Chapter 602: 80. The Child
“Boom!”
In the Southern Branch Mountain of the Southern Continent, the sky was covered by dark clouds of vapor so thick that sunlight couldn’t penetrate, struggling sadly within, further intensifying the oppressive atmosphere where the two armies stood in confrontation.
The air was filled with the bitter saltiness of moisture from the ocean and the impending rain, settling heavily in the chests of every soldier. Both sides stared blankly up at the sky, watching the thunder brewing within.
A fierce wind blew in from the south, swiftly sweeping over the treetops above the mountains and the tents of the Human Allied Forces below.
Inside the main tent of the allied forces, Barbatos stood at the entrance, and the wild gusts of wind somehow dissipated strangely around him, transforming into a gentle breeze that lightly stirred his hair.
He extended his hand and suddenly said, “It’s time to do something. So many humans have been on hold since departing here for months. The dragonfolk in the south have ambushed our supply lines at the rear; this news has stirred up anxiety among the humans. As food supplies diminish, this anxiety will only worsen. If this continues, it may ruin our plans.”
Despite this significant oversight in the standoff between the two armies, there was not a hint of concern on Barbatos’ face. For a mythical being like him, such a level of war was merely child’s play.
If it weren’t for their need for the blessings of Dalasgon from that dragon queen, he and Ag alone could storm the Dragon Court and wipe them out.
However, they still needed the identity that Baemon had arranged for them, so Barbatos said this to remind his companions inside the tent.
In the warm tent, Ag sat cross-legged on the ground, surrounded by stones inscribed with demonic runes. Upon hearing Barbatos’ words, Ag continued stacking the stones without interruption, but when she placed the last stone on top, she stared at it with a somewhat pale expression.
“It’s failed.”
“What has failed?”
Barbatos lowered the tent flap he had slightly lifted and hurried back inside, his earlier question dissipating as soon as he saw what Ag had constructed, for they both knew what it was.
This was Ag’s teleportation portal back to the Demon Dynasty.
“What happened?”
“Earlier, the gift I gave to Solomon suddenly appeared in Eil’s castle, giving me a bad feeling. Moreover, she seems to have an unclear relationship with that dragon queen’s man. Now that the portal has failed, how is this possible? That man bears Baemon’s mark; if he is connected to Eil, given her nature, could she really tolerate it?”
Ag’s face darkened. After a moment of thought, she quickly turned to Barbatos and said, “Try your teleportation portal and see if it still works.”
Barbatos silently summoned the longbow from the table, and it flew into his hands uncontrollably. With a flick of his will, the previously dim runes on the bow began to brighten one by one, as if about to open a mysterious door in the void before him.
“Boom!”
In the next moment, a flash of lightning erupted in the sky outside the tent, followed by the delayed roar of thunder. At that instant, the runes in Barbatos’ hand lost their brilliance.
“… Our teleportation portals within the dynasty have been destroyed.”
Ag scoffed and said, “What does this mean? Did Fisher realize we were no match for him, so he sought help from Eil? She has still not been released. Even if she was given the strength of a soul to escape, she is still far from being mythical. What help can she provide him?”
“… Or, he discovered our plot and knew that reading those supplement handbooks might have adverse consequences, so he used this method instead?”
Ag cast a glance at Barbatos, her mind racing. Then she paused for a moment and said, “No, that doesn’t make sense. Fisher wouldn’t be so foolish, unless there’s something in the Demon Dynasty that he is certain can deal with us. Regardless, I have a bad feeling; we need to go back and check. But now our teleportation portals are destroyed. Are we supposed to return through the Ten Gates?”
Barbatos stood up expressionlessly and looked outside, suddenly saying, “If that’s the case, let’s accelerate our pace. Since this group of humans is dissatisfied, let’s give them something to do. We will have the entire army prepare to set out and give that dragon queen a severe lesson. As for us, forget the Ten Gates; passing through there is quite troublesome. Fisher destroying the portals might just be to buy time; going that way would play right into his hands.”
Ag looked at him and instinctively bit her own finger. The sound of her teeth embedding into flesh made a crisp noise between her lips.
“How do we get in if we don’t use the Ten Gates? Are we supposed to look for other teleportation portals scattered across the surface? That would take forever!”
Barbatos walked to the entrance but didn’t respond immediately. Instead, he summoned a messenger over, then turned to Ag and said, “Have you forgotten? I have a partner. They might not have anticipated that I know the location of the Cidi teleportation portal. Even if they have guessed, Cidi has more than one portal, and they can’t possibly destroy them all.”
“…”
Ag stared blankly at Barbatos’ expressionless face, which revealed a hint of pride and happiness, as if having a partner was such a wonderful thing. It made her want to hit him.
What’s so great about it? Stop pretending.
She sighed, then stood up and looked out at the camp that was beginning to stir with Barbatos’ orders.
She had a feeling that the moment Baemon spoke of was approaching fast.
Ag might not be clear on how wonderful it is to have a partner or whether she wanted to be, but Fisher undoubtedly had grasped the joy of having a partner. Even at that moment, his consciousness was enveloped by Eil’s demands, feeling as if he were continuously descending into emptiness.
“Tick-tock.”
In the dreamlike, distant space, Fisher lay on the ground, listening to the thick dripping sound of some viscous liquid falling from all directions, distinctly different from the sound of water hitting the ground.
He sat up in a daze, wanting to search in the darkness for Eil or other companions, but as he rose, he found the scenery around him had suddenly transformed, filled with tall buildings styled heavily in line with Southern Continent designs.
Various wooden structures were adorned with dragon-like curves, bestowing a grand beauty that embraced every living being in this place.
Instinctively, Fisher recognized this place as the Feimabaha Dragon Court.
However, the once prosperous and magnificent city was now empty. The air was filled with silence, and only the lifeless, skeletal structures remained, devoid of life inside.
Wasn’t he supposed to be with Eil and the others in the Demon Dynasty? How did he suddenly end up here?
Fisher thought to himself, but the next second, he suddenly spotted a familiar silhouette sitting on a public bench at the roadside.
The silhouette had sparse golden hair that clearly reflected the light on his scalp. Dressed in a classic dragon court robe, he sat quietly on that public bench, silently gazing at the desolate and empty dragon court before him.
“Jahl Uzz?”
Fisher murmured, slowly walking toward him. Upon hearing Fisher’s voice, Jahl Uzz slightly shivered as if awakened, turning to look at Fisher. After a long silence, a hint of relief appeared on his face.
“You’ve come.”
“… Why am I here?”
“Because you have finished reading the supplement handbook I wrote, and you are not insane yet, which is a skill not everyone possesses.”
Jahl Uzz’s face still resembled that of the middle-aged appearance when he first arrived in this world, but it bore too much fatigue, to the extent that he could barely keep his eyes open. After explaining that to Fisher, he turned his gaze back to the dead silence of the dragon court, as if his soul were trapped here, never to be freed.
This made Fisher quickly realize that the existence before him was not the same as the Jahl Uzz illusion he had seen when reading the myth part of the soul supplement handbook. He fell into silence for a moment, then asked curiously,
“Did I really finish it? I remember I was just looking at it but thinking about other things, and I don’t remember what you wrote at the end.”
“You just don’t remember, but that knowledge has indeed been absorbed into your body. To be honest, the last part, whether read or not, doesn’t really matter; it’s just my confession.”
“Confession? Confession about what?”
Fisher, puzzled, sat down beside him and gazed at the empty dragon court before them.
Jahl Uzz remained silent for a long time before continuing, “Yes, confession about what… I think it’s about my wife and daughter. I owe them, and I have been deceiving myself like a fool for so long.”
“Your wife and daughter, I remember.”
“In reality, my wife and daughter have long passed away. I didn’t realize this until much later while tracing my soul. My wife did not cheat on me, and my daughter truly loved me. It was my fault; I neglected them, prioritizing other things over them, until my wife could no longer endure it, and my daughter became disappointed in me. Even though I opposed my wife’s divorce, one night she left with my daughter. The tragedy unfolded that night.”
Jahl Uzz cradled his face, calmly narrating everything, as if it were another person’s story, completely unrelated to him.
Fisher couldn’t help but think of the many memories of his past lives he had read, wondering if this was the consequence of his actions, making him not only “Jahl Uzz” but also a “composite” existence, rendering what should have mattered to Jahl Uzz inconsequential.
“Then why did you think they were alive back then?”
“Because of Tang Zeming Asuka, the president of the Creation Society.”
Fisher was momentarily taken aback but then heard him continue, “At that time, I realized how important they were to me only after losing them. I was close to madness. I entered this world in that state and fell into despair for a long time. She had been watching me in the shadows since I came here, worrying that my state could lead to unprecedented harm. So she used magic to alter my memory, making me deceive myself for so long. Ha, she excels at this, not only deceiving others but also deceiving herself.
“And the time I spent in this world was far longer than I imagined. She reset my memory many times, and only then did I stabilize and was thrown into the Southern Continent’s Dragon Court, becoming a ‘brand new’ Trans. Unfortunately, she doesn’t know where she ended up afterward, so she could no longer manage me and other Trans, which ultimately led me to discover the truth.”
Fisher was startled, not expecting Tang Zeming Asuka to use such means to curb the dangers of the Trans. It indeed sounded rather unbelievable.
Whenever she发现其他转移之人的内心有危险倾向的时候，她难道都会像是这样对付迦勒·乌兹那样将他们的记忆洗刷干净然后重新扔到什么地方，伪装他们是刚刚穿越过来的状态吗？
只可惜，既然后来迦勒·乌兹的状态恶化而唐泽明日香却没有再管，便说明那时的唐泽已经如命运卿所说的那样进入了灵界并且最终失踪，这说明他也必然不知道唐泽的具体下落了。
Thinking of this, Fisher changed the subject. He glanced around the empty dragon court and asked, “Then why are you here? This should be the Dragon Court of the Feimabaha period, right?”
Jahl Uzz nodded stiffly but did not directly answer. Instead, he asked Fisher another question, “Fisher, tell me, why do those ‘stars’ living in the Spirit Realm continuously observe everything in this world day and night? They possess such immense power yet show no desire to intervene in this world. Even that war of the stars invading reality was merely to migrate due to the threat to their own safety.”
Fisher paused, then recalled the “Pisces” he had seen through star magic. On his journey, he had heard countless stories of the stars in the Spirit Realm watching this world for ages but never considered why they did so.
He pondered for a moment and then responded, “They are ‘recording,’ right?”
“Exactly, they are recording. They are keen on documenting the stories and epics they witness; it’s their nature and their favorite thing to do. You should know where they originated, right? They come from the Sea of Souls in the Spirit Realm, a part of the ‘Ocean,’ and the only visible place in the ‘invisible Sea of Souls.'”
Earlier, Jahl Uzz had mentioned that, besides the souls visible in Fisher’s world, the souls beyond the world were actually invisible, such that even the gods had never realized souls had masters.
“So you mean that the chaotic habits and practices of those Chaos Races actually stem from the true master of the Sea of Souls, that existence outside the world of chaos, which is what you refer to as the ‘Ocean,’ right?”
“… You’re quite clever; that’s exactly my point.”
Jahl Uzz turned his gaze toward him, as if Fisher’s understanding exceeded his expectations, causing even his already numb face to show a slight shift. He continued, “The reason the gods cannot discover the Ocean is not only due to their higher levels but also because they rarely intervene, preferring to document instead. As a product of it, the soul inherits its nature for recording. Therefore, we can trace the origins of the soul and see the memories it recorded, which are our past lives, and the chaos of souls also possesses such a nature. So the ‘me’ you see now is also ‘recorded’ by the supplement handbook’s chaos.”
Fisher stroked his chin, thinking of his entirely blank “past lives.”
“But I see my past lives as completely blank.”
“… There are only two possibilities: either you’re a ‘newly created’ soul or your ‘record’ has been erased by some unknown existence.”
Fisher considered, finding both possibilities quite severe, adding to his sense of unease.
“Unraveling the mysteries of your own being is beneficial; it’s best to recall those wonderful past experiences, the people you love, and those that love you. If there are good things to do, do more of them, because as you can see me, it means the chaos I left in the supplement handbook is approaching its complete integration into your body. At that moment, you will merge with it and confront the source of soul chaos. You will become its base, bear its strength, and become the destroyer of worlds.”
Fisher’s expression momentarily froze as he looked at Jahl Uzz’s emotionless gaze fixed on the hollow city, stating in a tone devoid of emotion, “You are already close to this path, this is the road we Trans have traversed countless times. Regrettably, every individual who reaches this point understands it’s a dead end, yet no one has the chance to warn the successors not to follow in our footsteps. Only a multitude of corpses remains, birthing disaster time and again.”
“At that time, having read about my past lives, I had already grown indifferent to feelings for my wife and daughter. Naturally, there was no necessity to continue forward. But chaos pushed me onward; it was then I realized I was completely powerless in this. All of us Trans are merely pawns of chaos, designed to erode this world from within, disposable. And the moves of the pawns have never been determined by themselves.”
Fisher frowned deeply, gazing at Jahl Uzz, resembling a sculpture, unable to hold back his question, “Why does the chaos from the outside target our world? And why is our world doomed to destruction? Don’t the gods of our world also know nothing or lack the power to intervene?”
“All secrets lie in the Spirit Realm; go there, and you will know the answers. At the moment when your reason and everything are overtaken by chaos, you will temporarily see the entirety of the Spirit Realm, just before death.”
Fisher steadied his legs, feeling a sense of melancholy from Jahl Uzz’s warning.
Of course, perhaps his heart held a glimmer of hope, such as what Ch said earlier about his peculiar circumstances. But Fisher’s personality was inherently not one to pin everything on that uncertain chance.
Moreover, experience told him that reading the supplement handbook was not completely without side effects; that near-madness side effect rendered him neither human nor ghost, something he had been desperately trying to maintain.
Just as Renee had worried, what would he do if he indeed turned into a ‘sphere’?
The key issue was that this sphere was also a ‘menace’ that could explode!
However, thinking of Raphael and the others, Fisher’s inner hesitance gradually dissipated.
If he didn’t engage in reading the supplement handbook, the risks would not fall to him. What would happen to Raphael, Jasmine, and others who seemed to be related to the Apocalypse Prophecy?
“… But I must give it a try, try to see if I can overcome them, Jahl Uzz. The goal you fought for is illusory, but mine is not. They are still by my side. I have taken the most precious things from them, and now it’s time to repay.”
“… To have something to strive for is indeed fortunate. In retrospect, when I still mistakenly thought my wife and daughter were alive, my motivation was indeed the strongest. After the lie was uncovered, my situation took a sharp downturn, leading to an almost inevitable death. Looking at it this way, you and I share similarities, except that you have too many women involved, but only one child.”
Jahl Uzz looked at Fisher, shook his head and said, “I just want to inform you that the chaos of the soul is approaching. It has begun to erase the previous ‘records,’ which is why you can see me now. Thus, I can share my failures and experiences with you.”
But Fisher remained stunned, pausing for several seconds before culminating in an almost overloaded response, “Wait, what… what children?”
Yet Jahl Uzz had already lost the interest to answer Fisher’s question because in the next second, his body, along with everything Fisher saw around him, the buildings and the bench they were sitting on, all began to “melt,” transforming into horrific black mud that seemed to emanate an invisible gravitational pull.
On the path of battling soul chaos, even Jahl Uzz was powerless, and in terms of dealing with children, he was even more at a loss for words, so he did not reply to Fisher anymore, only giving him a final warning, “From now on, the ‘Ocean’ will be watching your every move. If you wish to do something to resist it, remember to be discreet and cautious.”
After uttering this phrase, Fisher’s world momentarily brightened; the black mud abruptly vanished, and it felt as if he had fallen from a great height and landed on a chair.
His clothes were disheveled, and before him, Eil was sprawled on him, panting softly like a cat, producing a bubbling sound reminiscent of lava, seemingly very comfortable.
Fisher opened his mouth, wanting to say something but was misunderstood by Eil as she turned sideways, sweeping her tail to kiss him.
“Pop.”
Then, she gracefully leaped off Fisher as if she had feasted, standing aside to tidy up her clothes and those scattered on the floor.
“Feeling good, huh? Just in time. Not bad, not bad.”
“…”
“What’s wrong? What are you thinking?”
Fisher’s heart began to race as he sensed an unprecedented feeling of merging with the chair. He looked down and saw the part of him in contact with the chair had turned soft and pitch black, like black mud sticking to it.
Suddenly, he felt a wave of heart palpitations, as if the ringing in his ears grew louder and the whispers sharper, even the things before his eyes becoming more blurry.
But seeing Eil’s gaze turning toward him, seemingly questioning why he had suddenly fallen silent, Fisher finally breathed a sigh of relief and forced a smile, “… It’s nothing, just too… comfortable.”
Eil froze slightly, then smirked, apparently taking this comment as praise, even her tail perked up.
“Ha!”
“Teacher Fisher, teacher Fisher, I found the base!”
At that moment, hurried footsteps quickly sounded from downstairs, causing both to change their expressions slightly and turn toward the direction of the stairs.
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(The End of this Chapter)
