Secret: I can play two paths

Chapter 294: The Opening Spell of the Blasphemy Card

The moon star is thin, and the black dragonfly flies south.

Star was quietly gazing at the night sky in the suburbs of Backlund.

The rare moonlight is like water, with twinkling stars, and it seems that countless stars are twinkling in the boundless night.

But Star knew the danger lurking there.

But he didn't come here just to enjoy the night view - so even if "astronomical observation" is a "high-risk behavior", it has nothing to do with him.

Just then, Star suddenly noticed a little bird flying from the tree. It had a colorful head, a white beak and red claws.

Star couldn't help but feel amazed. He took a step forward and tried to communicate with the bird.

"Huang Beibei, why did you become like this?"

So the bird that Bernadette transformed into looked at Star helplessly with a human-like look.

It seemed to be saying something, but Star couldn't understand it.

Star felt a gust of wind, and the bird slowly landed in front of him, as if waiting for his reaction.

Star stretched out his hand, and the little bird showed a little resistance. Instead of quietly walking to his palm, it glided to the ground.

So Star opened the "channel" and repeated it again, and then got her response:

"Huang Beibei, why did you become like this?"

The bird that Bernadette transformed into looked at Star helplessly with human eyes, and then said:
"This is not because of the incident you caused."

"This happened at the Roselle Exhibition today. I am still under serious suspicion of proposing to hold the Roselle Exhibition."

"If I hadn't gotten away with your help in the end, I would have had to stay there and run into some trouble later."

Soon, the bird with a flowery head, white beak and red claws suddenly changed in the blue and wet water, as if it had crossed some magical boundary in an instant. Her feathers gradually faded away, replaced by a gorgeous dress with bright colors that perfectly blended with her temperament.

Due to the particularity of her extraordinary ability, Bernadette's figure did not stand out at this moment, but her expression looked a little strange.

After all, Star's next question made her even more overwhelmed.

"Will this special ability of transforming into an 'animal' not affect your own mental state?"

"From what I understand, it seems that the Beyonders who parasitize rats will be affected to some extent by the objects they are parasitizing."

"Now that you still have the need for an anchor, shouldn't you be able to align yourself better?"

Bernadette then showed a rare look of embarrassment on her face. She thought for a while before regaining her usual composure and answered calmly in a soft voice:

"Essentially, after becoming a demigod, the Beyonder has been subjected to various spiritual alienation and shocks in many aspects. Especially after becoming an angel, I have become an information creature."

"Changing my form occasionally does not have an irreversible impact on my personal character. On the contrary, it is a fairly interesting experience."

Star asked curiously, half teasingly and half probingly:

"It's quite interesting. You mean turning into a bird and flying naked?"

"Do you think that after you transform, you are walking around without clothes?"

At this moment, Bernadette's face could no longer be suppressed and turned red:

"Why do you ask such embarrassing questions?"

Then came the incomprehensible words, such as "mythical creatures" and "angel dignity", which made Star burst into laughter:
The night is filled with a happy air.

But Bernadette finally showed a nostalgic look on her face:

"This is actually a kind of fairy tale magic, or in other words, it is also a use of the extraordinary ability of 'mysterious reappearance'."

"Fairy tale magic, was it your father who told you this?"

"Ah."

Bernadette's voice became a little ethereal at this moment.

She has been searching for the truth for more than two hundred years.

During the process, he endured the painful and violent "knowledge indoctrination" of the "Hidden Sage", but he did not give up any clues. When other forces were dividing up Roselle's inheritance, he even deliberately snatched the notes written by his father during his lifetime.

However, in the end, when I faced the shadow of the "Black Emperor" with Star today, I found out:
It turned out that the events that happened to her father in his later years were even more unfathomable than she had previously thought.

In Starr's words:

"The water is too deep for you to control."

Star seemed to have seen Bernadette's state of mind and deliberately teased:

"Fairy Tale Magic: 'I am a little bird'?"

"Is this what Roselle told you at the time?"

"No." Bernadette shook her head, looked at Star and added, "When he told me this story, he also had strong emotions, or should I say longing?"

Bernadette's tone was no longer calm, and she looked into Star's eyes with some expectation.

"Are you wondering why he has such a nostalgic feeling about this 'mysterious story'?"

Sta paused, as if sighing silently in his heart, before asking:

"Do you know the name of this 'Mysterious Reappearance'? Or, what did Roselle tell you at the time?"

"I know, he told me: the story originated from a person named Jingwei, who turned into a bird and wanted to fill the sea with stones."

"In simple terms, it's called 'Jingwei Filling the Sea'?"

"Correct."

The two were silent for a while, both of them had a lot of feelings at this moment.

After a while, Bernadette said to Star:

"When he told this story, there was also a sigh."

“I always feel that there are many more allegories to be interpreted behind this story.”

"It's not as simple as other 'fairy tales' make it seem."

So for a moment, Star didn't know how to respond to the topic raised by Bernadette.

As someone who had a similar life background to Roselle and had been influenced by the same culture, he thought about the background of this world of Cthulhu:

"Jingwei" represents humanity, and "the sea" represents nature.

It is also in those myths and legends that the so-called weakness and powerlessness of power are displayed, and the fragility of life is also displayed.

One is the "Jingwei" who always wants to fill up the "sea", and the other is the unknown fear that shows the insignificance and powerlessness of human beings.

So, can the so-called insignificant people really overcome anything through their so-called unyielding perseverance and will?

Just like Jingwei who fills the sea endlessly, can she really achieve her desired goal?

All of this made Star not know how to answer.

Fortunately, even though he couldn't help but ponder the future of the world in his spare time, he finally came to a conclusion:
The road must be taken step by step.

Now that we are here, let’s start by stopping the war.

As for thinking about the extraordinary power of this world, and if civilization can only develop under the background of such distorted extraordinary power, what will it become... he didn't start thinking about such questions before defeating Adam and others. It was useless, because he didn't have the right to rule the northern and southern continents like the Seven Gods Alliance, or have a specific territory to experiment with governance - it was also a difficult question to answer.

However, he could understand what Bernadette meant.

"If you just want to answer why your father feels this way, I can tell you part of the reason."

"In fact, Russell had this thought a long time ago:"

"He believes that the rituals corresponding to Sequence 4, Sequence 3, and Sequence 2 on his path are all obviously crazy and cruel, like the kind that villains in novels would perform."

"The sequential path is likely to be a road destined to madness and despair."

"And this is the only way for humans to gain extraordinary powers."

"He found it ridiculous and ironic."

"He made this comment: 'We try so hard to save ourselves, only to destroy ourselves better and more thoroughly?'"

"We try hard to save ourselves, only to destroy ourselves better and more thoroughly"... Bernadette silently repeated this sentence in her heart, and suddenly felt that she understood part of Roselle's psychological behavior in her heart.

She could sense the heaviness and depression behind these words, and also gained a clearer understanding of the psychological reasons behind his decision to proclaim himself emperor in his later years in order to become a god.

This does not mean that she approves of her father's transformation, but at least:
In his later years, Russell was no longer the unreasonable person he once was...

"I seem to understand part of his feelings."

"As an angel of the 'Peering into Mysteries' path, I have witnessed many cases of self-destruction due to extraordinary powers over the years."

"I also learned why the church prohibits the promotion of mysteries..."

"Sometimes, extraordinary power becomes a curse..."

Bernadette's voice was a little vague, but it expressed her true feelings.

"You also believe that this world is inherently twisted, crazy, and doomed to self-destruction?"

Star asked back.

Bernadette’s understanding of the mysterious world and extraordinary characteristics is almost the same as Roselle’s back then. Could it be that she has also come to the corresponding conclusion?

"No, that's not the case."

Bernadette's voice suddenly became firm, as if she had found a reason to refute at that moment.

She shook her head slowly, and a hint of determination flashed in her eyes, as if she had found a glimmer of hope in the dark abyss.

"Aren't you just such a proof?"

“I see you, Star,” she continued. “Your existence, to me, is living proof that this world is not all twisted, crazy, and doomed to self-destruct.”

Star was slightly stunned. He did not expect Bernadette to respond to his question in this way.

He was silent for a moment, then asked, "Why do you think so?"

Then Bernadette was filled with speechless emotion in her heart, as if she had thousands of words to say but didn't know where to start.

For a moment, she was stunned, not knowing where this drastic change of mood came from.

It seems that, apart from the things about her father, she and Star have never met in this world, nor have they had any deep intersections?

But since she had already started the conversation with Star, Bernadette could only bite the bullet and continue the conversation:
"Because... because you are such a being. I have not seen you being corrupted by this extraordinary power and status, nor have you gone crazy and destroyed."

"Maybe I just don't show it?"

"No, that's not the case."

Bernadette was touched by Star's words and immediately retorted.

"You have refuted my words twice in a row. Don't you have any other reasons to add?"

When Star heard this, he also noticed that something was wrong with Bernadette's condition:

Is she too "human"?

Or to put it bluntly, she was being a little too sentimental like a little girl at the moment, and not at all like a big figure in the world of mysticism who had weathered hundreds of years of turmoil.

But he didn't delve too deeply into this aspect, and just regarded it as the residual influence left by Adam's psychological suggestion at that time -

In addition, as "Bai Zao" said, he will subtly make people around him "empathize" with him.

Although this change does not target their core personality, it can also make people become a little emotional at times...

Is it simply because of these reasons?
Memory is like a pebble that has been smoothed by time. Star searches for clues in his remaining memories:

It's hard to find anything worth paying attention to.

Maybe this was just a sudden feeling of Bernadette?

"However, it's rare that you trust me so much. I never noticed before that my presence could bring such spiritual comfort to others."

Star teased.

Then he thought that he did not intend to stop at exposing the Twilight Hermits, and said with a hint of solemnity in his voice:

"In that case, I think I will go ahead with your expectations."

Even if there is chaos and unknown ahead...

After a pause, realizing that Bernadette also wanted to see the "blasphemous card" that represented her father's final achievement, Star took out the bookmark that "depicted Roselle wearing the emperor's clothes."

He smiled at Bernadette and said:

"I think you can guess what the opening spell of this 'Black Emperor' card is?"

Bernadette was suddenly speechless, she knew that Star's words were not aimless.

She was silent for a few seconds before she slowly began to read in Intis language to the bookmark that was actually the "Black Emperor" brand:
"Bernadette."

The bookmark does not respond.

Bernadette was suddenly stunned. For a moment she felt that this was just another trick played on her by Ista because of his temper.

Fortunately, she had previously thought that Star's existence was undoubtedly a strange counterexample to this dark world of occultism...

Until Star shook his head and said with a smile:

“So many people passed by the Roselle exhibition, and some mentioned Bernadette.”

"If it was as simple as saying your name in Intis, I wouldn't have taken this 'blasphemous card' away until now."

Star sighed and added:
“You can try other languages.”

As soon as she finished speaking, Bernadette suddenly tried using Loenese, Hermes, Feysac, Ancient Feysac, and other languages ​​one by one.

So the "blasphemy card" was opened in front of her.

"Do you like this opening spell?"

"Thank you."

Bernadette suddenly looked at Star, her lips moved, and finally she slowly smiled.

(End of this chapter)