Apocalypse Forecast

Chapter 152: Chapter 143 Hidden Puzzle_1

This bout of unconsciousness was unlike the usual closing and opening of eyes where an entire night would pass.

Huai Shi felt as though he had truly fallen asleep.

He was immersed in a pain that felt like the splitting of his Source Substance...

The pain from the Penalty for Oath Breaking still lingered in his physical shell. Even amidst countless fragmented dreams, it remained crystal clear, shattering his coherent consciousness, like a piece of iron being struck by an Iron Hammer on an anvil.

He was being remolded by the flames of agony, a process to ensure that this sharp tool—himself—could continue to fulfill its mission.

But for Huai Shi, it was an inescapable torture.

Every moment, his consciousness endured the torment of pain until, finally, in a dazed state, he forgot who he was, lost in those scattered fragments of memory.

In the end, he could only hear countless solemn voices echoing in the darkness.

”Abraham, your hands are soaked with unjust blood today. This will be your proof of redemption, and it is also a part of your sins...”

”You dirtied your own hands to prevent more from touching the darkness. You bore the sin, allowing more Souls to ascend the stairs to the Heavenly Kingdom...”

”If your sins are not permitted, your redemption will be indefinitely far away.”

”What has already happened, remove the witnesses; what has already been done, the records must be erased... Nothing new under the sun, and nothing new beyond it.”

...

Eventually, those thunderous voices resonated in his ears, as if inscribing an indisputable law into his Soul:

”—The world remains the same through the ages.”

Huai Shi opened his eyes, looking at the unfamiliar ceiling as if through the veil of another lifetime, his mind utterly blank.

Who am I? Where am I? What am I supposed to do?

”You finally woke up?” Ai Qing asked from beside him. ”That was a long sleep.”

”Am I... Huai Shi?” He finally distinguished his own memories from the chaos, and the Book of Fate reassembled everything. Yet, he still struggled to pull his thoughts from the muddle.

”How long did I sleep?”

”Twenty-seven hours,” Ai Qing sighed, ”a full twenty-seven hours.”

In those long twenty-seven hours, she had exhausted all means to awaken Huai Shi, but all interference from outside the game proved as fruitless as casting stones into the sea.

The sound of dice continued incessantly. An array of complex judgments flowed past Ai Qing, making them difficult to pinpoint.

KP smiled from beginning to end, quietly appreciating her somber demeanor, holding the ’Clement’ Character Card, waiting for her surrender and abandonment.

If she wished, the game could be restarted at any time.

If Huai Shi continued to sleep, Ai Qing didn’t even know how much longer her meaningless perseverance could last.

Yet, his persistence was, in fact, already meaningless.

When KP revealed his trump card, she knew that all her struggles had likely failed.

In her contemplation, she suddenly heard Huai Shi speak:

”Ai Qing, is there something you’re hiding from me?”

”Hmm?”

She frowned subconsciously, glancing at KP, but KP just smiled, twirling his dice, and merely shrugged his shoulders innocently.

”Your instructions are too scarce,” Huai Shi said. ”If it were like before, even if you remained silent, you wouldn’t let me act recklessly, would you?”

”...”

Ai Qing was silent for a long time before she said, ”I’m thinking.”

”Did you come to a conclusion?”

”Yes,” Ai Qing replied tartly. ”The result of my thinking was the realization that here, just as in the outside world, thinking is usually useless. It only causes harm. Honestly, I can’t solve the current dilemma. I’d like to offer effective advice that addresses the core of the problem, but you probably wouldn’t like it.”

She paused, her eyes downcast in reluctant resignation. ”How you complete your task is up to you.”

”Hmm?”

Huai Shi was stunned. ”My task? Parasussell? Didn’t he die half a year ago?”

Ai Qing shook her head pityingly. ”You’ll understand soon enough.”

At that moment, Huai Shi’s expression spasmed. He felt an uncontrollable murderous intent surge within him, an unbearable heat and thirst in his chest.

It was the craving for blood and death.

Because he saw Lily.

His heart pounded wildly, as if about to explode. An uncontrollable surge of hormones threw him into an indescribable frenzy.

As if he had become a beast.

He convulsed violently, raising his hand like an epileptic patient struggling to rise.

If his limbs weren’t so weak at the moment, he might have already leaped up to rip open her throat.

”What’s wrong with you?”

Lily looked down at him in astonishment, peeling open his eyes and leaning in to examine him closely. ”Difficulty breathing, constricted pupils, irregular heartbeat... an undocumented side effect?”

Her soft breath blew on his face.

Like the wind from Hell.

His canines slowly lengthened, and dark purple capillaries surfaced on his pale face, hideous.

”Don’t be afraid.”

Lily bent down and swiftly took out a syringe from her waist pouch, along with Huai Shi’s set of Alchemy Instruments. Quickly, she injected a colorless Potion into his carotid artery.

”Don’t worry, it’s just some sedatives and a balancing serum.”

Lily felt his temperature with her hand and said softly, ”It might be that the poison within you hasn’t been completely cleared. This should make you feel a bit better.”

”No, it’s not...”

Huai Shi breathed with difficulty.

The bone-deep killing intent was rapidly diluted by fatigue.

The convulsions in his limbs gradually subsided. As the dark purple network on his face faded, Huai Shi grew calm; or rather, he finally managed to suppress the uncontrollable murderous intent in his heart and forcibly calmed himself.

But countless thunderous roars still lingered in his consciousness. Like ironclad laws, they continuously brought whip-like shocks and thunderous, burning pain.

Kill her! She must be killed! Paracelsus must die!

Huai Shi roared in his heart, But that old man died half a year ago! I searched for a year, and for half of that, I was looking for a dead man! The mission was completed long ago!

Ai Qing’s voice sounded, full of pity. ”But he left behind something, didn’t he? Think carefully, Huai Shi. No, Abraham Van Helsing. Was your mission truly to kill Paracelsus? Think carefully...”

”Find that person, follow that person, and then kill that person!”

In a trance, that authoritative and aged voice rang in his ears again: ”At any cost, let that blasphemer’s work, let that monstrosity that only defiles God’s feats, be ground to dust!”

His... work?

”Yes, his work,” Ai Qing said softly. ”The only work left by the Alchemy grandmaster acclaimed for creating the ’Philosopher’s Stone’...”

The Philosopher’s Stone?

The incarnation of miracles in the human world, the almighty crystal, the Drug of Immortality, the amalgam of countless prayers and Sky’s Command, The One within the All, the All within the One... terms not merely used to describe a Fifth Stage Sublimator.

Since time immemorial, this existence has been afforded lofty hopes and expectations by countless people.

From the very beginning, it represented a nearly unattainable pinnacle of miracles.

When the Guide Association became a thorn in The Church’s side, and Creationism and Evolutionism grew increasingly irreconcilable, what other work could be honored with such a lofty title?

Amidst his fractured consciousness, Huai Shi struggled to think, finally feeling a loneliness and pain as if facing boundless darkness.

It was as if he finally understood Ai Qing’s helplessness. Think, Huai Shi, think carefully... Aren’t the clues left for you more than sufficient? Ponder it. Experience the pain I felt while thinking... then you will understand... the one and only truth.

”Lily.” In that instant, Huai Shi murmured in disbelief, ”She was... created by... Paracelsus?”

”Is there any other possibility?” Ai Qing questioned back.

A Doppelgänger, which should have required numerous expensive materials attuned to Soul attributes for its creation, yet in her hands, it seemed so effortless...

Precious Potions, which should have required various formulas to craft, yet she could concoct them simply by drawing a little of her own blood...

Seemingly mature in appearance, yet sometimes acting so childishly...

Even though Paracelsus had long been dead, when Huai Shi sensed Lily’s connection to him, an uncontrollable, fierce killing intent surged within.

”This is the final truth, Huai Shi,” Ai Qing sighed.

—Before your very eyes, the teenage girl Scholar registered as [Hela]—Lily—is Paracelsus’s most outstanding creation!

Her mere existence was a miracle that completely overturned the Theory of Divine Creation, advancing Evolutionism to a new pinnacle.

Born from an alchemical flask—the ’Philosopher’s Stone’—a Soul created from nothing, unbound by the cycle of day and night or the rules of ephemeral life and death... an artificial human!

If it were a false life, it could not welcome a second sunrise.

If she possessed no Soul, she could not have ascended through the tributaries of the Sea of Silver to become a Sublimator.

Without compassion and kindness in her heart, she could not have become a ’Believer’ in the Stigma Genealogy!

An artificial being possessing life, an empty shell endowed with a Soul, a Heretic who has become a Believer of many Holy Spirits!

Connection to any one of these three facets meant the Stigma Genealogy would not permit her to see another dawn!

She must die.

As long as she lives, she is a denial of the Theory of Divine Creation, of The Church, of the Gods!

This is the original sin of her birth.

—The ’Son of Sinful,’ created by Paracelsus!

”BINGO!” KP applauded, his admiration unreserved. ”You are an excellent Investigator, Miss Ai! Congratulations, you’ve solved the hidden puzzle in this module—The Death of Paracelsus!”