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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<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 90: A Mortal’s Experiment

That figure floated before the enormous black hole.

He wore a loose black cloak, his head hidden beneath a hood, and his build seemed male. A flock of pigeons flew past him, but he didn’t move at all, like a corpse specimen suspended in turbid liquid.

Kalen immediately landed on the nearest grass sphere, gaining a fairly solid foothold. He bent down and placed the dolls and stick people on the grass, then narrowed his eyes at that figure.

“That cloak looks a little familiar.” Tass rubbed his chin with his cloth hand. “Where have I seen it before…”

The person seemed to sense everyone’s gaze and slowly turned around.

His hands were covered in black gloves, without a single inch of skin showing at the wrists.

His face was covered by a tightly fitted mask. There were no holes in the mask. It had been painted pitch-black, with a twisted moon shape drawn in silver lines. The black mask paired with the black hood made the moon emblem seem to float out of thin air in the shadows.

“…Fuck, it’s the leader of the Stargazers Society!”

Tass failed to hold back and cursed. “No, wait, not necessarily. Anyway, that’s the mask of the Stargazers Society’s leader!”

Myss stared so hard that he felt as if his button-eyes would pop out of their socket. He had never longed so badly for his magic to return. The leader of the Stargazers Society was right under his nose, yet he couldn’t discern a thing about him.

“We can’t let him run.” Seeing the head of that damned organization, a rare spark of anger ignited in Kalen’s voice. “Whether or not he’s the real leader, we’ll capture him first, then…”

“Wait. There’s something beside him.” The Salaar doll interrupted.

Myss shook his head and also noticed the thing beside the leader. Rather than a “thing,” it was more like a corpse—a grotesquely deformed corpse.

That corpse floated crookedly in the light. It was too thin and too twisted, easily blending into the disordered environment. Just now, it had mostly been hidden by the masked man’s wide black cloak, and Myss had completely fail to notice.

The corpse wore a United Library scholar’s robe and was withered nearly to a skeleton. Its limbs were curled and deformed, its whole body covered in pitch-black poisonous sores, and its hair was as dry as wild grass. Judging by the corpse’s state, it even looked a little like Salaar in the seal when he had been near death from old age.

Myss was naturally familiar with this “symptom.” His magic had an extremely powerful annihilating property. For some unknown reason, Salaar had endured it, but over the years, Myss’s magic had still corroded Salaar’s physical body.

This corpse was in the human world and shouldn’t have been able to come into contact with his power. If this so-called Divine Blood really was a product of his magic, then…

“Divine Blood Corrosion,” Mag said in a low voice, confirming Myss’s guess.

“With corrosion this severe, that guy is most likely the experimenter who stole the Divine Blood.”

The masked man stretched out both hands and carried the deformed corpse in his arms. His movements were unusually cautious and full of respect.

Once he moved, the corpse was completely exposed before everyone’s eyes. On that library scholar’s robe, a white pewter brooch flashed with flowing light.

“Impossible… This is impossible. How could it be Mr. Tenney?”

Mag’s stick figure took two steps back and nearly fell.

Tass focused fully on this grand scene. “What’s going on, Lady Mag? Who is Mr. Tenney?”

“The United Library’s archivist. He devoted his entire life to the United Library. He was born here!”

For the first time since entering the book, Mag looked utterly distraught Even when she had realized there was something wrong with Salaar, she hadn’t been this shocked.

“Mr. Tenney is already in his seventies. He… doesn’t have much talent and was only responsible for paper records. He…”

Mag’s throat was choked by some sour emotion. She couldn’t help looking at the three dolls beside her. Dust rose in her mind, and a memory sealed away for a long time quietly surfaced.

More than twenty years ago.

“Papa, Mama, where are you?”

Back then, Mag wasn’t yet ten. She shouted loudly with a sobbing tone.

At that time, her parents had discovered her astonishing research talent. They had specially brought her to the United Library to ask acquaintances here for advice about magic education and similar matters.

The United Library didn’t permit servants to enter. Without a familiar maid to watch over her, and with Mag liking to run around, she soon lost her way among countless bookshelves.

“What’s wrong, little lady?”

A gentle voice asked her.

That afternoon, Mag met Mr. Tenney for the first time.

He wasn’t tall, and there was nothing special about his appearance. He belonged to the sort of person who you could easily lose in a crowd. Fortunately, his appearance wasn’t the harsh and cold kind. He was rather gentle-looking, at least not enough to frighten a lost little girl.

Little Mag blinked her slightly red eyes and examined this thin little old man. She didn’t really remember Mr. Tenney’s face, but she remembered the white hair at his temples.

Mr. Tenney quickly contacted Mag’s parents.

Her parents still had some matters to discuss, so they simply entrusted her to Mr. Tenney’s care for a little while longer. Mr. Tenney had enough seniority, and his workplace was an open area with people coming and going, so her parents felt fairly reassured.

Thus, a few minutes later, Mr. Tenney brought Mag to his station. It was beside a bright enchanted window. Brilliant “sunlight” passed through the window lattice and spilled across the desk, illuminating the parchment and ink bottle on it.

From time to time, researchers came over with books or application forms to have Mr. Tenney register them. Mag sat by the desk, eating the sweet biscuits provided by the United Library while studying the researchers coming and going.

“Everyone’s brooch is different.” She quickly found the pattern.

“What keen observation skills. You’re a promising talent.”

Mr. Tenney praised her with a chuckle. “Those are all issued by the United Library. Every one is unique, even more recognizable than a nameplate.”

“Actually, the gemstone pairings and brooch styles all have meaning too. After working here for a long time, you only need to glance at a brooch to know which department a person belongs to and what level they are.”

“Grandpa Tenney, why doesn’t your brooch have any gemstones?” Mag asked again.

“Because I’m too ordinary, child. I’m only an archivist.” Mr. Tenney still smiled cheerfully. “I’m not as clever as you. I’m not capable of conducting groundbreaking research.”

His tone was mild. There was no resentment or dissatisfaction in it, only the calmness of something long accepted.

Mag spoke frankly. “Then how did you get into the United Library?”

“There are three reasons.”

Old Tenney gave her a playful, mysterious wink. “First, I was an abandoned baby picked up by the employees here, and I grew up here. Second, although I’m not smart, I’m exceptionally meticulous, and my memory is reasonably good… so they let me work here.”

“What’s the third reason?” Mag asked.

Mr. Tenney pulled open a drawer and took out an adorable doll. The doll was made of the most ordinary rough cloth. It had a pair of lapis-lazuli button eyes, and its hair was yarn dyed gold.

“Third, because I’m especially good at making dolls.”

Mr. Tenney announced, “Come, little girl of the Karns family. This is a Saint Salaar doll. Does it look like him?”

Mag reached out both hands and was just about to take the doll when she heard her parents calling from not far away.

In the end, she never touched that doll. She happily said goodbye to Mr. Tenney and ran toward her parents. Before leaving, she had turned back slightly to look. Old Tenney smiled as he watched her go, just as he watched those talented people hurry away with application materials and documents.

Several years after that, Mag entered the United Library. When she saw Mr. Tenney again, she would habitually smile and nod at the old man. Other than that, they had no deeper relationship.

For the researchers rushing around, Mr. Tenney was almost part of the United Library itself. To put it more coldly, Old Tenney was no different from a magic artifact with body warmth.

Because this old man couldn’t understand the complex theories they discussed, his words couldn’t be called witty, and what he did was only the most rudimentary tasks.

This wasn’t some deliberate isolation. They simply respected him, and at the same time ignored him, because everyone knew there was an invisible gulf between them.

On the old man’s chest, there was only a simple white pewter brooch. No one was willing to spend time understanding his views, sorrows, joys, or hobbies. Everyone had more important, more extraordinary things to do.

Mag was the same.

She was one of the heirs of a great noble family, the young prodigy Magnolia Karns. Before her lay countless profound topics.

Everyone who stepped into the United Library could see that extraordinary Saint Salaar. She also longed to become like her heroic ancestor, forging a sword with knowledge and becoming a hero of the new era.

And now, in this absurd moment more than twenty years later, she suddenly remembered.

So that was it. Mr. Tenney was very good at making cute little dolls.

They had known he was missing. People found several letters on his desk and thought he had gone out to visit old friends, so they never investigated deeply. Who would suspect an old man who had lived in the United Library for more than seventy years and regarded it as “home”?

Why? Mag couldn’t understand.

Mr. Tenney was gentle and kind, had a very good reputation, and had never shown any signs of resentment toward society. Why would such a person steal Divine Blood in his later years and even become connected to the Stargazers Society?

She looked at the endless sea of faint light, at concepts and knowledge sedimented over a hundred years, at the enormous legendary figures… and at a withered, tiny corpse.

Mag stared blankly at that corpse, as if it could give her Mr. Tenney’s answer in his place.

“I have no intention of clashing with you. I only wish to take away the remains of a mortal.”

The masked man finally spoke.

His voice had been processed by a magic device. It sounded like the voices of men, women, old, and young all speaking at once.

“…You must have encountered ‘Redding’ earlier. I apologize for him. He merely didn’t want you to discover me.”

The masked man’s voice could be called courteous. “Since someone from the United Library is present, it seems I have no need to give hints in secret.”

“What are you talking about?” Mag couldn’t help speaking, her voice still stained with shock that hadn’t yet faded.

“I surmise that your research into Divine Blood had completely reached a bottleneck.”

The one who answered her wasn’t the masked man, but Salaar.

For the first time, Myss heard Salaar use this kind of tone. At this moment, the Great Hero sounded like another old man.

“The United Library wouldn’t allow living people to come into contact with extremely dangerous Divine Blood. But Divine Blood was created from the beginning to ‘combine with living bodies’… If things continued that way, the research would inevitably stagnate.”

Mag abruptly turned her head.

“I think Mr. Tenney must have discovered this point from the Night Scourge records.”

Salaar continued, “So he decided to use his own body to conduct a Divine Blood experiment.”

Myss blinked.

If the old man had used his own body to perform a Divine Blood experiment, then the effect of Divine Blood was very similar to the Abnormal Fruit.

They bestowed the possessor nearly godlike power, manifesting their deepest wish, and from there nurtured a Divine Realm.

He didn’t know whether the effect of Divine Blood was insufficient, or whether a mortal couldn’t withstand the weight of a Divine Realm. The old man named Tenney hadn’t attained a divine body. He was like a stillborn child that failed to form, perishing within the newly born Divine Kingdom.

No wonder this place had seemed so much like a Divine Kingdom, yet he had never found the existence of its master.

Could it be that V.O.R had always targeted geniuses because mortals simply couldn’t become gods?

Wait. Before that, why would the effect of Divine Blood be so similar to the Abnormal Fruit…?

“Yes, Tenney used himself for the experiment. He recorded all changes after consuming the Divine Blood and used all of that power to construct this space.”

The masked man spoke calmly, interrupting the thoughts bubbling like boiling water in Myss’s mind.

“Whether it’s the record of changes after he consumed Divine Blood, or this sea of concepts, both will ultimately belong to the United Library.”

“The power of that Divine Blood can allow this space to last about five years. Now that Lady Mag knows the method to enter the ‘sea of concepts,’ it’s only a matter of time before the United Library controls this place.”

“I came here first to take away his body, and second to take away the information we ought to know. Whether you believe it or not, the Stargazers Society has no hostility toward the human world.”

“Liar!” Brief jumped on the grass. “That Redding nearly destroyed our world! You’re all bad people!”

The tiny stick figure was almost swallowed by the grass, and his voice wasn’t very loud. But the masked man seemed to see and hear him. He was silent for a long time, then slightly tightened his arms around the corpse.

“I don’t deny it.”

His tone carried a chilling, unnerving calmness.

“When humans fight bloody battles, they don’t care how many patches of grass they flatten. To protect ‘our’ world, we’re willing to pay any price. Before the apocalypse, we don’t have the spare energy to care about a mere fairy tale.”

“…After all, we’re only a group of the most foolish and most hopeless people.”

In that instant, Father Kalen stopped breathing.

[Kalen, remember this.]

The voice of young Hermit still echoed in his ears.

[The most foolish and hopeless act in this world is ‘stargazing’.]

---

The author has something to say:

[dog head] [dog head] [dog head]

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<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 89: Black Hole

Myss gripped the edge of the pitch-black ink hole with both hands and craned his head to look inside.

The ink hole was literally a hole filled with ink. It was pitch-black within, and he couldn’t see anything. The others also formed a circle around it, trying hard to study the hole.

Only Brief and Bedsheet Archdemon were squeezed together, fully focused on treating their injuries. The golden elf spring water in Brief’s hand shone brightly.

Myss watched them from the corner of his eye for a while and couldn’t help speaking up. “Hey, you only used two treasures before. What about the third? The notebook that records all of the Chaos Archdemon’s weaknesses?”

“It’s here.” Brief honestly patted his chest. “I merged it into my heart, so I can remember everything related to Bedsheet Archdemon and will absolutely never forget!”

Bedsheet Archdemon proudly spun in a circle. “Awoo awah~”

Myss was speechless. He had no idea what this guy was so proud of.

Speaking of which, the protagonist merging a treasure into his body was a fairly common plot device. But the more Myss thought about it, the more he felt that this setting somehow felt a little…off.

“If you merged it into your body, how are other people supposed to read it?” he asked.

Brief froze, clearly having never considered this question. He looked at Myss in confusion. “Bedsheet Archdemon is destined to be my enemy. Other people don’t need to know those things.”

Myss blinked his button eyes.

That was it! That was the part that was off.

His Salaar firmly believed that the human world could continue fighting the Chaos Archdemon through its own power. So Salaar used his life to drag Myss into the seal, buying time for the world.

Salaar’s self-definition had never been “the hero destined to defeat the Archdemon,” but “a torchbearer on the path to ending the Night Scourge.”

Therefore, Salaar especially hated legends that erased the existence of the army. From the beginning, he had been prepared to die in the seal together with his army.

Myss stared fixedly at the little bottle in Brief’s hand.

[Brave Salaar had three extraordinary treasures.]

[He had a bottle of elf spring water kept in a crystal bottle, which could heal all wounds and illnesses, great and small.]

…This treasure probably referred to the healing magic Salaar himself was skilled at.

[He had a magical map drawn in golden ink, which could instantly reach every corner of the world.]

…Salaar himself didn’t have this ability, but if one counted the companions erased by history, this wording made sense. Under Salaar’s command, his companions could spread across every corner of the world and report information back to him.

[He had an infinite notebook that would never run out, recording all of the Chaos Archdemon’s weaknesses.]

…Salaar understood the Night Scrouge exceptionally well and was also closely connected to Divine Blood. Someone like him, knowing that the trip into the seal would have no return, would absolutely leave his research results for future generations, so that they could continue studying ways to end the Night Scrouge.

Moreover, those research results might not necessarily be Salaar’s alone. They could have been the legacy left behind by everyone.

Continuing along this line of thought, if that legacy truly existed, it would definitely have been included in the United Library’s collection.

But if the United Library had collected such a legacy, why would the “Salaar” in the human world be remembered as someone who “singled-handedly sealed the Chaos Archdemon”?

And in Salaar’s era, “Divine Blood” obviously wasn’t called Divine Blood. That was why Salaar had been so shocked the first time he saw the actual sample of Divine Blood. Logically speaking, this kind of important research result would definitely have been left behind by the people of that era.

The more Myss thought about it, the more he felt something was wrong.

However, as he stood before the gaping ink hole, a voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Redding emerged from inside this just now. In other words, there must be an exit connected to the outside on the other side.”

Mag analyzed the situation matter-of-factly. “Maybe once we get there, we’ll be able to see the essence of this ‘Divine Realm.’”

“I’ll go down first. If I succeed, I can catch you all from below.” The priest volunteered.

The Salaar doll nodded and tugged at Myss, who had been lost in thought the whole way. “What are you thinking about?”

“You,” Myss replied candidly.

The Salaar doll: “…”

The Salaar doll gave a dry cough. “Let’s first look at the Stargazers Society’s Divine Blood experiment. We can talk about the rest after we go back.”

“I should go down first. Bedsheet can fly, so he can advance and retreat easily. We’re the best fit for scouting.”

Brief waved his small palm and rushed in front of everyone. He had finished healing himself and had returned to his lively, energetic state.

“You protected my world, so I want to help you too!”

After a brief discussion, everyone unanimously agreed.

Brief familiarly hopped onto Bedsheet Archdemon’s back. Bedsheet Archdemon let out a couple of happy yowls and plunged headfirst into the ink hole.

A dozen seconds later, he charged back out with Brief. Brief’s beady eyes had widened into two round circles. He gestured anxiously for a long time before successfully making a sound.

“Inside, inside…”

He took a long moment to organize his words. “There’s no danger inside, but it’s extremely chaotic! A lot of strange things are flying everywhere. They’re all connected by strange threads, and there’s a super huge me in the center!”

Myss: “?”

What was that? A super huge Salaar? He wanted to see just how huge it was.

“Let’s go.” Salaar took a deep breath.

The priest nodded. With his left hand, he tucked away the three dolls—Myss, Salaar, and Tass—while his right hand held the three doodles—Brief, Bedsheet Archdemon, and Mag. Then he leapt into the ink hole.

Passing through the ink hole felt exactly the same as when they had been dragged in by Bedsheet Archdemon. Myss felt as if he had been forced through a blowpipe against the wind, followed by the sensation of weightless falling.

The moment they passed through the opening, Bedsheet Archdemon let out a howl and actively flew behind the priest’s collar, grabbing onto the back of the priest’s clothes.

Their fall immediately slowed. Everyone seemed to be riding a slowly descending Kalen-shaped hot-air balloon, taking in everything in the new space.

Myss had thought Brief’s description was just incoherent nonsense. But after seeing the scene before him, he didn’t know how to describe it either.

If the concepts of all things in the world gathered into an ocean, the sight would be that embodiment.

Bright and gentle light gathered into a sea. In the soft wind floated all things that had ever existed in the world, and all things that existed now.

A silver dish holding cake drifted slowly. A small silver spoon and fork circled around it. Beside it, schools of fish flashing with silver light swam past, leaving behind a gentle halo.

Colorful tablecloths danced like ghosts, as if they were some brand-new kind of jellyfish. Emerald-green lawns condensed into balls of various sizes, with all kinds of trees growing on them. Birds perched on the branches, but they didn’t produce melodious chirping. Instead, countless onomatopoeic characters spewed from their throats.

All things floated within this halo in a manner that could only be called absurd.

There were clusters of fierce beasts and wandering human silhouettes. Those “people” were clearly standing together, yet some faces were clear while others were blurry. Their only common trait was that they all seemed to be pieced together from different images, with transparent spiderweb-like threads stuck to them.

If highlights had not slid through those threads, they would have almost blended into the background glow, making them extremely difficult to notice.

And beneath all this light, there lurked a black abyss like the deep sea.

Within the darkness, ominous shadows flashed from time to time. They passed in an instant, impossible to see clearly.

However, compared to the two “protagonist” of this space, all of this could only be considered barely better than nothing as a backdrop.

Within this strange, soft-lit space floated an enormous “Salaar.”

His appearance wasn’t very different from the Salaar Myss had seen before. But on closer inspection, this whale-like human figure was actually made from countless smaller Salals of various appearances. There was even a very thin thread connected to Brief’s body, linking him to that “Salaar.”

Opposite that “Salaar” floated an even larger “Chaos Archdemon,” whose outline was exceptionally blurry. It bore no resemblance to Myss whatsoever and instead looked more like the religious image inside the United Library.

Like “Salaar,” the Archdemon was also pieced together from countless depictions of the Chaos Archdemon in various forms. Among them was even a seductive female human image, and Myss, most reluctantly, recognized.

In this way, the two enormous images stood against the backdrop of all things in the world, treading upon hidden darkness as they assumed the posture of battle. Only their movements were frozen in midair, as if that religious mural had become reality.

“It’s ‘concepts.’ My heavens, these are all pieces of information recorded in books!”

Mag’s voice was hoarse. “Divine Blood has activated all of the United Library’s knowledge. This is an ocean of materialized concepts!”

“I see… so that’s it. Those fine threads are the associations between concepts…”

“Here, Salaar and the Chaos Archdemon have the most descriptions. So they make up the largest proportion, and their images are the clearest and most concrete…”

Myss had no desire to ask why the United Library contained information regarding Sweet Trap; he had far more pressing matters to address.

“What is that?” he asked seriously, stretching out his cloth arm and pointing between the two giants.

Between “Saint Salaar” and the “Chaos Archdemon,” there was an ominous black void.

It was even darker than the ink hole, and its shape was a perfect sphere, precisely suspended between the two enormous images. The scene around it was somewhat distorted, and it had also devoured portions of “Saint Salaar” and the “Chaos Archdemon’s” limbs. Countless spider threads were swallowed into it and vanished without a trace.

It blocked every possible point of contact between the two giants. Its existence was so deliberate as to be almost ostentatious.

To make an inappropriate comparison, from afar, Myss only felt that the giant images of him and Salaar were squeezed together hatching a pitch-black egg.

“This is impossible.” Mag bit her doodle finger. “It’s almost like…”

“A large number of records were deliberately and systematically erased.” Salaar spoke softly. “If one only looked at scattered words in different books, perhaps it wouldn’t be this obvious.”

In truth, this wasn’t merely a matter of it “not being obvious.” An ordinary person’s life was only a little over thirty thousand days. No matter how learned a person was, they couldn’t read every book in the United Library in their lifetime.

“But this world has activated knowledge, materialized concepts, and made the associations between pieces of information visible at a glance. Therefore, the gaps within them have also become glaringly obvious.”

The Salaar doll added softly.

Myss rubbed his nonexistent ears. He was certain that there was now some kind of emotion in Salaar’s voice, something like the feeling of dust finally settling.

Before entering this place, that question about “where did the research results of Salaar and the others go?” once again surged into Myss’s mind. At this moment, he knew the answer.

They had been erased, lost, unknown to later generations.

The only things left behind were the legend of Saint Salaar and scattered, unsystematic Night Scourge relics.

Salaar’s desperate struggle, his three-hundred-plus years of persistence inside the seal, hadn’t carried the slightest meaning. The spark of resistance they had left for later generations had been trampled into ash by an unseen foot, turning into hollow darkness.

The Salaar doll stared at that glaring black hole. In those lapis-lazuli button eyes, Myss couldn’t find the slightest trace of light.

Brief and Bedsheet Archdemon seemed to sense the heavy atmosphere. They quietly squeezed together and secretly looked at everyone’s expressions.

“The records of Saint Salaar and the Chaos Archdemon were erased by someone? Why?”

Tass looked at everything before him in shock. “Shouldn’t those be extremely important records?”

“I’m curious too.” Kalen said in a low voice, “We’re very lucky. There may be someone here who knows the truth.”

He turned his body so that everyone perched on him could see more clearly.

Between the two giant images, at the edge of the strange black hole…

A human figure quietly floated in midair utterly devoid of the fine threads of “concept association” that was bound to all the things in the realm.

…Aside from them, there was someone else here.

---

The author has something to say:

Myss: United Library, collecting every kind of book will only harm you. [angry]

Now it really has become a stain that can’t be erased. ×

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 88: An Army of Four

There was everything in Brave Salaar, except an army.

Kalen guarded the path leading deeper into the story, like an especially steadfast mountain. Salaar’s cousin and the Dragon Fae had no magic, so they could only fret anxiously at the priest’s feet, completely unable to help.

As for Brief and his Bedsheet Archdemon… Myss nearly threw those two little nuisances out of his mind.

So where exactly was this army supposed to come from?

If not for Redding’s foot suddenly coming down at him, Myss would have wanted to fling question marks all over the sky.

That twisted foot descended from above. Myss directed Fork to barely dodge it, his cotton-thread hair whipped around by the wind. The two little dolls each rode a silver snake, dodging through the stomping feet that were raining down on them.

“Go do what you want to do, Great Genius!”

The Salaar doll shouted at Myss from afar. He guided Knife backward, clearly charging toward Brief and Bedsheet Archdemon.

Redding’s attack followed almost instantly. One of his hands twisted strangely and smashed down after Salaar.

Before the strike could land, Myss led Fork towards it and knocked it askew. Fork reeled from the impact, looking slightly dazed. Its two eyes drifted unevenly—one up, one down, as if asleep—and Myss had to forcibly slap them back into place.

He moved like a crimson bolt of lightning, weaving through those many twisted limbs. Myss was not merely fleeing. Along the way, he guided two of Redding’s monstrous hands into colliding and tangling together, tying them into a dead knot with lightning speed.

Amateur.

Beneath the strange-hand bowknot, Lord Archdemon looked at Redding with contempt.

This guy’s attack methods were nothing more than child’s play—tricks he himself had long since discarded. The moment Redding’s body shifted, Myss knew where he intended to strike. The use of blind spots, the judgment of landing points; it was as if he had transformed into Salaar that was trapped inside the seal, moving with a grace and agility that resembled a dance.

But, also like Salaar inside the seal, the gap in strength between them was an uncrossable chasm.

Without magic, he couldn’t see this thing’s so-called core. Myss could only hinder Redding’s movements. The dents Fork knocked into him became shallower and shallower, while Redding’s recovery speed was despairingly fast.

What is Salaar doing? Didn’t he say he had a plan? Why hasn’t he made his move yet?

I’ve already stalled for so long… Huh?

Back then, was Salaar fighting him with this kind of feeling?

He was waiting for Salaar. Back then, who had Salaar been waiting for?

Myss froze in midair for an instant. In that moment of distraction, Redding’s palm struck Fork’s tail. Fork let out a scream, and it looked as if it and Myss were about to fall together.

“Careful!”

Salaar rushed over and bit Myss’s hair, dragging him away.

“Why are you here?” Myss frowned.

Shouldn’t Salaar be leading his army from the heavens into battle? Myss quickly glanced around. There wasn’t a single extra person present. Where was Salaar’s army?

Salaar spat out his cotton-thread hair. “I already said what needed to be said, so of course I came over.”

“After all, we are the army under ‘Brave Salaar.’ How can it be called an army if you’re the only one?”

Don’t tell me two people actually count as an army? Myss nearly choked on the sarcasm caught in his throat.

However, Salaar had just said they were “Brave Salaar’s” army. In other words…

Myss peeked over again. He abruptly discovered that Brief and Bedsheet Archdemon were no longer where they had been!

“Right! Upward!” Tass shouted, one hand curled in front of his button eye like a telescope.

The Salaar doll revealed a brilliant smile and grabbed Myss, flying to the right. Redding’s attack barely grazed the tops of their heads, and a gray-white thread slowly drifted down.

Myss immediately caught on. Could it be…

Salaar: “I do know where the Divine Blood Puppet’s core is.”

“Also, I’m not the only one familiar with rapid assaults. I only needed to tell Tass the target.”

“Tass has no magic,” Myss said.

“That doesn’t matter. This isn’t the story of a Dragon Fae assassin, nor is it your story or mine.”

The two tiny dolls broke through the wind, flying amid the pure-white waves.

“…This is their story. Here, they still possess ‘magic’.”

Myss froze for a moment, then whipped his head around.

“Awooo, awoooawah!”

Bedsheet Archdemon cried out as he flew into the sky. He could turn in midair, and his movements were far more agile than the two snakes bouncing around.

Brief was sprawled across Bedsheet Archdemon’s back. His right hand gripped his tiny sword, while his left hand held a round little bottle and a doodle paper scroll.

The two of them seemed to be fighting together for the first time, and their movements were somewhat clumsy.

Redding’s whip-like limb swept over, tearing Brief’s red cloak. The lines at his shoulder turned blood-red. They became twisted and incomplete, like ripped stitching.

Brief didn’t make a sound. He forcefully poured the little bottle over his shoulder. A few drops of golden liquid splashed out, and the scarlet lines wriggled back into their original form, turning ink-black again.

“Woo?”

“I’m fine.” Brief patted Bedsheet Archdemon and tightened his grip on the sword hilt in his right hand. In those ink-dot beady eyes, there was actually a hint of determination.

“Now!” Tass shouted.

Redding realized something was wrong. Most of his limbs attacked toward Bedsheet Archdemon. In the next instant, Brief vanished from Bedsheet Archdemon’s back without a trace.

So that was it. Myss’s button eyes flickered slightly.

…Brave Salaar had three extraordinary treasures.

He had a bottle of elf spring water kept in a crystal bottle, which could heal all wounds and illnesses, great and small.

He had a magical map drawn in golden ink, which could instantly reach every corner of the world.

These things were probably only useful to Brief himself. He simply had never had occasion to use them before. Now, there was only one problem left. That little sword drawn in ink was too fragile. It couldn’t even pierce burlap and cotton.

Unless…

Brief flashed behind Redding, raising that crudely drawn little sword high and stabbing toward a certain gap in Redding’s spine.

At the same instant, the entire Salaar doll threw himself into Myss’s arms. He gave up dodging and defense, entrusting his life to his enemy. The soft cloth hand pointed, and the doodle little sword shone with golden light.

It wasn’t as grand as anything Myss had seen, but it was bright enough.

In that brief instant, through that ridiculous simple doodle, Myss vaguely saw that mad guardian inside the seal.

The little sword stabbed deeply into Redding’s skin. That tiny puncture didn’t heal; instead, it triggered a chain reaction, causing spiderweb-like cracks to burst open across the skin.

Redding rolled on the spot, flinging Brief away.

Bedsheet Archdemon immediately rushed forward, spreading his soft bedsheet body and neatly catching Brief.

“This definitely isn’t a magic artifact effect. You can manipulate Divine Blood… You aren’t Kendrick Karns. Who—or what are you?”

Redding’s inverted face turned toward Brief. His voice was full of shock and rage, but his face still had no expression, which annoyed Myss.

“He is my enemy. My enemy!”

Myss loudly announced, ordering Fork to crash across Redding’s face. He seized the chance to punch him twice with his short little hands.

Now this was interesting. This was how things should be. Salaar should be stronger, stronger still. Only then would he be qualified to a thorn in Myss’s side for three hundred years.

“Damn it, has the Chaos Archdemon’s seal loosened? Are you His follower?”

Redding completely ignored Myss, only staring at Salaar, his tone growing more anxious.

Myss: “?”

How was this guy fabricating rumors about him out of thin air? Since when had he ever had followers?

No, wait. Why did Salaar being able to control Divine Blood make him get mistaken for Myss’s follower?

The Salaar doll remained silent, knowing only to play dead in Myss’s arms, while also supporting the fiercely battling Brief.

Brief didn’t let this golden opportunity slip.

He followed Tass’s commands and strictly adhered to the combat strategy from earlier, seizing the opportunity to stab Redding several more times. Every strike landed in the same place, and that patch of skin peeled open like a porcelain doll that had shattered from a fall.

Bedsheet Archdemon howled and yowled, happily swaying his body, looking quite excited.

With his vital point injured, Redding was unable to collect his thoughts. He seemed to have found something more important than the Divine Blood experiment. His eyes only stared at Myss and Salaar.

“Playing dumb is useless. ‘Divine Blood’ is a relic of the Night Scourge! It’s the power of the apocalypse!”

Redding’s voice was incomparably hoarse. “You ominous—pff!”

Myss rushed forward angrily, and Fork’s tail whipped across Redding’s mouth.

What relic of the Night Scourge? What power of the apocalypse? In the end, wasn’t it just his own divine power that had leaked out?

Rounding up, that was his property, his money. They were all spending his wealth without permission. Rather than letting the Stargazers Society use it, it might as well be given to Salaar. At least Salaar would hand over his wages.

“You’re using a Divine Blood Puppet yourself, and you still call him ominous?” Myss hissed. “Brief!”

Brief once again flashed behind Redding, persistently stabbing at that one weak point. The cracks grew larger, and the hollow was now the size of an eyeball.

Myss seized the opening and circled around Redding’s head. Fork shot straight into that broken hole. The two dolls fell from midair, only to be caught by Knife, which came immediately after.

The instant Fork drilled in, Redding’s body froze in place like a jammed machine. On his reversed face, his eyeballs turned in different directions, and clicking sounds came from his mouth.

“I see… Divine Blood… Divine Blood Puppet… you are…”

The Salaar doll directed Knife to circle to the front, and his cotton left hand pressed against the top of Redding’s upside-down head.

The end of Redding’s sentence vanished within that light touch. In the next instant, the black matter connecting the many body blocks dissipated like mist. The body blocks fell with crackling sounds and shattered into dust.

“Mental magic?” Myss was far too familiar with it.

“We couldn’t let him leak what happened here,” Salaar paused, then asked, “Aren’t you curious what he wanted to say?”

“Isn’t it just that you researched my power? I’ll figure it out myself.” Myss said indifferently. “Besides, no matter what you are in the human world, to me, you are simply ‘Salaar’.”

Salaar stopped talking and lightly bumped Myss’s face with his own again.

The gesture was so comical that Myss didn’t know whether to dodge or not. Since he was in a good mood right now, he let this guy rub against him.

“Done!” Tass shouted cheerfully.

Kalen also let out a breath and slightly relaxed his shoulders.

Amid the dust, Brief swayed as he stood up, shaking the powder off his red cloak. There were many more blood-red lines on his body, but Brief’s entire body had turned wavy, and he no longer even had the strength to pour the medicine.

Bedsheet Archdemon hurriedly landed, anxiously circling Brief while thin whimpers came from beneath the bedsheet.

“Don’t worry, Bedsheet. We won. We really won.”

Brief struggled forward two steps and hugged the soft Bedsheet Archdemon. His voice was as soft as a prayer.

“Whoo mi mi,” Bedsheet Archdemon called quietly.

“I’m fine. Everyone in the story is fine.” Brief wiped his eyes. “Thank you, thank you all! With only the two of us, we never could have beaten that monster!”

“Whooo!” Bedsheet Archdemon finally recovered some energy.

Myss couldn’t help sweeping a glance toward his Salaar. He suddenly discovered that Salaar’s doll body was trembling slightly. Clearly, “controlling Divine Blood” also came with a considerable price for him.

This was unfair, Myss thought. As the source of the Divine Blood, he hadn’t even figured out how to control this power… Once they got out of here, he really would have to interrogate Salaar.

Thinking this, he couldn’t resist stretching out his sinful hands and once again squeezed Salaar’s soft head into an hourglass shape.

Salaar stood in place as if used to it and sighed with his deformed head.

Amid the relaxed atmosphere, there was only one person who couldn’t be happy.

…Compared to Myss, Cousin Mag was clearly more concerned about Redding’s unfinished sentence.

“So far, no one has ever been able to control Divine Blood. For normal people, even skin contact is fatal.”

Magnolia spoke with certainty. “You absolutely cannot be Kendrick. Who are you?”

“In any case, not a Stargazer.” Salaar shrugged. “Madam, the Stargazers Society’s secret is right ahead. Don’t you think getting hung up on this right now is inappropriate?”

“I think the Stargazers Society’s Divine Blood experiment is definitely a little more important than me being a fake Kendrick. What, could it be that you and Mr. Kendrick have such a good relationship that you feel I deceived your feelings?”

“Don’t insult me. Who in their right mind would have a good relationship with that trash?”

Mag responded reflexively. “If not for Professor Gentry… Professor Gentry…”

She suddenly fell silent.

In Professor Gentry’s letter of introduction to the United Library, he had written Kendrick Karns name clearly. The United Library had specially verified it, and that letter had indeed been written by the professor himself.

In other words, either this impostor had extraordinary abilities and could deceive even a Kingdom Archmage, or Professor Gentry actually knew the truth and was willing to help these people deceive the United Library… deceive an institution directly under the Aufon royal family.

No matter which situation it was, she couldn’t afford to provoke these people.

In this battle, she had seen far too many things she shouldn’t have seen. The other side not immediately hitting her with mental magic was already courteous enough.

If she lost these precious records… Mag shivered and refused to think further.

“…Professor Gentry’s reputation carries a lot of weight.” Lady Mag stiffly continued, “What you said makes sense. The urgent priority is to understand the Divine Blood experiment and resolve the abnormality in the United Library.”

After saying this, she jumped off the priest’s shoe and rushed toward the ink hole as if her backside were on fire. Tass chuckled and jumped down right after her.

Only then did the priest move. When he stepped over the ashes of the Divine Blood Puppet, his heart abruptly twitched for no reason.

What was going on?

…Forget it. Perhaps his nerves had been too tense earlier.

Kalen shook his head and tossed away the thought.

---

The author has something to say:

Lady Magnolia, stop struggling. Just accept your role as an inside agent for your fake cousin already! (???

Also, Salaar really isn’t the Chaos Archdemon follower. He’s the Chaos Archdemon’s family. [dog head]

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 87: Divine Blood Puppet

Hearing this unexpected statement, Redding froze for two seconds.

Then he burst out laughing. “Very clever, but unfortunately, only petty cleverness. You’re not a Stargazer, sir. I know very well that you are not.”

Salaar’s button eyes stared fixedly at him. “So the ‘we’ you mentioned really does mean the Stargazers.”

“Not only that, you’ve also heard about us. Let me think… You learned it from Mr. Kai, didn’t you?”

Huh? It was one thing if Redding really was a stargazer, but how did that artifact merchant get involved too?

Myss looked at Salaar in confusion, pausing his great project of thinking.

Redding’s smile instantly stiffened, then quickly faded. “Who exactly are you?”

“Someone with a brain.” The Salaar doll jumped down from Fork and staggered forward.

“Before this, Kendrick Karns had always been at the border. Even Lady Magnolia doesn’t know my situation clearly. Yet you can state with certainty that I am ‘not a Stargazer.’”

“The only people who can confirm identity like that, apart from high-level investigators, are Stargazers themselves. But if you were a high-level investigator, with Lady Magnolia’s identity and status, she wouldn’t know nothing about it.”

“…Lastly, among the people who have previously contacted us and were suspected Stargazers, there’s only Mr. Kai.”

Salaar patted his soft cloth hands. Unfortunately, they made no sound. “And you forgot to deny it immediately. It seems both of you come from the Stargazer Society.”

Salaar didn’t mention the suspicions surrounding Professor Gentry. Myss raised his nonexistent eyebrows.

When it concerned the mystery of the body swap or Salaar, his brain always worked smoothly. Professor Gentry had a good relationship with them and also held considerable influence in the Aufon Kingdom. If Salaar exposed this matter, neither side would have any path of retreat.

…But why was Salaar walking forward again? He was almost swaying to the priest’s feet.

“You’re too young and don’t have much seniority. I imagine you can’t access the United Library’s Divine Blood, so you can’t be the experimenter.”

Salaar continued, his tiny body inching forward as he spoke. “Therefore, you probably came as a witness to confirm the result of the ‘Divine Blood experiment.’”

Redding was silent for a long time, then suddenly laughed again. “Good heavens. I thought it was impossible for me to be baited into revealing anything…”

“Kalen, go!” Salaar suddenly shouted, his tone exactly like when he gave orders in the army.

The priest obeyed subconsciously. He pushed off with both feet, but this time, there was no sound of paper tearing. In Myss’s garnet button eyes, a thin layer of golden light was clearly reflected.

During the conversation, Salaar had actually silently added protective magic to the soles of the priest’s feet!

But the dolls clearly couldn’t use magic. Myss abruptly raised his head and looked at Salaar.

At the same instant, relying on his sturdy body, the priest crashed straight toward Redding.

Redding was completely unprepared. He instinctively crossed his arms in front of his face, attempting to protect his vitals. However, his figure was thin, and he was directly sent flying by the priest’s impact.

The two “giants” rushed past the simplistic sketches of mountains and dawn, tumbling into the nearly blank title page.

The line [Dedicated to our hero Saint Salaar, and to every child who longs for courage] was knocked crooked by the two of them, letters scattering all over the ground.

Salaar ignored Mag’s scream of “What is going on?” He returned to Fork and hugged the still-stunned Myss tightly. Knife understood and charged forward, shooting toward the title page like an arrow.

“A story without a title page is still a story!”

Salaar shouted at the deathly pale Brief. “We’ll keep the battlefield on the title page. Decide for yourself what you want to do!”

“How can you use magic? I can’t use even a little!”

Myss poked Salaar’s cotton back hard. “Hey, Salaar, ever since you saw the Divine Blood, you’ve been acting weird. Don’t tell me…”

“Everyone, assist Kalen!” Salaar jumped off the snake and ran away.

Myss: “…”

This kid was definitely hiding a huge secret!

He sat alone on Fork and patted Fork’s head. “Go. First we kill the enemy, then we interrogate him properly.”

As they made their way forward, every illustration had been like an independent stage set. They were covered by some unseen spotlight and blended together.

Now, Kalen stood at the boundary between the title page and the first page of the story. His back was straight, and he firmly guarded the path that led into the story, like an immovable stone statue.

Redding, meanwhile, was blocking the way slightly farther into the title page. In the vast blank “title-page stage,” that pitch-black ink hole was especially conspicuous.

However, judging by its size, it was still some distance from them. Redding stood right in the middle, his expression incomparably troubled.

A little strange. At this moment, Redding’s aura was actually somewhat similar to Kalen’s.

“That opening belongs to us. Unrelated personnel are strictly forbidden from entering.”

Redding steadied himself and spoke slowly.

“I said before, we don’t have any ill will toward you.”

“The Stargazer Society knows what you have been doing along this journey and who you have been investigating. We have no intention of interfering with your plans… But now, all of you insist on interfering with our experiment.”

“Is that so? What a coincidence. This time, we came precisely to investigate Divine Blood.”

Salaar avoided Myss’s scorching gaze, which was as hot as a branding iron. His eyes only looked at Redding. “I happen to have a rather strong thirst for knowledge. Since the Divine Blood experiment has been shoved right in front of me, of course I have to take a look.”

“Even if this matter has nothing to do with V.O.R?” Redding hissed. “…Even if we are willing to exchange information about V.O.R for your departure from this place?”

Kalen stood completely still, as if he had heard nothing.

“If we leave, you’ll immediately destroy this book to make sure we can’t return,” Salaar said calmly. “So there is nothing for us to discuss.”

Brief jumped down from Knife’s back. He gripped his little sword tightly and stared blankly at the Salaar doll.

Bedsheet Archdemon ran to Myss’s side. As he wailed, he used his body to nudge Myss’s foot toward the ink hole, afraid they hadn’t noticed it.

Redding laughed in exasperation. “You’re insane. This is only a children’s picture book! Even if it has been affected by Divine Blood, it’s still only a picture book!”

“Yes. For this picture book, we’re not much different from gods. One thought, one breath, and we could reduce it to ash.”

Salaar said, “I simply can’t bring myself to abandon such a pitiable world. I just can’t.”

At this point, he finally turned his cotton head and looked at Myss.

“This is my book, bastard.” Myss retorted without a shred of politeness, baring his (nonexistent) fangs. “You actually dare destroy my things” You deserve to die.”

Stick-figure Mag looked from side to side. In the end, she dashed to the priest’s feet and sat down on the tip of his shoe, finding herself an excellent observation spot.

Tass followed her closely and sat on the priest’s other shoe. Only, the Tass doll’s expression was unusually serious, more like he was observing the battlefield terrain.

Redding let out a long sigh. “So this is your answer.”

“The Stargazer Society goes to such lengths to stop the apocalypse, yet the two of you turn against us—all for the sake of a picture book… The world truly is mad.”

Before Redding’s sigh had faded, his body twisted first.

His wrists, elbows, knees, ankles… even his neck. Every joint capable of movement twisted, cracked, and separated out of thin air.

Redding’s body split into a dozen pieces and rearranged itself. His head remained in place, but the body blocks that formed his limbs broke apart. Between the body blocks, long and slender black bone connected them, forming new abnormal limbs that didn’t belong to any human.

Redding suddenly became two or three times larger than Kalen. He moved his new bead-like body, resembling a phantom spider with a human face.

Following his movements, spiderweb-like black threads crisscrossed and danced. Redding wove between heaven and earth, and layer after layer of black spiderwebs appeared around them like cracks in this snow-white world. The sound of paper warping rang endlessly, and countless folds appeared in the pure white space.

Within the deformed space, the spiderwebs rapidly closed in. An unquestionable killing intent rushed toward them.

“I gave you a chance.”

Redding was expressionless, his head turning a full one hundred eighty degrees, upside down.

“That is a Divine Blood Puppet, the alchemical lifeform closest to humans!”

Mag clutched tightly at Kalen’s shoe tip and shouted at the top of her lungs. “That thing doesn’t have brain and can’t use magic. They are remotely controlled by a living person!”

Brief hurriedly picked up the thread. “How do we deal with it?”

“I don’t know, damn it!”

Mag didn’t ignore the other stick figures. “That is wartime technology from the Night Scourge era. It won’t stop operating unless the core is shut down!”

Kalen wanted to charge forward and fight Redding in close combat.

But the moment he moved, Redding propped up his body and made as if to rush toward the inside of the story. Kalen turned his hand back and tried to grab Redding’s legs, only for the puppet to evade him effortlessly. The Divine Blood puppet’s physical capabilities were astonishing. Its speed was actually no way inferior to Father Kalen’s.

While protecting the ink hole, Redding extended those twisted limbs, attempting to crush the swaying Salaar doll underfoot. Unfortunately for him, things didn’t go as he wished. Myss clamped tightly onto Fork, relentlessly harried Redding with a barrage of thrusts, making it impossible for him to aim.

But Redding was far too enormous, and they were too small. The moment Fork pierced one of Redding’s body blocks, black smoke surged from the hole, and the wound quickly vanished.

Myss angrily clenched his cloth fists. At the same time, a certain strange sense of déjà vu rose in him—himself, weak and insignificant, pitted against a colossal, nearly invincible opponent.

Now, he was facing the former “himself” from “Salaar’s” perspective. Only, one battlefield had been buried deep in darkness, while this battlefield floated in pure white.

Myss took a deep breath. “Salaar, come here!”

Salaar gave a whistle, and the riderless Knife obediently rushed over. The Salaar doll jumped onto Knife’s back, and in the next moment, snake and doll slid to Myss’s side together.

“I think you know where his core is, right? Just now, you were staring so hard you almost burned holes through him.”

Myss spoke extremely quickly. “He moves too fast. It’ll be hard to aim. Next, I’ll guide his movements, and you shout the direction you want.”

Salaar’s button eyes flashed. “You…”

“I was tormented by you for three hundred years. I know how a ‘big guy’ attacks and defends.”

Myss pressed his soft cloth hand against Salaar’s forehead. “Do what you should do. I already said, this is my book! If anyone’s going to destroy it, it’s going to be me!”

Salaar was silent for a few seconds, then suddenly moved closer and lightly bumped Myss’s face with his own.

Myss: “?”

Myss: “Are you trying to pick a fight with me right now?”

“It’s meant to be a passionate kiss, though pity, it didn’t quite land,” Salaar said. “Thanks to you, I thought of a brilliant idea.”

“I almost forgot. This time around, ‘Brave Salaar’ has an army of his own…”

---

The author has something to say:

Salaar doll: Wants to give an excited yet dignified light kiss.

Myss doll: ? Why is my mortal enemy bumping his face against mine? Is he picking a fight?

The downside of chibi bodies! [dog head]

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 86: No Other Choice?

Father Kalen remained crouched for quite a while. Just as Myss was about to reasonably suspect that his legs had gone numb, the priest took a small tulip-like bell from his pocket.

It was the summoning magic device Redding had given him before leaving.

The priest fiddled with the bell hesitantly for a while, then shook it with a clear ding-a-ling. The bright ringing echoed through the simple-doodle world. This time, no sound of paper tearing appeared again.

After half a minute of ringing, no one appeared.

The priest smiled apologetically. “I just wanted to try…”

“Oh my!” Brief suddenly cried out.

He pointed at a blank space not far away. Several lines had appeared there out of nowhere, forming a plump little robed figure. The little figure wore a black pearl brooch like an ink dot, and its short hair looked somewhat like Mag’s.

“Wonderful, wonderful. The space is actually still connected.”

Stick-figure Mag spoke quickly. “These are lines I drew with Divine Blood. It really worked!”

Myss glanced at that excited clump of ink lines and pointed upward. “Then can you draw us a ladder?”

“There isn’t that much Divine Blood. Restoring contact is already the limit.”

Mag smiled bitterly. “This ‘me’ can’t do anything except speak.”

Her actual body was still outside the book. This simple-doodle image was more or less a strangely shaped communication magic device.

“With an expert like Giant Lady here, I feel much better!”

Brief said politely, then explained the previous situation as well.

He didn’t even hide the matter of the priest preparing to jump and almost tearing apart the picture-book world. Of course, he didn’t say it in an accusatory tone. He earnestly described every detail, striving not to miss any clue.

Brief firmly believed Mag was an extraordinary researcher and had no reservations or defenses against her at all.

“You chased in specially to help them, didn’t you? I’ll work together with you so everyone can go home.”

Brief said sincerely.

Myss could now see that this little thing was actually not much like Salaar.

Bedsheet Archdemon was utterly dim-witted, and Brief was equally guileless.

“Brave Salaar” was, after all, a fairy-tale character. He was more like a combination of the “poetic imagery sang by bards” and the “hero in children’s hearts,” with a level of wariness comparable to a human child.

Faced with these words, however, Mag listened intently.

After hearing everything, she thought for a long while, then glanced at Salaar. “You helped Professor Gentry before, and the situation is special, so I won’t hide it from you either.”

“In my view, this is a little like an unformed ‘Divine Realm.’”

After saying this, she deliberately paused for two seconds to let them digest this staggering revelation.

Myss: “…”

They had already set foot in three Divine Realms. If they counted the sealed lair of the Chaos Archdemon, then they had seen a full four.

“Still, is this really a Divine Realm?”

Myss couldn’t help muttering. “If these guys who ran out are creations of the Divine Realm, then this Divine Realm is a little too exaggerated. The Prisoner of Dreams only sent some rabbits outside the Divine Realm, and that nearly drained it dry.”

The priest was still crouched in place. “Exactly. If every book contains a little world, the magic consumption must be absolutely staggering.”

“Putting those details aside, the effects caused by ‘Divine Blood’ and ‘Abnormal Fruit’ seem rather similar. That’s the key point.”

Salaar finally ended his suspicious silence. “Let’s return to the essence. Someone in the United Library was contaminated by an external power, gained near-godlike power, and constructed a unique Divine Realm.”

“There’s no point just guessing here. Let’s head toward the title page first.”

Mag: “?”

Leaving aside these strangers of unknown origin, since when did Kendrick understand these things?

The existence of Divine Realms and their origin were known outside only to the Kingdom Archmages and their genius students.

Mag herself knew about it because of the United Library’s own special nature. Even so, not many people within the United Library knew the truth.

In Mag’s own impression, this cousin of hers was only obsessed with heretical theories and unofficial histories, single-mindedly wanting to obtain a Magibase through living sacrifice. Kendrick couldn’t possibly have come into contact with knowledge at this level. Earlier, the fact that he was connected to Professor Gentry had already shocked her enough.

“Kendrick, did Professor Gentry teach you this?” Mag’s words grew serious.

“To be precise, Father told me,” Salaar shrugged his cotton shoulders and readily told the truth… Well, part of the truth.

In any case, even Mag didn’t know what the Order of Shadows was, so there was no way to pursue that line of conversation any further.

“I hope so.”

As expected, Mag gave a dry laugh. “If you’ve gotten involved with the Stargazers Society, then I can only join the ranks of those trying to eliminate you.”

……

For the following stretch of time, everyone rode the two snakes and crossed page after page of the story. The giant priest walked at the very back. Never in his life had his steps been so light.

They crossed sunny days colored warmly and stepped over night skies scattered with enormous five-pointed stars. The passersby came and went, looking at them curiously, but their reactions weren’t especially intense. Like background characters in a fairy tale, they were happy to accept all bizarre occurrences.

“Once we cross that mountain, we’ll see the foreword! Before the foreword is the title page, and the ink hole is over there!” Brief announced excitedly.

Myss raised his eyes and looked at that mountain. These two pages were the beginning of the story, depicting the scene of the rising sun.

If he remembered correctly, in an ordinary room, “Brave Salaar” had been born crying loudly in his swaddling clothes.

He wondered what his Salaar had looked like when he was born.

Was Salaar also born under the sunlight and gently wrapped in swaddling clothes? …Or had that guy been born in the frigid darkness of the Night Scourge. It certainly would explain why he latched on to Myss so tenaciously, refusing to let go.

Myss stared at the Salaar doll swaying back and forth in front of him, his thoughts flying wildly.

Salaar’s reaction when he saw the Divine Blood had been a little strange, and the Divine Blood was a creation of the Night Scourge era. Perhaps this thing was related to Salaar. Otherwise, Myss couldn’t explain that strange sense of familiarity.

Flap!

The Salaar doll turned around and threw himself onto the Myss doll, using his soft body as a shield. Fork, which they were riding, made an emergency stop. “What is that?!”

Something stood up from among the mountains filled with light, literally stood up. He looked about the same size as Father Kalen, with short walnut-brown hair and freckles scattered on either side of his long nose.

“Found you.”

Redding smiled brightly, revealing snow-white teeth.

Knife retreated warily. Mag, riding on Knife, looked shocked, and even her ink-dot eyes widened by several degrees. “You are… Redding? Why are you here?”

“Oh, dear Lady Mag, that’s my line. You shouldn’t have appeared here.”

Redding sighed. “For Lady Mag’s sake, I’ll give everyone a chance. Leave this place. Go back. Find a way to return the same way you came.”

“Then hand this picture book over to me and stay obediently until the abnormality disappears… How about it? Not hard to do, is it? So far, we do not have any ill will toward you.”

“Redding, what’s going on? Who is ‘we’?”

Seeing that there was a problem with her subordinate, Stick-figure Mag’s hair practically exploded. A tiny anger symbol burst out on her forehead. “I’ll give you a chance too, a chance to confess on your own. Explain clearly, right now!”

“It’s precisely because I don’t want to explain that I advised you to turn back. Right now, I’m speaking nicely purely out of politeness.”

“If you are unwilling, then I can only start from this page and slowly destroy this book.”

Redding carelessly strode across the mountain range. His steps were neither light nor heavy, each one just enough to produce the sound of paper rubbing.

For a moment, the scene was utterly silent, and even Myss didn’t make a sound.

No one present had magic. And in this fragile world, Father Kalen couldn’t unleash the strength he was so proud of.

Redding had no such qualms. In order to stop them from advancing, he could simply destroy this book. The fact that this guy was still willing to communicate with them could indeed be considered “polite.”

Sweat broke out on Brief’s forehead. One hand gripped the still-dizzy Bedsheet Archdemon, while the other reached for his sword hilt. His red cape swayed lightly, like a beating heart.

Father Kalen stepped directly past them and blocked the very front. He put away his gentle expression and looked at Redding with a grim expression.

The small bell Redding had given him was crushed out of shape in his palm. How pitiful. He could block every attack from the other party, but he couldn’t control where that other party’s foot came down.

Rip.

Seeing that everyone didn’t retreat, Redding exerted a little force with his right foot. Along with the sound of paper tearing under pressure, the world trembled.

“A story can still be a story, even if it’s missing its beginning.”

Redding said thoughtfully, “Then let’s start from this page. ‘On a clear and beautiful morning, Brave Salaar was born in…’”

Rip!

Brief looked as if he was about to rush forward, but Mag beside him grabbed him hard. He was so anxious, his body trembled. “Let me go, Madam!”

Brief’s face flushed bright red, and Bedsheet Archdemon, who was beside him, finally came back to himself, howling in panic.

Bedsheet Archdemon was extremely fast, and Mag didn’t manage to stop him. He skillfully circled around Father Kalen’s legs and charged straight to Redding’s feet, using his body to slam into the back of Redding’s knee.

Bedsheet Archdemon didn’t possess Myss’s power of annihilation, but his strength couldn’t be underestimated. However, Redding seemed to feel nothing and still stood perfectly upright.

No matter how one looked at it, other than retreating, they had no other choice. Either they retreated in humiliation, or they retreated in a miserable state.

Myss didn’t want to retreat. He hated this feeling of having to be controlled by someone else. Salaar was one thing, but where had this wild human named Redding popped out from?

What did a Divine Realm count for? What did another god’s rules matter? Since other gods could project their power beyond the confines of their own realm, why couldn’t he? …His true body wasn’t dead yet!

Myss closed his eyes and felt this tottering world with all his strength.

Come. Let him watch a Divine Realm be destroyed by external force. Let him see how the boundary collapsed, how the power dispersed. Let him personally feel—

“Wait.”

Salaar suddenly spoke.

“I think there may be some misunderstanding between us.” The tiny doll took two steps forward, its mouth opening into a semicircle.

“We’re also Stargazers, just like you.”

“If I’m not mistaken, you came to check the results of the ‘Divine Blood experiment,’ didn’t you?”

---

The author has something to say:

Myss: There is no such word as retreat in my dictionary! [cat paw]

Salaar: There is no such word as retreat in my dictionary! [thumbs up]

And so, the two stubborn mules glared face-to-face, butting heads for more than three hundred years. [dog head]

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 85: Fragile World

Before the examination began, Mag threw two more protective spells toward the door to make sure no one would accidentally barge in.

With her back to the window forged by magic artifacts, she took a deep breath. The false sunlight cut across her body, carving out a distorted shadow.

“I’ll go first!” Myss clattered over to Mag, hopping and bouncing in front of her.

“Heavens, Mr. Myss is so brave!”

Brief clapped inside the cage, then turned to comfort the whimpering Bedsheet Archdemon. “Don’t be afraid, Bedsheet. Look, they’re ahead of us.”

“Woo-awoo…”

Bedsheet Archdemon leaned pitifully against the silver cage and stopped yelling and crashing around.

Salaar kept his tiny soft-cloth face taut.

Reflected in his lapis-lazuli button eyes, Mag lightly dipped the end of a metal needle into the Divine Blood. In an instant, dense black patterns appeared on the silver needle, finer than spider silk by several degrees.

“This is an analysis plate and resonance probe, an incredible invention from the Night Scourge period.”

She explained softly to Myss, “They can analyze the essence of magic to a certain extent. If two powers are similar in nature, it will produce a clear resonance sound.”

Myss tilted his head and looked down at the large silver plate under his feet.

The silver plate was polished as smooth as a mirror, allowing Myss to easily see his reflection. He wore only Salaar’s navy-blue coat, and his half-round button eyes were brighter than burning coals, making him look as if he was perpetually angry.

Comically, the hair ribbon Salaar had made for him had also been restored in this form. His gray-white cotton-thread hair was tied with a small lapis-lazuli ribbon, and the ruby brooch he had given Salaar was pinned to this miniaturized coat.

Myss stretched out one bare cloth foot and stepped on the swaying blue hair ribbon in the reflection.

Looking more carefully, there were also incredibly fine engraved patterns hidden along the edge of the plate, very similar to the patterns on that set of needles.

Unfortunately, he had lost his magic right now. Otherwise, he definitely would have taken a look at this magic’s structure. Myss habitually tried to snort through his nose. When he discovered he no longer had a nose, his mood worsened even more.

“An invention from the Night Scourge period? What was this thing used for?”

In the spirit of “never letting go of any knowledge point from the Night Scourge era,” Myss threw away his pride and humbly asked.

Mag was stuck for half a second by this unexpected question before continuing. “In that era, humans hadn’t yet found a systematic theory of magic. They could only rely on innate talent.”

“This kind of innate magic varied greatly, and theories couldn’t be universally applied. So the geniuses created this.”

At this point, she paused, digging deep into the recess of her mind to unearth this obscure piece of knowledge.

“Back then, the testing material was human blood. If two people’s flesh and blood could produce resonance, it meant the nature of their magic was compatible, and they could work together to research magical theory.”

No wonder I don’t know about it, Myss thought.

The army Salaar had brought in had all been mature, polished mages. They wouldn’t carry such a thing around.

In his impression, those messy tricks of the mages were indeed all personally specialized. But was the Magibase really so universal?

The Fallen Child, the Perfected Creation, the Prisoner of Dreams… Like the geniuses of the Night Scourge era, the nature of their magic also differed greatly.

Or perhaps the mutation brought by the Abnormal Fruit stimulated the geniuses’ “innate” power?

But what about the Magibase? What role did the Magibase play within all this?

Myss wrestled internally, his body freezing in place as if he had truly became a doll.

Assuming he was ready, Mag slowly drove the long needle into the doll’s abdomen, and then—

“Arrghhhhhhhh!”

The Myss doll let out a huge scream. Seeing that things were going badly, Bedsheet Archdemon in the silver cage also began to cry out, “Awoooaaah!”

Mag’s eyes widened slightly, but her hand remained perfectly steady, not trembling in the slightest.

The Salaar doll jolted in place. He looked as if he wanted to rush over immediately, yet something seemed to pin him to the spot. His soft cloth hands curled up into tiny fists.

Before Myss’s scream faded, a hazy halo rippled across the silver plate. Endless clear notes shook the air, making the listener’s heart itch.

“…It is indeed the influence of Divine Blood. Everyone’s guess was correct.”

Mag bit her lip and pulled out the long needle. “All right, Kendrick. Your turn.”

She carefully picked up Myss, who was whimpering and grumbling about the pain, and placed him onto a silk handkerchief.

Without saying a word, Salaar moved forward and received exactly the same needle as Myss.

How should one put it? It was quite painful, about the same as hitting one’s little toe against the corner of a table. Salaar let out a couple of perfunctory grunts as the silver plate and needle resonated again, producing a sound indistinguishable from when it had been Myss’s turn.

Without a doubt, there was no magic fluctuation on them, but the influence of Divine Blood existed.

Before Mag reached out, Salaar jumped off the plate himself and ran to the curled-up Myss. “Was it very painful just now?”

“Like hitting my little toe against the corner of a table.” Myss unhappily rubbed his belly.

Thinking of that tragic scream just now, Salaar helplessly stared at this, uh, Archdemon that could destroy the world.

“What are you looking at? If I hit my little toe against the corner of a table, I scream like that too.”

Myss tried to bare his nonexistent fangs. A certain unpleasant memory poked out from his mind, and he subconsciously tugged at the coat, covering a specific spot on his lower body. “If it really hurt, I wouldn’t even be able to scream. It’s not like you haven’t seen that before.”

“It doesn’t hurt at all. Look, I’m fine!” Brief patted his chest at Bedsheet Archdemon.

Bedsheet Archdemon finally quieted, making a thin whimpering sound. It lowered its tall body—relative to Brief, at least—and its dark eye sockets fixed on him.

“I’m really fine. Don’t worry, the examination is already over.”

“Woo woo.”

“I need administer one more prick. Sorry.” 

Mag frowned at the needle.

The needle had only lightly brushed past the lines of Brief’s abdomen, and his resonance sound had been quieter than both Myss’s and Salaar’s. The Dragon Fae was somewhere in between.

The stick-figure’s “body” was far too thin, and the data was too different. Mag suspected that where she had inserted the needle hadn’t been solid enough.

Her needle tip pointed at Brief again, stabbing toward his chest, where there were more lines.

“Wargh—!!!”

The clanging and banging of a collision rang out. Bedsheet Archdemon had actually knocked the cage open right where he was. The tiny silver cage flew off the desk and rolled across the stone-tile floor.

The palm-sized Bedsheet Archdemon floated into the air, puffing himself up. His simple lines twisted endlessly, the ink surging like boiling water, releasing a tiny but unquestionable pressure.

“Don’t! Stop!” Brief scrambled down from the silver plate. “I’m not hurt. Don’t panic—”

But Bedsheet Archdemon didn’t listen to him at all. He dove toward Brief and wrapped around the simple-doodle hero like a snake. Immediately afterward, he turned and flew toward the closed copy of Brave Salaar.

The book stirred as if it was suddenly caught in a gust of wind. It slowly rose upright and swung open, resembling a vast, gaping doorway. Between the pages, an inky black hole appeared. Bedsheet Archdemon bound the waving, struggling Brief and charged toward that hole like a cannonball.

“Stop them!” Mag cried out.

Instinctively, the Dragon Fae reached out, attempting to snag Brief’s red cape. Unfortunately, Bedsheet Archdemon’s strength was astonishing, and he actually dragged the little Tass doll into the air with him.

Seeing this, Salaar lunged at Tass, wanting to pull the Dragon Fae back. Myss bit down on Salaar’s wrist, while Knife and Fork tightly coiled around Myss’s left and right feet, adding their own bit to the Myss doll’s weight.

Father Kalen, meanwhile, rushed to the book in three steps and reached out to stop this little fairy-tale train.

Everything happened too quickly. The priest only had time to grab Myss at the very end. Then… then he was actually dragged flying by Bedsheet Archdemon too. The burly man, who was nearly two meter tall, stagged and tumbled down into the tiny ink-black hole alongside the dolls.

In the blink of an eye, only a dumbfounded Mag remained in the room.

She wished she could follow them in, but a researcher’s rationality stopped her. Mag gritted her teeth, took out a larger silver cage, then poured all the remaining Divine Blood from the examination into the cage’s power reservoir.

This cage was used by the United Library to house rare creatures. As long as there was enough magic, it could keep the things inside in the “state they were in when they first entered the cage.”

“Please, please.”

She stared nervously at that strange book and slammed the cage down over it. “Please, stop…”

Fortunately, her prayer was answered. That copy of Brave Salaar didn’t close, and the dark ink-hole entrance remained wide open.

Mag took two steps back and collapsed into the armchair.

Now, she had done everything she could. She had left a door of return for those hapless people. Next, she could only depend on their luck.

“Kendrick… Kendrick, don’t you dare die on my doorstep.”

Mag wiped the beads of sweat from her nose. “I really don’t want to inherit that pile of troublesome assets of yours—truly, I don’t.”

……

Crackle, bang bang!

Amidst swirling clouds of dust, depicted merely as sketched lines, Myss regained consciousness.

His mouth was still biting Salaar’s arm, soft and warm. Salaar shifted beneath his body, clearly fine.

Myss relaxed and spat out that hand, then looked around.

Judging by the environment, this seemed to be the site of the final battle between “Brave Salaar,” no, Brief, and Bedsheet Archdemon.

As far as the eye could see, everything was flat simple doodles, with refreshing and adorable colors. The dolls and two little snakes, however, were three-dimensional, making them look extremely out of place.

“Hehe, hehe, wooaaah~”

Bedsheet Archdemon floated in the air, bouncing lightly with the posture of a victor and humming a cheerful little tune.

“Bedsheet!” Brief supported himself with his simple-doodle little sword and stood up trembling.

Bedsheet Archdemon smugly drifted over, the ghost-like hem of his cloth swaying.

Brief clenched his fist and lightly knocked Bedsheet Archdemon on the head. “That lady had no ill intent toward us, and I really didn’t hurt at all. Haa, how impolite!”

“Awwr!” Bedsheet Archdemon cried back indignantly, using his soft body to bump into Brief.

The two of them argued into a mess, in a rather comical form. It did indeed suit the age range of this picture book.

“Excuse me…”

Myss discovered in shock that a rumbling voice came from overhead. “Excuse me, I would like to know, how can we return?”

Everyone raised their heads at the sound and saw a black cloud… No, it was the giant priest half-squatting.

Father Kalen had maintained his normal human size, while the picture-book world was a one-to-one restoration of the illustrations. The dolls and little snakes were all right here, but the priest’s size was rather astonishing.

The priest was afraid that if he moved recklessly, he might accidentally damage something. He could only crouch in place with his arms around his knees, trying his best to reduce the space he occupied.

Myss and Salaar, looking up: “…”

Tass: “Wow.”

“That way.” Brief hurriedly pointed at the sky. “That hole, it’s still there! Bedsheet can fly you back out.”

Between the simple-doodle sun and clouds, there was unmistakably an extra ink-drawn hole, as if the artist had accidentally dripped ink there.

There was no way to distinguish distance in this flat world, but judging by its size, it was definitely high enough above the ground.

The priest carefully straightened his body and stretched out his arm, but he still couldn’t touch that ink hole. As for the others, never mind flying, they didn’t even have magic left, so they had no way at all.

“Bedsheet, I won’t go out anymore. Can you take them out?”

Brief turned his head to soothe Bedsheet Archdemon. “Don’t be angry. It was my fault just now. I know you were worried about me.”

Bedsheet Archdemon gave a forceful huff. He splatted onto the ground, becoming nothing but a “bedsheet” with blinking eye holes, taking the stance of “I’m simply not getting up and that’s final.”

“All right, he’s unhappy. We need to think of another way,” Brief said dejectedly.

His ink shoulders drooped as he uselessly picked at the Archdemon on the ground.

“Kalen’s stamina is fine. He can grab us and jump out,” Tass actively suggested. “Come on, Father, give us a jump!”

The priest nodded solemnly and used just a little force in his feet. There came a tearing sound beneath his feet, sounding a little like paper pages about to rip.

“No—!”

Hearing that faint tearing sound, Brief swayed on the spot. He almost cried out and drew his little sword right there.

“Please, please don’t do that!”

Brief gripped the sword with both hands, his voice somewhat sharp. “Please don’t destroy our world. Bedsheet just doesn’t understand… I will think of a way!”

Bedsheet Archdemon was still splatted on the ground and had been shaken by the priest’s preparatory motion. His eye holes had turned into two spinning circles, making him look dizzy.

Father Kalen’s movements froze, afraid that he would become the “world-destroying Archdemon” of the picture-book world.

Myss huffed. “This is what fragile worlds are like. They can’t withstand even a little force. Even if you want to do something proper, a Salaar will always pop out to stop you.”

“If the picture book breaks, then it breaks. We have to leave this place as soon as—”

The Salaar doll silently stretched out a hand and covered Myss’s mouth.

Seeing Kalen stop moving, Brief hurriedly ran to the priest’s feet. “I remember now. There’s also a hole near the title page! That hole is on the ground. We haven’t had time to explore it yet, and it might be another exit…”

He spoke in an almost pleading tone, his beady eyes trembling nonstop. “Mr. Giant, can we go over there and take a look first? And if we wait a bit longer, Bedsheet might be willing to cooperate.”

In his panic, the stick-figure hero spread his arms as if to shield Bedsheet Archdemon and the picture-book world behind him. He gripped his ink-drawn little sword tightly. Given the colossal disparity in power, the sword looked like a joke.

Even Myss could tell that Brief was truly worried.

Compared to a human, Bedsheet Archdemon was more like a simple-minded little animal. He was clearly not controlled by Brief and could only be coaxed. But Myss and the others still had serious matters to handle. They had no obligation to accompany a stick-figure in coaxing a fairy-tale villain.

As long as they wanted, they could directly tear apart this world.

The Salaar doll stared fixedly at the storybook version of “himself,”. No emotion could be discerned in those lapis-lazuli eyes. Myss bit down on Salaar’s soft hand in his mouth, but Salaar didn’t move at all.

Myss bit a little harder, but Salaar still didn’t react.

…He didn’t know whether it was his imagination, but after entering Cousin Mag’s room, Salaar had become much quieter.

“Don’t worry. I’ll go with you.”

Kalen crouched down again and gently pressed a finger against the nervous Brief.

“Fairy tales always have a happy ending, don’t they?”

---

The author has something to say:

Salaar, but from the world-destroying Archdemon’s perspective. This is what humans look like in Myss’s eyes. [cat paw]

A true dimensional strike. [OK]

---

<<< || Table of Contents || >>>

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 84: Brief and Bedsheet Archdemon

Stick-figure Salaar was only a thin layer. The black lines that outlined him were so light they seemed weightless, leaving Myss baffled on how he was even standing. No, wait, that wasn’t the point. The point was, what the hell was this thing?!

Myss stretched out his cotton-stuffed soft hand and poked Stick-figure Salaar. The latter cried out, “Please don’t do that, Mr. Gray. That’s impolite!”

Myss turned his head in confusion and looked at the real Salaar.

Then he discovered that Salaar himself wasn’t much calmer than him. With a face composed of nothing but two buttons and a stitched mouth, the Salaar doll managed to produce a rather subtle expression of astonishment.

And yet, it wasn’t over.

Something struggled out from between the pages and only managed to stand unsteadily after quite a while. Its lines were even simpler than Stick-figure Salaar’s. It was clearly the Chaos Archdemon from the story.

“Awoo, awah!” Stick-figure Archdemon growled menacingly.

Myss: “…”

Fine. The stick-figure version of himself couldn’t even speak human language.

Speaking of which, when he and Salaar had fought, he indeed hadn’t been able to speak human language. Myss glared at stick-figure Archdemon and sulked for a moment.

“You fiend! You’re not allowed to scare these two gentlemen!”

The stick-figure hero brandished his poorly colored little sword and charged toward the little Archdemon that looked like a bedsheet ghost.

The Salaar doll silently moved in front of Bedsheet Archdemon. The stick-figure little man’s sword poked him, only to be bounced back by the rough cloth. Stick-figure Salaar staggered and fell onto the desk, flattened against it.

“Grr grr.” The Bedsheet Archdemon proudly swayed his body.

Stick-figure Salaar struggled back up. “Mr. Black, don’t be bewitched by it. It’s actually the Chaos—”

“Hey, Mag!”

Salaar craned his neck to call out of Mag, who was busily organizing documents, in a dramatic act of self-sacrifice. “We’re seeing something very strange!”

Cousin Mag, whose attention was entirely focused on Kalen at that moment, finally snapped back to reality.

When she saw the two stick figures on the desk, her face turned deathly pale, and she took half a step back on the spot. “How did ‘that’ appear here?!”

Myss looked at the shocked Mag, then looked at the silly-looking Stick-figure Salaar.

This lady might be overreacting a tad, he thought. That stick-figure little man’s sword couldn’t even pierce cotton, much less injure a human.

“I apologize for frightening you, Giant Lady.” Stick-figure Salaar waved his hand and gave a proper little bow. “I beg your pardon for my impetuosity.”

His manner of speaking was that of how the bards would describe Saint Salaar.

The real Salaar wasn’t this polite. Currently, the Salaar doll was curiously circling around the Bedsheet Archdemon, studying those floating ink lines.

“So the ‘that’ you people mentioned refers to this thing? Characters from books crawling out of its pages?”

He worked hard to make his tone sound annoying. “It doesn’t look like anything serious. It’s rather interesting, so why do you look like the end of the world has come?”

Mag gave a cold, sardonic laugh. “This is the United Library, my dear cousin. When the things that run out don’t belong to children’s picture books but come from A Guide to Dark Taming or Forbidden Flesh Alchemy, things stop being quite so amusing.”

Then she pinched the bridge of her nose tightly, as if she had made some decision.

“Forget it. I’ll say it plainly. Similar phenomena have broken out in the restricted book area and in the private collection rooms of several senior scholars.”

“Some extremely dangerous things have run out of books. The United Library is doing everything it can to seal them while also searching for the cause of the abnormality.”

Throughout the entire exchange, her gaze followed the two stick-figures on the desk.

“Is it really all right to tell us this?” Father Kalen asked, holding his breath.

“Among newcomers, there has never been a doll transformation before, yet you transformed. In the ordinary collection area, there has never been a similar phenomenon before, yet it appeared here. If I keep hiding things, I won’t be able to conduct my research properly.”

Mag took two steps forward and planted both hands on the edge of the desk, drawing closer to the two ink-drawn figures.

She tried hard to make herself look as if she had the overall situation under control, but anxiety still seeped continuously from her eyes and brows.

Mag had originally believed that the United Library had already found part of the pattern. Whether it was the people who turned into dolls or the books that underwent “knowledge activation,” they all had quite a few years on them.

Therefore, most people had speculated that this abnormality was related to “time,” —specifically, that the Stargazers Society was using Divine Blood to conduct time-related experiments.

As a result, her wicked cousin had charged recklessly into the city and triggered a whole chain of anomalies that moment he arrived.

Kendrick Karns, Myss, and Dragon Fae Tass Ga. The combined ages of these three didn’t even come close to the age of her superior. To say nothing of that children’s picture book that was practically brand new.

Their previous guesses had been completely overturned, and everything had to start from zero.

Her hands slowly tightened on the edge of the desk, the tips of her fingers turning white.

Tass, however, seemed thoroughly intrigued. “That picture book just now seemed to be called Brave Salaar? According to Lady Mag, you two are the characters from the book, right?”

“Yes. I am Brave Salaar. That one is my destined mortal enemy, the evil Chaos Archdemon.”

“Awoo! Grr! Rawr!”

The two stick-figure hopped around, while Mag held her breath and stared nervously at them.

“I am Tass Ga, the one who only failed once. You may call me Sir Tass.” The Tass doll patted his chest.

Toward this kind of “lifeform” that was clearly a pure magical product at a glance, Dragon Faes had a natural fondness.

“All right, Sir Tass.” Stick-figure Salaar was quite receptive to suggestions.

Seeing this, Myss immediately moved closer. “My name is Myss, not Mr. Gray. And you’re… you’re Brave Fool, and he’s Bedsheet Archdemon.”

To be honest, Myss didn’t particularly want these two guys carrying the titles “Salaar” and “Chaos Archdemon.”

“But my name is Brave Salaar.” Stick-figure Salaar was somewhat confused. “If you think that’s too long, then call me Sa—”

“Brief,” the Salaar doll said.

Stick-figure Salaar: “?”

“Because my name is Salaar too. My companions are already used to calling me that and changing it for you would be troublesome.”

The Salaar doll walked to Myss’s side and used a soft hand to grip the Myss doll’s shoulder.

Mag could not help shooting a glance at him. “???”

The Salaar doll waved at Mag. “It’s the fake name I use outside. Is that not allowed? You can call me Salaar too.”

“Go to hell.” Mag clearly didn’t approve of this “blaspheming the ancestor” behavior.

Stick-figure Salaar, no, Brief, thought for a while, then curved his mouth into a semicircle smile. “All right, then I’ll be called Brief. Brave Salaar should fulfill children’s wishes!”

Bedsheet Archdemon: “Awoo whoooo!”

He seemed quite dissatisfied, but no one present could understand his words, nor could they read his expression. After howling for ages to no result, Bedsheet Archdemon angrily crouched down and shrank into an ink-line ball.

“So, Brief. How did you come out of the book? According to the ending of that book, aren’t you supposed to be dead?”

Myss squeezed away the ink-line ball Archdemon and asked impatiently.

“Yes, but at the beginning of the story, I was alive, too.”

Brief answered in utter confusion. As a stick-figure drawn in ink, he didn’t seem to understand that death was irreversible.

“A big hole suddenly appeared in my world, so I crawled out to see what was going on. This place is even more interesting than I imagined! Everyone is so puffy… wow!”

Two silver cages descended from above. Lady Mag held one in each hand and trapped Brief and Bedsheet Archdemon inside the magic containment cage.

Fine beads of sweat dotted her forehead. Her movements were neat and decisive, like she was capturing highly poisonous pests.

Brief froze in place, his beady eyes blinking gloomily. “Madam, I have no intention of hurting anyone.”

Bedsheet Archdemon immediately spread out his body, howling as he slammed into the cage until it thumped. Strangely, those fine ink lines were unable to pass through the gaps of the silver cage.

“I must conduct tests according to procedure. I’m sorry. Please cooperate.”

Mag’s voice was a little hoarse. “I have no intention of hurting you either. Trust me.”

Brief tilted his head and thought for a while, then revealed that silly smile again. “All right. I trust you.”

The Salaar doll looked as if he was on the verge of sighing. He smoothed the creases of his doll clothes. “It seems your samples have increased by two more.”

“Now what do you plan to do, dear cousin?”

However, this sentence sounded less like a bewildered question and more like a subtle warning.

Mag’s head ached.

Now that things had reached this point, she should hand all of these people over and let everyone know about this new case. But if she did that, these guys would definitely do everything they could to escape.

Kendrick still had a kill order from the royal capital hanging over his head. If he appeared in this state and passed from researcher to researcher, Mag wasn’t confident she could protect him.

Even worse, if something happened to them, her personal relationship with Professor Gentry would deteriorate.

“Relax. I’ll keep my promise and won’t hand you over.”

Mag let out a long breath. “In any case, let’s first do a Divine Blood test.”

After saying this, Mag stood wearily and walked to the bookcase.

She raised her hand into the air, letting the shadow cast by the light touch a copy of The End of the Night Scourge. The projection of her index finger tapped specific characters. Immediately after, amid a rumbling sound, the books on the shelf flew and swirled, forming a floating safe made of books.

With her back to them, Mag silently recited something. The safe slowly opened, revealing a small test tube inside.

A subtle magic fluctuation rippled outward. Myss frowned slightly and looked toward the long, thin test tube that resembled a glass vial.

Inside the test tube were a few drops of pitch-black liquid. They tumbled and rolled like smoke, giving off an extremely faint fragrance, like a flower bud that hadn’t bloomed yet.

The Salaar doll staggered forward. “This is… Divine Blood?”

His tone was off, as if something had caught in his throat.

“Yes. My private collection, from the Karns family’s underground treasury.”

Mag’s tone was heavy. “To request use of the United Library’s Divine Blood, one must have a fairly high clearance level, and every request leaves a strict record. As for where the Divine Blood is stored, even I don’t know.”

Myss leaned even closer. This so-called “Divine Blood” gave him an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

“My Divine Blood is actually not as pure as the United Library’s. But at least they came from the same container, so the essential difference shouldn’t be too great.”

Mag thought Myss was curious and patiently added this explanation.

She carefully took out a drop of Divine Blood and dripped it into the exact center of a large silver plate. Then she took out a full set of long metal needles rolled in small sheepskin from a drawer.

“The next test may hurt a bit. We never dared try it on those senior scholars, and we never caught any ‘knowledge-activated’ monsters…until now. And here they are, both on my desk.”

Mag tugged at the corners of her mouth unhappily.

“As for the dolls, my thick-skinned cousin will do. As for the knowledge-activated monster, Bedsheet Archdemon is the perfect fit…”

“No!”

“Absolutely not!”

The Myss doll and Brief spoke almost at the same time.

“What if the two of us are in different situations?” Myss jumped to Salaar’s side and puffed his chest up high. “You can’t only test him!”

“What about me?” The Tass doll pointed a stubby little finger at himself.

No matter how one thought about it, as a Dragon Fae, he was the one most likely to be different.

“You figure it out for yourself,” Myss said indifferently.

Tass: “…”

“Just test me. We came from the same book, so the effect will be the same!”

Brief’s argument was the exact opposite. “Bedsheet, he… no one can understand what he says, and he’s been locked in a cage. He must be scared.”

The Salaar doll finally stirred a little. “He’s your enemy.”

“We come from a fairy tale.” Brief grinned. “There are no eternal enemies in this world, Mr. Salaar.”

“Woo, grr.” Bedsheet Archdemon struggled desperately in the containment cage, like a kitten locked in an iron cage.

The Salaar doll fell silent.

“He and I were born from the same bottle of ink and drawn by the same pen, Mr. Salaar.”

Brief spoke in a cheerful tone, his smile pure and brilliant.

“…If he disappears, my existence will have no meaning. That is what a fairy tale is, Mr. Salaar.”

……

In the corridor.

Redding quickly rounded a corner and collided head-on with another staff member hurrying past. The two immediately fell into a heap, taking quite a while to scramble back to their feet.

“Raymond? …Redding?” The young man who had crashed into Redding covered the back of his head and asked dizzily.

“Redding. Raymond is sleeping in his room. He’s exhausted.”

Redding stood, patting the dust from his knees. “Why are you in such a hurry, Truff?”

“Don’t even mention it. The people above are all busy with major matters, so my workload tripled.” The young man named Truff spoke with a miserable expression. “I really envy you and Raymond. Lady Mag has one of the best tempers…”

Before he could finish speaking, his feet had already carried him far away.

Redding shrugged and began tidying his messy clothes. Halfway through, he raised his eyebrows at his left cuff. The cuff had been badly torn open, and the button on the sleeve had flown off to who knew where.

“I’ll have to fix that as soon as possible.” He clicked his tongue and turned back toward his room.

Beneath the cuff, within the shadow, a seam lay quietly across Redding’s wrist—a nearly imperceptible joint that would only appear on a puppet.

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The author has something to say:

Stick-figure Salaar tragically lost his name. (…

But he really doesn’t have much to do with the real Salaar, so you can think of him as a completely independent individual! He has his own Bedsheet Archdemon. [dog head]

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