Shadow of the Evil God

They rested in the ruins and packed their belongings. The crumbling walls remained silent, and no one was seen. Aside from the gurgling stream from the water tank and a hint of cold wind, everything was still and silent. He lifted Phils from the box and laid her down on the animal hide mat he had just laid out. He reached out and gently touched her cheek, as if touching an incorruptible corpse. But he also stretched her limbs, loosening her body, which had been curled up for so long.

He often did this, sometimes even just staring blankly at her unresponsive body. It wasn't really about interest, but he felt that if he had a deep enough impression of her death, he would be able to cherish her life more.

Cesar covered Phils with another thick animal skin before going to the water's edge to observe this strange stream. His eyes followed the shallow riverbed up to the tilted water tank.

The wind suddenly died, and the temperature plummeted. He felt the chill grow bone-chilling. The withered grass inexplicably froze with a layer of ice, even the moist mud beneath his feet was covered with a thin layer of ice, tinged with a faint bluish hue. The place was unusually dim, with only a faint silver glow lingering on the White Nightmare statue, like the moonlight brought by Legotius that night, which suddenly made the chill even more pronounced. Clear water continuously gushed out of the vat, while the water within remained calm and dark, the depths within seeming unfathomable.

The wilderness was truly a strange place, and the places with human presence were even more bizarre and inexplicable. Cesar shuddered as he watched his black hair, stained by the wind and snow, brush past his eyes. He sat down on a rock on the shore and reached out to touch the stream, feeling a sharp, piercing sensation like needles.

Someone touched his shoulder, and Cesar turned to see Diana staring at her frosted hand. She frowned at it for a moment, then frowned at his face, then finally took his hand in hers, covered in firelight, and suddenly there was another pang of pain. It was the pang of melting ice on her frosted hand.

Cesar's consciousness was hazy, and he could feel the wind and snow getting stronger. He had traversed these icy mountains, fleeing the besieged city, along with many other refugees, trying to find a way to survive, to escape the true god that would tear the world apart. He kept looking back, each time gazing at the long, blood-red line in the sky, watching its belly gradually swell, as if about to give birth to a being that would bear its will.

He rubbed his increasingly cold hands as prophecies flashed before his eyes, each a branch and revelation of the future, representing a fate as intricate and complex as a spider's web. However, they could not survive any of these branches of fate. They simply moved forward numbly like a group of puppets, without hope or future, just a meaningless existence.

Cesar gazed upon his wife's frozen corpse on the road, his heart growing numb. He left the crowd and wandered through the snow-covered mountain stream, wondering what he was doing. He removed his gloves, unzipped his thick felt coat, knelt in the snow, and closed his eyes, hoping the cold night's wind and snow would completely bury him. The next morning, he opened his eyes and saw the bare hand holding his, blazing with fire. He couldn't help but want to retreat, cursing his own wavering heart.

He looked up and found himself staring at Diana, his mind in a tizzy.

"Be careful of the dead's residual memories." She stared at him and said, "You are not the kind of person who is loyal to one relationship. Know the difference between you and him."

Needless to say, it was the traces left behind by the Kuna priests. The more Cesar came into contact with the traces of those ancestors, the more he felt that their attainments in magic were incredible. The most awe-inspiring of them was

, of course, it is this kind of magic that still exists after more than a thousand years, as well as their residual memories that are still deeply engraved in the world after more than a thousand years.

He nodded, contemplating her flaming hand. So similar. A deep sorrow washed over him, and after the final straw, even the smallest thing could save his heart, shake him, and make him feel guilty. How could he respond to such an unlawful love?

Cesar nodded woodenly and walked away from the river, stumbling across the long, bluish grass. He sat down at the edge of the hide wrapped around the corpse, between the dead and the living. The cave was dark, the moonlight hazy and trance-like. A cold wind rustled the frost-covered grass, causing it to sway slightly and scatter a crystalline blue mist.

"You can't follow the deceased's choices based on their residual memories." Diana came over again. "Some memories are dangerous, especially the memories of the Kuna priests. You must distinguish them from yourself."

"I'm...trying to think," Cesar said hesitantly.

"It's more than just a thought; it's a decision." Diana leaned over and reached out to hold his shoulders. "If I use a spell to wake you now, you'll still be trapped when the spell ends. You have to distinguish the difference between the two of us yourself. Don't you remember? You have no moral burden at all in this matter."

He looked up and saw her deep blue gaze, a pair of moons reflected in her eyes. Her skin, like the surrounding ruins, was the same pale hue. He grasped her fair hand and saw her lips part slightly, inviting him closer. A pure white aura emanated from her, and in the moonlight, her face, like a stone goddess, held an indescribable tranquility.

Cesar watched without blinking, at first with reverence and admiration, from a distance, then with a hint of longing that spread like a drop of blood in water. He rested his cheek on her hand and moved closer to her, feeling two slender, white arms wrap around his neck. He sank into her embrace, feeling the warmth of her soft body sink into his heart, dispelling the quiet chill that enveloped his soul.

He felt her icy skin in his arms, her slender waist between his arms. Her lips were flawless, untainted, yet as they kissed him, he discovered the morbidity and fervor within his own soul. He inhaled the fragrance of her saliva and savored the soft, alluring touch of her tongue, a few strands of her saliva, cooling, seeping into his soul, leaving him with a sweet and wistful feeling.

After a long moment, Cesar looked up and blinked at the kiss marks on her neck and shoulders.

"I thought the guy at least did something," he said.

Diana made a sound that was unclear whether it was a laugh or a sigh.

"As far as I'm concerned, I didn't even touch that person until he died. You didn't even need to kiss me. Just holding me in your arms would have completed your decision," she said.

"Really? What a pity."

"What are you regretting?" Diana asked him back, "That person didn't do anything, but you kissed me and left a mark on my shoulder. What if that person had kissed someone else before? What do you want to do?"

"I don't know," Cesar shrugged. "It's a question of whether our feelings are deep enough."

"Anyway, it's not so profound that I treat the wasteland as my own bedroom." She sighed.

"So how do you feel?"

"Nothing," Diana said calmly. "I'm just trying to make up for my mistake and prevent the dead man's memories from getting into your head."

Cesar held her waist, knowing that some things were not over yet, in other words, that she had not yet forbidden him. So he kissed her surprised lips again. His arms tightened around her, and he felt her tense body gradually soften in his embrace, her chest pressed against his, and her hands loosened from the grip on his shoulders.

He parted his lips slightly, staring into her pale blue eyes, whispering her name, and then kissing her again, over and over again, until her arms were around him too, whispering his name as her lips parted, returning his kiss.

The kiss continued, lingering in many different ways. Cesar felt the snowstorm intensify, yet his soul lingered in a gentle warmth. Her lips were so delicate, their delicate pink hue now blazing with heat, a red so red it looked as if it could bleed, yet she still responded to his kiss. He kissed her for a long time, nibbling gently, breathing in the white mist from her breath, savoring every detail of her lips, wanting to memorize them. A love so absurd and ambiguous flowed through the dark wasteland. Even as the ancient dead withdrew, he still wanted to possess and possess every breath of warmth, every bit of beauty and love.

Chapter 234: Like a Dream

......

Needless to say, sitting beside one's lover and passionately kissing another was immoral for the ancient Guna people, but for Cesar, it was perfectly acceptable. While it was just a kiss, such a long and deep kiss was more than just lips touching lips. Afterward, Diana not only breathed a sigh of relief, but also placed her hands on her heaving chest, seemingly trying to calm her uncontrollable heartbeat.

Her ears seemed to be burning, and Cesar reached out and pinched her earlobes, feeling quite hot, and earned a very stern glare from her. She covered her lips with her hands, as if trying to soothe the swelling on her lips, but it didn't work, so she had to ignore them.

"I was just kissing you," Cesar said. "Don't tell me I crossed the line."

"My understanding of kissing is too superficial," Diana said. "I will write down the changes in my emotions just now and remember them in my heart so that I won't be caught off guard in the future."

"Signed?"

"How can it be signed?"

"Okay, now that the problem is solved, do I need to go with you to investigate that strange water tank?"

"Just stay here and watch her," Diana said. "Don't go wandering around with me."

Cesar shrugged. "I was just worried you wouldn't be able to stand still."

Diana stood up, one hand on her limp waist, her eyes scanning the stream and the frosted ground. She looked as if she wanted to take a step on her own, but hesitated. So he reached out, took her hand, kissed the back of it, and then helped her along. They crossed the frosted ruins, treading on the thin layer of ice and snow on the broken bricks.

When they reached the suspended vat, she sat down on the stone steps and began to formulate her scrying spell. She asked Cesar to bring her pen and paper to record, and to carve the images and words she needed on the ground.

Before long, the ground near the water tank was covered in various magical sigils carved with his blood, forming a series of intricate geometric shapes. To show her gratitude, Diana kissed the hand that had provided the blood, as he had wished, and pressed his finger against her lips until the wound gradually closed between them. All the while, she leered at him, asking him to keep his finger from her mouth. By the time they were done, her lips were stained with blood, looking as if they had been painted with lipstick.

"It feels so weird..." she whispered.

"strangeness?"

"I was just thinking, I clearly put in place a series of soul protections for your path, but it turned out that I was the one who couldn't stand the test of worldly emotions. Maybe my will isn't as strong as I thought."

"You speak as if you were going to be a monk and observe the rules."

"If I can resist this shallow desire, I can endure more trials of will."

"I thought it wasn't time for you to consider this."

Diana raised her chin and looked at the water tank hanging not far away. "It's just a mental expectation. I'm a mage. Although I'm still young, I think the future is not too far away," she said.

"Do you also want to carve out a part of your soul like Ferriers did?"

She shook her head. "I don't know. Perhaps she had no choice. I need to see more of the cipher manuscript to understand the situation."

"Don't think I'm disrupting your will when you're slicing your soul. Slice me first."

"Then why are you coming over here?"

"This is like an unrealistic dream," Cesar told her. "My idea is that while I can dream, I should hold on to it until I can no longer dream. No matter what happens in the future, at least I can keep dreaming now."

"Then don't dream too much, Cesar." Diana glanced at him, "Be careful not to catch this dream in time, and all the other dreams will disappear."

"Even if you didn't say so, I wouldn't be interested. When a person has to deal with a desk full of political affairs during the day, a long journey at night, and wake up to a pile of papers, it's rare to find such an opportunity."

"I've often heard you talk about wanting to leave everything behind and travel far away with just a few companions," Diana said.

"Of all the hopes, this is the most ideal yet the most unrealistic," Cesar said. "Everyone has their own identities and desires. Even if Fils is pursuing magic, without you or Itris, she can't realize herself and can only fill the void in other ways. To be honest, when she could still dream, her emotions were actually not as good as they are now. Her desire for magic is beyond my imagination, and certainly impossible to fill. I've seen her hope and disappointment time and time again, and I've heard her mumbling in her dreams like a lost soul. No matter how I try to make up for it, I can't give it to her. That's it."

"You were going to Itris, and that sounds like the ideal plan."

"If I really went to Itris, my good niece Isley would have caused me to be closely watched by various schools. If it was even worse, I might have been thrown into a magical prison. I couldn't escape the trap set by the Great Ferrières in my dream. I would either be captured by her and forced to work as a boatman, or fall completely into the Crimson Realm. Considering that two people with unknown origins can't join any school, now is actually the best time for her."

"Firs'

"She has the qualifications, and she can go to college and stand out and join a certain school, provided you can raise enough tuition." Diana said.

"Sounds like that?"

"It's certainly a good idea for her, but what are you going to do when she's acting in a college play? Are you going to hide your identity and become a hired hand?" Diana rested her hand on her chin and studied him from the side for a moment. "I think you'd be a good gangster. You've got a beard already. As Aya put it, it's like weeds sprouting out of the ground after winter."

"Uh, did it prick you?"

"More than once," she said.

Cesar scratched his beard and felt a few scars, all from Ajeh. The claw marks from this guy take a long time to heal. "Ever since he got smaller, he's been slipping his hands all the time. Maybe I should grow a bigger beard," he said.

"Did your hand slip? If you really grow a full beard, Ajeh will start scratching your face." Diana frowned and reached out to touch the claw mark on his jaw, stroking it with her fingertips. It was quite itchy. "I'm thinking," she said, "that scars like this, which even you can't heal quickly, may have something in common with water tanks."

"Really? Could there be any similarities?"

"The Beastmen are closely related to the Kuna." Diana lowered her hand, letting him take it, intertwining their fingers. "Not only are they two sides of the same coin on a philosophical level," she said, "but in terms of bloodline, the Kuna are also the true origin of the Beastmen. Just like I've always believed, the two sides of the same coin, Ajeh, weren't accidental, but inevitable."

"You're quite imaginative, young lady. Did anyone ever tell you that your imagination can run wild in bizarre directions?"

It was Ajeh's voice, right above him. Cesar looked up and saw a gray tail falling from above his head and hitting his face. "What is this? Haven't you turned into a human?"

"The Beastman's soul determines their life," Diana squeezed his hand. She didn't look surprised. "You can make her look human for a while, but flesh and blood are only a shadow of the soul. She will eventually return to her true form."

Chapter 235: Love is our mutual fault

"Be careful, Miss Mage," Ajehe said, her tone rather grim. "The secrets of this world are all thorny. If you're not careful with your hands when groping around, you might get pricked."

"Thank you for your reminder, Ajeh, but your mood now is quite strange, and the words you choose are also worth pondering. Are you hurt by me?" Diana replied.

"Punching each other is part of the conversation. It doesn't matter as long as we don't become like this person." Ajiehe responded, not forgetting to prick him as well.

Cesar suddenly realized that the Beastmen never cared about the difference between humans and beasts, just as Nauzog didn't care how ugly his human form was. To Nauzog, human beauty and ugliness meant nothing. Compared to human aesthetics, perhaps the ape-like robustness of the beasts actually suited his taste. After all, that was closer to its true appearance.

However, Ajiehe was different. Not only did she care, she cared too much. This emotion was like a thorn in her heart. If someone accidentally touched her, she would speak in a stern tone.

Humans raised her, and it seemed they had a significant influence on her. But how Ferrieres picked her up and raised her was as shrouded in fog as she herself, and nothing could be seen clearly.

"Diana," Cesar suddenly said, "Did I tell you that when my soul merged with that of the other Ajeh, we completely shared each other's memories, even our personalities became confused?"

Diana pressed her finger down and pricked the back of his hand with her nails, as if to express her opinion, telling him to consider the situation. But then she sighed and said, "That kind of thing can't happen. If souls met, they would share memories, even conflate personalities. Then the disaster that occurred before the Kasar Empire crossed the ocean wouldn't have happened."

"Thought plague?"

"Yes, the Thought Plague," she said. "The Thought Plague's mistake was that some mages believed that tens of thousands of souls would naturally merge, completely eliminating the distances and barriers between them. But the reality was that the consciousnesses of these millions of people moved back and forth in flesh and blood bodies scattered across the world like zombies. Even after the Thought Plague ended, things didn't develop as they hoped. Although later accounts were based on the confessions of those mages and are not entirely reliable, the barriers between souls were undeniable. The only thing that came close to their hope during that period was not a fusion, but a tearing and devouring of the souls."

"Since souls of this magnitude haven't merged before, it's naturally impossible for me to do so either."

"There's also a White Nightmare close to you," Diana said. "When you killed the White Nightmare in the mines of Noyen, didn't you notice that the undead that passed through your body each had their own will?"

"But it did happen," Cesar told her. He could almost recall how he felt as Ajeh, recognizing Musali as his brother, but she had been wandering in the ancient memories of the two-headed snake for too long, and her own memories were submerged in an endless ocean, making them difficult to discover.

They were there, and if he wanted to find them, he would find them.

"If you insist it happened, then so be it." Diana shook her head. "I'm already baffled by your incredible tolerance on this path, and now you've given me something I can't explain. How can I possibly understand you?"

"this......"

"Let me tell you something more recent," she said. "As for this creature above you, you've been connected with her soul for a long time, right? At one point, you could even manifest her soul's appearance in your flesh and blood, looking like a wolf. But have you received any memories or impressions?"

"What about you, Ajiehe? Why?"

Cesar looked up, only to receive a completely indifferent response. "Why do you think I'd give you my memories and personality?" she asked. "Is there any trust between us? Do you think that if two people spend enough time together, they're no longer forced to be together, and that it's natural for them to become inseparable?"

"So you're hiding something?" he asked.

"I'm hiding something," Ajeh agreed. "I'd be in a mood to tell anyone about my past, but not you, Cesar. The only way I could do that is if I ate you and then told you everything to your broken pieces."

Diana looked at Ajeh from the side. "I think she has a deep prejudice against you, Cesar. Have you done anything to offend her?" she asked.

"Unless she and I were lovers in our previous life," Cesar said.

"Where did you get your past life here?"

Hearing Diana's words, Cesar couldn't help but burst out laughing, perhaps because their conversation was too absurd. The laughter gradually faded, finally becoming a slow gasp. He reached over his head and grabbed this elusive creature, then stared at her in silence for a long moment.

Ajehe looked like a strange creature with a wolf's head and a human body, but not as completely as a werewolf, and still bore many traces of humanness. Her eyes were as big as plums, with animal pupils of light gray. Her limbs were very slender, with human arms and wolf feet. The way she moved made him sure that she was more accustomed to animal claws than human hands.

It is not entirely accurate to say that Ajiehe has a human body. Her wolf hair gradually becomes sparse from the neck down, while her arms are completely smooth and white. However, her feet are short and soft wolf claws with claw tips curled in the middle, which is unimaginable.

Just like how chaotic the body beneath her clothes was—some parts were human, and some were beasts.

Cesar pinched her foot with some curiosity and pressed down on the pad of flesh out of habit. Suddenly, she kicked him on the hand, leaving two scratches and blood splattering.

Suddenly, something strange happened. Her bloody claws suddenly retracted, the hair disappeared, and a very delicate and small girl's foot was revealed.

Seeing this, Diana's eyes widened slightly. "You can try to give her more of your blood." She leaned over to him and carefully observed the changes in Ajiehe's right foot. "I think something incredible is going to happen," she said seriously.

Cesar dipped some blood and smeared it across Ajeh's grimacing wolf-like face. Her wolf head faded strangely, as if paint were smearing a canvas, gradually revealing a pale, human face. A thin, fragile face, marked with displeasure, emerged, extending from the blood-stained wolf-like face to most of her face.

"This creature's distinction between human and beast is unstable," Diana said. "She tends to lean towards the beast, but your blood can bring back the human part of her... It seems she has a strong connection to you."

Ajeh remained unmoved. "You're quite the talker, Diana. You asked him to draw a magic circle with blood on the ground. Does that mean he has a connection to the stone bricks here?"

"Do you know what our biggest problem is right now, Ajeh?" Diana stared at her angrily. "You don't want to say anything. I gave you the cipher manuscript, but you refused to read it. Even if you only reveal a little bit, we will know everything about Ferriers' past."

"If I hadn't told you, it would mean those things were meaningless and worthless to you," Ajiehe said bluntly. "Even if you knew, it would only cause you more trouble. And if you didn't know, it wouldn't improve your situation at all."

"You just don't want to talk about it," Cesar said. "Why do you have so many excuses? You're saying it as if it's all for my own good."

Ajeh smiled and said, "Do you need me to give you my sword more, or do you need me to give you my ridiculous past more? I don't like to give myself to others without reservation. Choose one, Cesar. You can choose the latter. One day, when we die together in your body, don't ask me why I didn't help you fight."

"Okay, I won't ask anymore." Cesar immediately surrendered, picked her up and put her on his shoulders.

"See, Miss Diana? No one is better at judging the situation than him." Ajiehe spread her hands nonchalantly. "You have to learn to get used to it, instead of thinking you can change anything."