As for the Cross of Unlight, Adam did not explain much. He believed Cyril knew enough about this mystical item.
Cyril had wanted to ask how long he could borrow it for, but Adam seemed to have already left.
"He really comes and goes without a trace."
After sighing, he reached out and gripped the Cross of Unlight. In an instant, a burning sensation arose. It was as if he were being scorched by the blazing sun, and every cell in his body seemed to reject the thing.
If he had not known that holding the Cross of Unlight would cause some discomfort and forcibly restrained his instincts, he would definitely have thrown it away at once.
This pure and powerful purification was not pleasant. It repelled all Beyonder factors, and Cyril vaguely felt that even ordinary people without Beyonder powers would be purified into something utterly pure after prolonged contact with the Cross of Unlight, becoming lunatics or fanatics.
After examining it curiously for a while, he placed the literally "hot" cross onto the half-unfurled Painting Scroll of a tablecloth.
The instant it touched the Painting Scroll, a layer of clear, radiant light bloomed from the cross's mottled verdigris surface and spread across the tabletop. Then he saw the pigments on the tablecloth showing signs of drying up and melting.
It seemed that the Cross of Unlight was especially repulsed by certain powers within this Painting Scroll.
After waiting a little longer and confirming that nothing unexpected would happen, he returned to bed. After tossing and turning for most of the night, he was truly sleepy this time.
"A Sequence 8 Listener, most likely someone from the Aurora Order. Not a single gang that can survive in Backlund is ordinary..."
He muttered softly for a few moments before gradually falling into a deep sleep amid the silent night.
At noon the next day, Cyril was awakened by a knock on the door. Grabbing his messy hair, he pulled the door open.
Outside stood Harvin, who looked seventy percent like him, staring at him suspiciously. "You just woke up?"
"Didn't you sleep last night, or did you sneak out?"
Cyril turned to look at the clock behind him. It was already half past eleven... No wonder the knocking had been so urgent.
He rubbed his slightly swollen eyes before saying, "I had a bit of insomnia last night. It's been like this for the past couple of days. It'll get better after a while."
Harvin's expression softened, and he gave Cyril a look of deep sympathy.
"Looks like this incident finally left you with some psychological trauma. I hope you keep it that way. Stop causing this and that trouble over those ridiculous hobbies of yours, only for me to clean up after you in the end."
"Oh, and according to Father's orders, I'll be holding onto your living expenses for the next half year. Mm, I'll make sure you get three proper meals a day. As for spending money, that depends on your usual behavior."
"Also, Beth will be bringing Little Thomas over this afternoon. You'd better stay home and play with Little Thomas today. Your mental ages are about the same anyway."
Cyril stared expressionlessly at the endlessly chattering Harvin. He seriously wondered how someone so young could speak like such an old man.
"Okay, okay, got it. Call me when lunch is ready. I'll clean up first."
After hesitating again and again, he still could not resist pushing Harvin toward the stairs before heading toward the washroom on the other side.
His twin brother was becoming more and more like Tang Sanzang at such a young age.
Before Cyril had even taken two steps, Harvin called out to him. "Wait."
"What is it?" Cyril turned back expressionlessly and saw Harvin holding out a bank deposit slip.
"What's this?"
"An advance on my living expenses?"
Harvin curled his lips. "Didn't you want to borrow money yesterday? This is all the savings I've accumulated. There are 113 pounds in it. If it's not enough, go sell yourself at some nightclub bar."
Cyril froze for a moment and suddenly felt that the deposit slip in his hand was a little hot. That oddly specific sum had to be everything this guy had saved since childhood.
He instinctively wanted to refuse, but seeing Harvin's solemn expression, he gave up on that thought. This was his younger brother's concern for him. Of course he had to accept it.
He could find an excuse to pay him back later. Mm, with interest too.
But when he thought about how Harvin had managed to save more than a hundred pounds while he himself only had ten, his heart suddenly stung.
After a pause, he put away Harvin's deposit slip, spread his arms toward him, and flashed a broad smile.
"Thank you, my dear little brother!"
Harvin nodded expressionlessly. "Don't forget. You need to stay home and keep Little Thomas company today. They'll be here soon."
With that, he headed downstairs. His sister and little nephew would be arriving shortly, so he had to hurry and prepare lunch for everyone.
With Father absent, he was the most mature man in the household. He had to hold this family together.
Watching Harvin's retreating back as he went downstairs, Cyril raised a hand to touch his chest. Before he knew it, a faint smile had appeared on his face.
After leaving the washroom and returning to his room, the first thing Cyril did was go to his desk and inspect the Cross of Unlight and the Painting Scroll of the tablecloth.
The Cross of Unlight was still glowing, but since it was daytime and the desk stood by the window, the light was not particularly noticeable.
Beside the Cross of Unlight were three fist-sized balls of light: one silver-white, one dark green, and one ink-black.
Perhaps because the Cross of Unlight had been continuously exerting its influence, these three powers extracted from the Painting Scroll had not dissipated. Instead, they remained remarkably stable.
Cyril raised a hand and slapped his forehead. "I can't be this careless next time. The power of a Gift dissipates. I can only say I got lucky this time. Otherwise, I'd have taken a huge loss."
As he spoke, he reached out and grasped the silver-white ball of light. Without the slightest obstruction, it merged into his body, as smoothly as if he were reclaiming power that had always belonged to him.
As that energy merged with him, Cyril felt additional knowledge appearing in his mind. There was mystical knowledge such as setting up totems, conducting rituals, and communicating with the natural environment, as well as everyday skills like painting and makeup.
Beyond that, his eyes had also undergone a certain transformation. His spirituality, or rather, his intuition, had originally allowed him to occasionally sense existences beyond reality. Now, he could see them more directly.
In terms of the knowledge he had just acquired, his eyes could see through the truth. To a certain extent, they could see through concealment and illusions, allowing him to perceive certain things beyond reality.
Besides all that, his body had been strengthened as well. He now possessed incredible speed.
"Enhanced speed, seeing the truth, and the Apprentice's Door Opening... It seems I'm getting farther and farther down the road of fleeing for my life."
After sighing, he lowered his head to look at the desk again. The dark green and ink-black balls of light beside the Cross of Unlight were rapidly dissipating under its immensely purifying radiance.
In no more than one or two breaths, the balls of light on the desk vanished completely. All that remained was the Cross of Unlight, covered in mottled verdigris, and beneath it, the Painting Scroll of the tablecloth, now a dim, muddled mass that had lost its mystical effects.
"So if the power in the Painting Scroll doesn't find a new vessel immediately after being extracted, it really just disappears?"
"Then before this... was it the Cross of Unlight or Adam's power that had been maintaining it for me?"
Cyril was so embarrassed that he wanted to curl his toes into the floor.
The next second, the Cross of Unlight vanished before his eyes. It disappeared soundlessly, as though it had never existed in the first place.
Cyril blinked blankly, then quickly realized... So the Cross of Unlight had been created through Imagination all along?
Though somewhat surprised, he did not dwell on the matter and reached out to touch the Painting Scroll of the tablecloth.
The instant his hand touched it, the tablecloth, which had still appeared relatively intact and new, instantly weathered away. Gray dust carrying a rotten stench scattered across the desk and floor.
Cyril looked at the dust scattered across the floor, utterly speechless.
If it was broken, it was broken. Couldn't it have just disappeared like the Cross of Unlight? Did it have to leave its sense of presence all over the floor? So annoying. I hate cleaning rooms the most.
Shaking his head, he helplessly turned and headed to the washroom to fetch a mop and broom to clean up the room.
The moment he entered the washroom, he froze. The mirror embedded in the wall had undergone a strange change in his eyes.
Behind the mirror, he saw a dim, illusory road that did not seem real. Deeper within, there were many more such roads, interwoven into a complex and mysterious "Web." It seemed to be a deep, bizarre world unlike reality.
Before you continue