Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong
Translator: Kinky || https://kinkytranslations.com/
Chapter 95: A Flaw in the Seal
“Oh, a Divine Attendant of the Chaos Archdemon… What? Who???”
If not for her sheer rationality holding her back, Mag would have nearly flown out of the confinement room on the spot. She looked several times at the hanging portrait of Saint Salaar before she barely managed to steady herself.
“A Divine Attendant of the Chaos Archdemon,” Salaar repeated leisurely.
If not for the face sewn from cotton cloth, Myss absolutely wouldn’t have been able to control his expression. Many emotions surged up at once, and his face honestly chose the most obvious among them.
The Myss doll split his mouth open, smiling with great satisfaction.
He had thought Salaar would use his clever tongue to find an excuse and skip over this topic or make up some nonexistent god. Myss squeezed Salaar’s cotton body and hummed in satisfaction.
“…The Chaos Archdemon bears no malice toward the human world. The Night Scourge is merely His breathing.”
Facing the dumbfounded Lady Mag, Salaar calmly continued, “Salaar and his companions sealed His Divine Realm, forcing Him to hold His breath.”
“From the dimension of a god, He is actually quite young. We only wish to collect the power He has lost, so that He may grow up sooner and leave… In this way, the world will welcome eternal peace.”
A lie.
Myss withdrew the smile on his face.
Both of them knew that Myss’s freedom meant the destruction of the entire world.
Salaar had concealed the most crucial part. The moment Myss breathed again, an unprecedented Night Scourge would descend upon the world, and the magic of annihilation would devour everything.
That wasn’t even mentioning the physical destruction brought by Myss’s true body. In the worst case, the earth would be corroded and shattered, and the entire planet would become riddled with holes, or even cease to exist.
And as long as Myss survived, there would always come a moment when he breathed again.
Mag clearly didn’t buy it outright. She gave a dry chuckle. “I understand. So that’s why you two are interested in things like ‘Divine Blood.’”
A faint trace of wariness appeared in the way she looked at them, but she wasn’t insane to antagonize the pair right then and there.
“In any case, since you two are willing to clear away anomalies for the human world, our interests are aligned.”
“I hope the misunderstanding between us can be resolved soon, and that peace will arrive as early as possible.” The Salaar doll smiled.
Then the two sides exchanged a few polite pleasantries. Lady Mag left in a flurry, saying she needed to make a report. Salaar, using “wanting to find a quiet place to rest” as his reason, remained in the confinement room.
The moment Mag closed the door, the Myss doll grabbed the Salaar doll by the collar. “You realy are something, Great Hero. One moment you’re acting pitiful in front of me, and the next you’re spreading the ‘truth of the Night Scourge’?”
Myss hadn’t expected this guy to be able to show weakness to him while also stabbing him in the back right in front of him.
With just a few sentences, Salaar had informed Mag of the Chaos Archdemon’s condition. As for the part about peaceful coexistence, only a three-year-old child would believe that, and Mag was clearly not a three-year-old.
“She won’t spread the news on her own initiative.”
Salaar was being held by the collar by the Myss doll, but he didn’t panic at all.
“Mag knows nothing about Divine Attendants. Even Professor Gentry, an Archmage, didn’t act rashly. She’s a clever person, so it’s even less possible for her to expose us without considering the consequences.”
“She will only do everything she can to maintain a cooperative relationship with us, secretly observe our movements, and use us to remove troublesome Divine Realms for humanity… Obtaining more Abnormal Fruit, isn’t that what you want too?”
Myss silently studied Salaar.
“And I think, as a member of the Karns family, she will work even harder to investigate the body-swap ritual.”
“Her blood relative caused a great disaster, and she’s clearly quite proud of being a ‘descendant of Saint Salaar.’ She will believe she bears a tremendous responsibility for this… A top researcher from the United Library who understands the Karns family helping us investigate the body-swap ritual. That’s also in your interest.”
Salaar’s lapis-lazuli button eyes looked down at him, and his words almost carried a seductive allure.
“All right. I don’t hate fair competition.”
Myss finally let go of him. “This was a decent move.”
If Salaar lost his spirit, or worst yet, if he turned into a blind traitor because of love, Myss would instead feel disappointed. More than that, this move of Salaar’s had been executed openly and with integrity. Myss had to think of an even more beautiful response.
The Myss doll stood up and paced back and forth on the tabletop with little pattering footsteps.
Salaar took the chance to stand up and test the various limits of “dollification.”
He soon discovered that even without paper and ink, as long as they traced the words “Borrow” and “Return” in midair, they could change form.
Before the “Sea of Concepts” dissipated, its influence theoretically wouldn’t disappear. As long as the ability to turn into dolls was used in the right place, it might have unexpected effects.
The human-form Salaar sat before the desk, smiling as he watched the Myss doll walk back and forth. Myss was deep in thought and didn’t realize he had walked onto Salaar’s palm, only to be scooped up by Salaar in one grab.
“What are you doing?” Myss asked irritably. He raised his cotton head and patted Salaar’s finger.
Salaar didn’t answer. He only stretched out his finger and slowly, firmly kneaded the tiny Archdemon doll, from cheek to neck, then down to the empty waist and abdomen.
Myss let out a few exasperating squeaks and angrily slapped his palm. “Stop squeezing me. You’re messing up my train of thought.”
He suspected Salaar was taking revenge for Myss grabbing his collar earlier.
Salaar lowered his eyes. The soft cotton ball twisted in his palm. The feeling was warm and fluffy, as if it had been roasted beside a fire.
Looking at those garnet eyes that kept locking onto him, Salaar couldn’t help bending down and kissing the Myss doll on the top of his head.
Myss: “?”
The Myss doll froze in place and forgot to struggle for a moment.
“You said you remember every name I carved. Then no matter what I carve, you can remember it?” Salaar’s voice was as light as a whisper, his breath stirring Myss’s cotton-thread hair.
“Yeah, otherwise who knows what bad thing you’re secretly doing again.” Myss snorted and struggled harder. “Have you squeezed enough? Let go of me.”
Of course Salaar didn’t listen. He continued to lightly press the doll’s face with his fingertips, his gaze lingering on the scattered hair.
Myss could no longer endure it. He worked hard to stretch out a small hand and drew the word “Return” in the air.
Shadows shook, and tables and chairs scraped. In the next heartbeat, Myss, restored to his original form, fell sitting on Salaar, his upper body covered only by that navy-blue coat.
With his skin exposed to the slightly cool air, Myss instinctively shivered.
He happened to land in the gap between Salaar and the table, sitting face-to-face on Salaar’s lap. The coat had been pulled askew by his movements, exposing Myss’s right shoulder.
Naturally, the other parts were even less covered.
Salaar stretched out both arms and gathered the coat together with Myss’s waist, trapping him in that narrow space. He said nothing, merely looking at Myss again, with that damp, doll-like gaze.
Myss instinctively cupped Salaar’s face and rubbed it hard, as if trying to scrub away that fatigue. Then he withdrew his hands as if shocked by electricity. “What is it now?”
“A doll has no vitality when held.” Salaar pressed his forehead to Myss’s chest, feeling the strong heartbeat beneath Myss’s ribs.
“I thought the thing you hated most was my vitality.” Myss pointed it out cruelly. “You just passed my information to other people, hoping they would help kill me.”
“Yes.”
Salaar raised his eyes, and the arms encircling Myss applied a little force. His fingertips sank into Myss’s skin, leaving faint red marks.
He moved closer, and Myss still looked down at him. Both of their breaths grew slightly rapid, melting together.
“Don’t forget, I am a ‘Divine Attendant of the Chaos Archdemon.’ If they discover a way to deal with you first, I’ll only die together with you.”
“Die together? Do you think I’m stupid? You only need to casually find some pretty-sounding excuse, and humans will let you go.”
Myss made no attempt to hide the mockery in his tone. He threaded his ten fingers into Salaar’s black hair, ensuring that Salaar had to look up at him.
Salaar smiled.
Myss had never seen Salaar smile like this. Salaar always held something back, as if beneath his skin there wasn’t flesh and blood, but bottomless mist. Yet at this moment, his smile was unexpectedly pure.
“If that day truly comes, I absolutely won’t look for an excuse.”
Silence spread through the room. The watery light from the ceiling projected onto Myss’s skin, swaying gently like a cradle. Myss saw the same faint light in Salaar’s eyes, and his enemy looked almost sincere.
Salaar’s body heat wrapped too tightly around him, and Myss suddenly felt a little hot.
Dark magic flowed along his skin, gradually weaving into dim fabric. The navy-blue coat gently slid to the floor, and Myss once again wore the ranger outfit he had long been apart from.
Only after putting on clothes did Myss feel a little more at ease. The last trace of magic wound around his wrist and finished weaving the cuff.
Looking at those ink-line-like magic threads, Myss suddenly thought of Brief and Bedsheet Archdemon.
That picture book had accidentally connected to the Sea of Concepts. He wondered whether it could still connect after being taken away… Wait.
Every time before, they had entered and left Divine Realms through normal methods. And Salaar’s seal had sealed his lair, in other words, the entrance to his Divine Realm.
But now, that copy of ‘Brave Salaar’ proved that as long as one found the right method, even a Divine Realm could be torn open through a hidden gap.
A tempting thought pierced through his mind like lightning, and Myss’s fingertips tingled with excitement.
Could Salaar’s seemingly impregnable seal also have a flaw?
…Perhaps he could create a shortcut that skipped the tedious investigation and led directly to his own Divine Realm. As long as his spirit successfully returned to his true body, in the next moment he could take a deep breath and trigger a true Night Scourge.
Yes, he only needed an “ink hole” that allowed his consciousness to quietly touch the darkness beneath the seal.
Myss tightly closed his eyes. His heart had never beaten this fast.
Beneath his eyelids, his pupils dilated, as if trying to see clearly the residual divine power of the “Sea of Concepts” that still lingered on him.
Myss did everything he could to recall what those two ink holes looked like, and what it felt like to pass through them. It was like adjusting a precision machine. He had to adjust it with great delicacy and reproduce that subtle sensation.
The air became viscous and made faint popping sounds. As the “tuning” drew closer, Myss’s body grew hotter and hotter, and the magic inside him gradually boiled.
It was exactly like maintaining balance on an invisible steel wire. If he wanted to move forward, he had to maintain his current state. One extra breath, one slower heartbeat, and it wouldn’t work.
A little closer, a little closer… He was almost about to understand. He only needed a little more…
“Hiss!”
Myss opened his eyes. Sharp pain shattered his thoughts.
Salaar was biting his collarbone.
Salaar bit quite hard. Myss suspected this kid had drawn blood. Salaar’s body was as tense as stone, and his back was soaked through with cold sweat. His hands tightly gripped Myss’s waist, the muscles in his arms bulging.
“No.”
Salaar stared fixedly at him. There was no panic on his face, only urgency and tension, as if he were watching a storm about to take shape.
“No, Myss.” His breath carried the faint scent of blood, and his voice was a little hoarse.
“…It cannot end—not yet.”
The author has something to say:
Don’t think Myss is harmless. Seriously, if you let your guard down for even a moment, he really will destroy the world. [cat paw] (…
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