The entire event actually unfolded across three levels, or rather, three different dimensions in which the characters existed.
The characters at the highest dimension were naturally the Battleworld Players participating in the game, such as Schiller, Joker, Batman, Bruce, and so on.
The characters at the second dimension were those within this game world: Lodov, Matthew, and the others portrayed by the higher-dimensional Players.
The characters at the third dimension were the people in the novel, characters living beneath the novelist's pen, such as Lodov, Matthew, the Pope, and the Oracle.
If one started from the bottom and worked upward, beginning with the novel, then the most important thing was undoubtedly that final twist.
The novel unfolded entirely from Lodov's perspective, recounting his adventures. His encounter with his former student at the top of the lighthouse and his recollection of that student's past research into forbidden knowledge were actually a narrative trick employed by the author.
When people read novels, they liked to put themselves in the protagonist's shoes. Naturally, whoever opposed the protagonist became the villain, and Matthew, as seen through Lodov's eyes, certainly looked like one.
Once the readers had formed that impression, shifting the perspective abruptly revealed that, in Matthew's eyes, Lodov was the cultist. Thus, the twist was complete.
This kind of twist was actually very classic. Quite a few novels and horror films deliberately let the audience discover near the end that the supposedly righteous and innocent protagonist had actually been the real villain all along.
If there had only been that one layer, it would have been far from brilliant. At most, it would have been a clever little flourish, a fancy trick.
But when combined with the second layer, the game's worldview, it gained another layer of creeping horror.
Because aside from the