Aside from Dolan who was silently excited, in a certain underground bunker of this border city, someone else was hysterical.
“Ahahahaha, as long as I find that thing, I’d be able to complete this ritual!”
He was a young man wearing a set of what seemed to be worn but clearly well-maintained aristocratic clothing.
During the Age of Flames, his ancestor used to be the sworn brother of a certain member of the Ghostmen. Since he lost the ability to leave descendants after becoming a Ghostman, that Ghostman had told all of his secrets to the family of his sworn brother.
Including the ritual to become a Ghostman.
“First drink the Impure Origin, then use the Ceremonial Blade to stab through one’s heart, thus becoming a person who lingers on the verge of life and death. At this point, by implanting oneself with a secondary soul, one would become a Ghostman who was comparable to a Pugilist who had obtained their Pugilist Heart. Not only would one obtain supernatural powers, they would also obtain an immortal body”
“But following that personage’s department from this world, Impure Origin had gradually disappeared. Only by hunting the Crow demons or Death Crows would one be able to obtain an inferior version. Furthermore, both the process of collecting and implanting a secondary soul would become significantly more dangerous without that personage’s help, leaving plenty of side effects”
“Even so; even an incomplete ritual like this can result in the renowned Ghost Knight”
The young man undid the leather sheath at his side to extract a golden glowing curved blade.
The curved blade was slightly vibrating as if it had sensed something. It was also this vibration that allowed the young man to find it in a dark corner of his family’s ancient storage room.
“And then there was also the Spring of Life. According to the ancestor’s records, Dead Walker Jason was someone who replaced the Impure Origin with Spring of Life’s water and managed to kill the vice-captain of the Ghostmen at the time, Cadiz”
“Under the circumstances where there wasn’t any perfect Impure Origin, the Spring of Life’s water would be the most perfect substitute”
Observing the Ceremonial Blade in his hand, the young man thought about this family’s run-down situation and made his determination to re-establish the family’s glory no matter what.
He just happened to learn of the location of the Spring of Life when he came out to sell his family’s assets to another aristocrat in the city, coupled with his discovery of his ancestor’s Ceremonial Blade, the young man’s ambitions had been thoroughly lit.
I, Catho Jugus, will surely regain the glory of the Jugus family!
The young man silently swore to himself, then heard the sound of the underground room being opened, followed by the voice of a young child who was about 7-8 years old:
“Big brother, are you there?”
“Ramillies, I’m here, I’ll be there right away” Catho hurriedly hid the Ceremonial Blade and began to climb back up before he looked back at the wrapped Ceremonial Blade again.
Although this thing can bring him immense power, it was still an artifact left by that personage. As everyone knows, that personage was also called by another name: the God of Omen.
Any person who relates with him in any way would be immersed deeply within menace.
The Crowmen’s bloodline was like this, the Dragonmen’s bloodline was like this, and the inheritors of the Ghostmen ritual was no exception.
Even the renowned Ghost Knight had a similarly notoriously tragic life story.
…
Sitting in his horse carriage, Negary smiled full of interest as he observed all of this.
He didn’t try to use the world’s curved aspect to observe their futures right away. This was because after Negary had achieved his Pathway, even the mere act of observing two mortals’ futures with his world-crossing vision could greatly influence the future to become the version he witnessed.
For that reason, before he could develop a better method of observing the future, he would not arbitrarily do it. Of course, with the current information available to him, Negary could already see the most probable outcome.
〖 Lan Shan, let’s remain in this city for a period of time 〗Negary said.
Lan Shan naturally obeyed him without question.
The roads of the New Royas Kingdom were quite decent, so Negary disembarked the horse carriage and traveled on foot with Lan Shan through its streets. Having not taken a stroll like this for a long while, he was now a bit more emotional towards it compared to before.
〖 Lan Shan, do you know why the majority of worlds within this multiverse contain humans? 〗Negary’s gaze continuously observed his surroundings. Reflecting the traces of how this city was formed, developed, and eventually ended up the way they were, in his eyes.
Even a small piece of dust had its own past and history, perhaps it was once glorious, or simply an obscured nobody, there was plenty of information on them for anyone to observe and discern.
“I’m not very sure about that, but perhaps it’s simply a common characteristic” Lan Shan had clearly wondered this before but hadn’t found an answer: “Perhaps there was a Law of the universe called ‘humanity’?”
〖 No, no such thing exists. Of course, if you stretch the meaning, there could be 〗Negary smiled and replied: 〖 ‘Humanity’ as a concept had not formed their own complete Truth, they are merely the fragments created as the String of Truth operates and moves against Reality 〗
“Fragments?”
〖 Indeed, just like this piece of dust. In any given room, the most numerous ‘thing’ would not be humans, but rather, dust. And humanity is the ‘dust’ of the multiverse 〗
〖 A Sand Realm is equivalent to a box that is thrown on the sidewalk, so it naturally collects a lot of dust, while Greater Realms are equivalent to cities. Although there would be even more dust here, they had never been the prominent figure or master 〗
〖 There are many sizes of dust, but in the end, they’re still dust; and this was the same for humans. While there were clear differences between the humans of each world, their nature as ‘dust’ doesn’t change 〗
〖 This is the nature of humanity. A Sand Realm is too small for a normal ‘person’ to go in, even if they manage to, they would feel restrained, which was why the species called Humans managed to spread out across all the Sand Realms 〗
Observing the humans on the street, Negary stated this cruel fact.
Negary was currently in that exact restrained situation. The time flow of a Sand Realm couldn’t affect him at all, so he had to carefully maintain a stop on his own power in order to remain normal here.
This was also the reason why he isn’t observing the future, as the future of a Sand Realm really couldn’t sustain his tinkering. The fact that he would only greatly increase the possibility of a certain future was already the result of Negary’s extremely fine control.
〖 However, even dust have its own possibility 〗
Negary turned his gaze to a small piece of dust and caught it with his finger, gently smiling: 〖 526 years ago, this was once a part of the Royas Empire’s crown, and now it had fallen on my hand. That is the glory of dust! 〗
「 Indeed so. Meeting Lord Negary was also Yayu’s glory 」Yayu who was still perched on Negary’s shoulder immediately followed up.
Negary lightly stroked the crow’s head, then let go of the piece of dust on his finger and continued his stroll. After finding a good location, he gently scored the void with his finger to open up a sub-space within another Aspect of Reality.
This place seemed to be an exact replica of the normal world, but all humans here are statues who remain eternally in one place, up until the statue’s corresponding person loses their life in Reality.
Meanwhile, the piece of dust that Negary caught with his finger earlier began to change, it started to give off an immense attraction that collected other pieces of dust around it, eventually turning into a seemingly regular ball of dust, continuing to be moved by its surroundings towards an unknown destination.
