In Umi's rabbit hole, Rob is flipping through a book of fairy tales left by Merlin, which tells the story of an ugly duckling who turns into a white swan, but the ending is changed by Merlin, and the ugly duckling becomes a white swan and is caught and made into a full goose feast, so all the ugly ducklings no longer want to become white swans.

When Rob finished reading the story, he happened to hear footsteps coming from the corridor.

The footsteps were a little scattered, Merlin almost half-crawled and half-walked in, he dragged his weak body, panting, and was startled when he saw Rob, "You haven't reached the ninth order?"

Then he frowned and said, "No, you are already a ninth-order, but your aura is well hidden, it seems that your mastery of the three powers is indeed very good, and you are only one step away from fusing together." ”

"You are a little later than agreed. Rob put down the fairy tale book in his hand and got up.

Merlin's eyes flashed with a strange color, "Aren't you afraid, if I don't come back within a magical hour, your god-sealing ceremony will not be able to continue, and eventually your soul and body will be destroyed." ”

Rob didn't answer the question, but asked, "Then why did you come back?"

"Who knows, maybe there's still a trace of humanity somewhere in this body. Merlin grinned, revealing a self-deprecating smile, "I don't like this world, but I don't want to see it destroyed, but you, the last sentence of that goblin prophecy is to warn you of me, why do you choose to believe me?"

Rob raised an eyebrow, "There's no goblin prophecy at all, is there?"

"Oh?"

"How long have you been planning this, ten, fifty, or hundreds? You have obtained half a flower of soul, discovered the secret of the destruction of the four-eyed 'human' civilization, you are the only human being who can predict all this in advance, it is impossible not to be unprepared, assuming you have been laying it out since nine hundred years ago, then where is this chess piece?

"I thought about it carefully, the goblin prophecy became famous on the eve of the first magic war, and it was very close to the time when you obtained the soul flower, and the death of the fourth elf king before was more like a deceptive method, because it was too long ago to verify, and then the rise of the Lehart family once again verified the accuracy of the goblin prophecy, and it also completely made the goblin prophecy famous, and began to be rumored to be miraculous.

Rob paused, "I don't know what you think of the concept of fate, I'm more used to seeing it as a collection of all possibilities, I don't believe that anyone or any way can predict a person's fate in advance, and as far as I know, you have a lot to do with those little goblins." ”

"You know, goblins are one of the most unique races in the entire Dawn Continent, the first time I met them was underground, they are fragile, cowardly, greedy, no one knows how long they have lived there, no one even knows that they exist, they are so inconspicuous that even those bastards above us don't know that there is such a little thing living on the Dawn Continent. Merlin said leisurely.

His mind also seemed to return to a far away place, "Although I had eternal life at that time, I had not lost my human feelings, and since I learned what happened to those four-eyed 'people', I began to think about how to meet all this that will eventually come."

"At that time, magic was just starting, although Roland had built a system for it, but this was just tantamount to tamping the soil and sprinkling seeds, and humans still need to wait for it to blossom and bear fruit, I assume that in a few years there will be a you who will appear, better than Roland, full of talent and surprises, so powerful that once you succeed in becoming a god, you can shake the existence of the kingdom of God, and human beings will also touch a trump card in the real sense.

"But that's not enough, only the gods can defeat the gods. And they will not allow you to succeed in becoming a god, and in the end we still have to face the biggest trouble - there is no soul flower in the world for you to complete the god ceremony. Merlin blinked, "So I had a preliminary idea in my mind when I met those little goblins.

"It's not easy to sell the concept of fate to other people, especially the gods, and I spent some time teaching those little goblins how to speak, creating their own writings, writing their ethnic backgrounds, and that's what kind of 'absolute neutrality' and 'world watcher' rhetoric, I have to admit that in retrospect, this set of things is still a bit of a middle two, and I even built a goblin city on the sea for them. ”

Rob began, "So the goblin prophecy was just a lie from yours from beginning to end?"

Merlin plucked out his ears, "Yes, that's right, I'm going to convince everyone of the truth of the goblin prophecy, especially the guys above their heads, but in fact, the so-called prophecy is just the most likely scenario that I have deduced through a powerful intelligence network, and I say it through their mouths...... Of course, I will intervene in the shadows when necessary, in short, to make sure that things go in the direction predicted. ”

"You've been planning for a long time, so it's not the first time we've met here?"

"Yes. Merlin confessed, "I've been following you since you were at the Royal School of Magic and Wizardry of Thistle, and I have to admit that you're better than I thought. ”

Rob seemed to think of something, and his expression changed, "Then Luo Luo and my encounter with Ryan was also your arrangement?"

Merlin shook his head, "Whether it's you or me, we're standing here right now, trying to deny the existence of fate, but the funny thing is that sometimes they really exist, I know what happened to her father and mother, and I know that you escaped from your magic tower, but I didn't expect you to meet in Ryan." If there is a destiny in this world, then this is destiny - the fate of you and her, and the fate of the entire human world. ”

Rob was silent for a long time and said, "You've lied to everyone now, and then what?"

Merlin smiled, stretched out his hand, inserted it directly into his chest, and pulled out a small blood-colored flower from it, then took a breath and said, "Soul flower, the last step that your god sealing ritual lacks, and the rest will depend on you." ”

After saying this, he began to age rapidly, and in just a few minutes, his black hair turned gray, his muscles relaxed, his cheeks were crawling with wrinkles, and the years left their mark on his body at an incredible speed.

However, Merlin did not panic, but let out a sigh of satisfaction, "It's a wonderful feeling to be human again, to feel death again." ”