CHAPTER 45: CHAPTER 40: STARLIGHT [END OF VOLUME 1]

The night deepened.

Shawn heard footsteps outside the door.

He opened the door and saw the exquisite doll-like girl he first met—Checia.

"The mentor wants to see you," said the girl with an expressionless face.

After speaking, she turned and left.

Shawn picked up his coat and silently followed, as the two of them traversed a long and dim corridor, reaching the ground and then entering an almost boundless cemetery.

All around, eerie bluish ghost fires floated in the air.

Shawn rarely went out at night. Although he had been here for three months, he rarely left the territory of the Butcher and Ms. Hecate.

The cemetery was planted with many peculiar flowers and plants, which emitted a faint luminescence under the moonlight.

They looked remarkably beautiful.

If one ignored the endless nameless tombstones, this place was actually a dreamlike scene of beauty, with the blue and faint purple glow stretching to the horizon, slightly twinkling with the moon in the night sky, akin to a myriad of stars on the earth.

The traces of luminescent grass spread across the earth’s veins, resembling a magnificent pattern. From a bird’s eye view, it was like a grand ancient tree with sprawling branches, leaving a dreamlike reflection on the earth.

Shawn couldn’t tell how long he had been walking.

This cemetery was terrifyingly vast. Judging by tombstones spaced roughly a meter apart, it was countless just from what he had passed.

Bones piled like mountains, a sea of corpse and blood.

Though Shawn hadn’t seen a single bone or a corpse along the way, a growing heaviness pressed on him, making it hard for him to breathe.

Majestic mausoleums appeared ahead.

Tall eternal lamps stood on both sides; although uncertain, as they burned with unending dim ghost fires atop, these mausoleums scattered around, fully enclosed, were surrounded by some memorial flowers blooming amid a thin mist, emitting a faint purple glow.

The nameless tombstones gradually dwindled.

In Shawn’s field of vision appeared large steles, similar to those in Dorne City park square, made of marble and unengraved, spaced about thirty meters apart, paving a path with bluestone that stretched to the other side of the mountains.

Checia paused her steps.

Without turning back, she softly bowed her head in front of this forest of steles, then quietly said, "Here lie the human fates who fell during the Dark Era..."

Human fate legends?!

So many?!

Stunned, Shawn looked up at this seemingly endless forest of steles, speechless for a long time.

No names were engraved on any of the steles.

Nameless steles.

Nameless people!

Shawn felt a slight tremor in his body. He couldn’t comprehend how humanity survived that desperate and frenzied Dark Era.

Checia began walking toward an obelisk.

Standing still for a moment, Shawn took a deep breath and followed her steps again.

A special stele appeared in the distance.

It lay flat in a filthy muddy patch, surrounded by small star-like flowers, inscribed with a line of ancient script.

Shawn stopped in his tracks as he clearly made out the inscription.

—"When the world is young again, when humanity shines like stars..."

—"We too shall return!..."

The muddy ground’s stele bore those words.

A shiver crept across Shawn at that moment; looking at the girl’s back ahead, he felt a lump in his throat.

She wasn’t the Butcher and wouldn’t provide the answers he sought.

The girl’s steps didn’t halt.

Shawn followed her shadow into the depths of the obelisk, accompanied by a completely suspended floating staircase, whisking both of them into the sky, thousands of meters high.

Everything around them seemed to shrink, and Shawn saw the reflection of a majestic giant tree; its roots spread across the earth’s veins and undulated between mountain peaks, digging into countless tombstones.

The reflections of the bright moon and stars, as if the river of stars were etched into the ground—points of starlight transformed into countless nameless steles on the earth!

In the bygone days, the old ones descended upon this fractured world from the stars.

Humanity also regained everything from the stars!

A moment later.

Shawn arrived in front of a large door, which slowly opened, revealing a floating skull, prominently embedded with a ruby at its brow.

"You’re here..."

The suspended skull floated, assembling a skeletal frame. Its pale bony fingers lightly brushed across the table, gesturing him to sit: "Have a seat, Shawn."

The girl, pristine like a doll, turned to leave, closing the heavy door behind her.

A soft red carpet covered the floor, surrounded by bookshelves. The room’s arrangement was extremely neat, looking spotless. It seemed less like the domain of a Witch Demon, more like the abode of a learned elder.

The skeletal frame before him was clean and tidy, resembling an animated anatomical model.

The Witch Demon gazed at Shawn in front of him.

Though he didn’t feel fear at that moment, Shawn shivered with coldness, his heartbeat struggling to match his breath.

This Witch Demon’s body seemed wrapped in a terrifying, invisible force field.

He sat down hard, bowing his head, "Prime."

After Shawn sat, the Witch Demon reached for a document on the desk, a flick of its pale finger bones making it fly to Shawn’s face.

"This is your appointment letter."

It smiled.

Its skull slightly opened and closed, revealing a not-so-obvious smile: "You are appointed as a High Tier Investigator of Dorne City."

An official appointment document.

Stamped with a steel seal.

Shawn reached out to take it, looking up at the Witch Demon before him, wanting to speak but hesitating.

Even without fear, he found breathing difficult.

No existence in the Bizarre Realm exerted such frightening pressure on Shawn. And the countless tombstones along the way made Shawn’s mood heavier than ever.

Even a bit despairing.

The more he understood the essence of the Bizarre Realm, the more easily he felt despair, because the power of the Transcendents did not belong to him.

"Alright."

"You may leave." The Witch Demon seemed to sense its unseen pressure on Shawn and the despair in Shawn’s heart, waving its hand: "No need to worry too much."

"We old bones can hold up for now."

"The world doesn’t yet need you young people to bear it."

It laughed again.

Though the laughter was somewhat eerie, it patted its own bones, indicating that its old bones were still sturdy.

This scene was quite amusing, it was trying to comfort Shawn.

Shawn didn’t know what to say.

In front of the other, even breathing was so difficult; if he still felt fear, he probably couldn’t look directly at the Witch Demon.

——Cannot look directly at the Gods.

He thought of words from a certain Magic Book.

"By the way."

Just as Shawn struggled to turn away, the Witch Demon stood up, spreading its arms with an emphatic tone: "My mentor."

"Left you a message."

Shawn slowly turned back, listening attentively.

The Witch Demon’s voice was no longer cold, becoming full of excitement, yet it wasn’t its own emotion; that voice seemed like a multiple echo across the river of time, deafening, it smiled: "Welcome to the Bizarre Realm!"

"Davalichy!"

Shawn seemed struck by lightning for an instant, his whole person stunned.

At this moment.

He finally understood what humanity relied on to endure through the despairing madness of the Dark Era, further realizing why, in this bizarre realm, there still exists that piece of reality.

"This is what they’ve left for you."

The Witch Demon’s voice turned cold again, emotionless, like the undead, gently raising a hand, a blood-stained badge fell into Shawn’s palm.

Engraved on the badge was a primitive Pentagram Array, adorned with the pattern of ears of wheat dotting the stars, with an ancient inscription on the back — "Death is our choice, death is humanity’s final shelter."

After witnessing the world slowly twisted into a bizarre realm where only Evil Objects can survive.

Humans decided to make a final stand!

With countless sacrifices, they reclaimed the destiny of death.

That was humanity’s first Path of Myth opened in despair!

.........

(PS: End of Volume One.)

.........

"Humanity’s last destinies, feast upon death!"

"In the mud of death, they ’shed’ mortal flesh, using the bones and blood of human sages throughout the ages, they wielded knowledge to forge a broken throne."

.........

"When the seventy-two tombs of Death Demigods rise, humanity’s miracles, the miracles of destiny, the original Clockwork Nirvana Twelve Realms, descend upon the Bizarre Realm!"

"Hands of Death extending from the Netherworld lifted humanity’s last hope, ascending to the heavens, transforming into stars."

"To completely isolate reality from the bizarre, they erased traces of their existence, erased all their achievements, altering humanity’s history, with nameless monuments standing on the earth, suppressing death, suppressing Twelve Mythical Paths."

"Dark Era."

"Countless nameless ones fell like stars, healing the broken earth with life. Their bones and blood also nourished the original Path of Life."

.........

"They slumbered within the tombs, bearing eternal madness forcibly transcending to become Death Demigods, awaiting humanity’s successors to grant them rest and relief, inheriting their legacy, raising high the flame of human hope."

"Countless nameless monuments stood on the earth, countless nameless ones awaited the day when ’the world is young again.’"

"Flowers of life bloom within death."

"The stars will one day return."

.........

"Thus ends the Dark Era."

A slender finger gently brushed over the pages, closing the heavy tome.

—— .

.........

"You carry their gift..." Hecate’s whisper gradually faded.

.........