Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

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/

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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…

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<<< || 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.”

---

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

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.

---

Kinky Thoughts:

I always love the confession scenes Nian Zhong writes. It’s always so good.

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 109: A Swift Strike

“Peyton,” no, perhaps now he should be called “Kendrick,” raised the whip again.

The tail of the whip formed from magic rushed straight toward Myss, clearly curling toward Myss’s right arm. Controlling the body that truly belonged to Kendrick, Myss dodged somewhat awkwardly, not forgetting to grab Salaar behind him.

…Peyton was actually Kendrick?

Then what exactly was this damned body? Could it be put on and taken off at will like a wool coat?

Myss didn’t think Kendrick was deceiving him. If “Peyton” wanted to trick them, there was no need to fabricate such a horrifying and incomprehensible story.

Within the span of a single heartbeat, Myss rapidly recalled Kendrick Karns’s past.

Kendrick Karns had been born without parents, cold-blooded and cruel since childhood. Around the age of fifteen, he wounded his own older brother, Peyton, and at sixteen, he was sent by the Karns family to Ring Town.

He lived in near isolation in Ring Town for four years. With the butler’s assistance, he continuously bought slaves for living sacrifices. At the same time, under the name of “Pilgrim,” he wrote many letters and discussed forbidden magical knowledge with numerous lunatics.

Salaar had once mentioned that after he received Kendrick’s body, he discovered that this body’s memories were broken and chaotic. At the time, Salaar firmly believed it was because Kendrick had taken too many haphazard alchemical potions… On the surface, everything made sense.

Except for the suspicious summoning ritual.

Regarding Kendrick himself, there had been only one mystery they couldn’t understand.

Why would V.O.R., who clearly only took interest in geniuses, write letters to Kendrick, who had no magical talent whatsoever?

At this moment, Myss vaguely touched on something.

It was because of Peyton.

As long as V.O.R. had noticed Peyton Karns, the genius, discovering Kendrick’s existence was only a matter of time.

And before that erroneous summoning ritual, V.O.R. had already written letters to Kendrick.

That guy wouldn’t write to a mediocre lunatic for no reason. Most likely, the matter of Kendrick and Peyton swapping bodies couldn’t be separated from V.O.R.

But judging from the past, V.O.R. had always used an Abnormal Fruit to fulfill a genius’s wish. Now, it seemed instead that Kendrick’s wish had been fulfilled. He obtained the ability to exchange bodies and spirits, while Peyton’s whereabouts became unknown.

What exactly had happened back then?

Myss’s thoughts spun faster than a windmill in a hurricane. He could almost hear his brain matter churning and frothing.

“It was you.”

While thinking, Myss pushed Salaar farther behind him.

“So that’s how it is. You deliberately entered the tower first and took the opportunity to swap our bodies, then used ‘the ruin’s defensive magic’ as cover.”

“When you hear something as bizarre as ‘body swapping,’ you don’t look very surprised.”

When his first strike failed, Kendrick neatly drew back the whip. Behind him, pale-blue flames leapt endlessly.

“That’s right. Monsters like you, who steal other people’s bodies, are naturally familiar with such methods.”

“You’re calling us ‘monsters who steal other people’s bodies’?” Myss laughed. “What, then who was trapped inside your body before? Your unlucky older brother, Peyton?”

“You trapped your swapped older brother in Ring Town and played ascetic in the big city. Compared to that move of yours, we’re practically saints.”

Kendrick froze for a brief moment, as if Myss had said some nonsensical gibberish.

Myss didn’t let this opportunity go. Relying on Salaar’s large body, he threw himself toward Kendrick. He swung at Kendrick’s right hand, the one holding the whip, while also shoving him toward the fire pit.

Kendrick had no choice but to dodge sideways. Myss grinned and followed his movement, slipping behind him and continuing to grab for the whip’s handle.

“Salaar!” Myss shouted.

As long as Salaar pounced forward to cooperate at this moment, they had a chance to seize Kendrick’s short whip wand. Myss didn’t know whether Kendrick was strong enough to cast without a wand, but this was worth the risk.

But Salaar didn’t follow.

He merely stood where he was, both hands behind his back, as if he didn’t understand Myss’s intention in calling him. They should have been able to cooperate perfectly… Damn it, the one who cooperated perfectly with him was adult Salaar, Myss thought through gritted teeth.

Why had he subconsciously called Salaar? It would have been better to call Tass.

Tass, at least, was self-aware. Discovering that Salaar hadn’t followed, he hesitated for only half a second before abruptly pouncing over.

Unfortunately, Kai’s body was truly too large and uncoordinated for him. Tass started too quickly, and the tip of his foot tripped over a raised piece of floorboard. He fell flat on his face on the spot.

Kendrick came back to himself, and pale-blue magic wrapped around Myss’s hands. Immediately after, he seized Myss’s arm with a reverse grip and clumsily threw him forward, slamming Myss’s entire body onto the floor.

Boom.

Kendrick had definitely enhanced his physical strength with magic. The wooden floor was smashed apart by the throw, and even the stone layer beneath was smashed into a pit of moderate size.

A sweet, bloody taste surged into Myss’s throat, and his chest and abdomen twitched strangely. His organs seemed to have been injured.

He had no time to confirm his wounds. He immediately rolled his body on the spot and swept one leg toward Kendrick’s lower body. Unfortunately, Salaar’s legs were too long and heavy. They couldn’t keep up with his will in time, and Kendrick easily dodged.

Kendrick scoffed. The whip turned in his hand. Pale-blue magic gathered again, forming around the short whip and revealing the shape of a sharp blade.

Facing the body that had once been his own, Kendrick raised the blade without hesitation.

At this instant, Salaar suddenly moved. He stuck his fingers into his mouth and blew a sharp whistle.

With his movement, warm droplets splashed onto the side of Myss’s face. They smelled faintly metallic, like blood. While Myss had been tangled up with Kendrick, Salaar had quietly broken his wrist and drawn an unusually complex pattern on the back of his hand.

Myss couldn’t understand it, but it was similar to the contract magic circle Salaar had once drawn. It was probably a form of ancient alchemy.

The magic circle used that blood as a magic source and lit up with a dim glow. The whistle carried faint magical fluctuations that were barely perceptible, yet undeniably real.

As the whistle sounded, Salaar’s body moved at the same time. Using this unfamiliar body, Salaar did only one thing. He threw himself onto Myss and used his body to block the blade that was about to fall.

Gray-white long hair fell down, swaying along the side of Myss’s face. For one brief instant, Myss had the illusion that he had returned to his original body.

Salaar’s complexion was terrifyingly white, and his body trembled faintly. Paired with Myss’s gray-white hair, he looked almost like a human figure cast from white wax. Casting with an unfamiliar body seemed to exact a heavy toll on him.

Myss worked hard to twist his head and stare into Salaar’s eyes. Perhaps it was his imagination, but although Salaar’s face had no particular expression, the instant their gazes met, there was a trace of barely perceptible laughter in Salaar’s eyes.

“Even with these eyes, you still look at me that way.”

His lips moved soundlessly.

“…How wonderful.”

Squelch.

More, warmer blood splashed out.

Kendrick didn’t care who he was cutting. He merely adjusted the angle, and the blade came down calmly. The blade formed from magic hacked into Salaar’s shoulder, and the blood that splattered out soaked the lapis-lazuli blue hair ribbon.

Salaar didn’t dodge. He only tilted his body with the momentum, letting the blade slant along the bone so that it failed to cut off his arm.

Kendrick withdrew his hand without hesitation and raised the blade again. This time, several pale-blue blades of light appeared out of thin air, each aimed at Salaar’s hands and feet.

Salaar supported himself against the floor with one hand, shielding Myss beneath him. His other hand was still in his mouth, blowing intermittent whistles.

Amid the short, rising and falling whistles, there came a sharp scraping sound from the floor.

In the next instant, Kendrick’s magic blades crashed into a sheet of deathly white.

What sounded this time wasn’t the dull noise of sharp blades cutting into flesh, but the sharp ringing of hard objects colliding.

In the blink of an eye, the ancient puppet abandoned its fight with the priest more than ten steps away and almost flashed in front of the two of them. Kendrick’s lashing blades didn’t leave the slightest wound on it.

A few seconds later, Father Kalen staggered over and dragged Myss and Salaar out of the battle area.

The ancient puppet was exactly like an aging hound. After blocking the blades for the two of them, it twisted its deformed body and leapt back to Salaar’s side.

That tall body circled around Salaar. Its inhuman face gently rubbed against his blood-soaked shoulder, releasing mournful whimpers.

Salaar’s wound was still bleeding, directly leaving a trail of blood on the floor. All the thoughts spinning around in Myss’s head turned blank. He reached out to support the weakened Salaar, so anxious that bitterness filled his mouth.

Kalen nervously guarded them from the front. Facing Kendrick, whose magic was unusually abundant, and such a narrow battlefield, Kalen, who couldn’t use magic, was at a severe disadvantage…

“Kalen, do you have medicine? Throw some over. I’ll stop his bleeding!”

Tass rushed to their side in an uncoordinated way. “That cut was too deep. He won’t last like this!”

Yet when these words entered Myss’s head, they became meaningless noise.

…Why had young Salaar suddenly gone mad and saved him? Weren’t they enemies?

…Damn it, why couldn’t he use Salaar’s healing magic?

…If this continued, what if Salaar died?

Too many mysteries, too many questions. They assaulted Myss’s mind all at once. Immediately after, they vanished one by one, like bubbles bursting in boiling water.

Myss’s face was covered in Salaar’s blood, and everything around him seemed to turn blank. His cheeks and lips went numb, and the sounds of his breathing and heartbeat were magnified countless times, shaking his eardrums until they hurt.

After countless thoughts exploded apart, only one thought remained in Myss’s head.

…Must heal Salaar.

…Must heal Salaar.

…Must heal Salaar.

In his daze, Myss suddenly touched that door again. Once more, he grasped that strange and hazy state. Only, this time, he had no energy to investigate it deeply and even forgot about returning to the darkness.

He obeyed his instinct and guided that thread of inspiration toward what he wanted most.

Between Myss’s ten fingers, a brilliant golden glow faintly ignited.

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 108: “Peyton”

This was the first time Myss had encountered such a shameless opponent.

This guy hadn’t acted when they suffered the teleportation error, nor had he acted when they fought the Human Mushroom. Yet the moment Myss entered the tower, his body and spirit misplaced, starving to the point of seeing stars, this guy suddenly pulled something like this.

Despite his thoughts, he still stretched out a hand and shifted his body sideways, dragging “Myss” behind him as a shield. In any case, this wasn’t his real body. If he could use it as a shield, why not use it? Myss even deliberately straightened his own collar.

As the last remaining proper combat force, Father Kalen quickly put away his relaxed expression and directly stood at the front of the group. As for the half combat force, Kai, who had the Divine Blood Puppet, tactfully retreated two steps, his entire body radiating the aura of “I want to stay out of this.”

Among everyone, the one with the greatest reaction was undoubtedly Owen.

Facing the churning dust and approaching darkness, he even forgot to shrink back into the pocket watch. “You didn’t want to assassinate Kendrick before. Even if you changed your mind, did it have to be like this?”

“I can’t compete with you anyway. What do you mean by cutting off everyone’s retreat?”

Peyton didn’t even spare him a glance.

He slightly raised the corner of his mouth and flicked the whip upward. Along with crackling sounds of earth and stone breaking apart, shattered stone bricks fell together with a large mass of shadow.

A heavy, fishy astringency suddenly filled the air. Myss wrinkled his nose. This smell made him think of dead tree roots that had been soaked in swamp water for years. Within the shadow, a twisted white outline slowly appeared.

Only then did Owen remember to dodge. He clicked his tongue unwillingly and scrambled back into the pocket watch in a sorry state.

After seeing the shape of that shadow clearly, Kai was the first to let out a surprised sound.

That thing’s structure looked much like the Divine Blood Puppet currently protecting him. Only, this thing’s body had never been processed and was still in its initial primitive form.

It was one size larger than a normal human. Its body had no hair, nor any excess reproductive organs, making it impossible to tell its sex. Its skin was deathly pale and stiff, like a clay-fired ceramic puppet that hadn’t yet been glazed.

This thing’s body blocks had already scattered apart, covered in fine spiderweb cracks. Between the blocks, they were likewise connected by pitch-black bone, making it look exactly like a large black-and-white spider.

Only its eye sockets still retained the slightest trace of color.

Under the faint light, its pupils flickered with beautiful lapis-lazuli blue.

Salaar’s eyes?

Seeing that familiar color, Myss’s mind briefly went blank. Many scattered thoughts flashed through his head, but none of them managed to become concrete ideas. Only an icy torrent remained.

Young Salaar stuck close behind him and lightly poked his back at that moment. “That’s an artificial construct.”

Only then did Myss react. That pair of eyeballs on the puppet was far too clean. Not a single blood vessel could be seen on them. Looking more carefully, its irises didn’t have the fine folds human eyes should have either. Perhaps they were made of actual lapis lazuli.

“Truly an eyesore,” he muttered unhappily, his movements becoming even more guarded.

He had to think of some way.

Right now, he and Salaar lacked physical strength. Many of the abilities they had previously gained couldn’t be used. They could be called utterly powerless. On the other side were Peyton and this strange puppet. No matter how one looked at it, they stood no chance.

Even if Salaar drank the antidote and recovered into adult Salaar, their situation wouldn’t improve much.

Myss’s heart beat fiercely. It felt as if a ball of cotton was blocking his throat, and his hands and feet gradually chilled.

He was a genius. He was a genius… Sure he could think of a way…

At the same time, the ancient puppet’s limbs tapped the ground with clicking sounds. That head turned back and forth at angles completely impossible for a human, as if assessing their combat power.

The soft clicking of its turning neck was exactly like the second hand of a clock. Soon, it locked onto its target, the Divine Blood Puppet whose structure was extremely similar to its own, yet whose origins were unknown.

That thin figure abruptly flashed, leaping like a jumping spider toward Kai, who was watching the show. Kai immediately cursed and hurriedly commanded the Divine Blood Puppet to retreat.

But he was still one step too slow.

After more than three hundred years, that ancient puppet was still terrifyingly powerful. Its limb merely brushed lightly past, and the body blocks of the Divine Blood Puppet became dust and fragments.

Kai’s side had to divide attention to give commands, while that strange puppet moved on its own. The reaction speeds of the two couldn’t be compared. Even more excessive, its grasp of the Divine Blood Puppet’s joint weaknesses was simply more precise than the most experienced butcher.

Less than thirty seconds after that thing fell down, every body block of Kai’s puppet used for movement had been thoroughly destroyed by that dusty old thing.

Kai’s Divine Blood Puppet collapsed uselessly to the ground, its body twitching nonstop. The large lantern crashed onto the floor, casting the struggling puppet’s shadow in every direction.

After bringing down this “counterfeit” of unknown origin, the ancient puppet swiftly locked onto Father Kalen.

With another leap, a deathly pale wind blew toward Kalen, who was on guard against Peyton.

Father Kalen’s back was exposed. At the instant the puppet was about to pierce through his shoulder, the priest narrowly dodged, and his thick priest’s robe was slashed open with a long cut.

One strike failed, and the puppet nimbly crawled away again. It seemed unable to see Peyton, who was close at hand, only eerily moving its deformed limbs as it prepared for the next wave of attacks.

At the same time, Peyton seemed to have confirmed something and began moving as well.

This kid clearly didn’t have the good habit of first laying out causes and consequences before starting a battle. He opened with a heavy strike, smashing through the inner wall nearest to himself. Earlier, the bookshelf had collapsed, fully exposing the inner wall behind it.

Immediately, a pitch-black opening was revealed. An even stronger fishy astringency drifted out from the darkness. Myss could roughly guess that this was the central chimney running through the entire tower from top to bottom.

Immediately after, Peyton snapped his fingers with his free hand.

The entire tower rumbled and shook. The next moment, pale-blue light ignited from within the chimney.

The double-layer tower seemed like a body waking from a long dream. The lights embedded in the tower lit up one after another. Unknown machines on the walls released dry, hoarse noises and began operating with difficulty.

The darkness was driven away by faint firelight, but the shadows in the corners grew even heavier. Myss stood quietly amid the wills scattered all over the floor, the rising flames jumping in his eyes.

Before everyone could react, Peyton cracked the short whip.

A pale-blue translucent whip body extended from the end of his whip, transforming into a long whip made of magic. It wrapped around Kai’s Divine Blood Puppet, which was paralyzed on the ground, and flung it directly into the burning chimney.

Kai screamed in fright. Dragging Owen’s puffy body, he rushed toward the opening and jumped down.

A despairing roar came from the pocket watch, but in the end, Owen still didn’t dare show his head.

The ancient puppet wasn’t idle either. It once again pounced at Father Kalen and nearly knocked Tass away along the way.

Tass instinctively retreated to a certain corner, but he was inside Kai’s body, which was too large. His lower back slammed hard into the sharp corner of a cabinet, and the Dragon Fae immediately drew in a breath from the pain.

The priest crossed both arms, wanting to block the puppet diving toward him. The next second, the sound of breaking bones rang through the space. A thin layer of sweat emerged on Father Kalen’s forehead, and his arms, which had been broken by the impact, rapidly recovered.

Seeing this sight, the puppet’s lapis-lazuli eyes completely locked onto Kalen.

Father Kalen had just wanted to approach Myss and Salaar, but those cannonball-like flying body blocks smashed toward the priest’s head. To avoid implicating the two of them, the priest had no choice but to immediately move away, leading the puppet clinging to him toward the other end of this ring-shaped space.

Amid the chaos, only Myss and Salaar barely stabilized themselves.

Peyton stood before the burning opening, his back to the leaping firelight, the expression on his face ambiguous and unclear. From this angle, Myss could only see the obvious upward curve of his lips.

From Peyton’s sudden attack to this successful arrangement, how much time had passed? Had it even been two minutes?

The ancient puppet had tied down Father Kalen. Right now, the companions beside them were only Tass, who was stuck in Kai’s body and had lost all advantages, and Owen, who was hiding in the pocket watch and was utterly useless.

It was the first time Myss had seen such a silent and efficient opponent. Salaar himself could be considered efficient, but that kid talked so much it was annoying. He completely lacked this oppressive, suffocating sense of the unknown.

“If this is to assassinate Kendrick, isn’t this a bit too much of a production?” Myss said dryly.

Never mind making the entire group collapse into chaos, Peyton had even activated the whole two-story tower. Damn it, could this ascetic monk have a thing for grand, fiery spectacles?

Myss stretched out an arm and retreated half a step with Salaar behind him, trying to delay and gain time to think. “Couldn’t you have just taken advantage of us not paying attention and given us a fatal blow to the back of the head?”

“Because this is an interrogation, not an assassination.”

Amid the sounds of Kalen fighting the puppet, Peyton slightly spread his arms.

“I want to know who you are. Unfortunately, the two of you are so powerful that I couldn’t ensure I will obtain truthful answers. Therefore, I could only resort to this inferior method.”

“Who am I? I’m your younger brother by blood, Kendrick Karns.”

Salaar spoke from behind Myss. His movements didn’t look like he was hiding at all. He was so composed that it annoyed people, especially Myss.

“You’re not.” Peyton said, his tone absolute certainty.

That was a bit too definitive. Myss unhappily raised his nose. Discovering that this only allowed him to see the ceiling, he had no choice but to lower his face again and glare fiercely at Peyton.

Disgust aside, but Lord Archdemon’s peripheral vision secretly looked toward “his own” chest, considering the possibility of getting “Brave Salaar” and letting the Bedsheet Archdemon carry out an assassination.

Peyton looked back without the slightest fear, his gaze almost arrogant.

“I know my personality has changed somewhat.”

Salaar continued slowly. He grabbed the back of Myss’s clothes, his tone flawless. “I also said this is the influence of love… As an ascetic monk, it’s normal that you don’t understand.”

“All right, it’s all my fault!”

Owen shouted from inside the pocket watch. “You know it too, don’t you? I drugged him with ‘Return to Youth.’ Th-the drug might have a problem and made him lose his mind!”

“Can you people be normal? At least assassinate in a normal way!”

“As expected, this still isn’t enough. You truly haven’t said a single honest word.”

Peyton spoke softly. His appearance was already gentle. At this moment, his voice carried laughter, making him even seem somewhat tender. Unfortunately, as that mouth opened and closed, the words it spat out had nothing whatsoever to do with the word “tender.”

“I’ll have to cut off your limbs and interrogate you slowly.”

Myss only felt his hands and feet grow a little colder. His mind had never spun this quickly before.

“On what basis do you say he isn’t Kendrick?” he asked loudly, while his peripheral vision swept around even harder.

“Of course he can’t possibly be ‘Kendrick Karns.’ I’m more certain of this than anyone.”

Peyton finally stopped walking and took up this question. He slowly raised a hand and touched the eyepatch embroidered with the divine emblem of the Church of Cadence.

“Because…”

He yanked off the eyepatch, revealing the ugly scar behind it.

The adornment of scars and shadow, the high raised corners of his mouth, that gentle face now looked exactly like a circus clown.

“Kendrick Karns…”

Pale-blue flames ignited from his right hand, and the eyepatch that symbolized piety turned to ash. Throughout the entire process, Peyton didn’t chant a single incantation.

“…is me.”

---

The author has something to say:

Here we go! [cat paw]

He should count as the strongest enemy they have encountered so far. (.

Myss: ??? So everything from the summoning onward is all your fault? [angry]

Rage value rising ↑↑↑

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 107: A Soft Laugh

Celestial Canopy.

Kai restrained the wild joy in his heart and put the medicine bottle back in place.

All this time, the “Celestia Canopy” had been one of the Stargazers’ key research subjects. The Celestial Canopy was the most radical and insane organization of the Night Scourge era.

Amid countless schools of thought that wanted to compromise with the Night Scrouge, the Celestial Canopy persisted in researching the source of the Night Scrouge and strove to defeat it. In that era, this idea was no different from throwing an egg against a rock, a fool’s errand.

If the Stargazers’ speculation was correct, Saint Salaar himself very likely came from the Celestial Canopy. Although there were many theories about his origins, if every other faction compromised and compromised, only for a lone hero who stopped the Night Scrouge with his life to suddenly appear, no matter how one thought about it, it wasn’t very reasonable.

Only, these were ultimately conjectures.

The Celestial Canopy’s research was extremely rare, with only a word or two preserved in those sealed ruins.

Logically speaking, this should have been an obscure, second-rate organization. Yet the data and knowledge it left behind were extraordinarily precious, far surpassing that era.

The manufacturing technology for the “Divine Blood Puppets” was one of the Celestial Canopy’s research results.

Because of this, the Stargazers Society suspected that the Celestial Canopy’s existence and research had been deliberately covered up. Not long ago, Mr. Tenney used his life to construct the Divine Realm of the “Sea of Concepts,” finally confirming this point.

The “Stargazers Society” truly deserved to be the spiritual successor of the “Celestial Canopy”… although that was only a title the Stargazers Society had unilaterally granted itself.

When people raised their heads to gaze at the starry sky, what they saw was a canopy embedded with stars.

The Stargazers still couldn’t see the Celestial Canopy’s full appearance. They could only search for one lost star after another. Like that mysterious vanished organization, they bore the name of lunatics and challenged this world that had compromised with anomalies.

…Now, he had discovered another Celestial Canopy site, and even a medical point. They would definitely obtain quite a bit of new information. Kai was in an excellent mood.

“This place is a medical outpost, not a research outpost, so there shouldn’t be too many traps.”

Kai cleared his throat and stated solemnly, “We just need to continue upstairs. Documents are usually stored near the central control room.”

As he listened, Myss ran his hands over his new arm.

How strange, Lord Archdemon thought. Previously, when he touched this body, he would always feel comfortable or excited. Now that this shell was on him, Myss found it dull and tasteless. That strange warmth was gone, and the soft feeling had become ordinary.

He pressed his chest twice more and let out a soft, wistful sigh.

Half a step away, the Salaar version of “Myss” looked at him, wanting to say something but stopped.

Only then did Myss lower his hands, and while he was at it, lower his head. “Is this place really fine?”

“It is indeed a medical outpost, so the danger is relatively low,” Salaar affirmed.

Wonderful. Myss’s shoulders slumped.

Along their journey, even the tiniest matter had managed to drag out a heap of trouble. At least this adventure environment was acceptable and would let him calmly collect clues about the body swap.

Kai directed the Divine Blood Puppet to continue forward. Everything inside the tower could be called orderly.

There was no complex furniture for noble enjoyment here, only single wooden beds of uniform size, resource crates, and all sorts of strange instruments inside the crates.

The toilets and kitchens were all built against the outer wall, sectioned off with lightweight wooden boards. They were equipped with systems for melting snow to obtain water and draining wastewater. There was even a specialized magic device that collected dried waste to use as fuel for the central chimney.

There were even specific tower levels used for raising chickens, rabbits, and sheep. These livestock compartments were likewise neat and clean. They were completely different from the dungeon they had explored last time, and one could understand the general layout at a glance.

When it came to a medical outpost from the Night Scourge era, Myss had expected to see some bizarre things. As a result, this place was so normal it became abnormal, with a silence that could be called gentle.

Ever since entering the living area, Myss hadn’t seen a single trap. Although this place was dark and old, if one ignored the smell of rotten wood, the air wasn’t too unpleasant. Exploring this place was simply too easy.

“Is this place really a medical outpost? There are so many living facilities.”

Tass curiously flipped through a compartment. Judging by its structure, it seemed to be a laundry room. “It looks like the patients who came here weren’t simply being treated. They seemed to plan to live here until they died.”

“I only found shift registration records.” Father Kalen carefully put down those moldy papers. “Can we really find items related to ‘Saint Salaar’ here?”

“Continue upward,” Peyton said concisely.

As Myss looked around, he discovered that he was almost falling to the rear of the group.

Intentionally or not, he was accommodating Salaar’s pace. He didn’t know whether Salaar was unused to the new body or whether the scene was stirring up memories, but Salaar walked more and more slowly.

Young Salaar stretched out his fingers and lightly stroked those rotten, broken papers. Myss suddenly realized that, for a sixteen- or seventeen-year-old Salaar, the daily life he had been accustomed to had suddenly become a lonely ruin, and the humans he had known had all turned into white bones overnight. For a human, this should have been an enormous shock.

But Salaar was unusually calm. Who knew what he was thinking? In the end, he put down that shift schedule full of blurred names, his fingertips slowly sliding over the rough table.

Looking at that face which originally belonged to him, familiar and yet unfamiliar, Myss found himself speaking on impulse. “Have you lived in a place like this?”

“No.”

Salaar said, “I only knew of its existence.”

Myss gave a hum of acknowledgement and a strange silence fell between the two of them.

Myss couldn’t help thinking, if it were the Salaar he knew, what kind of expression would he show? Not being able to see Salaar’s reaction was truly somewhat regrettable… When this little guy was not acting, his emotions were a bit too muted.

So the portrait in the Karns family’s entrance hall was a completely realistic work. Who knew what Salaar had experienced on the surface? Once they left this place, Myss would have to think of a way to ask.

In this way, the group passed through the living area and the livestock area, finally climbing to the surgical area.

Here, many precise treatment magic devices were stored. There were dedicated operating tables, and many limbs or organs preserved in medicinal fluids. Those body parts often had black-gray skin and were abnormally deformed. At one glance, they had clearly been contaminated by the power of the Night Scourge.

The scent of medicine and the passage of time surrounded them. The specimens were soaked in shadow, leaving only quiet silhouettes.

“…We climbed for nearly four hours. This place shouldn’t be far from the top of the tower,” Kai said in a cheerful voice, scattering the darkness.

“Don’t you all feel this place is a bit off?” Tass muttered.

The priest asked curiously, “Is it that there is too little danger, or…?”

To be honest, Myss also vaguely felt that something wasn’t quite right, but his understanding of the human world was truly limited, and he couldn’t say what it was for the moment.

Hearing this question, Kai stopped. “Now that you mention it, it does feel a little awkward. Let me think… ah.”

He looked around the silent surgical area for a while, and his brow twitched. “There’s no place here to store corpses.”

During the Night Scourge, people would definitely have died, especially in a hospital-like area like this. In normal ruins, even if there were no temporary cemetery, there would be a morgue for storing corpses.

“Maybe they were all burned.” Myss pointed back toward the chimney.

“No, no. Even in that era, people respected corpses, especially in a tower that went to such great lengths to save people.”

The moment the Tower was questioned, Kai immediately explained. “Besides, there would always be people who missed their loved ones and were unwilling to use corpses as fuel. There must be a dedicated corpse-handling site here. We just haven’t found it yet.”

The priest nodded. “I saw that there were supplies left in the crates. They shouldn’t have gone so far as to burn the bodies. Perhaps the corpses were all moved outside the tower and preserved by the Night Scourge’s severe cold.”

“Let’s hope so.” Tass curled his lip, the expression looked odd on Kai’s face.

No one was willing to assume that, in this tower where everything was so complete, all the corpses produced had vanished into thin air.

“Don’t you have any thoughts?”

It was rare for Salaar to have said nothing the entire time, so Myss couldn’t help speaking.

Salaar looked at him deeply for a while before finally responding. “No.”

Myss didn’t believe him. Salaar’s head was full of schemes. This kid definitely knew something.

“You’re lying to me.” He lowered his voice.

Salaar was very calm. “Yes.”

“…”

Myss’s anger surged, yet he couldn’t force this guy to explain on the spot. Huffing with rage, he peeled open a raspberry candy and began crunching it again, pretending it was Salaar’s tongue.

“In any case, you’ll find out soon enough.”

Salaar smiled to himself, but the smile didn’t reach his eyes. Whether intentionally or not, he turned his head and glanced behind.

Behind them, there was an even more inscrutable one. Peyton followed like a ghost, as if all discussion had nothing to do with him. Stranger still, Myss kept feeling that this Peyton seemed not very interested in this “precious ruin from the Night Scrouge era.”

Tie these two strange guys together, and you couldn’t even pry a single word out of them with a crowbar, Myss thought sorrowfully.

After climbing another level, everyone fell into silence.

Living quarters, livestock, surgical ward—these were still within their scope of understanding.

But after leaving the surgical ward, never mind Myss, even Tass and Kai stopped speaking. None of them recognized the area they were currently in.

A complexly nested and unusually enormous alchemical magic device occupied nearly one-third of this level’s space. It was fixed to the wall, like a layer of… a digestive system made of glass and metal.

Glass tubes of various shapes were nested and connected, gears and engines mixed among groups of chains, and every gemstone slot was empty, like eye sockets whose eyeballs had been dug out.

This strange magic device covered every surface of the outer wall. Inside it still remained some turbid liquid, and a faint, sweet, bloody smell spread through the air.

On the inner wall, neat grid bookshelves had been built. The compartments were stuffed full of papers. Most had lost their magical protection and already turned into dust and mud.

Only a small portion far from the wall and high enough had been preserved. Kai stood dazed for a long while before remembering to take down a few sheets and carefully unfold them.

[My daughter is named ■■■lo■, and lives in ■■ City ■■■. Please say goodbye to her for me. ■la■■]

[Please give “Research on ■■■” to ■■■■. It’s my favorite book. ■■■liven■]

……

“Wills?”

Kai’s face was somewhat pale, and his voice rippled through the empty tower.

He quickly walked a few steps to another row of shelves far enough away. Then he stood on tiptoe and took down a few more pages. The result was largely the same.

Father Kalen thoughtfully went over to help. He took down papers from the highest level, and the contents still showed no difference.

Thousands upon thousands of decayed parchments, all of them covered with last wishes in different handwriting.

…But there were still no corpses, not even the simplest skeletons. Two wooden wheelchairs were left by the shelves, empty.

“Is that a ‘gate’?” Tass pointed toward that strange magic device with extreme wariness.

Near the ground, the giant magic device had an opening a little over a meter tall. From the outside, it looked like a single-door iron cabinet. Of course, it looked even more like a small door.

This size was just enough to push in a wheelchair with someone sitting in it.

Father Kalen’s expression grew solemn as well.

Everything here was still clean, too clean, making one’s stomach churn.

“This facility isn’t the whole thing. Quite a few tubes lead upward.”

Kai took out an image-recording crystal, the magical glow illuminating his pale face. He cut off the topic about the “door” and pointed overhead.

“There’s nothing else in this place. We need to continue…”

Just then, a scraping sound suddenly came from above. Fine dust drifted down from the ceiling, and a few wood chips crackled as they fell to the floor. The scraping was accompanied by irregular vibrations, like some heavy object being dragged across the floor again and again.

“…upward,” Kai finished dryly.

“Dear Mr. Stargazer, I have to ask, in a normal medical outpost, would there be something that can still go thump-thump strolling around after three hundred years?” The Dragon Fae forced a smile.

“Compared to other ruins, an anomaly appearing only near the top of the tower is our good fortune.”

Kai forced a smile back. “But everyone has been walking for so long, so you must all be tired. Why don’t we retreat to the previous level first and discuss things at length?”

No one objected, not even Myss. After half a day of sightseeing inside the tower, he was indeed hungry. He didn’t want to face the unknown on an empty stomach while deprived of his power.

Sure enough, the word “smooth” had never existed in his adventures.

Lord Archdemon rubbed the stomach that should have belonged to Salaar. This damned brute’s hunger hit with such ferocity that a few candies couldn’t suppress it.

Thinking of this, Myss once again glared at Salaar. “This place sure is safe.”

“The danger is relatively low,” Salaar repeated. “I said ‘relatively’.”

He knew it!

Forget it. The priest and Peyton still retained their combat ability. Besides, they had a retreat route. If they couldn’t win, they could still run, Myss rapidly calculated in his heart.

Suddenly, a soft laugh came from the shadows.

The laughter didn’t come from the unknown space above. It was right beside them. It came from Peyton, who had been walking silently at the back of the group.

Before everyone could react, the short whip shot out accompanied by pale-blue magic. Amid the sound of cutting through the air, the stairs leading downstairs were instantly destroyed. The bookshelves against the wall collapsed with a boom, and wooden planks and scraps of paper poured down, firmly blocking the passage connected to the staircase.

In the blink of an eye, the path downward was completely destroyed.

The tremor reached the floor above, and the strange scraping sound suddenly became rapid. It grew heavier, closer, circling endlessly above everyone.

Ahead was an unknown monster. Behind… There was nothing left. Their retreat path had been destroyed, and everyone was completely trapped on this level.

Amid the flying dust, Peyton lowered the hand holding the whip. He turned around, his plain robe fluttering slightly.

For the first time, an expression other than “calm” appeared on his face: a wide, brilliant smile.

“Peyton, are you insane?!”

Owen, who had been playing dead all this time, finally crawled out of the pocket watch and shouted, dumbfounded.

“Now.”

Peyton Karns’s voice was soaked in amusement.

“Now none of you can run.”

---

The author has something to say:

Peyton: If there’s no danger, just create some. [doge]

——————————

Lord Myss: The hero cushion is still better to touch when it’s attached to Salaar. [cat paw]

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 106: Body Swap, Round Two

“I’ll do it, I’ll do it.”

Kai patted the hem of his clothes and stepped forward confidently. “I go for observation, I remain for cultivation, and I come for truth.”

The instant he heard this answer, Salaar’s fingers slightly twitched. Myss glanced at him curiously, but unfortunately, he didn’t detect anything unusual.

That mechanical, inhuman voice vanished. In its place came the creak of turning gears, along with waves of humming from alchemical magic devices in operation.

Before everyone, a staircase abruptly extended out. The stone steps were covered in moss, with no beginning and no end, leading toward a patch of empty air. At first glance, it looked like a strange dream.

The problem was, this wasn’t the only staircase. Inexplicable steps appeared all over the forest in a messy crisscross. The scene officially upgraded from a strange dream to a nightmare.

Myss’s eyes followed those steps around and around. These things had appeared so quietly, without any magical fluctuation from start to finish.

He had just been about to ask Salaar beside him when he heard Kai explain.

“The defense of the Middle Finger Tower leans towards mental disruption. It’ll cause many bizarre phenomena.”

Kai explained at just the right time. “We’re actually in luck. This tower’s defenses are quite intact, so it’s very likely to be a research institution from the Night Scourge era. It wouldn’t have been open to ordinary people.”

Owen grew nervous. “We don’t have to climb these stairs, do we? What happens if we choose wrong?”

Kai shrugged. “If you choose wrong, you need to endure a whole day of hallucinations. During the Night Scourge era, that was fatal. Now it’s not too bad.”

“The trick to choosing is simple. Pick the one where the questioning voice came from just now. This method prevents the password from being stolen by unrelated people and causing unnecessary crises.”

Myss’s gaze immediately locked onto the staircase three steps away. Without a doubt, the questioning voice had been closest to that side. Owen, however, showed an extremely confused expression, as if he had suddenly stopped understanding human speech.

When he discovered that, apart from himself, everyone else was walking toward the same staircase, the confusion on Owen’s face turned into embarrassment.

“You can tell just from that?” he muttered, then obediently followed.

Kai walked at the forefront. He stopped at the highest point of the stairs and tentatively pushed twice. The swamp forest scenery seemed to have been cut open with a square hole by someone wielding scissors. The opening folded inward, revealing a pitch-black doorway.

The smell of dust sealed for many years rushed over them. Myss wrinkled his nose and gave a loud sneeze.

Kai opened one of his two suitcases and skillfully rummaged out a lantern. He looked behind him with a sincere expression that said, “See? I didn’t lie to you.”

“I’ll go first,” he said.

“Wait.” Peyton, who had been silent all this time, suddenly spoke. “I’ll go in and take a look first.”

“Haa, all right. After all, I’m a Stargazer with ulterior motives, and this, technically speaking, could be considered my home turf.” Kai stepped aside and made way. “Safety first. I get it.”

Peyton nodded and softly recited a few incantations. A pale-blue protective barrier lit up around him, and he cautiously stepped through the door. In the next instant, Myss sensed chaotic magical fluctuations. At least five or more magic devices had been activated at the same time.

Without the slightest hesitation, Peyton flicked a short whip inlaid with aquamarines from his waist.

Myss narrowed his eyes. That short whip wand had been cleaned thoroughly, but he still smelled blood, the scent of Peyton’s own blood.

The short whip snapped through empty air, making a crisp crack. Blue magic splashed outward like blood, actually striking the magic sources with precision. One by one, the magic devices died out, and the air became peaceful and calm.

“It’s safe now.” Peyton turned around.

Owen quietly took two steps back, and judging from his expression, he already wanted to go home. Kai patted his shoulder sympathetically before entering the tower.

Seeing that the first two were both fine, Myss finally led Salaar inside. Only after everyone had entered the tower did Owen reluctantly shuffle in.

The moment he stepped into the double-layer tower, that rotted door gave a creak and automatically shut, brushing past his backside. Owen was so frightened that he covered his butt with both hands, his hair practically standing on end.

Myss had just been about to mock the so-called “bloodline of Saint Salaar” when his vision abruptly went black and his feet softened.

When he came back to himself, he found his cheek pressed against the filthy wooden floor, pain throbbing along the side of his face from the impact. He seemed to have fainted, and he had fainted with unusual efficiency, so efficiently that Salaar hadn’t managed to catch him in time.

Myss sat up dizzily and discovered that everyone else was also lying sprawled on the floor. A gray-white braid had fallen over the decayed wood, scattered by his feet. Wait, by his feet?

Myss followed the braid upward and saw the dazed figure lying on the floor… himself.

No way.

Myss immediately lowered his head to look at his body. He was still wearing the formal outfit Salaar had sewn, but it wasn’t the “Myss” style. It was the “Salaar” style, with a similar color and a slightly different design.

…No way!

Myss touched the short hair on his head and ruthlessly plucked a few strands. In the almost nonexistent light, the color was black as night.

Things had become troublesome.

“Hey, hey, wake up!”

Myss heard the voice come from his throat, but it was lower than the one he was familiar with. He subconsciously reached out, wanting to shake his own body nearby, but his arm had become thick and long. His hand nearly struck the other person’s head.

Amid the clumsy shaking, his body slowly opened its eyes, and the pupils contracted twice.

Those sharp, arrogant eyes had lost all their sharpness, as if they were two blood holes. Seeing Myss’s misplaced face, the other person showed complete astonishment.

“Salaar?” Seeing the reaction across from him was this great, Myss softly confirmed.

“Myss” nodded, somewhat unused to it as he picked up the braid and patted off the dust and grime on it.

…Mm. Not especially infuriating. It was still the young Salaar. It seemed this strange situation had not made the effect of “Return to Youth” disappear.

“Wow.”

Owen sat up from the floor and exclaimed in a very un-Owen-like way. “I didn’t expect there to be a delayed trap like this… By the way, I’m Kai.”

“I’m Owen.”

The Dragon Fae struggled out of the pocket watch on “Myss’s” chest and said with lingering fear, “Damn it, what’s going on?”

“That’s exactly what’s going on.”

“Kai” stood up, panting. “First dolls, now this. Heavens, can’t you just let me use my wings in peace?”

The priest looked around blankly at everyone. Judging from that heartfelt simplicity on his face, Father Kalen’s body and mind both seemed to be original.

Coincidentally, there were no changes on Peyton’s side either. He frowned, then turned to examine the completely ordinary brick walls of the two-story tower.

Owen confirmed that he had entered the Dragon Fae’s body. Surprisingly, he didn’t complain. Instead, he quickly shrank back into the pocket watch gem, taking on the attitude of a spectator who wouldn’t come out even if beaten to death.

The real Tass sighed repeatedly. “Leaving aside that shameless guy for now… Let me see. I’m using Kai’s body, and Kai turned into useless Owen.”

“Myss and Sa—no, Kendrick—swapped bodies. The priest and Peyton are miraculously fine. From the look of it, this seems to be a trap that randomly swaps bodies and minds.”

Not just that, Myss thought.

He was not especially surprised to discover that he didn’t know how to mobilize Salaar’s magic, like a fish stuffed into the body of a flying bird. He suspected Salaar was the same.

Owen was useless and had wasted the Dragon Fea’s powerful body. The Dragon Fae had a wealth of experience, but couldn’t get used to Kai’s frail body. As for Kai, there was no need to even mention him. He had been directly thrown into the most useless of the group. Even though they were both human, Kai couldn’t squeeze out much magic.

If not for the priest and Peyton being unaffected, the fighting power of this party would be little different from scrap.

Myss unhappily pinched his face and grew even unhappier when he discovered that Salaar’s face didn’t feel as good as the slave’s body.

Owen, or rather, Kai inhabiting Owen’s body, swayed two steps and went to open that closed wooden door. That seemingly crumbling door was even harder than the brick wall. No matter how long he shook it, it didn’t move at all.

“Sigh, things have become a bit troublesome.” He gave an awkward laugh.

“Aren’t you supposed to be the expert?” Tass asked, as he tugged on the hair of the body, Kai’s, he was currently occupying.

“But I’m not an omniscient god.” Kai said helplessly, “Honestly, this is my first time seeing this form of attack too.”

“I’ll smash the door open, and everyone can leave here first,” the priest volunteered.

“No. If the outer door is destroyed by force, it has the same effect as ‘taking the wrong staircase.’ If you also fall into hallucinations, then we truly won’t have much normal fighting power left.”

Kai immediately blocked the doorway, almost breaking into a cold sweat. “We need to go to the central control room at the top of the tower. There, the outer door can be opened manually.”

Tass: “Are you serious? If another alchemical construct like the Human Mushroom appears, we might all be wiped out.”

Kai shook his head hard. “Even if we leave this place immediately, with our current situation, we might still be wiped out. If we stay here, we can at least look for clues.”

Tass puffed out a breath and “returned” the two large suitcases in his hands to their rightful owner. Kai took the suitcases with hesitation, and after a long while, he seemed to make up his mind and opened the one containing the Divine Blood Puppet.

Seeing another “Kai” inside the suitcase, everyone looked at Kai in unison.

“Ahaha, this thing is called a Divine Blood Puppet.”

Kai guided that thing to transform, using Owen’s face to reveal an embarrassed expression. “This body’s magic is too weak, and its physical strength is poor too. This thing can make up for it somewhat.”

His tone was light, but the fine beads of sweat on his forehead still betrayed him. The situation had exceeded expectations. Without his familiar body, his tension was visible to the naked eye.

“A hidden card.” Salaar suddenly muttered seemingly out of nowhere.

Myss’s brows jumped. He looked, rather uncomfortably, toward Salaar, who was now half a head shorter.

“This outsider’s situation is too poor. He can only expose his hidden card,” Salaar said softly. “Be careful. At least in my impression, two-story towers don’t have this kind of trivial defensive magic.”

That made sense. In other words, this damned situation might also have been caused by someone in the group.

Myss thought Peyton was the most suspicious, but Peyton gained nothing from doing such a thing. Fine, he might kill “Kendrick,” but in the current situation, Owen’s body had been handed over to a Stargazer, and he might also end up dead.

But aside from Peyton, only the priest had been unaffected. Could it really be that priest, who was more honest than a wooden stump…?

Myss couldn’t help looking at Father Kalen. The priest’s expression could be called pure, without the slightest flaw.

No, no. Come to think of it, even Salaar had a motive. After the body swap, the antidote had ended up in Salaar’s hands. Myss himself couldn’t mobilize Salaar’s healing magic, so Salaar had thoroughly seized the initiative for detoxification back.

More than that, his research into “Brave Salaar” had also been forced to pause.

…Forget it. If he kept thinking like this, everyone he looked at would seem suspicious.

Myss crossed his hands and pressed down on the thick cushion on his chest, which he was all too familiar with and which now grew from his own body, feeling a wave of grief in his heart.

Better to focus on investigating the current abnormality. Speaking of which, the last time he had this absurd feeling of dizziness and spinning was when he had just arrived in the human world from the seal.

Myss suddenly realized that this was his second “body swap.” Putting aside who had acted, this incident might contain clues to the “body-swap ritual”!

He rummaged and rummaged through his pocket, found a raspberry candy ball, and neatly stuffed it into his mouth. “We agreed to go to the top of the tower.”

His peripheral vision deliberately or unintentionally glanced toward the priest and Peyton.

Peyton thought deeply for a few seconds. “Then let that ‘Divine Blood Puppet’ lead the way. Kalen and I will guard the rear. When necessary, I will put in more effort to ensure your safety.”

The priest immediately raised his hand. “I hope to open the way together with Mr. Kai.”

He might as well had “I have something I want to discuss with the Stargazer” written across his face.

“Very well, then I’ll guard the rear alone.” Peyton calmly continued, “The task continues. Everything that happens next, I’ll report truthfully to Grandfather.”

Myss suspected that even if they swapped shells with the Human Mushroom, Peyton would still have this same dead, calm expression.

……

The inside of the two-story tower was much larger than Myss had imagined. Even though he was now taller, the space above his head was still large enough to make him marvel.

Salaar was close, but he kept about a fist’s distance from him, looking much more petite than before. Myss looked at his own stiffly raised collar, and his hands itched. He kept feeling an urge to grab it and tug.

To suppress this inexplicable thought, Myss turned his head again to examine the surrounding environment.

The inside of the tower was dark, but the stone walls on both sides were clean. The dust on the floor wasn’t thick. Only the smell of rotting wood was a little heavy. Unlike the ruins they had visited before, there were no strange paintings hanging on the walls, nor dusty spiderwebs everywhere.

Against the outermost side of the walls, neatly stacked wooden boxes were piled up. In the few open boxes, one could see rotten papers, bandages, medicine bottles, and food whose original appearance couldn’t be distinguished, looking like compressed rations.

“Aren’t there a bit too many medicine bottles here?” Tass held the lantern Kai had distributed and curiously moved closer. “During the Night Scourge era, were there dedicated medical outposts?”

Kai had the transformed puppet hold a large lantern in its mouth to scout at the very front of the group. At this moment, the Divine Blood Puppet stopped, and the lantern stopped above everyone’s heads, somewhat resembling a mobile chandelier.

“Anything is possible. If it really is a medical shop, at least there should be fewer strange alchemical lifeforms… probably.”

Kai carefully picked up a medicine bottle. The label on the bottle had been swallowed by the damp environment, and the writing on it had long since become blurred.

On the label covered with mildew spots and water stains, the long string of medicine names and serial numbers could no longer be identified. Only the words at the very bottom were still fairly clear.

[Celestial Canopy]

Kai pursed his lips and tried hard to suppress the joy on his face.

Behind him, Salaar stood in the darkness. Within the shadows, there were only two cold red points of light.

---

The author has something to say:

Myss be like: It’s over, now I really can’t lie on the cushion anymore… [melted]

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 105: God’s Middle Finger

Could this Kai read minds? Myss pretended to lower his head and rest, peering through the gaps in his bangs.

Salaar casually caught hold of his body, supporting most of Myss’s weight. Peyton quietly swept his gaze over the two of them, then returned his attention to Kai.

“You’re quite candid.” Peyton emphasized the word “honest.”

“If I said I was an ordinary person passing through this dangerous uninhabited region all by myself, you would still have to believe me.”

Kai grinned indifferently. “Besides, this is Mondicia, the ‘Kingdom of Chaos.’ Their treatment of the Stargazers Society is not as strict as the Aufon Empire’s. Not to mention, the one I encountered is you, Peyton the ascetic, famed for his benevolence and detachment.”

When Kai said “benevolence,” the corner of Peyton’s mouth twitched, as if he was about to smile, only to return to calm before the smile could form.

Seeing that Peyton didn’t interrupt him, Kai’s words grew increasingly smooth. “With me here, everyone can contact the outside world, yet you still say you have your own matters to attend to. If I have guessed correctly, you all want to continue the ‘Journey to the Old Lands.’ After all, in a certain sense, the Karns family and the Night Scourge are inseparable.”

“That is why I proposed sharing my destination. The Stargazers Society only wants knowledge, and knowledge doesn’t diminish when shared. If you truly want to continue the ‘Journey to the Old Lands,’ cooperation benefits us both.”

Wow, Myss marveled inwardly. Kai had guessed pretty accurately.

Myss himself had no objection, and Salaar didn’t seem to plan on expressing an opinion either.

Father Kalen, however, failed to hide his look of anticipation. His plan had already included searching for Stargazers. Now one had delivered himself to their doorstep on his own initiative. It was simply an unexpected stroke of luck.

As for Mr. Groundhog Owen, ever since they started fighting the Human Mushroom, Owen had used soil to cast himself an upside-down earthen shield shell. That thing’s shape was rather peculiar, and Myss had nearly thought Owen wanted to build himself a grave mound. Now, Mr. Groundhog was still inside the grave… no, the earth shield, waiting for them to finish the battle.

“I don’t mind.” Salaar’s gaze slid over Myss’s face like warm water, and he took a step forward. “Finding a ready-made destination is better than charging around like a headless fly.”

Peyton didn’t answer, only repeatedly sizing up Kai in front of him.

Myss could roughly guess what he was feeling.

Kai was about the same height as Myss, and his figure was even frailer than Myss’s. With that ordinary, gentle face and those bulky suitcases, he looked like some unlucky character who would appear on a comedy stage. This sort of person rarely provoked hostility in others.

Kai pressed while the iron was hot. “Think about it. A large ruin that has never been discovered must contain information related to Saint Salaar. Even better, you have plenty of manpower on your side, so you don’t need to worry about me playing tricks.”

Myss couldn’t help poking Salaar. “Is there really a large ruin nearby?”

Salaar nodded and leaned a little closer. “The geology near the Crimson Marsh is special. It’s difficult to build complete underground shelters there, while large city-states aboveground are difficult to keep warm.”

“So their ruins are extremely scattered, and there was only one kind of shelter structure, called a ‘Double-Layer Tower.’”

According to Salaar’s description, a so-called “Double-Layer Tower” referred to a structure with a large chimney built straight through the center of the tower and up to the sky.

Every level of the tower had air inlets. People threw fuel into the chimney and lived close to the chimney wall, using the smoke and heat it produced for warmth, lighting, and daily life.

Mondicians called Double-Layer Towers “God’s Fingers” and revered them greatly.

Most Double-Layer Towers were built by wealthy nobles, great and small. According to scale, Double-Layer Towers were divided into three types: “thumb,” “index finger,” and “middle finger.” They were tightly hidden by various alchemical devices. In theory, the larger the tower, the harder it was for later generations to discover.

It seemed they were going to look for “God’s Middle Finger.” Myss gave a couple of dry coughs and forcibly held back his laughter.

The moment he thought of Salaar’s information being hidden inside “God’s Middle Finger,” the Chaos Archdemon himself felt like laughing a little. He crooked his own middle finger and felt that the people of Mondicia were rather to his liking.

“…Perhaps you have heard that a large alchemical creature like the Human Mushroom could only be afforded by a ‘Middle Finger Tower.’”

A few steps away, Kai spoke with absolute confidence. “During the Night Scrouge era, it was used to search for survivors. However, it required the intervention of mages from that era.”

“Enough.” Peyton finally spoke. “Does anyone have any objections?”

After saying this, his gaze gradually touched on everyone present, except Owen, who was hidden in his mound of earth, before finally returning to Kai.

“Lead the way, Mr. Stargazer.”

……

“That’s a Stargazer, Peyton. Is this really fine?”

Before Owen had even shaken the bits of mud from his head, he sidled over beside Peyton. It seemed the soundproofing effect of his earthen mound left much to be desired. He had heard everything very clearly.

“Stargazers are only fanatical supporters of doomsday theory and atheists. ‘Indiscriminate killing’ isn’t on their list of madness.” Peyton said lightly, “They understand the Night Scourge more thoroughly than we do. Being able to find a new ruin is a good thing.”

Owen glanced at Kai walking at the front and still looked uneasy.

“Just that Human Mushroom was already so terrifying. What if there are other surviving alchemical creatures in the ruin… I know you’re very strong, but accidents happen…”

Peyton remained unmoved. “That suits me perfectly. I brought you all here for ascetic training.”

Owen looked like he wanted to faint on the spot.

Myss was too lazy to care about Mr. Groundhog’s mental health. He looked curiously at Kai, watching as that guy pretended not to know the two of them and busied himself at the front of the group, tapping around with a magic device.

Perhaps because he looked for too long, Salaar had, at some unknown point, walked in front of him. His solid back occasionally blocked Myss’s line of sight. Moreover, this guy would occasionally turn his head and lick Myss’s face with his gaze, as if observing something.

Myss said irritably, “You’re blocking me.”

Salaar gave an “mm” and continued knowingly committing the offense. Myss had no choice but to quicken his pace and walk beside Salaar. Salaar took advantage of the motion to shift his body and grab Myss’s wrist. Not the ambiguous kind of “grab,” either. Hero Salaar looked as if he was strangling a goose.

Myss grew even more irritated. “You’re hurting me.”

“We’re almost there,” Salaar said. “There are defensive alchemical magic devices near the tower. Be ready to dodge at any moment.”

Myss snorted and swallowed his complaint.

One minute passed, five minutes passed… half an hour passed…

Myss felt like his hand was about to be deprived of blood by Salaar’s grip. Trembling, he turned his head aside. “‘Almost there’?”

Was this kid messing with him? Before Salaar could answer, he struggled to turn his head. “…Talen!”

Father Kalen obediently came closer. “?”

“That antidote for Return to Youth or whatever, I remember it’s with you. Give it to me.” Myss bared his teeth in pain.

“Sorry, sorry. I almost forgot.”

Father Kalen hurriedly fished the small bottle out of his pocket. “I checked it earlier. The potion is safe, and there are no strange ingredients.”

Myss grabbed the bottle, shook his fist at Salaar in warning, then placed it in his inner pocket, squeezing it together with “Brave Salaar”.

Sure enough, it was more reassuring to hold the initiative in his own hands, Lord Archdemon thought.

“Do you need anything else? I brought all the commonly used things.” Father Kalen patted the luggage bundle and asked thoughtfully.

Myss happened to be a little hungry, so he reached out a claw. “Raspberry candy. Do you have any?”

A trace of blankness appeared on the priest’s face. “I didn’t prepare candy. Would cheese or jerky do?”

“…Forget it,” Myss muttered softly. He was a little distracted and nearly tripped over the tangled weeds beneath his feet.

The priest scratched his head with a slight apology, then quickly returned to Kai’s side, eagerly observing this living Stargazer.

“We really are almost there.” After the priest left, Salaar immediately explained. “It’s just that the Stargazer hasn’t noticed and has been circling around nearby.”

Then, a rare look of hesitation crossed his face. Salaar slowly loosened his grip on Myss’s hand, rummaged in his pocket, and pulled out a red candy ball.

“Is this what you wanted just now?” he asked in a low voice.

Myss hummed in agreement and zipped the candy ball away from Salaar’s palm. Its wrapper was a little different from the ones he had eaten before. Who knew when Salaar had restocked.

“It’s rather ironic that the two of us actually have similar tastes.” Before Salaar could react, Myss threw the candy ball into his mouth.

Salaar sighed softly. “This really is…”

He revealed a thoughtful expression and didn’t finish the sentence.

“Really is what?” Myss crunched the candy, deliberately making the sound very loud.

“Nothing.” Salaar gave him a meaningful look. “Actually, I don’t like eating candy.”

Myss raised his brows and scoffed.

He grabbed Salaar’s collar in one hand and directly blocked the other man’s mouth. His sleeve slid slightly with the movement, and there were still dark-red finger marks left on his wrist from Salaar’s grip.

That half-melted candy ball was roughly pushed into Salaar’s mouth by Myss’s tongue. After a bit of friction, Myss leisurely hooked it back out again. Salaar was stunned in place by this unexpected attack and didn’t resist.

The “long kiss” ended. Myss licked the corner of his mouth, crunched the candy apart, and swallowed it all.

He lifted his face and revealed a victor’s smile. “So you don’t like it.”

Salaar was silent for a long while, touching his damp lips. Hard, sharp shards of candy remained in his mouth, and the sweet-sour taste spread across the tip of his tongue.

At this moment, he thoroughly understood why the version of himself three hundred years later had voluntarily taken that dose of “Return to Youth.” It hadn’t been some kind of precaution against an enemy, nor a plan to achieve victory, but…

…It seemed that in three hundred years, he really had changed quite a great deal.

Salaar slowly ground the candy shards between his teeth, so that the unfamiliar sweetness would become even more intense.

Very well. In any case, his conclusion wouldn’t change in the slightest. He absolutely, absolutely wouldn’t voluntarily undo the drug’s effect.

Amid Myss’s happy humming, Salaar silently picked up a stone and flung it backward into the empty space not far away.

Halfway through its flight, the stone abruptly fell, as if it had struck something invisible. At the same time, Kai, who was walking at the very front, let out a surprise “huh?” and suddenly turned around.

“I found it. There’s a Middle Finger Tower here!” he announced cheerfully. “After more than three hundred years, its concealment is still this perfect. It’s definitely a big one.”

However, before he had finished rejoicing, a series of creaking sounds rang out in front of everyone. It was like something heavy was stepping through mud and dead leaves, slowly approaching them.

“Question.”

A dull, cold voice rang out. It came from all directions, echoing through this gloomy, dense forest.

“For what reason do you depart?”

“For what reason do you remain?”

“For what reason do you come?”

---

The author has something to say:

By the way, the inspiration for the double-layer tower came from northern heated brick beds (kang beds). (………………

---

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

Author: 年终 / Nian Zhong

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

---

Chapter 104: A Sense of Familiarity

“Me? I’m fine for now. This target is truly out of the way.”

Kai casually tossed and caught the communication crystal. The translucent crystal refracted a few shards of light.

He was currently riding his Divine Blood Puppet, traveling through a swamp forest filled with miasma.

The puppet’s limbs were spread apart, its body blocks connected by pitch-black bone. If Myss had been present, he would have discovered that this thing was exactly the same as the one they had encountered in the “Sea of Concepts.”

The Divine Blood Puppet danced with its long, twisted limbs, moving across wet mud, tree roots, and poisonous gas as if walking on flat ground. Kai sat steadily on the puppet’s back with his many bags and luggage, not even the hem of his clothes getting splashed with mud.

Only, the puppet’s face was identical to Kai’s own, creating a rather uncanny scene.

“…But this is fine too. That group of nobles’ ‘Journey to the Old Lands’ is taking place far from here. No one will discover me.”

Kai continued, “Otherwise, even if I took ‘Resolve to Elope,’ I’d still have to personally slog through the swamp.”

A string of muffled sounds came from the communication crystal.

“What, there was a teleportation error during the Journey to the Old Lands? The Karns family? …Mm, if Peyton Karns is involved, it shouldn’t be a big problem.”

“All right, the connection here isn’t great. That’s enough small talk. I’m going to handle proper business, the legendary great ruins, the Celestial Canopy. I still haven’t found any clues.”

After saying this, Kai stuffed the communication crystal into his pocket and heaved a heavy sigh.

If Jocelyn’s Divine Blood Puppet hadn’t been destroyed, and if he hadn’t possibly attracted the attention of that Kendrick, he would never have accepted such a thankless task.

Exploring the Celestial Canopy ruins was, bluntly speaking, purely a matter of luck. There were many uninhabited regions in Mondicia, and the relatively famous ruins had all been explored by nobles. What remained were the most remote and dangerous areas, places where the ruins were hidden the deepest. They could only be slowly searched with one’s own legs and eyes.

The Stargazers Society had never stopped exploring ruins, but unfortunately, their manpower was limited. Nine explorations out of ten yielded nothing. Even if they were lucky enough to find a ruin, it might have long since been damaged and have no research value at all.

Kai rubbed the extinguished communication crystal and prepared to meditate for a while. The Divine Blood Puppet suddenly braked hard, and Kai’s suitcase almost slid off. He hurriedly scrambled to grab it.

“Uh-oh.” After clutching the suitcase tight, he drew in a cold breath toward the ground.

Not far away, a human face was embedded in the ground.

…One of the alchemical monsters left behind from the Night Scourge era, a Human Mushroom.

Despite the name, this thing had absolutely nothing to do with actual humans.

It was a kind of giant fungus. The portions poking out of the ground were connected beneath the soil and belonged to the same main body. The parts aboveground were only the tip of the iceberg, bait used to lure living creatures, especially humans, closer.

Once it sensed magic fluctuations, those faces would grow upward and, within two or three days, grow into a humanoid shape. However, this thing had no intelligence and didn’t understand what real humans looked like, so its “human form” would always have unsettling dislocations that made one’s hair stand on end.

If one were “seen” by a human mushroom, its main body would quietly spread through the wet mud and secretly track the prey.

When the prey stopped walking and closed their eyes to rest, the human mushroom’s main body would burrow out of the mud, drag the sleeping prey into the swamp, and eat them clean, bones and all.

As for what this thing’s main body actually looked like, Kai truly didn’t know and had absolutely no desire to know. To be able to make such a thing, who knew what mental state the people of the Night Scourge era had been in.

That human face stared fixedly at the sky. It hadn’t yet noticed Kai’s existence.

He wasn’t a combatant. Kai touched the goosebumps on his skin and prepared to carefully take a detour.

Just then, that human face suddenly twisted. Its two eyes rolled wildly. One eye twitched madly, while the other locked onto Kai amid its chaotic rolling and stuck firmly to him.

Damn it, who stimulated this thing?

Animals couldn’t cause such a large reaction. There were people nearby!

Kai painfully put away the Divine Blood Puppet. He downed a strengthening potion, picked up two suitcases, and ran with all his strength toward the direction where the trees were sparse.

The human mushroom’s agitation didn’t stop. That face frantically squeezed upward, revealing the unformed, flesh-folded neck beneath it, like a fleshy snake with a human head.

It chased after Kai without regard for anything, opening its mouth to bite at his body.

At the same time, several more human heads popped out from the surrounding bushes, their huge mouths almost splitting their heads in half. The features on those heads hadn’t fully grown. Eyes, noses, ears, and mouths were stacked at random, and muddy water streamed over their faces.

Had the Human Mushroom gone mad?

How badly had it been injured to attack living creatures so desperately like this?

Kai gritted his teeth and pulled a pocket watch from his pocket.

There were no common time markings on the pocket watch’s face. Instead, it was divided into three layers, corresponding respectively to “Strength,” “Number of People,” and “Distance.”

The three hands were trembling as they pointed to “Extreme,” “More than Five People,” and “Within One Kilometer.”

The second hand pointing to “Within One Kilometer” jittered as Kai advanced, on the verge of jumping to “Within Five Hundred Meters.”

Screw it. The other side had most likely already discovered him. With the Human Mushroom watching him, it was still safer to seek refuge with the strong!

Within three hundred meters… within one hundred meters… Kai’s legs almost flung out afterimages. With several heads entangled behind him, he charged toward the point where the conflict had erupted, and then…

The instant he saw the people on the other side, Kai staggered in place and almost got bitten by the head chasing behind him.

The Human Mushroom’s main body had completely arched out of the mud. Beneath countless incomplete and deformed human heads was flesh that surged like slime mold. One spine-like structure after another grew from the soft flesh, like tangled weed roots freshly lifted from mucus.

“Kendrick Karns” dodged in small steps. His movements appeared slow, yet he always avoided the attacks at exactly the right moment.

He stood back-to-back with Myss, the latter’s wrist wrapped with a snake-shaped sleeve arrow. Myss swung his arm nimbly, and black magic arrows cleanly pierced through those heads and one segment of “spine” after another.

The two of them kept their backs pressed together the entire time. Myss didn’t even look around, merely moving along with “Kendrick’s” movements. One of them was responsible for defense, the other for offense. Their movements were even more coordinated than the Human Mushroom’s. They actually seemed more like one body.

Father Kalen’s movements were much simpler.

He truly treated the Human Mushroom as a mushroom. Whenever he caught a head, he pulled it out, and after pulling it out, he threw it far away. In this way, he forcibly tore off a large chunk of the Human Mushroom’s fungal body, which was larger than a house.

The famous “ascetic” Peyton Karns held ritual daggers in both hands, his movements lighter than feathers. He weaved through this chaotic battlefield, and rather than attacking, he seemed to be observing, observing everyone’s reactions while ensuring their minimum level of safety.

…What was wrong with the Stargazers Society’s intelligence? Hadn’t it said the “Journey to the Old Lands” was in the Crimson Marsh? What was going on with this group of Karns?

But now that he had already shown his face, Kai charged into the battlefield in one burst. As expected, in the next instant, all the heads behind him were beheaded by Peyton.

The next second, Kai was lifted by the collar by Peyton and directly dragged away from the center of the battlefield.

“And who might you be?” Peyton asked politely.

Kai glanced at Myss and Salaar, who were busy fighting. He could tell that the two of them were not using their full strength. Right now, both of them had their ears pricked up to eavesdrop, and even the expressions they used while secretly watching were cast from the same mold.

Mondicia was so huge. How could he still run into acquaintances in an uninhabited region? Kai wished he could sigh his lungs out.

“…A Stargazer, Kai,” he said in resignation.

Perhaps Professor Gentry hadn’t exposed him, but those two definitely knew he was a Stargazer. There was no point in hiding it anymore.

As a devout of the God of Cadence, the moment Peyton heard the other party was a Stargazer, his brows instantly furrowed.

But he kept his temper in check. He only pointed in a direction for Kai. “Since you have escaped danger, please leave as soon as possible.”

“Apologies, I cannot. I have already been remembered by the Human Mushroom. I have to confirm that you eliminate it completely… Otherwise, I won’t be able to sleep peacefully tonight.”

Kai bowed politely and stayed where he was.

Peyton was slightly stunned. “You know what this thing is?”

“As everyone knows, the Stargazer Society is obsessed with the Night Scourge knowledge.” Kai rubbed his hands together and reflexively revealed a merchant’s expression. “How about this? Let’s make a deal. I’ll tell you this thing’s habits and weaknesses, and you let me stay until the battle ends.”

A deal with guaranteed profit and no loss. Peyton agreed instinctively.

On the other side.

“How did this guy pop up again?”

Myss muttered toward Salaar behind him. “Hey, Salaar, you actually know what this is too, don’t you?”

“I know, but Peyton has been observing us the whole time. I don’t want to act too suspicious.”

Salaar muttered back quietly. “Who is that person? Judging by your reaction, you seem to know him.”

It was hard to explain in just a few words. He would have to start with that annoying organization, the Stargazers Society.

Myss kicked away a head trying to ambush them from below with a smack, then shot another one apart. Only after a long while did he pick up the topic. “Not important. A bit of a nuisance, but there’s no need to attack him.”

Salaar paused for a few seconds and gave a soft hum. “That’s fine too. This way, we can end the battle naturally.”

Myss actually didn’t mind ending the battle a little later. Beating up monsters was merely a way to pass time. This feeling of being back-to-back with Salaar was more novel. He could feel the rise and fall of every one of Salaar’s breaths, the tension and slide of his muscles, and that balance as firm as a boulder.

It was completely different from the hero cushion he was familiar with, but it also had a relaxing sense of familiarity. So much so that he almost forgot that the one pressed tightly against him wasn’t the Salaar he knew.

But in the end, he still couldn’t forget.

Whether intentionally or not, young Salaar had almost turned his physical body into an extension of Myss’s own. He had completely surrendered the initiative. His movements were precise and standard, without that subtle aggression.

Myss couldn’t help arching his back against Salaar, wanting to squeeze out a little vitality this way. Salaar froze slightly, then tentatively arched back, having completely failed to understand the deeper meaning.

“…You can’t compete with its regeneration. You need to wrap more than half of its body with high-concentration magic and burn it with flames.”

At the same time, Kai quickly explained, “Combining everyone’s magic works too. In any case, it has to be dense enough to form a solid body. It’s best to solve it during the day. This thing’s recovery ability is even stronger at night.”

This was one of the reasons the Human Mushroom was classified by the Stargazers Society as “extremely dangerous.” It didn’t ask for technique or intelligence, only pure strength without any dilution.

Perfect. He could take this opportunity to properly observe those two deeply mysterious guys.

Rumble.

Before Kai’s thoughts finished turning, pale blue magic spread out.

Peyton Karns, who hadn’t had a strong presence just now, suddenly radiated an oppressive aura that made one’s heart shudder. Pale blue magic climbed along the Human Mushroom’s yellow-white main body like a thick, pure layer of ice.

That magic made a chill rise from one’s internal organs, trembling faintly without end.

Myss couldn’t help looking at Peyton a few more times. He didn’t know whether it was his imagination, but he always felt Peyton’s magic had an inexplicable sense of familiarity.

Peyton’s complexion was somewhat pale. But he straightened his back and stood in place, murmuring something under his breath.

The next moment, those pale blue “ice layers” actually ignited with blue-white flames. The Human Mushroom’s heads that hadn’t yet been severed shook wildly, releasing strange sounds that didn’t resemble human voices.

Its viscous body rapidly dried out under the wrapping of high-concentration magic, like a slug sprinkled with salt. Once the magic flames burned, the dried flesh immediately cracked apart and turned into flying ash. Only those spinal structures hadn’t fully burned away, rolling messily into the sludge.

“…Thank you for your information.”

The Human Mushroom completely stopped moving. Peyton put away the ritual daggers in his hands and nodded toward the Kai who was standing there with his mouth agape.

His breathing was slightly hurried, yet his gaze remained calm as ever, as if he had merely tossed a few scraps into a wastebasket.

Never mind Kai being surprised, even Myss’s brows flew high.

Leaving aside that sense of familiarity, Peyton had hidden his strength even better than Father Kalen. Before that burst just now, Myss had actually failed to estimate Peyton’s magic level.

“Mr. Peyton Karns, I have a new proposal.”

Kai raised his hand again. “I’m guessing everyone was swept into a teleportation error. I can provide a communication crystal. In exchange, I would like to ask for your help with something.”

Peyton shook his head. “We have our own matters to attend to.”

“Even if I am willing to provide a clue to a large-scale ruin from the Night Scourge era?”

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The author has something to say:

Here we go!

There are so many people in the party this time. (?

But the groundhog isn’t important, so he doesn’t count. [doge]

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