Shadow of the Evil God

The clamor in the auditorium gradually grew, nearly drowning out their voices. The crowd gathered around Milava and Alante, discussing the future of the war. Cesar saw that Milava's emotions were complex and difficult to understand, but also filled with reluctance. It was as if he wanted to revisit every incident between him and Alante from the distant past, to determine where he had gone wrong.

As he looked at the Emperor and Queen of the Frankish Empire, Ferrieres hugged his arms tightly. "You like my sister, don't you? People say she is the most beautiful person of this era," she asked.

Cesar looked back at her, her expression increasingly resembling that of Firth, and the dark circles under her eyes that even court makeup couldn't conceal. He couldn't help but feel subtly intoxicated. Her flaxen hair shimmered in the firelight. "When I stand at a distance and gaze, I'm just admiring other people's business," he said. "But you and I, sitting by the fire and taking a rest, that's what matters to us."

"You've become so talkative..." Ferris's soft little hand tightly grasped hers. "I should be happy, but I'm just scared because you look like you'd stand by someone like my sister instead of someone like me."

"Then we should go somewhere less traveled," Cesar said, "so you won't have to worry about this kind of thing."

“Maybe,” she said, “but I still have a long way to go before I can walk outside.”

"Why can't you walk outside yet? Isn't your sister already changing the course of the war?"

"She simply stayed under the protection of the Imperial Army and cast lengthy spells. If she were to travel with only a few knights and encounter beastmen, she would only be able to barely protect herself. Perhaps one day, when the Empire is larger and more peaceful, I can take you on a journey through the Empire."

Cesar blinked. "How vast is it now? Will there be a place for us to stay?"

When Firiel mentioned her knowledge of the terrain, her anxieties seemed to ease slightly. "I'm afraid most of the Empire's territory wouldn't welcome me," she said. "Some of the woodlands and swamps where the fey live might be welcome. With proper communication, you and I could live better in their territory than even the nobles of the capital. But it seems the Empire is determined to drive all the fey into the wilderness, leaving only mindless beasts."

"This seems to be a historical necessity," Cesar said, "at least in this land. When only blind beasts roam the woods and all myths become nursery rhymes and legends to lull children to sleep, the world will become a different place."

"I can't imagine it," Ferriers said. "I don't know if I'll ever see that again."

"I'll watch it with you."

"How is that possible? That must be a long, long time from now. Even if you and I are still alive, we must have become completely different..."

"Nothing is permanent," Cesar said. "That's why we have to pay more to make those things that are not permanent last longer. Even if one day you lose yourself,

Most of the things in the painting are no longer the same, but there will still be some different things that remain. When you see it, you can remember that we used to sit around the fire and take a nap, imagining the world many years later.

Ferriers breathed softly, a wisp of mist forming beside her cheek, but she said nothing, simply resting her head on his chest. Although he was used to Ferriers leaning on his broad chest, now it looked like she was resting her head on a cushion, which was really strange, but the feeling was not bad.

Cesar stroked her hair, pinned with a hairpin, and felt that this makeup made her look quite charming, making it difficult for him to suppress his desire to lower his head and kiss her. As he looked into her eyes, full of affection like a little animal, and stroked her delicate and lovely cheek, Cesar pondered what he had just said.

He couldn't explain why he was pouring out his heart to a memory—not even the memory of Ferrieres, but the memory within the memory of Milava. However, he had already experienced too much that reason couldn't fathom. He felt that in this maze of time where Ferrieres had also been and left her footprints, his words to her might somehow reach her ears, even linger in her heart.

Any slight possibility would have a huge impact on his journey to the north of the empire. As he held Ferriers' hand and kissed her, her sadness seemed to subside a little again. Finally, she leaned completely into his arms, her eyes closed, her eyelashes trembling, as if she were dreaming.

Suddenly, Cesar bumped into a furry animal paw. Glancing sideways, he saw Ajeh standing beside him, gesturing in Mirava's direction. Cesar looked back and saw a rather strange figure among the envoys surrounding Mirava and Alanti—his figure was vague, uncertain whether it was real or not.

Cesar keenly noticed that Milava's remnant of memory was also gazing at this person. It seemed that this monk from the temple was the core of this remnant of memory. The moment Milava leaned aside, the monk disguised as an envoy stepped forward, and in a flash, he was behind Milava. He extended his arm, brushing the emperor's neck like a phantom, and twisted it back. A snap echoed throughout the auditorium, and Milava's head was severed.

The monk of the temple didn't even use a sharp blade.

If this was the first greeting from the Kasar Empire after crossing the ocean, then there was no doubt that this greeting showed their determination to overthrow the Frank Empire. At this time, the north was still shrouded in fog, and no one even knew the origins of the Templar monks.

Cesar helped Ferriers back away. Ferriers blinked, then quickly reacted, taking his hand and casting a protective spell. Ajeh seemed to have no intention of intervening in the remnant memory. She simply stood beside Ferriers, observing her. The person in the remnant memory was unaware of Ajeh's presence.

The hall was first hushed, then descended into chaos. After dispatching the emperor, the Templar reached out to the empress, but was blocked by a magical barrier. It seemed the Ritual Stone hadn't yet been created in this era, still awaiting the arrival of Ferrieres's allegiance to the Casar Empire and the creation of her Orvera School. Allandi helped Milava retreat. The nobles of this era were all brave warriors, seasoned warriors who had experienced life and death on the battlefield. They quickly attacked the Templar with a roar, forcing him to retreat.

At this moment, a slender palace maid also underwent a strange transformation. Her face contorted as she screamed, her body stretched, and she sprouted fur and claws. She ducked over the guards' sweeping halberds, her claws slicing through the magical barrier like a thin membrane. Cesar noticed the maid looked familiar, and then he remembered the kitten Altinia had adopted—a large cat, very much of the same species.

Just as the spell barrier crumbled and dissipated, the headless Milava reached forward and grasped the cat's head, squeezing it until her skull caved in, its bones shattering along her fingers. The beastman shuddered, dying instantly without a sound. Milava flung her hand again, and she collapsed to the ground, twitching like a corpse.

Beast Man...

Cesar realized that when the Kasar Empire first entered this land, they might have colluded with some Beastmen tribes. This conspiracy led the Fran Empire to misjudge that only human traitors had defected to the Beastmen, but this was not the case. Of course, who could have imagined that an entire empire, after crossing the sea to investigate the situation, would first conspire with the Beastmen to eliminate the most prosperous local human force at the time?

Chapter 398: The Plague of Thought and the Remnants of Liberation

As the master of the Remnant Memory, Milava had anticipated what was about to happen. Cesar saw him turn his headless body behind him, and saw a servant with black hair and blue eyes growling. His face twisted, his body stretched out, and his long hair flew behind him. Then, the servant's hair and skin ignited with deep blue flames.

This is also a big cat, completely black, with a ferocious face and covered with lizard-like shells.

"They belong to a tribe that was slaughtered until not even a single member remained," Ajiehe said. "As for the one next to your imperial student, I can't quite say where she came from."

The beastman's body expanded, instantly occupying half the auditorium. Its long, sharp, heavy tail, like a scorpion's, swept across the hall, shattering the walls and causing them to collapse outward. Cesar knew that individuals like Nauzog could transform into humans, but the Fran Empire had been fighting the beastmen for years, so it wouldn't be so complacent as to allow the beastmen to infiltrate the emperor's auditorium. The only reasonable explanation was that the assistance provided by the Kasar Empire was greater than expected.

As a tribe on the brink of extinction in war, they must have harbored considerable resentment. It's only natural that they were the first to accept the olive branch offered by the Kasar Empire. However, judging by the fate of Milava, the beastmen's final struggle proved to be of little use.

Blue flames clung to everything, both combustible and incombustible, and spread outward. Cesar saw even the stones charred and withered, as if they were nothing more than hard wood. Milava stepped forward, bathed in the blazing flames, her headless body piercing the billowing smoke, looking even more terrifying than the lizard-like black cat.

Cesar heard the black cat roaring, blood welling up from its eyes like thick tears of blood. It seemed to be cursing, and also accusing. Even though Cesar had mastered many languages ​​from thousands of years ago, the unfamiliar dialect of these beastmen was still too difficult to understand.

Seeing the flames spreading, he immediately retreated, holding Firiels, followed by Ajeh and Aya. With Jiralo nowhere to be found, they could only follow Mirava's remnants and move forward. As the walls crumbled and collapsed in the struggle between the remnants, the once pitch-black outside world began to reveal its outlines.

Beyond that, a dark abyss remained, foreshadowing the shared memories of Milava and Alanti. A circular boundary formed around their current location, prohibiting any further travel. However, as Milava's remnant of memory continued to advance, they would surely see more of the past, ultimately revealing not only the secrets of the Tomb of the Wise, but also the vast city built by Solaire on the edge of the abyss.

Cesar had thought they could stay out of the action, simply gazing at history from their seats. Then, he suddenly saw something that shouldn't have happened. A servant, clearly a beastman in disguise, looked back, his gaze shifting from Milava to the group. Strands of pitch-black thread lingered in its deep blue pupils, like ink poured into a lake, gradually staining it uniformly.

what?

The beastman from his lingering memory pounced in an instant, and he instinctively raised his hand to block it. Firiels, initially huddled in his arms, too shy to raise her head, immediately raised her own barrier. But it was no use. The cat's sharp claws tore through the magical barrier like slicing through human flesh, gouging into his skin and causing excruciating pain—pain in both his flesh and soul.

Cesar felt more than just pain; he felt invisible forces corroding his wounds. It felt as if his mind was being pricked by needles. First, a single sharp needle, then hundreds, then thousands, like an iron maiden covered in needles, tightly enveloping his consciousness. At first, it was a piercing pain, then strange colors seeped into his thoughts along the needles.

If human thinking and consciousness are clear water, then this color is as thick as ink, flowing into his heart, and in an instant it washes his consciousness into pieces and makes it extremely turbid.

Cannibalism, wild beasts, philosophers' debates...thoughts, thoughts that felt alive. The voices beside him seemed distant, as if calling to him from across the mountains. The searing fire burning within him felt like a disaster befalling someone else. His perception had dulled, like watching a stranger suffer from the stands.

It is not surprising that Cesar is a stranger, because neither he, nor they, nor anyone else, has any individual value worth preserving and continuing forever.

Only thoughts can.

To put it rationally, it's absurd to consider the soul, a hollow perceiver, as oneself. The soul is a foreign object, a burden. It observes the world through thoughts and personalities, recognizing its own existence, but this awareness is equally empty. Simply replace the old personality with a new one, and the soul will continue to observe the world with new thoughts and personalities, casting the old one far aside.

César needed to realize this, and realize that self-awareness and self-knowledge are themselves empty. A blank book is empty, and so are the words that describe it. What, then, is not empty? Thought, of course, something worth perpetuating, something that can overwhelm all souls and all self-knowledge.

It is a vehicle that transcends flesh and blood, and it is also a vehicle that transcends the soul. In short, it is eternity itself. If a person encounters this thought, he will

He should devote everything he has, whether it is soul or flesh and blood, just to practice this idea, even being its slave would be his greatest honor.

In order to carry this thought, he had to completely purge the Cesar in his soul, erasing every trace of self-consciousness. This way, he wouldn't taint this transcendental thought. His soul was a filthy book, filled with falsehood and emptiness, but the moment it carried the thought, it became a book of truth describing true knowledge—the book of life, the book of the soul, immutable, eternal, and indestructible.

"I've long told you that you have too many inexplicable philosophical thoughts in your head!"

Sevra suddenly shouted loudly, and a transformation occurred. The blade pierced everything from the inside out, shattering his skin and sending blood splattering, but it also shattered the strands of color, which spurted out along with the blood. They were pitch black, yet also vibrant, intoxicating to look at, and for a moment, one wanted to sink into them. This feeling was especially strong for those who excelled in philosophical thinking.

The blades, born of Sevra's path, were incompatible with his own, and therefore the pain they inflicted was more intense than the sharpest needles. Yet, it was pure, a satisfying purity, free from impurities and incompatible with anything outside. The blades pounded through his body, piercing his soul and flesh, seeking the foreign objects that were incompatible with him. The pain intensified, but he gradually regained consciousness, stepping down from the spectator's stand, gradually recognizing his own existence. Cesar's existence.

Cesar let out a long sigh. Although he had no resistance to those thoughts, or rather, he was more susceptible to them than ordinary people, with Sevra around, the two of them could make up for each other's shortcomings.

He felt Ferrier impulsively wrap her arms around his neck, as if shielding her body from the blood splattering from him. He couldn't help but feel a touch of intoxication, silently stroking her head. From her reaction, he could guess at the tragic drama that had unfolded between Ferrier and Sevra in ancient times. As someone who preferred sex before conversation, Cesar rarely experienced such dramas, but it had happened before, with Soin being one of them.

Cesar took two steps back, handed the strange beast to Ajeh and Aya, and then sat down by the tree, waiting for Sevra's invisible blades to gradually dissipate and for his wounds to slowly heal. It must be said that his current appearance was extremely miserable, as if he had been cut into pieces by a thousand cuts.

It must be admitted that the experience just now was extremely sudden and terrifying, but he was not without speculation - this matter was most likely related to the beastmen who broke into the Tomb of the Wise, and it was once again related to the ideological plague that Altinia had talked about.

Like the intentions of a dream being ripped away, something liberated the great cat from Milava's remnants. The first thing it did was to erode him, a being that wasn't a remnant. It sounded incredible, but in the Tomb of the Wise, in the remnants of the Chosen One, nothing seemed impossible.

"Don't cry, my master." Cesar comforted the girl in his arms, "Perhaps we will experience many ups and downs and pains along the way, but as time goes by, one day we can live together forever. No one will die, and no one will disappear."

Although somewhat confused, Ferriers still looked up at him, a few sparkling tears beneath her long eyelashes. Her questioning gaze seemed to want to find out the truth.

"I feel like you are her but not her...Where are you from?" she asked.

"Maybe much later."

"Are we okay after such a long time?"

"Very good, Master. Although we have been through a lot, it will not be better than it was then."

"No one will die, no one will disappear?"

"Never."

"It's always too unrealistic! I'm a mage, and I have to say, it's always too unrealistic!"

"Okay, then let's start counting from now and count for more than a thousand years."

"Will I be a great wizard by then?"

"A great master respected by everyone," he said.

Ferriers pursed her lips. Although she didn't look convinced and thought he was trying to coax her, she still came closer, like a gloomy kitten, and rubbed her cheek against his bloody cheek.

Feeling much better, Cesar struggled to his feet, only to discover that the beastmen repelled by Aya and Ajeh had vanished. A remnant of memory wouldn't vanish without a reason, so it was likely taken away. Thinking of how many ancient creatures this unknown entity might have liberated and taken from Mirava's remnants, Cesar felt the situation was rapidly deteriorating. Furthermore, compared to the ancient creatures within Mirava's remnants, the mind erosion that had just occurred was even more terrifying.

I have to deal with these things with the help of Mirava's remaining memories.

Chapter 399: Faceless and Residual Memories

Suddenly, another Beastman, freed from Milava's lingering memories, caught his eye. This time, he also spotted Gouzi. It was a slender Beastman, disguised as a page boy, lurking unnoticed in the Great Hall. It hovered in mid-air like a ghost, a shadow rising from behind it, like a dragon's head composed of inky black shadows. The dragon's maw tore open, and deep blue will-o'-the-wisp flames gushed down upon them, sweeping past the nobles in its path, eliciting a series of agonized screams.

Cesar watched as the nobles underwent a transformation, dark threads rising from their pupils. They quickly transformed from remnants of memory into carriers of unknown thoughts. However, unlike the beastmen in the remnant, the unknown beings seemed unwilling to liberate these nobles. They simply allowed their burning remains to slither forward, stumbling towards them.

As the Beastman, floating like a ghost, retreated and disappeared, Gouzi sprinted through the chaotic battlefield, through the flames and ruins—as if they weren't there. In a flash, she stood behind the Beastman, arms outstretched. The blue light of the fire shone on her golden hair and fair skin, which was clearly shrouded in thick smoke but spotless. She looked both stunningly beautiful and startlingly unreal.

Then her perfect body split open.

The Faceless One leaned forward, its split body biting onto its skull like a Venus flytrap. Gently closing, it clamped its beastly head between its torn jaws, crushing it with an almost imperceptible snap, like a watermelon. Then, a multitude of limbs pierced through its body from all over, crisscrossing and emerging from its chest.

She lifted the beastman high up and swallowed its entire upper body first. From here, it looked like a ferocious shark emerging from the seabed, biting and swallowing its prey with only two legs struggling outside her huge mouth. Then, the two legs slid into her body, and finally, the two slowly twitching feet were also included.

The dog stroked her slightly swollen belly, but it only swelled for a moment. In just a few breaths, it completely disappeared. Not only was it invisible from the outside, but it was also digested by the flesh and blood of the Faceless One. Her abdomen was flat, as if she had never eaten anything.

"It seems this remnant of memory only exists for things with souls," Ajeh said. "The so-called liberation seems to have merely given them flesh and blood. This new body is like a newborn baby. Although it harbors the brutal consciousness of the war years and has great potential, its inherent weakness remains unchanged. To the Faceless One, everything that just happened was just a piece of fresh flesh and blood suddenly appearing in the dark tomb, so she gave it..."

By the time Cesar reacted, Gouzi had already dealt with the beastmen who had just been freed from their memories, and then she was walking through the rubble of the memories as if they had never existed. She closed up into a human form, holding the spine she had just extracted from the beastmen's bodies in her hands, and swung it around like a whip, tearing apart a series of nobles who had just regained flesh from their memories.

The beastman's spine is sharp and connected by several flexible tendons. Although it looks useless, it is a perfect weapon in the hands of the Faceless Man.

Black smoke poured out from their torn bodies, engulfing the Faceless Ones. Even Ajeh was forced to retreat from these plague-like thoughts, but they passed through the dog's body like passing through cold walls and stone, dispersing in an instant. It seemed that the terror of the soul was meaningless to soulless things...

This idea is really weird.

By the time Cesar regained consciousness, this fragment of memory had ended. Instead of returning to the Tomb of the Wise, they had moved on to the next fragment. The transition from the shattered hall to the magnificent palace seemed like a fleeting moment. Though the scenery shifted, the raging flames and thick smoke remained constant, and the crumbling ruins also burned fiercely. It seemed that Milava's most profound memories were all about war, fitting for the title of the God of War's Chosen One.

Yet, amidst the smoke of the blazing fire, Gouzi stood spotlessly beside him, watching him expressionlessly as he sought his way through the maze of his soul. Using Cesar's senses, she curiously reached out and stroked the palace walls, which she couldn't touch. However, she seemed... unconcerned by all this.

She really doesn't need to care.

"Just stand next to me," Cesar said. "You look like the only sane person in this place."

"Your Firiels disappeared along with the remnant of your memory, Master," Gouzi replied. "Don't you think all you said is meaningless? It was just a dream of Milava anyway."

"If even a tiny bit of it could reach Firiels in the north, then what I've done wouldn't be in vain."

"What do you call this? Giving meaning to meaningless things makes it seem like you're not doing meaningless things?"

"Your words are getting worse and worse."

"You told me to say whatever I thought, Master."

Cesar had nothing to say, so he kicked the corpses aside, picked up a sword, and ran forward, following the screams. Every corridor he entered was littered with the bodies of beastmen and humans. The fighting and roaring obscured everything, making it easy to guess that this was also an attack supported by the Kasar Empire.

He walked through a corridor and saw Aya at the corner.

He rushed wildly, smashing the humans and beasts in the remnant into pieces, their remains embedded deep in the shattered wall. The man's eyes gleamed with blood, clearly the result of the Path Curse he had planted. Before he could reach her, Sevra emerged from his side and sprinted towards Aya.

"I'll settle the score with you later!" she said.

As Sevra left, Cesar suddenly felt that he had grown taller and stronger, as if he had suddenly transformed from a child into an adult. While she rushed over to restrain Aya, he thought about the current situation.

"When the era of the remnant memories changed, the remnants of Milava and Allandi were separated from us. Ajehe, Aya, and I were also separated. If it wasn't Milava's deliberate act, then those invading beastmen must have disturbed the remnant memories, causing the change..." He looked at the dog, "What do you see now?"

"The structure of the tomb is distorting according to Milava's remnants," Gouzi said. "Many things have become far away, many things have become close, many things have become large, and many things have become small. These changes are happening all the time. With human senses, just one glance can give you a splitting headache and nausea."

"I can imagine," Cesar said, "that walking through a tomb like this, even if it was still, would make me very uncomfortable."

"Of course, according to your words, it's probably because the spatial structure is different from reality. However, I can't say in what specific way, since you didn't study mathematics back then. If you had a deeper memory, I could use your memory to list the formulas and calculate the specific changes."

"If I hadn't studied linguistics, I would have died in the lower city of Neuen." Cesar shook his head. "By the way, how did you see both sides of the world at the same time? The residual memory, and the cemetery."

"It's not seeing," Gouzi corrected. "In this tomb, as you said, sound waves and light waves are oscillating steadily, like ripples caused by a stone falling on the water, spreading in the air and intersecting each other. Their points of origin are the centers of circles, and the changes they undergo as they spread also follow a certain pattern. As long as I receive these invisible waves, I can deduce them all the way to the source. This is the law of reality, the so-called-"

"You're starting to give me a headache, honey."

She blinked. "You didn't say math and physics gave you a headache when you were in Neuen?"

"That's how she infected me." Cesar looked at Sephora, who was holding Aya to the ground not far away. "I guess when she and I were still alone, it was this part of her that made me choose folk customs and..."

"Hey." Sevra looked back immediately.

"I'm just saying." He smiled back.

"Stop talking about your goddamn math and come help me hold this thing down," she said.

Cesar stepped forward and pinned Aya's arms. She remained irrational, roaring non-stop. Sephora placed a hand on her forehead, mumbling something in the Kuna language. Soon, Kuna inscriptions filled Aya's eyes, forcing her to push the curse to the brink. Before she could react, Sephora ripped a mangled, black-eyed body from her forehead and tossed it aside.

As the mutilated human body gradually disappeared, Aya's vision gradually returned to clarity.

Although this person had been somewhat corrupted, her mind held a whole street of dead people, including the Sassulei who had invaded Neuen and the poor of Neuen's lower town. It seemed that a dead person had shielded her from the plague of thought, allowing her consciousness to remain intact. However, the specific situation with Ajeh was difficult to say.

"The most urgent thing is to find Ajehe first," Cesar said to Sephora, "then we will go to Milava and ask what has happened to the owner of the Remnant Memory.

"She's inside you, Master," the dog said. "Didn't you notice?"