Shadow of the Evil God

"The convergence of various possibilities is not a coincidence or accident," said Giralo. "It is because your roots are so deep and your branches spread in all directions, covering everything you can, that you can point the way to hope. Finding a way out of the intricate maze is your gift. The behavior that could be called determination and even recklessness when possibilities appear is now seen as a manifestation of this gift. Reason is useless here. All people can rely on is unfounded faith."

"But if you think too much, you'll hesitate." Cesar shook his head and said, "I haven't even practiced swordsmanship in a long time. When I saw Trisius fall into the abyss, even if I arrived in time, I could only watch. Is it really okay to ask Sevra to come when the time comes?"

"You can try it in this maze," Jirallo said slowly. "The characteristic of the time maze is that all possibilities exist here, and they all exist simultaneously. I can help you turn to the first page at any time. It all depends on whether you dare to walk through every fork in the maze and experience every possibility."

Ajeh suddenly grinned. Cesar and her looked at each other for a moment, blinked, and Sevra couldn't help but frown. Obviously, they both thought of Ajeh's extremely chaotic speech last night - at that time they both thought it was her nonsense.

However, what if this thing was also a possibility? Even if the time maze could turn the pages, the impact on people would be unimaginable, and they would probably never forget it. Cesar was fine, but judging by Sevra's expression, she had probably already imagined what would happen if she got involved.

Chapter 383 Your Brother is My Brother

As if sensing something, Sevra glanced at him sideways. "You should consider this, Cesar," she said. "If the maze of time could turn, and if the events of this page were unacceptable to me, then I would cut off your limbs, reassemble you, and wait for the next turning of the page."

"Then you'll have to find a more comfortable box," Cesar shrugged, then added, "Remember to pad me with soft fur, otherwise I'll complain. Also, I guess you can't carry someone, so Aya will have to carry my box." He smiled at her, "Do you think so, Aya? Did you carry your father with a burned cheek when you were still in the dog pit?"

Aya swung her fist at him vigorously.

"Really?" Cesar's eyes widened. "The silver he earned from selling me must have bought you a few meals. Even after I become crippled, you have to carry me for a while. If you don't have a suitable box, you'll have to carry me on your back."

She looked at Sevra with wide eyes, confused. She took a step toward him, leaned forward, and narrowed her eyes at him in displeasure.

Of course, Cesar had anticipated what Sefera would say. On many matters, their judgments coincided, but on other matters, they acted in opposite ways and made opposite choices, reflecting the inherent contradictions and consistencies within a single person.

Thinking of their contradictions and similarities, the branching of the time maze became more complicated. If only he existed, or only Sephora existed, there would not be many branching paths, but putting Ajeh and both of them together, things lost all predictable stability.

Many different times and many different choices will be born in the maze, intertwined with each other, like lush branches extending in every direction, and contradictions will be manifested as a result.

Cesar suddenly had a thought. "Since this is all history from the last era," he asked the priest, "does this mean that the time maze in the tomb is no longer the same as it was in the past? And that the so-called cycle is not as stable as you claim?"

"It's possible," Girallo told him. "I think if a conflict arises, it will arise. For example, if one of you does the unthinkable, I must admit that Cesar is more likely."

"what?"

Jirallo looked at Cesar. "If Sevra can't stand your actions, even if she won't kill you, she'll find ways to stop you. Naturally, there will be a series of forks. Sevra might stop you. Verbal communication is a possibility, but it's more likely that she'll cripple you, making it impossible for you to continue. Conversely, it's also possible that not only will she fail to stop you, but you'll subdue her, merging her into a darkness you can't imagine. It's also possible that you'll both retreat a step through verbal communication, or it's possible that both of you will be defeated and retreat into the shadows to lie dormant, waiting for the next cycle to begin again, and so on."

"I know that," he gasped, "but you're saying the Time Maze is stable and we're not. What if the Time Maze is unstable too?"

"Perhaps two forked paths will converge," Giralo told him. "For example, you and Sevra go their separate ways, and when you meet again, you wave to her with a smile, from a past you agreed upon, while she has blood on her hands, from a past where she just severed your limbs."

"Will there be two of me meeting each other?" Cesar suddenly became interested.

The priest denied it. "No," he said. "The trouble with this instability is that you might suddenly look back and find that the Sevra behind you has become the Sevra at another fork in the road. Without complete trust in each other, conflicts will always arise. Only by returning to my bonfire can the forks and different possibilities be stabilized."

Cesar pondered the priest's words, feeling utterly bewildered. Without personal experience, it was impossible to imagine. Against the backdrop of the campfire, Jirallo's face looked incredibly old, his expression like a mountain of stone, imposing and immovable.

Jiralo spoke slowly but confidently, with a certainty about what was about to happen. He wanted to describe the priest's expression as he spoke prophetically about their conflict, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He could only say that the priest's eyebrows were thick, straight, and his eyes were so deep that it was impossible to see into them.

Like Sevra, the priest actually had androgynous features, visible through the wrinkles on his cheeks. However, his posture and mannerisms did not suggest a woman's, and his pale beard, which fell to his chest, and his equally pale robes, were both very impressive.

Cesar bowed to Sevra according to the Kunar etiquette he remembered, and told him that he had encountered traces of Iskrig at the edge of the Abyss. "According to you," he said, "Iskrig was the last hero of the Kunar people. Even though his memory had decayed, he still journeyed to the edge of the Abyss to maintain the ancient Ring of Time. When he did this, did he know that he was creating a god for the Flan people?"

Jilalo shook his head. "So-called faith means not caring about anything else. Although Iskrig still regards the Franks as sacrifices, as long as this spell is a sharp blade that can penetrate the ancient disaster, he will always maintain its existence until it pierces someone's body and sees blood.

. "

"It doesn't feel like that at all," said Sevra. Just by looking at her index finger pressed to her lips in deep thought, Cesar knew she couldn't believe Iskrig was that kind of person.

She must have been deeply impressed by many things - the love-hate relationship between her brother Musali and her father Iskra, Iskra's decaying soul and memory, her mother who died tragically in the tent after having a relationship with Iskra, her brother who killed her father and his behavior of being entangled with Iskra even after he killed his father. This series of things is more than just deeply impressed.

Cesar knew that Sefera had always believed that Musali had never loved any of his wives, not even one, and that each of them had only served to preserve the tribe and fulfill their duties as a chief. The only person Musali loved was his Iskrig, both his master and his lover.

Both Cesar and Sevra believed that Musali simply admired Iskrig's perfect appearance, coveting his body rather than his decaying soul. Thinking about it now, Musali might have seen Iskrig's conscious face in his youth, seen the Iskrig in Jiralo's memories, the hero, the last descendant of the royal family, who had taken the risk alone with an ancient evil and sealed it deep in the tomb.

In terms of heroic epics, Iskrig is indeed the most traditional heroic prince. However, his later life is somewhat ridiculous. In Iskrig's story, there is no young girl who met the prince. Instead, there is the chieftain's wife who fell in love with him and was forgotten by him. She left little memory in his heart until her death.

If we had to say who here is more like the girl meeting the prince, it would be their dear brother Musali.

Whether it was approaching Iskrig with hatred in his youth to learn martial arts from him, or having a complicated relationship with Iskrig as he grew older, which lasted for many years, or even finding Iskrig again after avenging his mother's murder and confessing his love and hatred to him, leaving a deepest memory in the heart of the last descendant of the Kuna royal family for many generations, or finally traveling abroad with concern for the future of his people, possessing a vision beyond all other Sasule people. Upon closer reflection, these events are full of the meaning of love-hate entanglements.

Especially considering that Musali had concerns about the Sasulai people, and if we trace the source back to what Iskrig said when he was sober, this matter is even more worthy of reflection.

"Next year," Cesar said, "I'll have to go to the edge of the abyss again. I'll follow Iskrig's patrol route and I should be able to meet him along the way. Then ask Iskrig to give Musali a few words. My brother will surely listen. With his help, I'll have the opportunity to initiate a war and resolve the issue with Clefas."

"When did Musali become your brother?" Sefula glared at him.

Cesar shrugged. "That's a strange thing to say. Aren't we the same person? Your brother is my brother, and Musali always treated me like a brother when I was in Noyen."

She frowned, "I really don't want to say the same thing back to you."

"I know you don't want to," Cesar said, "but Diana has always been curious about you—"

"She's curious about the connection between your soul and mine, right?" Sevra's eyes widened. "You're subconsciously trying to fool me with your words. Do you think I don't know that her curiosity stems from a mage's exploration of the soul and true knowledge? Do you think I'd lie on the test bench like you did and let her observe me, or even use the magic of the Yesterlen School on me?"

"Alright," Cesar shrugged. "But I must say that I completely trust her to cast a spell over my soul. It's because of her and Firth that I'm still walking the earth as a human being. Speaking of Firth, you're also involved in Firth's past, right? When we go north, I hope you'll be there to face the Grandmaster. We all have to face her."

"That's asking too much," Sevra shook her head. "I have no interest in the past. If I insist on helping, you're just forcing me to do it. Besides, if you keep shrugging your shoulders, the first thing I'll cut is your arms. I want to see what you can shrug without your shoulders."

"Let's take it one step at a time," he said with a smile. "I'll definitely find a way to convince you."

Chapter 384: Sephora Out of Control

......

To ward off the night terrors that roamed outside, they decided to set up Jiralo's bonfire at the edge of the stone chamber at the end of the corridor. The priests explained that the entrance dug by the Frank Empire was a side chamber at the edge of the tomb. This so-called side chamber was actually where the Kuna pilgrims of later generations perished. However, their deaths were not accidental; rather, they chose to perish within the maze of time during their pilgrimage.

These people would even expand the maze themselves and bury themselves at the outermost edge of the newly expanded tomb.

It is said that in the earliest times, the scale of the Time Labyrinth was not exaggerated. However, in later times, generations of Kuna pilgrims decided to be buried in the tomb to express their reverence for the wise man, which made it increasingly exaggerated and the route increasingly complex and difficult to find.

According to ancient Guna custom, when people were buried alive, they consciously expanded the time maze rather than encroaching on the original tomb. As time passed, these people extended countless branches to it, thus building it into the scale of later generations.

Cesar found it difficult to understand the concept of voluntary burial and digging one's own graves, but the Kuna people were difficult to understand to begin with, so it was not surprising that they were even more difficult to understand.

As agreed, he and Sephora would begin the exploration of the tomb, while the others would remain by the campfire to ensure no accidents occurred. And as Jiralo had said, the more people there were when exploring a tomb, the more likely it was to get into chaos. Exploring alone was too small, so two people were just the right size.

Cesar stood at the edge of the stone chamber and looked into the corridor inside the tomb for a while, but he didn't notice anything.

He could discern distant threats, but the bifurcation of time had already surpassed his ability to discern them. Apart from the endless gurgling of water, the tomb was filled with dead silence. But behind him, a cold wind occasionally blew across the crackling bonfire, bringing with it sparks of fire.

Cesar stepped into the corridor, feeling the echo of his footsteps. The floor was a simple stone pavement, yet it was crisscrossed with intricate, branching lines, as if to suggest the maze-like nature of the tomb. The moment his gaze rested on the intricate lines on the stone, he felt a stirring, unseen and untouchable, eerie and hidden. When he wasn't paying attention, they seemed to exist at the edge of his vision. When he tried to pay attention, all sensation vanished, as if through a mist.

He had just thought he felt nothing, but that was wrong. As long as he got close enough, he could detect some strange traces, but he couldn't explain what they were.

At this time, Sephora came to his side silently.

"This place feels strange," Cesar looked at her. "Do you feel it?"

He had just felt that the tombs were strange and blurry, but at this moment, they suddenly became clear again.

One moment, Cesar felt the corridor was filled with invisible figures. The next, he thought they were him, Ajeh, Sevra, and Aya, exploring other branches of the Time Maze. But he had clearly just entered the Time Maze, taking the first step. The next moment, he saw Sevra staring at him from in front of him, her eyes strangely unsettling.

She didn't seem to come to his side from the bonfire behind him, but rather came to him from the end of the corridor. Her sight was completely different from before.

Her eyes were as dark as pools, and a nightmare-like mist enveloped her.

Cesar sensed something and reached for the hilt at his waist, but Sevra's blade had already slashed towards him. The strike was as silent as her own, practically invisible without careful observation. Its path, like a thread, effortlessly passed through his every dodge and retreat, piercing his shoulder. The blade passed without a single drop of blood. Then, he felt his arm fall to the bone.

"There's some movement!" Suddenly, Sefra's voice came from behind him.

A shrill whistle echoed through the corridor. Taking advantage of Cesar's moment of distraction, Aya reached out and placed a hand on his bloodied shoulder. With a firm squeeze, she used the momentum to leap forward. She stepped on the stone pavement, and saw gravel flying and a sound like thunder. Then she punched the nightmarish mist, and the wall immediately shattered and dented, revealing a spiderweb of cracks.

I have to say that Aya's touch was too painful, but Sevra's knife was completely painless.

The blurry Sephora flew back, seemingly not wanting to fight with Aya. Does this prove that she might not be the fake Sephora, but the real Sephora?

Sefora, from the stone chamber, stepped into the corridor from behind Cesar, arriving at his side. The moment Sefora stepped onto the stone pavement, the one in front of him suddenly vanished. She hadn't escaped, but vanished, as if, in the space of two ephemera—the smallest, indivisible units of time—she had suddenly ceased to exist in this world.

Aya stood there, bewildered. She stared blankly at the empty corridor for a moment, then looked at her fist with even greater confusion, as if unsure of what she had just struck. The place was still pitch black and quiet, empty, with only the rubble on the ground as evidence of what had just happened.

Ajeh also came over, and Cesar found that the broken arm on the ground was gone. It didn't disappear, but this guy took it and ate it when he wasn't paying attention. She was still chewing his bones like biscuits, making a crunching sound. They looked at each other in silence for a long time, then she smiled and walked to his side as if nothing had happened. She took the face that had taken human form and

She moved her face closer and gently licked the gap on his shoulder, which immediately relieved his pain and made him feel numb and itchy.

What a reckless fellow. Cesar hugged her waist, pinched her ears and rubbed them hard, and saw her tail wagging slowly, as if to pay back for eating his broken arm.

So he returned to the campfire and sat against the wall. While Ajeh licked his wounds, he held her in his arms, stroking her hair for comfort. Her slender waist swayed slightly, and her tail brushed his arm, wrapping around his wrist, feeling incredibly soft, as if conveying love and longing tinged with blood.

If this place weren't so crowded, Cesar would have grabbed her by the tail and used her from front to back, biting her until her body was covered in tooth marks. When her face flushed and her consciousness was on the verge of fainting, he would have pried open her mouth and used the depths of her throat, filling her mouth and throat with turbid liquid, forcing her to swallow it with great effort, until she couldn't eat anything for the whole day.

But then again, compared to Sephora who just disappeared, it is hard to say which of them is more dangerous.

"So, it seems that the fork already existed the moment you entered the Time Maze," said Giralo. "I'd like to say that this is the Time Maze, but this also proves that there is a contradiction between you. If a contradiction occurs, it will not only affect the fork in the path where it occurs, but also the fork in the path where it did not occur."

"I don't quite understand," Cesar said.

Giralo picked up a few broken slabs from the corridor's edge and brought them back to the campfire. He muttered a spell to the slabs, and soon, the intricate, branching lines extended upward, filling the entire stone chamber. Cesar saw that these complex and dense patterns, seemingly carved on a flat surface, existed in only two dimensions, but in reality, they existed in three. Only magic—the so-called hidden knowledge—could reveal their hidden third dimension.

"The obscured text?" Cesar asked him.

The priest nodded. "The obscured text," he repeated, walking through the writing that filled the entire stone chamber. He traced it as he walked, filling in the missing parts, and soon the curving lines took on meaning. Cesar thought he saw an infinite network of branching paths, intertwining like a fishing net, each thread a branch. He imagined a labyrinth within a labyrinth, one that began modestly but would be expanded by the pilgrims who sacrificed themselves to the dead.

"Was that me just now?" Sephora walked over with the bewildered Aya. The guy was still looking back in shock, even looking dazed.

"It's you, Princess." Jirallo pointed to the words that filled the stone chamber and the infinitely extending forks in the maze. "The maze itself was built to express the future and the past. These forks contain things that have already happened, as well as things that you think have never happened. There are both possible futures and past experiences. Because of this, the moment you step into the maze of time, things that have never happened appear, and even begin to affect you in turn, just like..."

“Solaire,” César whispered, “time is tangled here.”

"Don't think too much about this kind of trouble." Sephora disagreed. "The core of the problem is..."

"The core of the problem is that we still lack trust." Cesar looked up at her. "We must have a common understanding. No matter what forks in the road we encounter, no matter what possibilities we face, this understanding will not waver. No matter how many doubts or conflicts arise, as long as we demonstrate this common understanding, we must put aside all doubts and conflicts and walk back to the campfire hand in hand."

"That's too vague," she complained.

"I don't think so," Cesar said. "You just stabbed me, and now I think the complexity of the maze lies in the fact that every bad fork in the road will affect us in turn. The long threads of many times intersect with each other, weaving into an intricate web that contains almost all possibilities. Each thread is a fork in the road, and when threads intersect with each other, they will affect each other. That Sevra just now must have come from a very terrible fork in the road - she will destroy all the forks that cross with her, and cut off every fork that intersects with her at the point where she appears. She has even affected the first page of the maze."

"I think my loss of control is definitely related to you, Cesar." Sephora looked at him. "Can you first imagine what you would do to me and the people around me?"

Chapter 385: Do you want to be an Isli too?

Cesar could only smile at her.

......

Despite the numerous contradictions, Cesar believed that the bifurcation of time had begun to unfold, and different possibilities had begun to unfold. Given this, there was no reason for them to stop. Jiralo's goal was somewhat vague, so he set himself some milestones. First, he would find a tomb where Jiralo could summon the Faceless One and sew their heads together. Then, he would find another tomb where Jiralo could use the sewn heads to summon the remaining memories of Milava and Alanti.

With the remnants of the Emperor and Empress of the Frank Empire, Cesar could understand Milava's past and the curse Diana bore. He could also compare their experiences in the tomb and avoid the threats within. Through their remnants, he could undoubtedly forge a clearer and more precise blueprint. They could continue the Frank Empire's footsteps and uncover the final mysteries of the Tomb of the Wise.

He and Sevra's exploration lasted over ten days. They didn't penetrate the tomb deeply, but instead explored the edges, following Jiralo's instructions, searching for a chamber structure that met his requirements. However, even at the edge of the tomb, even without the influence of time, the spatial structure of the tomb had become extremely complex due to subsequent expansion.

If they didn't count their own shadows that suddenly appeared at the edge of their vision, the place was actually dead silent. The stone walls were silent, the air was still, and the echo of footsteps on the stone pavement was hollow. There were not even the traps and guards that ancient tombs always had in stories and legends.

As Jilalo had said, this place was the tomb of a wise man, a temple that guided the world. Later generations of the Kuna people had made pilgrimages there, following the wise man's path. Therefore, there shouldn't be any threat. Even if someone died there, it would have been a voluntary act of burial, so there would be no surprises.

If what the priest said was true, then the tomb itself might not pose any threat, at least they hadn't found anything in over ten days of exploration. So, perhaps the cause of most of the casualties among the Frankish gravediggers wasn't the threat of the tomb itself, but rather the threat themselves in the forked path of time?

Cesar proposed this idea. He and Sephora stared at each other for a long time before finally deciding to explore the edge of the area first and then return to the campfire. They needed to move Jiralo's campfire deeper, using it as the center to draw a semicircle. Once they had explored the entire semicircle, they could continue their migration. This way, they would ensure they wouldn't get lost.

It wasn't that they couldn't go deeper, but after subsequent expansion, the tomb's spatial scale far exceeded the secular mountains. He felt that they must rest at the campfire in Jilalo and start with a shorter journey, taking one step at a time. Otherwise, it would be too easy to get lost.

While many areas of the tomb offered no threat, they blurred the lines of reality. Cesar encountered more than one strange tomb passage, seemingly small in size, yet it took them a full day to explore before they reached the exit.

Soon after, they were trapped in another basement. Looking down, they had imagined it was just a narrow crypt beneath a flight of stairs, its walls and floor covered in intricate patterns. As they descended the stairs, which were longer than they had imagined, they discovered that the intricate patterns were fractals. The fractals expanded at a terrifying rate as they descended. Suddenly, the narrow basement transformed into a vast hall, perhaps the size of an entire mountain. It was like standing on the boundless earth, gazing up at a fractal-shaped sky.

All around them were endless geometric fractals, the size of a star-filled night sky, a black and gray stone kaleidoscope—a hemispherical black and gray kaleidoscope, like the night sky, hung high above them, its size and complexity like the sky itself. Cesar looked up and saw that the steps they had descended were just one of the insignificant stars.

Cesar struggled to recall the knowledge of his past life, realizing that the geometry of this tomb's structure was unusual, and therefore, its perspective was also unusual. Even at a distance of just a few steps, the perspective of an object would be rapidly magnified as if it were hundreds of meters away.

At the moment, they had looked down from the tomb's upper entrance, seeing nothing but intricate, tiny patterns. But after descending a dozen steps, they found themselves standing on a perfectly smooth, black stone slab. The slab was the size of a city square, but from the tomb's entrance, it seemed no bigger than a grain of rice.

This tomb chamber is not as huge as it looks now, at least it does not require hollowing out a mountain range, but it is not as small as it looks from above. Just by visual inspection, there are hundreds of steps leading to different directions, and each step stands on a giant stone slab that looks like a grain of rice from a distance.

Sevra asked Cesar to wait for a moment, then took a few steps forward. He saw her shrinking in size, each step rapidly becoming many times smaller than the one before. In just a few breaths, he had to use his senses to find Sevra, the nearly invisible, pinpoint-sized figure.

The surroundings were completely silent, as if filled with inexplicable hostility. The very structure of the space itself was unusual, making one feel uneasy. Even without traps or guards, just walking back and forth was enough to make one feel terrified. He took a couple of tentative steps outward, only to find that the steps they had come from had suddenly transformed into a distant object as small as an oil lamp. He immediately retreated.

go back.

Cesar felt that it was impossible for a single person to explore this tomb. This unusual spatial structure didn't even require a complex maze of paths; simply the shifting perspective would make one completely unaware of their location after taking a few steps. Of course, even two ordinary people couldn't do this; they would need a soul-level connection that transcended reality to locate each other and find the other's location.

It is hard to imagine how terrified the gravediggers of the Frankish Empire would have been when they entered this tomb - what kind of words would they have exclaimed, and what kind of evil would they have cursed.

The scene at that time must have been incredibly exaggerated.

Cesar crouched down, and simply by changing his perspective, he saw the massive black stone slab, the size of a square, shrink. This meant his estimation of its size was wrong. Sephora was of a different height, and his perspective was at a different level, so his perception of the stone slab's size must have been slightly different. However, he no longer had the heart to correct this mistake.

He observed the intricate lines on the stone slab and realized that these arcs were also the spell writing of the Kuna people, or rather, a hidden text that obscured a dimension, impossible to discern with earthly senses alone. He thought that each arc on the floor might be a spell inscription, capable of unleashing incredible magic in Jiralo's hands. As he pondered this, the lantern behind him cast his shadow across the inscriptions, gradually shrinking in the distance until it was barely visible at the farthest point.

At this moment, Sephora suddenly appeared at the end of his shadow. Cesar watched her gradually grow from a needle tip to a doll the size of a palm, and then to the height of his abdomen, but at this height, she had already stepped on the knees of his shadow.

To be normal, they would have to be close enough to kiss each other.

This place...

"How do you feel?" Cesar asked her.

"I've got new material for my latest nightmares," Sevra complained. "This place is no place for those of us who live within the fabric of real space."

"That's called Euclidean space," he pointed out.