Dangerous Painting

Owen ultimately couldn't bring himself to bite himself again. He was afraid of pain, and Cyril's gaze was already starting to feel dangerous.

Cyril noticed Owen's abnormality. He was torn over whether to leave.

After a moment, he reached out, grabbed Owen, and led him out of the restaurant toward the stairwell.

His desire for the gaze secretly watching him outweighed his wariness of the unknown and danger, so he had no intention of leaving so soon.

Since his spiritual intuition had given no warning of danger, it meant the danger here was within his ability to handle. At the very least, an Apprentice's abilities could let him escape.

As they made their way up to the second floor, the air grew thick with the pungent scent of essential oils. Moans, regardless of gender, drifted from every room, as though everyone on the entire second floor was engaged in some indescribable activity.

Owen tugged awkwardly at the hem of his clothes behind him. "Let's go straight to the third floor."

Cyril immediately nodded. He had no particular hobby of peeping and had no desire to see the eye-searing scenes inside those rooms.

After the two disappeared around the turn in the stairs, the moans from the rooms suddenly rose in pitch, as if their owners possessed inexhaustible energy and were wildly aroused, desperate to vent it.

But the sounds soon weakened, becoming intermittent gasps, then rasping huffs as throats scraped against the air. In the end, there was no sound at all.

On the third floor, Cyril suddenly stopped and looked back. It seemed that he had just passed through some kind of boundary.

"What's wrong?" Owen, who was walking ahead, turned back to look at him.

Cyril didn't answer. Instead, he frowned and quietly pondered for a moment before reaching out and pressing his hand against the air before him, attempting to touch that fleeting sensation from earlier.

The next second, a deep blue radiance rippled out from his palm, forming an illusory, colorless door in midair.

Another Cyril stood on the other side of the "door." Each of them extended one hand, pressing their palms together through the "door," like mirror images.

"Mirror space, mixed with the power of the mind domain? This definitely isn't an ability belonging to any of the known twenty-two Pathways!"

After murmuring softly, he stepped straight through the "door," his figure overlapping with the Cyril outside it.

In the dim restaurant lit only by the flickering fireplace, Cyril stood blankly before the long dining table. Layer upon layer of illusory doors continuously surfaced and overlapped in his eyes.

The next second, the illusory doors vanished from his eyes. His pupils contracted sharply, as though he had suddenly awakened from a dream. His chest rose and fell violently as he staggered back, staring warily at the dining table ahead.

There had never been any exquisite, luxurious dinner on the table. There was only a tablecloth painted with a bizarre oil painting, seemingly a work casually smeared out with a mixture of grease and flesh, carrying a faint stench of blood and scorching.

Rich colors dominated by dark red overlapped and twisted, outlining grotesque, unrestrained faces. They seemed to be watching everyone outside the painting, silently cursing them. Merely looking at them caused physical discomfort.

"Painting World..."

Cyril murmured instinctively. The relevant knowledge began surfacing in his mind on its own, as though it had always belonged to him.

A great deal of knowledge suddenly emerged in his mind. While it wasn't enough to induce a loss of control like the Hidden Sage's Knowledge Chasing, the flood of knowledge cramming into his mind still made him uncomfortable.

To ease the heaviness in his head, Cyril could only close his eyes and sort through the additional knowledge in his mind.

After quite a while, he opened his eyes again and let out a long breath as he looked at the tablecloth spread over the long table.

"Totems and paintings, the powers of Fantasy and the dimensional domain—this definitely isn't something from this planet."

"It's also mixed with the powers of desire and some peculiar domain. They covered the outermost layer, which was why I didn't notice the problem at first and was drawn into the Painting World without any warning from my spiritual intuition."

"This seems to be a trap specifically targeting me."

He suddenly raised his head, as though gazing through the ceiling at the starry sky overhead.

A trap from beyond the planet, specifically targeting him, could only be the work of the High-Dimensional Overseer.

"Even though the Seven Deities and the barrier are still here, They can still seep in a small amount of power? And deploy it so precisely beside me..."

He suddenly fell silent. With the high status he inherently possessed, perhaps precision wasn't necessary. Power originating from the High-Dimensional Overseer would inevitably appear at his side, sooner or later.

There might have been other factors guiding it as well. For example, the incomprehensible special power on the tablecloth Painting Scroll might belong to Fate, driving him into contact with the Blood Axe Gang, guiding him here and into the trap.

The only real accident was probably that he had already consumed the Apprentice potion before coming here. The abilities of the Door Pathway, combined with his own peculiar nature, gave him the ability to leave the Painting World on his own.

Should he leave directly and report this place to the Church, or stay and investigate, finding a way to take this tablecloth infused with the High-Dimensional Overseer's power?

He might as well take a gamble. The bigger the waves, the more valuable the fish. At worst, if he couldn't decide, he could call Adam.

As he pondered, the night outside the house suddenly grew denser and quieter, as though an invisible, heavy black curtain had been draped over it.

Higher above, in the silent night sky, a lonely star hanging at the edge of the horizon suddenly erupted with clear, brilliant light. It expanded, then fell...

Then it abruptly stopped, as though it had lost its target. After blinking in confusion a few times, it shrank back to its original position.

Outside the house shrouded in the heavy night, Adam stood quietly beneath the gas streetlamp where Cyril had been earlier, dressed in a simple white robe, as though He had always been there.

He withdrew His gaze from the night sky and turned toward the shadows across the street, speaking in an unhurried tone.

"It seems we both underestimated the Outer Deities' corruption of this world. Even with the barrier left behind by the Primordial still present, They can still send in powers roughly at the low-Sequence level with relative ease."

"In a few more years, perhaps even mid-Sequence powers will be able to enter just as easily."

Where His gaze rested, the figure of a young black-haired woman gradually emerged from nothingness.

She was beautiful, but her face bore no expression whatsoever. Her black eyes were dark and deep, yet lacked all spirituality.

She looked calmly at Adam, her tone utterly flat. "You think highly of him?"

Adam wore the same gentle smile as always. "When the Apocalypse arrives, he can at least help us hold back one Great Old One."

"If he is lucky enough and grows quickly enough, perhaps our side may gain another Great Old One, leaving one fewer outside."

The beautiful woman shrouded in darkness offered no comment and merely said indifferently, "Only another Great Old One can contend with a Great Old One."

Adam looked at her without changing His expression. "That is why we need a Lord of the Mysteries, or a God Almighty. There isn't much time left. We must make trade-offs and choices."

In the darkness, a trace of complexity flashed through the beautiful woman's unspiritual eyes.

"The gods of the Astral World cannot be reduced by too many, or the Apocalypse will arrive sooner—unless new gods emerge who can maintain control over their own states."

Adam fell silent for two seconds. He was considering whether she was asking when He intended to become a god, whether He intended to establish several new Sequence 0s, or perhaps both.

After a brief silence, He leisurely said, "Within two years."

He did not say whether He Himself would become a god within two years, or whether He would establish a new Sequence 0 within two years.

After a slight pause, He continued, "I hope you can help me kill Aucuses and Cheek."

The moment His words fell, bright sunlight and gray-white stone seemed to appear within the surrounding darkness. But they did not spread, vanishing into the darkness the instant they appeared.

Everything was covered by Concealment. No information or mystical perception could escape.

In the darkness, the beautiful woman now wore an illusory skirt hem embedded with stars. Her unspiritual eyes gained traces of human contemplation and doubt.

She—no, It—silently watched Adam, waiting for His next words.

"They are both connected to the Primordial God Almighty. I don't know how far the Primordial will has revived within Them, but if I want to control the Chaos Sea, I must deal with Them first."

"If we want a Sequence 0 to fall at the smallest cost, Concealment is the most suitable and most important ally."