“What do you mean, something's wrong with me?”
Elias's expression looked exceptionally grim in the dim room.
“Let me ask you something.”
“Didn't you say you didn't know any spells related to ‘wishing’?”
He remembered it clearly.
Just a few days ago, he and Old Ed had gone over the details regarding how Thomas Wayland was selling “prayers.”
At the time, he had explicitly asked the old man if he knew of any spells related to wishing.
The old man's tone had been absolutely certain back then, clearly stating, “That is in God’s Domain. I don't know.”
Yet just now...
While mocking him, this old guy had casually uttered the name of the 【Wish】 spell as if it were common knowledge.
“Huh?”
The old man in his mind sounded utterly baffled. The confusion in his voice was palpable and impossible to fake.
“When did I ever say I didn't know?”
“It's the 【Wish】 spell! Hasn't any transcendent with a bit of experience heard of it?”
“It's one of the ultimate dreams of those mystics. How could I possibly not know?”
Hearing the old man's self-righteous confusion, Elias felt a cold shiver run straight up his spine.
“What the fuck?”
“What on earth are you talking about?”
Elias's tone was filled with bewilderment and irritation at the old man's attitude, and he slammed his fist onto the edge of the bed.
“There is definitely something wrong with your memory, you old fossil!”
“Just a few days ago, you told me yourself that you had never heard of a wishing spell in your entire life!”
“And now you're telling me anyone with a bit of experience knows about it?”
“Are you playing selective amnesia with me?”
Old Ed also flared up, snapping back loudly.
“There is absolutely nothing wrong with my memory!”
“Your memory is the one with problems!”
“You little brat, you deal with dream demons every day. Your brain has long since turned to mush!”
“I bet you mixed up two different things and are trying to pin the blame on me!”
Elias snorted coldly, his expression blank.
“Piss off!”
“We'd better not contact each other for a while unless it's necessary.”
“I suspect you're a fucking spy sent by some evil god!”
“I'm worried the Moon Lord might misunderstand.”
“If it decides to strike me down with divine punishment, it'll blow my skull open right along with you.”
“You miserable little brat!”
Old Ed's composure shattered, and he roared furiously in Elias's mind.
“I was worshipping the Moon Lord when your grandfather was still a young lad!”
“An evil god? What evil god could afford a spiritual body as loyal to the Ascetic Society as me?!”
The old man's roaring was so loud it made Elias's brain ache.
But Elias didn't continue bickering with him as he usually did.
He suddenly calmed down, his voice turning dead serious.
“Then explain this.”
“Edmond, your problem is very serious.”
“So serious that I might need to re-evaluate our partnership...”
“...regarding how we leave this sea, and regarding your granddaughter in Arlington.”
Hearing the words “partnership” and “Olivia,” Old Ed also calmed down.
After a long silence.
“Alright.”
He began to trace back along the timeline Elias provided, carefully recalling his past memories.
Without the constraints of a physical body, a spiritual body's thoughts should have been as clear as flipping through a ledger.
But now, a bizarre blind spot had appeared in Old Ed's consciousness.
He could remember the Moon Lord's doctrines, and he could even remember that stormy night fifty years ago when he died at the foot of the lighthouse.
Yet when it came to the details of their conversation just a few days ago, his memory was like a piece of parchment with a large hole burned through it.
The edges were charred black, and the content was entirely gone.
Ultimately, after repeatedly cross-referencing and searching, the old man reached the same conclusion.
“I don't remember.”
The old man's voice was filled with bewilderment, even carrying a faint, barely perceptible tremble.
“I do remember us talking about Wayland, talking about some conspiracy planned by that black-hearted capitalist.”
“But did we talk about the 【Wish】 spell?”
“Why... do I have no memory of it at all?”
Hearing the old man's despondent muttering, Elias didn't feel any satisfaction from solving a mystery. Instead, he felt a chill creep over him.
Old Ed wasn't lying.
Because there was absolutely no reason for him to lie right now.
If he really was up to something, playing dumb like this would be completely pointless.
In other words, a piece of the old man's memory had been precisely sliced away without anyone noticing.
This method was far too bizarre.
“Then let me ask you another thing.”
Elias sat up straight, keeping his voice extremely low.
“Is there any missing memory regarding your own identity?”
“For example... who exactly were you when you were alive? Aside from being a Moon Lord believer, what else did you do?”
A long silence filled his mind.
“No.”
Old Ed said seriously.
“I don't think so.”
“My name, my experiences, the families I served—they are all very clear.”
“But what happened today makes me feel that perhaps...”
The old man paused, his ethereal voice sounding somewhat self-deprecating and powerless.
“I mean, perhaps... I am not truly the person I think I am...”
His voice trailed off.
Ever since Elias first met him in the basement of that rocky lighthouse, aside from when they discussed Old Ed's granddaughter, Olivia Russell...
this was only the second time.
He began to doubt his very existence as a spiritual body.
Elias sighed in the darkness, sliding back under the covers.
As a transmigrator, he knew all too well how torturous the existential dread of “who am I, where did I come from, and what exactly am I” could be.
Old Ed had likely been used as a springboard for information by some high-level containment object or divine authority, completely unbeknownst to himself.
“Forget it.”
Elias shifted into a slightly more comfortable position and replied quietly in his mind.
“I hope there isn't any major problem with you, old man.”
“It seems neither of us might be who the other thinks we are!”
He lamented with hidden meaning.
Two shady figures of mysterious origins—neither of them had any right to judge the other's purity.
“Get some rest. Stop thinking about it.”
Elias took the initiative to cut off those heavy thoughts.
Soon, his attention was drawn to another matter.
Namely, the crisis in the real world.
It was now certain that tonight's sea-folk invasion was the breakthrough Wayland needed to obtain firing clearance.
The greedy capitalists and cultists had joined forces to manufacture an emergency at the port, using the sea-folk siege to pressure the council lords in Landon.
All to get them to approve the firing clearance for the royal warship, the Octowin.
If those damned capitalists actually got the firing clearance for the Octowin, what would he do if they decided to bombard the lighthouse to force open the Moon Bay seal?
With the supernatural cannons on the Octowin, a single shot would probably leave absolutely nothing left of him and the lighthouse.
Under such a devastating, widespread strike, his survival rate would be practically zero.
He couldn't just sit around and wait for death.
Wayland was putting on a self-directed show of playing both the thief and the guard.
And Elias was stuck right in the middle of their crossfire.
So this wouldn't do.
He had to break through this information cocoon.
Was there any way to add more fuel to the fire over in Landon?
To publicly rip away Wayland's flawless fig leaf?
He had it!
Elias slapped his thigh hard in the darkness, letting out a sharp smack.
Render unto the mundane what is mundane, and unto the supernatural what is supernatural.
Since Thomas Wayland could use the rules of the mortal world to manipulate the supernatural order, then he, Jiang Huan, could do the exact opposite.
Didn't he have a media professional right beside him?
Since Thomas Wayland could turn his company's reputation around in the eyes of mortals...
...then by using the power of public opinion, they could certainly turn it back again!
But how exactly should he go about it?
“Contact Xia'an? Ask if they raided the West Coast Sanatorium?”
As soon as this thought popped into Elias's head, he shook his head.
No.
No matter how one looked at it, the West Coast Sanatorium was a matter of the supernatural side.
Even if Ophelia had the guts to write about it for a mortal newspaper, and even if it could be published, it would still have to pass the ruthless censorship of the Seventh Agency first.
By the time they edited it down and stripped away the supernatural elements, turning it into a mundane medical dispute, what if the impact was ruined?
What if the Seventh Agency didn't even take advantage of the chaos to raid the sanatorium tonight? What then?
“Hiss!”
A sudden flash of inspiration struck his mind like lightning.
He suddenly thought of a topic that could perfectly balance both the mundane and supernatural sides.
No supernatural elements involved—just a pure, tragic history of labor exploitation by a black-hearted corporation!
In any capitalist country currently undergoing an industrial revolution, this kind of revelation was an absolute trump card capable of triggering a nationwide general strike!
Elias grinned in the darkness, chuckling silently.
“Old man.”
“I'll be borrowing your corpse when the time comes.”
Rate on N.U.
