Chapter 17 So It Was

Though he had been an old acquaintance of Morris for many years, Vanna had always seen Morris as a gentle and refined scholar—back in the Pland City-State, the old man spent most of his energy in the classroom, and the rest of his time was spent either in the library or being pulled by some school to give a speech.

Vanna didn't have many opportunities to understand this elder's "extraordinary abilities" in the field of the supernatural.

But since boarding the *Vanished*, she had finally begun to see another side of Morris and realized what those seemingly harmless scholars who followed the Wisdom God Lahm relied on to complete their work—

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

But thinking about it carefully, this was normal. Scholars should have unique and powerful abilities. After all, there are many beings chasing knowledge in this world, from the abyssal demons to the spectral phantoms, but in the end, most of the knowledge is caught up by mortals. What do they rely on? They rely on the strong academic level of mortal scholars.

Vanna rubbed her forehead, trying hard to control the wild thoughts in her head, and casually muttered, "So you're so amazing... If I had studied hard back then, maybe..."

"No, you're too far behind," Morris shook his head expressionlessly. "It's more suitable for you to exercise diligently."

Vanna was immediately a little embarrassed: "At least I graduated from the City-State University smoothly..."

Morris glanced at her: "Sports specialty accounted for one-third of the credits, and church advanced studies accounted for one-third of the credits."

Vanna didn't say anything. After a few seconds of silence, she turned her gaze to the surrounding thick fog, stiffly changing the subject: "The cultists you eliminated should be the controllers of those counterfeit freaks?"

"At most, one of the controllers," Morris shook his head. "Did you hear the movements from other blocks? Now the whole City-State is full of those monsters, and I don't know how many cultists have taken advantage of the fog to enter the real world... We probably can't eliminate them all by ourselves."

Vanna nodded with a solemn expression, but just as she was about to say something, the corner of her eye suddenly noticed something, and she let out a soft "Huh."

She came to the side of the dead Annihilation cultist, squatted down to check the condition of the corpse, reached out and grabbed the other party's collar, and tore it open casually.

The flesh and blood under the clothes were melting and wriggling, showing the appearance of being contaminated and soaked by black mud, and as the body's main body died, the speed of the mud wriggling was also visibly slowing down, and gradually showing a dry appearance.

"... This is also a counterfeit?!" Vanna widened her eyes in astonishment, not daring to believe her discovery. "These cultists... even made their own people into counterfeits?!"

"No, it's not that simple," Morris frowned. He was also carefully examining the cultist's corpse and recalling the details of the battle just now. After a moment, he slowly shook his head. "I sensed his thought fluctuations, and they are different from the counterfeits—those counterfeits have obvious discontinuities in their thinking process that are different from humans. Even if they can behave like normal people, they cannot maintain a stable consciousness because of the instability of the ‘Source’ itself, but this cultist does not have this problem."

Saying that, he pointed to the cultist's chest, the flesh covered by black mud.

"And more importantly, this part, look, he is not made of Source—Source and normal flesh and blood coexist, which is more like symbiosis, or... self-contamination."

Vanna stared at that position for a long time, her brows gradually furrowing: "These heretics take the initiative to contaminate themselves with Source? Even replace part of their flesh and blood with Source... This is a bit disgusting, even for the Annihilation cultists, it's an impressively perverted degree."

Morris's tone was still quite calm: "I don't think there is much difference between them and those Annihilation cultists who transform themselves into abyssal demons. These madmen hate the flesh and blood of the mortal world, and they never mind using the most crazy methods to transform themselves."

Saying that, his attention was focused on other things.

He looked at the black leather book that the cultist had been holding in his hand.

After a little hesitation, the old scholar reached out and forcefully pulled the book from the cultist's tightly clasped fingers.

"Be careful," Vanna immediately reminded him when she saw this, "This book may contain blasphemous and filthy content! Now that the power of the sun has weakened, rashly contacting it..."

"Scholars always open new and mysterious books. For us, every reading is a challenge and an adventure," Morris shook his head gently. "Don't worry, the Lahm Sect has special training and coping skills for reading in this situation. You only need to be on guard by my side, and if anything is attracted by this book, help me get rid of it."

Vanna hesitated for a moment, then nodded with a serious expression: "... Okay."

Morris hmmmed, completed a quick prayer in his heart, then took out a small bottle of herbal powder from his pocket, poured half of it on the ground and lit it, and sprinkled the other half on the book in front of him. Then, he confirmed the state of the string of colored stone bracelets on his wrist before solemnly sitting cross-legged on the ground and placing the book on his lap.

The cover of this book was pitch black, with no words or symbols on the surface. Only faint, dense mesh patterns could be seen printed on the hard shell cover, making it completely impossible to judge its origin.

Morris opened the cover of the book and looked at the contents of the inner pages.

Vanna, on the other hand, looked away, trying to avoid being affected by the book.

Some messy lines and symbols came into Morris's eyes.

At first, he couldn't understand what he was seeing at all. Those messy symbols and lines didn't conform to any language or ancient script he knew. But when he tried to turn the next page, the traces on those pages suddenly began to move—the ink marks turned into living, wriggling things, traveling quickly in the paper-constructed cage. The jumping characters stimulated the old scholar's vision. In just a few seconds, he felt that he had begun to understand the records in the pages.

Those symbols and lines were twisting quickly, everything in the book was trembling before his eyes, and "knowledge" was directly mapped into his mind!

Morris's heart moved. The protection and emergency measures set in his sea of consciousness were instantly activated. In the next second, the main consciousness was withdrawn, and reason solidified. He seemed to instantly become an observer, standing behind the "himself" in the real world from a transcendent and illusory perspective, calmly and soberly reading the content that was emerging in his brain.

"... The meetings of the Forgotten Kings opened again and again, and the initial plan was set..."

"... Those who are abandoned, their flesh will melt in the light..."

After reading only two sentences, Morris's illusory "self-projection" suddenly frowned.

This was what the young informant named "Crow" had brought back on a piece of paper when the captain first led the team to explore the second waterway! It was that vague, unknown "hieroglyphic" record that was suspected of being some kind of ancient record!

Morris's eyes changed slightly, and he immediately controlled his body to turn the pages of the book, allowing his eyes to read those blasphemous and twisted words, and forming corresponding knowledge memories in his mind. Then, he read the content in his brain from the perspective of an observer.

He saw more hieroglyphic records, and after the content copied by Crow, some fragmented sentences appeared:

"... After the abandoned clan left, the creation of all things continued as planned. The Forgotten Kings began to design the first and final blueprint..."

"However, that first blueprint was quickly abandoned, because the aftermath of the Great Annihilation was turbulent in the mortal world... The kings gathered dust into stone, and gathered stone into stars, but the stars collapsed and shattered, unable to last long..."

"The Pale Giant King 'Salmir' therefore fell on the first long night of Genesis..."

"... The kings then began to design the second blueprint. They selected one from among themselves to be the creator. The first one selected was the King of Dreams, also known as the Great One, 'King of Knowledge and Memory', because this Great One had indeed shown the miracle of creation..."

"But the second blueprint also failed, so the King of Dreams was torn apart on the second long night of Genesis. Part of him drifted in the border of the real world."

"The third blueprint was handed over to another king to execute, whose name was the 'Crawling King', also known as the 'Lord of the Cluster'. He was the co-lord of countless invisible and tiny things, holding the power of creation, and also holding the power of the opposite of creation... There is also truth, called 'Brother of Wisdom'."

"... The Crawling King then began her work on the third night, giving the blueprint to the cluster, and seeking help from the surviving clans. To avoid repeating the mistakes of the King of Dreams and the Pale Giant King, she divided the blueprint, so that the mortal world would no longer have countries, and that the countries would be transformed into one thousand two hundred cities, and that the clan would take charge of the first ten cities, giving them the name 'Crete'."

"The third night passed peacefully like this. This is good."

"But the Forgotten Kings were dissatisfied with the Crawling King's change of the blueprint, so they blocked the road back to the Holy Throne. The clans of the ten cities were grateful to the Crawling King. They did not dare to praise this king in front of the kings, so they gave him another respected name. They called him Saint, also known as the 'Abyssal Holy Lord'."