Chapter 240: Exploration of the Cycle

Beckland Time, 3 p. m.

Leike Dun saw a punctual surge of deep red light, like a tide, quickly engulfing his sight.

Dazed for a moment, he lifted his eyes again and found himself already inside the grand ancient palace above the gray mist, where slightly blurred figures took their seats.

Leike Dun's gaze fixed on Little Sun Dairike sitting beside him; the other's expression seemed frozen, growing worse until a flash of terror appeared.

At this moment, Dairike's mind was flooded with scene after scene of memory:

Collapsed city walls, blue‑white interlaced buildings, the True Creator's temple, and murals depicting the coming apocalypse and the True Creator's resistance against the Six Great Evil Gods, protecting the surviving humanity.

Also the beautiful yet dangerous "Mushroom," and that oddly eerie blond boy Jack.

The same events, he and the Chief had already experienced five times, yet no one noticed any problem.

The more Dairike recalled the extra memories, the more a chilling feeling crept over him.

After Miss Justice cheerfully greeted Mr. Fool and the others, Leike Dun turned to the Little Sun beside him and asked directly:

"It seems your Silver City ran into trouble while exploring that temple?"

Justice Odile, watching as a spectator, looked over immediately; when she had just greeted everyone, she keenly sensed that Mr. Sun's mood was off.

Dairike inhaled deeply, as if clutching a straw called Hope, and recounted everything he had experienced in full.

He even narrated every tiny discrepancy from each exploration without omission.

He then added:

"After the Chief eliminated that little boy, we all closed our eyes, then awoke again at the camp outside the city, and began a new exploration."

"That process repeated five times; if Mr. Fool hadn't reminded us, I wouldn't have known I'd been living the same life over and over!"

At the head of the bronze long table, the mist‑shrouded Ke Lai En looked a bit bewildered; he didn't know what his classmate Little Sun had encountered.

He could only maintain his posture, giving a slight nod as a response; without understanding the cause, a superior cannot speak rashly.

He glanced at Mr. Fool, whose calm, still demeanor reassured him.

He then turned to the other members and asked earnestly:

"Do you know the root cause of the problem? And how to solve it?"

The most enthusiastic Justice Odile instinctively wanted to speak, but found she had no clue at all, not even a guess to start from.

Magician Foersi was in a similar state.

Leike Dun leaned back slightly, leaning on the chair back, and said:

"The Fate Cycle of the Mercury Snake."

"What is the Mercury Snake? What about the Fate Cycle?"

Little Sun Dairike asked impatiently.

"Fate Cycle?" the gloomy world, under Ke Lai En's control, asked aloud.

"What is the Mercury Snake? What is the Fate Cycle? Sounds so high‑brow." This was the shared thought of Justice Odile and Magician Foersi at that moment.

The Hanged Man A'erjie furrowed his brow in thought; his original conjecture was that it was a half‑human, half‑god level nightmare or hallucination ability, or that they were trapped in some strange spatial state.

Mercury Snake? Is that the name of a high‑order sequence of the Fate Path? Does it refer to the White Tower, or that the Sun's group is caught in a fate cycle?

Leike Dun kept his posture, appearing to recall, paused briefly, then slowly spoke:

"The Mercury Snake is Sequence One of the Fate Path; at this stage, the extraordinary have already grasped part of the authority of fate."

"They can trigger the Fate Cycle, causing people to fall into a peculiar state where time flows to a certain degree yet remains confined within a range, looping repeatedly."

"You are exploring the True Creator's temple, and under Him there happens to be a Fate Angel, Wu Luo Liusi!"

"Perhaps you triggered some of His lingering powers or traits during the exploration."

"Then what should we do?"

Little Sun Dairike hurriedly asked.

"Huh—," Leike Dun sighed heavily, his voice tinged with helplessness, and said:

"The Fate Cycle has a node; you only need to find it and break it, and you can escape the endless loop of fate."

"As for what the node is, I don't know since I haven't explored it myself."

"This—" Little Sun Dairike paused, a hint of disappointment in his tone. "If we can't find that node, we'll remain trapped in the cycle forever."

The Hanged Man A'erjie snapped back from his recollection, cleared his throat, and murmured:

"I may have some guesses about that node!"

"That little boy Jack?"

Justice Odile guessed with great interest.

"Yes." The Hanged Man A'erjie nodded lightly, considered briefly, then looked at Miss Justice and said:

"Did I ever mention that I once pursued a Listener of the Aurora Society at sea, …"

Odile recalled carefully for a moment, then said uncertainly:

"I think that did happen."

The Hanged Man A'erjie immediately said in a low voice:

"That Listener also brought his child, whose age was close to the Jack described by the Sun."

"You mean that Jack came from your world to around Silver City?"

Dairike froze for a moment, then asked back in astonishment.

After a brief pause, a strange joy rose in his heart; it meant the area around Silver City hadn't been completely sealed, and they still had a chance to leave and enter the normal world where the Hanged Man and his companions reside.

The Hanged Man A'erjie also considered the issue and, after a moment's thought, suggested:

"You could find a chance to mention the Suniya Sea, the Ruen Kingdom, and the Port City to that little boy Jack; perhaps it will elicit a different response."

"Also, the key point may not lie with the boy; other possibilities must be considered."

"Does that temple have murals? Wu Luo Liusi enjoys painting; there might be clues."

Reckdon spoke up with a timely reminder.

"Why do you even know this?" — this was the doubt in the minds of all the Tarot Club members.

They even began to speculate whether Reckdon had some secret connection with the Aurora Order.

Is this angel's hobby common knowledge? How come I didn't know? The Magician Fors grumbled silently in her heart.

The Hanged Man A'erjie silently gazed at Reckdon for one second. He knew too many secrets — things that even many high-Sequence powerhouses might not know. Could he be a follower of that one in Lenburg? But then why would he join the Tarot Club? Was this a secret collaboration between great existences?

The Hanged Man A'erjie couldn't help but quietly glance at Mr. Fool seated at the very head. That figure shrouded in gray fog still sat there leisurely, as if detached from the world, yet silently watching everything.

Justice Audrey keenly noticed the Hanged Man's small gesture, and simultaneously made a similar guess in her heart.

Do you and the one residing inside you chat about gossip every day?

Klein, shrouded in gray fog, very much wanted to fire back a retort, but considering Mr. Fool's image, he held back.

"Yes."

The Sun Derrick hurriedly nodded, then, after obtaining Mr. Fool's permission, materialized the scenes of temples he had witnessed:

It was a mural of the True Creator and six evil gods resisting the Cataclysm and sheltering the remnants of humanity.

"Which evil gods are these?"

A'erjie gazed at that octopus-headed monster wreathed in lightning, treading on black waves, draped in a cloak of feathers, wielding a trident, and inexplicably made some associations in his mind.

That's the lord you worship! Reckdon raised a hand to cover his lips, completing the thought in his heart.

Justice Audrey shifted her gaze from the image the Sun had materialized onto Reckdon. In her impression, Mr. White Tower was the most knowledgeable among them all:

"Mr. White Tower, do you know who these evil gods in the mural are?"

Not expecting Justice to be the first to ask him a question, Reckdon pondered briefly before slowly speaking:

"Steam only ascended to the divine throne at the end of the previous epoch, a time long after the so-called Cataclysm."

"Huh?" Audrey was taken aback — Reckdon's answer was rather different from what she had expected.

What does this have to do with the Steam God? Before He became a god, the other seven gods — no, six gods — six gods, and there happen to be exactly six evil gods on the mural too.

She turned her gaze back to the mural the Sun had materialized, carefully observing the imagery contained within each figure.

What does this have to do with the Steam God? As a believer of the Steam God, Fors somewhat blankly recalled the church scriptures she had read, and there were no records related to the so-called Cataclysm either.

Indeed, sighing inwardly, Klein manipulated his alternate account, World, and spoke in a hoarse voice:

"I have seen similar statues."

After drawing everyone's attention, he paused, then continued:

"During an adventure exploring ruins from the Fourth Epoch."

After saying this, he put on a show of requesting Mr. Fool's permission, and materialized one by one the statues of the six gods and their corresponding sacred emblems from the ruins that contained the Red Angel evil spirit.

Performing in front of people who know my true background is really so embarrassing! Klein, having completed a performance, sighed silently.

(End of this chapter)