No arrogance in his heart

Fate had made it so.

Heh. That was what made this world so fucked up.

A thought suddenly occurred to Lin Chuan: Should I just tell Klein to take the Moretti Family and move away from Tingen?

As long as he stayed far enough from Ince Zangwill, as long as he never touched the course fate had originally laid out for him, Klein would never join the Nighthawks, never suffer those catastrophes... and never become the Lord of the Mysteries.

The thought stunned even Lin Chuan himself.

He realized what he was truly considering at that moment: whether to let Klein take a different path.

A path where he would not have to face the erosion of divinity and reawakening, where he would not have to stand Above the Gray Fog and battle madness and loss of control alone.

A path... where he could live out a happy life.

Then what would the price be?

The answer seemed obvious.

Klein had yet to choose his Pathway. He had not truly entered the Evernight Goddess's sight or drawn her attention. Even his connection to Sefirah Castle was not yet particularly close.

The connection between the two was very, very weak. So weak that... even Lin Chuan, as he was right now, could take his place.

He could step into that role himself.

He had the status and the Sefirah. His consciousness, like the Celestial Worthy's, was that of a born Great Old One. As long as the two opposed one another, he could keep the Celestial Worthy's coffin lid nailed firmly shut even until the universe ended. He was the only one who could possibly accomplish that.

He was special, whether in terms of his Sefirah or his status, his memories or his identity.

A Great Old One who had lost their Sefirah and retained only their will could not contend with the Celestial Worthy, the "Avatar of Sefirah Castle." But if a being who possessed a Sefirah coveted Sefirah Castle, the Oldest One would inevitably awaken.

Only he could do it.

If he bore that madness, corruption, and irreversible erosion... Klein would only need to reach Sequence 3.

Lin Chuan remained silent as these thoughts raced through his mind. Then he noticed Klein looking at him, his eyes full of earnest expectation.

He opened his mouth, only to discover that he had no idea how to begin.

How utterly pathetic.

He kept dwelling on these questions, these possibilities, with all the indecision of an ordinary person.

The me ten thousand years from now would never be like this.

Lin Chuan thought this with certainty, but then he seemed to understand why his present self possessed only these memories.

"...What are you thinking about?"

Klein's voice was very soft, but it broke the silence.

The question pulled Lin Chuan back to reality. He blinked and realized that Klein had stepped closer at some point and was now standing beside the desk, looking at him.

Lin Chuan opened his mouth. He wanted to say "nothing," to brush it off with any excuse at all.

But this time, he could not get the words out.

Because Klein had not looked away. He simply watched Lin Chuan in silence, determined to wait for a real answer.

Lin Chuan suddenly felt a little tired. It was not physical exhaustion, but something deeper, as though a string had been pulled taut for too long and had finally reached its limit.

He lowered his gaze to his translucent hands. After a long while, he finally spoke, his voice far calmer than he had expected:

"I was wondering... whether I should tell you a few things."

"Things related to the Antigonus Family Notebook, for example. But I haven't thought it through myself yet."

He paused. By then, it had gone completely dark outside. The apartment's surroundings were silent, without a single sound.

"Do you know what I was thinking just now?" Lin Chuan asked evenly. "I was wondering whether to tell you outright-leave Tingen. Take your sister and brother with you, and move as far away as possible."

Klein's brow furrowed slightly, but he did not interrupt. He only listened more intently.

"If you stay, certain things will come looking for you."

Lin Chuan spoke in maddeningly cryptic terms. "Not because of who you are, but because some things have already latched onto you. That's how this world works. Once you touch certain things, they'll keep following you."

After saying that, he paused briefly before continuing:

"But that doesn't mean there's no solution. If it's handled properly, it won't stop you from going home. You can still live out your life in peace."

The room fell quiet for a moment. Then Klein spoke, his voice steady. "What do you mean by 'certain things'?"

Lin Chuan looked at him, finding his perceptiveness both reassuring and headache-inducing.

He turned his head to look at the darkness outside the window. Several breaths passed before he turned back and asked a question that seemed unrelated:

"What if I told you that you could choose an easier path, at the cost of handing some trouble over to someone else? Of course, that trouble wouldn't be all that serious for them."

"What would you think?"

Klein froze briefly, considered it, then said, "That depends on who this 'someone else' is."

"What if it's... uh, someone you know?"

Klein was silent for a moment. He had noticed that Lin Chuan had said, "It won't stop you from going home," without mentioning himself.

So he raised his head to look at Lin Chuan, his expression almost solemn in its earnestness.

"Then I wouldn't choose it."

Lin Chuan's eyelid twitched. "...Why?"

"Because among all those things you just told me, one was, 'You can't rely entirely on anyone, not even me.'"

Klein smiled. "And now you're asking me to hand my trouble over to you and leave on my own-what would you call that?"

Lin Chuan opened his mouth and found that he could not refute him.

"Besides," Klein continued, "stop thinking you have to shoulder everything alone. If we're going home, we're going together. Neither of us gets left behind."

He paused, then added something in a level tone that hit devastatingly hard: "Unless you never thought of me as a friend in the first place."

Lin Chuan was silent for three full seconds. Then the corner of his mouth twitched into a curve that was half helplessness, half surrender.

"That's just like you."

Their eyes met for a moment. Lin Chuan studied Klein's almost expressionless face-but there was clearly a well-concealed hint of amusement in his eyes.

Suddenly, he felt that all those thoughts he had turned over and over were utterly unreasonable. Klein was right-what gave him the right to decide that Klein needed protecting? Why had he assumed that shouldering everything himself was the best solution?

That was far too arrogant, and far too ridiculous.

"...With the way you looked just now, I thought you were going to say something really serious." Klein finished his last piece of bread and took a sip of water.

Lin Chuan raised an eyebrow. "With the way I looked just now, I really was thinking about something serious."

"Did you figure it out?"

"Maybe," Lin Chuan said honestly. "But when I need it, I'll ask for your help."

(I had someone draw a divination lot about my updates, as shown in the picture. No idea what it means.)