Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 119: A Cry for Help

Myss was delighted.

Last time, Salaar had helped him deal with it once. Although the experience had been quite good, Myss hadn’t been very pleased about being entirely wrapped in his enemy’s arms. This time, he absolutely had to take the chance to retaliate.

Lord Archdemon copied Salaar’s movements and sat behind him. Worried that his legs would be crushed, he refused to let Salaar sit on his lap, so he could only lean his body crookedly with great reluctance.

Facing Hero Salaar’s solid back, Myss’s field of vision was blocked miserably.

In the end, Myss gestured for quite a while, then unconvinced, reached around Salaar’s waist and groped forward wildly. Unfortunately, Salaar’s solid physique got in the way, making it very difficult for him to hold on. Exerting strength was awkward too. It felt exactly like fishing for a ball inside a pitch-black cave.

How could Kendrick have given up this body so easily?

Myss wrapped his arms around Salaar’s waist and abdomen, rubbing around at random. Never had he missed his tentacles so much.

Salaar held his breath as he was fondled, his neck flushing red from restraint. After a minute had passed, Salaar finally choked out a few words. “Are you trying to pick a fight?”

His tone didn’t sound like a provocation. It came entirely from the heart.

“Who told you to be this big?” Myss worked hard to crane around behind him, his claws still struggling to paw about.

Salaar caught one waving hand and dragged him along with the motion. Myss was easily pulled in front of him, landing perfectly on the thin blanket.

The tent was dark, but the distance was close. This time, Myss could finally see clearly, and what he saw made him rather uncomfortable, to the point that he forgot to protest about being dragged over.

Forget it. What they needed to do was the same anyway.

It was only playing with Salaar’s human tentacle. No big deal. Myss shifted his body and stretched out his hand with determination.

“Hiss!” Salaar gasped in pain.

“You weren’t this fragile before.” Myss’s hand kept moving, though he couldn’t resist a taunt.

Salaar: “But your technique really is terrible.”

“What?” Myss immediately felt a burst of anger. What did that mean? Was Salaar saying his skills were lacking?

He immediately concentrated, wholeheartedly imitating Salaar’s method from before. Unfortunately, their palm sizes and physical builds made it a struggle for Myss to replicate the movements. 

Salaar, however, quieted down. His breathing was unusually hurried, and fine beads of sweat emerged on his forehead. His eyes remained fixed firmly on Myss’s face as they always did.

Myss pursed his lips slightly, his brows furrowed, his expression extraordinarily focused, as if this were some momentous duel.

Those garnet-like eyes reflected scattered light. His ash-gray long hair had long since spread loose, falling along Myss’s back and shoulders. In the darkness, it connected into a sheet, swaying lightly with Myss’s movements, like a king’s cloak.

For the first time in his life, Salaar discovered that darkness wasn’t cold.

The darkness at this moment wrapped them lightly like a down quilt, and the air became increasingly thick and heated. In a daze, Salaar felt a strange sense of liberation.

In the depths of this darkness, in this secret corner, he could briefly forget that fate which would one day arrive.

The flow of time became ambiguous, until Myss suddenly spoke.

“It’s almost been an hour. Is there something wrong with you?” Lord Archdemon painfully glanced at his wrist.

Previously, Myss had suspected that Salaar didn’t have reproductive functions. Now, he deeply suspected that Salaar’s reproductive functions were simply broken. He didn’t react when frightened, and after Myss had “helped” for this long, that damned human tentacle still hadn’t changed.

At first, Myss had still intended to torment Salaar. Now his head was completely blank, and he only felt like he was running a long-distance race with both hands.

If not for the fact that he didn’t want to admit defeat, he was so tired he almost wanted to snap the thing off and be done with it.

Myss condemned Salaar with his eyes, but seeing the other man look as if he were wounded, Myss also felt an inexplicable delight.

How interesting. Whether he brought Salaar a moment of pleasure or a wound deep enough to see bone, Salaar’s reaction was practically the same. Perhaps Salaar hadn’t lied to him. Falling in love with an enemy truly would bring him deep pain.

Just then, Salaar tilted his head slightly, his face stopping extremely close to Myss.

He made a motion as if asking for a kiss, but didn’t immediately close the gap, as though it were an invitation.

Myss gladly accepted and kissed him with unusual force. He was one to never deny himself pleasure.

Salaar’s head, however, kept tilting. His lips moved from Myss’s lips to the corner of his mouth, then his chin, then his neck. Without Myss noticing, one hand covered Myss’s sore and aching hand, the heat of his palm scalding Myss enough to startle him.

After a few minutes of entanglement, this “help” with ulterior motives finally ended.

Salaar proactively cast a cleansing, while Myss let out a gruff sound and slumped against him. Hero Salaar caught his limp enemy and casually patted him.

“Myss.”

“Mm?”

“Myss.”

“…Mm…”

“If we spent another three hundred years investigating the truth behind the body swap, what would you think?”

“As long as nothing happens to my original body… that would be fine…” Myss smacked his lips.

Salaar chuckled softly, his fingertips slipping into Myss’s warm long hair.

Myss stretched lazily on him, his muscles trembling lightly, the feeling unusually real.

“What about three thousand years?” Salaar asked again.

“By then, you’ll have died long ago. At most, there’ll only be a few bones left.” Myss huffed and twisted his body so he could hang on Salaar in a more comfortable posture.

“That V.O.R won’t live that long either. By then, everything will be over. I’ll definitely win.”

“Really?”

Salaar breathed warm air into Myss’s ear.

“V.O.R and Its possible forces used Abnormal Fruit to steal your power and create new gods while you were completely unaware.”

“What we have discovered so far is only the surface. What if they already have successful cases? …By then, I won’t be the only one capable of hurting you. You’re unfamiliar with the human world. Can you truly defend against them?”

“…”

That was indeed the case, Myss thought.

The Abnormal Fruits they had discovered before were a little like leeches clinging to him and sucking blood. If there were too many leeches, who knew what problems they might suck out of him? He was at a critical stage of growth!

With a Salaar who had gathered countless human memories, who was nearly all-knowing, by his side, the investigation would definitely be much easier… Hm?

“You want me to shift the focus of the investigation to V.O.R instead of returning.”

Myss wrinkled his face. “You’re even tempting me to deepen our cooperation… Seriously, if V.O.R’s methods can really kill me, shouldn’t you be happy?”

Salaar laughed, his chest trembling lightly and making Myss feel a little ticklish.

“A person can drag out an ignoble existence, but humanity cannot.”

He buried his face in Myss’s loose inner garment. “The human world being unable to endure the Night Scourge doesn’t mean humans must wag their tails at some other unknown existence. Moreover, V.O.R clearly treats human lives and human hearts as toys.”

“So It is our common adversary.” Salaar carefully stroked Myss’s spine, his tone growing softer.

Hm. “Our common adversary” sounded much better than “my other enemy.” They were the eternal enemies. V.O.R was just a blind stumbling block.

Myss’s head floated a little from Salaar’s stroking and felt that Salaar’s words made quite some sense.

At present, Kendrick’s summoning seemed to have been merely an accident. Even Kendrick himself didn’t know what had happened. He had only followed V.O.R’s introductions and communicated with those pen pals whose heads had problems. The accident during the living sacrifice didn’t seem to have involved V.O.R’s intervention.

At this point, their investigation into V.O.R should have been set aside.

But whether it was their inexplicable body-swap ritual or the strange missing portion in the Sea of Concepts, both had an indistinct connection to V.O.R. Not to mention those delicious Abnormal Fruits.

Previously, pursuing V.O.R had only been the pretense for their cooperation with Father Kalen, a branch line in solving the mystery of the body swap. Now, “getting rid of V.O.R” could become their highest priority.

“…All right, I agree. In any case, the contract is still in effect.”

Myss mumbled indistinctly, “I’ll study the body-swap magic myself. The investigation focus will be V.O.R first. What are your plans next, mm?”

“Investigate the Order of Shadows.”

Myss curled his lip. “Since when did you care this much about Kalon?”

“There are truly too many abnormalities surrounding Father Kalen. Compared to those we encountered before, Kendrick counts as a relatively complete ‘god.’ Yet even he couldn’t shake the priest’s spirit.”

“The Order of Shadows has always done… what the priest claims they have always done, and no matter how you look at it, they are opposing V.O.R. Now this Order of Shadows is also tangled up with the disappeared Celestial Canopy. Are you not curious?”

In truth, Myss wasn’t that interested in the Celestial Canopy or the Order of Shadows, but he truly did care about the priest’s unusual constitution.

A divine power that even he couldn’t withstand was actually ineffective against the priest. He couldn’t get past this in his heart.

“Then let’s investigate it.” Myss said deeply. “That guy happens to be very lost right now. I suspect if things continue like this, he’ll part ways with us.”

Salaar kissed the tip of Myss’s nose. “Then it’s settled.”

Myss yawned, treating that as agreement.

The memories after that were blurry. It seemed he directly fell asleep hanging on Salaar.

……

The next morning.

The moment Myss had just emerged from the tent, he was covered by a rather remarkable shadow. Father Kalen stood stiffly at the entrance of their tent, his face uglier than the muddy sludge in the swamp.

Seeing Myss, whose hair had been combed until it was glossy and smooth and whose face looked utterly at ease, the priest awkwardly rubbed his hands. “I… uh, well… actually…”

“The two of us want to ask for leave.”

The pitch-black Tass crouched on Kalen’s shoulder, his expression just as listless.

“We, cough, roughly believe Salaar’s words. He is that remarkable Saint Salaar, and you are his lover, comrade, or whatever else… In short, the two of you are perfectly capable of investigating V.O.R on your own.”

“But Kalen’s head is a mess right now. The situation with the Order of Shadows is too strange, and he wants to sort through his thoughts. Coincidentally, I also want to take sick leave and look at these wings of mine. We might as well go together.”

Tass sadly stroked his black wings. “Of course, this doesn’t mean we are parting ways with you two. We just don’t want to delay you because of personal matters.”

“We are preparing to investigate the Order of Shadows.”

Myss shrugged.

Father Kalen’s eyes lit up all at once, and even his whole body snapped upright. “Really?”

“Oh, our Great Hero is more willful than you imagine.” Myss rattled off the snide remark quickly. “Since the Order of Shadows is related to the Celestial Canopy, and the clues on V.O.R’s side are unclear, we aren’t in a rush. There’s nothing wrong with looking into it.”

Seeing Father Kalen’s excited expression, he added, “After all, Kalin is very useful to us.”

“What he means is that Father Kalen has helped us a great deal,” Salaar said, also emerging from the tent, his complexion looking refreshed.

The Dragon Fae happily patted Kalen twice, then froze in midair. “Th-then what about my wings?”

“The Crimson Marsh is the capital of a national country, so there must be jewelry stores too. Are your kind only in Serpentis?” Salaar asked.

“Actually, there are more in Evening Star City,” Tass said. “The temperature over in Atla suits us better. Then comes Serpentis. The Crimson Marsh is too wet and cold, so there are basically no Dragon Faes there.”

“That works out. Father Kalen is from Atla. We’ll go to Atla to investigate the Order of Shadows, then after investigating, stop by Evening Star City… How does that sound?” Salaar rubbed his chin.

Tass frowned.

Deep down, he felt that this change wasn’t fatal. So far, only the color of his scales had changed. His body had no discomfort, and his stamina hadn’t worsened… Rather, his reaction speed and physical strength had improved instead.

But was it really fine to just keep dragging it out?

Myss glanced at him. “Fine, we’ll go to Atla. In any case, it’s not like you can get any more black.”

Tass: “…”

Tass: “How did you end up as Saint Salaar’s comapnion?”

“Because I’m not his companion.” Myss snarled.

The Dragon Fae rolled his eyes. “I know you two are burning with passion, but you don’t have to emphasize it at a time like this.”

Myss: “?”

Salaar hurriedly coughed twice. “Since there are more Dragon Faes in Evening Star City, the information there should be more accurate. Also, I’m very skilled at healing magic, so I can treat you in time.”

“If you go to Serpentis alone and fail to find a solution, you might end up wasting even more time.”

Tass thought for a moment and let out a long sigh. “Then let’s do that.”

Not until the priest had boiled the hot soup did Kendrick drag the newly awakened Owen out of the tent.

Owen’s eyes were blank. Myss wasn’t sure whether that was a lingering aftereffect of spiritual magic or the result of Owen’s own intelligence. In any case, this person sat down by the campfire and stared dazedly at the soup.

Kendrick nodded to everyone, very skillfully ladled a bowl of soup, and stuffed it into Owen’s hands. That gentle appearance didn’t look like Kendrick at all.

Kendrick ladled another bowl of soup and wiped the ladle on the edge of the pot. “Today, we…”

“Help…”

The bushes shook, and a young, hoarse voice came from not far away.

“…Who?” Kendrick neatly dropped the ladle and drew his short whip wand.

“Help…!”

Hearing a response, that voice suddenly rose several degrees. “I am Earl Nebra… save me… the Nebra family will definitely reward you heavily…”

“Earl Nebra, one of the great nobles participating in the Journey to the Old Lands.”

Kendrick explained concisely, not lowering his whip. “I’ll go take a look.”

Myss indifferently sipped his salted meat soup, watching Kendrick step toward the bushes.

Just a minor interlude, that was all. Nothing unusual.

“I’ll go too. I can carry someone faster.” Father Kalen stood up.

Not far away.

The bushes, untouched by the morning light, appeared blurred and murky. In the shadow of the trees, one human eye stared fixedly at everyone.

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The author has something to say:

Our Great Hero is blowing pillow talk right into his ear. [doge]

Just a little game between the young couple…! [cat paw]

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 118: Another Night Attack

Salaar reached out his thumb and rubbed the blood on Myss’s face. Myss was still seeing stars from the magical aftereffects, so he could only manage a soft, indistinct sound. The blood hadn’t stopped, and a few more drops fell onto Salaar’s open chest.

Myss dizzily propped himself against Salaar’s chest, using his palm to wipe at the blood that had dripped down. How infuriating. Salaar could solve the problem with one cleansing spell, yet Salaar simply refused to act.

His fingertips rubbed the warm blood, his thumb slowly tracing past the corner of Myss’s lips. The sweet metallic scent of blood mixed with damp, hot breathing. Myss’s head felt somewhat dizzy, so he simply let the weight of his head press into Salaar’s palm.

As that heavy weight leaned over, Salaar’s brows and eyes shifted slightly.

“Don’t misunderstand.” Myss licked the blood from his lips and mumbled indistinctly, “This is all magical side effects… Spiritual magic is seriously difficult…”

The thought that the one he was pressed against was the Salaar he was familiar with made Myss’s entire body feel stretched out with comfort.

It was a little cold outside, but Salaar was warm all over. Myss lay on top of Salaar and lazily shifted his body. A sense of security was like a heavy lead weight, dragging his consciousness toward the abyss of sleep.

To avoid accidentally falling asleep, Myss continued mumbling, “Don’t get too smug… If Kendrick hadn’t interrupted this time, I definitely could have found a way to break the seal…”

The corner of Salaar’s mouth tugged. “I know. And I also know you saw quite a few things just now.”

Hearing his enemy’s praise, Myss perked up a bit.

He tried to prop his head up and show off to Salaar, whose underpants had been half stripped off. But the moment his neck had just tensed, a warm hand clasped the back of it.

Myss subconsciously reached out to block, and one hand pressed against Salaar’s throat. Salaar, however, didn’t struggle. Those lapis-lazuli eyes shone brightly in the darkness.

One of them wanted to pull closer, the other wanted to push farther away. In the end, they maintained a distance at which they had no choice but to share each other’s breath, as if they were carrying out a long kiss without touching.

Only when soft golden light pierced through his eyelids did Myss belatedly realize that his nosebleed had stopped at some point, and his headache had eased considerably.

The bloodstains hadn’t vanished. Salaar’s hand gently stroked his cheek.

For an instant, Myss’s head was like a boiling pot of cream soup, one bubble after another rising up.

He wanted to ask Salaar why he hadn’t cleaned up the blood while he was at it. He wanted to ask Salaar why he had no sense of danger. He wanted to ask… wanted to ask why Salaar didn’t hate him.

Even if it had only been a fleeting glance, Myss had seen too many tragedies from the Night Scourge.

Although those memory fragments belonged to other people, even someone as slow as Myss could understand that the pain was enough to crush any human being. It wasn’t something that could be handled simply by “filtering emotions.”

To be honest, he shouldn’t have cared about these things. Salaar hating him was only natural and proper. Yet Salaar spoke with killing intent and love at the same time, and Myss couldn’t understand.

…And he wanted to understand.

“You have the memories of many Celestial Canopy members. That machine is used to extract memories, right?”

Amid the rich smell of blood, he licked his cracked lips again. “You people collected the memories of the dying just to deal with the Night Scourge.”

Just like in that fairy tale, the infinite notebook Hero Salaar possessed. It recorded every weakness of the Chaos Archdemon, and there would never be a day when it could be finished.

“One person’s strength is far too insignificant. We could only huddle together for warmth.”

Salaar didn’t intend to deny it. He merely used his fingertips to casually pinch Myss’s earlobe. Myss lowered his eyes. The tent was exceptionally dark, and he couldn’t clearly see Salaar’s expression.

“I don’t believe they directly poured the memories into you. The Celestial Canopy must have hidden that pile of memories somewhere. That thing is far more valuable than written records.”

Myss muttered under his breath, “No, wait… Could it be…”

“Yes, it’s the missing piece from the Sea of Concepts.” Salaar admitted readily. “Aside from fragile parchment, we did indeed have more comprehensive records.”

“Where?”

Salaar couldn’t help laughing aloud. “Do you think I would tell you, the Oh Great Source of the Night Scourge?”

Myss scoffed.

He couldn’t fathom the mindsets of humans from three hundred years ago, so he simply stopped thinking about it. At least he now understood one thing. Hero Salaar’s “infinite notebook” truly existed, and it condensed the lifelong learning of all Celestial Canopy’s members.

Thinking this way, the Order of Shadows became even more suspicious. The thing the priest was seeking sounded very much like the Celestial Canopy’s legacy no matter how one listened, yet Salaar had just never heard of the Order of Shadows.

No, no. Why was he thinking about this? He had come here to research how to return to his original body, not to research Salaar!

But then again…

Myss’s thoughts were like a small animal that had been flipped over, wobbling and flailing at the same time. After several minutes of wild thinking, he arranged a perfect row of excuses for himself.

He merely wanted to recover a few more Abnormal Fruit, and study Salaar in passing.

He merely wanted to figure out the true face of that bastard V.O.R, and study Salaar in passing.

He already had the unsealing magic hidden inside “Brave Salaar”, as well as inspiration from Kendrick’s body-swap magic. He only wanted to develop a foolproof return spell, and study Salaar in passing.

…That was right. That was exactly it. He actually wasn’t that anxious. Figuring out the truth was also a form of caution.

Myss shifted his gaze back and happily looked down at Salaar, incidentally pressing his favorite hero cushion.

Salaar’s thumb pressed against Myss’s cheek, creating a soft indentation. Salaar’s gaze was gentle, finely wrapping around Myss, whose eyes were darting about.

From this angle, Myss’s ash-gray long hair wound over him like countless little snakes made of silk. That face remained impossibly beautiful. The pale complexion was stained with scattered blood, and paired with those scarlet eyes, it had a nearly violent beauty.

Even while thinking wildly, Myss’s gaze still always landed on Salaar’s face. Perhaps Myss would never know what kind of gaze he used when he looked over.

Just as Myss would never know the other reason Salaar had drunk that bottle of “Return to Youth.” To let himself feel that kind of happiness once again in a state of knowing nothing, how could he refuse?

At this moment, Myss seemed to have figured something out. He once again put on a pleased expression and repeatedly caressed Salaar’s face with a researching gaze.

Without a doubt, Myss was beginning to understand him. This thought made Salaar’s heart beat so fast it almost slammed into his throat. He couldn’t help smiling. His hand exerted a little force, and he leaned in for a kiss.

Just as expected. The instant he was kissed, Myss subconsciously struggled a little. Then he quickly sank into this battle of tongue and lips, actively fighting for breath and warmth.

As if in retaliation, Myss freed a hand and hugged Salaar tightly. The damp, cold air gradually became soaked with heat. Myss had already been somewhat dizzy, and now he was kissed even more senseless, vague muffled sounds spilling from his throat.

Salaar’s hand moved from the back of Myss’s head to his spine, lightly sliding along the slightly protruding vertebrae. His movements carried a clear longing, as if the two of them had already been in love for many years.

The two were pressed extremely close, and their bodies were young. Very soon, things sparked out of control. Myss bit Salaar’s lip in dissatisfaction. “Deal with it.”

Salaar obediently reached out for once. He buried his face in the hollow of Myss’s neck, breathing in the other’s warm scent. “Mind if we take care of it together?”

Since he had been given permission, perhaps it was time to teach Myss a little more.

“Suit yourself,” Myss said, his breathing somewhat hurried. “As long as you…”

“Ahhhhh—!”

A shrill scream suddenly rang out outside the tent, sharper than the whistle of a steam train.

There was only a muffled thump as a black shadow crashed into their tent, leaving a small human-shaped dent. It looked as if a Dragon Fae had slammed into the tent cloth.

Myss sprang up from Salaar at once. Even Fork and Knife, who had been dormant in the corner of the tent, didn’t escape unscathed. The two snakes nearly tied themselves into a death knot on the spot.

“Wow.” It took Myss a long while to find his voice again.

His gaze flicked downward, and he dryly remarked, “You didn’t say this thing could ‘calm down’ by itself.”

Salaar took a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. He reached out and pulled over the thin blanket, covering his lower half. “Is that Tass? What happened?”

“My wings!”

The Dragon Fae squeezed into the tent in grief. “Look at my wings! They’ve all turned black!”

Myss took a look and agreed, “Like a big fly. It’s kind of gross.”

The Dragon Fae released a mournful whimper.

“Could they have been contaminated by that useless Owen’s stupidity?” Myss pondered.

“How is that possible? Then I should have become stupid.”

The Dragon Fae cried, “They had already darkened a little before. Heavens, I thought I had eaten something bad. Now look, there has never been a black Dragon Fae in the world!”

“Now you’re first place. Isn’t that worth being happy about?” Myss snorted. He discovered, not very happily, that he didn’t like this feeling of being… well, interrupted.

The Dragon Fae carefully avoided Lord Archdemon’s sarcasm. He turned toward Salaar and straightened his body slightly. “I just came to, cough, ask the legendary all-knowing Saint Salaar…”

“Sorry, there were no Dragon Fae during the Night Scourge,” Salaar said, tugging at the thin blanket.

“But there were mutation records during the Night Scourge. Look at those disgusting alchemical creatures.”

Tass displayed his shiny black scales. “I became like this after going into that tower. I couldn’t have been contaminated by something, could I?”

Salaar subconsciously looked at Myss. Myss shook his head.

What a joke. His magic control wasn’t that terrible. If he had allowed his power to leak out, the kingdom Archmages would have come knocking long ago.

“…Your magical fluctuations are stable. This mutation won’t endanger your life.”

Salaar soothed him. “If you’re still worried, once we reach the Crimson Marsh, we can do more tests.”

Tass rubbed his black scales and nodded sorrowfully.

After watching the Dragon Fae fly away as if his soul had left him, the tent briefly fell silent for a few seconds. Salaar slumped his shoulders and let out a long breath.

Myss wickedly crawled forward and grabbed away Salaar’s thin blanket. He blinked, his brows rising higher and higher. “Oh my, how terrible. Do you want me to help you take care of it?”

Lord Archdemon’s tone was full of playful, winding inflections, clearly harboring bad intentions.

Salaar looked at Myss with a mix of resignation and amusement. In the end, he nodded with mock seriousness.

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 117: Night Attack

In the end, Salaar didn’t take away that Night Scourge Journal. Instead, he took a will.

[I’m very curious what that “Salaar” looks like. But Aufon is too far away, and the Night Scourge is too long. I don’t think I’ll have the chance to see him. I hope the world after death is bright.

— Désiré Nebra]

The handwriting in this line was neat and clear, the wording plain. It looked like it came from a youth’s hand.

This fully met the Karns family’s requirements, and the supervisor “Peyton” had no objection. To be precise, he couldn’t have any objections.

Salaar didn’t take away any documents that mentioned the “Celestial Canopy.”

“A wise decision.” Kai was in complete agreement, though he reluctantly marked the location of this Middle Finger Tower.

“Everything else is heavy and troublesome,” Salaar shrugged.

As for the truth, they were actually all clear about it.

The Celestial Canopy’s existence had been deliberately erased, yet this tower had successfully remained. This was enough to prove that no matter how mighty the force that erased the Celestial Canopy was, it still had its oversights. At least, it had not discovered this Celestial Canopy’s tower hidden near the Crimson Marsh.

Better not to attract unnecessary attention, Myss thought. Otherwise, who knew what new trouble they might bring upon themselves.

Just as reluctant as Kai was the priest, who hugged the Night Scourge Journal and refused to let go.

The phrase “May His Veil shroud you” appeared more than a dozen times in this Night Scourge journal. Its use wasn’t frequent enough to be considered devout. Rather than a prayer to a god, it was more like a blessing Celestial Canopy members used for one another.

“You, uh, do you know what this is about?”

Before letting go of the journal, Father Kalen asked Salaar very anxiously. “If you truly are that Saint Salaar and are this familiar with the Celestial Canopy’s legacy… then you should know…”

“I vaguely heard of this saying. It wasn’t popular in Aufon. Perhaps it came from some small religion at the time.” Salaar answered ambiguously. “I can only assure you that the ‘Order of Shadows’ isn’t another name for the Celestial Canopy.”

Father Kalen visibly wilted a little. He gathered his emotions and turned again toward Kai, who was madly flipping through files.

Unfortunately, he didn’t get the answer he wanted from Kai either.

“Order of Shadows?”

Kai shook his head. “Personally, I have only heard of the Celestial Canopy. The Order of Shadows isn’t one of our research topics, and I have never seen records about the Lord of Shadows either. Apologies, no offense intended.”

Father Kalen’s large body swayed lightly like a balloon, as if he would deflate in the next second.

After experiencing a string of strange adventures, only to gain so little in the end, he was truly somewhat depressed.

Tass comforted the dejected Kalen. “It might also be a sect like the Stargazers Society, one that believes it inherited the Celestial Canopy’s spirit… Look, you also do work opposing anomalies.”

The moment he heard his own church compared to the Stargazers Society, Kalen let out a great sigh, almost blasting out his lungs.

“At least three hundred years ago, the Order of Shadows definitely existed.” In the end, he comforted himself this way.

The instant everyone left the Middle Finger Tower, the tower once again vanished into the air. Everyone stood on empty wet mud, as if everything had changed, and yet nothing had changed.

Only Myss turned his head and looked toward the place where the tall tower had originally stood. His pupils faintly dilated, absorbing the already faint light.

……

Near the Crimson Marsh.

This year’s “Journey to the Old Lands” had gone especially smoothly. Earl Nebra hummed a little tune as he rested inside his exclusive tent.

According to the customs of the Journey to the Old Lands, after the adventure ended, they needed to resupply at the Crimson Marsh and then return to Serpentis through the teleportation array. Now the team was only half a day away from Serpentis, and he had already begun looking forward to a hot bath piled with bubbles.

“Did you hear, Earl? Those people from the Karns family have been found.”

His assistant entered from outside the tent, carrying freshly roasted cured meat and sliced fruit in his hands. “They contacted Serpentis not long ago. They said that after the teleportation error, they found an unknown ruin themselves.”

“Karns… Karns…”

Earl recalled for two seconds. “Peyton Karns isn’t bad, but unfortunately, he got saddled with two deadweights, Kendrick and Owen. That guy is really unlucky.”

As an elite of the Nebra family, Earl looked down on Kendrick and Owen quite a bit.

Toward Peyton, he retained basic respect, but only the bare minimum. He couldn’t understand why someone would give up such astonishing talent and spend every day obsessed with ascetic practice.

“They are also heading toward the Crimson Marsh now. We might run into them.”

The assistant said cheerfully, stuffing a piece of fruit into his own mouth. He came from the Manning family, which couldn’t compare with great families like the Karns and Nebra, and originally had no qualifications to participate in the Journey to the Old Lands.

The Nebra family giving him an assistant slot counted as pulling him up. He and Earl had known each other for a long time, and Earl didn’t treat him like a servant either.

“…Should we go say hello, Earl?”

“Let’s talk after entering the city.” Earl thought for a moment, then shook his head. “Owen is one thing, but Kendrick isn’t quite right in the head. Better not to provoke him voluntarily.”

“Good idea,” the assistant said.

“Right, later, come patrol with me and scatter exorcism powder while we are at it.” Earl closed the book in his hand. “Even if we’re not far from the Crimson Marsh city area, we can’t lower our guard.”

“Understood.”

At this moment, it was already dark outside.

The Mondicia region already grew dark early, and with the dense forests near the Crimson Marsh, it was even dimmer outside. Although the sun had only just set not long ago, the visibility outside was already no different from midnight.

Annoyingly, certain wandering alchemical creatures only showed their traces after night fell. The beginning of night was the best time for defense, so Earl could only go out at this time.

Earl cautiously picked up the magical lantern. A bulging bag of exorcism powder hung at his waist, and the longsword that served as his wand was tightly gripped in his right hand.

His assistant carried a giant hammer inlaid with gemstones, wearing heavy armor as he followed closely behind. He was large in build, yet he alertly looked around in all directions, ensuring that if danger appeared, he could block in front of Earl immediately.

All things sank into darkness. Night was like cold water, soaking the soles of their feet numb. They stepped through the wet mud one footprint at a time, their patrol speed far slower than walking on flat ground. The squelching sounds were much like raw meat rubbing together, making one’s whole body uncomfortable.

“What is that?” The assistant suddenly spoke, pointing the giant hammer in one direction.

Between two clumps of blackened bushes, a snow-white thing flashed by.

That thing was about as thick as a human neck and bore a striking resemblance to one. It was smooth and hairless, with only pale skin, and even carried faint traces of neck lines.

To be honest, Earl would rather it be a strangely shaped scaleless snake.

Unfortunately, that thing had something no normal snake would ever have. On both sides, every forearm’s length or so, there grew a pair of symmetrical human hands connected to its body. Like an insect’s short limbs, they waved their ten fingers as it advanced.

Its fingertips were covered in mud, its nails cracked. Several fingernails had even flipped backward, making one’s skin crawl.

Earl reacted extremely quickly. He immediately hissed and scattered a handful of exorcism powder mixed with coarse salt, silver filings, and fragrant wood around them. The two froze in place, waiting for that deformed alchemical creature to pass by.

However, that thing’s body seemed to have no end. One pair of hands after another crawled past that bush at an unhurried speed. The moment its body touched the light from Earl’s lantern, it immediately vanished into the light. Only in the darkness did its deathly pale outline appear.

As more and more of it disappeared, the rustling grew closer and closer. Earl suddenly realized something was wrong. “It’s running around us and shrinking the encirclement as it runs!”

Once this thing completely hid inside the light, this bit of exorcism powder wouldn’t be enough to defend them. Earl made a prompt decision. “Run!”

…This was the last thing in his memory.

So he didn’t know that after he lost consciousness, a pair of feet stopped beside him.

Above those feet was a cloak that wrapped the entire body. Not a single bit of skin was exposed anywhere on that person. Beneath the cloak was a mask painted with a moon emblem.

Had Myss been here, he definitely would have recognized that this person was exactly the same as the “Stargazers Society leader” they had met in the Sea of Concepts.

That person extended a hand wrapped in a black glove and pressed it onto Earl’s head.

“Kalen…” Behind the mask, the person released a soft sigh.

Not far away.

Kai bowed to them. “Many thanks for everyone’s assistance. This place isn’t far from the Crimson Marsh, so I’ll take my leave first.”

Myss snorted. He could tell that Kai was impatient.

The moment he thought of the Stargazers Society about to peel open that Middle Finger Tower for research, he felt inexplicably displeased. That tower had been built by the Celestial Canopy, had been formed by them to oppose the Night Scourge, and the Night Scourge existed because of him. By rough calculation, that meant the tower belonged to him.

Forget it. In any case, he had already seen what he needed to see.

Compared to those long-winded journals and wills, Myss cared more about the extraction magic of that strange machine.

If he could successfully combine Mina’s magic with the extraction magic, he would be able to secretly drill into Salaar’s memories and see that guy’s past clearly from beginning to end.

Along the way, Myss had rehearsed it in his mind for a long time. He was waiting until after nightfall, so he could make a night attack on Mr. Saint Salaar.

Now, the moment was almost here.

Since his identity had been exposed, Salaar no longer hid anything and openly gave Owen a full set of memory distortion.

In Owen’s memory, he had been knocked down by defensive magic the moment he entered the tower and remained unconscious until everyone left the tower. Even now, he was still dizzy and unable to tell east from west and could only let the “kind” “Peyton” take care of him along the way.

Tonight, naturally, they would stay in one tent.

Father Kalen used branches and leaves to build a meditation tent, expressing that he needed to properly sort through his thoughts.

The Dragon Fae moved passionately into his pocket watch nest. Tass gloomily said that he also had a huge pile of thoughts to sort through, mainly about Salaar’s identity.

…In the end, Myss and Salaar shared the sole remaining tent.

The tent was prepared by the Karns family and was much better than the one previously distributed by the circus. Its light-blocking and soundproofing were first-rate. Inside, it even came with matching soft blankets, soft pillows, and a compressed mattress.

Logically speaking, after being tossed around all the way here, Myss should have been sleepy, hungry, and exhausted, directly toppling over and falling into deep sleep. However, his plan to night-attack Salaar was truly invigorating. Myss watched a certain someone without blinking, his eyes brighter than magical lightbulbs.

Salaar seemed utterly unaware. He took out some supplies and cooked two bowls of thick porridge with cheese and bacon. After the simple dinner, he allowed Myss to press onto his chest and closed his eyes quite steadily.

Almost in the next second, Myss immediately widened his eyes and stared intently at Salaar. He used his body to feel Salaar’s breathing and heartbeat, making sure this person had truly fallen asleep.

In the darkness, his pupils slowly scattered outward, almost completely swallowing the blood-red irises. Countless magic threads reached out from his skin and surged onto Salaar’s body.

Then the magic threads gradually dissolved, turning into rolling mist. They gently brushed over Salaar’s skin and mixed into Salaar’s breath.

This time, Myss didn’t search for the Magibase as he had before. Instead, he learned from that mysterious giant machine and slowly soaked Salaar’s spirit with magic.

Perhaps because that hurried glance had been too rushed, the process was even harder than Myss had imagined. According to the revelation from that machine, extracting a person’s memories should be like straining away the water after boiling potatoes.

Right now, however, it was more like he had grabbed an unreliable broken net and wanted to fish beneath a sea with unfathomable depths.

Fortunately, in a daze, he dredged up a few fragments.

He saw the frigid north, night and falling snow mixed together, both hands reaching toward the darkness as if longing for an embrace. He saw a smoking oil lamp and ink-stained hands, a fountain pen wearing thick calluses into the fingers. He saw sparks flying, a hammer striking red-hot iron again and again, coarse hands covered in burn marks.

In first-person memories, he saw descending darkness, saw the dawn after the Night Scourge. He saw people gnawing on charred corpses, saw people kissing each other’s tears.

…As expected.

Even if he couldn’t grasp those complete key memories, these fragments were enough to prove it. Inside Salaar’s head, there undoubtedly existed other people’s memories. The hands he saw were all different. They couldn’t possibly belong to the same person.

Could it be that the Celestial Canopy extracted the memories of its dying members, separated away personality and emotion, and stuffed all of them into Salaar?

…No, that wasn’t right. If they did that, what would happen if Salaar died?

Salaar had managed to swagger all the way to today only because Myss was cautious and hadn’t crushed this little pest to death. If Myss had ever acted on a whim and squashed Salaar with a tentacle, wouldn’t all their efforts have gone to waste?

Besides, Salaar had come to seal him in order to delay time. He had never intended to return alive.

Myss couldn’t quite understand.

He wanted to fish up more memories, but Salaar’s memory depths far surpassed ordinary people’s, and Myss truly couldn’t strip Salaar bare. As magic churned, a twisting pain hit Myss’s head, so painful it made his stomach turn, and the area beneath his nose vaguely grew warm.

Myss dazedly wiped at it and came away with a burst of rich, sweet blood.

The moment he moved like this, Salaar opened his eyes.

He looked at the nosebleed on Myss’s face, looked at his own chest where blood had dripped, then looked at Myss.

Salaar: “?”

---

Kinky Thoughts:

This arc was quite good. I didn’t expect such a twist at the end.

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 116: Shadow of Truth

Drip, drip.

Soon, “Peyton” had accumulated a small half bottle. Salaar once again cut open his healed palm and poured flowing brilliance into that bottle. They didn’t merge. The brilliant gold wrapped the liquid into a fist-sized sphere, like a translucent golden egg.

After doing this, Salaar’s face gained a layer of leaden pallor, and he visibly weakened somewhat. He quickly healed the deep wound on his hand, opened the glass cover again, and pressed that egg onto Peyton’s head.

Before everyone’s eyes, that strange golden egg suddenly lost its physical form and slowly melted into Peyton’s forehead. Inside the glass cover, there was no longer any mist filled with Salaar’s magic, yet the color in Peyton’s cheeks didn’t vanish. His breathing was long and shallow, as if he had fallen into deep sleep.

Immediately after, Salaar raised his arm and pressed it over Peyton’s missing right eye.

A sticky sound of flesh stirring rang out. A round eyeball squeezed out from that overgrown rotten flesh. It rolled around twice at random, then returned to a normal position.

But this time, Salaar didn’t immediately stop.

The eyelid of the right eye healed at an abnormal speed, too much, in fact. Flesh stuck together, turning the spot where Peyton’s right eye was into a flat patch of skin, as if an eye had never been meant to grow there.

Immediately after, a sizzling sound of burning rang out.

Above Peyton’s right eye, a strangely shaped mark surfaced. At first glance, it looked like an ordinary burn scar, yet also somewhat resembled a deformed sun.

Compared to the horrifying scar from before, it could almost be called harmless to humans and animals and wouldn’t make anyone feel fear at all.

Myss felt that this thing looked a little familiar. He thought for a while and realized it was exactly the same as the one on Professor Gentry. It was Salaar’s oath magic. It was different from their contract. To put it plainly, it was more like a chain of subordination.

The fluctuation of oath magic spread outward, and Kendrick finally sensed something was wrong. “This isn’t memory processing!”

“Yes. This is an oath branded onto this body.”

Salaar withdrew his hand, his voice cold and deep. “Before Peyton wakes, you must obey me completely.”

Kendrick dangerously twisted the puppet’s head. “But this way, I can’t turn the Divine Realm inside out. It’ll seriously affect my ability to wield my power.”

“Mm?” Salaar cupped his hand behind his ear and deliberately struck a listening pose. “Didn’t we agree you would hide your identity properly? How else do you want to use it?”

“This is a disguised seal.” Kendrick stared fixedly at him.

Salaar shrugged, his face full of “if that’s what you want to think, there’s nothing I can do.”

Seeing that this topic couldn’t continue, Kendrick twisted his neck with creaking clicks. “Also, this sounds like a one-sided oath. What about you?”

“How can you guarantee that you won’t make me do things that harm the body… or that after Peyton wakes, you won’t still control us?”

Salaar said with righteous confidence, “Oh, because I have impeccable character.”

His expression smoothly changed into “I can’t help it if you don’t believe me.” Even Myss had to marvel at how utterly shameless he was.

Mm, this was still the Salaar he knew, quite some distance away from the title “Saint.”

Kendrick looked at that scar, then at Salaar, then back at the scar. “……”

He was silent for a long while. In the end, amid the impact of the puppet collapsing to the ground, he returned to the body. Inside the glass cover, “Peyton” abruptly opened his eyes, a thin layer of anger on his face.

He took a spare cloth eyepatch from his pocket and obediently covered that oath mark.

“When Peyton wakes, I will heal this mark.”

Salaar added at just the right time. “Don’t worry about your brother’s right eye. I will do my best to return a healthy body to him.”

“Do your best?” Kendrick left the glass cover, his expression becoming even uglier.

“Yes. After all, there is a part like ‘you’ affecting his mental health,” Salaar said. “That is the more rigorous way to phrase it.”

Myss: “Pfft.”

Unfortunately, aside from Lord Archdemon, no one else present could laugh.

“Heavens, this is an absolute taboo.”

Tass was dumbfounded. He whispered to Kalen but failed to suppress the volume of a human throat. “I’ve only heard that ancient alchemy had many forbidden practices, but this kind of extraction method for humans is really…” He couldn’t find the words.

“Could Salaar and Myss truly be survivors of the Night Scourge?” Kalen followed human etiquette and responded at the same volume.

Seeing that the frightening couple, no, Salaar and Myss, showed no intention of paying attention to their side, Tass simply continued, “If I have to choose between ‘kin of the Archdemon’ and ‘Saint Salaar and his lover,’ I’d rather it be the latter.”

Although judging by his tone, his emotions hadn’t been comforted at all.

Father Kalen realistically added a bit of psychological pressure for him. “Whichever it is, with V.O.R added on top, too many strange people have suddenly appeared recently. Something major is bound to happen.”

Tass hummed a few times in agreement, though to Myss, that hum sounded a little like, “Why aren’t you counting yourself?”

In any case, their two teammates had no overly intense reaction, so everything could be considered smooth for the time being.

Myss put away his spectator’s mindset and carefully recalled the extraction magic he had just seen, repeatedly breaking it down and imitating it in his heart. Even better, Salaar immediately provided him with an all-new case.

“Now, you can switch the others back,” Salaar said to Kendrick.

At the same time, those ancient puppets seemed to have received an order and curled back to their original places of dormancy one after another. They climbed up those complex pipes like stick insects. At first glance, they looked like part of the complex machinery, impossible to distinguish at a glance.

Kendrick silently raised his hand. Pale-blue magic rippled outward layer by layer.

In the next instant, Tass beside Father Kalen, or more accurately, Tass using “Kai’s” body, staggered, and the expression on his face abruptly changed.

The pocket watch on Myss’s chest moved, and the real Dragon Fae Tass shot out, spinning through the air doing 360-degrees flips. “Ah, yes, that’s the feeling!”

Kai moved his gaze in a daze. “Just now, I only saw the fire go out… Where is this…”

“The top level where the central control room is located.” Salaar smoothly picked up the answer. “We have just undone the body-swap magic.”

Kai took a full two seconds to react, then gave an “oh.” Dizzily, he scratched his hair. “Then right now, my puppet is supporting Mr. Owen… Transporting him up here will probably take some time…”

“Leave him there for now. We have to return to the bottom level eventually,” Kendrick said, clearly not wanting to deal with it. “Even if he were here, he wouldn’t understand anything useful.”

“The bottom of the chimney is full of ash and has no mechanisms. With the Divine Blood Puppet protecting him, nothing will happen.”

Salaar approved this statement. Myss had reason to suspect that Salaar simply wanted the Divine Blood Puppet to remain far away, thereby weakening Kai’s combat power.

Kai’s expression relaxed a little. He readily tacitly permitted the puppet to stay away, and all his attention was drawn by the brightly lit top level.

He stretched out trembling fingertips and lightly brushed them over the complex machinery that had just been operating, his expression a mixture of excitement and frustration.

“As expected of a ruin only discovered now. It’s preserved so well.”

He murmured softly, “Too beautiful. This is an alchemical miracle of the Night Scrouge era, a fascinating creation born from mortal hands yet able to rival clusters of magic circles… Even if you told me it could still operate, I would believe it.”

Everyone else: “…”

It indeed could. It had just operated. Myss held back a snort of laughter.

“I think your Journey to the Old Lands has been very successful. This thing is definitely connected to Saint Salaar. If you go to the central control room, you will certainly find related paper records.”

Kai gently stroked the smooth, cold glass tube as if stroking a lover’s legs.

Everyone else, having just heard Salaar’s confession: “…………”

The thing, or rather, the person with the greatest connection to “Saint Salaar” was elsewhere in the room.

However, this Stargazer could truly be called candid. Kai looked almost mad with joy, to the point that he didn’t treat them like outsiders at all.

“We will take away some records related to ‘Saint Salaar.’ I imagine my family’s test can be successfully passed, correct, Mr. ‘Peyton’?”

Kendrick nodded. He had already restrained that crazed appearance and returned to a calm, cold state.

“As long as you don’t die in the assassination attempts that follow and successfully return to Serpentis,” he said.

Hearing this, Kai immediately lifted his head. “I’ll go with you first. Since you are going to take away some of the materials, I need to record them in advance.”

Seeing Kai in an excellent mood, Father Kalen hesitated in place for a while. Just as Myss suspected the priest was about to dig a hole in the wooden floor with the soles of his shoes, Kalen finally gathered his courage and very “casually” stood beside Kai.

“We all saw the records. This is a ‘Celestial Canopy’ ruin.”

The priest worked hard to make this conversation sound less deliberate. “How unusual. I have never heard of this organization outside, nor have I seen any records about it. I didn’t expect them to have such magnificent ruins.”

“Indeed.” Kai nodded straightforwardly.

This Stargazer retained the last of his reasons and didn’t seem inclined to go deeper into the topic.

“…I wonder what god they believed in during the Night Scourge era.” The priest persevered, continuing so forcefully that even Myss felt it was a little strained.

“Oh, you’re curious about their faith?” Kai finally picked up the thread.

He turned his body sideways and pointed toward the narrow central control room not far away. “As far as I know, over there, there is most likely a ‘Night Scourge Journal’ used for wishing and meditation.”

“Whether or not they were members of the ‘Celestial Canopy,’ humans during Night Scourge always liked using pen and ink to record their dreams and hopes. That thing is most likely to contain prayers to the gods…”

Before Kai’s final word had even landed, the priest shot out.

Myss immediately followed curiously and nearly collided face-to-face with Salaar, who was striding forward.

The two who almost collided immediately steadied their footing and straightened their clothes, looking exactly like a pair of dignified people who knew how to restrain their curiosity. Only, this scene lasted less than two seconds. The two squeezed forward like loaches again, following the priest into the central control room.

Father Kalen had encountered several Abnormal Fruit gods and had still come out unharmed. At this point, even Myss was somewhat curious about that mysterious Order of Shadows.

Whether intentionally or unintentionally, the “Night Scourge Journal” had been placed in the most conspicuous spot.

It had a hard cover dyed brilliant gold, and a beautiful sun pattern was drawn on the front. It was only a little thinner than an ordinary dictionary. Unlike the gray, gloomy wills, it was bright and warm, like a cluster of firelight deep within ashes.

The priest carefully picked up the journal. Myss and Salaar leaned in from the left and right, their gazes also fixed on the pages.

The wishes written in different handwriting were as ordinary as the wills sleeping in the darkness. However, among the words that flashed quickly past, there was a familiar passage.

[Shadows are not the dark of night. Before the Shadow, there is light. We shall ultimately merge into the Shadow of Truth.]

[May His Veil shroud you, unseen and unharmed.]

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 115: Extraction

Finally, the puppets finished gathering the scattered wills. Those damaged beyond restoration were swept into a corner and piled into a small grave mound.

Except for Kai, who had been thrown into the chimney, everything returned to calm. Kendrick didn’t immediately undo the body-swap effect on the others, so the group continued forward like this.

Myss lazily half-hung from Salaar.

Solid, soft, and warm, with a very stable base. It was the kind of touch he liked.

He was a little curious how Salaar planned to deal with Kendrick, but not curious to the point that he absolutely had to see it. Because of everything that had happened earlier, both his brain and his flesh were so tired they were about to melt.

Before this, Fork had been guarding Knife without taking a single step away. Once it confirmed Knife’s intelligence had returned, Fork went clack, lay down, and simply slept like the dead.

Tass controlled Kai’s body, swaying back and forth like a large bee. Judging from his expression, he seemed more inclined to believe Salaar’s revelation of his true identity was an act. He wanted to confirm it yet also felt that now wasn’t the right time.

Father Kalen was more worried about Kai in the chimney.

Even though Kai was a Stargazer of unknown background, he was at least using Owen Karns’s body. Owen might be a vicious fool, but his crime didn’t deserve death.

“Is it all right to leave Kai down below?” the priest asked carefully, his tone neither high nor low, just enough for Kendrick to hear.

“That puppet can hold on.” Kendrick responded lightly, his eyes only looking forward.

The space one level higher was filled with even more machinery, and even more darkness.

Twisted, undulating metal pipes and slender glass tubes crisscrossed the area, resembling the heart of some mechanical creature. Under the lantern light, the shadows danced with the trembling flames. The projections of these things intersected with each other, as if they were quietly breathing.

Salaar lightly stroked Myss’s back, making the drowsy enemy loosen his embrace. Then he walked to a wall buried beneath certain pipelines and gently extended his hand.

In the next instant, the entire space lit up.

Amid a strange rumbling hum, brilliant golden radiance spilled down from the top of the tower.

Only then did everyone discover that what hung above their heads wasn’t the ceiling of the previous floor, but the four-edged spire of the tall tower. A round glass cover hung there, filled with fist-sized sunstones. They emitted sunlight-like radiance, illuminating the entire top floor as if it were day.

Myss was dazzled by the light. He subconsciously lifted his hand to his forehead, shading out a small patch of shadow.

Everything emerged from the darkness, yet he still couldn’t understand what any of it was. This place was too clean. There weren’t even wheelchairs or wills, only empty alchemical machinery and a strange glass jar encircling the inner wall of the chimney.

A thin layer of dust had accumulated on the glass jar, but its empty interior was still visible. Myss twitched his nose. The air here was also clean, without any strange smell.

On the opposite side of the inner wall from the glass jar, a small compartment had been separated off with brass-colored metal plates. On it, a neatly etched line read “Central Control Room.”

“How are you planning to save Peyton?”

Kendrick moved a few steps and stood between everyone and the central control room.

“By using this equipment to ‘filter’ out his memories and thoughts, if any of his consciousness truly remains.”

Salaar said in a low voice, “Then place them into a suitable body. That is the most ideal situation.”

Make a body that could truly hold life? …An alchemical life?

Myss looked at Salaar in surprise. He only knew the concept of alchemical life, but had never considered how they were made, just as he wasn’t that interested in the craft behind raspberry candy.

“A suitable body.” Kendrick slowly chewed on this phrase.

“As for how much consciousness Peyton still has left, I’m not certain. After all, I have only heard the situation relayed by Myss.”

Salaar paced slowly and walked to the empty glass cover.

“However, Peyton’s Magibase is still there, and his flesh body hasn’t truly died. If he only experienced reversible brain damage, then the possibility of his survival is indeed quite high.”

“What if not much consciousness is left?” Kendrick pressed.

Salaar was silent for a moment.

“…The spirit is like the liver,” he said softly. “Even if more than half of it is damaged, it can slowly heal.”

“However, if too little of his spirit remains, then even if I forcibly wake him, his condition will be no different from dementia.”

This time, it was Kendrick’s turn to fall silent.

“You didn’t fully accept the Abnormal Fruit, so it didn’t fully fuse with Peyton’s Magibase. In other words, Peyton’s ‘spiritual organ’ didn’t completely undergo total pathological transformation. That’s why I said there is hope.”

“I can only guarantee that I’m the person in this world most skilled in spiritual magic, the best choice you can find.”

Salaar added calmly.

“…So, Kendrick Karns. Do you want me to continue and give you a verdict? Or do you refuse help and preserve a thread of hope for yourself?”

“Continue. I have only one request.”

Only after a long struggle did Kendrick give his answer.

“Speak.”

“If Peyton is gone, then execute me, take my divine power, and continue dealing with V.O.R.”

His tone carried a frightening relaxation. “I only wanted to live with Peyton in the monastery and hunt sinners together. If I am the only one, all of this has no meaning.”

“As you said, I have killed many people. Then let me atone for my sins with my death. Brother will be comforted by it too.”

Judging from his tone, that powerful force mortals dreamed of obtaining was nothing more than a dispensable wad of useless paper. And his own life was merely a chess piece that could be discarded at any moment.

Myss licked his lips. He had to admit, this proposal was somewhat tempting.

A living “god” certainly had uses, but a dead “god” was even fresher and more delicious.

Salaar, however, simply nodded. “I agree.”

Tass: “Wait, am I the only one who wants to ask what this damn place was originally used for?”

Whether it was spiritual filtering or body manufacturing, were these really things that could be discussed openly? …He knew that ancient alchemy was somewhat sinister, but he hadn’t known it could be this strange.

Salaar only smiled at him and didn’t say more.

The Dragon Fae secretly moved a little farther away from Salaar, pressing his back against the burly but curious Father Kalen.

Under everyone’s gazes, some curious and some terrified, Salaar’s fingers lightly traced a complex path across that glass cover. The cover opened smoothly to both sides like a ladybug’s wings, revealing a slanted groove.

“Lie inside,” Salaar said to Kendrick. “Once you are lying down, temporarily transfer your consciousness to a puppet. You can do that, right?”

Kendrick raised his brows.

“Otherwise, once the filtering is over, your consciousness will mix with the remnants of Peyton’s consciousness, and it will be no different from not filtering at all.” Salaar shrugged. “This thing has a way to preserve the body’s vitality, so don’t worry.”

“That’s enough. If we wanted to kill you, we wouldn’t need to go to all this trouble.” Myss swallowed hard, struggling to keep his voice clear.

Only then did Kendrick comply.

The instant his consciousness left his body, the ancient puppet closest to the glass cover suddenly stiffened, then quickly returned to a humanoid shape. It pressed both hands against the closed glass cover and silently looked at Peyton’s “sleeping” body inside.

Just then, a metal box popped out from the side of the glass cover. Salaar sliced open his palm. The blood that flowed out wasn’t dark red, but pure gold condensed with ample magic, like flowing gold.

That golden blood quickly filled the metal box. Immediately after, Salaar pushed the box back into place with a click.

Almost at the same instant, pale golden mist rose inside the glass cover. Amid the steaming mist, black and viscous substances slowly seeped from the eyes, nose, ears, and mouth of Peyton’s body.

When the golden mist touched these things, it was like fish encountering bait. Those black substances were swept into the gold, turning into black mist mixed within the brilliant gold.

At this moment, everyone’s attention was on those dancing black wisps. Myss briefly turned his gaze toward Salaar.

He was becoming increasingly curious about Salaar’s past. Previously, when he read memories, he had merely imitated Mina and used magic threads to touch the other person’s Magibase.

Salaar had no Magibase, and he was damned skilled at defending against Myss’s magic, so Myss had never had similar thoughts. If… just if, he could use this current trick of playing with consciousness on Salaar…

Realizing that he had been distracted for too long, Myss immediately turned his gaze back and continued observing the process of “spiritual filtering.”

Soon, the golden mist inside the glass cover turned gray-black, like churning shadows. Peyton’s body no longer secreted those strange black liquids. The corners of his eyes and mouth had long since been licked clean by the mist, and his complexion was still rosy and peaceful.

Beneath the glass cover, the friction of turning gears suddenly sounded. Judging by the thick pipe connected below the glass cover, this process clearly wasn’t complete, yet Salaar suddenly pulled down a lever and directly closed that thick pipe.

The black-gray mist was fully absorbed by the thin tube above the glass cover.

They passed through spiral glass tubes, slowly separating and condensing like essential oil extraction. Salaar’s golden blood vanished somewhere unknown. Only inside the collecting bottle the size of a human head, swaying black liquid gradually condensed.

“What is that?” Kendrick turned the puppet’s eyes and asked in a dry voice.

“That is ‘Peyton,’” Salaar said. “To be precise, it is Peyton’s emotions and thoughts after the interfering memories have been stripped away.”

“Now I have two pieces of news, one good and one bad. Which do you want to hear first?”

Kendrick didn’t seem to like this “game,” but he had no desire to waste time. “The good news.”

“The good news is that, just as you dreamed, Peyton Karns hasn’t completely vanished. His spirit has lost more than two-thirds of itself, but at least the root has been preserved.”

The puppet didn’t need to breathe, but Kendrick exhaled a long breath, as if a burden of tens of millions of pounds had been lifted.

“The bad news,” he said, almost peacefully.

“For him to fully awaken, it will take around ten years. During this period, you must carefully take care of his body and speak with him every day to stimulate his spirit.”

Salaar stated realistically, “To be honest, this will be very difficult, and it will be difficult to hide from others. Even if you move somewhere completely uninhabited, if V.O.R remembers you one day…”

“You don’t need to make a new body,” Kendrick interrupted Salaar.

“What, you want to give up?” Myss asked curiously. “At a time like this?”

“No,” Kendrick said. “Peyton should use the body that originally belonged to him. The one who had taken over his place was me.”

“I understand. You want to sacrifice yourself in exchange for Peyton’s return.”

Father Kalen said solemnly, his right hand pressing to his chest. “Only, ‘carefully taking care of’ a family member is no burden for the Karns family.”

“…No.” Kendrick smiled.

That smile didn’t resemble Peyton in the slightest. Instead, it held a faint neurotic quality, making even the puppet’s rigid features seem a little more sinister.

“I only think that I should take care of him in a way more ‘close to the body’ than ‘close personal care.’”

“Sir who calls himself ‘Saint Salaar,’ since you are so skilled in spiritual magic, then you should understand that two spirits can survive within the same flesh body.”

“Isn’t that madness?” Tass sucked in a cold breath.

He had indeed heard of similar cases. Certain people would develop multiple personalities.

Most of these people lived alone. Once their condition was exposed on a large scale, they were either sent to a church for exorcism or hauled off to an asylum. Only a tiny number of families were willing to continue supporting them.

Hearing such a painless evaluation as “madness,” Kendrick remained unmoved. “Peyton is my family, not some member of the Karns family.”

“For these ten years, I will take meticulous care of this body. And when he wakes, I am willing to return control of the body to him and let him decide whether I may ‘appear.’”

“Even if he learns of everything I have done over the years and wants to imprison me in his heart forever, I am willing. We will never be separated again.”

Salaar’s expression turned grave.

Stuffing two consciousness into one body was something he could do.

According to Kendrick, this was indeed the most beneficial option for Peyton’s recovery, and it wouldn’t easily alert V.O.R to anything abnormal.

The problem was whether, after Peyton woke, he could accept having an obsessive soul inside him.

“In exchange, before Peyton wakes, I’m willing to absolutely obey you, as long as your orders don’t harm my body. Since you are ‘Saint Salaar,’ you surely possess the means to bind such an oath.”

Kendrick continued in an icy, slippery tone, “…You desperately need my power, don’t you?”

Faced with such a price, Salaar ultimately sighed.

“Deal,” he said.

If the world still existed ten years from now, at worst, he could go deal with Peyton’s possible complaints then.

While the two discussed terms, Myss was thinking about something else.

His pupils faintly diffused as he stared fixedly at the strange machine in operation.

He could barely make out that filtering the “spirit” wasn’t the main purpose of this complex magical cluster. Rather, judging from how this machine operated, the “spirit” was a genuine impurity.

Looking at that pipe, the one that not even a skull could pass through and which Salaar had shut halfway through, the “flesh body” was most likely also an impurity that needed to be separated.

What it truly wanted to preserve was pure memory stripped of personality and emotion.

Yes. Thinking of it this way, all the strange things about this tower could be explained.

Why this place emphasized medical treatment and recuperation, why there were no corpses here… why so many wills were preserved downstairs.

Three hundred years ago, the members of the Celestial Canopy had come here, perhaps because they were ill, wounded, or too old. They spent the final period of their lives inside the tower until their lives were about to reach their end. In the end, they threw themselves into this strange alchemical machine and extracted everything from this life.

…The problem was, the Celestial Canopy’s mission was to oppose the Night Scourge, so why did it collect such a thing?

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 114: True Identity

Salaar’s gaze swept over the strange machinery inside the tower, then over to Tass and Kalen, who were just as curious, and finally stopped on Myss.

“He’s somewhat useful.” Myss shrugged.

For the moment, it seemed Kendrick wasn’t the mastermind behind the body-swap ritual. He actually didn’t mind killing Kendrick and seizing the Abnormal Fruit that was right in front of him.

But Kendrick had investigated V.O.R for many years, so he should have discovered something. Moreover, this guy’s divine power was “body swapping.” It might be useful.

As for how to control Kendrick, that wasn’t something Lord Archdemon needed to worry about. Now that Salaar had changed back into his body, Myss’s nerves abruptly loosened, and he almost wanted to melt on the spot.

Seeing Myss express it like that, Salaar paused for two seconds, then nodded.

Myss subconsciously wrinkled his nose. This kid was almost certainly going to say some nonsense about being a kin of the Chaos Archdemon again. Who knew how he would smooth over the ancient puppets this time.

“I told you all long ago, my name is ‘Salaar,’” Salaar said.

Inside the brilliant golden protective barrier, Kendrick silently looked at him, a trace of slight incomprehension on his face. Tass and Kalen were also full of questions. Yet as the seconds ticked by, Salaar offered no further explanation.

Unlike Tass and Kalen, whose confusion continued, Kendrick’s expression changed slightly. “Salaar?”

“Yes. I thought that bottle of ‘Return to Youth’ had shown enough, after all, you people have looked at my portrait for so many years.”

Salaar spread his hands. Knife, which had just returned to normal, wrapped around his palm. It apologetically scratched its head with the tip of its tail. Then silver light flashed past, and an elegant cane appeared in Salaar’s hand.

He lightly tapped the floor with the cane and continued, “I know. The young version of me isn’t very likable. You saw that all along the way.”

Myss immediately straightened, the shock on his face even greater than Kendrick’s.

Salaar had actually told the truth, revealing the identity that previously only the two of them had known! Myss abruptly felt the displeasure of a secret being exposed.

Silence completely descended. For a moment, no one spoke. Only a trembling question came from inside the pocket watch. “Have you gone insane?”

Owen sounded as if he wanted to faint on the spot.

“I know. What circulates nowadays is all nonsense, so you won’t believe me immediately.”

Salaar’s gaze lightly brushed over Myss again. “Since we are standing inside the Celestial Canopy’s Middle-Finger Tower, I have plenty of ways to prove it.”

As he spoke, those wandering ancient puppets gathered beside Salaar once again. They tucked away a portion of their slender limbs and sat like hunting dogs, lowering their heads obediently toward Salaar.

Their bodies were too large, and the lanterns had all fallen to the ground. Thus, their heads were all hidden in the shadows above, leaving only dozens of faintly swaying lapis-lazuli points of light.

Salaar casually patted the limb of one of them. The surroundings were filled with pale-blue cold light, and paired with Salaar’s identical lapis-lazuli eyes, the scene carried a chill that sank deep into the bones.

For a moment, no one spoke again.

Kendrick widened his single remaining lapis eye and stared fixedly at Salaar. A trace of ecstasy gradually surfaced on his face, but that ecstasy didn’t look like witnessing a family legend. It was almost frightening.

“You mean that human sacrifice ritual brought you back from the dead.” His voice carried a certain thirst. “In other words, as long as the correct ritual is performed, one can…”

“Oh, then I’ll have to disappoint you,” Myss interrupted him sourly. “This guy was never dead. He just got incredibly old, with more wrinkles on the tip of his nose than a walnut.”

Kendrick instantly turned his head, his gaze stabbing toward Myss. “You sound like you know him very well.”

“Because he is my…”

The corner of Salaar’s mouth twitched. “He is someone who accompanied me throughout my life, someone unique to me.”

“…Heavens.”

Owen finally found his voice inside the pocket watch. “You can’t be trying to say that the Karns family was born from you and this guy…”

Salaar: “…”

Myss: “…” His hand slowly moved toward the pocket watch. Kendrick was still useful. Perhaps they should kill useless Owen first.

Salaar stretched out his arm, pressed down on Myss’s restless claw, and slowly pushed his hand down. Myss puffed a breath through his nose and temporarily let it go.

Kendrick clearly had no interest in his “ancestor’s” relationships, nor did he have any reverence for “Saint Salaar.”

He looked at Salaar fanatically and took a deep breath. “Listen, I don’t care that much who you are, nor do I care what you want to do. Even if you are the Chaos Archdemon, I’m willing to cooperate with you, as long as you are strong enough to bring Peyton back…”

“That’s exactly what I want to discuss with you.”

Crack. The brilliant golden shield shattered. Salaar advanced two steps and grabbed Kendrick by the front of his clothes.

“You have killed plenty of people too. You should know what ‘death’ tastes like. Life and death are not your toys, Kendrick Karns. The only reason I am leaving you alive is that you have not fallen so far as to seek help from V.O.R.”

Kendrick’s expression was almost calm. “Say whatever you like, as long as you…”

“—I will try.”

Salaar said coldly, releasing the front of Kendrick’s clothes. “Today. Here. In exchange, you must cooperate with every requirement I make.”

Kendrick nodded without hesitation.

He tenderly smoothed the front of his clothes that Salaar had wrinkled, as if brushing dust from his favorite treasure.

Only after tidying himself did he leisurely raise his head. “Do you still want the Stargazer inside the chimney? He slid down to the lower part of the chimney and is currently relying on that puppet to hold on.”

Myss and Salaar exchanged a look and nodded for the time being.

Kai was closely tied to Professor Gentry. Letting him die here would do them no good. At worst, they could have Salaar do a little memory manipulation later and handle him together with Owen.

“…But now’s not the time. Let him stay down there for a while longer.”

Salaar pointed upward. “Let me handle Peyton’s matter first.”

Kendrick grunted in agreement.

Salaar waved his hand, and the dozen or so ancient puppets busied themselves. They crawled across the battlefield, which was in complete disarray, recovering the wills from the ruins at a speed that made it impossible to see clearly, rebuilding the damaged wooden cabinets, and returning those fragile papers to where they should have been.

Kalen watched for a while, then couldn’t resist joining the work. Tass, meanwhile, wandered around suspiciously, pondering that explosive conversation just now.

Taking advantage of this gap, Myss briefly explained the complicated situation between Kendrick and Peyton to Salaar.

At the end, he raised his brows in great dissatisfaction. “When facing Magnolia, you still knew to call yourself a kin of the Chaos Archdemon. What, are you suddenly trying to pick the virtue of ‘honesty’ back up?”

His eyes were fixed on the regained hero cushion, but his tone remained as sharp and unsparing as ever.

“Because this is the Celestial Canopy’s tower, and in front of everyone, I mobilized the Celestial Canopy’s puppets.”

Salaar’s tone was calm. “I don’t know how much Kendrick knows, but as long as he knows the Celestial Canopy was hostile to the Chaos Archdemon, that lie becomes difficult to smooth over.”

“That guy is a thorough lunatic, and he holds divine power in his hands. I had to present an identity that could suppress him and was sufficiently real.”

Myss snorted noncommittally. “You even dared to say your true name out loud. He’s not as mad as you.”

“You’re very worried about me?” Salaar leaned against the complex machine on the wall, his gaze scratching over Myss again and again.

“Worried about you? I’m more worried you can’t control your mouth and will drag me down with you.”

Myss reflexively scoffed, his fingers casually rubbing the ends of his hair. Whether it was the familiar touch or the familiar bickering, both made his mood improve a little.

Salaar didn’t continue arguing. He only quietly looked toward Myss.

The dim blue light swayed endlessly. For a moment, Myss couldn’t distinguish whether the one looking at him was that annoying Salaar who didn’t know the height of heaven and depth of earth, or that young illusion with little emotion.

Not far away, the puppets carried papers and broken wood. Fine rustling sounds continued without end, like some invisible thing continuously cracking apart.

“Before I undid the drug’s effects.”

Salaar suddenly spoke, his voice somewhat tense. “Those things I said to you…”

[I must love you very much.]

[So this is only a willful and childish confession.]

Those words abruptly surfaced from his memory. Myss was nailed firmly in place, his fingers playing with his hair subconsciously stopping.

He didn’t know what expression he made, but that expression must have been very far from “I don’t care.”

“Of course I remember.”

Myss advanced two steps and used both arms to tightly lock around Salaar’s back, attacking him doubly with an embrace. In this posture, he could just hide his own out-of-control expression.

He discovered that his body was trembling slightly. His muscles shivered with excitement. Was this the taste of victory, or the pleasure of conquest? Myss couldn’t tell clearly. He only felt that he was being burned by invisible flames.

“You went to so much trouble to prove it to me. I can only believe it. You, who do everything to end the Night Scourge, actually fell in love with the source of the Night Scourge.”

Myss couldn’t help raising his head and snickering twice. “What a pity. Great Hero, no, Great Traitor Mr. Salaar, I can’t possibly fall in love with you.”

Salaar didn’t react. He only lowered his gaze and stared at him as before.

Contrary to Myss’s expectations, there was no sadness or defeat in Salaar’s eyes. Instead, they were even softer than the hero cushion.

Myss was a little dissatisfied. Salaar had said that “falling in love with him” was the most frightening thing, yet Myss couldn’t see where this guy was afraid.

He tightened his arms harder and finally noticed Salaar’s abnormality. Salaar was also trembling slightly. Unfortunately, Myss had never seen Salaar tremble from fear, and he couldn’t be certain whether this trembling came from terror or something else.

Not enough. Still not enough.

Myss wanted to squeeze out sharper words, to mock how miserable and stupid this feeling was, to make this remarkable victory even more exhilarating.

But wrapped tightly in Salaar’s gaze, by the time the words reached his mouth, they turned into a short mumble.

“…Idiot.”

His voice was even softer than Myss had expected, practically without the slightest offensive power.

Salaar smiled.

Since stepping into this tower, for the first time, his brows and eyes curved, carrying a feeling that was hard to describe.

“I suppose I am,” he said fairly, unconsciously leaning against the cold machine behind him.

“Only, there are some things that can’t be avoided just by ‘possessing wisdom.’ So you must use your cruelest attitude and do the thing that pains me most.”

Salaar seemed to realize his instinctive movement, and he quickly stood up straight.

Under Myss’s focused gaze, Salaar’s smile gradually settled, becoming something heavier, very much like the dust accumulated on the machinery.

“…You must accompany me until the final moment, Myss.”

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 113: The Exchange Ends

Blood ran down Kendrick’s face, drop by drop gathering on the marble floor. In the reflection of the blood pool, Kendrick saw “his own” face… Peyton’s face.

Kendrick subconsciously tugged at the corners of his mouth, revealing a gentle smile no different from Peyton’s. That smile made him dazed for a moment. What followed was pain that seemed as if it would freeze his brain.

For the first time, Kendrick discovered that if he wanted to wear a mask, he could do so convincingly. Previously, he had exposed his true nature without restraint only because Peyton was still beside him.

…Now he couldn’t find Peyton.

He didn’t know how long V.O.R would monitor him, nor did he know whether his methods could fool that unknown existence. He only knew that once the mask was put on, it could no longer be taken off at will.

One day later, the gossip from the End-of-Winter Feast spread through Serpentis’s noble circles.

People all said that Kendrick Karns had ultimately refused to change his ways. At the banquet, he attacked the young daughter of the Nebra family, and while mad from severe injury, stabbed Peyton Karns, blinding his right eye.

People all said that Kendrick had always been jealous of Peyton Karns, firmly believing that the genius Peyton had stolen his talents. That gentle genius had finally lost all hope in him and gone to the monastery in melancholy.

Perhaps because of the influence of the curse magic device, Kendrick’s behavior became even more extreme and dull than before, with not a trace of remorse. In a fit of anger, the head of the Karns family sent him off to the remote Ring Town.

During the same period, Kendrick imitated Peyton’s handwriting and wrote V.O.R a letter.

In the letter, he expressed that he had already lost all hope in Kendrick and no longer wished to be bound by this mad blood relative. He had failed to make proper use of this miraculous divine power, wasting this powerful being’s kindness.

Throughout the entire letter, his wording was gentle and refined. His conduct was exactly the same as the vanished Peyton’s, and even his handwriting showed no difference whatsoever.

V.O.R didn’t reply to him again. It was hard to say whether he… or it had failed to notice, or simply had no intention of pursuing this tiny failed case.

Kendrick sneered inwardly. His investigation and research didn’t stop and instead grew even more fanatical.

From afar, he controlled his original body, making it stay shut inside Ring Town and conduct all kinds of experiments.

At first, Kendrick still held a thread of hope.

His own body hadn’t truly died. Perhaps Peyton still existed inside that mass of broken brain matter.

He made it drink all sorts of alchemical potions that acted on the brain, forcing it to barely function. Unfortunately, it was like an abandoned house full of dust and leaks from every side. The trace of a resident had long since vanished.

Then he thought, Peyton had exchanged too hastily. That strange power hadn’t yet fully merged. Perhaps Peyton was still sleeping inside his body.

He worked hard to train the divine power he had obtained and transferred himself back into his own body. But the moment he left, Peyton’s body immediately became an empty shell, unable to even continue breathing.

Peyton was gone. No matter what he did, he couldn’t find his brother.

The pathetic thing was, in this world, only Kendrick Karns alone knew this. Those stupid strangers only knew to smile foolishly at him and praise Peyton Karns’s goodness and kindness.

Kendrick hated this from the bottom of his heart yet couldn’t help chasing after it. Because when people spoke to him warmly, he always had a strange illusion, believing that Peyton Karns was still in the world.

No, Peyton was definitely still in the world.

Because Peyton’s Magibase was still there, and a Magibase was the symbol of the spirit. He simply hadn’t found the correct path. Everything wasn’t over yet.

After that, Kendrick’s life was split into two parts.

“Peyton” set out on the road of ascetic practice, either living alone in the monastery or wandering to remote places. Carrying his brother’s body, he secretly investigated the unknown existence named V.O.R.

“Kendrick,” meanwhile, was trapped in Ring Town, focusing on researching human sacrifices.

On one hand, he had to maintain his cold-blooded image. If V.O.R was interested in his madness, that would be an unexpected delight. On the other hand, Kendrick refused to admit the fleeting nature of Peyton’s death.

His brother was a softhearted person. Kendrick didn’t care about the deaths of others, but Peyton definitely cared.

Perhaps his act of using slaves as living sacrifices could make his brother return in anger and punch him again.

However, Kendrick’s double life was broken by a human sacrifice that succeeded unexpectedly.

Myss suddenly understood why Kendrick was filled with hostility toward them.

In Kendrick’s eyes, they were indeed thieves who had appeared out of nowhere and stolen the bodies. Not only had Salaar taken away the body that might contain Peyton’s consciousness, the two of them had also charged through Divine Realms all along the way and become entangled with V.O.R.

In Kendrick’s conception, this wasn’t a power humans could possess. The two of them were simply too much like V.O.R’s claws and teeth.

So that was how it was.

There was a faster way to stabilize Kendrick than breaking his magic. All he needed to do was shout that sentence.

Myss decisively cut off the memory probe and took a deep breath. “We…”

[We’re also V.O.R’s enemies.]

The instant he shouted the first word, a subtle sense of disharmony seized Myss. For some reason, he felt that Kendrick wouldn’t stop because of those words.

Kendrick wasn’t opposing V.O.R for grand reasons like “justice” or “the fate of humanity.” Like Myss himself, that guy didn’t care about whether other humans lived or died.

Myss asked himself, if someone rushed up and shouted, “I’m also an enemy of Hero Salaar,” he wouldn’t have even half a copper tooth’s worth of goodwill toward that person. He would even think they were in the way.

“…we can help you save Peyton!” Myss’s tongue made an emergency turn, and he changed his line.

This shout was crisp and decisive. Compared to calling for a ceasefire, its momentum was more like a declaration of war.

Kendrick’s attack came to an abrupt halt.

That strange humanoid hovered in midair, examining Myss with nonexistent eyes.

Now.

Myss stretched out a hand, and brilliant golden magical sparks ignited in his palm. He used all his strength to make that golden light dazzling and eye-catching. Like holding up a star in a lightless abyss, healing power flowed endlessly beneath that radiance.

At this distance, Kendrick could definitely sense it. Myss hurled that conspicuous light toward Kendrick. In the shadows, he gave Salaar a look.

Kendrick’s mutated face chased after that ball of light.

And in that one second of distraction, Salaar, using the cover of shadow, lightly lifted his fingers.

The ancient puppet that had been lying low in the darkness suddenly squeezed through those Divine Realm bubbles. It abandoned all defensive movements and turned into a deathly pale bolt of lightning, shooting at Kendrick from behind.

Kendrick had no time to react before it tightly wrapped him with its body blocks. In an instant, accompanied by tooth-aching cracking sounds, the puppet’s entire body ignited with pitch-black flames. Dense cracks appeared across those deathly pale body blocks, as if they would explode in the next second.

Within the black light, Kendrick struggled desperately. The pale-blue magic around him surged endlessly, yet couldn’t withstand that spreading pitch-blackness.

Myss didn’t need sharp perception to recognize that power. That was the power of Divine Blood, his annihilation magic, which had originally belonged to him.

“What’s going on? This thing is really about to explode!”

Tass hadn’t yet figured out the confused mess between Kendrick and Peyton, but he could identify a thousand signs of an explosion in half a second.

Myss pulled back the tip of his foot, made a beautiful retreat, and moved to Salaar’s side.

“Principle?” Salaar didn’t move. His voice carried a smile that made one want to hit him, as well as an urgency that was hard to describe.

“The power connection between bodies.”

Myss spoke extremely quickly, as if several scalding beans had been stuffed onto his tongue. “Leave him alive.”

“All right.”

In only a few seconds, black light suddenly flared.

The puppet split off a limb burning with black fire and quickly cleaved through the space between Myss and Salaar.

Myss’s consciousness grew dizzy again. He instinctively knew that his consciousness was about to return to its proper place. In this infinitely emotional instant, he couldn’t help stretching out a hand, and then—

Boom!

The puppet exploded while holding Kendrick. The fragments that splashed in all directions struck a brilliant golden protective shield. The shield wrapped around them in a perfect sphere, neatly placing Kendrick at the center.

Outside the protective shield, everything remained silent.

Myss and Salaar stood in their original positions, their postures frozen in an awkward state. They maintained the movements from the final instant before they had switched back. Salaar’s hands were firmly, well, stopped at his chest. Myss’s index finger, meanwhile, was pressed to his lips, the fingertip slightly reaching into his mouth.

The two looked at each other wordlessly. “…”

Then they pretended nothing had happened and moved their gazes away, looking at the protective barrier together.

Inside the protective barrier, the smoke and dust cleared, revealing the badly wounded Kendrick. That pale-blue flesh was covered in wounds, though none of them were deep. It was unclear whether this was because Salaar had held back, or because the humanoid Divine Realm’s defense was too astonishing.

In this form, no one could see his expression. But Myss could sense that sticky malice. Kendrick was clearly extremely dissatisfied with the current situation.

“We should hurry and run.” The Dragon Fae hadn’t changed back yet, but his legs were already hopping with eagerness. “I’ll save asking how you summoned those puppets for later. That thing was single-use. What if he swaps you again?”

The priest nodded vigorously and had already begun choosing a wall convenient for smashing.

“He can’t do it.”

Salaar slowly lowered his hands from his chest and deepened his voice.

Then he glanced at Myss, sighed softly, and blew a long whistle.

Unlike last time, this whistle faintly carried flecks of brilliant golden magic. They spread with the whistle, drifting into the curtain-like darkness.

In an instant, more scraping sounds of sharp claws appeared above everyone’s heads.

More than a dozen ancient puppets leapt down one after another from the hole in the ceiling. They turned their deformed heads, circling Salaar and Myss like giant dogs, lacking only a dozen wagging tails.

The next moment, those twisted human heads neatly turned toward Kendrick inside the protective shield.

“…I awakened them,” Salaar said. “Unfortunately, as long as they wake up, they can move by their own power. Are you sure you want to try again?”

“Rather than continuing to waste time like this, we should talk first. Myss told me to leave you alive. In other words, you’re not one of V.O.R’s people.”

Hearing V.O.R’s name, Kendrick abruptly raised his head.

There came a sound of flesh stirring. His “insides” turned back in again, and those bubbles burst out of thin air.

The well-dressed Peyton, or rather, Kendrick Karns, sat down inside the protective barrier. One of his arms rested casually on his knee, and his movement didn’t resemble Peyton at all.

“What a coincidence. I also have a question I truly cannot keep from asking.”

He spoke softly, his voice carrying a definite chill.

“You occupied my body, brought along a lover whose power is even stronger than Divine Blood, and can even command the Celestial Canopy’s puppets. They aren’t imitations like the Divine Blood Puppets. They only obey specific masters.”

“Just who are you?”

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 112: A Twisted Agreement

Before going to sleep that night, Kendrick habitually tidied the room.

His bad reputation was widespread, so he didn’t have any personal servants attending to him closely. Usually, he and Peyton handled small chores themselves. The servants around him were less there to serve him than to watch over him.

His and Peyton’s parents had died early, and the two of them had no property of their own. They relied entirely on the fixed funds given by the family to live.

At present, they occupied only two adjoining rooms in the manor. One empty room served as their living room, and the other as their bedroom. The standard large bed was more than enough, large enough for Peyton to rest together with him.

Right now, Peyton had gone to the bedroom first to pray. Kendrick sorted the results of today’s research, preparing to continue studying magic foundations tomorrow. By the time he finished tidying, night had climbed all over the glass. Kendrick picked up the candlestick and walked to his brother’s seat.

Peyton was an extremely self-disciplined person. His desk was clean even without tidying. Even so, Kendrick still picked up a soft cloth and carefully wiped away a drop of tea stain from the corner of the desk.

Just then, the corner of his eye caught a wisp of faint light. Among the neatly arranged books, something was emitting light on its own.

Could it be a magic device that hadn’t been put away properly?

Kendrick pulled out that book and took out the glowing object. Two opened letters, their envelopes bearing the same scarlet wax seal. Peyton had preserved them very well, without a single crease.

Naturally, Kendrick had no concern for trivial things like “privacy.” He directly opened the envelope and began reading.

The Divine Blood Puppet is an excellent breakthrough point. It allows a person to transfer consciousness and rely on another shell to cast magic.

[Mr. Peyton, you are a true genius. You know the irreversible flaw of a Child of Divine Blood. This is the only solution.

V.O.R]

[Yes, the control principle of the Divine Blood Puppet can likewise be applied to the body of a Child of Divine Blood.

You need only find a completely willing and absolutely cooperative “living sacrifice” and have him exchange consciousness with your brother. I’m willing to help you perfect the relevant magic.

V.O.R]

Peyton had never mentioned these two letters to him.

As for the principle of the Divine Blood Puppet, Peyton had told him about it a few weeks ago. Only, the Divine Blood Puppet technology was controlled by the Stargazers Society, so this path was basically a dead end. Kendrick had little interest in it.

He had thought the Divine Blood Puppet’s use was as a “prosthetic limb,” temporarily attaching consciousness to a magic-device-modified puppet and imitating a normal person’s spellcasting. Now it seemed there was an even more permanent method in the world.

A completely willing and absolutely cooperative living sacrifice… exchanging consciousness…

It sounded perfect.

As for a suitable candidate, Kendrick could only think of Peyton. His older brother was kind to the point of stupidity. If Kendrick pressed him step by step, Peyton might not necessarily refuse.

When it came down to it, Peyton had deliberately kept these two strange letters, so there was probably some consideration in that direction. According to Peyton’s habits, once the timing was right, Peyton might even bring up this matter on his own.

…But compared to a Magibase, Kendrick wanted Peyton to stay alive at his side more.

There was no anger at being hidden from, no hesitant greed. Kendrick gave a cold laugh and, without hesitation, put the envelopes away and returned them between the books. It was as if they weren’t guidance that could change his fate, but two pieces of filthy waste paper.

The instant his fingertips left the envelopes, Kendrick frowned. That strange feeling of being watched had appeared again, like the lick of an icy tongue.

Kendrick’s expression remained normal. He picked up the candlestick piled with candle tears. Firelight danced in those lapis-lazuli eyes, unable to stir even the slightest ripple.

Soon, the time of the End-of-Winter Feast arrived.

Kendrick obediently listened and didn’t stir trouble with anyone. Grandfather allowed him to attend the End-of-Winter Feast, of course, with Peyton accompanying him the entire time.

Kendrick didn’t mention those two strange letters to Peyton, but on the night before the banquet, Peyton brought them up first.

“Ken, at the End-of-Winter Feast, strangers may come speak to you.”

Peyton chose his words carefully. “No matter what they say, don’t spend time with them alone. I will try to stay with you as much as possible. Remember that?”

“No one will speak to me. They will only be interested in you,” Kendrick said indifferently.

Peyton shook his head. “Someone is watching us, Ken. That person is very powerful and knows what we long for. I suspect we have been targeted.”

Only then did Kendrick focus. Thinking of those two strange letters, he couldn’t help saying, “You sound like you’ve hidden something from me.”

“I received some very strange letters.”

After a moment of silence, Peyton spoke frankly. “The manor has strict magical defenses, yet the other party knows our movements clearly and can send letters here out of thin air.”

“The sender is called V.O.R. V.O.R suggested that we exchange bodies, so you could obtain my magic, and I…”

“No.” Kendrick refused decisively. “There is no help without reason. He definitely wants to obtain something from us.”

Peyton nodded.

“However, setting that person aside, this method is feasible. I don’t mind losing all my magic and spending the rest of my life serving the God of Cadence. I…”

“No.” Kendrick refused again, his expression so dark it looked as if water might drip from it. “We’re going to hunt wanted criminals together. Like that, you would drag me down.”

Peyton smiled and sighed, rubbing Kendrick’s black hair.

“In any case, be careful at the banquet,” he said gently.

……

At the start, the dinner was calm.

Kendrick’s bad reputation was widespread. The nobles of Serpentis more or less knew his situation, and those peers who had tried to tease him had more or less tasted his cold gaze and fists. In this kind of setting, Kendrick didn’t need to be responsible for socializing.

Peyton dealt with people in his place. From time to time, he had to carry a wine glass and walk a few steps away, smiling and greeting those unfamiliar faces.

They had only one task tonight. Kendrick was to display his self-control and not behave too frighteningly. Peyton was to establish a connection with a certain Kingdom Archmage’s student and seek an opportunity for his younger brother’s “further studies.”

Kendrick leaned in a corner, eating the fatty foie gras on bread while watching Peyton not far away.

Peyton was already eighteen, more than half a head taller than fifteen-year-old Kendrick.

His figure was straight, his face gentle, and he was also a somewhat famous genius. Many girls secretly cast admiring gazes at him. Only, because of Kendrick, the notorious burden, no one dared approach him to speak.

Kendrick felt no guilt about this at all, much less any sense of wrongdoing. On the contrary, he was extremely satisfied with the current situation, as if the world should have been like this in the first place.

He lifted the cup filled with clear water before his eyes, placing the smiling Peyton inside the cup. Peyton’s figure was distorted by the swaying liquid, as if submerged inside the long, narrow goblet.

After watching for a while, Kendrick withdrew his gaze. He took himself another small plate of offal pudding, tucked it between his teeth, and chewed it slowly, boredly passing the time.

Just then, he smelled a trace of blood.

Kendrick quickly turned his head and discovered a girl standing not far behind him. The maid’s daughter, the one he had almost strangled to death. He had long forgotten her name.

The girl held a medium-sized white cloth bundle in her arms, and deep-red bloodstains seeped from the cloth. She had grown a little since their first encounter, and her eyes stared straight at Kendrick. Then those protruding eyes slowly shifted toward Peyton.

The girl stared fixedly at Peyton and revealed a neurotic smile. She abruptly turned and ran toward a dark corridor. A few drops of blood dripped from the bundle, falling onto the smooth marble.

…Why was she here?

Kendrick had no time to think further. In the next instant, an even more fatal thought struck him.

The way that girl had looked at Peyton was wrong. Those eyes were filled with malice, and Kendrick was more familiar with that than anyone. Every day, he saw his own eyes in the mirror, and that gaze was largely the same as hers.

Something was very wrong.

But it was aimed at Peyton. He couldn’t gamble, even if the probability was only one in ten million.

The girl was about to run out of sight, and Peyton was still talking to important people. It would be too late to find him. Kendrick grabbed a handful of sharp forks and quickly chased after her.

He was only going to take a look, Kendrick emphasized to himself as he jogged. He only planned to chase her a few steps, check the situation, and make sure this girl wouldn’t be a threat to Peyton in the short term.

The girl ahead sensed his presence and walked faster and faster. Kendrick sped up after her and rounded the corner of the corridor. This place seemed to be an unopened corner of the venue. Aside from locked room doors and an empty corridor, there was only a small fountain without running water.

Kendrick hesitantly slowed his steps. This girl didn’t look like she was going to take another path to sneak into the banquet hall, and he was about to leave the servants’ line of sight. He would be better off turning back and telling Peyton the whole situation in detail.

Unfortunately, she didn’t give him the chance.

The instant Kendrick retreated, she split her mouth open in a grin and flung away that bloodstained bundle.

Kendrick subconsciously reached out to block, but there was nothing in that bundle. It merely fell slowly before him, wiping away the world he had seen before.

Where was there any bloodstained cloth bundle, the maid’s daughter? Before him, there was only a completely unfamiliar little girl, who looked not even ten years old.

Facing Kendrick, who held forks in his hand, she was so frightened her face turned deathly pale, unable even to cry. One small hand pressed against the necklace on her chest, and the cute heart-shaped pendant flickered with faint light.

No, Kendrick thought, stunned.

He felt his face itch a little and subconsciously reached up to touch it. He touched warm blood.

“Ken!” The shout behind him drew closer and closer. It was Peyton.

Kendrick relaxed slightly. His feet softened, and he was narrowly caught by Peyton as he arrived. Waves of dizziness and weakness surged up like the sea, nearly smashing his consciousness apart.

A young man had also rushed to the scene. He quickly ran to the little girl and held the sobbing child in his arms. “What happened?”

“That monster chased me with forks!” The little girl burst into tears. “I, I used the protective magic device my brother gave me, sob…”

“A Nebra family curse magic device?” Peyton was frantic.

“It paralyzes a person’s Magibase, makes their whole body weak, and is completely non-lethal.”

The young man holding the girl spoke coldly. “You should manage your brother properly, Peyton Karns. He is now mad enough to attack even a little girl.”

“Fuck you, it’s non-lethal to ‘people with Magibase’!”

Peyton rarely cursed. “Without a Magibase, that curse will burn out his brain!”

Surprise flashed across the young man’s face, but it quickly disappeared. “I’m very sorry, but the main responsibility for this matter does not lie with the Nebra family.”

“I must settle my sister first. After the banquet ends, I will explain the situation to the Karns family.”

After speaking, he carried the utterly shaken little girl and quickly left the dried fountain, leaving the two brothers in this dim corner.

There it was again.

In a daze, Kendrick thought that he once again felt that watchful, stabbing pain. He struggled to turn his head. In his gradually blurring vision, he saw the little girl being carried by her relative. The girl’s face rested on her brother’s shoulder, revealing an unnatural smile, as if the corners of her mouth had been lifted by invisible fingers.

The next instant, she returned to that panicked, confused appearance.

And his own brother was holding him in terror, pulling out bottle after bottle of emergency rescue potions from his pocket. Peyton rapidly chanted something, and pale-blue radiance condensed in his hand, trying to heal the wound he couldn’t see.

…So that was how it was, Kendrick thought.

He had been deceived by some existence and lured away with illusions. That child, because she carried a special protective magic device, had been controlled by some existence and brought here.

This was a damned stage. He and that little girl were nothing but marionettes. And the hand holding the strings wanted only to show all of this to Peyton.

Kendrick Karns went mad again and accidentally provoked the isolated young lady of the Nebra family, a ridiculous and pathetic accident.

…But that wasn’t the truth, Brother. I didn’t attack her.

Kendrick wanted to speak, but his mouth seemed no longer under his control. Potion flowed down the corner of his mouth, and he could not even swallow.

This is a conspiracy, Brother. Don’t do the thing you’re thinking of.

“Ken, Ken.”

Peyton gritted his teeth. “Damn it. I’ll do anything, anything at all, as long as you can live…”

Swish.

Kendrick forced his eyes wide open and watched that familiar envelope drift down onto his chest.

Peyton freed one trembling hand and roughly tore the envelope open.

[Farewell, Mr. Peyton, my dear friend.

Redemption Puppet, we shall meet again in the season of harvest.

—V…]

Before Peyton could finish reading the letter, Kendrick grabbed the paper in one hand. In his gradually vanishing consciousness, he squeezed out his last strength and shook his head hard.

But Peyton laughed, as if Kendrick’s action had given him immense comfort.

He bent down and kissed Kendrick’s forehead. His movement was unbelievably gentle, as if kissing farewell to his closest kin lying inside a coffin.

An even greater dizziness enveloped Kendrick. His head sank and struck something warm. Only in the next instant did he realize that he was holding a body in his arms.

…The body that should have belonged to him.

At the same time, Kendrick sensed the rapidly forming storm inside his body.

That was a power close to a god. It responded to Peyton’s wish, like an embryo rapidly taking shape.

How ironic. The first moment he obtained this divine power, Peyton exchanged their bodies without the slightest hesitation. He wasn’t even willing to wait a few more seconds, to wait until this divine power had fully fused with him.

He knew that it could give him supreme power, allowing him to connect different shells and exchange the souls inside those shells. It would give him an absolute kingdom… but Peyton wouldn’t be in that kingdom.

Kendrick rejected that power without hesitation, preventing it from fully fusing with him.

In the next instant, he called out to his original body. He wanted to switch back. He wanted Peyton to return to this intact and healthy body.

However, he received no response.

Kendrick Karns’s brain was like something that had been stirred apart. Peyton had vanished inside that fragile soft flesh. In another dozen seconds, this body would stop breathing.

Peyton hadn’t had time to heal, hadn’t had time to hesitate, hadn’t had time to say goodbye. All of it was only because of one small mistake. A few short minutes ago, Kendrick had seen someone he shouldn’t have seen and taken a step he shouldn’t have taken.

They shouldn’t have ended up like this, Kendrick thought.

Whether it was fortunate or unfortunate, Peyton’s intact body hadn’t given him an intact heart. While furious, Kendrick could actually still think smoothly.

Since V.O.R. had deliberately created this situation, forcing Peyton to exchange bodies and making Kendrick fully receive that strange power… 

Then he would deliberately make him “fail.” At present, it seemed V.O.R. could grant them power close to a god, but couldn’t see through their hearts.

If, during the process of making a wish and obtaining power, the one who made the wish “regretted it,” what would happen?

Peyton had exchanged too early, leaving him a few short seconds that could be used for disguise. Within those dark and long seconds, Kendrick silently made a decision.

While using that surging magic to “heal” Kendrick’s body in a convincing manner, he secretly concentrated and controlled the body that had originally belonged to him.

Controlling a Child of Divine Blood was even simpler than he had imagined controlling a Divine Blood Puppet would be. Kendrick easily controlled it to raise a hand and made that fork stab toward “his” right eye.

“Stop healing me. Give me your body!” He controlled that body and made it roar indistinctly. “You can’t even heal a defensive curse, you useless… useless…”

If V.O.R’s script was for Peyton, who had no ambition, to disappear in his place…

Then he would make it so Peyton hadn’t immediately exchanged but had used his newly obtained divine power to heal him. Then, during the healing, he had been severely injured by the mad Kendrick.

In this way, he would no longer be able to remain firm in that obsession and wholeheartedly make a wish for his younger brother. That divine power would be unable to truly take root.

The mad “Kendrick’s” mind became even more shattered, and he was sent far away by the family. Poor Peyton would lose all hope and go to the monastery for ascetic penance.

…No. He would go to the monastery together with his brother, just as they had agreed.

Next, they would hunt down a wretch who deserved nothing but death, just as they had agreed.

Amid the severe pain, Kendrick touched his shattered right eye.

Blood fell like rain, soaking the signature on the letter.

V.O.R.

---

Kinky Thoughts:

Wow I was not expecting this kind of twist. Now I feel kind of bad for Kendrick…

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 111: Strange Memories

With one whistle from Salaar, the ancient puppet leapt out, rotating its body blocks to sweep aside the bubbles that fell thick as rain for Myss. Myss used everything he had, nimbly slipping through the gaps and approaching Kendrick as if dancing.

Kendrick was drawing closer to them, and the distance between the two wasn’t great. Seeing Myss pounce out from the foam, that strange humanoid lashed backhandedly. The pale-blue magic blade split open Myss’s palm and arm.

Usually, when a person was injured, they would instinctively pull back. But Myss seemed to have no sense of pain. He lunged toward Kendrick in one motion, several strands of brilliant golden thread hidden in his palm. That was the magic he could only control by exhausting all his strength.

This bloodied grab fiercely clamped around Kendrick’s throat.

The tendons in his hand were injured, and Myss couldn’t close his five fingers. In the next second, Kendrick would break free from this meaningless attack.

…But this one instant was enough.

Myss merged that final bit of golden magic into Kendrick’s body and touched his memories.

Drip, drip.

The young Kendrick lowered his hand, and blood dripped from the fork in his grip. The bloodstains seeped into the thick velvet carpet. A kind-looking middle-aged woman lay collapsed on the floor, covering her arm that kept gushing blood.

“Ken!” A figure rushed in.

It was a boy with delicate, gentle features. Judging from his appearance, that should be Peyton in his youth. Young Peyton’s eyes were both intact, and his face was full of anxiety.

“Young Master Peyton,” the middle-aged woman called out through the pain.

“You go out first, Madam Memi.” Peyton’s gaze swept around, and he roughly understood the situation. “After you treat your wound, remember to go to the butler to collect compensation.”

“Peyton.” Kendrick opened his arms expressionlessly, one hand still holding the bloody fork.

Peyton sighed softly and quickly walked in front of Kendrick, but he didn’t embrace him.

“What happened?”

“I wanted Magnolia’s doll, and Memi said I couldn’t have it.” Kendrick’s tone was unusually calm. “But I wanted that doll. I planned to go get it myself, and Memi wouldn’t let me pass.”

“That is Magnolia’s miniature specimen for class, not a toy.”

“I want it,” Kendrick repeated. “If Memi stops me again next time, I’ll kill her.”

Peyton half crouched down and looked at the indifferent child in front of him. “No, Ken. Killing is wrong.”

“Why?”

“If you kill Memi, her parents, husband, and children will all be very sad.”

“What is ‘sad’?” Kendrick asked. “And I don’t know her parents, husband, or children. Why should I care about them?”

Peyton gave a bitter smile. Paired with that expression, he didn’t look very much like a child. “‘Sad’ means that you will never be able to see your older brother again.”

Kendrick pondered for a long time. He carefully stuffed the bloody fork beneath the tablecloth, then placed his blood-covered hands behind his back, as if this could hide everything that had just happened.

“Or I could kill Magnolia. Then Memi would have no reason to refuse me, and I wouldn’t hurt Memi.” He offered this suggestion almost sincerely.

Peyton only looked at him sadly. After a long while, he touched his head.

“Magnolia is even more impossible, Ken,” he said. “Promise your brother, all right? Don’t casually hurt or kill people. If you truly cannot suppress that impulse, Brother will find you some criminals who deserve to die.”

Kendrick thought for a moment, then stretched out both hands and somewhat clumsily tugged at the corners of his mouth. “All right. I promise you, Brother.”

Peyton leaned forward and gently kissed Kendrick’s forehead. “May god bless you, my dear little brother.”

After a few words of comfort, the butler’s call came from outside. Peyton left the room and carefully shut the door. Almost in the next second, Kendrick flew from the stool to the door, pressing his ear tightly against the panel.

A muffled conversation came from the other side of the door.

“Young Master Kendrick is extremely dangerous, Young Master Peyton. As a child of Divine Blood, his symptoms are unmistakable. He doesn’t have a normal human heart. Perhaps you should consider sending him away…”

“No. If even I give up on Kendrick, sooner or later he will kill the innocent.”

Peyton said, “As that child’s closest family, I have the responsibility to watch over him, teach him, and keep him from hurting others.”

“But your talent… Haa…”

“By the God of Cadence, I won’t abandon my only little brother for the sake of my own future.”

There was no wavering in Peyton’s tone. “When he grows a little older, I’ll take him to the Church of Cadence for ascetic practice. If… if necessary, I’ll take him to hunt those heinous wanted criminals, so that the bloodshed will have some meaning.”

“All right, if you insist.” The butler couldn’t help sighing a few more times.

The young Kendrick pressed his cheek against the hard door panel and said nothing.

Not long after, Kendrick participated in the Magibase Summoning ceremony.

Peyton carefully selected the materials for his summoning, but just as everyone knew, Kendrick failed to summon anything.

Facing the empty magic circle, the whispers below the stage were like ocean waves. Fragmented words emerged from behind noblewomen’s fans and inside gentlemen’s beards, more annoying than hard wood chips in bread.

“That violent younger son of the Karns family…”

“I heard that child’s mind is quite abnormal…”

“Perhaps it’s not a matter of talent, but that he lacks a complete human heart…”

Peyton picked up his younger brother and strode away from the scene.

“I want magic,” Kendrick said while hugging Peyton’s neck. “Before you had a Magibase, you could still use magic. Teach me.”

“Ken, we are different.” Peyton lightly patted his back. “Everyone is different.”

“I want magic,” Kendrick emphasized unhappily. “Magic has no owner. Then I’ll go take it myself.”

“Everyone has magic. I’m the only one who doesn’t. My magic must have been stolen by someone. I’ll take my magic back.”

“All right,” Peyton said. “Brother will find research books related to Magibase for you. If there is anything you don’t understand, Brother will learn with you.”

“All right, Brother.”

“Ken, when you have magic, what do you want to do?”

“Bounty hunter.”

Kendrick thought about it seriously and replied solemnly, “I want to live in the monastery with Brother and hunt those people who are allowed to be killed.”

“Good boy.” Peyton’s steps paused, and a little laughter entered his voice.

Myss found it somewhat strange.

He had deliberately turned the memories earlier to see how the real Peyton and Kendrick had gotten along. As a result, these two actually had a very good relationship. At least from the look of it, this pair of brothers who had lost their parents could be called dependent on each other.

Kendrick was indeed cold-blooded, but toward Peyton, he could be considered obedient.

When he discovered that he had no magical talent, he didn’t show the slightest jealousy toward Peyton. Nor did he, as Magnolia had said, blame Peyton for the problem with his own constitution.

…For two brothers like this, why exactly had they swapped bodies?

The following memories were still fairly ordinary.

Peyton took care of Kendrick every day and studied matters related to Magibases with him. Toward people other than Peyton, Kendrick was still completely impolite. However, he had indeed restrained himself somewhat when he acted, with only a few minor incidents that drew blood. Afterward, he was naturally lectured by Peyton for a long time.

Myss was actually quite familiar with Kendrick’s style of conduct.

This child of Divine Blood was a little like him. Kendrick wouldn’t regard the other humans as his own kind, much less take their lives as lives. Their anger, fear, and hatred were no more important to Kendrick Karns than steam from the spout of a teapot.

The reason he didn’t go kill people relied entirely on Peyton’s restraint.

Peyton gave up socializing in noble circles, and he was unwilling to follow a famous mage to study magic. He spent great sums to hire tutors and studied and attended lessons together with Kendrick.

In a room neither large nor small, Kendrick busied himself with his grand undertaking of summoning a Magibase. Peyton, meanwhile, recited prayers to the God of Cadence beside him, like the most devout monk.

Sunlight slanted through the high windows and fell across the two of them. The shadows beneath their feet moved so slowly, as if none of this would ever change in this life.

Until one day, Kendrick discovered the method of “living sacrifice.”

Kendrick knew that Peyton would never permit him to read such things. So he secretly hid the relevant records, just as he had hidden the fork that had wounded the nursemaid.

On a sunny afternoon, while Peyton was out handling errands, Kendrick killed a few sparrows and mice and tried using a blood magic circle to practice the ritual.

He mercilessly twisted apart those faintly warm bodies and squeezed out blood and organs, as if what he held weren’t small animals that could breathe, but paint tubes that still carried warmth.

Naturally, this crude summoning received no response.

Kendrick casually cleaned up those bloody corpses, preparing to throw them away while Peyton wasn’t there. He had just left the room when he ran into the maid’s young daughter.

That girl was only thirteen or fourteen, about the same age as Kendrick, and helped her mother do odd jobs in the manor. The little girl happened to be cleaning nearby and directly knocked the bundle from his hand. Those corpses, dead in wretched states, fell all over the floor.

How could the little girl ever have seen such a bloody scene? She fell onto the ground and immediately screamed.

Kendrick lowered his eyes and looked at her tearful eyes, taut lips, and wrinkled chin. Her neck was thin and trembled fiercely. He could snap it with one hand, just as he had snapped the mouse’s spine.

Yet even such a noisy, cowardly, irritating little girl had a Magibase that he didn’t.

This feeling made Kendrick extremely uncomfortable, more uncomfortable than when he couldn’t obtain Magnolia’s doll.

He wanted a Magibase, just as he wanted to kill people. He was more restless than a wild bird locked in a cage. He only wanted to make himself feel a little easier.

Using small animals for living sacrifice was ultimately not enough.

Kendrick reached his hand toward the girl whose legs had gone weak from fright.

She was short with a slight build. He could use her as a live sacrifice, cut up the corpse, and hide it in his chest of drawers… In any case, the potions in his room could make enough preservative solution. While Peyton wasn’t paying attention, he could mix the corpse in with the meat pieces used for research and throw it out little by little.

“Young Master Peyton!”

Seeing his gaze, the little girl trembled even harder. She desperately shook her head and instinctively called for Peyton, who lived here. “Young Master Peyton!”

As she shouted, she moved her weak legs, trying to stand.

This call made Kendrick feel guilty for no reason. The little girl had just stood when he shoved her back to the floor.

“Help, help! You monster!” she cursed through her tears.

“Young Master Peyton will abandon you sooner or later. He will have a new family… you lunatic… everyone hates you…”

Boom.

Kendrick’s pupils opened slightly, and his hand finally touched her throat. Despair and hatred surfaced on the girl’s face, but her cry was stuck in her throat.

Kendrick expressionlessly tightened his five fingers.

“Ken!” A roar froze Kendrick’s movements.

The documents and books in Peyton’s arms scattered all over the floor. He strode forward and seized Kendrick. Contrary to his usual manner, Peyton nearly fiercely pried open Kendrick’s fingers. His hand was covered in cold sweat, and his finger joints made a crisp sound like they had been sprained.

“What did you promise me?” Peyton’s face was terrifyingly white, and his voice was so hoarse it didn’t sound like him.

The corpse of a sparrow rolled by his foot. The poor little thing’s head looked as if it had been bitten off alive, its wings bent at a very uncomfortable angle.

Kendrick’s gaze swept over that tiny corpse, then returned to Peyton’s face.

He couldn’t sense that little girl’s hatred or terror, but he sensed the emotion called “disappointment” with incomparable clarity.

Kendrick: “Don’t casually hurt or kill people.”

“Then what were you doing just now?” Peyton used his eyes to signal the girl to leave, his voice lower. “Because I wasn’t present, my words no longer counted?”

Kendrick wanted to defend himself. He wanted to say, “because she was so noisy she gave me a headache,” but also felt that Peyton probably wouldn’t like that reason.

“I’m sorry, Brother.” In the end, he opened his mouth. “I failed to control myself. I won’t do this again.”

“I thought that, at the very least, you would keep your agreement with me.” Peyton’s tone gained several traces of exhaustion, and Kendrick didn’t like that exhaustion.

“Then we should make a more detailed agreement.” For some reason, his tone grew increasingly forceful.

“For example, only when you are by my side do I have the obligation to keep the agreement. If you abandon me, do I still have to obey your demands?”

Peyton was silent for a while.

“I understand,” he said softly. “As long as you keep the agreement, I will provide a guarantee you can believe in.”

Although no blood had been spilled and no magic was gained, in that moment, Kendrick’s mood inexplicably improved somewhat.

He threw away those corpses that had begun to rot and washed away the remaining bloodstains from the gaps of his fingernails. Peyton sat back in his usual position, the position Kendrick could see with one glance and prayed to the so-called God of Cadence.

Curses were useless, and prayers were useless too, Kendrick thought happily. Only a concrete contract could convince him.

In the shadows, Kendrick secretly took out the materials related to living sacrifice and read them over and over.

He had to memorize these theories first. If Peyton vanished one day, perhaps he could use them. Of course, assuming… assuming Peyton didn’t leave him, he was willing to suppress his instincts a little. This was an acceptable price.

Myss found it stranger and stranger the more he watched.

No matter how he looked at it, these two didn’t seem like they were about to turn against each other.

The truth was exactly the opposite. They seemed to have reached some kind of subtle balance.

If the two of them continued getting along like this, Kendrick wouldn’t even try living sacrifice again, much less suddenly attack and blind his older brother’s eye.

Moreover, Kendrick and Peyton had clearly lived together for so long, yet Salaar had never mentioned it.

Salaar wouldn’t deliberately hide such a thing. Kendrick’s head, or rather, the head of that “Kendrick” in Ring Town, had most likely been tampered with.

Myss impatiently flipped through the memories and finally found his target, the day V.O.R. officially intervened.

It was a snowy winter night. After yet another failed experiment, fifteen-year-old Kendrick threw down the quill pen in his hand.

He had grown much taller, but the eyes in the mirror still carried a sinister gloom. He wasn’t old, yet that heavy, dark aura had already begun to show, making people panic when they looked at him.

However, in these years, Kendrick still only fought and didn’t kill. His research into living sacrifice had also remained only on paper. In exchange, Peyton watched him almost every step, even bringing Kendrick along when he went out to pray.

At this moment, Kendrick crumpled the parchment into a ball and threw it hard onto the floor. The paper ball bounced a few times and stopped by Peyton’s feet.

“Gingerbread with extra ginger juice, and weak tea mixed with milk.” Eighteen-year-old Peyton brought him gingerbread and hot tea, his tone still gentle.

“I should just join the Stargazers Society.”

Kendrick said hoarsely, “All the knowledge about Magibases leads to dead ends in the end. Just that summoning spell that changes every year, almost no one has clearly written its principles. This sort of thing also has to be hidden away?”

“The Stargazers Society has all kinds of people mixed together, and no one knows their recruitment standards. You had better not think about them.”

Peyton said gently, revealing a sincere smile. “Ken, in these years, you built a solid foundation in theory. I will think of a way and see if we can get in contact with a Kingdom Archmage.”

Kendrick remained noncommittal.

“If I never obtain magic, can I still become a monk of the Church of Cadence?” He watched Peyton from the corner of his eye.

“The God of Cadence is merciful.” Peyton nodded.

“Mm, but I’m not very merciful.” Kendrick said, “If not having magic weren’t so annoying, I would want to go to the church right now and hunt those wanted criminals running around everywhere together with you.”

When he said this, there was even a trace of longing in his tone.

“Wait until you come of age.” Peyton amusedly patted his head. “It is rare that Grandfather is willing to support us. Focus on your research. Perhaps there will truly be hope in the future.”

“Only Grandfather supports us. Everyone else wishes I would disappear.”

“I was just about to talk to you about this, Ken.”

Peyton’s expression grew serious. “Next month, there will be a very important dinner. These next few days, no matter what others say, you must control that deadly temper of yours. If you are confined, I won’t be able to bring you with me.”

Kendrick rolled his eyes up and stared at Peyton through his slightly long bangs. “…”

“You should have heard of the ‘End-of-Winter Feast.’ Many famous and important people will attend.”

Peyton continued, “If things go smoothly, we might be able to make connections with an Archmage’s student. That way, our research into Magibases can go a step further.”

“I understand.” Kendrick withdrew his gaze. “I will behave, Brother.”

Suddenly, Kendrick felt a needle-like discomfort, as if something were peering at him from the dark. He abruptly raised his head and looked toward the source of that sting.

Outside the window, two fingers’ depth of snow had accumulated on the windowsill. The scene beyond the window was eroded and worn away by flying snow, a field of mottled white.

There was nothing, not even the corpse of a little bird. Kendrick frowned, then lowered his head again.

“Hurry and drink your tea. Look, it’s getting cold.” Peyton took the opportunity to pat his head.

“Okay, Brother.”

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Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

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Chapter 110: A Long Confession

This wasn’t Myss’s power.

Within the turbulence of magic, Myss finally understood the essence of body swapping, of the body swap they were experiencing at this very moment.

His and Salaar’s bodies had been forcibly connected by an invisible force, turning them into a single entity. It was like an invisible spiritual pipe. Through this pipe, their consciousnesses had been poured into the wrong bodies.

Even now, their bodies were still connected by that external force.

That power couldn’t freely dominate their spirits. It could only transfer them, stuffing them into mismatched positions. Just as a person couldn’t use their fingers to smile or the corner of their mouth to write.

What Myss was doing now was using his instinctive understanding of magic to forcibly analyze the power inside Salaar’s body.

How marvelous. Salaar’s power was completely different from his, yet it seemed to come from the same source.

Controlling it felt like stimulating a transplanted, numbed limb that didn’t belong to him. Under Myss’s intense will, the brilliant golden magic unwillingly bowed its head and gave the slightest response.

…This slight bit was enough.

He impatiently threw that mass of power toward Salaar, smashing it into that bleeding wound. Seeing the flesh begin to heal, Myss subconsciously breathed a sigh of relief, as if control over the entire world had returned to his hands.

Only then did he realize what he had just done.

In the next instant, Myss happily persuaded himself. He was worried about the slave’s body. Who knew whether, if Salaar died while carrying that body, Myss would still be able to use magic normally?

That was right. That was correct. That was the reason he had subconsciously given up returning to the darkness and chosen to heal Salaar… right?

No, this wasn’t the time for random thoughts. Myss shook his head, throwing away those strange questions.

His gaze swept toward Kendrick again. That power connecting his body and Salaar’s body absolutely came from Kendrick.

“Knock him out!”

Myss maintained the thin golden light at his fingertips and pointed straight at Kendrick.

Kendrick smiled.

The moment golden light surfaced over Myss’s hands, he let go of that whip. The smile on his face carried excitement, like a hunter who had discovered rare prey.

Thunk.

The whip fell to the ground.

The ugly scar on Kendrick’s face blossomed open like a flower bud, revealing a hole the size of a bowl.

The next second, that layer of pale flesh turned into candy paper wrapped around a candy ball, slowly peeling away before everyone’s eyes.

Beneath the bloody flesh wasn’t a wet skull, but countless shining round bubbles. They were about the size of eyeballs and almost transparent, with only hair-thin outlines.

Before everyone, Kendrick’s body twisted and tightened. Amid the sounds of flesh squeezing, the inside of his body turned outward through the hole in his head.

Kendrick’s “inside” didn’t have bulging blood vessels or dangling organs. The “skin” that turned outward was flat and smooth, showing an inhuman pale blue.

Of course, there were no facial features, no hair. Only on his head, where the eyes should have been, remained an irregular opening.

The bubbles that had originally been held inside his body floated in midair, slowly drifting around Kendrick. Kendrick himself, if that could still be considered Kendrick, also floated into the air and silently faced everyone.

Together with the blazing blue fire, this scene became even more like a nightmare.

Myss didn’t need sharp perception to sense the suddenly increased pressure. Vast magic scraped across his skin, making his bones ache faintly. He was all too familiar with this level of magic.

“A Divine Realm.”

Illuminated by the pale-blue glow, Father Kalen’s face looked even paler. “How’s that possible? How can there be such a small Divine Realm…”

“It seems he has always confined this power inside his body.” Salaar unsteadily stabilized himself, his voice hoarse.

“What does that mean?” Tass reacted for a moment and felt a chill crawl over him. “Are you saying this Divine Realm is inside Kendrick’s body? Like filling inside a pastry?”

The priest pursed his lips and nodded.

Such a sealed, compressed Divine Realm wouldn’t be too strong offensively, but its defense would be absolutely monstrous.

Myss had no intention of joining this conversation. He stared fixedly at those flying bubbles.

He sensed a subtle familiar aura from them. Although he couldn’t see it, there had to be magic connecting these bubbles, just like the magic connecting him and Salaar.

Sure enough, after only a few seconds, several bubbles rushed straight at Myss, clearly intending to deepen the body-swap effect.

Myss clumsily dodged. Relying on the size of Salaar’s body, he grabbed Father Kalen by the collar and directly used the tall priest as a human shield.

The bubble struck the priest’s body. The next moment, it burst like a real bubble and vanished.

He had guessed correctly. Kendrick hadn’t been kind enough to deliberately leave them a combat force. Rather, for some unknown reason, Kendrick’s ability had no effect on Kalen.

Kendrick let out a strange whale-like cry. More bubbles rushed toward them head-on, attempting to control Myss, the unpredictable variable, on the spot.

“Block them for me!”

Myss took a deep breath, one hand gripping the confused Kalen shield, the other dragging Salaar to his side.

Kalen was fairly dedicated. He quickly guarded the two behind him and shattered all the incoming bubbles. The Dragon Fae broke off the rotten wooden plank that had tripped him earlier and independently filled the gaps in their defense, knocking away every bubble that approached.

After confirming that those damned bubbles wouldn’t be able to reach them for the moment, Myss bent down toward Salaar and spoke extremely quickly. “Cover me in a moment. I’m going to grab Kendrick.”

“Why?”

Myss: “I’m going to look at his memories.”

To be precise, he needed to touch Kendrick up close without touching those bubbles.

He could only control Salaar’s magic at the most minimal level, at best doing a little healing. It would be difficult to fight Kendrick head-on. But he could turn magic into threads, invade Kendrick’s mind, and search through his memories for a solution.

Of course, young Salaar didn’t know any of this. Myss had no time to explain it to him. He only gripped Salaar’s shoulder tightly. He definitely couldn’t do this alone. He needed Salaar’s assistance.

Salaar raised his face and looked into Myss’s eyes.

Then he lifted his hand and placed it over the hand Myss had extended toward him. Blood remained on his fingertips, giving off a thick, sweet, bloody scent and leaving a clear smear of dark red on Myss’s hand.

Kendrick’s Divine Realm power seemed difficult to project outward. Only clear bubbles drifted around them, refracting fragmented light. Unfortunately, they both knew that this stalemate wouldn’t last long.

Kendrick was approaching. Hidden by the large number of bubbles, that floating human figure was cautiously drawing near, like a beast circling its prey.

Salaar lowered his eyes and took a small bottle from his chest. Myss froze. That was clearly the antidote to “Return to Youth.”

“Myss.” Young Salaar called softly, “Myss.”

He looked over with those red eyes that originally belonged to Myss, his gaze repeatedly brushing over Myss’s face. His eyes no longer looked like two bloody holes. Instead, they surged with a nearly painful focus.

Myss wanted nothing more than to shove the antidote, bottle and all, down Salaar’s throat. “What’s wrong with your brain now?”

“I think… I took that potion of my own accord not to ‘oppose you.’”

Salaar lightly tapped his own chest, his voice very soft.

“Every time you look at me, I feel… burning. As if I truly have a heart.”

Myss fell silent.

In that instant, his heartbeat seemed to hit a pause button, and everything became slow and viscous.

“I took that potion of my own accord because I wanted to use a heart that knew nothing of you, a heart that hadn’t yet begun to burn, to demonstrate to you again.”

Young Salaar placed his hand over his heart. At first glance, it looked like he was praying. For the first time, that empty expression of his changed.

He revealed an unpracticed smile. In the shadows, that smile was stiff and terrifying.

“Look, this is where the burning begins.”

After saying this, young Salaar poured that antidote into his mouth. Immediately after, he grabbed Myss’s collar and kissed Myss’s lips.

It was a clumsy, tentative kiss. Compared to the previous kisses that had been thick with emotion, young Salaar’s movement was more like a poor imitation.

Some of the sour-bitter medicine was passed over by young Salaar. Myss’s throat rolled, and he subconsciously swallowed it. He stared fixedly at Salaar, who was close at hand, so much so that he failed to taste the flavor.

“I must love you very much.” 

In the haze, Salaar whispered, “So this is only a willful and childish confession…”

“…How wonderful…”

He lowered his head and released a calm, satisfied sigh.

Myss froze in place, both hands still resting on Salaar’s warm shoulders.

He had imagined many times the scene of Salaar admitting he had fallen in love with him.

In those fantasies, he should have been triumphant and jubilant. He should have stepped on his enemy fiercely and flaunted this sweet victory.

…After all, that was Salaar admitting with his own mouth the thing that terrified him most.

But at this moment, Myss’s mind was completely blank.

Within that blankness, the first thought that surfaced was actually pure, unadulterated joy.

Ah, he had completely possessed Salaar.

The Chaos Archdemon had possessed that person’s obsession, that person’s anger and memories. Myss had possessed that person’s love. Even if he weren’t the Chaos Archdemon, that love belonged solely to him.

Pop.

Tass swatted a bubble away, which struck Father Kalen’s shoulder before bursting.

Salaar moved again and raised his head once more.

But Myss turned his face away and no longer checked Salaar’s condition. Suddenly, he had an inexplicable confidence, as well as an overwhelming sense of urgency. The battle to come wouldn’t have any more problems, and couldn’t have any more problems.

He had to control Kendrick as quickly as possible, then drag Hero Salaar into the shadows and enjoy that victory that belonged only to him, a victory that was long overdue.

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Kinky Thoughts:

I always love the confession scenes Nian Zhong writes. It’s always so good.

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