Baptiste?
When Lily blurted out that name, Hao Ren's first reaction was to freeze on the spot. The name sounded vaguely familiar, but he couldn't remember where he had heard it. It wasn't until Lily poked him in the arm and whispered the word "Purgatory" that he finally recalled who this man named "Baptiste" was.
The former Purgatory Planet, now the "World Gate—Outer World Monitoring Center," was an incredible planet that had once been embedded in the Wall of Reality. Because of the terrifying conditions in its upper crust, it had been given the name "Purgatory." It had first entered Hao Ren's attention because of the activities of a wizard named Baptiste.
Baptiste had been active in France during the Middle Ages before mysteriously disappearing for several hundred years. He had used magic to devour a human town, using the power he gained to open a portal leading to Purgatory. He had even turned himself into an immortal cursed creature in order to find his "mentor," who had fallen into Purgatory years ago because of a magical accident. That mentor had also been his lover.
In an instant, all this information surged through Hao Ren's mind. He could finally connect the mysterious wizard before him with the Baptiste he knew from six hundred years in the future. At the same time, he understood the purpose behind the wizard using the alias "Barn" and how Lily had managed to guess his true identity.
He had to admit, the Husky Girl's intuition and occasional flashes of insight were truly impressive.
Although this had little to do with the fundamental goal of his journey into the past, Hao Ren felt that he had inadvertently solved another mystery.
No wonder a mere human wizard had mastered a method for opening an interstellar portal. No