The moment Edward landed, a sharp, needling pain swept across his skin. His heart tightened instantly. He had felt this kind of "defence breaking" before—further proof that Dullness might truly have a limit.
Fortunately, just like the previous times, the pain did not escalate. Only after confirming that nothing else happened did he finally lift his head to examine this world carefully.
All directions were layered with overlapping phantoms. Light—source unknown—projected from every angle, casting seven or eight pitch-black shadows of Edward on the ground. Each shadow seemed to be slowly brewing life within itself, as though it would come alive at any moment.
Edward immediately used [Theft] several times in succession, stealing the vitality of the shadows and forcing them back into deathly stillness. Then he spun once in place and tossed his divination cane.
Predictably, the dowsing rod technique failed in this place. But Edward's ears once again caught the faint roar of rushing water, and he felt the same "call" that he had once experienced in the Forsaken Land of the Gods.
He steadied his mind, carefully distinguished the direction, opened a door that led directly to the source of the sound, and stepped through.
This time—
He finally saw it.
A pitch-black river, winding in nine twisting arcs, lay spread across the distant earth. At the river's end was a vast, muddy, viscous black sea.
In an instant, Edward was certain.
This river and this sea were precisely two of the Nine Sefirot:
The River of Eternal Darkness
And
The Chaos Sea.
Someone had used an unfathomably powerful method to hide both of them—along with the entire Tenebrous World—within the deepest depths of the Abyss, beyond the reach of even the gods.
BANG! BANG! BANG!
That pounding sound echoed again, forcing Edward's heart to beat in perfect rhythm with it. The "call" from the Chaos Sea grew stronger and stronger.
So strong that—
Edward took a step forward and arrived at the river's end, at the mouth where it flowed into the black sea, before realising what he had done.
Before him, it resembled not so much an ocean as a world-turned-inside-out—a giant vortex, upside-down and indistinguishable between inside and outside. Everything he saw was chaos.
And at the centre of the vortex—its beginning and its end—was a golden light source. The "call" he felt originated entirely from that radiant point.
"That thing…is it what the Ancient Sun God referred to as the object 'that person' left behind?"
Something that could draw the attention of the Evernight Goddess, Adam, and even the remaining consciousness of the True Creator—the Ancient Sun God—what could it possibly be?
Could it be—like in the cliché cultivation novels he had once read—a supreme artifact that made one invincible upon obtaining it?
A Heaven-Opening Axe?
A Chaos Bell?
A Creation Jade Plate?
Primordial Purple Qi?
Nervous yet exhilarated, Edward cautiously approached the golden light source.
A wave of scorching heat slammed into him. Even his Sequence 2 body showed signs of charring within moments.
His instinctive spirituality pulsed violently—warning him that one more step would mean dying early and waiting for resurrection.
Left with no choice, Edward hid himself behind dozens of overlapping illusory doors, then activated Deconstruction toward the light source.
Tss—
The instant the golden brilliance entered his eyes, his pupils vaporised. Two bloody, hollow cavities remained in their place. Worms of Star, shrouded in gray-black fog, immediately crawled into the sockets, reshaping into new pupils.
Then those pupils were vaporised again.
But Edward did not stop.
He repeatedly allowed Worms of Star to replace his pupils, maintaining an unbroken flow of Deconstruction.
Burning. Pain.
The weakness from Worms of Star dying over and over.
The stabbing drain of rapidly consumed spirituality.
Edward's expression remained calm as his sight slowly pierced the golden radiance, inch by inch, toward the core hidden within.
BOOM!
His body exploded, scattering into a cloud of gray-black smoke and Worms of Star forming a silent, shapeless mass. In his vision, the golden light gradually dimmed, and a small, square object emerged from the haze, growing clearer and clearer.
It was…a book?
Just a book?
For a moment, Edward was utterly stunned.
Something that the Evernight Goddess and Adam cared about so deeply—something that even the residual consciousness of the Ancient Sun God cared about—turned out to be nothing more than…a book?
He inhaled sharply, drained the last remnants of his spirituality, and tried to see it more clearly.
But then something unexpected happened.
His sight pierced through the book.
His consciousness spun, and he saw another vast world—far away, yet unmistakable. He saw a surging river, saw the faint, transparent souls drifting upon it, saw a boundless sea, and saw tall, pointed buildings:
The spires of—
Hogwarts Castle!
Just like during each of his previous advancements, he saw those same scenes again.
In an instant, it felt as if a bucket of ice water had been poured over Edward's head. His entire body turned cold.
He realised something—yet refused to admit it with all his might.
After a moment, he moved his spirituality and opened an illusory door before him. After a long hesitation, he restored his human form and stepped forward.
But the moment his right foot crossed the threshold, it froze midair—unable to move even a fraction farther. Edward clenched his teeth, attempting to force his way through the obstruction.
"Huh?"
A surprised voice suddenly echoed beside his ear.
"Oh, so that's why someone managed to break in—you used the Uniqueness of the Door Pathway. Hmm, but even with the conceptual authority of the Door, it shouldn't be possible for you to…Oh. I see."
"I understand now. So the Door's uniqueness can be used like this."
"Thank you for the idea."
The voice grew lively and cheerful.
"Ah! Come to think of it, you and I helped each other, didn't we?"
Edward growled, "What are you talking about? Who are you? What is going on?"
"Heehee, I know you're curious. But don't be—because…I'm not telling you anything~"
The voice giggled.
"Don't misunderstand. I'm not trying to act mysterious. I hate riddlers just as much as you do. But…if I told you now, you'd learn things too early and ruin my plans."
"The truth of everything should be told only at the proper time in the future."
"After all…you don't want to ruin everything and let the Oldest One awaken prematurely, do you?"
Edward took a deep breath. "You…are the one the Ancient Sun God referred to?"
So the person Adam and the Evernight Goddess had been searching for all along…had been hiding inside the "object" He left behind?
"It's me~. Ugh, what horrible luck—somehow I ended up in this world, and somehow the Oldest One awakened inside me. If I'd known, I never would've copied that book."
"What?"
The voice sighed. "Alright, enough. I need to continue sleeping to suppress the Oldest One's awakening. If there's a chance…I'll explain everything to you face-to-face."
"Bye now."
"Wait—!" Edward shouted.
But the next second, he felt an immense repulsive force slam into him. He was hurled backwards uncontrollably. Hogwarts Castle, the sea, the river—everything faded rapidly. At the very end, he faintly saw a figure standing on the sea, waving at him.
As his consciousness was torn away from the other world, his physical body began retreating at extreme speed. Everything around him blurred into streaks of light.
All he could do was look at the book one final time.
A thick, hard-covered book.
Its multicoloured cover too blurred to discern.
But the two English words on it were unmistakably clear—
—Harry Potter—
BOOM!
With a thunderous explosion, Edward was flung out of the Chaos Sea, away from the River of Eternal Darkness, away from the Tenebrous World. In the blink of an eye, he was back in the Abyss.
Suspended above the bottomless chasm filled with branches and roots, everything he had just seen was now buried deep within the deepest depths.
"Damn it, I wasn't done asking!"
Edward forced his agitated spirituality to settle, then immediately tried to pass through the bronze door to return to the Abyss. This time, it didn't work. He then attempted to open a door leading directly to the Chaos Sea—yet the illusory door shattered at the moment it began forming.
Refusing to give up, he tried again.
But this time—even the illusory shadow of the door wouldn't hold.
After repeated attempts—
Edward was forced to accept the truth: At least for now, he could no longer reach the Chaos Sea.
He silently stared into the pitch-black, bottomless Abyss, his heart in turmoil.
Until today, Edward had always believed he had transmigrated twice—first into the world of Harry Potter, and then into the world of Lord of the Mysteries.
The bridge connecting the two worlds, he had assumed, was the Uniqueness of the Door Pathway.
For a long time, he had wondered—why was the Door's uniqueness capable of linking two different worlds? In the LoTM world, even the theoretical strongest being—the Oldest One—was merely at the level of a single-universe absolute.
But anything involving multiple worlds should require at least multiverse-level power.
Today, he finally understood the reason:
He had never left the LoTM world at all.
The so-called Harry Potter world was just like the world inside Groselle's Travels—a world inside a book.
Which meant…before he "transmigrated" into the LoTM world, all the people and events he encountered…
Had they all been false?
And what about himself?
Was he real…or fake?
For the first time, Edward truly felt the confusion and despair that Roselle and Klein had experienced when they learned that this world was actually Earth's distant future.
It was a denial of one's entire past.
A denial of one's own existence.
Everything one had done, everything one had pursued—felt suddenly meaningless.
No wonder Roselle changed so drastically afterwards.
No wonder Klein needed Audrey to help him with psychological treatment for so long.
The feeling of learning the truth was truly…suffocating.
Creak…creak…creak…
Suddenly, faint cracking noises rose from the "Abyss" below. The dense branches blocking the descent seemed to come alive. They grew wildly, surging upward—lunging toward Edward.
Each trunk born from the Mother Tree of Desire swelled and thickened. Dry bark split open to reveal human faces and humanoid forms. Then those bodies split down the middle, exposing clusters of brown-green tumour-like pods—many already blooming into flower-like organs.
In an instant, Edward felt a part of his emotions—specifically, desire, the desire to mate—explode violently.
———
[Note]: Don't forget to VOTE. It keeps me motivated.