Chapter 611 89. No
Extreme pain made Fisher subconsciously want to escape, to a place where pain could not catch up, to an absolutely safe place.
Thus, his consciousness instinctively fled in an unknown direction, until everything around him was left behind, turning every experience into a dreamlike state, immersed in confusion with no clear direction.
In such a flight, it seemed as if he had never obtained the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans, and he had never actually left Saint Nali.
Then, if that was the case, just before Godlin the Ninth was about to pass away, he should not have been able to contain the youth he had neglected years ago and proactively wrote a letter to Elizabeth Godlin. Like the previous undelivered letter, they met again and resolved all past grievances.
Thus, Dexter logically ascended to the throne as emperor, and he fulfilled Elizabeth’s promise of handing over military power, allowing Fisher and Elizabeth to find a propitious day to get married.
If that were the case, they might be living very happily now.
Of course, there were still troubles; as long as there was life, troubles were bound to exist.
Fisher Benavides was busy every day with his thesis and the various affairs at the Royal Academy, because after Dexter ascended to the throne, this stronghold of the Griffin Party was handed over to him, the first prince of the empire, to handle.
Elizabeth Godlin also had conflicts with her elder brother over many political disagreements. She looked down on her brother’s hesitation and foolishness on many issues, while her brother thought it was time for her to have a child with Fisher instead of interfering with his actions every day. As a result, they had argued many times, and this anger was often brought home by Elizabeth, needing Fisher to comfort her.
Time should be spent like this, with ordinary days passing day by day. Elizabeth still loved Fisher just as much as she did at eighteen, and in Fisher’s heart, she had always been the only one. Yet for some reason, Fisher always felt that something was missing inside him.
Perhaps it was when he asked Elizabeth why her eyes always seemed so vacant, only to be greeted with her smiling evasion. Or perhaps it was when he returned to Lady Martha’s house on the second floor, he felt that there should be a faint fragrance here, but he searched all the perfume shops in Saint Nali and couldn’t find the same scent. Or maybe it was that newly established Saint Nali University, he felt it was familiar, yet when he went there, he only encountered Milica reporting that her roommate had suddenly gone missing.
This feeling made Fisher more and more insecure. Instinctively, he wanted to seek a safe place, so he followed his instincts and ran back to the place where he grew up, that church school, wanting to pray to Teresa.
It was still the same as before, only without Teresa, everything became eerily quiet. The originally little noticed side entrance, even when Fisher came, had only the aged and hunched priest cleaning.
That priest seemed to overlook him, and Fisher said nothing, just sitting beneath the Mother God Statue, quietly watching the priest turn on the radio while cleaning the church.
On the radio, news from around the world was being broadcast.
Something mysterious appeared in Feilon City on the Southern Continent, frightening the city lords within a hundred miles into hurriedly returning to the Western Continent; the original pioneer Blake mysteriously went missing, with no news of his whereabouts; there appeared some mysterious giant creatures offshore; the Turan family on Sema Snow Mountain in the Northern Region suddenly perished overnight.
But Fisher paid no attention to it. Perhaps he felt it was familiar, but he thought it had nothing to do with him, like the bizarre reports in gossip newspapers from abroad, even less interesting than the latest explosive magic that Shivali had developed.
He didn’t want to think about anything now, just wanting to hide here, because only here made him feel safe, just like when he hid in Teresa’s embrace when he was a child, carefree.
Until he didn’t know when, that old priest finally stopped his work, turned off the radio, and handed a saint’s cigarette to the lowering-headed Fisher.
Fisher was slightly taken aback, looked up at the cigarette handed over by the old priest, hesitated for a moment, and then reached out to take it, saying “Thank you.”
“Hmm.”
The sound of the match striking quietly echoed, igniting both Fisher’s and the old priest’s cigarettes, burying their thoughts in a cloud of smoke.
With the aroma of tobacco, Fisher’s consciousness seemed to gradually awaken. The pain that spread deep into his soul and the fear of watching his body slowly turn into mud still haunted him.
He had experienced this suffering countless times before; the battles against Feilon on the Southern Continent were still bearable. When he faced Blake, his vitality was drained like a candle flickering in the wind. During his deadly battle with Erwind, he was again chased by death, his life hanging by a thread.
He never flinched back then, but now, when that chaos fully erupted within him, causing him to long for immediate death, he truly felt fear.
He was a living person, and since he was a living person, it was inevitable that he had concerns in his heart. He also fears and wanted to hide his consciousness here because he didn’t want to experience that pain again.
Even for a moment, he wondered if it would be better to have never obtained the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans and to be with Elizabeth like just now.
He had not smoked in a long while, staring at the flame burning at the tip of the cigarette, unable to help but ask,
“I wonder, if I had never left Saint Nali, would I have not suffered so much?”
The priest coughed lightly, not looking at him, just saying,
“Actually, you don’t have to take them that seriously. Even if you have physical relations with them, it’s not impossible to leave them.”
Fisher smiled bitterly and replied,
“Isn’t that too heartless?”
“When you were with one woman and then opened a new relationship with another, didn’t you consider that word?”
Fisher took a puff of smoke, pondered for a moment, and said firmly,
“…It’s all the fault of the Supplement Handbook for Sub-Humans.”
“You brat.”
The priest chuckled but said no more, only adding,
“Do you know? Actually, I’m quite similar to you, or rather, I should feel like we are very similar. However, at that time I chose to leave them behind, because you should know, once a person can see the memories of their past lives, you instantly become ‘that person’ in every lifetime. Therefore, when I discovered that in each of my lifetimes there is a predetermined fate, the suffering of countless lives began to accumulate, threatening to crush me and make me feel hopeless.”
He shifted the topic slightly, tilting his head slightly to look at Fisher, revealing his sparse, nearly bald golden hair and blue eyes beneath his black robe.
“However, conversely, if that person in each lifetime is you, then you are not him in every lifetime. So, in the end, I came to see it through. The wives and daughters I lost in this lifetime, my sister and brother who died in my last life, my partner who died in the farthest past, and those who perished in even further lives, they have nothing to do with me. I have to cast them all away, abandon them.”
Countless strange and seemingly exclusive words from some civilizations beyond the world poured out of this “priest’s” mouth, and Fisher pondered for a moment before he couldn’t help but ask with a smile,
“So, what happened to you in the end, Jahl Uzz?”
Jahl Uzz chuckled, took a hard drag of his cigarette, and spread his hands, saying,
“I went crazy.”
“Went crazy?”
“Yeah, turned into that puddle of black mud, messed around with the Dragon Court, and then completely passed away, but you should know, at that time I had no choice. Whether to abandon or not, I had already reached the end. Time cannot be reversed, and the regrets of this life can no longer be compensated, not to mention the regrets of prior and hundreds of lives.”
Everything around began to grow transparent, as if outside this church, there was the black mud that filled Fisher with an intense shiver and fear, and this reminded him that he had not yet escaped from the suffering here.
At this moment, the church all around began to appear precarious, the statue of the Mother God collapsed in response, and a passage leading underground opened from the ground, from which came an indescribable song, like a lullaby a mother sings to soothe her child.
Fisher’s body trembled slightly. Having been tortured by the black mud, he instinctively wanted to rise and escape to the depths of the church.
But the next moment, through the gradually transparent outer church, he watched helplessly as a figure wrapped in red also fell into this black mud, entangled tighter by it, seeking to devour everything on her body.
“Raphael.”
Fisher’s action to escape momentarily stalled, using that frightening black mud that seemed to want to penetrate his soul, he quickly saw Raphael’s brilliant soul, shining like the sun, and sensed a strange connection with the Spirit Realm.
In Fisher’s vision, he saw the brilliant light at Raphael’s abdomen, indicating to Fisher that a life was forming there.
Fisher gaped in disbelief at Raphael, who was sinking deeper into the black mud. At this moment, he finally realized where that child mentioned in the Handbook had come from.
“Isn’t it beautiful? The form of a soul in the Sea of Souls when it locks onto its mother. It’s just a pity that when my wife was having my daughter, I was busy working and did not have the ability of the Soul Supplement Handbook to see whether she had such fluctuations in her body at that time.”
“…”
Fisher turned to look at Jahl Uzz, who was watching with such painful envy at Raphael sinking into the black mud. Perhaps his current life, his all past lives, his soul that had undergone such a long journey were all waiting to return to this moment, to the moment before losing everything.
Perhaps Jahl Uzz was right; the time he and all his previous lives had could no longer be retrieved.
It’s just a pity that Fisher had no previous lives, and he was not Jahl Uzz.
He still had a chance to recover, and now, he had to go back.
Within the Dynasty, Hela watched as the black mud dragged the fearless Raphael into its depths. She reached out with her hand, and countless black mud surged up, wrapping around the flames blazing on her body, but at the same time, the black mud was also eroding her soul relentlessly.
“Ugh…”
But at that moment, behind Hela, Fisher, who had completely lost consciousness due to the torment of the black mud, unexpectedly began to tremble again.
She was slightly taken aback, looking down at Fisher, who was constantly howling and trying to stand up with his completely viscous body. She quickly reached out to support him, wanting to restrain him and send his consciousness back deep within,
“Fisher, stop moving, it will be okay soon, you…”
But the next moment, Fisher gritted his teeth with one hand pressing down on Hela’s hand. In her somewhat incredulous gaze, he suddenly pushed her away from his side, throwing her into the mass of mud he had become.
“Thud!”
“Ahhh!”
Hela’s eyes widened, watching as he made such a simple motion, unleashing a tragic wail. Bowing his head, he had completely lost his human appearance, and even if he tried to scream, it was the voice of the entire black ocean that echoed.
They were simply expressing their pain, continually howling, trying to alleviate this ultimate suffering with the habits they had as humans.
But this was ultimately a pain from the soul; no matter how Fisher howled, it would not change anything. Therefore, he had no choice but to howl while using the last vestige of consciousness to take steps toward Raphael.
“R…Raphael…”
He was completely unaware of his current state, because whether from a human’s perspective or that of a soul, he, having turned into a puddle of black mud, due to pain and his bizarre appearance, could not distinguish anything anymore. He simply moved toward the burning place, the only part of him still resembling a human, trying to rescue Raphael, who was sinking into the black mud.
Hela sat in the increasingly turbulent black mud due to his movements, gritting her teeth as she watched him step by step approach the place blessed by Fei.
“Fisher!”
But Fisher was already oblivious to everything else, even each time he took a step, he would fall due to the pain, his whole body sliding backward, melting back into the black mud.
Yet a few seconds later, like a child who had come up for air after drowning, he howled as he sprang out of the black mud in a form resembling a “human,” struggling toward that side.
He carefully controlled the black mud that was devouring Raphael not to consume her soul anymore, and soon he finally arrived at that place. He couldn’t wait to reach a “hand” to pull her out, but he forgot that at this moment, he was the very sea of black mud. Thus, every time he reached a “hand” into it to rescue her, his “hand” would dissolve within, unable to penetrate, even pushing Raphael further into the depths.
He howled and tried again, but behind him, the cold-faced Hela had already appeared at his back. She suddenly stretched out her hand and grabbed the Fisher who had finally reached Raphael.
Perhaps she understood that at this moment, Fisher could not even recognize himself or anyone else, but he was just responding to Raphael’s breath and was willing to wake up his consciousness in such a reckless manner, once again plunging into this suffering.
But the next moment, just as she tightly grasped Fisher, she quickly felt around her that the black mud started to writhe, along with the part she held, suddenly converging toward the center.
Yes, the tormented Fisher finally realized that this spreading black mud was a part of him, and now he was trying to pull all the black mud back into his body.
Hela was just about to raise her hand to stop him when from the black mud, apart from Fisher’s painful howls, she heard another voice,
“You cannot die, Raphael.”
Suddenly, she remembered that ten thousand years ago, when she deliberately lay in that black mud to help him dispel death. Perhaps she hadn’t anticipated that he would so recklessly jump down to save her. At that time, through the same Sea of Chaos when she contacted him, crossing his desperate cries, Hela had heard, from his pure and untainted soul, the same words,
“You cannot die, Hela.”
The scattered pupils of Hela abruptly shattered into terrifying stars, as if they were about to consume this world.
But on the surface, after a long time, the hand she had raised suddenly fell again, just standing quietly in this black ocean, watching it gradually close in on Fisher with pain.
A little later, another update is still being polished, no need to wait; it will be released before tomorrow morning.
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(End of this chapter)
