Lord of The Mysterious Realms Chapter 651

Jenkins, of course, coveted the ability [Real Illusion], but he was an exceptionally cautious man. For his own safety, regardless of what the mirror was scheming, he had no intention of asking any more questions about the Savior's Emblem. It was clearly a trap.

But before sending the mirror to the Astral Plane, Jenkins had one more question that needed an answer. While not a crucial matter, it had been bothering him for a long time.

"On the night your holder met that New God Cultist... yes, on that now severely damaged bridge, what had you originally planned to do? It was a strange occasion. To think the one carrying you was just an ordinary infected human. Were the vampires really so confident in their security?"

In his few encounters with the mirror, this was the only time Jenkins had been ignorant of its purpose. Since it possessed a form of incomplete omniscience, any outing it made had to carry a special meaning.

The middle-aged man in the mirror looked suspiciously at his current holder.

"How do you know about that?"

"You just need to answer my question."

"No, no, no. Before that outing, I had already learned from the future that everything would go smoothly, yet I was attacked regardless. It was one of the few times in many years that my omniscience has failed. Only recently did I realize what happened—the new god must have shared some of its divinity with its followers."

The mirror still showed no sign of answering Jenkins's question. Or perhaps, it was already answering.

"I snuck out that time to see an old friend I hadn't met in ages. Although I was unexpectedly attacked, while I was moving through the mirror's surface, I happened to be in the gap between reality and illusion and caught a glimpse of B-08-02-8214, the Equal Exchange Vending Machine, in Nolan's underground pipes."

"What did you do with B-08-02-8214?"

He had expected the mirror to deliberately mislead him or offer some half-truths, but to his surprise, it confessed everything at once.

The middle-aged man looked up, his bright, piercing eyes gazing out from the mirror's surface as he sized up Jenkins's body.

"To be honest, I've long grown tired of living in a mirror, but that damned seal is impossible to break. After all these long years, I've devised a few very risky methods. One of them is to use B-08-02-8214 to risk fusing myself with certain materials, hoping I might be able to swap out the seal."

"So that's what consumed most of the machine's energy! I knew the divination lesson had nothing to do with it!"

Jenkins understood immediately.

"So, fusing with the body of a revenant..."

"Yes. I tricked those vampires with the excuse that 'this would help the plan proceed smoothly,' making them believe that fusing with a corpse was a crucial step toward achieving [Real Illusion]. In reality, it was just another one of my attempts to break free. If I could find the right materials and use that machine to perform the exchange twelve times, I'd have a fifty percent chance of completely escaping this damned seal."

"So how many times have you used it so far?"

This was the crucial question.

"Nine times. That damned New God Cultist destroyed the materials for the tenth attempt before I could get to them. Hmph. I suspect the new god has struck a deal with the ancient gods who sealed me. The nine exchanges wasted a great deal of my time and energy; I had to make sure I wouldn't be pulverized by the machine in the process."

"So you're saying you can't completely break the seal right now?"

"That's right. I can't 'completely' break the seal."

They stared at each other through the mirror, an ultimately meaningless gesture. But neither could be sure if the other had another trick up their sleeve.

Finally, Jenkins was the first to speak.

"You can break free... incompletely?"

The man in the mirror nodded, then suddenly leaped out from its surface. A violent gust of wind blew the window open, and in that instant, the soul—glowing with a faint black light—plunged into Jenkins's body through his arm. A few seconds later, a scream echoed that only Jenkins and Chocolate could hear.

"No, this is impossible! You're..."

The room returned to silence. The window, which had just been slammed open by the gust, was now perfectly still. It was as if the wind and the entire scene had been nothing more than a hallucination.

He let out a sigh, his lips pressed tight as he watched the mirror in his hands slowly decay. The metal rusted and flaked away, the gemstones crumbling to dust. The mirror's final act of mischief was to dirty his hands and the sofa.

"This must be the second soul that's tried to take over this body."

He murmured to himself, leaning forward slightly to draw closer to the hearth. The firelight danced in his eyes.

The first, of course, had been that malevolent spirit in the hospital. The one thing they both had in common was that they had instantly crumbled upon meeting the gaze of a god's soul.

"Don't worry, it's still me. The bad guy from before is dead now."

He didn't forget to explain things to his cat. Chocolate responded with a soft meow, rising to let Jenkins pat its head before trying to pat him back. The cat wasn't the least bit surprised by the outcome; it had already foreseen this future.

After quietly pondering the nature of fate for a few moments, Jenkins extended his right hand. Specks of silvery-white light gathered and coalesced into an unusually shaped miner's lamp.

He whispered the name, and his soul was carried by the Star Spirit's power to the Astral Plane.

"Thank you for your help." Googlᴇ search novel⟡fire.net

Above the sea of stars, the Star Spirit had evidently already learned of the All-knowing Treasure Mirror's destruction, for she offered her thanks before Jenkins could even speak.

"No, don't thank me. After all, destroying it benefited me as well."

The mirror could probably be classified as a Cursed Item; otherwise, there was no explaining the immense amount of spirit he had gained from its destruction. In any case, in that very moment, Jenkins had advanced to a level 4 Enchanter. This also meant he could no longer progress by transcribing those tadpole-like texts.

But now that he had five empty ability slots, he once again began to look forward to obtaining the [Blessing of the Books (Golden Divine Art)]. It was a very pleasing development.

"In accordance with the sacred pact between us, when you need me, I will do my utmost to manifest my power in the material world to aid you. You need only summon the lamp, call my name, and state your request."

She lowered her head slightly.

"Alright, thank you in advance then. Oh, right, there's one more thing I'd like to ask you."

"Please, ask. But I must ask you not to pose any questions that would put me in a difficult position."

Her voice was very gentle, softer than ever before. This was definitely not a hallucination.