Chapter 205: Chapter 205

Chocolate lifted its head in displeasure. Standing on Jenkins's chest, it cried out at the starry sky a few times before jumping down to the balcony floor. It traced a circle around Jenkins with its paw, flicked its tail, and immediately darted back into the house, reaching its paw toward the black metal block.

Jenkins felt his soul ascending—not the kind of spiritual elevation that came with becoming a god, but a genuine, physical rise.

The Sea of Stars drew closer and closer, the surrounding scenery constantly shifting. Only the celestial tide indicated by the [Sea of Stars Badge] remained unchanged.

The tide grew ever nearer, and Jenkins finally noticed a dark opening flickering in and out of existence beneath the flowing Sea of Stars. His soul was involuntarily pulled toward it, and in his peripheral vision, he seemed to catch a glimpse of converging streams of light flying in his direction. Official source ıs novel·fiɾe·net

"I pray to you... whoever you are... I pray to you... I'm begging you, please save my..."

As he drew closer to the opening beneath the Sea of Stars, what had been a purposeless descent was suddenly guided by an inexplicable pull. With it came the broken sounds of a prayer, or perhaps more accurately, a desperate plea.

The voice was young and male, but the accent was so strange it was difficult to even understand.

When the sensation of falling ended and the kaleidoscopic images before his eyes faded, a simple house built of rough-hewn stone materialized around him. He was inside. A boy dressed in clothes stitched from scraps of cloth knelt on the floor, and in the corner of the room was a bed.

The boy trembled, pressing his forehead to the ground, his body curling in on itself. Still, he spoke in a low but resolute voice, "Thank you! I pray to you, save my father. Whatever you ask... I beg of you..."

"His skin is a bit dark, and his eye color is common enough, but his nose is quite high... He doesn't look like a local. Is he from one of the southern ethnic groups?"

Jenkins didn't speak. He could sense he was in a spirit form, which meant the boy obviously couldn't see him. Something was constantly supplying his spiritual body with Spirit, keeping it from dissipating. Glancing back, he saw it was a piece of stone, enshrined on a tabletop.

He could tell it was the corner of a complete stone monument, as three of its faces were perfectly smooth.

The fragment's color was unremarkable, and it displayed no unusual physical properties. Yet when Jenkins gazed upon it, he felt as if he were looking at something heavier than a mountain.

"So, the Sea of Stars Badge triggered something, I accidentally fell into an opening beneath the Sea of Stars, and then this boy's prayer pulled me here?"

He speculated, narrowing his eyes as he studied the boy. The kid was incredibly lucky. His prayers to that stone had actually summoned a real god—and a great being who was, for the moment, not fully present.

If a true god had descended in full, the boy would have surely gone mad.

"What is it you seek?"

He asked, then realized an ordinary person couldn't hear the voice of a spirit.

An external supply of Spirit flowed ceaselessly from the stone fragment into his soul. While it couldn't increase his maximum Spirit, it was more than enough to let him use his abilities and items at will.

He activated Psychography, and a line of text materialized on the dirt floor in front of the kneeling boy.

"This really lacks a certain divine flair," Jenkins thought. "If only I had an ability like projecting my voice into his mind."

Jenkins's thoughts drifted as he watched the boy. The youth stared at the ground in astonishment before collapsing in a heap. He convulsed from the sheer shock, but eventually, he managed to overcome his terror and knelt once more before the stone.

"Thank you! Whoever you are, please, please save my father. My name is Peter, and I will give anything—my blood, my flesh, my bones, my soul—you can take it all. Oh, I... I can't read, Great One. Please, take whatever you need, just save my father..."

"So he really can't read."

Jenkins mused, tiptoeing over to the corner to look at the bed—or rather, the pile of straw—and scanned his surroundings with the Eye of Reality. The only object in the entire house that emitted a spiritual glow was the corner piece of the stone monument. It glowed with a golden light.

He still couldn't be sure where he was, but it certainly wasn't Nolan. The Astral Plane transcends physical space; in theory, one could travel from any point within it to any corner of the world. But even with the stone fragment sustaining his soul, he would eventually need to return to his body.

"Perhaps I'll have to observe the starry sky again to find my way back."

He continued to speculate, mulling over the situation at hand.

In this world, besides the majority who followed the gods, there were also people who believed in—or rather, worshipped—non-divine entities. Their objects of veneration ranged from malevolent beings in subspace (a realm that was neither the main world nor another dimension), to certain Mysterious Objects passed down in mortal lore, strange creatures from the Shadow Realm, astral spirits from the Astral Plane, evil spirits lingering in the material world, or even exceptionally powerful Benefactors.

The boy, Peter, was praying so desperately to save his father that he'd uttered the words "whoever you are." This was often how great disasters began. Anything could answer such an indiscriminate call—a Cursed Item, an evil god, a malevolent spirit, a great author... anything.

"First, I'll help you out. It'll be a good chance to find out where I am."

Having made his decision, Jenkins used Psychography to draw an arrow on the ground pointing toward the enshrined stone. The boy must have some knowledge of the mystical arts, because a circular ritual array had been drawn around the fragment. The design of the sacrificial ritual was very similar to the most basic one Jenkins had studied; the minor deviations were probably just due to Peter's lack of skill.

The ritual required blood, precious metals, and a focus for the summoning. There was plenty of blood, but no precious metals, and the stone itself was the focus. It was honestly hard to believe an ordinary person could summon a god with such a crude setup.

Even if said god was currently "offline."

"Do you... need it? You can have it. Please, take it. It's yours."

The boy's voice was a hoarse, trembling whisper; he was terrified beyond measure. He shakily raised a hand and pointed to the corner. "Please... you have to save my father."