Chapter 110: Bryce and Longinus

Chapter 110 Bryce and Longinus

When the brown-haired young man woke up, he found himself lying on the floor, the study filled with a thick, metallic reek of blood.

"Why am I on the floor?"—that was strange. Where was his teacher? And the other apprentices? Why hadn’t anyone helped him up?

Wait… His teacher was always obsessive about cleanliness. How could he allow such a heavy stench of blood in the study?

Instantly sensing something amiss, the young man jolted upright—only to be met with a study full of corpses…

The bodies belonged to his familiar peers and teacher, each corpse more horrifying than the next.

They sat rigidly at their small desks, but one had driven a pen into their own temple, their head lolling at an unnatural angle against the chair like a split-open watermelon, blood and brain matter splattered across the desk.

Another had their hands clasped tightly around their own throat, eyes bulging, face blue, tendons standing out—as if they had strangled themselves to death.

One was hunched over, seemingly engrossed in reading, but upon closer inspection, they had impaled their own eye with the pointed tip of an armillary sphere, blood soaking the surface and blurring the continents and meridians…

And their teacher—a Rank 7 occult master in the field of "Peering into Secrets," on the verge of reaching Rank 8—had also died silently at his grand desk, with no visible wounds or signs of struggle. Only his face was frozen in an expression of abject terror and hopelessness, as if he had glimpsed something utterly inescapable before death…

What manner of being could overpower even his teacher without resistance?

And stranger still—why was *he* still alive?

The brown-haired young man worked his dry throat, trying to recall what had happened, only to find his memory hazy and broken. He couldn’t remember anything from the past five days.

He had no time to mourn his fallen comrades. The horror before him was enough to send his mind into chaos.

"I *told* them… All those inhumane, unethical, anti-scientific—even anti-occultist—experiments would bring retribution sooner or later…"

"No, this place is too dangerous! Who knows what unknowable entity they provoked? If the organization comes to interrogate me, I can’t bear the consequences—I genuinely know nothing!"

Panic-stricken, the young man grabbed his belongings and fled the blood-soaked study.

"I’m defecting—today!"

---

Meanwhile, Yi Fengchu’s true form was dreaming.

For Yi Fengchu, dreams were no longer mere projections of the subconscious or fragmented memories. They were more like cryptic revelations from fate, often containing information that proved useful to him.

This time, Yi Fengchu dreamed he was undulating through the vast cosmos in the form of a colossal serpent.

Along the way, the serpent encountered a wretched world under the dominion of the Fallen Knowledge, its surface still bearing traces of a once-thriving civilization.

With just a glance, Yi Fengchu could tell: This place had once nurtured a flourishing culture.

Vibrant cultures had multiplied here, countless lives composing fate's symphony. The laughter of children, the songs of youth, and the sighs of elders had once filled the land, as if everything was progressing toward a brighter future.

But alas, these beings had the misfortune of encountering the divine beings known as the Fallen Knowledge.

As their name implied, this race was born from severely polluted and corrupted knowledge, their forms resembling enormous, unblinking, lashless orbs of flesh.

They had no need for sustenance or entertainment—only an instinctive pursuit of truth, etched deep into their consciousness as their sole purpose.

Generally, the Fallen Knowledge were not considered high-risk divine beings.

They held no interest in ordinary creatures like humans and harbored no malice that would drive them to slaughter or torment…

But when life became part of their "pursuit of truth"—when beings became specimens to cultivate, test, study, and erase in their proving grounds—they cared not for the screams or deaths that ensued.

Like most indifferent divine beings, the Fallen Knowledge felt no pity. In their perception, truth far outweighed all else, and nothing could hinder their relentless pursuit.

The serpent’s aimless drifting came to an abrupt halt. Its cold, gilded snake eyes opened, burning like distant suns in the dark void of space.

It stared fixedly at the Fallen Knowledge for so long that even the most obsessive seeker of truth sensed danger.

The colossal flesh eyeball—larger than a planet—blinked twice before its insatiable curiosity was finally overpowered by its self-preservation impulse. It resolved to abandon this testing ground and seek another.

But would Yi Fengchu grant it the chance to retreat unscathed?

The serpent answered with action.

In an instant, space-time around the Fallen Knowledge contorted into an endless Möbius loop, cutting off all escape routes.

The tides of destiny shifted, reducing the enemy’s chance of survival to zero, ensnaring the Fallen Knowledge in the shadow of death…

This arsenal of powers was executed with a precision surpassing even Yi Fengchu’s current self, as if honed through countless battles, leaving the serpent instinctively prepared for every possible counterattack.

The Fallen Knowledge fluttered spasmodically, its pupil trembling as it reflected the serpent’s approaching silhouette.

*Crunch.*

Like the sound of biting into hard candy, the massive eyeball was consumed whole by Yi Fengchu, scarcely masticated before being swallowed.

Hmm… Full for now. Time to find a place to sleep…

The serpent yawned lethargically, its form shrinking as it descended onto the long-abandoned world.

Avoiding any possibly surviving lifeforms, it found a vast wilderness encircled by mountains, coiling itself into concentric rings with its head tucked at the center, drifting into dreamless repose.

It had expected to wake naturally—but instead, it was roused by the persistent prattling of a child.

Yi Fengchu opened its eyes, intrigued. What kind of bold child would dare approach such a terrifying being alone—and keep talking to it?

The child was so small that the serpent had to squint its sleepy eyes to make out a head of golden hair.

A golden-haired, red-eyed child—by Yi Fengchu’s estimation of humanoid ages, no older than eight, likely male.

His clothes were tattered, like filthy tatters hanging over his frame. The skin around his eyes was swollen and festering, as if inflamed by some corrosive agent, and his unnaturally scarlet eyes were unfocused, staring blankly into the air.

Yi Fengchu understood: It was precisely because the child was blind that he had the courage to approach—and wouldn’t go mad from glimpsing its true form.

*"Who are you?"*

The serpent didn’t speak aloud, instead transmitting the words directly into the blind child’s mind, transcending their divide.

"I… I don’t have a name," the child replied, sitting cross-legged beside the serpent’s tail, his face alight with reverence. "I came to find a god."

"They say that after the 'Celestial Dirge' vanished and the sky brightened again, a shimmering argent comet streaked across the heavens and fell into the wilderness—that it was the divine manifestation and god's passing."

"I walked for so long… With my eyes like this, I often couldn’t tell direction, or whether I was moving forward or backward… Before I knew it, I arrived here."

"I can’t see what’s ahead, but something tells me I’ve reached the feet of a god—that a colossal, formidable, dreadful, yet merciful entity stands before me. And even more fortunate… It doesn’t seem to mind my intrusion and is willing to speak with me."

The child asked eagerly, "So… Are you the god who brought the reckoning?"

Newly awakened, the serpent took a moment to realize that "bringing the reckoning" referred to its devouring of the Fallen Knowledge.

For the people on the planet, the size of *Fallen Knowledge* was overwhelmingly vast, making it impossible for them to discern its form hovering beyond their sky. All they knew was that since its arrival, the sky had remained perpetually dark, and light never again graced the land.

Perhaps because people could only hear fragments of the sounds and commands *Fallen Knowledge* emitted during its experiments, they mistakenly believed it had no physical form. Thus, they fearfully referred to it as the "Voice From Beyond"…

An uncanny voice from beyond the sky, heralding apocalyptic disaster.

Yi Fengchu remained silent for a moment before asking, "'The apocalypse'… What did it do here?"

"I don't know," the child shook his head, his voice noticeably dimmed as he broached the heavy topic. "All we know is that ever since then, the sky has never brightened again, and the land has been shrouded in unending darkness."

"At first, those who made noises of panic were killed, those who fled in all directions were killed, and even those who tried to hide in their homes were killed."

"So we dared not cry, dared not speak loudly, dared not even hide ourselves. We could only live in silence outside our houses… staying where the 'Voice From Beyond' could observe us at all times."

"Yes, it must have been observing us, right? After observing for over a month, it began selecting those it found acceptable."

"We didn’t know its exact criteria, only that people started dying in waves for no apparent reason. Fear spread among us… until so many had died that corpses piled like hills on the roads. Only then did people gradually discover the common trait among the dead—they all wore darker-colored clothing, with hair mostly brown, chestnut, black, or deep blue. Many of them were elderly."

"Only then did we begin discerning its patterns. The 'Voice From Beyond' didn’t want those who disrupted order, those who didn’t cooperate with its observations, the elderly and frail, or those whose colors weren’t vibrant enough…"

"While 'filtering' and killing us for incomprehensible reasons, it also urged the survivors to reproduce, as if studying how newborns inherited traits from their parents. It discarded infants with drab or grayish hues as waste, allowing only those it approved of to survive, grow, and continue reproducing…"

—An experiment.

As the child spoke, a faint sorrow spread through Yi Fengchu’s heart. It realized that to *Fallen Knowledge*, this entire planet and its developing civilization were nothing more than a laboratory—or more precisely, a "petri dish."

The truths *Fallen Knowledge* sought to prove or discover required an immense dataset, and each data point… was a life that had once been vibrant.

"In the fifty-plus years since its arrival, the 'Voice From Beyond’s' selection criteria grew increasingly strict. The slightest flaw meant merciless elimination."

As he spoke, the child raised a hand to touch his sightless eyes and smiled. "I should have been 'waste' too. I was born with blue eyes and golden hair, but to it, that might have been too common—some had to be culled. To save me, my mother found a special dye and dropped it into my eyes, turning them the rarer red."

"I survived because of that, but my vision deteriorated under the dye’s erosion and infection. Now, I can’t see at all."

The serpent gazed at him and asked, "You journeyed over mountains and rivers to come here. Do you wish to make a request of me? For example, to restore your eyes?"

The child jolted in surprise, his messy golden hair shaking. "Why would you think that?"

"You’ve already driven away the 'Voice From Beyond' and restored light to us. We couldn’t possibly ask for anything more from you."

"I came all this way just to tell you about our lives now: abandoned houses are being repaired, and we no longer have to sleep outside. The adults are discussing rebuilding schools—do you know what 'schools' are? Places where they round up children and force us to study. Some kind souls have even taken in orphans like me, teaching us how to farm, raise livestock, and live…"

The child’s tone grew light again, sunlight playing in his golden hair as his words flowed effortlessly, carrying on until sunset.

Finally, he said, "Sorry, I might have talked too long. I just wanted to describe all of this to you."

"I can’t see these hopeful scenes myself—my friends told me about them. At the time, I thought how wonderful it would be to see people’s smiles and the new buildings with my own eyes. Then one night, I suddenly thought of you."

"You’re the God who ended the apocalypse. Maybe you don’t care about our joys and sorrows, but I still wanted to share our happiness with you… Wouldn't that be tragic if you never got to see the paradise you protected?"

The serpent fell silent again.

The quiet made the blind child instinctively uneasy. He listened intently, trying to perceive any external signals.

He heard the faint rustle of scales drawing closer, the wind brushing past his ears as if heralding the approach of something enormous.

But trusting in the "Savior God," he didn’t retreat. Instead, he straightened his posture, nervously tugging at his tattered, ill-fitting rags and pressing his lips together.

The serpent hissed above him, its tone softening like springtime ice thawing:

"Thank you for sharing these things with me. It’s been so long since I’ve felt life's vitality… so long that I’d forgotten the emotions I once had as a human."

"Not everyone has the ability or luck to stand before me—so our meeting is also fate’s guidance."

"Would you like to leave with me and step into a wider, yet more dangerous world?"

A breeze brushed the boy’s face. He closed his eyes, his trembling pupils shifting beneath his lids. When he opened them again, his gaze was clear and bright.

The first thing he saw was a serpent of unimaginable size—but it held no malice. It had even retracted the snake eyes blinking beneath its scales and the smaller serpents extending from its body, appearing powerful, cold, and intimidating… yet also somewhat gentle.

The golden-haired boy froze, breath held, as he studied the colossal entity before him. Then he nodded firmly. "I would!" After a pause, he tentatively added, "...Teacher?"

The serpent nodded, accepting the title, then asked, "Would you like to give yourself a name?"

"Name me, Teacher." The boy edged forward and, seeing Yi Fengchu didn’t object, gently pressed his hand against the serpent’s scales, looking up with a radiant smile.

"...I’m not good at naming."

The serpent murmured in frustration before suddenly seizing fate's inspiration. "Hmm… Bryce—a symbol of protection and healing. How about that?"

"Good. I like that name," Bryce said, his crimson eyes gleaming with amusement. "But we still need a surname. Let’s make it 'Fibod'—because it’s a fanciful name!"

The dreamscape suddenly shifted, and in the blink of an eye, an older Bryce appeared before Yi Fengchu.

He still wore a faint smile, leaning with devout affection against the serpent’s side as he recounted recent events to his teacher.

Suddenly, he remembered something and added:

"Oh, Teacher, recently I met a kindred spirit. She told me she wants to establish an organization to decode the divine realm and bring power to more ordinary people, giving them the means of self-protection."

"If her vision succeeds, the era of divine tyranny may come to an end, and humanity will loose the first arrow at the divine."

"So, she plans to borrow the legend of the *Godslaying Spear* and name the organization—"

Bryce in the dream paused, then spoke the fabled name: "—*Longinus*."