novelraw Chapter 521: Main Text Side Story - Baimon's Library
Chapter 521: Main Text Side Story - Baimon's Library
"Buzz buzz buzz!"
In the deep, unimaginably profound and gloomy darkness, following a flash of bizarre fluctuation, a perfectly square book suddenly appeared in mid-air, falling toward the darkness before it as if having transmigrated.
"Ouch ouch ouch!"
The book tumbling continuously in mid-air struggled to flip over, trying its best to control its continuous downward plummeting motion. Although the "face" on its cover, which only had a single eye, looked nervously and vigilantly at the dark surroundings, seemingly confirming the environment around it.
After feeling the incomparably scorching hot atmosphere here and that dense terrifying aura, even a book like him couldn't help but shrink back a short distance in fear.
"The great Book Viscount Eimhart actually did it! I succeeded, I truly arrived here through the [Door] I discovered earlier! The [Demon Dynasty] where the legendary demons reside... I've already smelled many enticing scents, are they over there?"
Yes, at this moment, the book entering this bottomless abyss was Book Viscount Eimhart.
Before this, he had already traveled extensively across the surface for a very, very long time. He only remembered that he was a creation of a great Holy Progeny, and he also knew the concept of the Sanctuary. But for some unknown reason, whenever he tried to recall specific scenes and memories, his mind would become blurry, as if someone had roughly torn all of this away.
The amnesiac Eimhart wandered and searched in the mortal world for a long time, hoping to find even the slightest clue regarding the past of the Sanctuary and the Holy Progeny. Disappointingly, his gains were not bountiful.
But previously, he found a teleportation portal left behind by demon attendants in an extremely concealed ruin on the Southern Continent. Although it was broken, this couldn't stump Eimhart, the number one smartest Holy Relic in the world.Legend had it that demons were ancient existences equal in fame to the Holy Progeny lords. If he found the Demon Dynasty where the demons lived, there would definitely be records about the Sanctuary there.
After expending nine bulls and two tigers' worth of effort, Eimhart finally repaired that teleportation portal and teleported here now.
Eimhart stayed behind the protrusions of the rock wall, using those natural protrusions as his cover. Just like this, layer by layer, meter by meter, he descended towards the gloomy, scorching abyss below.
"Don't be afraid, great Book Viscount, the demons have all been sealed up by the Mother God. They can't do anything, yes, that's right, it's just like this... As long as I follow the scent of knowledge and find what I'm looking for, it will be fine..."
He continuously encouraged himself in his heart. As he descended, the scene below the end of that profound rock cave finally crashed into his eyes.
He saw that passing through the bottom of this vertical rock cave was an extremely expansive space. It was unknown exactly how huge it was, but it was like a boundless ocean paved with magma. And above that magma sea, several buildings with extremely bizarre appearances were sparsely distributed. Those buildings lacked any aesthetic symmetry, making one feel perturbed, just like twisted and chaotic vortexes.
And the most important thing was, Eimhart vaguely saw pillars of fire restricted and hidden beneath the magma. In the center of those pillars of fire, one shadow after another slumbered, whose auras alone made him feel extreme terror.
Could those be... the bodies of the demons?
Only at this moment did Eimhart realize that the magma ocean seemed to be some sort of terrifying confinement. Looking closely, within the swirling vortexes of magma, symbols representing eternal power were unconsciously formed by the continuous twisting: "."
"Haa... sure enough, these demons are all sealed..."
The space below was dead silent, seemingly without a shred of vitality. It appeared that, just as he had learned previously, all the demons had currently perished, so absolutely no one could bother about him!
After carefully observing for a long time, Eimhart finally confidently and openly jumped down from the rock cave above.
Now, he was going to search for where the aroma of that delicious knowledge was.
Eimhart floated above the magma, struggling to find his target amidst the sulfur and a certain burnt stench. But for the number one greatest Book Viscount in the world, none of this was a problem.
Hah, got it!
He quickly found the corresponding clues at a building on the magma.
Completely different from the rest of the incomparably chaotic buildings, that building seemed extremely perfect even to Eimhart's extremely picky aesthetic standards. The building was divided into two floors, composed of inner and outer continuously rotating shapes, as beautiful as a conceptualized eye, and also as beautiful as a vortex in the ocean.
That building stood quietly on the magma just like that, as if it was the center of this Demon Dynasty, yet there wasn't a hint of sound. Presumably, its master and her compatriots were all locked beneath the magma as well...
Eimhart quickly arrived before that building, only to see that the building's door reflected the Eimhart floating in mid-air like a giant mirror. The door was shut tight, causing Eimhart, who was so tiny before it, to wonder how exactly he was going to open it.
But right at this moment, a few lines of text suddenly flashed on the mirror surface of the door.
"I am the me of me, I am the thought of thought."
"I am the song that cannot be listened to, I am the eye that cannot be perceived."
"May I ask, what am I?"
Eimhart tilted his head and looked at the text before him. He smiled contemptuously and muttered,
"Hah, it's actually a riddle. It seems this group of demons with horns and tails are also fellows with brains..."
Eimhart pondered for several seconds, then tentatively said,
"Soul."
"Crack crack crack!"
As Eimhart's answer exited his mouth, the mirror-like door before him split open an extremely thin gap down the middle, then automatically opened inward, revealing a bright space inside carrying a faint fragrance.
"Haha, the great Book Viscount is indeed the smartest existence in this world."
His perfectly square, book-like face unconsciously lifted, assuming an arrogant and conceited appearance.
In merely an instant, he was attracted by the books inside, each casually radiating a fatal temptation. He couldn't wait to enter within, entirely oblivious to the fact that the mirror-like door behind him was slowly closing.
And behind him, following the closing of that door, the text portraying the riddle on the outside mapped inward bit by bit, ultimately transforming into an extremely short name.
"Baimon"
The space inside was extremely large, yet lacking structures like bookshelves, let alone anything akin to books.
Compared to a library, this place felt more akin to an art studio.
Within the bright space, on the walls here, on the erected easels, inside the square picture frames, there only appeared canvases covered in rich oil paints.
The scenes presented in those pictures looked like they were seen from different perspectives, because Eimhart explicitly felt dizzy merely seeing numerous scenes.
He saw a vortex spiraling continuously in the depths of the boundless galaxy, seemingly formed by countless golden tentacles. That existence obviously should be extremely conspicuous, having already occupied seventy or eighty percent of the entire painting, yet even from the painter's perspective, that existence hidden among the galaxy was exceedingly difficult to perceive.
However, Eimhart still discerned it. Those continuously collapsing tentacles seemed, in the painter's perspective...
Running away?
Upon seeing that thing, Eimhart's eye seemingly ignited, wishing to quickly avert his gaze. It was also at this time that he finally saw a title written in Holy Progeny characters at the bottom of the picture frame, which read,
"Coward"
Eimhart did not understand the connotation of the text on the painting at all, but this didn't stop him from shedding tears of excitement. Because after so long, he had finally seen the authentic handwriting of a Holy Progeny.
In other words, the owner of the painting before him was very likely the great Holy Progeny he had been searching for for a long time!
Those damn demons actually possessed clues regarding the Holy Progeny. This is wonderful!
He couldn't wait to go forward and read the increasingly numerous paintings in this massive space, but truthfully speaking, he couldn't understand most of them. Many paintings even inexplicably made him want to vomit upon seeing them; he could only read the Holy Progeny text below.
Eimhart dared not look too much at those images, because he had already begun to feel his book pages stir abnormally. Therefore, he had no choice but to close his eyes and continue walking forward, finally bypassing painting after painting and arriving at the center of the first floor.
Here, he didn't see more clues about the Sanctuary, but instead saw other, even more bizarre images.
He saw a narrow room of only a few tatami mats. The walls of the room and the television set were all covered with paper written with strange black text, and a human girl was dazedly sitting on her knees on the floor just like that. But for some unknown reason, that girl had no head...
He saw a city paved with a steel forest and neon lights. Beneath those neon lights, countless people with mechanical bodies were shouting, and in the sky, an existence binding itself to a rocket-like man was spreading out machinery like a virus...
He saw the ruins of a city that had been plowed over by artillery fire. A blonde woman with disheveled hair, shedding tears of blood, her eyes almost popping out of their sockets, tightly hugged the already stiff body of a girl in her embrace...
He saw a man drunk, kneeling, and roaring before two tombstones. The two tombstones were respectively inscribed with "Caleb Uz's beloved wife" and "Caleb Uz's beloved daughter"...
Hmm?
Wait, why could he suddenly read the words on them clearly?
Eimhart dazedly thought this, yet his eye unconsciously looked backward. Behind, there were several more paintings like this. But before he had time to finish looking at them, a gentle female voice stopped him from behind.
"Eimhart?"
Eimhart dazedly turned his head backward, only to see that at the end of the colorful space paved with countless pigments behind him, a holy, gentle woman wearing a white robe was standing in the shadows. That shadow just happened to cover her upper body from the chest up.
But even though he hadn't clearly seen her full appearance, looking at that figure, Eimhart inexplicably wanted to shed tears. He unconsciously muttered,
"Mom..."
The woman seemed very surprised as well, so she hurriedly stretched out her hand towards him.
"Eimhart, come here quickly, I haven't seen you for so long!"
"Mom!"
Unable to control himself any longer, Eimhart flew over and threw himself into her warm embrace. At this moment, Eimhart seemingly finally felt peaceful. Even if he had searched in the mortal world for so long, as long as he could find the Holy Progeny lord who created him at this very moment, he felt it was worth it.
"Why... why are you staying in the abyss of the demons... What exactly happened in the Sanctuary previously? Why are you all gone, leaving me alone in this world... woo woo... tell me..."
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Eimhart... Mom has no choice either..."
That gentle arm lightly stroked Eimhart's book cover, and she spoke like a lullaby,
"Because..."
"Because Mom died a long time ago..."
Eimhart, who had closed his eye, heard this voice akin to sleeptalking or murmuring, and instantly his entire book body felt an extreme chill. He opened his eye, looked up, and saw that the white-robed female figure before him had absolutely no head. And behind her, countless arms with eyes were continuously stretching out from the darkness, dragging the limbs of the woman hugging Eimhart's body...
"Ahhhhhhhh!"
Eimhart was scared out of his wits and hurriedly got up and retreated backwards, but seemingly losing all strength in his body, he fell to the ground.
"Eimhart!! Where are you going?!!"
"Save me! Save mom!"
That body seized and disassembled by countless arms continuously roared and pounced towards Eimhart. Scared out of his wits, Eimhart flew frantically backward, but it seemed it was already too late.
All around, the space fully smeared with pigment seemingly entirely came alive.
He seemingly saw countless other bright and beautiful worlds, saw the intelligent life forms living in those worlds. Many were similar to humans here, yet there were also many resembling massive bugs or viscid lumps of rubber.
He seemingly saw ships with bizarre shapes roaming in Deep Space; seemingly saw countless speck-like living beings living and building homes on the surface of a white "sun."
Those...
What exactly were those?
At this instant, he seemingly saw countless, countless civilizations, saw those living beings of varying appearances, divergent cultures, and distinct thoughts creating their own architecture, art, and philosophy.
He saw how those countless living beings multiplied, saw how those living beings fought each other, saw how those living beings communicated...
From within Eimhart's wildly fleeing chassis, substance like black sludge continuously surged out. Alongside his eye and mouth, it continuously flowed out from the relentless "monster mother" pursuing closely behind.
It wasn't that the knowledge he saw contaminated him, but because this was the dwelling place of certain existences. It was Her aura itself that contaminated Eimhart.
But undeniably, he also comprehended much more.
Although he fundamentally didn't want to think about these things at all, those thoughts resembling a tangled mess in his brain surged out of their own accord.
He couldn't help but ponder, why did the worlds in those animating paintings look so different from ours? Could it be that these were all fictionalized by the painter?
Why hadn't a concept named "soul" ever existed in the worlds where they were born?
Or rather...
It did exist, only they had never perceived it?
But why were the souls in the Spirit World of our world possessing corporeal forms, and furthermore converging into a single lump...
As Eimhart, who had searched for so much knowledge, possessed a profound understanding of many things, but for some reason, he had dabbled quite extensively in the Spirit World, yet uniquely couldn't find any news about the Sanctuary no matter how hard he looked.
"Eimhart!!"
The sounds of those countless severed limbs arrived in quick succession, but Eimhart could no longer fly. Powerlessly, he collapsed to the ground, thinking despairingly and unwillingly,
"It's over, Holy Progeny lord, I can't find you..."
But right before his eyes, a pair of fair and tender toes walking out from the shadows gradually took shape.
It turned out to be a figure truly wearing a white robe, walking down from the second floor.
"Alright, Camel, stop chasing him, he's been [frightened] by my aura."
"Woo woo~"
Camel?
Just as Eimhart was blankly thinking this, a pair of fair and tender hands suddenly reached down, gently gripping him in her grasp. Then, she casually beckoned with her finger.
"Rrrrip!!"
"Ahhhhhhhh!"
Following a tragic and painful scream from Eimhart, two pages covered in some sort of black substance were torn out from within his body and flew away.
This seemed to cause immense pain to Eimhart, preventing him from even opening his eye for an instant.
But within his gradually blurring vision, he still clearly saw the scene all around.
All those squirming, animating images surrounding him had quieted down; they had never moved at all. And right at this moment, a massive camel face drew near again, humming a song while curiously looking at him...
It really is a camel...
He thought this hazily. In the next moment, the face of an exquisitely beautiful woman with short golden curly hair crashed into Eimhart's line of sight.
He couldn't distinguish for a moment whether this existence before him was an angel or a demon. He could only use the crooked crown she wore on her head as a reference point and memorize it in his mind.
"Hello there, little guy, we meet again."
"Again..."
"Ah, forgot, it's already the second time your pages have been torn out by me, so you forgot some things... But it doesn't matter, you will remember later. Let me introduce myself first, my name is [Baimon]."
"Bai..."
"It doesn't matter if you can't remember. Later, you will have a very profound impression of me."
"..."
Eimhart didn't have time to chew over the hidden meaning in her words, but looking at her smiling blue-gold scattered pupils, he only felt his hair stand on end in terror.
Thus, he very disappointingly closed his eye and fainted.
"Woo woo~"
The camel beside her raised its head puzzledly and hummed at the woman before it.
But Baimon only shook her head indicating it was nothing. Following closely after, she pinched the fainted Eimhart with her left hand, turned her head, and proceeded to walk towards the second floor.
It was only then that a paintbrush grasped in the right hand of the woman named "Baimon" was revealed from the shadows.
She seemed to be painting.
As her figure entered the second floor, it turned out there were even more completed paintings here.
There was a shadow hidden deep at the bottom of the sea. Looking over, one could faintly perceive innumerable faces with different appearances and expressions within the shadow; there was a bizarre existence hidden in a crevice, seemingly formed by countless bubbles gathered together; there was a massive existence hidden between the darkness of the universe and bright stars. Looking closely, it seemed that the star had only just been born...
There were a few more remaining, but they were placed in narrow picture frames, obscured by the paintings in front.
The blonde woman hummed a song as she walked forward, and soon passed by an even larger painting.
In the center of the painting was a human woman with disheveled hair, dressed in tatters, leaning her cheek on her hand just like that, yawning and staring at the Demi-Human women passing by in the distance. But for some unknown reason, clearly this human woman was so strange, yet absolutely no one noticed her.
Below, the Holy Progeny text serving as the title was somewhat crooked, seemingly indicating a rare emotional excitement from the painter.
"The Damn Fish That Escaped the Net"
Baimon, grasping Eimhart and the paintbrush, quickly stopped her footsteps. In front of her was an absolutely unprecedentedly massive canvas. The image in the center of the canvas was exquisite; one could see the delicacy of the brushstrokes.
In the picture was the sleeping face of a bare-chested black-haired man. His facial features were handsome, and his face carried an intimacy that perhaps even he himself hadn't realized, serene as if immersed in a lullaby.
In other paintings, no content or information related to the painter had ever appeared, exactly as if everything was seen through the eyes of an extremely unknown spectator.
That painter, spectator, or singer recorded everything seen with an unprecedently cold brushstroke or voice, carrying all the stories like a vast ocean.
Yet uniquely, in this painting before her, a slight clue was revealed.
Within that bare-chested black-haired man's hand, he still tightly grasped a fair palm belonging to the recorder of the image. Looking closely, it was just like a singing voice extending from outside the frame, wishing to firmly grab hold of that sleeping person.
But she didn't know if the gravity in the painting was too heavy, or if it was inherently like a flower in the mirror or the moon reflected in the water. Even if Baimon entirely shredded the canvas, she still wouldn't be able to bring him out.
But Baimon merely stared fixedly at the sleeping man in the painting, the corners of her mouth suddenly curling up slightly.
Following closely after, she gently sat in front of that massive canvas, stretched out her hand, pressed it against the canvas, and turned it around.
At the instant the canvas rotated over, the pigment seeping through from the front seemingly transformed into invisible strings, pulling together formless blocks of color...
Baimon looked at those connected strings. After hesitating for a moment, she still turned the canvas back around, bringing the sleeping face of that man back into her line of sight.
Her pristine fingers traced over his body on the canvas bit by bit, yet invariably unable to penetrate the back of the paper no matter what she tried, as if someone was silently playing a game of chess, combating her...
However, Baimon's face lacked any additional expressions. After a long while, she still smilingly raised the paintbrush in her hand and signed her name at the bottom of the canvas.
"Fisher"
"That person who rejected the ocean does not know that the ocean has already arrived."
(End of this chapter)