Shadow of the Evil God

"Uh?"

"I'm saying that wanting to break free isn't a sign of freedom. If you support this kind of love that comes from unknown sources, you become the mouthpiece of the school. If you support breaking free and refuse to be fooled by this love that comes from unknown sources, you become the mouthpiece of the original rebel. No matter which side you choose, you're just repeating another person's ideas and acting as their mouthpiece. So no matter what, you're not free."

"You speak like the bewitching demons of legends and tales," muttered Phirius. "The great temples will surely find a way to burn you at the stake."

Seeing Aya nodding in agreement, Cesar couldn't help but cough twice more. "I'm saying that free thought is far more difficult than one might imagine. It's fair to say there are very few truly free people in this world. Slaves of one mindset use their slavery to mock the slavery of another mindset. This happens all the time, and this is the world we live in. Some remarkable free individuals created spiritual worlds, and then used their thoughts to rule future generations of humanity. This is how the world is constructed."

"You remind me of the philosophy of the Guna people that my teacher taught me when I was a child," Ferriers said. "So you're saying that most people's lives are actually enslaved by the thoughts of others? And yet they think they are free, and that this is the human norm, right?"

"That's a theoretical generalization," Cesar agreed. "In Kuna terms, it's called worldly knowledge, unobscured knowledge. What I'm going to talk about next is obscured knowledge."

"Hidden knowledge... such an ancient saying," she muttered.

"What if some people, or let me be frank, I think it was the ancestors of the Kuna people? There was one—or maybe a few, or even a school of thought—who applied this theory to magic? They used a system of magic passed down from generation to generation—specifically, the tradition of your Yestren school—to pass on this ruling ideology to future generations? What do you think would happen?"

"You mean, as long as we still use the school's spells, even if we just read the school's theories and understand the school's ideas since childhood, we are providing a soul and body for an ancient ghost to come and go as it pleases."

"That's it," Cesar said.

Ferris frowned, "You speak as if you've experienced it yourself... It's too clear, don't you think?"

"I experienced that not long ago," he said, shaking his head, "but it was much rougher."

"A lot rougher?"

"A plague-like thought has corroded me, making me feel that it possesses great value, that it is irreplaceable, that it should be preserved and continued forever. Moreover, I feel that I am worthless. Therefore, I should sacrifice my soul, I should stifle my thoughts, and erase my personality like the useless words in an old book, leaving nothing behind. I need to turn myself into a completely blank book, and I do this only to record that thought. If even the slightest trace of my thoughts and personality is not erased, I am tainting its words with my words."

"So, if you continue your thought process and think of that winter night..." Ferris fell into deep thought. "If this isn't an isolated case, if my school also has a similar origin. If a terrifying being rules us with thought and knowledge, and makes us live within the knowledge it created, then the continuation of my bloodline from generation to generation is actually an expression of the need for this rule, an expression of its will."

"That sounds a bit desperate."

She pursed her lips. "It means that no matter how hard we struggle, as long as our thoughts still live in its mind, it's all in vain. Since it can replace us at any time and observe the world through our eyes, it doesn't need to worry about us doing anything. Grandmaster Ferriers realized this and abandoned her own thoughts and personality, living solely as a soul."

"So I came to the Tomb of the Wise." Cesar picked up the map she had put in her bag. "I tried to trace back to the earliest times of the Kuna people, perhaps even earlier than the origins of the Yestren School."

"You are in the Tomb of the Wise?" Her eyes widened.

Chapter 408: Master and Servant

"In a sense, I'm actually following in your footsteps," Cesar said to her. "We believe you were the last person to visit the Tomb of the Wise. After you, everything about the Tomb of the Wise was lost to later generations. We followed the remnant memories of a Kuna man, and through him, I learned about its past and that you had been to the Tomb of the Wise."

“It’s amazing how the world has changed,” Ferriers murmured. “So much has been forgotten… like it never happened.”

"What do you know about the Tomb of the Wise? I see you care about that map."

She nodded. "Do you know there's a saying? It's the mother who gives birth to a child, but as the child grows up, the person who raises him gradually changes from his mother to the world. Every moment, the world takes something from him, while leaving something else. Those that are taken away become remnants of his memories, and those that remain gradually replace everything his mother gave him, eventually making him become the world itself."

“Is this a metaphor or a description?”

"It's not a metaphor, it's a description, it's a fact." Ferris raised her index finger at him. "The world isn't unconscious. It takes things from people. It remembers our existence and the suffering we endure. The me you see now is actually the past that the world has taken from Ferris."

Cesar stroked her cheek. "So the one responding to me here wasn't actually Ferrieres, but the Ferrieres this world remembers. So am I actually entangled with this world? It's fascinating. What's the connection between this theory and the Tomb of the Wise?"

Ferriers smiled, squinting her eyes and rubbing her cheek against his hand, like a kitten. She grasped the back of his hand with her soft little hand, caressing it, and he felt a sense of satisfaction in his heart.

"The sages' initial exploration was to explore this world, which is not without consciousness." She leaned into his arms and breathed softly into his palm. "The ancients believed that the world was split in two, torn into reality and wasteland. The abyss was the scar that appeared at that time, containing immense darkness and nothingness. The sages believed that this scar allowed people to see the true knowledge beneath the surface of the world and gain insight into the hidden knowledge."

"What exactly is it? I mean, the hidden knowledge."

She tilted her face to look at him and said, "Understand why it is unconscious, why it takes things from people, why it remembers people's existence but does not respond to their suffering. The wise man stayed on the edge of the abyss for a long time, and then he gained enlightenment. He came to this place and used his magic to open a scar for people to explore the hidden knowledge."

Cesar realized that obscured knowledge originally referred to the unknown beneath the surface of the world. "Obscured" wasn't a metaphor; it meant that true knowledge lay literally beneath the surface of the world. The so-called third horizon, the shattered realms deep within the wasteland, and the darkness and nothingness of the abyss—they were all, in varying degrees, ways of penetrating the surface of the world.

"So, the Tomb of the Wise is actually a man-made abyss?" he asked.

She shook her head slightly. "I don't know what happened in later generations, but in the past, it wasn't an abyss, just a small scar. Wise men used this scar to build a great sanctuary for people to worship. So, this place is neither terrifying nor dark and empty. The Kuna people of later generations have always conversed and meditated in this sanctuary, studying the hidden knowledge."

"When I came here, it was already almost the same as the Abyss," Cesar pointed out. "The tide of the Abyss rises and falls here like the tide on the beach."

Hearing this, Ferriers looked melancholy. She snuggled closer to him. "How should I put it?" she whispered. "Unlike the later Franks, who painstakingly explored the wasteland, the Kuna can easily penetrate the knowledge beneath the surface of the world in the Tomb of the Wise. What we have to do deep in the wasteland, they can comprehend and understand in just a short time in the Tomb of the Wise. Because time is entwined in this place, they can stay as long as they want, but when they leave, only a moment has passed."

"It's quite similar to my current situation," Cesar said, "but my situation is much more dangerous. There are many unpredictable things that threaten our journey and operations."

Ferriers looked up at him, a questioning look that seemed to pry into the truth. "You've been spending so much time in the wasteland and the Tomb of the Wise. What have you been doing? Have you comprehended or understood any secrets?"

"I'm looking for and kissing Ferriers of every age."

"You are such a..."

"I'm telling the truth." Cesar lowered his head, touching the tip of her fair, lovely nose, causing it to bend upwards. It would have been fine if it had just been an invisible object covered in blue runes, but now they were face to face, their eyes locked. Cesar closed his eyes with a smile, but she didn't dare blink, her face flushed. She opened her mouth to kiss him, but was too embarrassed to move closer. "This is the most important purpose," he whispered, pressing his forehead against hers, his nose gently rubbing against hers. "You must believe me. No matter which remnant of memory I'm in, the first thing I do is find you."

She bit her lower lip, which was shining with moisture, and lowered her voice, "Are you teasing me? Are you teasing me?"

"This

It's hard to say." Cesar hugged her waist, grasped her young breasts, and circled her delicate beads with his fingers. "Do you think so, my little master?"

Their lips touched again, and she brought them to his with a hazy affection, licking them gently with her small tongue. After a long moment, she panted softly, her eyes moist, and she snuggled even deeper into his embrace. Glistening tears still clung to her long eyelashes. "Can I call you Sister Sevra?"

"Well, my name is Sai..."

"I can call you whatever I want! I am your master, no matter who you think you are, you are now going to talk to me like that!"

Ajiehe clapped her hand on his shoulder, bent down, and gave him an ambiguous smile. No matter what this person saw, he would rush over to laugh at him immediately, and she would be in trouble later.

"Okay, I'll do whatever you say," Cesar said, smiling and comforting her. "Let's continue talking about the Tomb of the Wise, my little master. I really haven't comprehended or understood anything, because I'm neither a mage nor a Kuna warrior. What I deal with most is war and power. This kind of thing can't be explored in an uninhabited wasteland or tomb..."

"You are actually playing the role of Milava?" Ferriers opened her eyes wide, "How terrible... Then am I also playing the role of Alanti? I don't want to..."

Cesar shook his head in denial. "Grandmaster Ferrieres is a more formidable manipulator of power than even Milava, but I assure you, the Ferrieres beside me has nothing to do with power. Those matters of power that I cannot take care of are considered and handled by your descendants."

"It seems I took that step voluntarily." She folded her hands over her chest. "Well, speaking of the Tomb of the Wise, my sister and I used to often read and discuss past history. I remember one passage that said that everything in the world actually contains three levels."

"Three levels..." Cesar pondered.

Ferris shook his hand again. "The first level of things is the surface of things, the things that farmers see in the countryside. For example, an old horse eats a mouthful of hay. This old horse is a real old horse, and the hay is also real hay. This thing itself is everything on this level."

Cesar gently stroked her head, "And then?"

"The next level is the meaning and insight that extends from this event. People peek through the surface to see the world beneath, but they don't see clearly, they only speculate and infer. Because everything is closely related to everything else, a wise person can infer everything in the world from just observing a small thing. So-called prophecy is a manifestation of this level."

Cesar nodded and encouraged her to continue, "Then the last level is..."

"It's hidden knowledge," she said, "a vision that penetrates the surface, a meaning that transcends the essence. Everything has a origin and expresses the same truth. According to the myths and legends of the Kuna people, our souls, flesh, consciousness, and existence are actually expressions of Analik, the true god who began the passage of time and made order work. The other gods are actually incarnations that fell from Analik after he became aware of his own existence."

"Finally, they returned to Analik..." He frowned and said, "Let's assume that all the gods are the incarnation of Analik. Then why do they all have different ideas?"

"The Kuna say the gods are traitors."

"Um...it's hard for me to say which of these two statements is more reliable compared to the statement that all gods are demons. Can we be more specific? At least it will be more useful to my situation." Cesar asked her.

They stared at each other for a long time. Although Ferris was very dissatisfied with the direction of his attention, their lips touched again. He kissed her soft lips, touched the tip of her nose, put his arm around her waist and rubbed her ears, gently caressed the sensitive part of her waist, and rubbed his thumb against her smooth belly. Finally, she completely gave in, her face flushed. She hugged his neck and whispered, "Sister Sevra," and clung to him more and more. "You are so hateful..." Her voice was wet and soft, "Why am I... It's really despairing."

Aya kept coughing beside him, and her eyes moved over and then away.

"Perhaps servants all want to love their masters." Cesar said, pressing his lips against her burning earlobe, "Are you feeling okay, my little master?"

Chapter 409 Double Agent

"To be more specific," Firiels swallowed, "things that have always been hidden, or hidden beneath the surface of reality, are now easily accessible. The structure of reality, which should have been stable, is like a fortress built of sand, which will collapse at the slightest push. Remnants of memory not only invade reality, but even cover it, drawing out other remnants within remnants. If a mage deliberately guides them, remnants that would otherwise dissipate will linger like mad ghosts, gathering more and more."

"That sounds incredible," Cesar said.

"It's not incredible at all," she denied. "All residual memories are actually the world's memories of people. Just like the second level, they are closely related to each other. So whose residual memories are these places?" She poked his face with her finger, as if accusing him of not remembering her words.

"Milavar and Alanti," he said.

"Is this the remnant of their shared memories..." Fioriels lowered her head and fiddled with her fingers. "The Chosen One, Milava, and my sister, who may have been replaced by an ancient consciousness... Both of them are very dangerous. What will their relationship be like in the future? Will they still be close?"

"I can't say for sure, but when I found their remains, their heads had been cut open and sewn together. The left half was Milava's, and the right half was Alanti's. Judging from many signs, they both ended up having a fierce conflict and disagreement. Now, in their residual memories, they also..."

"Intrigues like all the other palace stories?"

"Milava knows he's a remnant of memory," Cesar pondered. "Not only that, he's actively trying to recall past events from those memories, first the attack in the auditorium, and then this one. As for Allandi, she seems to think this is reality. Milava says he's deliberately deceiving her, making her think it's reality."

"It's such a headache," Ferriers complained. "They were so close in that era, and I don't know what changed in their relationship later."

"What has changed during this time?"

"It seemed like they naturally got better," she said. "At first, I thought Milava only loved her teacher who lived in seclusion on the edge of the abyss, and that my sister's attempts to please her were in vain. Later, when I saw them again, they had already been together on the battlefield for a long time. Perhaps something happened, but they just became close."

"What was their relationship like when the auditorium was attacked?"

"We are still relatively unfamiliar with each other and are keeping a certain distance," she said.

"So Milava deliberately omitted the fragments of her memories from that period..." Cesar said. "Looking at it that way, it's unrealistic to expect someone to reveal the full picture of the past through their fragments. Do you think Milava is trustworthy?"

"I believe that except for the few who have always been by my side, no one in the world can be trusted. So, if you ask me this, I don't know how to answer you. In recent years, I have often observed humans from different places in the palace, and I have gradually realized the extremes and flaws in my character. Many of the persistences in my childhood have also changed. Leaning in another person's arms like this has actually not happened in many years - it seems to be seven or eight years ago. I thought my sister would be with me for the rest of my life... Kiss me again."

Ferrieres' eyes gleamed in the darkness of the side room. She clutched his hand, her eyelashes fluttering as she gazed at him with deep affection. She seemed to see him as both a sister and a brother, as the one she was destined to possess and the one he was destined to possess. Cesar felt that this look contained every flaw in her character, and when he kissed her, every flaw of hers was reflected in him, indulged by him, and compensated for by him.

She seems to have grown a little, but in which direction?

Cesar caressed her shoulders, and as they kissed, he felt her reach out to touch his chest, kneading it with the same technique he had used through the thin clothing. Sephora seemed to struggle, but was unable to break free. A few blue runes quietly blocked her escape route, locking them both together.

Ferris placed her lips close to his ear and spoke in a dark voice, "I know a part of you escaped, Sevra, but I want to feel all of you. If you still want to know the past, you must stay here with him."

"Have you noticed that the Ferris in your remnant memories is getting closer and closer to that Grandmaster Ferris?" Sephora's voice came over immediately. "Is this what the Ferris next to you would say?"

Cesar gazed at Ferris's gloomy eyes and pale cheeks, stroking the intertwined blue runes on her neck, his fingers slowly descending along one of the curves until they reached her delicate shoulder. He pondered Sevra's opinion as he responded to Ferris's gaze, pulling open her shirt and kissing her bare, snow-white shoulders. "People change a lot as they grow older," he thought, "and she seems..."

"If Milava's remnants continue to trace back to the future, the situation of Sefera will become increasingly dire, and the Ferriers you found will become increasingly extreme. I think this Ferriers is already different from the Ferriers in the auditorium.

It’s big, and it will get even bigger in the future,” said Sephora.

"I'll try to comfort her," Cesar thought.

"I hope so." Sevra sighed. "But Firiels does hold many lost secrets. Given Sevra's relationship with her back then, it's certainly more reliable for us to question her than to follow Milava's remnants. It's just..."

"You speak as if you're not Sevra. Can you just stay out of this?"

"Tsk, isn't it enough that I accepted the name?"

"You mean you accept the name and that's it, and I'll take care of the rest?"

"Isn't it possible?"

"Then you just stay here and take it," Cesar thought. "I don't care anyway."

"Hey, what do you mean you don't care?"

"I'm enjoying the comfort of my lover. What's the big deal?"

Ajeh truly didn't care, even if others didn't say anything. She'd initially admired him from behind, but when Ferrieres pulled his clothes aside, buried her face in his chest, and began kissing the body of the Sevra of yesteryear, she too became interested. She leaned over and pressed her full breasts against his face, the pressure instantly bringing a soft, tender touch.

Cesar enjoyed Ferrieres's kiss, caressing her head. He tilted his head back, his tongue grazing Ajeh's rosy nipples, bringing a trace of her fluids to meet her slippery tongue, and they kissed again. Ajeh wrapped her breasts around his neck, caressing it gently. He would sometimes hold Ferrieres's head, burying her face deeper in his, and sometimes twist his neck to rub against Ajeh's breasts, soothing the fatigue of the journey.

At the end of the kiss, he lifted Ajiehe's right breast and brought it to her mouth, watching her bite the bright red pearl with her teeth, stretching it out, deforming her plump and beautiful breasts and oozing out streams of juice. Then he raised his face again and pressed his tongue against hers, teasing her tongue tip while he caught the strands of her white, sweet juice from between her lips and licked the strands of her translucent saliva.

Her lightly fragrant juice intoxicated him. He squeezed her breasts, then lowered his head, lifted Ferriers's chin, and kissed her in her confused gaze.

At the end of the kiss, Ferrieres pursed her lips, as if confused about what she had just swallowed. "You'll find a very naughty little girl someday and raise her like an adopted daughter." Cesar put his mouth close to her ear and lowered his voice. "She's watching you right next to you."

"Really?" Ferriers frowned and said, "How strange. Does that mean it's also inherited from her ancestors?"

Cesar looked up at Ajeh, who said nothing, simply spreading her hands to show she was completely unconcerned. "I suppose," he said. "I suppose it was you who entrusted her with delivering the other part of Sevra to the lands of the Sasoulai, and she became a more, uh, taciturn creature."

"Where you came from, that's where you'll go..." Firiel murmured to herself. "From what you said, I only returned part of Sevra, sending her back to the grasslands where the Sassulai people live. But there's another part, which is you, that I returned using other methods."

Cesar breathed a sigh of relief. With the enigmatic facts as a shield, his emotions finally subsided. "I woke up on an altar dedicated to Analik," he said.

"Even if you say so, I don't know why this happened." Ferriers shook her head and said, "If you only follow the memories that Milava cares about, it's hard to guarantee that the crucial years won't be overlooked, or even deliberately concealed by Milava. Have you considered awakening my sister?"

"What?" They both asked this question almost at the same time. Cesar was surprised by the proposal, and Sephora was also surprised.

"One residual memory is not continuous with another," said Ferriers. "That is to say, from the residual memory of the attack on the auditorium to the current residual memory, for Milava, it is like a person sleeping and coming from one day to another. If Milava deceived Alanti in her residual memory, you go to wake Alanti and enter her residual memory. I guess in her residual memory, she will also deceive Milava. By alternating between the residual memories of the two people who deceived each other, you can examine what happened that year from two different directions, and go to the past that one person does not want to face but the other person remembers vividly. Of course, um, and me..."

"Have you seen a smaller Ferris? Smaller than the one next to me?"

"Bigger Ferriers!" Ferriers opened her eyes wide. "When you meet me in a few years, you'll know how terrifying I am. By then, you'll be the one calling me sister!"

Cesar lifted his shirt and buttoned it. Honestly, Sephora's chest wasn't much bigger than his own, and the width was even smaller. Phils had bitten it many times, leaving many teeth marks. Such love games weren't novel, and instead, because of her inexperience, they lacked some flavor. "I can roughly guess," he said. "So, according to what you said, the residual memories that Milava intentionally concealed can be found in Alanti's, and the residual memories that Alanti intentionally concealed can also be found in Milava's."

"That's a good idea," Sevra said suddenly, as if she had put in some effort.

She restrained herself from attacking him. "But you have to consider the threat these two individuals pose, Cesar. Simply following Milava's remnant is fine, but if you want to be a spy, switching sides between Milava and Alanti, each preparing their own narrative, you'll have to find a way to conceal this from both of them."

"Ferriels of all ages can serve as our informants."

"The premise is that you can appease Ferriers, who is older and more mentally unstable than she is now."

"Isn't that because you were discovered when you fled in a hurry just now?"

"Come on, do you think everyone treats love affairs as if they were just food and water, just like you do?"

Chapter 410: The Curled World

It was clear that Ferrieres was eager to seize the initiative in their relationship—in other words, to be the master—but it wasn't long before she collapsed again. When Cesar removed his fingers from beneath her soaking wet body, she was panting, her clothes half undressed, her cheeks flushed, unable to speak, let alone pay attention to his exchange of thoughts with Sevra.