The heads were not growing from the torso; they floated around the severed opening of the neck, with the wound oozing a blackish-red liquid that never seemed to dry.
The five heads were all different.
One was as dignified as a divine statue, another was twisted like a vicious demon, and a third was non-human, its silhouette impossible to describe with any known form. The remaining two were blurred and unrecognizable.
All of their eyes were closed.
The small girl stood at the base of the altar, looking up.
The Knowledge Worm huddled in her arms, motionless.
“T̸̨̛͓̲̱̦̈́̊̽h̶̖̤̣̀̈́̚ë̵̢̖́ ̸̧̛̟̦̈̀Ǫ̵̛̲̈́̔n̶̡̮̈́̌̕e̸̢̛͔̊̾ ̶̧̛̻̊W̶̡̛̘̌h̶̡̛̺̓o̶̢̫̊̔ ̶̡̺̈́S̵̖̫̊l̵̢̛̫̿e̸̡̛̺̓ë̶̡̺́ p̸̢̫̒s̴̢̛̻ Ḩ̶̨̛̟̊̽ë̵̖̤́ ̸̧̛̲̈̀ ẅ̵̡̟́̔ḧ̶̡̺́̌o̶̢̫̊̔ ̶̡̛̻ r̶̡̺̈́e̴̢̛̫̿a̸̡̛̺̓c̶̡̺̈́h̸̢̫̒e̴̢̛̻s̸̡̺̓”
A series of strange syllables emanated from Him.
But the girl clearly could not understand a word.
He seemed to realize this as well. After a brief silence, He spoke again.
“You... have passed my trial.”
Five different voices rang out simultaneously.
The entire palace trembled. The dead inscriptions on the vault quivered in the sound waves, and greyish-white powder trickled down from the grooves.
The small girl said nothing.
Nor did she show fear.
She simply stood there quietly, her head tilted back as if she were looking at something very, very tall.
The rotation of the five heads did not stop, but His attention had clearly shifted.
He saw what was in her arms.
“My offering... a worm feeds upon it.”
His tone remained flat, yet it carried a trace of chilling coldness.
The Knowledge Worm trembled violently in the girl's embrace. Though the symbiotic link was broken, the worm instinctively tried to contact Lu Yuan.
“Leave the worm, and I shall grant you a blessing.”
Inscriptions condensed beneath the girl's feet, forming a blood-red ring.
Hand over the worm.
The right hand of the headless torso slowly rose.
A blood-red light gathered in His palm.
The spiral inscriptions on the vault, which had been silent for untold eons, lit up circle by circle, spreading outward from the center. The entire palace was bathed in a bloody hue.
The corpses littered across the floor cast twisted shadows.
The light was aimed at the Knowledge Worm in the girl's arms, but she still didn't speak. She only furrowed her brow slightly, clearly dissatisfied with Him.
“Is this the truth of the Sea of Knowledge?”
At that very moment.
Deep within Lu Yuan's left eye, the key rioted.
The teardrop-shaped key that had been brought out from the Sea of Knowledge—the one that had remained suspended and motionless behind the worm—suddenly erupted with light without warning.
Lu Yuan's consciousness was violently yanked from his body.
There was no process, no buffer; Lu Yuan's consciousness was simply ripped away.
The barrier, the sea of blood, the vortex, the heart... everything turned into a blurred ribbon of light in his mind, flashing by in an instant.
The next moment, Lu Yuan appeared inside the palace.
In the form of a consciousness projection, he stood beside the small girl.
Outside the Sea of Knowledge, at the barrier line.
Lu Yuan suddenly froze.
His body was still pressed against the copper tabletop, his fingers still hooked into the palm-print grooves.
But his consciousness was gone.
He was no longer outputting Sanity to the barrier.
The barrier fluctuated.
“Captain?”
The Nightwatcher beside him turned to look.
“Captain Lu?”
There was no response.
Lu Yuan's body remained in its last position, motionless, like a stone statue.
“Not good, something happened to Captain Lu! Everyone, hold the line! Take your medicine! Now!”
The Nightwatcher to Lu Yuan's left reacted the fastest, immediately taking command.
The other Nightwatchers exchanged glances and, without hesitation, pulled pale gold potions from their inner pockets, uncorked them, and downed them.
Missing one anchor point, the barrier shook violently, but the ten of them managed to hold it by force. The temporary potions filled the gap, barely stabilizing the situation.
The outer perimeter of the Church also noticed the abnormality.
The fluctuations in the barrier were transmitted to the blessing circle, causing the pale gold holy light to become turbulent.
Among the Church personnel, a figure immediately gave an order the moment they saw the barrier fluctuate.
“Change the blessing sequence. Increase the intensity of the blessing.”
The nuns behind him didn't know the reason, but no one questioned him. They complied one by one.
A more intense holy light flooded in from the perimeter, pressing toward the middle circle in layers.
Lu Yuan's consciousness was no longer at the barrier end.
But he felt it.
The values in his Sanity pool were skyrocketing.
The Sanity pool, which had barely a hundred points left, was filled to the brim the moment he lost consciousness.
Clearly, the Nightwatchers were going all out—potions, blessings, and every Nightwatcher's full output caused the Sanity pool to surge to over four hundred.
A massive amount of Sanity flooded in, shielding Lu Yuan.
Greyish-white text jumped out one after another.
【You have received the Archangel's Gaze.】
【You have received the Angel's Pity.】
【You have received the Angel's Enlightenment.】
【You have received the Holy Light's Blessing.】
【Sanity: +50 (temporary)... 78/140】
【Sanity Resilience greatly increased. Pollution Resistance greatly enhanced.】
【Your Sanity maximum has been forcibly anchored (temporary).】
A series of greyish-white prompts made Lu Yuan feel as if the weight on him had suddenly diminished.
But he didn't know where he was.
Before him was a palace soaked in black and red, beneath his feet were countless indescribable corpses, and in front of him was a five-headed, headless being raising a hand.
His Sanity had returned, but seventy-eight points were far from enough.
Lu Yuan activated Guard.
Without hesitation.
He temporarily sacrificed 20 points of his Sanity maximum.
【Guard (Temporary): Consumes 20 points of Sanity maximum.】
【Sanity Maximum: 140 → 120 (Temporary)】
【Sanity: +50... 128/140 (Anchored)】
【Your Sanity is under forced anchoring. You have stolen a sliver of His light.】
The moment Sanity filled his body, Lu Yuan finally saw everything before him clearly.
The rotation of the five heads stopped completely.
They all turned toward Lu Yuan simultaneously.
The head directly in front, the one as dignified as a divine statue, opened a single eye.
A vertical pupil.
Blood-red.
The pupil contained spiral patterns, originating from the same source as the dim inscriptions on the vault.
That eye stared fixedly behind Lu Yuan's left eye.
He wasn't looking at Lu Yuan; He was looking at the key behind his left eye.
Lu Yuan suppressed the unease in his heart.
【...His gaze... His confusion...】
His raised hand stopped.
The blood-red light gathered in His palm was not fired.
The palace fell into total silence.
The dripping blood from the vault stopped, the shadows of the corpses on the ground froze, and even the blackish-red particles permeating the air became still, suspended in mid-air, no longer drifting.
“...Authority?”
His voice, for once, carried a hint of emotion.
His hand slowly lowered.
The Knowledge Worm did not die.
Lu Yuan stood in the palace filled with blackish-red blood.
Countless remains lay beneath his feet.
Above him was a blood-colored vault thousands of meters high.
Before him was a five-headed, headless being that had been silent for untold eons, now with one eye open.
And he didn't know how much longer the barrier outside could hold.
Before Lu Yuan could digest the meaning of those words, the vertical pupil moved.
His consciousness crushed over. He didn't attack Lu Yuan, but instead attempted to inspect Lu Yuan's consciousness.
It was as if someone had directly pried open Lu Yuan's skull and reached in to flip through the pages of his mind.
The knowledge fragments stored in the key were spread out one by one. Every single one was laid bare before His consciousness, with nowhere to hide.
A sharp pain shot through Lu Yuan's left eye, and his vision exploded into white. The greyish-white text became so dense it blurred into a mess. Just as Lu Yuan was at a loss for what to do—
The key moved.
【The Sea of Knowledge is responding on your behalf.】
Only one line of greyish-white text appeared.
The teardrop-shaped key that had been suspended deep within his left eye rose slightly, floating directly in front of Lu Yuan's consciousness projection.
Lu Yuan felt a surge of power erupt from the key, shielding him firmly.
The next moment, the entire palace began to shake.
The dim spiral inscriptions on the vault trembled violently, as if they had detected the presence of something dangerous.
Then, an endless amount of seawater gushed out from the key, spreading wildly across the stone slabs of the palace. Boundless colors filled the entire hall, dispelling most of the gloom.
His five heads stopped rotating simultaneously, as if they had encountered something significant.
The seawater rampaged, cleansing a vast area of the palace.
The open eye stared at the seawater. In silence, He withdrew His consciousness.
The crushing sensation vanished.
Lu Yuan's vision returned. His left eye still throbbed with pain, but the greyish-white text became clear again.
The palace's tremors lasted for several seconds. Then, the light of the key slowly retracted. The seawater did not recede; it seeped into the cracks of the stone slabs and vanished.
The first thing to pop up was his Sanity.
【Sanity: -8... 110/140 (Anchored)】
Lu Yuan steadied his breathing and suppressed his emotions. He looked up and saw the vertical pupil on the altar contracting before the eye closed.
The five heads resumed their rotation.
It was as if nothing had happened.
Lu Yuan could feel that the mental pressure weighing on him had completely vanished; He was no longer paying him any attention.
But Lu Yuan did not relax. He knew that with his current strength, the gap between him and the entity before him was immeasurable.
If the key hadn't blocked it just now, that single crush of consciousness would have been enough to make him collapse within seconds, while exposing all his secrets.
But He had backed down. Clearly, He feared the Sea of Knowledge. After all, this corpse was soaking in it.
Regardless of what He had been in life, now He was just a sunken corpse in the sea.
Lu Yuan made his judgment; he couldn't think of any other reason.
However, the blood-red ring on the floor had not vanished.
The small girl was still locked in place.
Lu Yuan looked at her. She was looking at him too. The Knowledge Worm in her arms was curled into a ball, motionless.
He did not speak again. The five heads continued to rotate, not even looking in Lu Yuan's direction.
But the message was clear: the person could go, but the girl and the worm could not.
Even so, Lu Yuan made an attempt. He spoke slowly.
His voice echoed through the palace. Compared to the entity's grand, five-toned resonance, a human voice sounded laughably thin.
“Will you come with me?”
There was no response.
Lu Yuan did not retreat.
He took a step forward, walking toward the girl.
The blood-red ring expanded by a circle. The inscriptions on the ground flared brightly, and heat radiated from beneath the stone slabs.
A warning.
Lu Yuan stopped.
He knew he was only a consciousness projection; he had no means to break this ring.
But the Knowledge Worm was in her arms, and the worm was his symbiote.
“Let her go.”
Still, there was no response.
The girl watched Lu Yuan walk over step by step, only to be blocked by the ring. She looked down at the blood-red light at her feet, then back up at Lu Yuan.
Then, she lifted the Knowledge Worm in her arms and gave it a gentle push toward Lu Yuan.
The worm left her hands and drifted toward him. This time, He did not intervene.
“Take it away.”
Lu Yuan didn't reach for it. He just looked at the girl.
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