Wish (3)
Simply put, Theseus Immortality Technique is about contributing everyone's power to make a big goal immortal. For example, an orange will easily spoil after a few days, but if you squeeze all the oranges into pulp, bottle them, and store them properly, they can be preserved for a long time.
While not entirely accurate, the Theseus Immortality Technique is roughly what it is. Other immortality techniques derived from it each have their own characteristics, such as the Perfect Witch Immortality Technique, which uses a succession system to continuously reproduce the Perfect Witch.
From the first generation of Witch to the Merfolk Witch and now Hao Ran, they are now, strictly speaking, one person. As long as the lineage continues, they can live on in another way.
This is why Theseus is so generous, allowing every member to receive a copy of the Theseus Immortality Technique. As long as you cultivate it, you are one of them; even if you don't cultivate it, according to the contract, any improvements you make must be copied and given to Theseus.
Lu Li could not possibly become someone else, so he combined the Theseus Immortality Technique, only the first half of the Madness Curse, Dream Magic, the Seven Original Sin Structure, and some of Grotesque's instinctive experience to develop the current, unnamed curse.
The reason it hasn't been named yet is that, so far, out of more than a hundred experimental subjects, only two have barely survived, and even then, the experiment was unsuccessful.
Based on the previous dream, in which it Avatar into the irrational Grotesque, it instinctively used the aura of fear to draw out the darkness in the hearts of those knights. Then, using its control power, which had already Avatar into shadow, it directly controlled the dark side of the other party. The shadow in the other party's heart then devoured the other party's original body, turning it into a shadow monster controlled by Grotesque.
The curse Lu Li has a similar effect. It uses Madness Curse to make the other person's mind wander, and then pulls them into their own dream. Through the seven deadly sins, it connects with the other person's deepest desires.
Finally, by fully exposing the other party's dark side through desire, and then using part of Theseus' immortality, he would transform them, making them move closer to him. If this curse is successfully cast, the person cursed will be devoured by their own darkness and transformed into an avatar controlled by Lu Li.
However, to this day, the curse has never succeeded. The darkness in their hearts, mixed with Lu Li's Shadow Magic, creates shadow monsters whose bodies are unstable. The longest one lasted was only three minutes before turning into black smoke and disappearing.
The biggest problem is that the shadow monster corrupted by Grotesque still retains its memories and power from its previous life, while the shadow monster that Lu Li created through the curse is just a monster without reason.
"So, sometimes human reason is not as good as instinct?" Lu Li chuckled self-deprecatingly. The reason he was unwilling to change immediately was because he didn't want to become a monster without reason. However, now, he couldn't do what a monster without reason would do.
The seven test subjects before them all emanated a dark aura, a manifestation of their inner darkness mixed with Shadow Magic. Once all of this darkness was revealed, they would be marked with Lu Li's mark, which would then backfire on their original forms, transforming them into shadow monsters controlled by Lu Li.
What Lu Li needs is for these people to retain their memories after being transformed. Strictly speaking, what these seven people are experiencing now is a simplified version of the transformation that Lu Li is about to undergo.
If these people can't even stick to the simplified version and turn into unstable, irrational shadow monsters, then Lu Li into a shadow creature probably won't fare much better.
At the same time, the expressions on these people's faces also began to change.
"Korandi, my dearest sister." Bangier hugged his sister, kissing and touching her, and was even preparing to do something that would get his legs broken and send him to an orthopedic clinic in Germany.
Just then, Korandi shoved Bangier aside and, with a shy expression, pulled out a man from somewhere. This man was handsome and well-dressed; placing Bangier next to him was like placing dirt next to a diamond.
Bangier knew this man; he was a nobleman who had once passed through the village and was also on his way to find the Candy House. He had stayed in their village for one night, during which time he had offered to buy Korandi as a maid.
Bangier's parents were naturally more than willing. The young nobleman had promised to take Korandi away when he returned from the forest, but he never came back. However, this incident left a deep shadow in Bangier's heart. He was afraid that one day the nobleman would come out of the forest and take Korandi away.
Now, looking at Korandi, who was dressed in a shameless maid outfit, the young nobleman was smiling and patting Korandi's head. How could Bangier accept this? His eyes turned red as he rushed towards the young nobleman, shouting frantically, "My sister is mine!"
Unbeknownst to him, the white areas around him gradually decreased while the black areas increased. The young noblemen he had killed time and time again reappeared, manifesting externally as almost all of Bangier's black aura emanating from his body, beginning to erode and transform his physical form.
"Has the deepest shadow in your heart surfaced?" Lu Li murmured, looking at their state. Everyone has a shadow they can't show to others, perhaps an embarrassing thing from childhood, perhaps an unintentional fright, or perhaps something they did wrong.
These events have become shadows hidden in your heart, seemingly in the past, but they continue to interfere with your behavior.
Lu Li discovered that every time he underwent a transformation of his shadow, these psychological dark sides and past shadows would surface. This was the key to the transformation; those shadows constantly tormented him, making him start to doubt life and eventually Annihilation his rationality.
Take the old village chief, for example. In his previous dream, he gained countless riches, became the king who ruled over everyone again, and controlled the Tinderbox and the Candy House that could grant wishes.
However, his inner turmoil soon began to surface. Because he had no children, his ministers advised him to marry the queen and other women, and then forcibly dumped a bunch of women on him.
The shadows of the past resurfaced in his mind: losing everything, becoming a reproductive tool for the Wendigo cannibal tribe—those rough skin, blackened teeth, and disgusting bad breath—how could you expect a woman living in a cannibal tribe to be of any quality?
Those two months were the darkest period of the old village chief's life, which was reflected again in his dream. He was sidelined by the ministers and lost everything again. Those ugly women appeared around him again and forced themselves on him despite his resistance.
"Oh God! Someone save me!" The old village chief writhed in despair, feeling that everything in the world had become meaningless.
His sanity is crumbling...