Chapter 1202
The Stillborn Pillar God
Fortunately, Eivass had been on edge for a while, so the moment he sensed danger, he threw out a card.
“—Don Quixote!”
He shouted without hesitation.
A resplendent, pure white knight materialized before Eivass.
But Eivass hadn’t expected Lily to be even faster—
She leaped out of the shadows in an instant, landing on the ground without a sound.
Lily looked down at the boy, about seventeen or eighteen years old, wearing a straw hat and holding a clay pot, her eyes burning with anger.
The boy, who had been kneeling and kowtowing like the other passersby, had suddenly raised the clay pot beside him, intending to smash it—the sense of danger Eivass felt came from here.
It was clear that Lily, as an Adapter, had sensed the life-or-death crisis even sooner.
Lily appeared silently and snatched the water-filled clay pot from his hand!
The boy was startled and looked up at Lily in astonishment.
He was clearly just a mortal, not even aware of how strong Lily was.
However, it was precisely because he was a mortal without Path Power that he hadn’t been noticed by the others.
But the boy quickly realized—he had been discovered!
With a gritted will, he intended to smash the clay pot with his fist!
“Bind his hands and feet.”
“Disrupt his mind.”
“Sever his tongue.”
“Ruin his eyes and ears.”
But at this moment, the four Snake People priests immediately raised the human-head lanterns at their waists and simultaneously cast curses.
Each lantern contained fingers and toes, a heart and liver, a tongue, ears and an eyeball.
All of these materials were fresh, even dripping with blood.
In just an instant, these non-lethal curses were piled upon the boy.
—Broken hands, broken feet, intellectual disability, berserk state, muteness, blindness, tinnitus…
In a shrill scream, he was instantly crippled, losing all ability to act, even the ability to commit suicide or attack Lily.
“Stop.”
Adler commanded softly.
As his words fell, everyone simultaneously stopped kowtowing and praising.
Not even a single extraneous sound was made, completing a synchronization like a horror movie.
Everyone maintained their posture of hands on the ground, simultaneously looking up at Eivass.
“My Lord!”
Don Quixote, manifesting beside Eivass, was filled with righteous anger. Disregarding everyone’s gazes and opinions, he tightly gripped his long sword and shouted with noble righteousness, “What a tyrannical reign!”
Eivass merely glanced at Adler and continued along Don Quixote’s words, “We are not on the same path, Adler.
“To answer your previous question—I am Eivass, Hope Eivass. The new Lord of Dawn City.”
Adler didn’t react much when he heard the name, but when he heard “Dawn City,” his eyes widened, and his demeanor inexplicably became somewhat friendlier.
“It doesn’t matter, Eivass.”
Adler smiled, his demeanor as profound and gentle as that of a Greek philosopher. “You have your path, and I have mine.
“The so-called ‘appropriate path,’ ‘correct path,’ ‘only path’—those things do not exist. Even if we are not on the same path, we are both disciples of the Shepherd, so at least we are not strangers.”
The Shepherd…
Eivass frowned slightly, appraising Adler.
“I think,” he said calmly, “the Shepherd would not wish for his power to be used on mortals.”
“How do you know he wouldn’t?”
Adler retorted, “He was harmed by those ignorant people and tyrants back then, even his name was stripped away by the King of Anxi.”
These… ignorant people?
Eivass was stunned for a moment, suddenly realizing the meaning behind Adler’s words.
“…The Shepherd, is he an Anxi person?”
He had always thought the Shepherd was from Hrasal, because Lancelot seemed to have met the Shepherd.
“The Shepherd is one-third of the victims of the ‘White Punishment.'”
Adler said sarcastically, “To the point that even his name cannot be known.”
Only at this moment did Eivass detect a trace of genuine emotion from him—a kind of contempt and resentment. It was like a fanatical fan feeling indignant about the treatment of their idol.
—White Punishment.
That was knowledge Eivass had read about in books while attending school at Avalon. It was the highest form of punishment in the Ancient Kingdom of Anxi.
Only the King of Anxi could authorize this supreme punishment.
To the Anxi people, it was a more cruel punishment than imprisonment or tormenting the soul—it was to completely erase any trace of that person’s existence.
All records in books would be rewritten, his name would be erased and rewritten, leaving no unique copy. Everything he did… good or bad, would be attributed to someone else’s name. All of his descendants and students would be killed, cutting off bloodlines and the inheritance of thought, and all who knew him, including his family, friends, brothers, sisters, and even his wife, would have their memories erased, the person’s existence erased, or be brainwashed and replaced with someone else.
In the end, no one would remember that person.
And through the effect of the ritual… even the soul entering the Dream Realm’s Origin River would forget its own name.
“Come to my palace, my brother. Lord who upholds the Principle of the Ring… I will show you the only evidence of the Shepherd’s existence. You should, and have the right to know everything about the Shepherd. This is why I created paradise.”
Adler invited enthusiastically, glancing at Lily, who was holding the clay pot. “Seal that thing by the way—you can help too.”
“What is that?”
Eivass looked back at the clay pot.
For some reason, it no longer gave off that sense of fatal danger.
“That is the Amber Egg. It’s a very dangerous thing. It must be continuously sealed in seawater to paralyze it, otherwise it will awaken.”
Adler answered casually, “I actually found it by following its traces. My prophet told me it was here. I lost it a while ago, and someone must have intended to use it to plan my assassination.”
He spoke of being assassinated so lightly, not even asking Eivass to return the item first.
But Eivass noticed another detail.
“…Amber Egg??”
“Yes, the egg of the Pillar God Amber. You understand its value, right.”
Adler nodded, quite proud of his collection. “Of course, it’s just a stillborn—a Cardinal wanted to buy it from me decades ago, offering an exorbitant price, but I didn’t sell it to her.”
Cardinal…
Eivass remembered that there were only three Cardinals in the Heritage Restoration Society—Matilda, Galatea, and Aquinas. The one referred to as “her” must be either Matilda or Galatea. Judging by the timeline, it was likely Matilda.
“She… just left like that?”
Eivass felt it was somewhat unreal.
That was something related to a Pillar God. Shouldn’t the Church try to obtain it at all costs?
He couldn’t help but look back at the small clay pot, suddenly feeling an indescribable attraction emanating from it. But another, immense, baseless fear prevented him from looking at the contents of the pot… or even approaching it.
“They couldn’t contain this stillborn Pillar God anyway. It’s an Ancient Race cursed by Twilight, and they still dare to make such a request—truly audacious,”
Adler mocked, speaking slowly and deliberately. “That Cardinal merely wanted to use it to prove that Amber is not a god on the verge of birth… Hmph, what’s the point of that?
“—We, the people of the Ring, have long known that Amber was never an embryonic god within an egg.”
