Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 92: Celestial Canopy
Hm?!
Salaar wanted to tell him something serious that had nothing to do with the contract? That Salaar?
Myss wanted to press his ear right up against Salaar’s face. Halfway closer, however, he hesitated. Without the restriction of the contract, what if Salaar lied to him?
Seeing the Myss doll’s head swaying back and forth, Salaar shook his head helplessly. He moved his tiny body with all his might, squeezing the very last bit of strength out of the doll body.
Around them, artifacts and text related to Divine Blood that were drifting in the air began to blur. In this Sea of Concepts, the light rearranged itself and turned into a definite image.
Myss was familiar with this feeling. This was exactly the perspective he had when flipping through memories. Only this time, Salaar was using this special Divine Realm to project his own memories.
Without question, this was far more real than a verbal explanation.
Normally, Salaar would never open his memories to Myss. Having caught such rare information, Myss was instantly drawn in. He wished he could stretch his semicircular button eyes perfectly round so he could see every detail clearly.
In the memory, Salaar was still a boy.
Myss wasn’t good at judging human ages. He only knew that Salaar was a little older than the children who took part in the Summoning Ritual… Probably eleven? Twelve? He couldn’t tell.
All he could see were a pair of chubby childlike hands, nothing like the long and powerful hands in his impression. In short, that little lump of flesh was holding a quill pen, scribbling away on a piece of parchment… writing some equations that made Myss want to fall asleep just by looking at them.
Farther away, there stood a huge, smoothly polished gray-black slate. On it, white stone had been used to draw dizzying cross-section diagrams, and countless pieces of parchment full of text and pictures were stuck to it.
In front of the slate stood a middle-aged woman. She had the exact same lapis-lazuli eyes as Salaar, but her hair was black. That black hair was streaked with countless white strands, making her look somewhat older than her actual age.
She placed a square tin box onto the table. With a click, the tin box opened like a flower, revealing the contents supported on a shockproof rack: a round-bottom flask filled with pitch-black liquid.
The pitch-black liquid inside the flask was somewhere between liquid and smoke, almost identical to the Divine Blood Myss had seen.
“Serpentia improved the extraction method. We have obtained the highest concentration of ‘Magic Source’ so far.”
The woman spoke slowly. “Josephine and Renn discovered that its magic quality is higher than any substance currently known.”
…So in Salaar’s impression, “Divine Blood” had always been called “Magic Source.”
Myss had already felt that the name “Divine Blood” was rather strange. Leaving aside how absurd it was to abbreviate “Chaos Archdemon” to simply “God,” the name “Divine Blood” made it sound as if he had made some sort of offering to humans.
“Yes, Madam.” Little Salaar’s voice was clear, without the slightest hint of childishness.
“We can now confirm that for more than ten thousand years, the ‘Magic Source’ brought by the Night Scourge has remained in the world. This high-concentration power promoted the birth of civilization to a certain extent, and also enabled us to use magic.”
The woman looked at Salaar as she spoke.
“However, it’s completely unsuited to sustaining civilization. Our world is very much like tadpoles in a puddle after a storm. Once the sun dries the puddle, the human world will reach its end.”
“I agree, Madam,” little Salaar echoed seriously.
The woman nodded. “If we can transform it into an energy source humans can use, perhaps there will be another solution to the Night Scourge. Next, Serpentia will try to render it harmless.”
Little Salaar’s reaction was frighteningly quick. “You mean extracting the Magic Source directly from the Night Scourge, and developing civilization underground?”
“That is Serpentia’s idea. Many people are researching in that direction. This success has given them hope… What do you think, Salaar?”
The woman’s tone was almost earnest. “You should have looked at its written data just now. What are your thoughts?”
The quill pen in front of little Salaar moved slightly, as if he were nibbling the tip.
“I believe we should look at this matter from a ‘higher’ angle.”
Salaar thought for a full five minutes before speaking again.
“The Night Scourge appears more and more frequently and lasts longer and longer. Yet according to the data, collecting ‘Magic Source’ has become increasingly difficult. Turning underground may not be a wise choice.”
“Related research can continue, but the long-standing plan cannot stop either. The underground plan shouldn’t receive too many resources… One-sixth of Serpentia’s resources, no more.”
The long-standing plan?
Myss couldn’t help narrowing his eyes. He suspected this so-called plan referred to taking an army and running right under the nose of the “source of the Night Scourge,” which was to say, him, to cause him trouble.
The woman stared fixedly at little Salaar. For that instant, her gaze was almost pitying.
But after a few heartbeats, that trace of compassion disappeared completely. She picked up the bottle of pitch-black “Magic Source” and gently placed it on Salaar’s desk.
“All right. Then give me some new guesses about this new data. Don’t consider too much. Pure guesses are enough,” she encouraged.
Her tone wasn’t like coaxing a child, but more like a conversation between equals.
Little Salaar stared at the bottle with a focus so familiar. He looked exactly like the hero Salaar in the seal, looking up at the impenetrable darkness.
“I thought of… endosperm and egg yolk.”
He rubbed the cold bottle body, the way a child might wipe his most beloved toy.
“If, and only if, the source of the Night Scourge possesses life, I think It should be very young, perhaps not even truly born yet.”
“A substance containing magic at such high concentration is like endosperm and egg yolk, ensuring that It can grow smoothly. As It matures, the Night Scourge becomes more active, while Magic Source is consumed, dwindling away.”
“And we… We’re only mold clinging to the surface of a seed, dust mites lodging on an eggshell. The moment It is born, the world will welcome the apocalypse in the truest sense.”
Little Salaar spoke in the tone of telling a story. His narration contained no hesitation, as if he had polished it in his heart countless times.
“…Of course, this is only my baseless guess,” he said at last.
“That truly sounds hopeless. You still like the hypothesis that ‘the source of the Night Scourge is a living thing’ that much.”
The woman forced a smile. “It seems that aside from research, everyone should take some time to pray that the source of the Night Scourge had better be a meteorite, or something else.”
Little Salaar didn’t respond to those words.
He merely put down that pen and repeatedly stroked the flask filled with Magic Source. Unfortunately, his body temperature was quickly absorbed by the cold liquid in the bottle, leaving no trace behind.
“If the source of the Night Scourge truly is a living thing, Serpentia’s ‘underground plan’ can add one extended research branch.”
He murmured softly, as if speaking to that little bottle. “It can nurture a godlike existence. Perhaps through it, we can also create a ‘God’ of our own.”
“If Magic Source can truly be rendered harmless, you can completely use it, like back then, to create—”
“Salaar, those are all hypotheses!” the woman suddenly raised her voice, interrupting him.
“Yes, Madam. I shouldn’t consider real-world plans based on vague and unfounded hypotheses.”
Little Salaar lowered his gaze, holding the round-bottom flask in both hands.
The woman reached out with both hands to take it. She didn’t respond to Salaar’s self-reflection.
She only gently took away the round-bottom flask. From beginning to end, her fingertips didn’t touch Salaar once, even though they were so close.
…The memory dispersed, and Myss returned once more to the faintly glowing Sea of Concepts.
“Do you have anything you want to ask?” the Salaar doll said softly.
“Oh, yes.” Myss tugged seriously at the coat. “Was that woman your mom?”
Salaar: “…”
Salaar: “First, no, she wasn’t. Second, don’t tell me you watched all that and only wanted to ask this.”
Even though Mr. Hero only had a soft cloth face, Myss still saw the complicated expression of “what you care about is truly peculiar” on his face.
Myss gave another serious “oh,” and it took him a long time to squeeze out his second sentence. “Magic Source… Divine Blood… anyway, that thing. You suspected it was my, uh, egg yolk?”
He had never thought of it from this angle. After all, “refined magic” and “delicious egg yolk” felt like they were worlds apart.
Perhaps the Divine Blood humans had excavated was too crude, or perhaps too much had been consumed over the past hundred years, but Myss didn’t feel that they were especially enticing. Since coming to the human world, the only thing that could attract him was… wait.
Myss immediately understood. “Mr. Tenney used Divine Blood to create a Divine Realm similar to one created by an Abnormal Fruit.”
“So you suspect someone inherited your research and perfected the Abnormal Fruit on the basis of Divine Blood.”
No wonder he liked the Abnormal Fruit so much. No wonder the Abnormal Fruit could make him stronger.
Those powers were originally his, but that bastard V.O.R had stolen them. Damn him!
…Speaking of which, V.O.R had used some method to refine Divine Blood into Abnormal Fruit, but hadn’t made it harmless.
He, or they, used Abnormal Fruit to create gods, but their selection standards were incredibly crude, and the results were all kinds of bizarre, aberrant gods.
Add to that the fact that the original research materials from Salaar and the others had been “erased.” Myss reasonably suspected that V.O.R was deeply involved in this matter. Of course, he had no direct evidence, at least for now.
So these things indeed had no direct connection to the body-swap incident, and Salaar had no obligation to tell him.
From Salaar’s perspective, it would be best if Myss knew nothing. After all, knowing that Abnormal Fruit was especially nourishing for Myss would only make Myss eat even more joyfully and recover even faster.
Myss eyed Salaar suspiciously. “Why show me all this?”
Salaar lowered his button eyes, his whole person looking dim and weary. “Do you want to hear the truth or the polite version?”
“…What kind of idiotic question is that? Who in their right mind would want to hear the polite version?”
“Then I’ll say the polite version.”
Salaar’s words were unusually soft. “I only wanted to tell you that whether it is the person who made Abnormal Fruit or the one who made the knowledge black hole, none of them are as extraordinary as you imagine.”
“We had already researched those conjectures before. They feared the materials we left behind, and that was why they buried them. Compared to the Night Scourge, they are nothing.”
Indeed. How could those people be worthy of comparison to him?
He would definitely dig them out, devour all the power they had stolen, and then… Well, then deal with Salaar.
With just a few sentences from his mortal enemy, Myss felt the pleasure of eating a huge mouthful of cream raspberries. That sweetness made his palms heat and the soles of his feet float.
…No, wrong. He couldn’t be intoxicated. Salaar had said this was the polite version.
“Tell me the truth,” Myss demanded loudly.
Salaar silently gazed at him.
The Sea of Concepts had no water, but the Salaar doll gave off a heavy, rain-soaked feeling. His coat was being worn by Myss, and he had only a white shirt on his upper body, making him look almost pitiful.
“I’m a little tired,” he murmured, his voice also becoming muffled.
“Awoo~” At the same time, Bedsheet Archdemon, who had been isolated outside the memory, called twice. Myss subconsciously turned his head to look.
The instant Myss’s gaze moved away, that damp quality around Salaar vanished on the spot.
His expression didn’t waver at all. His gaze toward Myss was as focused as ever, even carrying some indescribable heat. But as soon as Myss’s gaze came back, Mr. Hero swiftly drooped his shoulders and once again became weak and exhausted.
The Salaar doll continued in a low voice. “…I only wanted to tell you these things. If I were to find a successor, then with your personality that refuses to admit defeat, I think you would fairly tell—”
“I don’t play fair competition.”
Myss moved closer. “Unless you can find someone else capable of annoying me for three hundred years. Can you?”
Seeing this abnormal Salaar, the sweetness from just now instantly dispersed. Myss only felt that every part of his body was uncomfortable.
Salaar gave a complicated smile.
“I know you care about your companions. If things really… really don’t work, I can wait for you to recover.”
Myss spoke stiffly, his gaze sweeping Salaar up and down, as if Salaar were about to melt into the Sea of Concepts in the next second.
“If it’s the Salaar I know, he’ll definitely demand justice for his companions. Of course, stopping the Night Scourge still comes first. That much hasn’t changed.”
“You’re right,” Salaar said softly.
Myss had never imagined Salaar losing his fighting spirit, nor did he want to imagine it. Right now, he wished he could stuff several handfuls of cotton into the Salaar doll on the spot so this guy wouldn’t look so soft and powerless.
He thought hard, then harder, then reached out both hands toward Salaar’s face. His movements carried a rare trace of hesitation, almost enough to be called careful.
This time, he didn’t squeeze Salaar’s head out of shape. Instead, he held that soft cloth head and bumped it with his own face several times.
After bumping him, seeing that Salaar still looked soaked and drooping, he gnawed over that cotton face from top to bottom.
He had to use Salaar’s fear of “falling in love with him” to suppress Salaar’s current dejection.
…Only, for one second, he thought that even if it wasn’t fear, that would be fine. Even if it made Salaar happy, that would be fine too.
He only wanted the Salaar in front of him to return to the one he knew, full of life and always finding ways to provoke him.
“We’re going back once you’re ready.”
After gnawing Salaar’s face, Myss felt a little awkward. “These discoveries of yours, I permit you to tell the priest part of them… If you keep staring blankly here, I’ll change my mind.”
“All right, Myss.” Salaar looked a little more spirited.
And when Myss turned around to poke at Bedsheet Archdemon, Salaar also turned his head and looked toward the Divine Blood materials flying through the Sea of Concepts.
“Goodbye, everyone,” he said. “I’m still here. We haven’t failed yet.”
“…As long as even one person remains, the ‘Celestial Canopy’ won’t disappear.”
The author has something to say:
The great hero is starting to put real effort into baiting the cat. [heart] [cat paw]
The love used as bait is becoming more and more abundant: [heart] [heart] [heart] [heart] [heart]
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