Chapter 322: Chapter 322
Beyond the Myth.
Not long after leaving Aedes Elysiae, Phaethon opened his hand. A meticulously crafted yet shattered and broken metal head lay quietly in his palm.
He studied the wreckage, so familiar to him, a faint, self-mocking smile tugging at the corner of his lips:
"Never thought I’d see the day... the vaunted incarnation of Zandar’s ’obsession,’ and your original body is really just this lone, solitary head?"
He raised an eyebrow, his tone playful. "Since that’s the case, why were you so afraid of me ’cutting off your head’ before? For an existence that’s already just a head... the operation of ’cutting off your head’ shouldn’t theoretically kill you anymore, right? At best, it’d be... ’returning to basics’?"
Lygus did not answer directly. His gaze swept across the surroundings—
This place, originally his laboratory—"Beyond the Myth"—once composed of countless cold displays and data streams, had long since been transformed.
Most of those flickering screens, Phaethon, using his "First Administrator" privileges, had forcibly replaced with golden images of Aedes Elysiae’s wheat fields swaying in different seasons and under different lights.
Warm, life-filled scenes now formed an absurd and stark contrast with the lingering cold, mechanical feel of the place.
"...I never imagined that either." A rare note of complex emotion surfaced in Lygus’s voice. He sighed softly. "You, the ’prisoner’ so heavily shackled by fate, by Amphoreus, by memory... have truly, with your own hands, broken open your own seemingly eternal, solid prison."
"’Prisoner’?" Phaethon chuckled softly, as if he’d heard something amusing. The laughter echoed in the transformed space. "If we’re talking about being trapped inside this ’Scepter’ called Amphoreus, bound to its cold permissions... your time here far exceeds mine, wouldn’t you say?"
"So... who is the real prisoner of this Erudition creation called Amphoreus? Me, a passerby who once lost himself in the cycles? Or you, the ’warden’ who turned himself into part of the system?"
He pressed his advantage mercilessly:
"And besides, Lygus, you really are... the most qualified ’puppet’ under the Aeon of Erudition." He deliberately emphasized the word. "With your help, Nous perfectly achieved its goal, successfully guiding and finally anchoring the ’answer’ it sought."
Phaethon raised the slightly dim optical sensor of the head in his palm to eye level, and declared, word by word:
"Tell me, is my analysis correct? You, who are both the eternal prisoner of Amphoreus and the unknowing puppet in Erudition’s chess game... Lycurgus?" He unabashedly invoked the name of Nous, repeatedly probing Lygus’s most sensitive nerve.
"..."
Lygus fell into a long silence. As for whether these incisive verbal lances had broken through his defenses...
"Ding~!"
A cheerfully incongruous notification sound abruptly rang out in Phaethon’s mind. A small line of text popped up in the corner of that ever-present red panel:
"Successfully stimulated and broke through Lygus’s defenses with exquisite verbal sparring! Elation points credited: 72~ points~~~ (The art of language is also a part of Elation!)"
"Cough." Phaethon’s expression didn’t change. He completely ignored Aha’s mischievous broadcast, his gaze still locked on the head in his hand.
Finally, after a stretch of silence, Lygus’s voice sounded again, noticeably calmer:
"Truly... nostalgic, Asterion." His tone was unreadable. "Even across such a vast span of cycles and years, your tongue remains as venomous and sharp as ever."
"Ha, thanks for the compliment..." Phaethon’s tone was flat, impossible to interpret as either acceptance or sarcasm—more a kind of indifference that walled off all the other’s emotions.
A brief silence spread through the transformed space, only the false vitality of the wheat field images flowing silently.
Suddenly, Lygus’s processed electronic voice broke the stillness once more:
"...Allow me one more word." His voice now carried a rare hint of genuine inquiry, though his stance remained suspect. "What do you and Khaslana—what do you plan to do next?"
Not waiting for Phaethon’s answer, he continued on his own, his tone calm yet impossible to ignore:
"Let me remind you, Asterion. Undeniably, you have achieved something... worthy of being etched into the cosmos. A single drop of burning ’Purifying Golden Blood,’ flowing down a god’s cheek—that in itself is the loudest declaration of rebellion."
"And more profoundly... a Destruction sworn to annihilate the very concept of all ’Paths’—its very foundation has been... shaken by another, still-undefined nascent Path."
"But, after such a feat, what then?" Lygus’s tone shifted. The bare mechanical head in Phaethon’s palm seemed to slightly fix its gaze upon him. "Asterion... you seem to have overlooked one thing—you haven’t merely ’wounded’ Destruction. Destruction’s wounds will heal, and in healing, it may even grow stronger."
"But... what you’ve done is far more fatal—you have denied Destruction, denied the path and the finality it represents, even questioned the very meaning of Destruction’s existence."
"Now, it’s not just the Lord Ravagers, who see destruction as the sole truth, who will never let this rest, more importantly, Nanook’s gaze will now be firmly fixed upon you."
Lygus’s pace quickened, painting a suffocating picture. "What you will face next will be a cosmic-level siege... far more direct, far more perilous, and with far fewer places to hide than all your past thirty million closed recurrence combined."
"More than one... Lord Ravager?" Phaethon’s brow furrowed slightly. He had confidence in his own power, fused with the accumulated foundation of Amphoreus’s thirty million lifetimes.
But... intelligence on the Lord Ravagers was far too scarce. What bizarre and unpredictable abilities and trump cards did each of them possess?
If multiple truly attacked simultaneously, even if he could hold his own or even gain the upper hand through sheer power, what about Phainon? What about everyone else in Amphoreus?
Unexpected variables were bound to appear, potentially causing irreparable losses... This uncertainty cast a shadow over his heart.
