Chapter 413

Chapter 413: The Next Record.

Although Vanna had known Morris for many years, in her eyes he had always been just a gentle, cultured Scholar. Back in the city-state of Pland, this old mister spent most of his energy in the classroom. The rest of his time was either spent in the library or being invited by various schools to give lectures.

Vanna had not had many chances to see what this elder could really do in the supernatural field.

But ever since she went aboard the Vanished, she finally started to see another side of Morris and realized what those harmless-looking Scholars who followed the God of Wisdom Rahm relied on to carry out their work—

It was one of the most dangerous jobs in this world: the pursuit of knowledge.

But when she thought about it carefully, it made sense. Scholars should have their own unique and powerful strength. After all, there were many beings in this world that chased after knowledge—from Abyssal Demons to Spirit Realm phantoms and more. Yet in the end, most knowledge still fell into the hands of mortals. Why was that? Because mortal Scholars had strong academic power…

Vanna rubbed her forehead and forced herself to stop her wild thoughts. She muttered: “So you were this strong… If I had known, I would have paid more attention in class back then. Maybe I could have…”

Morris shook his head with a straight face: “No. Your grades were far too low. Training your body suits you better.”

Vanna felt a little embarrassed: “I still graduated from the city-state university in the end…”

Morris glanced at her: “One third of your credits came from athletics, and one third came from Church training.”

Vanna fell silent. After a few seconds of quiet, she looked toward the thick fog around them and forced the topic to change: “The cultist you killed should be the controller behind those replica freaks, right?”

Morris shook his head: “At most, he was only one of the controllers. Did you hear the sounds coming from the other districts? The whole city-state is full of those monsters now. Who knows how many cultists have already used the thick fog to enter the Mortal Realm… We will not be able to wipe them all out by ourselves.”

Vanna nodded with a grave expression. She was about to say something else when something caught the corner of her eye. She let out a soft: “Huh?”

She walked over to the dead Annihilator, crouched down to examine the body, grabbed the man’s collar, and tore it open.

The flesh under the clothes was melting and writhing, showing the look of being soaked in the corruption of black sludge. As the body’s true life faded, the movement of that sludge slowed visibly and then began to dry up.

“This is also a replica?!” Vanna’s eyes widened in shock. She could hardly believe what she had found. “These cultists… even turned their own people into replicas?!”

“No, it’s not that simple,” Morris said with a frown. He was also carefully inspecting the cultist’s body while recalling details of the battle. After a moment, he slowly shook his head. “I sensed his thought waves. They were not the same as a replica’s. replicas have clear breaks in their thinking that are different from humans. Even if they can act like normal people, the instability of elements itself keeps them from maintaining a stable mind. This cultist did not have that problem.”

As he spoke, he pointed to the flesh on the cultist’s chest that was covered by black sludge.

“And more importantly, look at this part. He is not completely made of elements. elements and normal flesh exist at the same time. This looks more like a symbiotic pact, or… self-corruption.”

Vanna stared at that place for a long time, and her brows slowly furrowed. “These heretics actively used elements to corrupt themselves? They even replaced part of their own flesh with elements… That is disgusting. Even for Annihilators, this level of perversion is impressive.”

Morris’s tone stayed calm: “I don’t think it’s much different from those Annihilators who turn themselves into Abyssal Demons. These madmen hate the mortal flesh of this world. They never mind using the craziest methods to remake themselves.”

As he spoke, his attention shifted to something else.

He looked at the Black Leather Tome the cultist had been holding in his hand.

After a brief hesitation, the Old Scholar reached out and tugged the book free from the cultist’s tightly clenched fingers.

“Careful,” Vanna warned at once when she saw this. “That book may contain filthy, blasphemous content. The power of the Sun has already weakened. If you touch it rashly…”

Morris shook his head lightly: “Scholars always open new and mysterious books. For us, every act of reading is a challenge and an adventure. Don’t worry. The Rahm sect has special training and techniques for reading in situations like this. You just need to stand guard for me. And if anything is drawn here by this book, help me deal with it.”

Vanna hesitated for a moment, then nodded with a serious face: “…All right.”

Morris gave a soft “mm” and finished a quick prayer in his heart. Then he took a small vial of herbal powder from his coat. He poured half of it on the ground and lit it, and sprinkled the other half over the book before him. After that, he checked the state of the colorful rune bead bracelet on his wrist. Only then did he sit cross-legged on the ground with due solemnity and place the book on his lap.

The book’s cover was pitch black. There were no words or symbols on the surface, only faint, fine net-like patterns pressed into the hard shell. There was no way to tell where it came from.

Morris opened the cover and looked at the contents inside.

Vanna turned her gaze away, trying her best not to be affected by the book.

Some messy lines and symbols came into Morris’s view.

At first, he could not understand what he was seeing at all. The messy symbols and lines did not match any language or ancient script he knew. But when he tried to turn to the next page, the marks on the paper suddenly began to move. The ink strokes turned into living, crawling things that rushed through the prison of the paper. The jumping characters pricked at the Old Scholar’s vision. In just a few seconds, he felt that he had already begun to understand what the pages were recording.

The symbols and lines twisted rapidly. Everything on the pages trembled before his eyes, and the “knowledge” was projected straight into his mind!

Morris’s heart stirred. The defenses and reflex measures he had set up in his sea of consciousness activated at once. In the next instant, his main awareness pulled back and his reason solidified. He seemed to turn into a bystander, standing behind his “self” in the Mortal Realm from a lofty, unreal angle, calmly and clearly reading the contents that were appearing in his own mind.

“…The meetings of the forsaken Elder Kings were held again and again, and the first plan was set…”

“Those who were abandoned—their flesh would melt in the light…”

After reading only two lines, the phantom “self-projection” of Morris frowned.

This was what had been written on the slip of paper that the young informant named Crow brought back when the captain first led a team to explore the Second Waterway. It was that vague, origin-unknown passage that seemed to be some kind of ancient record—the Sacred Script!

Morris’s eyes changed slightly. He at once controlled his body to turn the pages, letting his eyes read those twisted, blasphemous lines and form the matching memories in his mind, then read that content from his bystander’s point of view.

He saw more Sacred Script. And after the section Crow had copied, there were indeed more broken sentences:

“…After the forsaken clan departed, the creation of all things still went on as planned. The forsaken Elder Kings began to design the first and final Blueprint…”

“Yet that first Blueprint was soon cast aside, for the aftershocks of the Great Annihilation kept raging through the mortal world… the Elder Kings gathered dust into stone, and stone into stars, but the stars shattered and broke apart and could not endure…”

“Thus the pale king of the giants, ‘Salmir’, fell in the first Long Night of the Genesis Protocol…”

“…Then the Elder Kings began to design a second Blueprint. They chose one among themselves to be the Creator. The first chosen one was the King of Dreams, also called the King of Knowledge and Memory, for this mighty one had indeed shown sacred miracles of creation…”

“But the second Blueprint also failed. The King of Dreams was torn apart in the second Long Night of the Genesis Protocol, and part of Him drifted along the border of the Mortal Realm…”

“The third Blueprint was entrusted to another king to carry out. His name was the Crawling King, also called the Lord of the Swarm. He was the common master of countless tiny, unseen things. He held the divine authority of creation and also the divine authority of the opposite of creation… And there was a Truth that called Him the ‘Big Brother of Wisdom’.”

“…Then the Crawling King began His work. In the third Long Night, He gave the Blueprint to the swarm and sought a helper from the clans that still remained. To avoid repeating the fate of the King of Dreams and the pale king of the giants, He divided that Blueprint. He made it so that the mortal world would no longer have nations. The nations became one thousand and two hundred cities, and He let that clan rule the first ten cities and gave them the name ‘Critt’.”

“Thus the third Long Night passed in peace. This was good.

“Yet the forsaken Elder Kings were displeased with the Crawling King for changing the Blueprint, and they blocked His way back to the holy throne. But the clan of the Ten Cities was grateful to the Crawling King. They did not dare praise this king before the Elder Kings, so they gave Him another revered name. They called Him holy, and named Him—

“the Abyssal Lord.”