Chapter 206: Chapter 206

The house wasn't large, but it was startlingly empty. Aside from a pile of straw used as a bed, a slanted table, and a single chair, the only other object that could be considered a furnishing was a pot hanging on the wall.

In his spiritual form, Jenkins couldn't hold any physical objects. He didn't bother trying to pick up the stone, instead drifting toward the corner of the room.

A man with a prominent nose lay there with his eyes closed. He was just an ordinary person, his hair a tangled mess and his face an unhealthy, pale white. He was covered by a black overcoat that had been patched countless times. The coat was so worn from washing that it had faded to an unnatural white. Around the man's neck, dark lines could be seen squirming beneath his skin.

"Not an external injury, then?"

Jenkins thought, a little troubled. He placed his hands on the man's chest and head. As a spirit, he could pass through anything, but he felt no sensation from the contact.

He could feel his spirit being consumed, which meant the man did have physical injuries somewhere unseen—perhaps an imperceptible fracture or something similar.

The candle he carried within his soul trembled slightly, and flames crept down his spiritual arms, spreading onto the man's body.

The visible flames startled the boy again. He scrambled back against the floor, let out a strange cry like a lone wolf, and then lunged toward the man.

The fire didn't harm him. The boy just hugged the man, sobbing. After the flames vanished, a faint touch of color returned to the man's face, but the black lines on his neck remained.

Peter whispered to the empty air, his voice trembling with gratitude. Jenkins shifted a step to the left, positioning himself directly in front of the boy.

His stomach growled. Jenkins pursed his lips. Deciding to see his good deed through to the end, he drew a sack of rice—he wasn't worried about consuming spirit right now, anyway.

The boy no longer cared what was helping him. He jumped off the straw bed and skillfully took down the pot. He built a makeshift stove with stones from the corner, lit a fire with flint and straw, and scooped a handful of murky water from a water jug. Then he placed the pot, filled with rice and water, onto the flames.

The result was little more than a bowl of half-congealed porridge. The boy had never seen such fine, white rice before. He swallowed hard as he stared at the pot, but he still tried to wake the man on the bed first.

Jenkins shook his head, paying no mind to what happened next. The house had no windows, so he couldn't see outside. He reached a hand through the wall, intending to investigate the environment beyond, but a sense of danger, like having a gun pointed at him, washed over his heart.

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He froze, stiffly retracting his hand, not daring to try again.

The man soon awoke. He was first astonished by the porridge, and upon learning what Peter had done, he broke down into loud sobs. As he cried, he began to retch, then cried some more. It took him a full half-hour to barely regain his composure.

Peter and the man ate the pot of food together. Afterward, they knelt before the mottled, cyan stone and began to pray in low voices.

They didn't know who was helping them, so their prayer wasn't a standard theological text. But prayers always have a structure, and this one seemed to follow a format from the 15th Epoch, one now used only in certain remote regions.

Jenkins had read about it in the church's books. The prayer's phrasing included many archaic phrases and a rigid format, so he was certain he hadn't misidentified it.

"Could this be some small kingdom outside the three major ones?"

After praying, the father and son cleaned the pot, hid the remaining rice in the straw pile, and then fell asleep together under the overcoat.

It was only then that Jenkins suddenly noticed something odd. The room had no lighting fixtures, yet it was exceptionally bright. The light was distributed evenly across every inch of space, and there were no shadows on the floor.

He had initially suspected the room was actually dark, and that his unique spiritual form allowed him to perceive his surroundings without needing light. But the father and son were completely ordinary people; they couldn't have moved about as they did in a space with no windows or doors.

He couldn't leave the room. Whenever he approached a wall, he felt as if he were about to be burned to ashes. While the boy Peter and his father slept, Jenkins surveyed the room once more, but it was so terribly bare that a single turn was enough to see everything.

He didn't hear the father and son pray to any god again. Perhaps they were conscious of the "generous, unseen presence" still in the room, or perhaps they were both non-believers.

But the latter seemed highly unlikely.

Jenkins also tried to touch the corner of the cyan stone tablet on the table. As expected, his spiritual form couldn't interact with physical matter. His soul made contact with it, but there was no unusual reaction.

Knock, knock, knock...

An unknown amount of time passed , until a sudden knocking echoed from the tightly shut door.

The sleeping father and son shot up in an instant, their eyes not even open as they rose—it was a purely instinctual reaction. Ignoring the stone still on the table, they hastily pulled two bamboo baskets from the straw pile, slung them on their backs, and ran out the door one after the other.

Jenkins remained where he was, staring out at the dim, dark world beyond the door. This was no exaggeration. The world outside looked as though it had been smeared by an inept painter, the background a mess of black and gray splotches of varying shades. If one ignored the colors, it was just an ordinary, narrow alley, with people carrying bamboo baskets, just like Peter and his father, rushing out from a row of low doorways.

"Hurry! The Day of No Shadows could end at any moment! Everyone, move faster!"

The words, spoken in a thick accent, came from somewhere in the distance, but he had no time to ponder their meaning.

The moment the door opened, Jenkins felt himself being lifted off the ground, pulled skyward by an immense force. Amidst a profound darkness that threatened to consume his soul, he returned to the familiar sea of stars.

He stood on a floor of stars, surrounded by a churning cosmic tide. Looking down at the stone clutched tightly in his hand, Jenkins froze for a moment before looking up. Ahead, in the sea of stars, the ethereal figures of two men and one woman were waiting for him.

The three figures before him all had translucent bodies, and they wore identical robes of silver and blue. Within their ethereal forms swirled glittering stars. As the astral tides ebbed and flowed, their bodies pulsed with a dazzling light in the same rhythm.