Vincent's first impression was sheer scale. His second was chaos.
Aside from the closest ring of buildings, restored to normal from this latest advancement, everything else looked far more chaotic up close than it had from the distant platform.
Different styles, different eras, different materials, mismatched sections — all of it jumbled together indiscriminately, everything bleeding into everything else.
Not only that — even the "Thirty-Three Heavens," which had looked clearly divided from a distance, turned out, up close, to be tangled together in strange, bizarre ways.
Vincent thought it over, then used the Black Emperor card to draw on the Nation of Disorder's power, attempting to restore some of the chaotic, disordered structures — and instantly felt his spirituality pour out of him like a breached dam, all to shift the position of a mere handful of bricks and stones.
He stopped himself immediately, his face drained white as paper from the loss, his body shaking uncontrollably, as if stricken with palsy.
That had taken barely two or three seconds, and already left him this depleted. Restoring this whole sprawling ruin, the entire Thirty-Three Heavens — even a Sequence 0 true god might not be able to pull that off.
Could this be something reserved for after he'd absorbed all three pathways, ascended beyond even godhood itself?
Or did he need to restore the Thirty-Three Heavens first, before he could even complete his claim over the Nation of Disorder, before ascending beyond godhood at all?
While still turning it over in his mind, Vincent had already arrived at the edge of the Thirty-Three Heavens' building cluster — where the stone-slab "path" came to an end.
Just a bit further, and he'd finally set foot within the Thirty-Three Heavens itself.
He tried "exploiting" the air, meaning to leap the remaining distance in one go — but he'd barely covered a few meters before "crashing," plummeting toward the bottomless abyss below.
Vincent tilted his head back sharply, staring up at the Thirty-Three Heavens now looming right in front of him — and his gaze suddenly froze in horror: from this angle, that tangled mass of buildings looked exactly like countless massive human faces, twisted and fused together.
Some furious, some cold and indifferent, some laughing, some radiant with joy, some ecstatic — each one carrying its own distinct expression.
But what truly sent chills down Vincent's spine was that every single eye across those twisted, merged faces suddenly, all at once, turned to look directly at him — carrying some unreadable, deeply unsettling intent.
Whoosh!
The next instant, Vincent was back on the stone chair in the palace, his heart pounding erratically, that image from the moment of his fall still burned into his mind.
"What was that?"
Those terrifying, twisted faces — had that been an illusion, or something genuinely real?
But why would faces like that be embedded within the Thirty-Three Heavens in the first place? What had turned it into this?
After a good while, Vincent finally began settling down, though unease still gnawed at him: purely in terms of visual shock, those twisted, fused faces hadn't even been as bad as Mr. Z's own grotesque appearance.
But when he'd first seen Mr. Z, all he'd felt was disgust, nausea. This time, it had felt more like... his own sanity dropping to zero in an instant, like a few more seconds of staring would've been enough to make him lose control entirely.
No question — those faces had to be the reason the Thirty-Three Heavens had ended up in this state. But what exactly were they?
The Nation of Disorder's previous owner? Something they'd left behind? Or something his own future self had done?
That was genuinely terrifying.
Was this Nation of Disorder even worth keeping at this point?
Don't tell me — once I hit some Sequence threshold, that thing's going to burst out and swallow me whole, replace me, or force some kind of merger with me... like Klein and the Lord of Mysteries eventually becomes with God, in the original story?
Just as the thought crossed his mind, fragmented pieces of memory began surfacing in Vincent's mind. "I... think I'm remembering something new."
"So the Nation of Disorder's previous owner... was that 'Lamp Spirit,' the Child of Chaos."
In the original Lord of the Mysteries story, the Child of Chaos had been played by the Lord of Mysteries, sealed into that kettle, turned into the "Wishing Lamp" — neither dead, nor able to escape the kettle, which was exactly why it had ended up "trading" with Klein — only to be badly played by the new Lord of Mysteries all over again, afterward.
But now, the Child of Chaos had vanished from the Wishing Lamp entirely. Had future-him really killed it, and strong-jumped its pathway? The Child of Chaos was, after all, an entity on par with the Lord of Mysteries itself — even sealed and trapped, could it really be reduced that easily into potion ingredients?
This world truly is a set of nesting dolls. Crack open one secret, and more secrets spill out. The more you know, the more you realize you don't.
After a long moment, Vincent sighed, feeling this only further confirmed his earlier suspicion. "My memory really has been tampered with."
Better head back to reality, and sync up with Bernadette.
...
"Advanced to Sequence 4?"
The moment he returned to his body, Bernadette's voice greeted him. "You seem a bit shaken. Find something new?"
"Yeah."
Vincent nodded. "A few things changed within the Nation of Disorder after I advanced. First, all those broken stone chairs got fully restored. Second, a stone path appeared, leading toward the Thirty-Three Heavens."
"Did you make it to the Thirty-Three Heavens?"
"Went there. And also kind of didn't."
He recounted everything that had happened, focusing especially on those twisted, merged faces he'd seen at the very end, and laid out his concerns.
"Honestly... I don't have any good advice to offer here."
Bernadette said, "But rather than speculating blindly, maybe we should just go ask someone who might actually know. The True Creator, for instance. Or Adam. Or... my father."
That was fair. Emperor Roselle, as a former Black Emperor himself, might genuinely have some insight into this.
Vincent reached into the "Secret Door" and pulled out the sea route chart. Once Bernadette advanced to Sequence 2, he might finally get to meet Lord of the Mysteries' original protagonist, Emperor Roselle, in person.
"Don't forget the Wishing Compass."
Bernadette suddenly reminded him. "You should be able to use it now."
Vincent blinked, then pulled a small compass out of the "Secret Door" — an extraordinary item they'd obtained way back during their second body-swap.
Using it, though, came with a strict limitation: only a direct blood relative of Roselle's, advanced along the Black Emperor or Arbitrator Pathway to demigod, could actually use it.
Unfortunately, Roselle's eldest daughter and youngest son had both remained single their whole lives, decades-long "old maids and bachelors" with no children of their own. Both had reached the required Sequence long ago, but neither followed the right pathway.
As for his eldest son, Charles — though he'd left behind descendants, that bloodline had thinned out over time, nearly to nothing. The one remaining descendant to actually appear in the original story had chosen the "Artisan" Pathway instead.
But the emergence of the "Broker" gave them a new possibility.
Since Vincent and Bernadette shared one body, Vincent's own advancement to a "Broker" demigod meant, effectively, that Bernadette had become a Broker demigod too — and as Roselle's most beloved, most cherished daughter, she — currently expressed as Vincent — should, by rights, meet the compass's conditions for use.
Vincent didn't rush to channel spirituality into it, asking instead, "Where do you think it'll point?"
Before they'd gotten the sea route chart, Bernadette would have said, without hesitation, "Dad." But now, she thought it over for a moment before answering. "I'm hoping it points toward some Sequence 0 sealed item Dad kept hidden away — something powerful enough to let us stand unafraid even against a Sequence 1, with basically no side effects!"
"..."
Vincent gave a small "huh." "Are you making a wish on this thing now?"
To be continued…
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