Just as the old grandfather was trapped in the ultimate contemplation of "which great existence above the spirit world could it be," conducting a brainstorm, Don manifested a rectangular object, letting it float between the two of them.
It was a 'Notarization Contract.'
The twisted sun symbol sprawled lavishly across the rectangular paper, occupying most of the space, while brilliant decorations dotted the corners—complex mystical symbols that were difficult to decipher, faintly revealing terrifying and treacherous madness that stripped away all reason.
They collectively guarded the blank space in the center, waiting for specific content to be written upon it.
This was a 'Notarization Contract' that Don had created using the notarization power of the Sun Scepter (akin to a Sequence 4 Unshadowed) based on the mad knowledge associated with the Knowledge Moor, and processed through the system's 'Artisan' module.
"If it were just the Sun Scepter alone, relying solely on the Unshadowed of Sequence 4 rank would very likely be unable to constrain a Sequence 1 Beyonder, who could silently steal the notarized content, rendering the contract invalid."
But with the associated Knowledge Moor, the mad knowledge itself could serve as a third-party witness binding both parties.
Of course, this was also Don displaying his capabilities—he wasn't easy to bully, he had backing too, and the so-called 'great existence above the spirit world' was definitely not something fictitious.
This kind of thing provided evidence for his claim that he believed in a 'Great Existence above the Spirit World,' at least enough to stabilize Pallez Zoroast, this Sequence 1 Angel.
"Of course, the old grandfather will definitely be wary of me and the one behind me."
As for who was behind him...
Who knows.
Pallez, worthy of being an experienced Beyonder, quickly calmed his fluctuating emotions and roughly discussed cooperation matters with Don. Finally, they conducted a notarization for both parties on this 'notarization document' that looked problematic in its very method of creation, and was actually even more problematic.
Through his Euclidean space, Don saw that this old grandfather cautiously analyzed the mystical symbols on the notarization document. The more he looked, the deeper his brow furrowed, his expression becoming increasingly serious. After remaining silent for a very long time, he finally completed the notarization.
"I look forward to our cooperation."
This meant both parties had reached preliminary cooperation on the matter of 'clearing Amon's avatars.'
Don put away the notarization document and glanced at this Angel. As expected, he wasn't using his main body, but had completed the contract with a Worm of Time.
"Indeed, with a 'notarization document' of unknown origin, who knows what special things might be left on it?"
After all, without the participation of mad knowledge, the notarization would still be effective, but its effect would become quite limited.
The contracting parties were 'Pallez Zoroast' and 'Don Eggers Lamud,' but what the Marauder domain was best at was substitution and theft. By having the fate bound to oneself in the contract replaced by a Worm of Time with stolen fate, the contract's target would naturally change.
The constraining power relying solely on Sequence 4 Sun domain power was indeed insufficient.
Don's previous caution was correct. He supplemented with corresponding mad knowledge, and the system processed and activated the mystical knowledge related to 'contracting parties' in the Sun domain, firmly binding the objects as 'Pallez Zoroast' and 'Don Eggers Lamud,' whether in body, mind, or spirit—all of these two entities.
The mad knowledge formed a brand that would completely prevent the fate of both contracting parties from being substituted, replaced by doubles, or grafted.
The old grandfather should have also seen this point, which was why he signed the contract. After all, Don's pathway at Sequence 1 was equally adept at manipulating fate.
Excessively cautious and excessively strong—this is what Sequence 1 is like... truly troublesome.
After ending the first negotiation, Don retrieved the notarization document and prepared to end the Euclidean space's projection onto the real world.
"I look forward to our next discussion, and I hope we can completely clear all of Amon's avatars."
Don bowed and then disappeared.
Without disturbing anyone, and without being detected by Pallez Zoroast either.
Pallez's brow moved slightly as he returned the things he had stolen to the baby-faced knight. After the other party slowly awakened, he said: "Leave."
Baby-faced knight: ?
He was somewhat bewildered—what had just happened?
---
Don once again received spiritual feedback transmitted from Pallez Zoroast, which made his Bizarro Sorcerer potion digest another small portion, barely reaching halfway.
"The first time might have been due to lack of preparation, but the second time when I was leaving, he still couldn't detect any problems. This is far more treacherous and terrifying, and this also conforms to the Bizarro Sorcerer's acting... Hmm, the old grandfather's brainstorm will probably continue for a while longer. I won't send secret puppets to the castle for now."
A Bizarro Sorcerer who appears and disappears without a trace is much more troublesome than an ordinary Bizarro Sorcerer.
"Sometimes I actually miss Owen a bit." In the Euclidean space, Don rubbed his forehead while having the system notify the Theater With Curtains That Never Draw that it could withdraw.
[Host, are you saying he's easy to fool?] The system rarely showed some wit.
"Those who don't think with their brains are really easy to deal with," Don sighed. "Why would someone like that want to advance to Undying? The neighboring Warrior pathway is obviously more suitable... let him become a Demon Hunter. The Death pathway clearly doesn't suit him."
[Host, are you talking about the height issue?]
After all, the Warrior pathway comes with one height per sequence...
"System, I think you're being a bit too talkative today." Is he looking at his ceiling thinking it needs some hanging decorations, wanting to go up there and air-dry for two days?
[Hehe.]
Entering the Theater With Curtains That Never Draw through the Euclidean space, Don sat in the wide, comfortable high-backed chair, very much wanting to perform twisting into maggots and writhing madly on the spot.
"Next, to deal with Amon's avatars..." He glanced at the system tasks and wearily closed his eyes. The amount of thinking these past few days had simply consumed a year's worth of his brain cells.
"Better get the copy of the Necronomicon out first... I wonder what this famous grimoire from the Cthulhu Mythos would become in this world."
And he still remembered what his future self had reminded him: "Beware of Amon."
He must add insurance, as much as he possibly could.
Don didn't think his future self would say this for no reason. This kind of reminder probably meant problems would arise when he and the old grandfather cooperated to clear Amon's avatars.
"The most terrifying scenario is that it's not us fishing for Amon, but Amon deliberately fishing for us."
"Could He have already determined that the old grandpa is in Tingen? Or is He casting a wide net, and wherever there's a problem with his avatars, He'll directly replace the avatar's fate and come over personally?"
"I told the old grandpa that the Sequence 1 from the Jacob family had already been devoured by Amon. The old grandfather should also become alert. Amon would naturally want to strike as early as possible..."
Otherwise, giving Pallez time to prepare, a Sequence 1 Marauder pathway Angel could accomplish far too much.
"And this isn't Backlund—it can't cause the gods of various major churches to descend. If Amon's main body comes here, aside from making Amons grow everywhere, the official Beyonders here would have no means to deal with it."
When directly facing Amon's main body, everything that could be used needed to be prepared.
After all, this youngest son of the Ancient Sun God, the God of Mischief, the King of Angels of the Marauder pathway—His condition was quite good, completely different from the Dark Side of the Universe's divine descender who could only display Saint-level power and whose greatest reliance was his main body in the Abyss. They weren't on the same level at all.
"In the end, if we really can't clear them, we'll just have to move."
Thinking to the end, Don still made a decision.
If they couldn't clean up and couldn't avoid danger, a Sequence 4 like him fighting to the death here would be quite impolite.
If he really missed it, he'd just have the theater swallow the entire territory, creating a Lord of the Mysteries version of 'The Foolish Old Man Moves The Mountains.' When the time came, he'd directly max out his digestion—perfect, hooray.
Theater Core: ?
Well, so you're just going to keep fleecing me alone, huh?
Is that polite? I'm asking you, is that polite?
Temporarily setting aside worries about the future, Don next prepared to split Spirit Worms so the theater core could create Yesterday Once More charms.
After the battle with the Dark Side of the Universe's divine descender, the number of Yesterday Once More charms in his possession could be counted on one hand. In the upcoming battle to clear Amon's avatars, this charm was also key.
"It would be best to chat with my future self and see what other good things the future has that I could borrow."
Preferably something that could directly blow Amon's head off.
Don had no qualms about fleecing himself, since they were all him anyway—who hadn't gone through this?
Future, rookie, noob.
"However, this pathway of mine feels increasingly strange the further I go. At Sequence 3, I shouldn't be able to summon Historical Projections from the future, right?"
Past, present, and future interweaving to form new extraordinary power—that couldn't be called Scholar of Antiquity anymore; it should be called Scholar of Time.
When the time came, if all the future big shots descended to the past, that scene would be quite interesting just thinking about it.
And on another aspect of the problem...
Don carefully examined his spiritual body's condition, using his spiritual intuition to roughly gauge his spiritual body's limits and determine how many Spirit Worms would be appropriate to split off at once.
If too many Spirit Worms died, he'd also go a bit mad for a while.
"I wonder if the current me can make a response... My rank is high enough, the Euclidean space is special enough—can I have the theater core pray to me directly, leveraging the power of higher-dimensional space to enhance the Yesterday Reappears charms?"
"Would charms created under these circumstances be able to directly borrow power from the future even in the real world?"
Don had thought about this question before when he noticed the special nature of Yesterday Once More charms and their ability to borrow spirituality from the future in the Euclidean space, but at that time he hadn't truly reached the demigod level and couldn't leverage the power of that space.
Don quietly noted this idea and planned to find time to think up an honorific name or something similar for himself, to test whether he could use higher-dimensional space power to directly borrow future power in the real world.
"If that's the case, then Yesterday Once More charms could be completely handed over to others to use."
You fight me with backing? I fight you with the future.
No need for thirty years east of the river, thirty years west of the river—one charm down and everyone has to behave.
Thinking of this, Don calmed his spirituality and began splitting off Spirit Worms, reclaiming the Beyonder characteristics within the Spirit Worms and letting them die to form charm materials.
"Hiss..." These things really died without a sound.
The feeling of Spirit Worms dying was like phantom limb pain... While splitting them, Don prayed to the theater core for miracles to calm his spiritual fluctuations and reduce the pain sensation this death brought to his spiritual body.
Each death of a Spirit Worm was essentially damage to the Bizarro Sorcerer's own spiritual body. Relying on his half-digested potion and the miracles granted by the theater core, Don split off ten Spirit Worms in total before becoming somewhat exhausted after letting them go to their deaths.
However, looking at the Spirit Worms he had split off, Don always felt something was off.
He remembered Spirit Worms should be transparent... but why did some of these worms look white and pale?
Wait, no—maggots?!
He remembered that when he previously split Spirit Worms for Marionettes, and when he just split them off, they didn't look like this!
[Host, didn't you use the bathroom?]
"Shut up."
Don picked up one of the Spirit Worms that had split from his spiritual body on the table, his expression strange as he examined it carefully.
"It's not white." He suddenly breathed a sigh of relief.
Good, good, not really maggots or anything... ah no, how could something split from his spiritual body possibly be ordinary maggots?
At least they'd be the kind that would grow mushrooms in dark corners.
[...] Why is the host inexplicably proud?
The system fell silent, the system crashed, the system felt it truly couldn't understand certain human thoughts.
Don ignored the system's muttering and carefully peeled away the white membrane on the Spirit Worm's surface.
This had appeared after the Spirit Worms separated from his spiritual body.
Don looked at the first few Spirit Worms that had been split off, temporarily labeling them as numbers one through four.
The remaining Spirit Worms numbered five through ten also began showing thin white membranes on their surfaces under Don's detailed observation, rapidly taking shape.
"Is it an isolating membrane forming on the exterior to preserve something inside?"
When touched by Don's spirituality, this membrane automatically fell away, revealing what was inside.
That was a normal Spirit Worm.
Nothing more, nothing less.
And the Beyonder characteristics within the Spirit Worms had already returned to Don's body through their mysterious connection when they were killed.
The system didn't wait for the host's instruction and automatically cast an identification: [Host, no problems detected.]
No problems with the Spirit Worms?
"Identify this again."
'Just a string of garbled code, host.'
Don fell silent for a moment. He seemed to have thought of something, his voice dropping a few degrees: "There are problems with the Spirit Worms, they just can't be identified."
Seeing its host's confident expression, the system hesitated.
Even if there was something beyond its identification range, it would at most display 'Cannot Identify' or show garbled code. How could it possibly...
Don's finger lightly tapped the table. "If you identified a patch of air, could you identify the spirit world that overlaps with that air?"
[...No.] The system answered somewhat reluctantly and bashfully.
But identification indeed couldn't cross the chasm between the spirit world and the real world.
And the Euclidean space was a dimension above both, equally undetectable. The system's identification could only be backward compatible.
"So..."
Don picked up a Spirit Worm while pulling out a sheet of paper from a drawer.
He used the Clown's beyonder ability to turn the paper into a blade and cut open the Spirit Worm.
Like a bursting worm, the Spirit Worm flowed out with an indescribable semi-transparent liquid, and then...
The paper disappeared?
(End of Chapter)