Chapter 21: Dreaming of Being a Sluggish Fish? Think of the Fish on the Cutting Board

Amanises did not dwell on the matter of the brick for the time being. The immediate priority was the mixed Beyonder characteristic extracted from the remains of the two-headed demon wolf.

Recounting her attempts during this outing, Amanises sighed with a wry smile: "I tried to use my divinity to shatter it, but my power was weaker than its own. That caused my first attempt to fail."

The first attempt...

Hermione keenly caught the key word in Amanises's statement and asked in surprise, "How many times did you try?"

In the world of *Lord of the Mysteries*, diligence is not always a virtue. When the direction is wrong, repeated attempts mean courting uncontrollable risks.

A trace of wariness and deep-seated fear flickered in Amanises’s profound eyes. Her voice turned slightly hoarse: "The second attempt was not guided by my own will."

Not guided by Amanises's own will?

Recalling the agonizing torment Amanises suffered upon her return, Hermione couldn't help but speculate: "Did the will of *that being* awaken within you?"

"Not exactly." A look of bewilderment crossed Amanises’s features. She described it: "It was more like an induction. Just as I was at my wits' end with the mixed characteristic, a powerful gravitational pull from an unknown place plunged my consciousness into the dim, grey fog of a painful nightmare."

"I don’t know why... but at that moment, I suddenly felt a surge of confidence that I could separate the mixed characteristic. No, to be precise, I was suddenly certain that I had the ability to precisely separate the Beyonder characteristics of 'Tampering' and 'Resurrection' from the remains of the two-headed demon wolf."

"Furthermore, in that grey-fog nightmare, my craving for the 'Disaster' characteristic was completely transformed into a craving for the 'Tampering' and 'Resurrection' characteristics."

"Under those circumstances, I involuntarily began to attempt a second shattering of the characteristic."

"And, with the support of that mysterious aura, the second attempt was strangely effective..."

*Grey fog aura? Could it be the aura of the Sefirah Castle?* Hermione mused inwardly. Given the status of the Sefirah Castle as the top-tier Sefirah of that pathway, even a mere trace of its aura would be enough to suppress a non-activated Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristic of the Fool pathway.

"But I also knew that if things continued this way, the legend you once mentioned would likely repeat itself..." A strange emotion flickered in Amanises's eyes for an instant, but it vanished so quickly that Hermione thought she might have imagined it.

Amanises then lowered her voice: "At that time, when even I couldn't help but feel fear and despair, my instinctive reaction was to run back..."

Amanises’s gaze, gentle and restraining her desire to probe, fell upon Hermione: "In that desperate situation, I subconsciously thought of you back home, Hermione."

***

Me? Hermione was stunned.

She immediately understood the implication behind Amanises's conjecture and the trust built on such bold risk-taking...

*One can only say, is she worthy of being the future Goddess of Night? This keen intuition, this audacity to experiment...* Hermione sighed inwardly. But then she reconsidered: perhaps this transparency was a good thing.

Possessing "knowledge" and the "future," if she wanted to truly achieve something in her current circumstances, she needed a partner who was sufficiently powerful. Otherwise, this "knowledge" and the "threads" of the future would be difficult to convert into the resources she needed to grow.

Just like these past six months living in the Kingdom of Demon Wolves.

Although she had confirmed and organized a wealth of knowledge far exceeding the current era, and had made significant progress in creating a writing system, she had made almost no gains in personal strength.

The experience of being nearly killed by the gaze of the grey-clad man, "Salinger," made Hermione recall the fear of being dominated by death once more...

She recalled the terror she felt when she first arrived, facing the bloody, sharp, foul-smelling maw of a demon wolf cub!

In truth, she had been subconsciously escaping...

Under Amanises's protection, hiding in this safe-house-like dwelling, she had been calmly and unconsciously evading the bloody laws of survival of the fittest in the Second Epoch.

But! Reality would not change because of evasion!

This was the Second Epoch, where the savagery had not yet faded!

It was the Second Epoch, where transcendent creatures were driven by the instinct of convergence without restraint; it was the Second Epoch, where madness reigned and order had yet to be born!

Trying to be a couch potato in the Second Epoch?

Hermione realized how foolish and ridiculous her thinking had been. The fusion of the souls of Hermione and Zhou Mingxiang meant she was inevitably influenced by the "small-scale contentment" mindset that Zhou Mingxiang had developed in a peaceful environment.

*In the fusion of the two souls, did Zhou Mingxiang, whose life was shorter, take up a larger proportion?*

Hermione became aware of this problem, and she thought back to the consciousness connection she had just made with that unspeakable "ocean."

***

That "sea," that "brick," and that "researcher"—all were resurrection contingencies left behind by that omniscient and omnipotent God.

They were the Sefirah "Chaos Sea" once held by God, the "Blasphemy Slate" that was God's corpse, and the Ancient Sun God who had not yet awakened and was containing the Uniquenesses of the "Sun" and "Hanged Man" pathways!

Being connected to these things, wasn't she similar to the plight of Zhou Mingrui in the Fifth Epoch?

Just as Zhou Mingrui was the "cured meat" on the Sefirah Castle, was she actually the "cured meat" of the Chaos Sea?

Hermione smiled bitterly to herself. Being this piece of aged "cured meat" was no easy task; it was destined to bear certain functions and fates.

Pursing her lips, Hermione stopped escaping. She took the initiative to ask Amanises, who was waiting for her in silence: "In the grey fog, did you see anything clearly?"

Noticing the shift in Hermione's attitude, Amanises responded with preparation: "A door, a dark blue-black door of light. Do you know what that is?"

Hermione said with reservation: "It is a Sefirah. It is the Sefirah that that existence once held."

Hermione still did not dare to rashly speak the names of those Sefirah, fearing that such specific, directional names might cause unknown turbulence. After all, Amanises was a god with complete divinity, while she was still just a weakling who didn't even possess divinity.

Amanises chewed on the word inwardly. Sensing Hermione's wariness regarding the term, she did not force Hermione to provide a detailed explanation.

"Is it dangerous?" Amanises asked.

Hermione sighed heavily:

"It is danger, but it is also an opportunity. To accommodate it is to become an existence above the gods."

"However, this is accompanied by the danger of that being's will awakening, and this process of awakening is basically unavoidable... especially when you receive it in such a completely wrong way; this outcome is inevitable."