It was a huge stone pillar.
These stone pillars were carved with strange patterns. Their twisted lines outlined a mysterious and strange image. Light emerged from the sky and shone on the hexagonal pedestal in front of him. Some kind of thick curtain blocked the existence inside, and only a faint silhouette could be seen.
The silhouette looked like a human, but Fangzheng knew that the silhouette was definitely not human.
"I don't know who you are."
A voice rang in Fangzheng's mind.
"But I can feel the power you control. It's a power I'm very familiar with. Who are you?"
"That's not an easy question to answer, but for now? You can think of me as someone to clean up the mess left by the Goddess of Order. "
Fangzheng sighed and took a step forward.
"Nyarlathotep is not a good thing. I hope you can be more polite than it. In fact, since you claim to be omniscient and omnipotent, I think you should understand why I'm here. You have something I need. Either you give it to me obediently, or I'll kill you and take it from your corpse … The result will be the same anyway."
"… … …"
The world sank into silence.
Then, the space began to tremble.
In an instant, Fangzheng felt the world change.
At this moment, he was still himself, but he was not just himself. He had become one of the countless versions of himself. He appeared in different places at the same time, in countless backgrounds. He stood beside Nimf, accompanying her as she looked at the towering mountains of Dunwich. He also stood by the Nile River, watching the slaves shouting horns and pulling boulders to build the pyramids. He saw the moment humans stepped into the universe, and witnessed the fuse that ignited the world war.
But that was not all.
He — or rather, they still existed. Not only in human form, but also in other forms. For example, an eagle soaring in the sky, a giant whale lurking in the depths of the sea, a tiger or leopard hunting for prey, or even a flower, a tree, or a stalk of wheat swaying in the wind. Soon, the world began to magnify.
Then, Fangzheng began to feel himself outside of Earth.
On a certain planet, he was worrying about how to hold a ceremony to praise the gods. On a certain planet, he was eager to destroy everything. He was an animal, but also a plant. He was organic, but also inorganic.
The concept of Fangzheng was scattered infinitely at this moment, falling into different places in different worlds in different timelines.
Gradually, he was no longer himself.
However …
"Hehe."
Accompanied by the laughter, time began to reverse again.
How could he make all of this cease to exist? It was simple, as long as it never happened. Time flows, and everything in the world moves forward in accordance with the flow of time. Fangzheng didn't even need to take Yugsothoth's attack. All he needed to do was turn back time to before Yugsothoth did anything to him. Then, everything that Yugsothoth had done would be meaningless.
Because none of this had happened yet.
The flames boiled, and the dazzling radiance penetrated the entire multi-dimensional space. It was like a ray of sunlight leading the way, tearing through the darkness and bringing tangible order to this chaotic world.
"— — — — —!"
The space suddenly trembled. Fangzheng opened his eyes and looked at the pedestal in front of him again. Behind the curtain, the shadows that originally clustered around the figure were now scattered all over the ground.
"… This is a test."
After a while, the voice rang out again.
"I don't think this is the right way. If you can do it, you won't be you anymore."
"… That's why I said you can't do it."
"Of course."
Fangzheng nodded.
"The self and the world are contradictory. There can't be an infinite self. When the self becomes the self, it will inevitably be separated from the self. I'm sorry, but I'm not a philosophy graduate, and I don't have much research in this area. If you're here to discuss this philosophical issue with me, I won't bother you."
Fangzheng knew what Yugsothoth had done. In fact, he could feel the divine power of the Goddess of Order just now. In other words, everything he had experienced was also the idea of the Goddess of Order — to divide the self into countless parts and then merge them into the same countless parts of Chaos.
But … Fangzheng refused.
In his opinion, there was no benefit to this experiment if it succeeded. If it failed, he would be dead. In any case, a consciousness had to maintain its self. If it couldn't maintain its self, it would be the same as death. If it couldn't maintain its self, it would be the same as merging into the disorderly Chaos. But conversely, if it wanted to maintain its self, it would be impossible to merge into the Chaos.
Of course, this was also a contest of strength between the two sides. If Fangzheng's control of time was not as good as Yugsothoth's, he would not be able to turn back time. It was like a tug of war. The weaker side would be dragged down by the other side without even a chance to get up. When that happened, Fangzheng would really be finished.
Fortunately, as the Dragon of Time, Fangzheng's understanding of time was not much worse than Yugsothoth's. Besides, he had the First Flame in his hand — the first flame that created the world and established the existence of Order. It would not be so easy to separate them. In other words, in the "tug of war" just now, Fangzheng used the First Flame as a lighthouse to stabilize his own existence. He then retrieved all the scattered timelines.
This was obviously not the answer that Yugsothoth was hoping for, but Fangzheng did not need to care about his feelings in the first place. Just like Fangzheng said, if you want to give it to me, I'll give it to you. If you don't want to give it to me, I'll just take it from you.
Finally, after a while, the figure behind the curtain raised his hand slightly. Soon, a shining cube appeared in front of Fangzheng.
Fangzheng took the cube and squeezed it hard.
Soon, the scene in front of him changed again.
This time, in front of him was an infinite void, and the Goddess of Order was floating in it.
"321st experiment …."
Looking at the glass jar with the black meat in her hand, the Goddess of Order's expression became a little uneasy.
"I hope it doesn't work."
"….?"
Looking at the Goddess of Order's uneasy expression, Fangzheng blinked and stared at her in confusion. He wondered if he had heard her wrong. It would make sense if the Goddess of Order was worried about the experiment failing, but worried about the experiment succeeding?
If you're worried about the experiment succeeding, then don't do it, right?
And you did it 321 times?
Is there something wrong with the Goddess of Order's brain?
However, just as Fangzheng was thinking about these questions, the Goddess of Order casually threw the glass jar in her hand into the void, then raised her hands and placed them on both sides of the glass jar. Soon, a dazzling light emerged from the Goddess of Order's hands and gradually shifted to the black meat sealed in the glass jar.
With the injection of divine power, the black meat began to squirm. It kept twisting its body, and the dense tentacles on its body also danced. Then, the divine light became brighter and brighter, as if it had been compressed to a limit. Then …
Everything in front of Fangzheng turned white.
When he opened his eyes again, everything around him had returned to normal.
Damn it, it's another premonition. Let's see what happens next.
Seeing this, Fangzheng rolled his eyes helplessly.
But in any case, he had already gotten what he wanted. All that was left was ….
Fangzheng glanced at his progress bar. His achievement progress was currently [8/?]. As expected, the remaining two should be Shub, Nicholas, and Azathos.
But …. what did the Goddess of Order mean?
Although the previous scene did not last long, the meaning revealed in it made Fangzheng a little uneasy. The Goddess of Order's expression at that time was even a little desperate, as if she was looking for an answer, but did not want to know the answer …. Well, this gave Fangzheng a very bad feeling.
As for the result ….
He could only find Sarah, Nicholas, to find out.
When Fangzheng returned to the real world, he frowned deeply. He was now sure that the Goddess of Order had conducted some kind of experiment here, and the core of the experiment was the wriggling black meat that Fangzheng saw before. If Fangzheng's guess was right, then that lump of black meat should be Azathos. In other words, the Goddess of Order chose to create a guy like Azathos in this world?
Then, what was the reason for creating Azathos?
In the memories given by Nyarlathotep, the Goddess of Order seemed to be looking for a solution by creating Azathos, but Fangzheng also remembered that she said it was risky. But this time, in the memories obtained from Yugsothotep, Fangzheng discovered that the Goddess of Order was obviously afraid of the risk. Perhaps she was gradually realizing the true meaning of the risk she was thinking about?
Unfortunately, these memories were all fragmented. There was not a complete paragraph ….
But in any case, at this point, Fangzheng could no longer continue to be carefree. He still had no news about Sarah, but Fangzheng had his own ways.
Even if he could not use prophecy magic, Fangzheng was still a prophet, and a god at that. Sometimes, his premonition was equally important.
After solving the matter in Dunwich, Fangzheng returned to his residence in Arkham and began to look for the place he wanted to go next on the world map. Now, Fangzheng was eager to find clues about Sarah Nicholas and obtain the last of her ancient memories from her. He wanted to figure out what the Goddess of Order had done, as well as the significance of Azathos's existence.
This time, Fangzheng's premonition led him to the East.
To be more precise …. Japan.
You've already exceeded your reading limit for today. If you want to read more, please log in.
Login
Select text and click 'Report' to let us know about any bad translation.
