Shimmers flowed through the thickets of thorns, and the thoughts of the ancient god spread through the darkness. A ruined body squeezed through the narrow gaps between the thorns, and a tottering will teetered on the edge of madness and idiocy.

How long had she been wandering in this space filled with chaos? How much contamination from the ancient gods had she come into contact with? Was she still a complete individual, or merely a fragment adrift in the chaos, about to be assimilated and absorbed by it?

Agatha could no longer tell; she could tell nothing. She couldn't even distinguish the boundary between her own body and the surrounding chaos. In her vision, her body was like a blob of ink gradually dissipating in water, the edges blurred and fluid, as if she wasn't walking through this darkness but flowing forward in a viscous fluid similar in nature to her own body.

She knew that everything was reaching its limit. The primordial elements—she didn't know if they had ever created all things in the world, but it was clear that they had created her current body.

Ice melts in water, mist dissipates in the wind. The counterfeit forged from the primordial elements would return to the "sea" composed of these elements, and the so-called "individual will" within this body would soon become an inconspicuous spark in this chaotic "sea," nourishment for the faint lights constantly wandering in the thickets of thorns.

She was just a counterfeit, just a shadow. She had the memories of twenty-four years of life, memories of her homeland, her comrades, everything she loved and hated—but perhaps only three days, or even less, of those twenty-four years truly belonged to her.

For some reason, the voice of Governor Winston seemed to suddenly echo in her mind, filled with sighing and regret:

"It's meaningless..."

A living person with a real life had thus annotated his life in this endless darkness, while a counterfeit with only three days of life was passing through the darkness, attempting to confront the ancient god.

"How foolish..."

Agatha sighed softly, her voice dissolving into the darkness, turning into faint ripples. In her mind, endless information was surging, and a mysterious will composed of "0"s and "1"s washed over her mind.

She knew that she was about to dissolve into this vast will—even if it only stored the ancient god's fleeting thoughts from a single moment, its sheer scale was beyond the comparison of her weak mind.

But it didn't matter; she had arrived.

She had passed through the vast jungle of thorns and come to the deepest part of this darkness.

The sky-piercing pillar-like "tentacle" stood silently before her, its surface covered with mysterious dark blue lines, resembling a monument recording ancient truths in the dim, chaotic background.

Agatha slowly raised her head and reached out, trying to touch it.

Black fragments and dust rose and floated in her vision.

Her skin had long been cut by countless thorns, and a black, mud-like substance was now湧溢from her body like mist, dissipating and dissolving into the surrounding space. Those rising black fragments and dust were what was飘出来的from her body.

Agatha felt that she must look like a terrifying puppet covered in cracks, and even if she were covered in bandages, she couldn't hide this terrifying appearance.

At the same time, the ancient god's "tentacle" did not respond to her touch.

It did not display powerful might, nor did it reveal any terrifying aspect. It didn't even react to external stimuli. All that came from her fingertips was a slightly cool and soft touch, with a hint of roughness.

Was it because this was just a phantom projected from the deep sea? Or was it because her existence was too insignificant to attract the ancient god's attention?

Agatha frowned, wondering what she could do in these final moments, but after a long period of thought, she realized that there seemed to be nothing more she could do.

She had reached the end and understood the truth of this darkness. She had passed through the thicket of thorns, which symbolized the thoughts of the ancient god, and witnessed a part of the visage of the Abyssal Saint—she had even touched the ancient god's tentacle with her own hands.

There were no more truths for her to uncover, no more missions waiting for her to complete. This final journey was less about fulfilling the responsibilities of the gatekeeper and more about satisfying a bit of her own obsession.

Now, it was time to rest.

So Agatha took a light breath, relaxed her body, slowly turned around, and leaned against the huge tentacle, as if leaning against a pillar.

"I probably don't have a soul to pass on..." Agatha suddenly had some strange thoughts in her mind, muttering to herself in the darkness, but soon she shook her head with a self-deprecating smile. "Definitely not. If I had a soul, crossing that door would definitely cause a lot of trouble for the 'gatekeeper' on the other side... And if I went over, what would 'she' do? One person can't cross that door twice...

"I wonder how things are going at the cathedral... Did those guys who went down the well come back... But it seems like they don't need to worry..."

She muttered to herself in the darkness, as if unable to control the dissipation of her thoughts, and unconsciously spoke out what she was thinking.

But at this moment, a strange burning sensation suddenly interrupted her muttering.

Agatha woke up abruptly from her daze. In that instant, she felt flames scorching her, the terrifying heat seemingly burning through her soul. She felt her mind boiling in the flames, and her thoughts, which had almost been assimilated by this place, also woke up. She struggled to get up in this hallucination of being burned by fire, not knowing what had happened, but the next second, a voice drilled into her mind:

"The fire is lit."

It was her own voice.

In the darkness, Agatha's eyes widened suddenly. She seemed to see a hallucination—she saw herself standing in front of a deep pool swirling with black sludge, the edges of which were filled with disgusting cultists and demons. The sludge in the pool churned, and malice spread. She raised her hands high in front of the mire, burning like a torch.

A touch of ghostly green suddenly appeared in her vision, as if the hallucination had pierced through the boundaries between reality and illusion.

Agatha lowered her head and saw that flames were igniting on the surface of her arm, which had already begun to disintegrate and dissipate. The ghostly green flames were exactly the same as what she had seen in the hallucination.

In the passage constructed by these flames, she suddenly felt it—she felt another mind, another self.

The other party also felt her.

She understood what she had to do—she still had something to do.

Agatha turned around abruptly, staring at the sky-piercing tentacle. The most brilliant smile since she had entered this darkness bloomed on her face, and a bright glow floated up from her eyes once again.

She took a step forward, reaching out her hands towards the tentacle. Her whole body was quickly engulfed by flames, but the pain of being burned by these flames now felt like a great reward. Agatha opened her arms, the posture she had seen herself make in front of the deep pool in that hallucination.

Like an embrace, the gatekeeper rushed towards the tentacle.

Great power would fight against another great power. Those crazy cultists妄想to use the gatekeeper as a sacrifice to build a bridge, but these raging flames would completely cut off everything.

Boom!

A terrifying roar came from the darkness. The flames swept across this chaotic and distorted space almost in the blink of an eye. In the overwhelming spiritual fire that swept up and rose, the huge tentacle instantly turned into a burning torch, and trembled violently in the flames.

Agatha felt her flesh rapidly dissolving in the flames. Her body, which was originally composed of contaminated material, had now become a link to be completely purified by the flames—but she felt no fear at all. Instead, she struggled to raise her head and look back in the direction she had come from.

The "thicket of thorns" had also been ignited, and in the raging spiritual fire, it looked like a bizarre and magnificent canopy.

"Goodbye... Governor Winston..."

Agatha whispered to herself, hugging the tentacle even harder in the flames, quietly waiting for the end of her fate.

However, just before her consciousness was about to dissipate, she suddenly felt something.

The flames burned through herself and the tentacle. In the bridge built by the spiritual fire, she felt the response of this "ancient god limb" for the first time.

She looked up in astonishment,看着this tentacle's surface was covered with纹路,看着the flames窜流in it inside and out,感受着the intelligence injected into her brain from the spiritual fire, she saw that无数只eyes seemed to张开on the surface of this tentacle in an instant, and those eyes were all向her传递knowledge and information狂地.

Finally, all the knowledge and information化as a storm in her mind——

11101001...1110010110001000...10010011...

Strings of "0"s and "1"s filled Agatha's last remaining thoughts.

But this time, she understood what they meant.

"Error... Copy..."

She was shocked to辯讀the information伝达to herself by this 古神肢体, and understanding it's intention,finally拼凑out the answer.

She盯着the 触腕,which was burned by herself with the fire.

"This is also... a counterfeit?!"

The next moment, the raging green fire devoured her last consciousness.

(End of this chapter)