Chapter 55#

Temple of the Burning Lamp 26#

“Of course it’s because there’s a force wanting to break the balance and make this world completely collapse!” the Empress said. “That character is the true villain. Once the Holy Son comes back to life and provides us with more specific clues, we can find them!”

She made it sound very good. However, looking at the entire temple, besides these outsiders, there were only two and a half living people: two white-robed nuns who were illiterate and could only shed tears of distress for the Holy Son, and a half-dead Holy Son.

Ludwig continued to pull the candlestick out. Blood gushed from the wound, and blood also seeped from the corners of the Holy Son’s lips, his whole body trembling with intense pain. Extreme pain, like extreme cold, can potentially wake up a person in a coma.

The Pope leaned over to wipe the blood from the corner of his mouth and then held his right hand—just like he had comforted Molly that night. The Holy Son’s hand gripped his back tightly, his knuckles turning white with force. The silent comforting had an effect, and the Holy Son’s trembling from pain gradually stopped.

Glancing at their situation to confirm safety, Yu Feichen continued to the Empress: “On the first day, you found one word, ‘God,’ in the Holy Son’s room, but on the second day, I also saw two other words there: the past tense of ‘killed’ and ‘me’.”

“God killed me?” The Empress read these three characters together, murmuring: “How is that possible?”

God killed me, the God of Shadow killed the Holy Son to take over the world—this was just a simple front she had made up to explain the plot. How could it be that God killed the Holy Son? Could it be not the God of Shadow, but the God of Light? No, both the Light and Shadow sides needed the Holy Son alive to chant the incantations; there was absolutely no reason to kill him.

She shook her head: “Impossible.”

Yu Feichen had already lost interest in talking to her, but seeing the inquisitive gazes of Bai Song, Qiu Na, and Molly turned toward him, he could only continue. He had thought that after coming to the Gate of Eternal Night, he would be able to completely get rid of explaining things to ignorant employers, but in this dungeon, he actually spoke more words than in the previous worlds combined. And a certain His Holiness the Pope, who also knew the truth, was actually lazier than him.

He had to undergo the wearying “tutoring” once again. However, as he grew weary, he also became somewhat used to it.

“The Holy Son maintained a certain degree of consciousness but had difficulty controlling his movements. It took him a full two days to write three characters. In this state, I don’t think he could distinguish between day and night, nor would he know that the white cloths he wrote on would be stored separately by the nuns after a day. He would think that those white cloths stained with blood would be stacked one on top of the other in order, with the old at the bottom and the new at the top.”

Qiu Na gave a soft “ah,” the Empress also suddenly opened her eyes wide, and then Bai Song also showed a look of sudden realization. Since he realized it a bit late, his expression was clearly not as vivid as the previous two, carrying a sense of being a Monday morning quarterback. It was unclear if he truly understood or was blindly following the crowd to make himself appear to fit in.

The language of this world is composed of intermittent characters, and the order affects the meaning. Assuming the Holy Son is a calm and intelligent person, the order of the blood characters he wrote was not the normal word order, and even had a deliberate deceptive effect. And the arrangement that he expected the person seeing the blood cloths to see is the true word order!

So it wasn’t “God killed me,” but “I killed God”!

I killed God…

Qiu Na frowned in deep thought: “But where is God?”

The next moment, she was suddenly stunned and looked at the Holy Son on the crystal bed.

In this temple, they didn’t see God, let alone a killed God. They only saw a person… whose life and death were uncertain due to an attack. A Holy Son representing Light, who could stop the thick dark sky from rising.

Yu Feichen looked up at the sky. As the sun gradually deviated from the wellhead, the degree of tilt of that white line toward the east became higher and higher. The intersection point of light and the earth also gradually moved away, more than half of it moving out of the field. The remaining light barely enveloped the few people in the field. And the wellhead was as small as it could be, only one step away from being completely closed.

He returned to the side of the Holy Son’s bed. The crystal bed reflected brilliant flashes under the last rays of the sun. On the bed, the Holy Son’s cuffs were pulled up, revealing burn marks from fire on his arms. Similar marks also existed on his calves.

Yu Feichen: “There are always many people around the Holy Son, with only that one exception. That day, the curtain of thick darkness suddenly rose very high, and everyone went to pray under the sun, so he had the opportunity to be alone. To protect the Holy Son, there was nothing in the temple that could be used for violence except candles and candlesticks. Also, the nuns always have fire lizard powder with them to light fires. Candles, candlesticks, powder—these were all the things he could use.”

As he spoke, the furnishings in the temple appeared in his mind—tens of thousands of candles were brilliant and magnificent, guarding the five life-sized long candles in the center. He estimated the height of the candlestick and the build of the fifteen or sixteen-year-old Holy Son and said: “There are five giant candles in the center of the temple, and the spikes of the candlesticks are enough to pierce a person. But he was still young and not tall enough to sprinkle the fire lizard powder directly onto the flame.”

Ludwig’s fingers gently stroked the Holy Son’s forehead, wiping away the fine beads of sweat for him.

Yu Feichen: “Long ago, before people discovered the effect of the fire lizard powder, the nuns climbed up along the iron frames on the walls and ceiling to light the candles on the ceiling. Those iron frames are still there, so he climbed up from there, burning his arms on the candle flames in the process. Eventually, he climbed to the center of the ceiling and sprinkled a huge amount of fire lizard powder downward. The central candles quickly burned out, revealing the candle sockets. And then—”

Qiu Na swallowed hard, looked at the Holy Son, and said hoarsely: “And then he jumped down.”

Bai Song walked to the Holy Son’s bed, seemingly feeling that kind of pain. His voice also lowered: “He wanted to commit suicide? But he didn’t die.”

“He had plotted it for a long time and chose the right angle; he should have died.”

Speaking, Yu Feichen linked all the details he had seen and heard together, saying: “But the powder was scattered everywhere, and the candles in other places also burned out a lot, no longer being completely bright. One or several shadow monsters took advantage of the gap and happened to see the Holy Son falling from the ceiling. It might have known the importance of the Holy Son to the shadow camp, or it might have just been a mindless monster wanting to eat him. In short, it must have reached out to the Holy Son. The angle of the Holy Son’s fall changed, turning from an angle that would have been fatal into the current result.”

“Then, the other nuns realized that the candle flames in the hall were not right and hurried over. The shadow monsters, seeing that the situation was not good, also began to flee, and they happened to meet. So, the nuns would think it was an evil spirit in the shadows that killed the Holy Son. At the same time, the members of the shadow camp knew they hadn’t done it, but only saw the Holy Son fall and saw nothing else. They believed that some unscrupulous person had murdered the Holy Son. Thus, there was the second task we had to do, to find the true culprit.”

Bai Song blindly clapped a few times and returned to the original question: “Then, why did he commit suicide?”

This child was able to grasp the main point; it was gratifying.

Then, Bai Song continued to speculate: “Was he tired of chanting incantations? He was disappointed with life and exploded in silence. His predecessors weren’t tired of it, but he changed.”

Unexpectedly, Ludwig, who had been silent and drifting, took up his words this time.

“To pray and serve the gods all year round, there may be a day of weariness and hopelessness. But the lives of the people of Casablanca are tied to it and cannot be failed,” he said softly. “Successive Holy Sons have spent their entire lives in the temple, but he had much more knowledge than other Holy Sons.”

Yu Feichen nodded: “The temple doesn’t teach the nuns and monks to read. They raise successive Holy Sons from childhood and likely don’t let them read either.”

The illiterate Holy Sons were completely isolated, knowing only the expectations and beliefs of the people, being merely a tool for prayer. But this generation of Holy Sons was different. Now, without deep understanding, one couldn’t determine that the Holy Son was a deviant person, only that he had been a rebellious child from childhood. And rebellious children are often smarter.

The Holy Son might have refused to learn only prayer from a young age and secretly learned to read. Growing older, he understood the lifeblood of the priests. In the collection of books in the storage room, the young Holy Son had written a sentence in immature and unrefined handwriting: “Priests, I already know what you fear most.”

Whether the priests at that time were monsters or living people, there was only one thing they feared—and that was the Holy Son not chanting incantations, causing the thick dark sky to continue rising and light to disappear.

This Highness the Holy Son very likely used this to threaten the priests and obtained things that previous Holy Sons couldn’t get, such as learning more knowledge, and another example—the opportunity to make friends outside.

So his knowledge became more and more broad, his experience became more and more rich, and he also met many friends outside. His friends often came to the temple to accompany him and even had exclusive guest rooms here, which were the U-shaped corridors where they, the outsiders, lived. Among them, the Holy Son’s best friend was Pope Ludwig and the Knight Commander who always accompanied the Pope—thus there were the secret doors in the two rooms. How could the noble Pope not be equipped with one or two nanny rooms?

Writing and friends—these two brought broad knowledge, which was enough for him to think about deeper issues. What would the Holy Son think about?

It’s not hard to imagine that during his prayers, he had countless times pondered the meaning of his existence and also pondered… the relationship between Light and Shadow.

True, Light and Shadow coexist and restrain each other. But they are not like a pair of twins who cannot lose each other, but more like a parasite and its host.

The so-called shadow is just the trace left by a tangible object in the light. Without shadow, light is still light, but without light, shadow no longer exists.

“If there are no more Holy Sons in the world, there will be no more light, and thus no more shadow and evil spirits in the shadow.”

In a world, everyone plays a role and must make their own choice. Perhaps letting Light and Shadow perish together was the choice made by this Holy Son.

After hearing Yu Feichen’s explanation, Molly said softly: “But… without light, other living people… will all die too.”

Yu Feichen didn’t speak. It’s hard to judge whether a choice is right or wrong. And… in the reasoning just now, there was another point he didn’t mention.

At this moment, the surrounding shadow monsters suddenly became frantic! The shadow under the old man’s cloak even let out a sharp, long howl!

Yu Feichen understood their franticness. They had gone to great lengths to save the Holy Son’s life and investigate the true culprit, but the final result was that the Holy Son wanted to die himself. They had been completely played. This taste of being fooled like a fool is probably not pleasant.

Of course, the Holy Son himself also suffered too much pain that he shouldn’t have suffered. He should have died cleanly according to his own plan, but due to the interference of the shadow, he lingered on, spending several days and nights with difficulty while his body was pierced by iron spikes. Realizing that he not only didn’t die but would also be treated with all efforts, he asked Pope Ludwig to come to the temple at the last moment. He believed that this close friend who was not on good terms with the temple would definitely be able to read his meaning and complete his unfulfilled wish.

As the truth was gradually revealed, the sharp howls contained anger. The monsters went completely crazy. The anger of fools is the most simple and crude: the black tide gathered into a ferocious vortex and swept toward them.

At this moment, the sunlight had already moved across the atrium, but they were not affected at all and still existed all around. Yu Feichen glanced around and immediately understood the reason.

Candles!

Four hundred blood-red candles were still flickering in the wind, emitting four hundred clusters of light and casting deep shadows in all directions.

Thick black mist spread from the shadows and lunged at them with resentment. The monsters that originally existed in everyone’s shadows even crawled up their bodies like snakes!

Molly was the first to let out a scream, and her whole person fell forward on her knees. The shadow beneath her turned into a pitch-black swamp, with viscous waves churning in the swamp, pulling her whole person down. Immediately, Bai Song hacked at the shadow beneath his feet with his long sword, but as one was cut off, another would grow back; they still entangled him like centipedes.

Endless sounds—the screams and fighting of the people around, the howls of monsters, and the thousands of murmurs in the illusion surrounded Yu Feichen’s ears. He looked up again at the sky with a white dot on the dark sky.

A white slanted line crossed the entire pitch-black world, and the two purest colors formed a geometric partition painting.

This painting was too grand, using the entire sky as a canvas, and all the time since the birth of a world was enveloped in it, yet it was so simple.

And he stood in the final moment of this world, in the center of a sun totem where countless bloody and cruel sacrifices had been held. Under the reflection of four hundred candles, the greedy and crazy monsters were making their final counterattack.

However, under the reflection of that extremely pure black and white geometric painting, the ignorance, cruelty, bloodiness, greed, and madness of all living things in the world seemed exceptionally insignificant, just a fleeting moment.

—The world is always that world, it’s just that people have made different choices in it.

The figure of the gray-clothed male attendant flickered on the ground and eventually turned into countless floating dust, disappearing completely. After he disappeared, the Empress fell sitting in front of the magic cauldron. In the pot, the turbid magic potion reflected her distorted red figure.

Qiu Na’s waist was wrapped by a tentacle, but she still gritted her teeth and dragged Molly and the swamp beneath Molly to the nearest candle. They blew out the candles one by one. Due to over-breathing, their faces were pale and they were constantly convulsing.

Bai Song’s sword was grabbed and taken away by a tentacle, falling into the shadow swamp. He was panting heavily, looking at Yu Feichen. As long as Yu Feichen hadn’t fallen, he felt there was still hope.

Ludwig helped the Holy Son’s upper body up, letting him lean against his chest, and also looked toward Yu Feichen through the firelight.

In the next moment, Yu Feichen took out the white bottle containing fire lizard powder from his bosom!

He laid the bottle flat, the mouth facing outward, and suddenly pulled out the cork. The crimson powder instantly rose up like mist. Then he suddenly swung the bottle downward diagonally from top to bottom, all the powder pouring out from inside, being scattered into the field by the biting cold wind—

Ludwig handed forward the previous candle, and Yu Feichen took it, letting the flame touch the red mist spread across the atrium.

Billion points of sparks burst out at the same time, and a brilliant meteor shower fell grandly. The fire swept outward with the crystal bed as the center, igniting the entire atrium like an explosion. In the pitch-black long night, the sun totem shone with light, and the mountain-top temple bloomed with giant fire flowers.

People covered their mouths and noses one after another. The powder was choked into their lungs, and Ludwig coughed violently. When he coughed, he completely overlapped with Enfield. Yu Feichen turned back and held the Pope and the Holy Son he was looking after—these two fragile creatures—together in his arms, letting them inhale as little powder as possible.

The roaring fire instantly repelled all shadow monsters and also caused the four hundred candles to burn rapidly at ten million times the speed. Candle tears fell dripping like blood. Soon, when all the powder was burnt out and the fleeting fire disappeared, the blood-red candles also completely burnt out.

In the atrium, all light was extinguished. It was so dark that one couldn’t see their own fingers. The only light in this world came from that white line crossing the world.

The scream of a monster rang out again in the dim world. The pitch-black outline rose and fell crazily against the almost same-colored background. One could vaguely see that the monsters were struggling to leave the possessed bodies and were crazily chasing the light over there.

For a moment, only the heavy breathing of several people remained in the atrium. When the breathing finally calmed down slightly, the Empress’s weary voice rang out: “So, what exactly was our task in this dungeon?”

The Holy Son still hadn’t woken up. Ludwig was still coughing softly and had no intention of leaving his arms. Yu Feichen had nothing else to do and answered her: “My guess is that the task was: prevent the resurrection ceremony from being held within three days and help the Holy Son fulfill his wish for suicide.”

The Empress still hadn’t figured some things out: “But the NPCs clearly issued tasks to us.”

Yu Feichen sighed slightly in his heart. Perhaps the Empress had indeed experienced adventures in many worlds and belonged to a powerful organization. She was like those experienced players who liked to look at guides, liking to categorize dungeons and master clearing skills for each. But this is ultimately a real world, not designed by others, and it always has infinite possibilities.

Just as Ludwig had said to Molly, dungeons cannot be summarized into a few clear categories. Those established experiences eventually imprisoned her.

“What he issued to us was not the true task at all,” he said calmly.

As his voice fell, Qiu Na suddenly realized: “I see!”

Her heart beat violently with excitement, and she spoke very fast: “Empress, Pope, King… these people were invited to the temple, and the old man in the cloak forced them to help find ingredients to resurrect the Holy Son and find the truth. This might not be your so-called ‘clearance task’ at all, but a, a…”

She racked her brains for a possible adjective and finally blurted out: “A background plot!”

Yu Feichen gave an “un-huh.” She was right; being forced to find the magic potion was just a background plot. It’s just that this realistic plot was so similar to the dungeon tasks everyone was used to. And the true clearance task was hidden in the heart of the sleeping Holy Son and could only be explored and derived by them, the outsiders.

—This was also where the true difficulty of this dungeon lay.

Qiu Na was enlightened, suddenly patted Bai Song, and continued: “After working for half a day, I was working for the wrong boss! That old thing wasn’t a director at all; he was a supporting character with a script!”

She reached a point of anger and excitement and couldn’t help but pat Bai Song’s back hard again: “This is fcking nesting! You can’t play like this, isn’t this坑 us? I’m so angry, this fcking—”

Bai Song let out two screams from being patted, but Qiu Na’s words also made him feel that there was a huge gulf between his and her language system. He didn’t understand those terms at all and only felt that the wording of the last sentence was not very civilized.

He gave up communicating with this powerful Lord’s wife and turned to Yu Feichen, asking a very soulful question.

“Brother Yu, you also saw the Holy Son himself yesterday. If you had killed the Holy Son at that time, would the task have been completed?”

Maybe.

Yu Feichen gave an “un-huh.”

“How hateful,” Bai Song sighed.

Yu Feichen was expressionless. If he had guessed the truth earlier, he might have really ended the Holy Son’s life in advance and also spared him from painful torture. But the amount of information before was too little, and it was only at today’s sacrificial ceremony, when the shadow monsters were at their wit’s end and exposed too many key clues, that he completely sorted out the truth.

The Empress spoke no more. Qiu Na looked up at the sky: “The sky is about to turn completely black, and those monsters have all chased the light… If we kill the Holy Son now, can we leave?”

Yu Feichen: “In theory, yes.”

“Then why not move yet?”

Yu Feichen looked down at the person in his arms—though in fact nothing could be seen.

Killing the Holy Son, he didn’t care. But looking at His Holiness the Pope’s gentle attitude toward the Holy Son, as if he wanted to bear the pain instead of him, he probably didn’t want to kill him.

Only Ludwig coughed twice more and finally stopped. He also finally looked up and got up from Yu Feichen.

“This reasoning matches all known facts,” he said softly. “But until the moment the Holy Son wakes up, the Knight Commander himself cannot confirm it is completely correct.”

Yu Feichen had some complaints in his heart, thinking if this person had a more correct reasoning, then he was all ears.

But Ludwig’s next sentence made him slightly satisfied.

“Although, I also agree with him,” Ludwig said.

The sound of fabric rubbing rang out. Ludwig supported the Holy Son and said softly: “No one can completely arrange their affairs after death, even an omniscient god. The moment he fell toward the candlestick, he must have thought of some unspoken words. I want to hear his final wish.”

Yu Feichen gripped the handle of the candlestick. The Holy Son’s blood had already covered the bed, and the candlestick was about to be completely pulled out. The Holy Son’s breathing was uneven, being on the edge of waking up. Ludwig wanted to hear the Holy Son’s unspoken words, and he also had one thing he wanted to know.

He already had a guess about that matter but couldn’t completely confirm it.

—The Holy Son killed himself, why did he leave a message for Ludwig saying “I killed God”?

He tightened his fingers and applied force outward, and the last section of the iron spike also left the Holy Son’s body.

The Holy Son coughed violently.

At this moment, the white dot in the sky flickered and disappeared completely.

The last line of light left this world, and the roar of monsters in the distance suddenly vanished abruptly.

With absolutely no more light, there was absolutely no more shadow. Without having to go to the effort of capturing or beheading them, those cruel and eerie monsters, like graphics that had lost their canvas, vanished into thin air in this world.

In this world, only endless darkness remained.

In the darkness and silence, Ludwig said to Bai Song: “Give me the pack.”

Bai Song obediently handed over the bag containing all their belongings. Ludwig struck a match, lit a candle, and placed it on the crystal bed. A wisp of faint light lit up in the black world. This time, no more shadow monsters came to disturb them.

The firelight illuminated the Pope’s calm face. After coughing a few times, the red-haired Holy Son’s eyelashes trembled, and then he slowly opened his eyes.

He saw Ludwig’s face at a glance, smiled, and said in an extremely weak voice: “Ludwig…”

Yu Feichen saw that his blue pupils were already dilated; perhaps in another minute or two, he would completely lose his life.

Ludwig said: “The heart.”

Bai Song looked at Yu Feichen, and Yu Feichen nodded.

So Bai Song took off his shoulder armor. They had three Blood Salt Hearts at the beginning. They gave a perfect one and a turbid one to the old man in the cloak, and the remaining perfect heart was kept by Yu Feichen and finally hidden in the empty drum created by the curve of Bai Song’s shoulder armor; this was a good position.

The old man in the cloak once held the Blood Salt Heart and said intoxicately that he felt the power of resurrection. In this way, even if this thing didn’t have the magical effect of bringing the dead back to life, it at least had a certain healing effect.

Ludwig acted naturally, pulled out Yu Feichen’s scabbard beside him and took it in his hand. He used the hard scabbard to knock off a small piece of the Blood Salt Heart and handed this small piece of bright red crystal thin slice to the Holy Son’s mouth.

After seeing what this was, the Holy Son shook his head weakly.

Ludwig said: “No innocent people were sacrificed.”

He handed the crystal to the Holy Son’s lips again, and this time the Holy Son accepted it. After taking several pieces of crystal in a row, the Holy Son’s pale face recovered somewhat, and the bleeding also stopped.

He didn’t continue taking it but looked at the sky and said: “Has the curtain of thick darkness completely closed? Ludwig.”

“It’s closed. The evil spirits in the shadows have all disappeared. The priest tried to refine the resurrection potion to save your life, but didn’t succeed.”

The Holy Son smiled.

He was a beautiful boy, with deep red hair and blue eyes. The corners of his eyes were not as long as an adult’s, showing agility and playfulness. But at this moment, the calmness in those blue pupils overwhelmed that childish liveliness.

“Ludwig. I don’t fear death, nor do I fear resurrection. I only worry that they will turn me into a monster that has lost its sanity.” He said: “Thank you.”

Ludwig stroked the top of his head: “I know.”

The Holy Son’s blue eyes looked at everyone and finally stopped on Yu Feichen: “I know you would definitely accompany Ludwig. It’s dangerous… but you are the only friends I have left. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay,” Yu Feichen said.

After saying that, he asked bluntly: “What exactly is the curtain of thick darkness?”

“I should have left more clues for you, but there was no time.” The Holy Son lowered his head like a child who had done something wrong, and then, he said one sentence.

“That is my shadow.”

For a moment, everyone except Yu Feichen and Ludwig was stunned.

The Holy Son continued: “People discovered fire from wood and created light other than the sun, thereby stealing a part of the God of Light’s authority. Thus, shadows that were not supposed to exist appeared in the world. When shadows connected into a whole, endless murderous evil spirits were bred.”

“I read in Ludwig’s collection of books that in the same year that records related to evil spirits appeared, the vast continent’s perimeter rose with a continuous curtain of thick darkness. Three years later, on a mountain in the center, a priest led monks and nuns to establish a temple. The temple found a Holy Son without a shadow. If the Holy Son chanted special incantations, he could stop the thick dark curtain from rising.”

“I often think: if the temple truly received the Light God’s decree, why do I, as the Holy Son, have no sense of it? And why… when I chant the incantations, do I always feel pain? Not until I realized the connection between Light and Shadow did I understand that the temple is actually the territory of the Shadow God. The Shadow God predicted that… when the thick dark curtain completely closes, it and its people will disappear, so it worked so hard to find and protect the Holy Son.”

“Do you know, Ludwig? The Temple of Light is actually a follower of Shadow, while the thick dark curtain is the God of Light’s means of protecting the world. This world is overgrown with thorns, and black and white are reversed.”

The curtain of thick darkness—is the God of Light’s means of protecting the world.

Yes, stronger light can only bring stronger shadow. If the God of Light wants to protect Casablanca from the invasion of evil spirits, he must make light disappear completely. The God withdraws himself from the world; where there is no light, there is only darkness, so the curtain of thick darkness rose in Casablanca.

To God, this might only be a moment’s thought. But for humans, the closing of the thick dark curtain took hundreds of years.

The opposite of light is darkness, so it also makes sense to say that the thick dark curtain is the shadow of the Light God.

“God is higher than man; God cannot personally descend to the world and can only bestow grace. I have no shadow when I walk under the sun because—the Holy Son is the incarnation of Light in the human world, just as the temple is the incarnation of Shadow. So I can stop the thick dark curtain from rising.”

“What I wanted to say is all of this.”

The truth was out. The Holy Son was right. This world was overgrown with thorns, and black and white were reversed. Appearance and truth were completely opposite.

Qiu Na sighed: “So that’s how it is. I really didn’t expect it. But your people…”

“Everyone is dead,” the Holy Son said calmly.

Then he turned to Ludwig: “Ludwig, remember what we once discussed?”

“Don’t refuse the destined destruction; accept the rebirth that will eventually come, Ludwig.” The Holy Son held Ludwig’s hand. He looked at Ludwig, but his gaze seemed to cross eternal time: “All my people died in suffering, but one day, light will return to Casablanca. People will be born again and discover fire from wood again—Ludwig, there is nothing new under the sun, it’s just a cycle. Don’t refuse it, Ludwig.”

Ludwig looked at him quietly, but the firelight was glowing, and when reflected in his dark green eyes, it looked very much like watery light. That firelight illuminated his calm face, once again reflecting the tear mole under his eye.

Yu Feichen thought: he seems to be crying again.

What would he cry for?

He didn’t know, only felt that at this moment, something extremely similar was flowing through the Holy Son and the Pope.

That thing begins with life and ends with death. It is both compassionate and sorrowful.

“Okay.” The Holy Son got up from the bed and said, “Before eternal sleep, I will take you away.”

The night was quiet. The white-robed, red-haired young Holy Son held a white candle, accompanied by two white-robed nuns, and led them through the empty, deep temple. All the way, blood dripped, like a burning candle.

Eventually, they reached the main gate of the temple.

“I will use the remaining short time to leave a mark here that can exist for a long time. When light returns, if the newly born people can read it—perhaps they will have a different future than ours.” The Holy Son said: “Guests, leave this place. I will sleep eternally here; you still have an unfinished path.”

“Ludwig,” finally, he called out softly again, “don’t refuse the destined destruction.”

Yu Feichen stood at the door, looking back at the Holy Son holding the candle in the darkness. He smiled as he saw them off, as if he really thought these were still the original friends, or as if he knew everything. The thin boy could barely hold the magnificent white robe, yet he still looked like a lonely monarch, guarding the grave of his kingdom.

Will the next cycle of this world arrive? If it arrives, will it be ignorant and cruel like the old world, or gentle and peaceful like the Holy Son?

He didn’t know, just as he didn’t know why Ludwig beside him never looked back, and why he shed a single real tear.

That tear flowed past the tear mole under his right eye, leaving a faint trace of water on his calm face, and then disappeared into the endless night.

In the next moment, Ludwig wordlessly grabbed Yu Feichen’s wrist and led him across the pitch-black iron gate.

The long-lost system voice rang out.

“Escape successful.”

“Please begin deconstruction.”