Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 93: The True Entrance

The moment Salaar realized the research had been cut off across eras, he did indeed feel a flash of pain.

It felt as if his heart was shackled with a lead weight, dragging it towards a bottomless void. Yet, this pain only lasted a few heartbeats. Salaar was far too accustomed to despair. It couldn’t hold him captive for long.

The human world still existed. There were still people like this digging up the truth. By chance, he was still alive too. Everything was far from over.

Back then, everyone in the Celestial Canopy never intended to be enshrined in the memories of posterity. They only did it for the continued existence of humanity. Even if all their names were buried in darkness…

“I can recite every single name. How is that erased? When you carved their gravestones, I watched with my own two eyes.”

The Myss doll rubbed his face hard and said this in that perfectly natural Myss-like tone.

Salaar froze.

His heart began to fall again. This time, the pain was sharper and seemed to stretch on endlessly. Then he discovered, to his astonishment, that he actually liked this pain a little, like touching a blazing fire in the depths of winter.

Then Salaar was even more shocked to discover that he could detect a subtle emotion in Myss’s tone. It was a nearly imperceptible unease and anxiety, a trepidation born only for him.

Salaar suddenly wanted to laugh.

Myss had keenly sensed that instant of weakness in him, while he had also sniffed out the unease that even Myss himself hadn’t noticed. As enemies of more than three hundred years, they were truly skilled at finding each other’s weak points.

The vast being he had watched over for more than three hundred years had shown him one small crack.

…And so, Salaar told Myss about the subtle connection between “Divine Blood” and “Abnormal Fruit.” Not only that, he also showed the Chaos Archdemon a corner of the Celestial Canopy, as well as his own vulnerability.

What sweet bait. Such a dangerous gambit made Salaar’s hair stand on end.

But he didn’t hesitate.

Because Hero Salaar needed to lure the Archdemon’s heart and build another wall to hinder the apocalypse. And selfish Salaar needed to obtain Myss’s love, even if it was an unknowing love, simply because he wanted it.

When Myss gnawed hard at his face, the Salaar doll stretched out his short little hands and loosely enclosed Myss’s body.

Rather than an embrace, that gesture looked more like hunting.

……

After regrouping with the others, Mag was sensible enough to remain quiet and didn’t rush to investigate the Stargazers Society.

“Let’s find a path back to the outside first.” She waved her stick-figured little hand.

“There definitely won’t be any problem returning the way we came!” Brief cheerfully waved his little sword. “These concepts come from different books. I can open the path back and take you all home!”

“Wooo wooo—” Bedsheet Archdemon expressed agreement.

“I want to try another exit. Please tell me what to do,” Salaar suddenly said.

Why did Salaar sound completely recovered?

Myss turned his head in confusion and once again saw that pitiful, waterlogged-looking Salaar doll… Fine. Maybe Salaar was only habitually calm.

The Dragon Fae standing across from them wrinkled his cloth face into an expression of unbearable disgust, as if someone had stuffed a saucer of lemon vinegar beneath his nose.

Brief, however, didn’t understand all the twists and turns involved. He readily patted his chest. “Just pick anything here, grab it with both hands, and close your eyes. Then you’ll be able to find the path to that book.”

“Why can’t everyone return the way we came?” Mag asked cautiously.

That children’s picture book being able to connect here was entirely an accident. If they left from some other exit, they would only appear in the restricted book area, where “heroes and monsters gathered.”

Ever since seeing the masked man, Father Kalen had sunk into his own world. Even if the whole group jumped into a cesspit one by one, she suspected the priest would follow them in. As for the Dragon Fae, he had always looked like someone who was a spectator for the drama, so he wouldn’t question Salaar at all.

As the only normal person present, Lady Mag believed she had a duty to raise doubts.

“Because there’s still one small question I need to verify,” Salaar said. “Why did we turn into cloth dolls? Aren’t you curious?”

“As long as we enter that abnormal restricted book area, I think we’ll be able to find the reason.”

Mag hesitated for two seconds. Between “being a normal person” and “satisfying her curiosity,” she ultimately chose the latter.

Two minutes later, the group was dragged by the wailing Bedsheet Archdemon toward the deep-sea area of the Sea of Concepts.

They quickly found a strange black serpentine-like fish drifting through the waters. Its body was covered in long bone spines. For humans, it would be troublesome, but for the little dolls, hugging it was just right. The priest relied on his innate healing divine power and forced both hands onto it.

The fish lazily glanced at them and continued swimming leisurely.

The moment his hands touched that snake, Myss felt something strange.

His hands were clearly gripping cold bone spines, but the feeling was like holding a book. As long as he was willing to close the pages, he would be able to see the title on the cover.

He instinctively made the motion of “closing the book” in his mind.

In the next instant, heaven and earth spun.

He seemed to have been stuffed into a long, thin tube, then spat out from the other end with a pop. Myss flew out, dizzy and disoriented. Something soft hugged him, preventing him from falling too embarrassingly.

Myss instinctively sniffed and smelled Salaar’s scent. Salaar had bundled him into his arms, and the two dolls squeezed into one heavy cotton ball, landing safely on the ground and rolling to the side of a “wall.”

Myss shook his head and raised his button eyes.

“Wow.” Myss sighed with genuine awe.

At the moment, he and Salaar were leaning beneath the foot of an enormous bookshelf. The vast space surrounding them was filled with these gigantic shelves, crafted from deep walnut-colored wood, standing like rows of towering walls. All the books were chained to the shelves, and the gray-white chains swayed softly, making tiny sounds like sleep-talking.

Although they were deep underground, the entire area was brightly lit. Only, as far as the eye could see, there were no humans, only terrifying monsters tangled together all over the floor.

From distorted human bodies to deep-sea aberrations, there were all kinds of strange beings. They tangled and twisted around one another, spraying frightening magical radiance. The air was filled with a choking fishy stench, along with the bitter smell unique to old books.

If any one monster were pulled out on its own, its visual impact would undoubtedly be staggering. However, the way they were tangled together only made Myss think of an overcooked mixed stew.

After confirming the environment, Myss briefly checked on the other companions.

The moment Father Kalen appeared, a two-headed giant wolf lunged at him with its jaws open. The priest immediately activated his hidden ring and vanished into the air on the spot.

Tass was quick and slipped into the gap between two old books. The entire movement was so smooth that Myss almost didn’t notice him at first glance.

The three stick figures weren’t so particular. They openly stuck themselves to the side of the bookshelf. Monsters wandered past and ignored them, as if they were merely irrelevant doodles on the wood.

A huge bird claw stepped down right beside Myss and Salaar. The two dolls immediately huddled even tighter. The owner of that claw lowered its head and swept its murky single eye over them, then just as readily ignored the two.

“These concept monsters are only squeezing and tangling together. They aren’t attacking each other.”

Myss bit Salaar. He had spied here for quite a while and hadn’t seen a single monster torn apart, ripped to pieces… or anything else like that.

“Fine, the stick figures can be counted as ‘conceptual kin,’ but they only attack the priest, who retains human form, and has no interest at all in dolls like us. In other words…”

“Only people who turn into dolls can walk safely through the restricted book area, then enter the Sea of Concepts from here.”

The Salaar doll sighed. “I guessed as much. Mr. Tenney left such an important legacy to the United Library. It’s impossible that he wouldn’t set up defenses at all and let people of unknown origin sneak in.”

“The restricted book area is the true entrance to the Divine Realm. From now on, these monsters will be the best guards for the Sea of Concepts.”

That’s the feeling, Myss thought with satisfaction. Only Salaar could keep up with my genius train of thought.

Mag stared blankly up at those writhing, tangled, everlasting monsters. “So the standard for ‘turning into a doll’ wasn’t simply age?”

“I think those elderly researchers must have spent a lot of time researching Divine Blood.”

Salaar spoke slowly.

“Divine Blood is extremely contaminating. Once someone has come into contact with it, their physical body will be contaminated to some extent. This kind of mark can’t be shaken off. It can perfectly screen out the United Library’s specialized researchers.”

The Myss doll rubbed his chin, mimicking as if he’s in deep thought. “I understand. We were dragged in because we’re ‘Children of Divine Blood.’ As for Tass… Tass was probably contaminated. Anyway, Dragon Faes are a peculiar breed.”

Tass: “…”

Could he at least pretend to care a little?

Then again, he really was easily affected by the Divine Realm. It had been the same at the Red Amber, so it wasn’t strange that the United Library affected him too… Huh?

When the incident occurred, they had clearly only just entered the United Library. No matter how easily influenced he was, he shouldn’t have changed faster than the “Children of Divine Blood” who came with Divine Blood built in.

Unless he had already been contaminated by Divine Blood before entering the United Library.

But he’d never come into contact with Divine Blood in his entire life. If one had to talk about the changes that had appeared on him… it seemed that when they left the “Rabbit Hole,” his scales had become a little duller.

But other than staying inside the pocket watch and being carried around by Myss, he hadn’t done anything special.

…Forget it. Nothing major had happened anyway.

Tass gave the Myss doll a deep look and continued listening with great interest.

“I can understand your transformations, since you were contaminated by Divine Blood. But what about that book? How do you explain that copy of ‘Brave Salaar’?” Mag kept pursuing the matter.

“That book was once contaminated by low-quality Divine Blood. This story involves a bit of personal privacy.” Salaar made it up on the spot.

Myss nodded vigorously, nearly flinging the braid behind his head onto his face.

Of course Myss knew the real reason. That book had been a gift from the Fallen Child, a previous possessor of an Abnormal Fruit. The poor wretch involuntarily built a Divine Realm, Scin-something-or-other.

That girl had more or less retained a little of the Abnormal Fruit’s power. All things considered, that copy of ‘Brave Salaar’ was equivalent to having been marinated in Divine Blood, and in a bizarre twist of fate, it had connected to the Sea of Concepts.

Naturally, this matter wasn’t suitable to tell Mag.

Mag was clearly skeptical of their story. Unfortunately, she had no way of forcing these two “great and mighty” figures to speak. In the end, she could only sullenly scratch her face. “All right. When I report this to the United Library, I will handle this case… with discretion.”

“The final question. How do those people who turned into dolls recover their original forms?”

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