radicalducati 0019 After the Golden Throne.....
0019 After the Golden Throne.....
Zhou Yun, carrying candlesticks, an incense burner, and some ritual objects, pushed open the door and entered a room behind the church, constructed of rough stones.
This is a triangular room, located at one corner of the church. Half of the room is underground. It is dark, cold, and covered in moss. There is only a small window, about the size of a palm, on the walls, but you can hardly see the stars or the moon through this window; you can only see a deep darkness.
This place is perfect… After tightly closing the door, Zhou Yun walked to the center of the triangular room and sat down cross-legged.
His senses extended slightly outwards, and all he could see were rough rocks. The air was filled with the refreshing smell of a basement after the rain, and the chilly air gently caressed his skin, gradually calming his mind.
The rock enveloped the room, the room enveloped the body, the body enveloped the soul, and everything else in the material universe was isolated from this room.
He couldn't see the sky, couldn't feel the earth, couldn't hear human voices, and couldn't smell the smoke.
For Zhou Yun's mind, everything external was as if it didn't exist.
This triangular room seemed to exist alone in a pitch-black void where nothing else existed.
The fragility of reality here made it perfect for Zhou Yun to immerse himself in the vast ocean of subspace.
First, Zhou Yun placed the incense he had bought from Agrippa into the incense burner, and flames flickered from his fingertips to light it.
Light wisps of smoke rose from the incense burner, swirling in the air and wrapping around Zhou Yun like delicate silk.
Zhou Yun placed the six ritual objects around himself in order, and finally placed the candlestick in front of him.
Incense burner, ritual implements, candlesticks—a total of eight ritual implements that had been worshipped for many years—formed an octagon around Zhou Yun.
This shape is the most suitable for opening up the subspace landscape. If conditions allowed, Zhou Yun would have preferred to find an octagonal room.
He took a few deep breaths, slowly composed himself, and then lit the candlestick in front of him.
The flame on the candlestick burned slowly, its orange-yellow light briefly dispelling the darkness around Zhou Yun, as if opening a passage through a vast sea in the deep, dark void.
Zhou Yun focused his mind and energy; he began to meditate and imagine.
In Zhou Yun's mind, he began to believe that there was no other matter outside the room, and he began to believe that the flames in front of him were turning into a vortex... or rather, the vortex of flames from the flushing of the golden toilet.
This was Zhou Yun's experience from his last breakthrough. He discovered that imagining the process of entering subspace as a golden toilet flushing was the safest and most efficient method.
A vortex of orange-yellow flames roared and howled before Zhou Yun, the surrounding room began to fade into darkness, even the thick ground disappeared, and Zhou Yun was swept into the golden toilet.
A powerful sensation of falling washed over him; Zhou Yun felt himself plummeting into a sewer pipe... no, into the boundless, deep void between the subspace and reality.
But at the same time, it seems to be rising to a higher realm, as if it's about to crawl out of the toilet...
Then, Zhou Yun felt a sluggishness, and sensed the existence of a seemingly intangible boundary.
The curtain, a curtain placed between reality and the subspace.
As Zhou Yun attempted to cross it, he stretched out his hand, and swirling vortexes of scorching flames coiled around him. The curtain trembled slightly, and an endless sea of energy was reflected in Zhou Yun's eyes, which began to radiate intense spiritual light.
"......Um?"
In the church hall, Agrippa, who had been fiddling with the silver coins Zhou Yun had just given him, looked up.
He looked at the mosaic painting, at the eyeless golden knight.
To help children who lost their parents in the war and whose pensions were taken away by their relatives, the previous bishop of the church, Oranios, personally gouged out the Golden Knight's jeweled eyes and sold them for money.
But... Agrippa seemed to see the Golden Knight's eyes shining brightly.
He blinked, clearly seeing that the knight's eyes were still empty, but... yet, sensorily, Agrippa felt that those eyes were glowing.
Could it be because… Agrippa couldn’t help but look deeper into the church.
Agrippa probably guessed what Zhou Yun was doing; Lucretius had done something similar before.
But when Agrippa looked again, the Golden Knight's eyes had dimmed once more.
But... some kind of magical reaction...?
No, what am I thinking? It's definitely a witchcraft reaction!
Surely that wizard kid isn't actually my boss manifesting his powers?
If that really breaks down, won't I have to share the profits from my church's income with him?
No way? Could it be?
Agrippa shook his head, banishing the incredible idea from his mind.
He's probably just a wizard; Agrippa knew the capabilities of those small groups of wizards.
Those wizards, let alone being able to rise from the dead like their superiors, couldn't even survive a laser gun blast. They certainly weren't the ones above them.
"Sigh..." Agrippa let out a deep breath, looking at the golden knight in the mosaic.
Boss, if you could work your magic, we wouldn't need to do business with those wizards.
Now you have to make things difficult for me all the time, sigh...
Zhou Yun breathed, but what he inhaled and exhaled was no longer the air of the material universe, but the surging energy of the highest heavens.
Whirlpools, waves, shockwaves, writhing flames, howling ghosts, rampant shadows...
Space and time do not exist here; the laws of physics have vanished.
Thunder roared and storms raged in the sea of souls, and surging tides of energy washed over Zhou Yun's soul, but this pain was completely tolerable for him.
Those ignorant warp-like figures twisted and turned, trying to get closer to Zhou Yun.
However, the slight fluctuation of the surging spiritual energy emanating from Zhou Yun repelled them all. Most of the subspace beings near Macurag were weak and impoverished, making them easy to deal with. Only one shadow remained...
No, that wasn't a shadow; that was pure psionic energy.
In the howling warp, Zhou Yun saw a shadow formed purely of psionic energy. The figure was dressed in the clothes of a subterranean worker, with an Imperial Tarot at its waist. Its face was indistinct, but its build was similar to Zhou Yun's, who was currently dressed in Macragge scholar's attire.
That was... psychic energy, the psychic energy Zhou Yun possessed when he was a diviner.
Suddenly, Zhou Yun understood. The scholar's psychic talent was not only innate, but also inherited from the diviner, who had been transformed into this body.
As Zhou Yun crossed realms and awakened his scholar's spiritual talent, the diviner's spiritual talent was also awakened for the second time.
The psionic phantom took a step forward and merged with Zhou Yun's spiritual body.
Zhou Yun gently opened his mouth, and flames of psionic energy erupted from his mouth. Intense blue flames surged at the corners of his eyes, and his psionic potential continued to rise.
He instinctively raised his head and looked up at the high sky.
Zhou Yun saw himself... he saw himself sitting on the golden throne, scorched by blazing flames.
Zhou Yun, seated on the golden throne, also saw himself; the fragment of his will that Zhou Yun had spun out was looking down upon him.
This was the first time Zhou Yun had ever looked up at himself on the golden throne and seen himself bathed in boundless flames, screaming.
But... but Zhou Yun also saw...
Behind himself, seated on the golden throne, there seemed to be a vast, dark brown shadow.
It was blurry and almost impossible to see clearly.
What is that...?