The scene stunned Reinette for a moment.
"Suah…is being hunted?"
…Huh?
After a brief moment of confusion, she snapped fully awake.
"Suah is being hunted?!"
"ROAR!"
With a furious howl, the pitch-black puppet flung the man riding atop it far away. A gush of black breath burst from Its mouth, spreading rapidly in all directions.
From the cracks tearing open in the surrounding space, one black arm after another shot out and stabbed deeply into the ground. The earth around them instantly dried, cracked, and collapsed as a powerful curse surged toward that man.
At the same time, the puppet seized the opportunity and dragged a thick trail of black smoke as It fled into the distance.
But the man immediately gave chase again—his attacks exploding with fire and lightning as he relentlessly assaulted the puppet.
A beam of deep green light struck the puppet's body.
Suah spiralled out of the air and crashed heavily onto the ground.
The pursuer clawed a few times in the air. A swing of his hand tore open a crack beneath the puppet—a spatial rupture that pulled at its body and spirit with annihilating force.
Suah attempted to use mirror blink to escape, but It was far too injured. Under the dozens of consecutive blows from Edward's "avatars," It had no strength left.
It could only watch helplessly as space ripped It apart. And in Its weakest moment, Edward used [Theft] once more—stealing Its remaining life force.
Suah dried up completely—
And died.
Suah…was dead.
At that moment, Edward's mind cleared with a sharp chill.
"Holy—did I just kill Suah?!"
No seriously, how could a dignified Sequence 1 die so easily?
Oh right…It had just been blasted half to death by Leodero's lightning.
But in that case—
Who turned Reinette into a headless existence in the future?
Who forced Sharron into Backlund and sent people to hunt her?
Who attacked me in the future?
Did I…mess up the timeline?
A shiver ran across Edward's scalp.
He'd always joked that time was "easy to fool," but in a situation like this…
How exactly was he supposed to fool it?!
Was he supposed to replace Suah, kill Reinette, take over the Rose School, and then cooperate with Cheek to force himself into despair…
That was way too insane.
"Hm?"
Just then, Edward's spirituality stirred sharply. He drifted down to the shattered puppet—but to his surprise, no Beyonder characteristic appeared.
He immediately flicked a coin.
"Abomination Suah is not dead."
Heads meant no.
The answer was no: Suah was indeed dead.
But the characteristic did not appear—not because it failed to condense, but because someone had taken it first.
Right under his nose.
The Chained God.
Or more precisely, the Chained God under the control of the Mother Tree of Desire.
The moment he realised this, a stabbing pain erupted in his mind. His body weakened instantly as writhing worms surfaced on his skin. It felt as if his skull would explode—his spirit and consciousness turning violent and deranged.
He was beginning to lose control.
His spirituality earlier had been burned too fast, too violently. Combined with the massive death of Worms of Star earlier, the burden on his body and spirit was immense.
"All that was just on the surface—the real cause is the backlash from forcibly reversing myself with Madman to the Right!"
Edward immediately abandoned any thoughts about Abomination, the Chained God, or the Mother Tree of Desire. He glanced toward the distant, shocked and wary Reinette Tinekerr, and without even greeting her, he opened an illusory door and escaped back to the underground of the ancient castle.
The moment he landed, he collapsed to the ground—his body transforming into a massive, writhing mass of Worms of Star.
"Edward!"
Lilith appeared beside him, rushing over with a bell-shaped Beyonder item in her hand. She rang it gently, releasing a strange wave of energy that slowly soothed Edward's deranged spirit. One by one, the Worms of Star crawled back into his body, helping him slowly regain his human form.
Edward hurried to stabilise himself further. He took out two Beyonder characteristics—Sequence 5 ones he had obtained from the Abraham family—threw them into Hufflepuff's Cup, and drank the transformed golden liquor in one gulp.
Although the spirituality restored from two Sequence 5 Beyonder characteristics was only a drop in the bucket for his current Sequence 2 level, it at least eased the symptoms of losing control.
The restless Worms of Star and the violent spiritual turbulence gradually calmed. Edward was just about to toss the golden cup back into his spatial pocket when he suddenly froze.
Previously, he had wondered how the Cup could transform Beyonder characteristics into spirit-restoring liquor—seemingly violating the "immutability" principle of Beyonder characteristics in the Mysticism world.
But if the Harry Potter world was inherently a fictional world, merely a part of the Mysteries world…then those "disappearing" characteristics might not have truly vanished—and the Cup's strange ability might not be strange at all.
There were still countless unknowns and secrets hidden in the Harry Potter world.
After a long breath, Edward finally calmed down. He forced out a small smile.
"I'm fine now, Lilith."
"What happened to you just now?"
"Nothing major. Just severe spiritual depletion…I fought Abomination Suah a moment ago—and it seems I killed It…"
Lilith blinked. "Ah?"
Edward briefly recounted everything that had happened after running into Suah.
"Suah…really died?"
Lilith was shocked—not because Edward managed to kill Suah (her thoughts matched Edward's), but because: If Suah was dead now…then who was the Suah from the future?
Edward said, "Divination tells me Suah is indeed dead—but not completely dead."
"What do you mean?"
Edward thought for a moment.
"I suspect the Mother Tree of Desire might use Suah's stolen Beyonder characteristic to let the Chained God recreate It—and use the lingering consciousness inside the characteristic to bring Suah back in a twisted form."
"Of course, that's just my guess. Whether that's the truth…we'll only know when the time comes."
Lilith nodded, then suddenly remembered something. "Edward, you said you encountered Suah after leaving the Chaos Sea. Then what about before that? After you entered the Chaos Sea—what did you see? Who did you meet?"
"…"
Edward frowned and didn't answer.
Lilith grabbed his hand tightly and looked up at him. "Edward…what did you encounter that you won't even tell me?"
Edward let out a helpless laugh. He patted her head.
"I never said I wouldn't tell you. But…how about we change locations first? This place feels awful."
"Alright~"
———
Emerald Street Villa No. 28.
The two stepped through an illusory door and returned to Edward's study.
Edward collapsed onto the couch in a sprawling posture, staring blankly at the ceiling. Lilith did not rush him; she simply stayed quietly at his side, watching over him with concern.
After a long silence—
Edward straightened his posture and spoke softly.
"Lilith…behind the bronze door lies the Abyss. And in the deepest layer of the Abyss…hides three Sefirot: the Tenebrous World, the River of Eternal Darkness, and the Chaos Sea."
Lilith's eyes widened.
"No wonder…Amanises was so invested! And then? Just those three Sefirot alone shouldn't be enough to make you that shaken, right?"
"Mm…"
He continued, "And at the centre of the three Sefirot was…a book. A book called Harry Potter."
"Harry Potter?"
Lilith blinked.
"That name sounds…strangely familiar."
"The name doesn't matter. What matters is what it represents. The world of Hogwarts exists inside that book—just like Groselle's Travels, which was created by the Dragon of Imagination. The world we once lived in…was also created by some 'god'—a fictional world."
"!!!"
Lilith froze.
Her eyes trembled as she asked, shocked, "You're saying…MeowGonagall, Dumbledore, Fawkes—everyone—were just characters from a book? Fake? They didn't exist?"
She lowered her head to look at her own hands. "Then what about me? Is Lilith fake too? Edward…are you fake?"
"But…aren't we clearly alive here?"
Edward shook his head.
"I can't fully understand it yet."
In truth, after spacing out for a bit, there was only one thing Edward still couldn't make sense of: He knew the plot of Harry Potter and the plot of Lord of the Mysteries.
By all logic, he should still count as a real transmigrator—or at least someone reincarnated with memories.
But Lilith?
She was a native-born cat from the Harry Potter world.
Yet she came with him into the Lord of the Mysteries' world.
She even nearly became the Primordial Demoness.
How could she not be real?
In comparison, in Groselle's Travels, except for the five adventurers who accidentally entered, every other character could never leave the book-world to survive in reality.
Thus, only three conclusions remained—
First, the Harry Potter world he had lived in and the book he saw in the Chaos Sea were not the same thing at all—it had all purely been a coincidence.
But the probability of that was extremely low.
Especially considering that mysterious voice coming from the book, which had said back then that his use of Door's uniqueness to enter the world in the book had given "It" inspiration. That was very likely to form a closed loop with the Door's uniqueness appearing in his body in the future.
Second, the Harry Potter world really was real, but had been transferred to this world by "that person" through some unknown method in the form of a book.
Third, the Harry Potter world really was just like Groselle's Travels—a book, a world within a book—but "that person's" abilities surpassed those of the Visionary, allowing them to turn the world in the book and the characters within it into a real world. In that case, everything would also be real!
And if that were so, wouldn't that person essentially be the "Original Creator"?
Right—!
In the very beginning, the Oldest One had awakened inside "His" body.
So "He" had been able to possess a portion of the authority of the Oldest One?
But here came the problem: everything "He" had done back then was supposedly to oppose the awakening of the Oldest One, yet in practice, "His" actions were more and more like "playing the part of the Oldest One."
So…was the way to oppose the Oldest One actually to become the Oldest One?
Wait!
A sudden numbness shot through Edward's mind as a chilling realisation struck him.
What was his ritual for advancing to Sequence 1 again?
———
[Note]: Don't forget to VOTE. It keeps me motivated.