Lord of Mysteries: Yao Guang

Esther walked out of the room crowded with bats and found herself on another long corridor.

There was no red carpet here. The gray stone tiles exuded an icy chill and were covered with white frost. Although Esther would not suffer from frostbite due to this temperature, she still felt cold all over.

There were torches lit on the corridor. The torch Esther was holding had gone out. She tried to relight it with other torches, but it was in vain.

Esther threw the extinguished torch next to the wall and walked along the road that was not blocked by the collapsed rocks. The bat was still clinging to her hind legs. Esther felt that her pants were torn by it. There were slight cracks.

She tried to catch the bat, but as soon as her hand came close, the bat would make a panicked "squeaking" sound, as if it was afraid of being thrown away.

Esther had to give up the idea of ​​letting it come down for the time being, and could only wait until she left here to find a tailor.

She turned down another hallway blocked by boulders and passed a narrow, dusty utility room.

While Esther was investigating a huge water tank, the stinking black water inside suddenly started rolling. Fortunately, she was able to dodge quickly enough to avoid being splashed with water droplets. Soon, a mass of black seaweed twisted out of the tank and crawled inside. The mouse hole in the corner.

Esther left the utility room and walked forward on the cold corridor for a moment. Suddenly, the walls shook violently, and one after another, full of grief-stricken roars came from the ground, almost toppling the entire castle. .

Subconsciously, Esther guessed that Benjamin had done something to arouse the hostility of the castle. It was hard to imagine that the roar was coming from the delicate and beautiful Marquis Keral.

Urged by some kind of intuition, Esther started running wildly along the corridor. Ignoring the bat's resistance, she pulled it off her trouser leg and stuffed it into her pocket.

The scream of the bat was masked by the non-stop roar. Esther no longer used the stolen distance to move, but simply accelerated her pace. She had an inexplicable premonition that once she used the power of the "Stealer", she would immediately face stronger hostility from the castle.

The anger now is directed at Benjamin, and I don’t know if he can hold it...

After running around the corner, Esther saw another staircase, spiraling upwards, not knowing where it led.

Compared to the castle itself, the tower shook less violently. The moment Esther made this judgment, she had already climbed up the stairs to the tower, taking three steps at a time.

The vibrations of the castle gradually stopped, but the roaring sound became louder and louder, with extremely sharp penetrating power, almost as if it was sticking behind the person's back.

The bat in Esther's pocket made no movement. It just stuck its head out to take a breath. It turned its head doubtfully and looked at the surrounding environment.

The stairs of the tower seemed endless, and the roars from the bottom of the castle were no longer so frequent, but the pain and resentment revealed became more and more obvious, and Esther couldn't help but worry about Benjamin's situation.

What on earth happened? Was the thing Benjamin stole important to the Marquis de Kerard?

Finally climbing to the top of the tower, Esther raised her hand and pushed towards the door without hesitation. If the door was locked, she would have to find another way out, or ignore Benjamin's reminder and directly break the door lock to enter. .

However, to Esther's surprise, there was no lock on the door.

There were several brass telescopes and broken crystal balls piled in the tower. The fragments were scattered on the ground like withered petals, stained crimson by the moonlight that leaked in. There were chairs with broken legs and collapsed desks in the corners.

This room seemed to be set up for stargazing, so there was a huge hole in the wall, and there was a person sitting next to the hole where you could watch the stars.

This man was holding a crystal ball slightly larger than his fist. There was a swirling purple vortex in the crystal ball.

Curly black hair casts a shadow on his broad forehead. Even sitting on the edge of the cave, the traditional black robe of a fortune teller is spotless, because his back is to the moonlight, and the pointed soft hat on his head casts a shadow on the ground. Almost touching Esther's toes.

The monocle in front of the young man's right eye lit up slightly, and his smile deepened: "Are you surprised?"

"It's quite scary," Esther took a deep breath to calm her wildly beating heart. Her thinking almost stopped for a moment just now, "But you are just a clone. This is the real surprise."

"You can actually tell the difference between us and the original body?" The young man looked a little surprised, "It's a pity that we are all Amon, there is no difference in essence."

Esther sneered and ignored the words. She put her left hand behind her back and took out the brass compass.

Esther's small movements could not escape the young man's perception, but he didn't care.

The young man seemed to be very interested in chatting. He slowly turned the crystal ball in his hand and stared at the purple vortex with halos inside:

"There are two most precious things in this castle. They are both the necklace given to the Marquis by the 'Blood Moon Queen'. The sapphire necklace can activate the ultimate power of the 'Creator' to condense the spiritual body that is on the verge of collapse. , shape another physical body, and be reborn.

"This kind of new life includes the level of mysticism. It can completely let a person get rid of the past. After embracing the essence of life, he can enter a weak state and break away from everything before."

The young man raised his head and winked at Esther: "Benjamin hopes to get rid of his identity, if you know what I mean, but that kind of thing is of no use to you now."

Esther noticed the lie in the young man's words, but she couldn't identify which one exactly. She asked softly: "So the other thing is what you are holding? That crystal ball?"

The smile on the black-haired young man's face did not change. He raised the crystal ball in the direction of Esther and blocked it in front of his right eye: "Even if I asked you to guess, you probably wouldn't be able to guess what its use is. , Hei Ye, and Zoya all intend to keep you away from deeper occult knowledge, allowing Esther to 'live' in an ignorant and dull state."

"That's not malicious. For the extraordinary world, knowledge is..."

"Yes, knowledge is also a kind of pollution," Amon's clone directly interrupted Esther's words. He stood up from the edge of the hole and took a step towards Esther, "Don't you want to know? Just Aren’t you curious?”

He pointed the crystal ball in his hand in the direction of Esther, as if he was going to hand it over: "Zoya's personality is strong enough to resist the pollution of any knowledge, but why did you appear in Him, and why did you happen to be you?"

Esther slowly took half a step back toward the door: "Your questions are meaningless. I already know that I should restrain my curiosity. I can't do anything in front of the true God, including in front of your body. "

Even if it was a mixture of truth and falsehood, she couldn't see clearly.

The young man retracted his arm: "This crystal ball can perform the ritual of summoning the purple light of the spirit world, and maintain stable communication within ten minutes, allowing anyone to communicate with the most friendly and knowledgeable seven lights of the spirit world. They will definitely be happy to do so. answer your question."

The accent in his words made Esther feel uncomfortable.

"So?" Esther was not as calm as she seemed. She understood the implication of this clone. Since she did not believe in Amon, a more "neutral" third party could completely answer many of her doubts, and she had to More credible.

"Nothing. As you can see, Benjamin chose himself between him and you." The young man suddenly flipped his palm, and the crystal ball disappeared instantly. "I just took this opportunity to take away our Something I’ve always wanted.”

Esther calmed down instead: "If you just want me to be dissatisfied with Benjamin, then you have said too much... I trust him."

The smile on the young man's face faded. He took a step back and appeared directly on the edge of the hole. He might fall at any time.

He looked into Esther's dark eyes and concealed something more complicated, hiding it under the superficial smile: "Really? I hope you won't regret it. Trust is something lighter than a feather. "

"I am a person who is more in tune with my fate and I have no regrets."

Esther said this, and suddenly she felt something approaching from behind, and some kind of shadow stopped behind her. Someone put his hand on the compass pinned behind her back, trying to take the heavy base from her palm.

The third pointer is spinning crazily.

"Esther, it's me."

After hearing Benjamin's voice, my intuition, which had just settled down, gave me further confirmation. Only then did Esther give up the movement of turning around, let go of her hand, and allowed Benjamin to take the compass from her hand.

Benjamin stood behind Esther, looking quietly at the clone by the window. From an angle that Esther could not observe in detail, he gradually raised the corners of his mouth.

The black-haired young man looked at the smile that was exactly the same as his own, and seemed to think about it for a few seconds before nodding in the direction of the two of them: "I took the things. I don't want to let go of such a good opportunity. After all, I have a mission... …But I also have a feeling that we will see each other again before long. We are all very much looking forward to it, Ben.”

"It's best to never see him again." The smile on Benjamin's face was elegant but false.

The black-haired young man raised a finger and put it to his lips: "That's impossible. If you bring the most chaotic things around, everyone will be curious. And you, now you have also made us curious."

He glanced at Esther one last time: "Zoya avatar, your trust was wrong from the very beginning."

Esther said nothing, just looked at the figure at the entrance of the cave coldly.

The young man jumped back, the corners of his black robe rolled up, and a crow with a white ring in its right eye flew into the night sky, away from this strange castle.

"It's time for us to leave." Benjamin whispered, walking towards the entrance of the cave. The round glasses on his face seemed a little crooked.

Esther walked up to him and looked down from the hole: "Are we... going to fly down from here too?"

Her gaze swept across the lens in front of Benjamin's right eye, and a hint of deep black did not fade completely, passing through Benjamin's eyes.

Benjamin was still troubled by the clone's words just now, and did not notice Esther's hidden hesitation.

He put away the compass with only two moving hands in his hand, stepped on the edge of the window, and stretched out his hand towards Esther: "It just so happens that He left a special passage so that we don't have to go to the front hall to bear the wrath of the Marquis. We will immediately Leaving is not an invitation, it is a plan."

Esther's eyes moved slightly, but she didn't say anything, she just held his outstretched hand.