"If you want to hide a secret, what should you do?"

West Sacland, the imperial capital of Golovin, a suburban farmstead.

"First of all... Most obviously, you can't tell anyone about it. ”

Sitting at the table, a down-and-out priest in ragged clothes feasted on the freshly brewed Sackland red on the table and loosened the hard bread in a hot soup.

"Every additional person who knows the existence of a secret increases the risk of the secret being exposed—not only to the secret itself, but also to the person who is informed, and to add a risk. ”

"Secondly, you should stay away from this secret as much as possible... Try to keep everything you do away from it, avoid anything that might be involved, anything that might make it abrupt, discordant... Forgetting is always the best way to keep it secret. ”

Of course, this is only for the existence of the material world. ”

"He... Know this. ”

After a slight pause, the down-and-out priest looked calm and his expression was indifferent.

So in order to hide this secret that only he knows, he not only has to hide it from others, but even from himself, and puts all kinds of hints in his heart to hide the real secret. ”

"The number of these hints is many, and quite a few of them are full of holes... But it's not the point that there are holes, it's the number that counts – even if it's impossible to truly forget the secret, let yourself misunderstand the secret itself, even a world of misinterpretation......"

Burst!

The sound outside the door made the down-and-out priest frown slightly, and his cold gaze glanced out from under his hood.

The small figure huddled outside the door shuddered violently, and the sound stopped.

Nodding his head, the downcast priest withdrew his gaze before resuming the wine glass on the table.

Only by doing so can he buy enough time and even let the person who tries to explore the secret step into the trap he has carefully prepared again and again. ”

"Clever... It's really smart. ”

"A clear understanding of the limits of his abilities, a good understanding of the enemy's methods, plus a little luck, careful judgment, a slightly more risky move... That's the smartest thing to do. ”

"Roland Turin is brave enough, but only a fanatic;"

"Eckhart de Salion has a long-term vision, but lacks strength;"

"Generations of 'beings' who have been empowered by the material world, bewitched by the losers, and who have fought against the Void are limited to themselves, unable to resist the invasion from another level, and all they can do is delay time. ”

"If you want to defeat one world, you have to use another world to fight against it, generate variables, and create opportunities... Even if it would bring more danger, because the danger itself... It's an opportunity. ”

"They've really gone out of their way to turn the tables around. ”

A smile appeared on the corner of the down-and-out priest's mouth, as if he was reminiscing about the sweetness of the new brew.

"But now, it's time for the heroic drama of struggle to come to an end, the curtain to end, everything to be over, everything to be over. ”

"Everything has an end... No matter how stubborn you resist, it won't help. ”

"Everything that is done—noble, lowly, cruel, merciful, passionate, prosaic, cumbersome, concise, hearty, painful, tangled......"

"For... It's all the calm of this last moment, and the end of the song is silent. ”

The downcast priest slowly got up and pushed away the long-dead owner of the manor beside him, as well as the master's wife, eldest son, and little girl sitting around the dining table.

Poof!

The body of the manor's owner collapsed to the ground, and a Night's Watch ring fell from his bosom to a pool of blood beneath him.

The downcast priest stepped on the blood-soaked floor and walked to the courtyard outside the living room without changing his face, the soles of his dirty boots stained a dark red.

In the clean and tidy courtyard, there were more than a dozen corpses lying horizontally, some witchers and some night watchmen... What they all have in common is that most of them are broken, as if they have been bitten, there is hardly a single intact bone or flesh from head to toe, and the hideous remains also prove that they suffered a great deal before they died.

Though... Those who can keep their remains are only a few "lucky ones".

The elven girl Sherra, who was huddled behind the door, worked very hard to pile these corpses of different sizes neatly in the corner of the courtyard, and the petite figure kept moving things two or three times larger than herself, and she was already sweating profusely without making a sound.

Some of the old and tattered samurai robes exposed the delicate limbs of the elven girl, white with a red halo, transparent enough to see the color of the blood vessels and muscle textures underneath, as if they had just grown, and with the elven girl's immature face, it looked very cute.

Only the demon hunters who died tragically at the hands of this elf girl understood what kind of devouring beast was hidden under this "cute appearance".

Seeing the down-and-out priest walk out of the room, Sherra's eyes lit up, and she wanted to put it on the "savior" who had saved her and restored her limbs, but she seemed to have a trace of awe and fear, and never dared to get too close.

The down-and-out priest with his face hidden under his hood didn't seem to even pay attention to her mood, and looked back at the direction of the sun setting at the end of the river of gems.

Direction of Ebolden.

The river of gems flowing quietly, covered with golden sparkling waves by the setting sun, is even more dazzling and magnificent than when the sun is shining.

Looking at the landscape, a slight sneer appeared on the face of the down-and-out priest.

The rapidly expanding power of the void was even more dazzling in his eyes than the setting sun that was close at hand.

If it was before... In Ebolden, Dragon King, Crimson Blood, Silverhelm Mountain... At any given time in the past, he would do everything he could to destroy him, or at the very least, to prevent him from going any further and creating variables that would destroy his plans.

But nowadays, there is no need to do so.

The ending has been decided, so you might as well let him be arrogant for a while before the end.

"Let's go. ”

Retracting his gaze, the down-and-out priest who spoke lightly did not wait for the elf girl behind him to react, and had already walked away.

"Where?"

The elf girl hurriedly followed, and subconsciously asked.

But almost as soon as he spoke, the "immature and cute" face showed a frightened expression, and he quickly closed his mouth, curled up on the ground and shivered, not daring to move.

It wasn't until the downcast priest had gone far away and found that she hadn't followed that he stopped and looked back slowly:

"Golovin. ”

..............................

Everything was quiet.

Trembling, collapsing, falling, roaring, roaring... All voices were lost in the darkness.

Without light, there is no light, everything is cold and silent darkness... Even the touch of temperature, the smell, and everything that can confirm one's existence are deprived of nothing by the "darkness".

Only the consciousness that is still "thinking" continues to function.

Constantly thinking, Loren opened his "eyes".

Void... This is the first time he has come here "alone".

Any time before, whether it was falling into a dream, a spiritual temple, a dream world... Almost always in the company of "people", or at least in the premise of protection.

And this time... The black-haired wizard had no safeguards, standing alone in the void.

The first thing I felt was "freedom".

Unfettered "freedom".

Not only the freedom to exist, but even the freedom to be limited by the body - no longer bound by the physical world, he can clearly feel that his consciousness can move at any time and at any level at any time, anywhere.

He even felt that he could teleport to any corner of the world, to any corner of the world that existed or did not exist, and that he could travel through time to the past or the future.

As long as he thinks, as long as there is such a "concept" in his mind, he can do anything, he can do anything.

Or even to create a world, or... Become a world.

This is the power of the void, or rather......

This is the void.

"Being" that exists because it does not exist.

The black-haired wizard frowned slightly, and an inexplicable impulse welled up in his heart.

The "consciousness" of thinking flashed a spark in an instant—just for that moment, the world as it was seen immediately changed its appearance.

It was scorching, so hot that it burned with flames, and the sun, which poured out tongues of fire, appeared above his head, sweeping away the darkness!

A clear dome appeared at the black-haired wizard's side, surrounded by a long stream of fortune, and beneath his feet was the vast expanse of the earth.

In the next second, the consciousness of thinking was slightly biased, like a spark dissipating.

In the blink of an eye, the sun was extinguished and dimmed, the accumulation of fortune turned into dark clouds and thunder, the cracked mountains and rivers erupted into pillars of fire, and the rocky earth was torn apart, spewing out explosive gases that ignited the land that had been overturned in the sea.

The clouds that rolled up the smoke and dust rained down like a waterfall, and together with the sea water that poured up the earth and the flames that burned the mountains and rivers, all the creatures on the earth that were born or had not yet been born were destroyed in the bud.

It was all changing so fast, so fast that by the time the black-haired wizard realized what had just happened, the clear sky above him had turned into a still Milky Way, and the stars would be surrounding his "figure" like the moon.

And directly below him, the "destroyed world" is reborn, only slightly changed:

The peaks stand like towers of arrows, and the earth is divided into nine and stacked on top of each other, surrounding the tallest and widest peaks among them.

This "world" like the World Tree, or the Elven Settlement Tree of the Ancient Wood Forest, takes on a completely different appearance because of the high ground - the top land is illuminated by the stars, which is no different from the past, and the bottom is completely shrouded in darkness, just like the abyss.

The view fell, and the Milky Way in the dome fell like a shower, stopping abruptly just before the stars were about to fall to the ground, and forever at the last moment of falling.

The black-haired wizard felt as if he was beginning to understand how the Void World "worked".

And then at that moment, things changed.

Sadness, joy, excitement, dullness, anger, calm... All kinds of emotions poured into his consciousness like a storm, and thousands of arrows bombarded the iron wall that he had erected for his consciousness with calmness and reason.

The speed of thinking had to be slowed down, and all efforts were made to contain these rapidly expanding emotions that came from nowhere, and the "Star World", which had lost control, was overturned in an instant, destroyed by the explosion and roar of the falling.

Almost at the same time, or there was a precursor, or the concept of time did not exist at all... A completely new world, completely beyond the comprehension of the black-haired wizard, appeared before him.

A large amount of information still poured into his consciousness and became a part of his thinking, and the "thinking" that had exhausted all his strength just to resist emotions was once again impacted.

It's like a slap in the face!

He can't stop thinking, just as life can't stop living – thinking and emotions are fundamental to the existence of consciousness, and he can't stop it, so he has to keep understanding the massive amount of information pouring into his "vision" at a speed that he can't keep up with.

Those messages... They are words, symbols, sounds, imagines, flashes of inspiration in the mind, jokes that are so absurd that they don't even take it seriously, cold, hot, firm, soft, comfortable, and painful that can be truly experienced when touched......

The black-haired wizard wants to shout out, he wants to shout out heartbreakingly... He can tear his heart and lungs, he can scream, but he will not have the feeling of shouting, let alone the pain of tearing his lungs - because he is only conscious, he is no longer bound by his body.

He wanted to stop all this, but to stop thinking meant the death of "consciousness" and existence—for other wizards, it meant becoming insane, and for Loren, it meant that his physical and conscious existence would end at the same time.

Because he is not a being of this world, he is a stranger.

His spiritual and material planes are completely unified and cannot be separated.

Even if it is just early death, late death, or life is better than death, he must persevere, otherwise it will be all over, he will not even have a single hair left, and he will be "killed" by himself.

Bang –

A hurried, brief voice exploded in the black-haired wizard's consciousness.

At that moment, everything stopped, and the huge flow of information slowed down—a very inappropriate description, because there was no concept of time in the void, and there was no distinction between fast and slow, but it did seem to slow down—gradually, it began to become acceptable to Loren.

Little by little, the information in my mind is thought, understood, accepted, digested... All sorts of completely different information, information, things that happened and didn't happen, truth and illusion, reality and lies, kept wandering in Loren's mind.

It's like reading a huge, never-ending book.

This......

"No need to be nervous, no need to be vigilant, from the presence of the material world, you are very safe now. ”

The voice sounded in the dark-haired wizard's consciousness, and he could clearly perceive the difference between this voice and the other "messages" - it was subjective and conscious:

"You... Under my protection. ”

。