Chapter 1916: Chapter 1914: Ancient Memory 2
It was a vast expanse of stone pillars.
These stone pillars were engraved with incredible strange patterns, their twisted lines sketching out some kind of mysterious and eerie image. Light emerged from the sky above, sprinkling down onto the hexagonal pedestal before his eyes. Some kind of heavy curtain blocked the presence within, allowing only a faint silhouette to be seen.
The shadow looked human, but Fang Zheng knew very well that the shadow was definitely not human.
"I don’t know who you are."
A voice rang out in Fang Zheng’s mind.
"But I can sense the power you hold, a power I’m very familiar with. Who are you?"
"This question is hard to answer, but for now? You can think of me as someone who cleans up messes for the Goddess of Order."
Fang Zheng sighed and stepped forward.
"Nyarlathotep is not something fun to deal with. I hope you know better manners than it does. In fact, since you claim to be omniscient and omnipotent, I think you should understand my intention. You have something I need, either you honestly give it to me, or I’ll have to kill you and take it from your corpse... anyway, the result is the same."
".............."
The world fell into immersion.
Then, the space began to tremble.
In just a moment, Fang Zheng felt the world had changed.
In this moment, he was still him, but he was more than just him, he had already become one among countless versions of himself. He appeared in different places in the same time, amidst countless backgrounds. He stood beside the Nymph, accompanying her as she gazed at the majestic mountains of Dunwich. He also stood by the Nile River, watching the slaves pulling giant stones to build pyramids as the horns blared. He witnessed the moment humans ascended to the cosmos, and saw the trigger for the world war beginning.
But it wasn’t just these.
He— or rather, they still existed, not just in human form, but also in other forms. Like the eagle spreading its wings in flight, the giant whale lurking in the depths of the ocean, the tiger and leopard hunting for prey, even a flower, a tree, a stalk of wheat swaying in the wind. Soon, the world began to expand.
Next, Fang Zheng began to sense himself beyond Earth.
On one planet, he was fretting over how to hold a praise ceremony for the Deity. On another planet, he was yearning to destroy everything. He was animal, he was plant, he was organic, he was inorganic.
The concept of Fang Zheng, in that instant, was infinitely dispersed, falling into different places in different worlds on different timelines.
And gradually, he was no longer him.
However......
"Heh heh."
With the laughter, time began to swiftly reverse once more.
How to make all this not exist? Very simple, as long as it hasn’t happened. Time is flowing, everything in the world proceeds in accordance with the flow of time. Fang Zheng didn’t need to meet Yog-Sothoth’s move, he just needed to rewind time to before Yog-Sothoth played tricks on him, then everything Yog-Sothoth had done would be meaningless.
Because none of it has happened yet.
Flames boil, the dazzling radiance pierces through the entire multidimensional space, like a beam of guiding sunlight tearing through darkness, bringing tangible order to a chaotic world.
"-----------------"
The space suddenly trembled, Fang Zheng opened his eyes and looked again at the pedestal before him. Behind the curtain, the shadows that had originally surrounded that figure now lay sprawled all over the ground.
"......This is a trial."
After a while, the voice sounded again.
"I don’t think this is the correct way, if you succeeded, you would no longer be you, right."
"......So you couldn’t do it."
"Of course."
Fang Zheng nodded.
"Self and world are contradictory, infinite self cannot exist. When self becomes self, it inevitably separates out from it. Sorry, I didn’t graduate from philosophy department, I have no research in this area, so if you’re here to discuss this philosophical problem with me, then it’s best not to interrupt."
Fang Zheng knew what Yog-Sothoth did. In fact, he could sense the Divine Power of the Goddess of Order earlier, meaning that everything he experienced was also a method devised by the Goddess of Order— to divide self into countless parts, then merge them into the countless Chaos as a fusion.
However...... Fang Zheng refused.
In his view, this experiment has no benefits if successful, and if it fails, he’s as good as dead. No matter what, a consciousness needs to maintain its self, and if it cannot keep itself, it equates to death. Conversely, if one cannot maintain the self, it means merging into disorderly chaos. But on the other hand, if one wants to maintain the self, then it’s impossible to merge into chaos.
Of course, it’s also a trial of strength for both sides. If Fang Zheng’s grasp of time is inferior to Yog-Sothoth, he shouldn’t even talk about Time Retrospection. It’s like tug-of-war, where the weaker side is pulled down directly by the opponent, not even having the chance to get up. At that time, Fang Zheng would really be doomed.
Fortunately, as the Time Dragon, Fang Zheng’s understanding of time is not much worse than Yog-Sothoth’s. Moreover, he holds the Primordial Fire— the first flame that established the existence of order at the beginning of the universe, which isn’t easily separable. It could be said that in the previous "tug-of-war," Fang Zheng used the Primordial Fire as a beacon, anchoring his existence and then gathering back all the scattered timelines.
Obviously, this wasn’t the answer Yog-Sothoth hoped for, but Fang Zheng didn’t need to look at its expression. As Fang Zheng said, "If you’re willing to give, then give. If not, I’ll just take."
Finally, after a moment, the silhouette behind the curtain raised a hand slightly, and soon, a glowing cube appeared in front of Fang Zheng.
Fang Zheng took the cube and then squeezed it hard.
Soon, the scene before him changed again.
This time, in front of him was infinite void, and the Goddess of Order floating within it.
"The 321st experiment......"
Looking at the glass jar containing the black mass in her hand, the expression of the Goddess of Order became noticeably uneasy.
"Hope it doesn’t succeed."
"......?"
Seeing the uneasy expression of the Goddess of Order, Fang Zheng blinked, staring at her in confusion. He wondered if he heard something wrong. It made sense for the Goddess of Order to worry about the experiment failing, but worrying about it succeeding?
If you’re worried about it succeeding, why not just not do it?
And you’ve done it 321 times?
Isn’t the Goddess of Order’s mind a bit peculiar?
However, as Fang Zheng pondered these questions in confusion, he saw the Goddess of Order casually toss the glass jar she was holding into the void, then raise both hands, placing them on either side of the jar. Soon, dazzling Radiance emerged from the hands of the Goddess of Order, gradually transferring to the Pitch Black mass sealed within the glass jar.
With the infusion of Divine Power, the Pitch Black mass began to wriggle even more. It kept twisting its body, and the countless tentacles on its body danced along. Then, the Divine Light grew ever more dazzling, as if compressed to an extreme, and then......
Fang Zheng’s vision turned snow white.
When he opened his eyes again, everything around him had returned to normal.
Damn, yet another cliffhanger with hints for future developments.
Seeing this, Fang Zheng helplessly rolled his eyes.
But anyway, he’s got everything he was supposed to get, leaving only......
Fang Zheng took a glance and saw that his achievement progress was currently [8/?], so the remaining two, no surprise, should be Sabrinicolas and Azathoth.
But......what did the Goddess of Order mean by that?
Although the previous scene didn’t last long, the meaning it conveyed left Fang Zheng uneasy. The expression of the Goddess of Order was one of despair, as if she were searching for an answer but didn’t want to know it... Hmm, this gave Fang Zheng a very bad feeling.
As for the result......
He would only know it after finding Sabrinicolas.
When Fang Zheng returned to the real world, he frowned. It’s now certain that the Goddess of Order did some experiment here, and the core of that experiment is the wriggling black mass Fang Zheng saw before. If Fang Zheng’s guess is correct, that black mass should be Azathoth, meaning the Goddess of Order chose to create such an entity as Azathoth in this world?
So what was her reason for creating Azathoth?
In the memory given by Nyarlathotep, the Goddess of Order seemed to be seeking a solution by creating Azathoth, but Fang Zheng also recalled that she said it was risky, and in the memory obtained from Yog-Sothoth, Fang Zheng found that the Goddess of Order was clearly beginning to fear that risk— maybe she gradually realized the true meaning of the risk she had previously considered?
Unfortunately, these memories were fragmented and not a complete segment......
But regardless, having reached this step, Fang Zheng could no longer afford to be leisurely. He still didn’t have information on Sabrinicolas, but Fang Zheng had his own methods.
Even without the ability to use the Prophecy Spell, Fang Zheng is still a Prophet Mage, and as a Deity, sometimes his intuition is just as important.
After resolving the matter in Dunwich, Fang Zheng returned to his residence in Arkham, starting to search the world map for the next destination he should head to. Now, Fang Zheng is eager to find clues about Sabrinicolas and obtain the last Ancient Memory from her to understand what exactly the Goddess of Order did and what kind of existence Azathoth has in this context.
And this time, Fang Zheng’s intuition led him to the East.
To be precise......to Japan.
Comments