Dawn Was About to Break

When Old Neil woke the next morning, the light outside his window was still a hazy gray.

He lay in bed, dazed for a few seconds, before realizing something: he had slept deeply, without a single dream all night. That had never happened in over twenty years.

The familiar murmurs in his ears had vanished completely, and his spirituality was as clear as a stream after rain.

Old Neil went downstairs. The fire in the living room had gone out, leaving only a few dark-red embers amid the ashes.

When he reached the living room, however, he found Lin Chuan already sitting there, in exactly the same posture as the night before, as though he had not moved an inch all night.

Seeing Old Neil come downstairs, Lin Chuan turned his head, his calm gaze settling on the man's face.

"Good morning, Mr. Neil. How did you sleep last night?"

Lin Chuan did not call him "old sir." After all, he was far older than Old Neil himself. Calling someone else "old sir" would just be an old fossil pretending to be young.

Wouldn't you agree, Klein?

"Very well, thanks to you, Your Excellency," Old Neil answered respectfully. He went into the kitchen and poured himself a glass of water. After a moment's hesitation, he poured one for Lin Chuan as well.

When he set it before Lin Chuan, the water remained perfectly still. Lin Chuan did not reach for it, merely glanced at it and softly said, "Thank you."

Old Neil put down the glass and stood on the other side of the round table, unconsciously clenching his hands.

Last night, Lin Chuan had said, "You cannot resurrect Shaliste," but he had also said, "I came here for Neil and Shaliste."

Those words had circled in Old Neil's mind all night. Despite his immense fear of possibly angering a god, he gritted his teeth and ventured cautiously:

"Your Excellency, last night you said that every step I took was wrong. Then, as for resurrecting Shaliste... is there truly no hope at all?"

Lin Chuan set down the glass in his hand. Looking at the old man, whose eyes were full of hope even as he trembled with apprehension, he sighed and laid his thoughts bare:

"What you want to ask is whether there is still hope."

Old Neil remained silent, but his eyes told Lin Chuan that he was waiting for an answer.

Lin Chuan was quiet for a few seconds before speaking in a calm voice:

"One reason I said you would fail was that, if you continued following the Hidden Sage's guidance, you would most likely turn into a mindless monster before you could even complete the ritual."

Lin Chuan picked up the glass, then set it down again. Even if he could affect physical matter, a spirit body was still a spirit body. Without some authority or symbolism that could make thought override reality, he could not drink water.

"However," he added, introducing a turn, "as far as the ritual itself is concerned, there is indeed nothing wrong with the Life Alchemy ritual. You can always trust the Hermit's reliability when it comes to 'knowledge.'"

(The Hermit, not the Hidden Sage. That fellow merely takes advantage of possessing the Hermit's Uniqueness and the Knowledge Moor. I could do it too if I were in his place!

-From a certain occult illiterate.)

Old Neil's eyes lit up at once, and his breathing grew heavy. His voice trembled almost spasmodically as he asked, "Th-then does that mean the ritual can succeed as long as I remain sane?!"

Yet before he could rejoice for long, he himself realized a fatal problem:

"No... that's not right. The Life Alchemy ritual requires praying to a god for a blessing and power to unite the spirit and the flesh."

"The Hidden Sage is an evil god. I can't direct it toward him anymore... then who can I turn to?"

"In the orthodox churches, the Seven Gods would never answer a Mystery Pryer's blasphemous request for resurrection... not even the Earth Mother or the Evernight Goddess..."

In an instant, Old Neil understood who his only option was. He looked to Lin Chuan for help, hoping that he would allow him to redirect the ritual toward the revered god before him.

But Lin Chuan shook his head. He had not finished speaking yet. Bringing the dead back to life was not something a mere Sequence 4 ritual could accomplish.

"It isn't a matter of the gods refusing to respond." Lin Chuan's voice remained almost indifferently calm. "Neil, you should understand the basics of mysticism. Do you know where spirit bodies go?"

Old Neil froze for a moment, then answered apprehensively, "Spirit bodies... aren't spirit bodies supposed to go to the Spirit World?"

Then, before Lin Chuan could answer, he seemed to realize something. He raised his head and spoke urgently:

"For devout believers, their souls return to the divine kingdom of the god they worship after death. Their spirit bodies indeed aren't in the Spirit World, but-but she was a nonbeliever!"

Lin Chuan glanced at Old Neil and sighed. "Spirit bodies without faith enter the Spirit World, yes. But what happens afterward?"

Old Neil shook his head blankly. He was a Mystery Pryer, not a Beyonder of the Death Pathway.

He knew very little about the Spirit World, only that it was supposedly where everyone's soul ended up. As for what happened after a spirit body entered it, he truly had no idea.

Lin Chuan patiently explained to Old Neil,

"You should have learned from Daly that Spirit Channeling only communicates with the residual spirituality of the dead. Their spirit bodies enter the Spirit World."

"But unless they become evil spirits or wraiths, the spirit bodies of ordinary people have only one fate: to slowly and irreversibly dissipate until they cease to exist entirely."

The color drained from Old Neil's face in an instant.

Lin Chuan asked, "With the protection of a higher being, things would be different. But without that protection, and without having been a Beyonder, how long do you think an ordinary person's spirit body can retain its sense of self in the Spirit World?"

Old Neil felt as though something had shattered inside his mind.

Twenty years of persistence, twenty years of pain and research, had been mercilessly sentenced to death by reality in that instant. His body swayed, and he nearly collapsed to the floor.

But in the end, he did not fall. Instead, he slowly straightened and steadied himself. When he opened his eyes again, Old Neil merely asked in a hoarse voice:

"What price do you require of me? As long as we can try... even if it costs my life, my spirituality, everything I have!"

"Why would you say that?" Lin Chuan was rather puzzled. He added, "You may not know this, but when a spirit body has dissipated completely, as Shaliste's has, even a true god can do nothing."

Without the slightest hesitation, Old Neil answered, "Because I believe in you. I believe your great power surpasses my limited imagination, and I believe a great being such as yourself would not waste time on me without reason."

"Besides, you said you came here for me and Shaliste. If failure is inevitable, then what was the point of your coming here?"

Having summoned the courage to say his piece, he lowered his head and waited for the god's response to his small attempt to probe him.

After a long silence

had passed, Old Neil received an answer he had never expected:

"I'm sorry."