Chapter 3045 - 58: Outside the Old Mansion

Chapter 3045: Chapter 58: Outside the Old Mansion

Before four points of starlight fell from Order’s hands.

A little earlier.

An unexpected visitor arrived outside the abandoned mansion of the Crowley family, which had been deserted for over a hundred years.

He wore a heavy fur-collared cloak and a pale ghost face mask, resembling a ghost, weaving through the night and shadows, eventually stopping before the tall black iron gate outside the old mansion.

Clang-a-lang!

The visitor tugged at the bell on the gate. The sharp sound echoed within the iron gate, waking the Devil Grass sleeping on the wall and the three-headed dog dozing in the yard, and faint lights lit up deep within the mansion.

No inquiries, no secret codes.

The heavy iron gate creaked open slowly.

Behind the door was a dark world, deep within the mansion, some wizard towers of varying heights could be vaguely seen. Black buildings stood among them, with curved stone corridors connecting the towers and buildings, occasionally separated by low stone walls.

The stone walls and corridors were covered in pockmarked spell marks, though many pits had moss growing in them, proving that fierce battles had occurred here long ago.

The wizard wearing the ghost face mask walked silently among them, noticing that parts of the intact columns and wall bricks still had sentences from Old Crowley’s Book of Law:

—People praise The Fool, for they and their gods are all fools.

—The pain of disintegration is insignificant, only the joy of merging with all things is everything.

—Come out, children, and enjoy your love under the starry sky!

Just as he read the last sentence, a faint rustling sound suddenly began to arise from all directions, resembling the sound of Gluttonous Beasts before the Spring silkworms ascend into the mountains. Soon, the calm night scene before him seemed like a lake ruffled by the wind, rippling with translucent waves.

The guest cautiously halted his steps.

Crack!

The night scene shattered before his eyes, and everything in the mansion—from the wizard towers to the black buildings, to the whimpering three-headed dog, and to the stone walls and corridors—disappeared, replaced by a garden full of Mandala flowers, with a brightly colored mushroom house in its center.

An elderly wizard with disheveled teeth and a emaciated appearance emerged from the mushroom house, leaning heavily on a cane.

"What’s the matter?"

The elder wizard spoke with a blank expression, his voice hoarse and grating.

"—News from the island has come that the location of this laboratory has already been revealed to that young man."

The guest’s voice was very soft, almost a whisper, seeming worried that even the slightest increase in volume might be overheard by others: "He may come, or he may not. Regardless of whether he comes, we hope you’ve made the necessary preparations. Also, this is merely a preliminary contact negotiation, and if the other party does not agree to our terms..." ℴℴ𝗺

"How could he agree?"

The elder wizard interrupted the ghost face wizard, casting a deep glance at the guest before him: "You’ve worn your masks too long, lacking the courage to face the reality of this world... You want that young man to give up the position of director, yet you’re unwilling to pay the corresponding price, or rather, you can’t afford the equivalent price... but you hope he would agree out of respect for the old and love for the young? Ha!"

He raised his wooden staff and pointed around.

"—I think your ideas are more like fairy tales than my mushroom house." The elder wizard’s wrinkled face squeezed out a hint of sarcasm, pausing before asking: "So, you just mentioned, if he doesn’t agree?"

The wizard wearing the ghost face mask remained silent for a few seconds.

"—If he doesn’t agree immediately, we need to appropriately display our strength." As he said this, he glanced around, his tone carrying a slight note of doubt: "But I noticed... my point is, we’ve activated this abandoned laboratory precisely because of its previous dimensional experiments, which can achieve small-scale dimension ascension or descension..."

"Simple dimension ascension or descension might frighten ordinary big wizards, but it means nothing to a Legendary Wizard." The elder wizard impatiently interrupted the ghost face mask once again.

"According to our knowledge, he doesn’t always stay in a legendary state..."

"So? Does a falcon confined in a cage forget the vastness of the sky? Even the weakest Side Door Legend is still a legend. Their vision won’t dissipate due to temporarily leaving the legendary state... Just like the mask on your face. Do you think your mask can block a legend’s gaze?"

"—No." ⅇℓ.

"Then why do you still wear the mask?"

"..."

"You don’t speak, so I’ll answer for you. You wear the mask not to guard against the Legendary Wizard, but against those around you who are secretly plotting against legends along with you. Similarly, I don’t use the plan you prepared because I don’t have much confidence in you guys... So, don’t think that a mere ’ascend dimension’ or ’descend dimension’ can scare that young man... Compared to it, getting lost in a dimension is far more terrifying."

"Lost?"

"Yes, lost. An endless maze wrapped layer by layer with dimensions." The elder wizard chuckled softly, pounding his wooden staff heavily: "—Brilliant serpent, burn in this world."

This was a spell adapted from the Book of Law.

Flames raged beneath the feet of the two wizards, spreading rapidly, devouring the Mandrake Garden and the mushroom house within moments. The temperature of the flames and the burning pain were undeniably real, but what surprised the guest was that the charred world left after the flames burned was indeed the deep mansion filled with stone walls and corridors.

However, unlike the previous deep atmosphere, the night in the yard now emitted a burnt odor.

The pit-marked spell marks on the walls, along with the aphorisms penned by Old Crowley, were still clearly visible, revealing a sentence he hadn’t seen before—every man and every woman is a star.

"—Were those things just illusions?" The guest’s tone could not conceal his astonishment.

The elder wizard tilted his head, laughing strangely: "Why do you think what you see now is real?"

Crack!

Translucent waves appeared again before the ghost face wizard, and everything before him shattered into fragments.

As the fragments dispersed, the ghost face wizard found himself still standing before the tall black iron gate of the old mansion, hand clutching the bell rope, the Devil Grass on the wall just unfurling its leaves full of thorns, the whimper of the three-headed dog still accumulating in the throat behind the gate, and above the doorframe, the line from the Book of Law ’I divide for love, I divide for the chance to gather’ seemed particularly conspicuous—everything that had occurred seemed like merely an illusion.

He released his grip on the bell rope.

Adjusted the pale mask on his face.

Gently exhaled, turned around, and vanished silently into the thick night.