The gem set into Sea Soul's hilt looked strikingly like an aqua-blue eyeball. Mulan could hardly avoid connecting it to his dream.
The Evil Spirit that had possessed a human body earlier had also scratched an eyeball-like shape into the headboard, and now Walton had simply handed him the precious Sea Soul. Was there a connection?
Had Walton deliberately given him Sea Soul so casually?
Mulan kept drawing connections, losing even his appetite. Walton was wildly unpredictable, but Mulan would never claim to truly understand him. The sinister charm Walton had exuded just now had even made Mulan feel, for a moment, that a terrifying monster stood before him.
But suspecting Walton of giving him Sea Soul as part of a scheme seemed a little paranoid. Mulan knew that, to someone of Walton's stature, he was merely somewhat talented. Walton would hardly devise an elaborate plot to harm him. Giving him the blade really might have been a spur-of-the-moment eccentricity.
"Achoo!"
Walking down a path in the darkness, Walton sneezed, then rubbed his nose. The food had indeed been delicious, just a little spicy. But he couldn't let that show in front of Mulan. He needed to find some water quickly.
The night slowly wore on. Mulan remained in the kitchen, gazing at Sea Soul.
Many crows circled above the Black Castle. Some began landing on the roof of Mulan's small house, while more gathered overhead. They weren't just the Black Castle's crows, either. Many crows elsewhere in Digo began flying toward the Black Castle in twos and threes.
"Flap, flap..." "Flap, flap, flap, flap..."
The sound of wings beating outside the window roused Mulan from his fixation on Sea Soul. He stood and looked toward the kitchen window, where shadows flitted across one another. Walking closer and looking outside, he spotted several crows with a casual sweep of his gaze.
Mulan looked elsewhere, then returned to the kitchen, grabbed Sea Soul, and ran upstairs. Through the larger window in the upstairs hallway, he looked outside. At least dozens, perhaps a hundred crows circled his house. The sparse moonlight overhead kept flickering, clearly interrupted by still more crows circling in the sky, yet not a single crow made a sound.
"What the hell is going on?"
The crows silently beat their wings. They flew everywhere above the Black Castle.
Inside a hall-like building, a man in a tailcoat played the piano. Various instruments around him sounded without anyone playing them. The music had a strong rhythm, and several large horns sounded in time with it, lending the entire composition an eerie quality.
Walton stood beside the piano, drinking from a glass of water. He listened to the music while looking at the hall's floor-to-ceiling windows.
When the music ended, Walton set down his glass and applauded softly. The man at the piano rose with a smile.
"This is my new composition. I call it Soul Waltz. Quite evocative, isn't it?"
"I'm delighted you invited me to enjoy such wonderful music!"
After that polite remark, Walton picked up his glass again and walked toward the floor-to-ceiling windows. The pianist followed him.
"What's wrong with these crows?"
At Walton's question, the man gave him a surprised look.
"I thought you were responsible."
"I'm not that bored."
As Walton said this, something suddenly occurred to him.
"Could the problem be in the Otherworld?"
"Let's go and see."
A strange light flowed deep within their pupils. One stamped his foot, while the other lightly patted his own chest. Ripples immediately spread before them both, and black mist, invisible to ordinary people, emerged from those ripples. The two stepped into it, instantly vanishing from the hall.
The Otherworld was eternally dim, though not so dark that nothing could be seen. The musician glanced back at the spot where he and Walton had entered. Two faint fissures lay there, now completely shrouded in black mist, but not entirely gone.
"Let's go. We'll investigate this section of the Black Castle."
Much like the principle of an eggshell, entering the Otherworld from the Surface World was far easier. Beings capable of entering the Otherworld of their own accord would leave markers behind. Those markers had to balance concealment with longevity. If a marker vanished or couldn't be found, they might become trapped in the Otherworld.
Of course, the Black Castle had contingencies for this. Besides, this was its headquarters, with a specially guarded mirror exit.
Even in the Otherworld, most of the Black Castle's buildings were, remarkably, not ruins. Some main buildings loomed like monsters baring their fangs and claws, looking utterly terrifying. Winged, long-tailed monsters clung to the buildings. Shortly after Walton and the musician arrived, they began waking from their petrified state.
"Your toys are all waking up."
Ignoring the musician's joke, Walton leaped lightly onto the roof of a building as though weightless, then clapped his hands softly.
"Clap, clap, clap."
"Gargoyles, search the Black Castle's grounds. Something with ill intentions may have entered. Remember, don't overlook a single corner."
More and more gargoyles awoke. Most were already beating their wings, reacquainting themselves with the long-forgotten sensation of flight. Then great swaths of gargoyles took to the air, blotting out the sky like an enormous swarm of bats.
"There. Now it's practically the same inside and out!"
The musician teased him from below. Then his gaze suddenly shifted in another direction, then behind him, before sweeping all around.
"Walton, I've told you before: compared with the gargoyles, hardly any of your other toys are reliable. Just look."
Walton had noticed too. Besides the countless gargoyles flying everywhere on their search, many shadows now flickered through the Otherworld. They were undead, which should have remained hidden inside the Otherworld's Black Castle. Yet now they had all come out. Most wandered aimlessly, while some approached a particular area-the location of Mulan's home.
Walton and the musician approached that spot, one behind the other. Some of the undead were actually crying out, their voices indistinguishable from crows.
"Caw, caw, caw!" "Caw, caw!"
Many other undead clawed at their eyes, tearing out their left eyes in a frenzy. Endless dark blood poured wildly from their sockets, staining the ground red.
The undead grew increasingly feeble, until all of them sank to their knees.
"Have they gone mad?"
The musician's expression turned grave, and Walton looked equally serious. The gargoyles were still searching, and none had sounded an alarm about an outside threat. Yet even Walton found the scene before him profoundly bizarre.
"Die."
Murmuring that single word, Walton gently clenched his right hand.
The next instant, not only the undead before them, but every undead within the Black Castle's grounds-even the gatekeepers in the Surface World-was torn apart. Boundless undead blood burst outward.
In the Surface World, outside Mulan's house, the countless crows all exploded at that same moment. Even Mulan felt as though a massive hammer had struck his heart, and he collapsed in agony.
Pale-faced, Mulan lay on the upstairs hallway floor. Outside the window, countless bloodstained black feathers drifted slowly down from the sky. The sight seemed familiar.
Sea Soul slowly floated up from the floor. The crystal eyeball in its hilt emitted pulses of blue light.
Lying on the floor, Mulan felt a faint sense of fear. With Sea Soul's hilt in front and its blade behind, a faint humanoid apparition slowly emerged, the hilt occupying its left eye. Endless bloodstained feathers fell around it. Behind the apparition seemed to be a pair of wings, though they were completely obscured by a hazy shroud that seemed to cover the entire roof of Mulan's home and perhaps even more.
Mulan didn't scream or shout. It wasn't merely because he couldn't move or speak at the moment, but because he sensed no malice.
The black shadows behind the figure slowly contracted, like two wings releasing the sky they had obscured. Yet Mulan saw not his ceiling, but a chaotic sky, with the Wyrd Moon hanging high like a gigantic eye.
As in his dream, the mist within the sky's chaos churned ceaselessly. Yet unlike the dream, Mulan now seemed to possess another layer of sight, one that pierced the chaos. At the same time, he heard all manner of clamorous sounds.
Countless chants, every kind of prayer, endless weeping and laughter, tangled emotions and greedy desires-objects imbued with special powers became expressions of desire. Ritual after ritual, blood sacrifice after blood sacrifice, countless calls and countless acts of guidance: all of it stirred the storms within the chaos and brought mysterious power into the world.
Those who watched for power were themselves watched. Greed brought only more greed. Long life and great power were no longer dreams, but mysterious power ultimately had a source: an indifferent gaze within the chaos. That gaze did not answer greedy prayers. The wishes of countless lives merely pointed its indifferent search in a direction, and what it sought was nothing more than worlds. Worshippers or those who despised it, life itself meant nothing to that gaze.
All the visions contracted, and Mulan finally saw the ceiling. The humanoid apparition with Sea Soul as its left eye began descending. Facing Mulan where he lay on the floor, it slowly pressed its right hand to its chest, then actually lowered itself onto one knee.
The next moment, the apparition shattered, and Sea Soul fell to the floor with a clang.
Outside, all the crows' feathers settled onto the ground at that same moment. The Black Castle had never been so quiet.
Mulan could move again, but he remained profoundly shaken. He looked at Sea Soul beside him. Its hilt no longer held an eyeball, only a round, sea-blue gem.