Chapter 103: The Curtain That Will Eventually Fall

Dizziness, nausea—of course, it lasted for only a fleeting moment. Wiping the blood from his lips without a word, Amy Ulysses raised his head. His gaze swept over the old man nearby and the writhing, glowing mass of red tentacles at his side, before he corrected his stance and tightened his grip on his short sword.

"Here I come!" Speaking in a casual tone, the youth strode forward.

One step, two steps, three steps. His steps were neither light nor slow. In just a few breaths, he had arrived outside the defensive perimeter set by Ignati. He paused instinctively for a moment, an enigmatic smile playing on his lips, and then—he lunged!

One, two, three, four tentacles arrived right on cue. Amy did not waste time tangling with them. Sidestepping the pre-empted trajectories of their attacks, his long-suppressed passion for battle erupted like a volcano. Under the fierce wind pressure, his black trench coat billowed like a swift spreading its wings.

Faster, faster, faster, even faster!

Pushing his speed to the absolute limit in an instant, the youth cut through the air like a streak of black light.

Too fast! This sudden turn of events—indeed, everything—had happened too quickly, as if a pesky kitten had transformed in the blink of an eye into a roaring tiger of the forest. Even with Ignati's resourcefulness, constrained by the premise of not endangering Ulysses' life, he could find no better response for the moment. He could only remain as immovable as a mountain, while the hundreds of bloody tentacles around him seemed to come alive, swarming toward Amy.

An opportunity!

Having already learned the weakness of the old man's blood manipulation during a previous premonition of death, the youth did not harbor even a shred of hesitation. Facing the bloody tentacles right before his eyes, not a single ripple disturbed his pitch-black pupils.

—Swing!

It was nothing but a swing of his sword!

One, two, three, four, five—even Amy himself could not remember how many times he had swung his sword in that split second, nor did he know how many tentacles, too slow to transmute their properties, he had severed. All he knew was that after that brief clash, he had broken through the blockade of tentacles and stood before Ignati—before the dark traveler whose entire body had already demonized.

Thrust!

A flash of cold steel.

The waiting old man showed little surprise. Although the young Glorious One's performance had far exceeded his expectations, combat was combat, and a fight to the death was a fight to the death. Any distraction, for whatever reason, could invite the embrace of the Grim Reaper; the slightest error could lead to a devastating end.

Thus, without lowering his guard, he caught the youth's thrust.

Then, blood sprayed.

No emotion rippled across his demonized, hideous face; he did not even raise an eyebrow. The traveler returned from the darkness activated his ability the moment his skin was nicked.

—Hardening.

The blood was imbued with this property. Amidst flying sparks and a burning stench, the Grim Reaper was finally halted when the tip of the short sword was less than three centimeters from his chest.

*He really is getting more and more troublesome,* Ignati thought, looking at Ulysses, who was only dozens of centimeters away.

"As expected, there is an insurmountable chasm between us."

The youth seemed to notice his gaze. His lips curled slightly, and a trickle of crimson seeped from the corner of his mouth.

Despite acknowledging the gap, the combat instincts forged from countless life-and-death encounters filled the old man with a groundless unease. Why? Why did the boy show no despair or disappointment upon realizing the gap? Why did fresh blood suddenly spill from his lips?

"A chasm that cannot be crossed without paying a price."

Retreat!

The old man felt a faint urge to back away, but before he could act, Amy closed the distance.

"Vesteasolin—"

Pure light erupted from his hand, a sword of light and flame igniting the horizon.

*This is...*

In the final instant before being swallowed by the blazing light, Ignati finally realized what the youth's trump card was, and what price had to be paid for it.

The sword that cleaves the darkness.

Almost at the exact moment the realization struck, the agony of tearing flesh and a burning torso washed over him.

Then, flesh was sliced open, his heart pierced through. Divine flames rose within his body. Even though the traveler who had once crossed the deepest night alone possessed an extraordinary force of will, his face could not help but contort in the face of this pain, which was far beyond human endurance. His eyes widened unconsciously, even insensibly, as a brilliant, blinding golden light overflowed from his mouth, nose, ears, and eyes.

It looked as though his very soul was struggling in despair beneath the radiance.

For some reason, Amy suddenly found this scene terrifyingly familiar. His dark eyes rolled slightly. Out of some inexplicable emotion, he chose not to continue torturing this old man who, to some extent, harbored goodwill toward him. He stopped feeding his blood to the sword of light and flame, then pulled the short sword, Dark Blood, from Ignati's left chest cavity.

Blood gushed out, refusing to scab.

"Are you still alive?" the youth asked.

"Why didn't you kill me?" Only after a long while did Ignati droop his withered eyelids, speaking in a voice that sounded like a leaking bellows. "Pointless mercy—that is not an emotion a weakling should possess."

"Perhaps," the young Glorious One replied, not directly answering the question. He merely shook his head. Even he did not know why he had felt compassion at that moment, but... it wasn't as if he lacked a pretext to brush it off. "Because I don't trust the Dice House. By the way, how much do you know about them?"

"There is no need to worry about them," the old man tried to shake his head, but his riddled body could no longer support even such a simple movement. He could only let out a low groan. "They are merely the tentacles extended by the Observers."

"Observers?" Amy repeated the name.

"The Code of Hammurabi is the covenant established by the ancestors, the destiny engraved on stone tablets. But mortal destiny cannot bind the Creator." The prolonged conversation made the already weakened old man cough. It took him a long while to steady himself before he spoke with great difficulty. "Thus, to ensure that the covenant agreed upon is not broken and that the established destiny is not interfered with, Observers and Arbiters must exist. Correspondingly, their interference in the mortal world is also strictly limited."

"And the Dice House?" the youth pressed further.

"An anomaly outside the rules," Ignati smirked, seemingly wanting to laugh, but he groaned as the movement pulled at his wounds. "You know how it is. In gambling, everyone wants to cheat, and even those high and mighty beings are no exception."

"Interesting," Amy murmured. Connecting this to the faint shackles of fate he could sense, he formed a hypothesis about the bizarre nature of his own existence: in all likelihood, he was an anomaly created outside the rules by a being similar to the mastermind behind the Dice House—a mere pawn in the hands of the players.

As for why the Dice House made things difficult for him, they were either trying to constantly stimulate his growth, or they intended to remove the pawn from the board before it could be put to actual use.

This way... everything became much clearer.

He could faintly feel the pulse of fate. What he had to do next was seize it by the throat!

"Is there anything else you wish to ask?" No emotion showed on the old man's pale face. "The time left for this body of mine is short."

"You are about to die," the youth said, half-sighing for some unknown reason.

"Yes, this body is about to give out." The traveler who had crossed most of the deepest night to reach Hermetica showed little sentimentality about it. "Though I feel some regret, thinking about it, this outcome is quite fitting. What is forced upon people is never some elusive fate, but the arrogance that overrides individual will. In this battle, I was the arrogant one, so I am the one falling here. Perhaps my defeat was destined from the very beginning."

Amy pursed his lips, not quite agreeing with the old man's fatalistic view. He simply smiled and said half-jokingly, "That's because you were in my way, old man."

"What an arrogant and insolent youth," Ignati blinked. "But I don't dislike it. Seriously, is there nothing you want to ask? As an old man about to be swept into the dustbin of history, my time left to breathe this fresh air is running out."

"I'm afraid not." It wasn't that the youth had no questions, but he somehow knew he wouldn't get any more of the truth from the old man. After all... the old man's status was not much different from his own; they were both insignificant pawns on the chessboard of fate. "Right now, I only need one small favor—help me open the path to the Upper District."

"I cannot do that," came the swift, clean refusal.

"What do you mean?" The young Glorious One raised an eyebrow, his tone instantly dropping to freezing point.

"I cannot do it, and that is that," Ignati raised his head with difficulty, looking into those eyes as black as ink. "The sword used by the ancestors to cleave through dark chaos is enough to dissolve all power except order. That naturally includes the contract with the bizarre."

"What do you mean by that?" His expression grew darker.

"Obadiah is either free now, or he has found a new master," the old man's voice grew fainter, yet he used the last of his strength to say, "For instance... the companion who entered with you."

Almost the moment the words left his mouth, he closed his eyes—closed them forever, never to open them again.

Amy's eyelashes trembled imperceptibly, and he averted his gaze. His eyes came to rest on the dark gate, which now remained only as a tiny black dot. In a low voice, he uttered the name of the person who was neither clearly friend nor foe:

"Dick."

Then, the world lost its light.

In a mere, negligible instant, the pure white world vanished into the turbulent currents of space and time, and buried along with it was the youth trapped deep within.