Chapter 136: Shadow of Past Days

11 min read time

Shadow of Past Days

Ciel walked along the endless stretch of light spheres, carefully discerning the color changes within them.

Currently, she had only entered two light spheres with a larger proportion of white light. The sample size was insufficient, and she couldn’t yet distinguish what each light represented.

After Ciel passed nearly two hundred light spheres, a light sphere with a blue light proportion close to 70% appeared before her.

But Ciel didn’t choose to enter directly.

The total number of light spheres was limited, and entering one caused others to disappear.

Having walked for about five minutes now, Ciel hadn’t seen any light spheres disappear. Under these circumstances, roughly recording the positions, filtering out all the light spheres, and then selectively entering was the best choice.

Along the path of light spheres, Ciel started with a small jog, then transitioned into a fast run.

Most of the spheres with a large proportion of a single color now had coordinates recorded in Ciel’s mind.

The eidetic memory ability brought by 【Linguistics】 seemed applicable only to language itself.

However, it wasn’t useless in other aspects. At least Ciel’s memory had substantially improved. Previously, she couldn’t possibly record the coordinates of specific light spheres in her mind while running quickly.

It took nearly thirty minutes for Ciel to reach the end of the light path, seeing an almost monochromatic light sphere.

This was a light sphere with a blue proportion close to 80%. The other two colors, like planetary rings, revolved around the central blue.

This was the second nearly monochromatic light sphere Ciel had seen. The first was around the middle, where she saw a sphere with nearly 90% orange light.

Let’s start from here...

At the end of the light path, Ciel extended her right hand, reaching towards the azure light sphere.

A blue light completely enveloped Ciel, and the surrounding purple mist also vanished.

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After a short while, Ciel gradually regained her senses. The blue light before her eyes faded, and a warm yellow light enveloped her.

This place is...

In Ciel’s vision, rows upon rows of bookshelves appeared. At this moment, she was facing the ceiling, as if lying there.

Directly above her head was a crystal lamp cluster composed of multiple floating crystal prisms, emitting a faint yellow light.

The central round crystal radiated warm light, while the surrounding prismatic crystals rotated uniformly around the central round crystal, somewhat like...

A sealed artifact version of a shadowless lamp?

This feeling of blending magic and technology surprised Ciel somewhat. This was the first time she had seen such a scene.

She was very sure Avena had definitely never seen such a beautiful crystal lamp—if she had seen it, she probably would have bought it already.

Using a sealed artifact to make a lamp... What kind of family is this extravagant?

“****?” A young female voice sounded by Ciel’s ear. Thanks for reading on ManaNovel!

Ciel could sense the surprise in her tone, but the words the woman spoke were not any language Ciel had ever heard.

Ciel wanted to look towards the direction the sound came from, but she couldn’t control her body, only passively receiving the information before her.

Soon, Ciel felt a warm palm grasp her entire body, and her vision spun around.

She was picked up by someone.

By the time Ciel’s body finally stabilized, she saw a woman with long golden hair, holding Ciel up with both hands.

The woman’s eyes were full of excitement. After holding Ciel and spinning several times, she hugged Ciel tightly and started running.

Slower... slower...

This extremely realistic feeling of being shaken up and down made Ciel slightly dizzy. Ciel’s mental state was already somewhat weak due to using “Death Reversal.” Being shaken like this a few times, a feeling of nausea wanting to vomit surfaced in her heart.

Ciel endured this shaking feeling, quickly observing her surroundings, not wanting to miss any information.

She saw the place where she was lying just now—it was a silver platform with many tools Ciel had never seen before placed on it, looking like both a workbench and an operating table.

And the place filled with bookshelves and books just now resembled a room, because Ciel saw a wooden bed.

As the woman ran, Ciel saw a corridor covered with deep red carpet. The decorations here made Ciel slightly puzzled.

Golden lines, white walls, red gemstone inlays... The lavish decorations made Ciel slightly astonished.

Even Avena’s home didn’t have such an exaggerated corridor.

But these decorative patterns and lines... indeed didn’t correspond to any style Ciel recognized.

Is this... the Ancient Era?

While Ciel was still memorizing these lines, she saw a mirror.

In the mirror, she was a black raven, the black roots gradually transitioning to azure blue tail feathers. The feathers were glossy and smooth. And around her neck, she wore a golden ornament, with a ruby embedded in the center.

Thump—

The woman directly pushed open a door and ran in, placing the raven on the table. Ciel’s perspective was then turned, looking towards the kind-faced old man sitting behind the table.

“*****.” The old man, wearing deep purple luxurious robes, smiled, clapped his hands, said something, then reached out and stroked the raven’s head.

The raven seemed to react only then, controlling its body to spread its wings, flapping them, wanting to fly away, but was quickly pressed down by the old man’s hand holding its wings.

The raven shed a feather while flapping its wings just now. The old man reached out, and the fluttering feather landed directly in his hand.

A bright, dark purple light erupted from his hand. By the time Ciel’s vision recovered, a small prismatic crystal had appeared in the old man’s hand.

The old man smilingly handed the feather and crystal to the young woman. The young woman also took the crystal and feather with pleasant surprise, bowing repeatedly towards the old man.

In Ciel’s vision, the woman inserted the crystal into the base of the feather, muttering something.

Then, a familiar scene unfolded before Ciel.

Blood threads emerged from the black quill base, wrapping around the crystal. A long, extremely thin crystal hollow tube was also embedded into the quill base slightly above the prismatic crystal.

Then the woman held the newly crafted quill pen and walked towards Ciel.

The woman muttered ancient words. Ciel’s body began to disintegrate and split. The quill pen, like a vortex, sucked Ciel directly into it.

Buzz—

Azure light enveloped Ciel again. When the blue faded, she returned to the space of purple mist.

That scene just now was...

For some reason, that scene just now made Ciel directly think of the “Coroner” ability.

Stitching.

But the details were slightly different.

The “Coroner’s” stitching used an ability resembling spider silk, secreted from one’s own body.

But the young woman in the memory clearly didn’t secrete those spider silk-like things herself. The source of power for the blood threads she used for stitching wasn’t herself.

This touched upon Ciel’s knowledge blind spot.

All along, Ciel’s understanding of transcendent abilities stemmed from the concept of “potions.”

Completing the Reconstitution Ritual combined with the potion, then borrowing the power brought by combining with the potion, using abilities based on the spiritual body.

This transcendent system consumed one’s own flesh and blood, spirit, and spiritual body.

And Ciel observed none of these consumptions just now.

Which era was this exactly?

Perhaps if Ciel looked for books about the Ancient Era again, she could ascertain the specific year.

And also...

Was that scene just now creating a sealed artifact?

Sealed artifacts... could actually be created?

Then does “Coroner” also possess such an ability?

The more Ciel watched these memories of unknown age, the more chaotic her thoughts became.

Everything Ciel saw challenged her perception of transcendent power.

She admitted her understanding of the transcendent was indeed superficial, only touching upon shallow things.

It seems necessary, after things are settled, to find Avena again and thoroughly cram knowledge about transcendents, at least draining the knowledge in Avena’s mind.

Additionally, Ciel discovered a pattern she had noticed before.

This time, after watching the memory, Ciel might have grasped this pattern.

After this bright blue light sphere, the subsequent light spheres were mostly blue and white, with negligible orange proportions.

But starting from the orange sphere with 90% proportion in the middle and onwards, the proportion of orange began increasing in subsequent light spheres.

This was related to events encountered by the sealed artifact, and were key nodes.

This time, the raven’s perspective was being stitched into the sealed artifact... Was this how the sealed artifact gained intelligence?

So does blue represent emotions like fear? Or the fact of becoming transcendent? Or... evolution?

Ciel quickly ran back along the light path.

Compared to before, after entering that blue light sphere, the number of light spheres decreased significantly, shortening Ciel’s journey.

This time, after running for less than five minutes, Ciel saw the orange light sphere she remembered from before.

Good, it didn’t disappear...

Ciel felt slightly relieved, then directly reached out, touching the orange light sphere with her index finger.

Orange light enveloped Ciel. The next moment, she felt intense heat all around her.

Rumble—

A huge vibration seemed to shatter the orange light before Ciel.

In just an instant, her vision became a sea of deep red fire.

“***!” Following a series of urgent shouts, Ciel’s perspective began shaking violently.

She gradually adapted to the current perspective, seeing clearly what was happening now.

At this moment, she was in the shape of a pen, being held tightly by an old woman.

The old woman’s hair was pale, but faint strands of gold could still be seen. Ciel, through the wrinkles on her face, slowly superimposed her appearance with the young woman seen before.

Her?

The young woman from before?

Judging by her appearance, at least fifty or sixty years must have passed?

No... Considering the super long lifespan of transcendents, this might not be decades, possibly two or three hundred years.

At this moment, the woman tightly gripped the quill pen, running amidst the ruins of a palace. Her target was the black and blue vortex door not far ahead, fixed by unknown stone material.

This strongly resembled the blood line vortex when Ciel used Spiritual Summoning, except this black and blue door was clearly much gentler than the blood line vortex.

Suddenly, she seemed to sense something, gripping the quill pen in her hand and abruptly turning around.

Behind her was a “thing” Ciel found difficult to describe.

That “thing” was about the height of a normal person, but its entire body was shrouded in thick fog and fragmented characters, like... a person censored with different mosaics in memory.

Even appearance is blocked in memory?

What level of existence is this?

A beam of distorted black light, seemingly about to devour everything, was flung out by that figure, directly wrapping around the old woman’s waist.

Countless branches within the black light directly inserted into the woman’s body, rapidly absorbing nutrients from her body.

“**!” The woman screamed something in despair, then used all her strength, throwing the pen in her hand and something else towards the door’s direction.

Ciel could feel her bones rapidly changing along with tearing pain. She extended her golden beak, caught that object, and directly flew into the black and blue vortex door.

After drilling into the vortex door, Ciel’s vision became pitch black, even unable to feel her own body’s existence.

Soon, the darkness shattered. A fissure glowing with faint light appeared before Ciel’s eyes. After flying towards the fissure, her vision recovered. Before her appeared a completely withered forest shrouded in mist.

Ciel’s perspective turned backward. Behind her, the previous firelight and vortex were long gone. Immediately after, Ciel’s head lowered.

From this perspective, Ciel couldn’t clearly see what she held in her beak. But soon, the raven’s head tilted back. Ciel felt a foreign object sensation in her throat, then her body’s perception of the surroundings completely disappeared.

At this moment, Ciel’s body had detached from the raven, floating above like a ghost. Ciel finally gained a second-person perspective, looking down at the raven below from about three meters above its body.

The raven on the ground, no longer adorned with gorgeous decorations, was tucking its wings, protecting its head, screeching desperately, as if its spirit was suffering a huge impact.

Its feathers continuously extended, broke, shed, then regrew during the struggle. At this moment, it seemed unable to maintain its form, beginning to twist and deform.

Following a flash of purple light, a blue-black quill pen floated in the air.

The originally black quill base, as if infected by some virus, had countless silver runes adhering and spreading on it, densely packed, until the black quill base was covered in silver before stopping.

Is it because the raven lost consciousness, so I don’t have to see its perspective anymore?

Ciel looked at the quill pen already fallen on the ground, speculating in her heart.

Ciel remained at this angle, unable to move, only watching the quill pen emit a faint silver light.

Unsure how long passed, Ciel finally felt an attractive force. Her perspective was once again adsorbed into the raven’s body.

But this time, the raven’s vision before her eyes had undergone earth-shattering changes.

The originally withered forest instantly burst into life, then rapidly withered within less than half a second. The next moment, all branches turned into flaunting bones and flesh. The mud on the ground seemed to become a blood mud pool formed after crushing bones and flesh.

Besides the distorted visual changes, Ciel’s mind also received frantic whispers. These whispers almost instantly shattered Ciel’s already weakened spirit.

The scene only lingered until the moment the raven spread its wings and took flight, Ciel’s consciousness completely dissipated.

Only after Ciel smelled a strange fragrance did she gradually wake up.

The familiar fatigue made even opening her eyes a problem for Ciel. When she managed to force her eyes open, she saw the fingers before her.

At this moment, Little Left was perched on Ciel’s head, holding a piece of burning dark purple sludge between its two fingers.

Only after sensing Ciel’s awakening did Little Left’s figure instantly collapse and dissipate, vanishing before Ciel along with the piece of burning sludge.

At this moment, the room no longer held the figures of Little Left or the hunched sludge monster. The blood-red vortex had also disappeared, leaving only the dried blood array on the floor and the sealed artifact Ciel held in her arms.

No... the simulation isn’t over yet... still more than ten hours left...

Forcing down the urge to faint, Ciel opened her mouth, softly calling out:

“Tara...”

Just calling out this name already exhausted Ciel.

The effect of 【Temporal Disorder】 had long since disappeared. “Assassin” path Ciel lost all strength, lying down on the blood-stained sofa.

Simultaneously, a cultist, using a sealed artifact in hand to listen for information inside the house, looked up towards Tara and said:

“Archbishop Tara, Lady Ciel inside is calling for you.”

Hearing this sentence, Tara instantly perked up. Her figure rapidly distorted and dissipated, leaving behind an illusory white shadow on the spot.

Appearing again, Tara was already standing outside her own house door. She lowered her head, pushed open the door, and called out:

“Lady Ciel! You called for me?”

Just after saying this, after waiting for a long time, Tara didn’t receive Ciel’s reply.

She mustered her courage, slowly looked up towards Ciel, and saw Ciel already unconscious on the sofa. Tara became completely flustered.

“Lady Ciel?” Tara quickly closed the door tightly, ran to the sofa side, knelt down, and reached out to touch Ciel’s neck.

Blood was still flowing, heart was still beating...

Almost without any hesitation, a white shadow emerged from Tara’s body, directly drilling into the shadow between Ciel and the sofa.

Strange... no pain at all?

Is it spiritual pollution?

Tara was extremely anxious. She could only transfer others’ physical pain, completely unable to transfer spiritual pollution. Healing could only rely on a “Psychologist.”

Even if a “Radiance Bishop” came, they could only help bear part of it while the person was still conscious.

Now Lady Ciel was unconscious. Where to find a “Psychologist”?

Two white shadows emerged from Tara’s shadow. They carefully lifted Ciel, carrying her towards the room upstairs.

After placing Ciel on the bed, Tara then controlled the white shadows to rush out of the room, gathering her subordinates, ordering them to find a “Psychologist” at the fastest speed.

Even if it meant kidnapping, they had to bring one over.

Unsure how long passed, everyone else had tried all possible methods, not even sparing the neighboring small towns and villages, but still couldn’t find any “Psychologist.”

Just as Tara ordered some people to return to headquarters at the fastest speed to seek assistance, Gemma, dressed in noble attire, found Tara pacing in the living room and said:

“Archbishop... I didn’t find a ‘Psychologist,’ but...”

“Get to the point!” Tara interrupted Gemma’s words unceremoniously.

Gemma dared not delay further and said quickly:

“I had a brief encounter with Avena of the Roswell family. She didn’t stay with the Roswell family but ran outside and took the ‘Listener’ potion... I’m afraid she’s the only ‘Listener’ in the entire Berren City.”

“‘Listener’ works too! Quickly, bring people to invite her. If invitation fails, just kidnap her directly!” Tara quickly ordered.

“Archbishop Tara... the person has already arrived,” Gemma lowered her voice and said, “She refused to come before, but after I mentioned Lady Ciel’s name, she came voluntarily...”

Five minutes later.

Avena sat on the stool beside the bed, looking at Ciel lying on the bed with a somewhat pained expression, her heart filled with mixed feelings.

Ciel... the organization you mentioned, was it actually the Divine Advent Church?

Avena took a deep breath, looked at the person she had missed for so long lying on the bed, and finally extended her hand, pressing it on her forehead.

She would wait for Ciel to wake up, then ask clearly what exactly was going on.

Also, the things Ciel held in her arms, among them the eyeball, Avena knew very well whose it was.

This thing appearing in Ciel’s arms meant Oppold was most likely dead.

As Avena softly hummed a lullaby, her brows began to furrow slightly, and blood vessels started spreading in her eyes.

And Ciel, lying down, her expression gradually eased.

...

【Save character file?】

Ciel opened her eyes. Before her was a silver-white space.

Passed out the whole time?

Ciel subconsciously looked down. There was nothing in her arms, only a white expanse, her own spiritual body.

And standing before Ciel was naturally herself from the “Assassin” path.

【Save character file?】