Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/

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Chapter 91: The Vanished Prayer

Kalen kicked off from the lawn and shot toward that figure like a meteor.

In that brief instant, the masked person lowered his head toward everyone and gave a slight bow. The next second, he vanished in place, leaving only a rapidly dissipating hole behind.

Kalen reached for the unclosed rift, but space healed around his fingertips, leaving no trace at all.

The suspected leader of the Stargazers Society had left.

The Sea of Concepts remained as it had been before, unchanged by the departure of that speck of dust. The bottomless black hole hung amid the faint light, like a despairing pupil.

Kalen floated before that strange black hole. He remained in the place where the masked person had just been, and the vast darkness occupied most of his vision. That sense of emptiness made his heart panic.

…Was that remark a coincidence?

Or was Hermit connected to the Stargazers Society?

Kalen couldn’t move his gaze away from that darkness.

No, impossible. The Stargazers Society appeared more than twenty years ago. At that time, both Hermit and he had still been children.

Besides, before Hermit disappeared, Kalen had always stayed with him. Hermit simply had no opportunity to come into contact with the Stargazers Society.

Taking ten thousand steps back, even if that masked person really was connected to Hermit, Hermit could have openly told him the truth instead of pretending to believe in the Lord of Shadows.

They had been together for so long. His older brother understood him better than anyone else in the world.

But to say it was a coincidence, Kalen truly couldn’t convince himself. He only felt that he had stepped into an especially sticky web, and no matter how hard he struggled, he couldn’t see the exit.

His brother had once told him that when he encountered an unsolvable problem, he could go to the United Library to search for the notebook from the Order of Shadows. But so far, the notebook he was looking for only existed in fairy tales, as well as the Order of Shadows…

“Kalen!”

Tass’s shout arrived a step late.

The dolls and stick figures linked into a chain and caught up to Kalen while riding Bedsheet Archdemon.

“Why did you suddenly rush over? That guy is dangerous!” The Dragon Fae waved his short little hands sternly. “Or did you discover something? Tell us.”

Kalen silently stared at the black hole and didn’t speak for a while.

“He already ran. Staring won’t help.”

Myss said impatiently, “Didn’t you want to find that whatever-it-was notebook of the Order of Shadows? Since this is the United Library’s Sea of Concepts, that notebook should be in here somewhere.”

“Since we’re here, we might as well look at everything before leaving. In any case, Salaar and I are going to look at the Divine Blood records. Do as you like.”

The Stargazers Society had little to do with Salaar, and Myss wasn’t interested in it.

Compared to those things, he was more interested in the Divine Realm itself. Also, Salaar’s condition… didn’t look good. Myss didn’t know if it was his imagination, but he felt that the Salaar doll was a little deflated, not as round as when they had first come in.

“Oh right, there’s this good thing too. This place stores all the information in the United Library!” Tass’s eyes lit up.

Mag, a native of the United Library: “…”

This wasn’t appropriate. She knew that. But she also knew she stood no chance at stopping this motley group of people with their mysterious, unknown origins. In the end, she decided to pretend she didn’t understand what they were saying.

Kalen’s spirits improved a little. “How do we search?”

Salaar patted the head that Myss had squeezed out of shape and glanced at Brief, who had concept threads connected to him. “Since this is a sea of concepts, I think that as long as we provide knowledge, related things should automatically form associations.”

His tone was still fairly calm, only a little dry.

“No, that’s not enough.” Myss pointed it out without giving him any face. “We count as outside ‘knowledge’ too, but only Brief and Bedsheet Archdemon have fine threads appearing on them.”

After speaking, he pulled out one strand of cotton-thread hair and formed the word “Salaar.” Sure enough, the Sea of Concepts didn’t react at all.

“If I’m not wrong, we need to add a bit of the Divine Blood’s power. Otherwise, if we bring in a pile of things, we’ll be strangled to death by those broken threads.”

Salaar’s condition really is in bad shape, Myss thought. He understood Salaar. The usual Salaar would never miss such details and make Myss supplement them for him.

Salaar pondered for a few seconds. He worked hard to manipulate the power of Divine Blood and wrote the word “Divine Blood” in the air.

Sure enough, the instant the golden word was completed, a concept thread appeared, its end vanishing into the light.

Myss’s guess had been verified. This was clearly another piece of powerful evidence that “Myss was more of a genius than Salaar,” yet for some reason, Myss couldn’t feel happy.

He moved to Salaar’s side and once again squeezed the head Salaar had just patted round into a funnel.

Seeing that faint thread of association, stick figure Mag froze for a moment.

[Mr. Tenney, do you know “Furnace Leaf Grass”? I’m not quite sure which books mention it.]

[Ah, Miss Magnolia. You need The Diary of an Eccentric Ranger, Twelve Solutions to Wolfsbane, Bandy Bond’s Herbal Insights, and The Atlas of Rare Plants.]

[Thank you, Mr. Tenney! Without you, I don’t know how long I would have had to search.]

[Haha, being able to help young people like you is my honor. But my memory is getting worse and worse. You had better confirm it again…]

She still remembered Mr. Tenney’s somewhat dim expression. She had once thought that he was lamenting the merciless passage of time.

Perhaps, amid the vast sea of books, Mr. Tenney had touched this enormous black hole of information. But he had neither the time nor the status to verify such a hidden and terrifying fact.

So he used the most direct method to expose that knowledge black hole buried in the pages to everyone. There was no earth-shattering new theory; only a “display” so crude it was almost simple.

Now, as long as the United Library’s people diluted Divine Blood and used it to write words, they could find all knowledge related to a certain concept here. They could possess this extravagant Sea of Concepts for five whole years.

…Was the motivation behind all this really the madness of a non-believer, or perhaps, a mere delusion of the impending apocalypse?

…What exactly was the Stargazers Society, which had tacitly allowed all this, thinking?

Mag also moved to Salaar’s side. She stretched out a line-drawn finger and poked Salaar.

“If it is convenient, please add ‘Stargazers Society,’” she said.

“And the ‘Order of Shadows’,’” Father Kalen added urgently.

Salaar nodded and understandingly wrote the phrases “Stargazers Society” and “Order of Shadows.”

A thread of association almost immediately grew from “Stargazers Society,” while “Order of Shadows” hung lonely in the air, producing no connection with anything.

This time, not only Father Kalen, even Salaar frowned. The Order of Shadows had an official kingdom religious certificate. No matter what, religious books should have some record of it.

“Perhaps the Order of Shadows changed names and used an old name before,” Salaar said. “Did your older brother tell you anything else, something… something that wouldn’t easily change?”

“May His Veil shroud you, unseen and unharmed,” Father Kalen murmured.

The name of a religion might differ in spelling or naming, but prayers wouldn’t easily change. This was the prayer Hermit had taught him word by word. It had danced across his tongue countless times.

Salaar mustered his strength and shakily wrote down that long sentence.

Finally, a faint thread of association appeared in the middle of the sentence. It stretched out, rapidly lengthening, and then…

Its end vanished into that terrifying black hole.

For a time, everyone present fell silent.

The good news was that the “Order of Shadows,” whatever it had once been called, had indeed existed. It wasn’t Hermit’s deception or Kalen’s delusion.

The bad news was that together with the knowledge that had been deliberately erased, it had disappeared into that enormous black hole.

Kalen looked up at that darkness where the thread of association vanished, and his right hand gently pressed against his chest.

Not only did he not show a frightened expression, he looked as if he had breathed a sigh of relief.

His brother hadn’t deceived him. That notebook from the Night Scourge era very likely existed. But everything related to the Order of Shadows had been swallowed by an even denser shadow.

“So this is what you wanted to tell me,” Kalen murmured. “When I encountered an incomprehensible problem, I was to come here to seek an answer. You weren’t asking me to find a solution, but to choose.”

“Facing this path ahead hidden by shadow, to choose whether I still want to continue forward…”

“But we only know that the records were erased because this ‘Divine Realm’ appeared.”

Tass couldn’t help cutting in. “Even if we arrived a little late, or if you had come here before this Divine Realm appeared, you still would have known nothing.”

“No. My brother always knew the most precise ‘timing.’”

Father Kalen’s tone was exceptionally firm. “The Lord of Shadows gave me the power to foresee misfortune. Perhaps Hermit obtained an even stronger power.”

“No matter what is hidden beneath that shadow, I will continue forward. I won’t give up searching for Hermit, and I won’t give up searching for that missing notebook.”

“Haa, suit yourselves. In any case, all I want is V.O.R’s head,” Tass muttered softly.

Seeing that Father Kalen’s emotions were still fairly steady, Salaar turned his head and scratched Bedsheet Archdemon, who was chasing after the fluttering corner of his own sheet. “Excuse me, can you take us to the end of this thread?”

He pointed at the thread connected to “Divine Blood.”

Bedsheet Archdemon: “Awoo~”

“That’s his call when he’s in a good mood, so it should be no problem,” Brief translated.

Only then did Salaar turn to Mag. “We’ll go over there first. As for the materials on the ‘Stargazers Society’…”

“No rush. Since there’s an association, I can investigate it later.” Mag hurriedly waved her hands. “Go ahead. Please go.”

……

Myss soon reached the concept cluster related to “Divine Blood.”

Myss could tell that Salaar wasn’t in high spirits.

He merely skimmed through those reports and inventions related to Divine Blood, as if he was already intimately familiar with the subject. Myss rarely saw Salaar this lacking in vitality, and looking at him filled Myss with inexplicable irritation.

“Hey, Salaar.”

Myss swayed in front of Salaar and squeezed his face hard. “What attitude is this? What, are you preparing to give up everything and admit defeat to me?”

Salaar turned his head to look at him. The two lapis-lazuli eyes were dim and unreadable. “I’m only thinking about some things.”

“You’re not allowed to think with that expression.” Myss announced, “Looking like this, you’re no fun even as a cushion.”

Salaar couldn’t help sighing. “I was only thinking about those erased companions of mine, and the research that was interrupted…”

“Erased?”

Myss vigorously rubbed his head. “Algernon Fernando, Church, Kelly Whalen… I can recite every single name. How is that erased? When you carved their gravestones, I watched with my own two eyes.”

Salaar: “…”

“And what do you mean, ‘interrupted research’?”

Myss mimicked Salaar’s tone in a strange voice. “Aren’t you alive? Damn it, you never stopped researching me. Did you think I didn’t notice?”

Salaar: “…………”

“…Even without you, didn’t humans still dig out that black hole? I had just started thinking that the human world wasn’t so useless. I really don’t understand what you’re getting tangled up over.”

Myss snorted. “Or do you think the guy who made that black hole is stronger than me?”

Could this guy really think that? As he spoke, Myss grew a little angry.

The knowledge black hole was indeed rather worth seeing. But compared to that little matter, whether it was Salaar becoming deflated or Salaar turning toward a new opponent, both concerned him even more.

Myss anxiously glared at Salaar, preparing to squeeze that eyesore of a head even flatter.

Salaar stared fixedly at him for a long time.

“Myss.” He patted his own completely mangled face, as if having finally steeled his resolve.

“There are some things ‘unrelated to the contract’ that I want to tell you.”

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