Chapter Forty-Five: The God of Mischief

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Gaul, within Sisyphus, a domain encompassing both Notre-Dame de Paris and the Eiffel Tower—the library of the University of Paris II.

Unlike the orphanage in Dunlun City, here, nearly all living facilities had collapsed. Apart from a temporary supply of potable water, the power grid, corroded over many years and left unattended, was now beyond repair or use.

A young man, dressed in coarse linen, sat upright in the abandoned open reading area of the library. He read a book on biology, retrieved from the library’s collection, by daylight streaming weakly through grimy windows left uncleaned for so long that they barely let any light through.

Suddenly, his vision blurred, and he seemed to find himself in an endless, dark expanse. Yet instead of panic, he calmly closed his book and stood up slowly.

As he rose, the book before him, the rectangular table, and the stool behind him all vanished. In their place, figures began to appear—vague silhouettes emitting a faint glow, some male, some female. Most strikingly, each figure had a spot—on the chest or at the ribs—that radiated an inescapable brilliance.

This was a scene the youth had grown accustomed to. In an instant, a new figure slowly materialized at his left, neither too close nor too far.

From the silhouette, it was clear this was a young woman, long-haired, with a radiant glow emanating from her left eye socket, just like the others.

The youth watched in silence for a few seconds, then, by force of will, returned to the library where he had just been, back to his table and book.

“A new blasphemer… Which path will it be?” The thought flickered through his mind in the language of Xia.

Upon his shoulder, an illusion flickered and vanished—a piece of armor, seemingly stained with blood, reminiscent of the medieval era.

——————

Lily had realized she could leave this space at any time, but she did not hurry this time. Instead, she began to pace in a small circle, sorting through the knowledge and abilities she had gained from that excruciating pain.

First, the path she now walked—Error—could be simply understood as the path of all things gone wrong.

She could attempt to steal anything that did not fully possess the “trinity” of the three aspects: be it a person’s thoughts, skills, or abilities. Depending on the rarity or value of what she stole, the duration she could retain it would vary as well.

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As for human-created concepts—such as time or distance—she could, within the limits of her ability, steal or alter them. With time, in particular, she seemed to wield the greatest power.

Lily could even, to a degree, deceive the laws of nature and nudge events in the direction she wished, though this would bring upon her a certain backlash.

Because she had been forced to divide herself into countless fragments, all but her true self could be stealthily dispatched to occupy the spiritual bodies of targets, hiding there for a brief or extended time. This allowed her to hear their thoughts or predict their actions to a certain extent.

Yet she would also bear the consequences. For instance, a stolen thought would become her own; she could suppress it for a few minutes at most before being compelled to act on it. She also developed an uncontrollable penchant for theft.

Error—the player in the games of rules and perception.

This was how Liu Shiqin described the Error path in the second letter she wrote to Lily—the most direct description possible.

Yet, to Lily now, Liu Shiqin’s words felt vague at best. Still, she understood why Liu Shiqin had written on the letter that most people regarded this path with wariness and aversion.

If one chose to use this path solely for mischief, it could easily breed a god of tricksters.

Of course, the path’s effectiveness depended entirely on the imagination of its wielder.

Beyond that, Lily was also intrigued by some of the knowledge she had acquired, snippets involving “protection” and “apocalypse”—but those pieces of information seemed obscured, as if censored. Each time she tried to recall, her mind drifted off, lingering on the word “protection,” then drifting again to “apocalypse.” She tried several times, but the result was always the same.

“Protection… apocalypse…” For now, Lily had no clues. The idea that the world might be ending and she was its savior was too absurd, too melodramatic to entertain.

At last, her thoughts settled on a phrase she had recited in Xia during that agony:

Turn the hand of day, wander the vistas of fate, let deceit and wickedness transform themselves.

To steal is to take, blasphemy is sport, a cunning miracle of trickery.

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The Trojan Horse of Destiny… begins to turn.

She called this reciting because, from the knowledge gleaned through pain, she vaguely sensed this was a kind of exalted name or title.

Yet in the occult, an exalted name was also structured in three parts, always pointing to a particular entity or something else. What she had uttered, if anything, resembled a prophecy more than a name.

“The Trojan Horse of Destiny…” Lily couldn’t help but think of how, every time she entered that other world, she would see those so-called true wooden horses, forming the hands of a colossal clock, racing ceaselessly across its face. Though wooden, their manes and tails flowed as if alive in the wind.

Lily had also learned a little about the abilities of those on different paths. Of particular interest to her was the path of the Celestial Sovereign—the one Liu Shiqin, in the second page of her letter, described as “those who gaze into fate and challenge destiny.”

In the knowledge Lily had acquired, the abilities of this path could be summed up by the Xia word for “mysterious”—whether in the mundane manipulation of puppets or the arcane command of echoes from the past.

All these ability users possessed strong intuition, even foresight.

Perhaps that was why Liu Shiqin’s letter mentioned that such individuals excelled at divination, able to glimpse the true causes of events or the origins and possibilities of what was to come.

“I don’t know why, but I get the feeling I’ll be deeply entangled with someone on that path,” Lily thought without reason.

“Hmm… How long have I been here? I should hurry back, or Ander Dunn and the others will be worried.” Lily collected her thoughts, deciding to return to the real world.

But then she froze, for when she tried to will her consciousness to peel away—like separating fruit from its rind—she felt a chill run down her spine, a vast terror gripping her, and she stopped herself at once.

“What’s happening???” Lily was left utterly bewildered.