That said, there was one last thing to do before he truly made his escape. After all, with such a perfect opportunity at hand, it would be a shame not to leave himself a contingency.
Otherwise, once the Oldest One split apart, he would no longer have to worry about running headfirst into the Creator-but after wandering around and coming back, he might find: ha, the First Epoch had arrived, and the barrier had risen at full strength.
Lin Chuan would be stuck outside the barrier, keeping the Outer Deities company as they huddled together to voyeuristically watch Earth. Come to think of it, with one more Great Old One involved, the battle of the Apocalypse might genuinely become unwinnable.
After leaving Huang Tao's home, Lin Chuan considered that the Celestial Worthy had already withdrawn the symbolism of blind idiocy, and the Oldest One would soon awaken. Though the timing was unlikely to be quite that unfortunate, he checked into a nearby budget hotel rather than risk losing out over the few days it would take him to get home.
Once inside the room, he locked the door and took the four pieces of Caterpillar Bread he had bought earlier out of his backpack to serve as staple food. He placed one in the corner to the left of the curtains, another in the corresponding corner on the right, a third on the bedside table near the bathroom, and tossed the last one in front of the television.
Standing in the center of the room, Lin Chuan took out the patterned jade pendant he had bought at the antiques market, threaded a red cord through it, and solemnly put it around his neck.
He took a deep breath, then began walking a square counterclockwise.
With his first step, he distinctly felt the aura of Sefirah Castle in the jade pendant against his chest begin to fluctuate violently:
"Immortal Venerable of Heaven and Earth for Blessings."
With his second step, Lin Chuan severed the direct connection between himself and his true body:
"Heavenly Monarch of Heaven and Earth for Blessings."
With his third step, he unceremoniously flipped off the air:
"God Almighty of Heaven and Earth for Blessings."
With his fourth step, his Spirit Vision could already see countless illusory Spirit Body Threads hanging down from the ceiling:
"Celestial Worthy of Heaven and Earth for Blessings."
The circuit complete, he returned to his starting position.
Next came the most important preparation. To avoid being noticed by the Celestial Worthy or triggering some defensive response from Sefirah Castle, Lin Chuan immediately used the symbolism of Nothingness to conceal his true standing and aura.
Naturally, with an object carrying Sefirah Castle's aura on his person and a ritual capable of actively opening its door-the Celestial Worthy-Brand Automatic People-Pulling Program officially launched!
He willingly relinquished control of this body, instantly raising his consciousness and transferring it into his true body above the boundless void.
In the real world, after "Lin Chuan" finished the four steps and completed the ritual, his entire face turned deathly pale, and his eyes instantly became vacant and dull. Clearly, the shell that had performed the ritual had undergone Marionettization, while a portion of his spirit body that he had deliberately split off was pulled into Sefirah Castle and hung up as a Light Cocoon.
Through that subtle connection, Lin Chuan could even sense that part of his "avatar" hanging beneath the brilliant door of light formed from clustered worms and tinged with a faint bluish-black glow. It had become a cocoon and was even swaying gently in midair, perfectly at ease.
He had successfully smuggled himself into Sefirah Castle. A phrase inexplicably flashed through Lin Chuan's mind:
Hehehe, Celestial Worthy, I'm coming in.
Having confirmed that his registration was complete, Lin Chuan stopped monitoring the situation over there. Curiosity was clawing at him like a cat, and he desperately wanted the part of him inside the Light Cocoon to turn around and see whether any familiar faces were among his "Cocoon-Room Roommates." After all, Zhou Mingrui might already be hanging right beside him.
But after thinking it over, he decided to show the "Beacon of Destiny" some respect. The unique nature of Lin Chuan's own symbolism was indeed enough to evade the Celestial Worthy's gaze; after all, the Celestial Worthy was merely one personality of the Oldest One, not the Oldest One himself. But if he insisted on jumping back and forth inside Sefirah Castle, endlessly testing his luck... well, guess who the Honorific Name "Avatar of Sefirah Castle" referred to?
Even if he wanted to taunt him to his face, he would have to wait until the Fifth Epoch. Then he could personally witness and reenact that famous scene:
"Hahaha, so this is what Sefirah Castle looks like with you, Celestial Worthy... it's completely different with me. Open your eyes and take a look if you can handle it! Just kidding-even if you can't handle it, you'll have to accept it. God Almighty is coming back to life anyway~"
Above the boundless void.
Lin Chuan had redecorated his own Sefirah space. More precisely, he had redefined its concepts and dimensions. He expanded the bedroom he had previously created into a city and placed it on the highest level. It was similar to the location of the door of light within Sefirah Castle: one had to climb the steps to reach it.
Come to think of it, he might be able to trick people into believing this was the "City of Calamity" someday. They were both Sefirah, both cities, and even both Sefirah that had gained sentience. The equation held, so he, Lin Chuan, was the present-day Malevolent Dragon.
Forget the Malevolent Dragon-even the City of Calamity was nowhere to be seen yet. Seniority meant authority. No wonder "Great Old Dominator" could be translated as "the great old veteran," huh?
When the time came, he would simply claim that the Oldest One had plagiarized Lin Chuan's idea and split off the City of Calamity.
As for the structures he had furnished outside and the boundless void farther beyond, they should count as the divine kingdom or subsidiary world that came with him as a Great Old One, much like the High-Dimensional Overseer's Painting World or the Primordial Demoness's Mirror World.
Beneath the city, he chose to create a deep, tranquil sea of lightless stars.
He stood on an observation platform as smooth as a mirror. There were no clouds overhead, only a backdrop of deep space dotted with a few Crimson Stars. Of course, he could have chosen other colors or dispensed with the star shapes altogether.
Lin Chuan raised his hand and swept his fingertips through the void, as though playing invisible strings, gently tugging at those stars. The Crimson Stars instantly lit up and, as his arm rose, ascended into the city above.
Meanwhile, the jade plaques Lin Chuan had given away earlier began vibrating on the coffee table in Huang Tao's parents' home and in the pockets of Zhou Mingrui's parents. Their patterns lit up, and before anyone could react, crimson light swallowed their figures.
Soundlessly, several sleeping spirit bodies were gently extracted. Following invisible threads of causality, they bypassed the Astral World and were pulled up into this void, becoming faintly glowing Light Cocoons that were quietly stored somewhere in the city.
He had to admit that the Celestial Worthy's design was excellent. All he needed to do was slightly alter the destination of the people-pulling program, and it was ready to use. Generally speaking, though, those who needed it could not use it because they had no Sefirah, while those who had a Sefirah had no need for it.
As the spirit bodies were successfully extracted, the jade plaques at those locations in the real world silently shattered, dissolving into dust in the air and erasing every residual trace of Beyonder power.
As for the people who had been pulled up, their figures vanished completely into thin air. Other people's memories, relevant files and photographs, employment records... not a single medium recording any trace of their existence remained, as though they had never appeared on this
planet at all.
After checking once again that nothing had gone wrong, everyone had been pulled up in good condition, and no hulking fellow had suddenly emerged from Earth shouting "Let There Be Light," Lin Chuan finally breathed a sigh of relief.
This was something he had been thinking about even before his transmigration. At the end of the original novel, even after Klein became the King of Space-Time, he could not change established history. He could only look back at the past again and again within the Historical Void, because what lay beyond his reach was not merely distance, but time.
After seeing the "Qin-Han Secret Record of Esoteric Arts," Lin Chuan had chosen not to perform the Luck Enhancement Ritual and hang himself from the southeastern branch precisely because of the unanswered questions surrounding him, and because he wanted to try to remedy a regret he could not let go.
Later, it proved entirely possible. No predetermined fate existed to stop Lin Chuan. In that case, if the Celestial Worthy could pull people into Sefirah Castle and preserve their spirit bodies through the Apocalypse, why couldn't he?
"Now everything really is finished. Time to make my escape. Zhou Mingrui, Huang Tao, you two owe me one hell of a favor. What are you going to repay me with? Assassin Potions...?"
After muttering a few complaints to himself, Lin Chuan sighed. While he would not actually feed the two of them Assassin Potions, he would not miss out on a translated edition of Emperor Roselle's Diary-the scandalous portions-or the "Fool's Sacred Sayings" and the Tarot Club Chronicles.
"Ah, Zhou Mingrui and Huang Tao only need to hang in Sefirah Castle like cured meat, but Lin Chuan has so much more to consider."
How much longer would it take before he saw the era he knew? A few thousand years? Ten thousand?
Lin Chuan did not know either, but he would wait quietly until Klein awakened beneath the crimson moon and bewilderedly explored that unknown world. Then he would walk up, pat Klein on the shoulder, and greet him with a smile:
"Long time no see."
He turned and began sorting through the pile of miscellaneous items in the corner, taking stock of his belongings: that copy of the "Qin-Han Secret Record of Esoteric Arts," which he could consider showing Little Zhou later; the batch of old objects he had picked up at the antiques market, which might prove useful after soaking in his Sefirah; and the notebook he had used for nearly six years... nothing was missing. Everything lay there quietly.
Once he was certain there was nothing left on Earth to hold him back and no loose ends to deal with, Lin Chuan closed his eyes and withdrew his own existence.
I'm not a good person in the true sense, he thought:
If I were a good person, I should be saving more people right now. I should even try to time it just before the Apocalypse and see whether I could save the spirit bodies of all humanity. It's possible. The Spirit World would be destroyed anyway, leaving nothing to check against.
As he attempted to use the ability he had only recently developed, he calmly dissected himself.
But that would be risky. I'm not sure I could get the timing right, and it would most likely draw the attention of the Celestial Worthy and God Almighty. But what if I only saved some people? Pulled up a few more before the Oldest One awakened?
No, I wouldn't do that either. I have to ensure that after the Oldest One awakens, enough humans remain to preserve the seeds of civilization on both continents.
Before long, I'll return to Earth and watch from outside the barrier. Even if the ancient Sun God falls, I won't intervene, because apart from Zhou Mingrui, what I truly love isn't the humanity and Earth of this world, but only the Earth of the story I know. To prevent a butterfly effect... I might even help things along.
Lin Chuan recognized his own nature. He was Zhou Mingrui's friend and a willful reader, but what did that matter? What would take the stage next was a wild Great Old One of the cosmos. Surely no god would criticize an Outer Deity for lacking humanity?
His authority began to flow.
Earlier, before Lin Chuan established contact with his true body, he had not unconsciously used his Sefirah to block corruption. Rather, no connection had ever been established at all. This was a subordinate authority formed by the intertwining of two symbolisms within his Sefirah: "existence beyond the Oldest One" and "the Nothingness of the Oldest One." Perhaps it could be called the "Observer Beyond the Light Cone."
A light cone was an immutable law of physics and causality. Suppose a supernova exploded deep in the cosmos, far from Earth. Before the light cone of that explosion reached Earth, the event would have no effect on Earth, nor could Earth detect any information about the explosion. Only when the light cone arrived would the event become real through observation. In other words, the triggering of all causality in the material universe was subject to the absolute limit of the speed of light.
In this world, however, light cones were somewhat more special, because the Oldest One's symbolism of fate was the Key of Light. Cuttlefish had mentioned in a reply on his official account that the "Sefirah" in Sefirah Castle represented the root, while the "Light" in the Key of Light represented "within the light cone lies fate."
That made sense. As a visitor from beyond this world, an "existence beyond the Oldest One" unknown even to the Original Creator, once he concealed himself, so long as he did not actively exert any influence, even a Great Old One who governed fate could find only emptiness when searching the river of fate.
Because he came from "beyond the light cone," if he wished, the vast majority of authorities and symbolisms could not affect him, because those things simply did not exist for him.
In a sense, was it a case of closing his eyes and declaring that anything he could not see did not exist? It was somewhat similar to the Sublunary Eye, Sequence 0 of the High-Dimensional Overseer's Pathway.
At the same time, rather than choosing conventional spatial jumps or flight, Lin Chuan could let his existence begin to "fade" from the three-dimensional physical universe.
Like a pencil sketch gently erased from a canvas, his coordinates, his mass, and the space he occupied severed their connection to the world at that moment. They became equivalent to nonexistence, returning to a state of Nothingness, yet without vanishing completely. The traveler from beyond the world closed his eyes.
Then he redefined and observed his own existence, establishing a connection to the world once more.
When he took his next step, he was already standing on the uneven rim of a lunar crater.
There was no trajectory of physical movement. He had simply "ceased to exist" on Earth one moment, then "existed" again on the moon. To any potential observer, there was no transition between his disappearance and reappearance. He had not even caused any refraction of light or fluctuations in space.
Immediately afterward, his figure faded again, was erased, reconstructed... with every erasure, he grew more practiced and at ease. The distances he crossed increased geometrically, farther and farther, faster and faster.
May 5, 2018.
Lin Chuan officially left this planet that was not his native world, a planet on the verge of the Apocalypse, and embarked on his long journey through the stars.
Before you continue