half-madness with Error is not enough to invade Sefirah Castle. You cannot find a bug to exploit in this matter—unless you directly let Him replace you.

“Only after you obtained the authority of Door, which allows you to enter anywhere, did you see hope: by creating a back door and exploiting a bug, you could make Sefirah Castle regard you as the Lord of the Mysteries and grant you authority.

“Of course, this certainly required the Lord of the Mysteries to revive within you to a considerably dangerous degree. Without that hidden identity, you could not deceive Sefirah Castle from nothing.

“After accommodating Door’s Uniqueness, you did not immediately sneak into Sefirah Castle to deal with the much weaker me of that time because, as someone who had just advanced, you could not endure any further awakening of the Lord of the Mysteries’ will.

“I think you must have found a relatively safer method. If I had not advanced to The Fool so quickly, then after a little more time, you would have been able to enter Sefirah Castle in your best state and resolve everything. But now, you had no choice but to advance this plan ahead of time. There must be very serious problems in you.

“You took the initiative to present half-madness as the price. On one hand, this guided me into thinking of counters along that line, allowing you to lay a fatal trap at the crucial point. On the other hand, it was also a way to divert attention, using it to conceal other problems.

“You are not half-mad at all.”

Amon quietly listened to Klein finish. Quite abnormally, He did not interrupt midway, nor did He attempt to attack. Only after Klein ended did He speak with a slightly strange expression.

“You’ve gone mad.”