Arcanum: Chaos Path

Chapter 344 The Weak, Pitiful, and Helpless Demon Wolf

Yes, Rolin intends to awaken Antigonus, or rather, suppress the will of the Celestial within Antigonus, thereby restoring Antigonus to his senses.

The reason why Rowling did this was very simple. First, it was part of the experiment itself, and Rowling needed Antigonus as a guinea pig to practice on.

Second, Rolin needs to extract memories of despair or feelings of sadness from Antigonus, and needs the other to regain his senses.

As for what to do with Antigonus's enigmatic servant nature and his unique foolishness after he regains his senses—that depends on how obedient Antigonus is.

If Antigonus is a sensible and obedient dog, Rowling wouldn't mind having another angel king as a subordinate. When Little Kelvin or Bethel need the Fool's uniqueness in the future, they can have them fight it out to decide who will be the one for uniqueness.

Rowling believed that neither Little K nor Bethel would disappoint him in this regard—Little K had the Source Castle bonus, and as long as he advanced to Sequence 1, he would not be weaker than Antigonus, while Mr. Men could become a god directly as long as he got rid of the pollution.

If Antigonus wanted to be a bad dog, Rowling wouldn't mind stripping away his unique Fool and mysterious servant characteristics right now. He could do it—Rolling could actually control people with a lot of Nyar corruption in their bodies, just like the Outer Gods. He had already experimented with this when he performed surgery on Roselle.

However, Rolin doesn't normally plan to do this. To him, puppets are the most boring thing; he prefers vibrant life, because that often has infinite possibilities.

“I hope you can be a well-behaved dog…” Roland smiled, and at that moment, the power belonging to Nyarlathotep was mobilized, silently invading Antigonus’s soul.

……

Antigonus knew he was dreaming.

He had been dreaming for a very long time. Although the content of the dreams was chaotic, they often had the same theme—the destruction of the Night Kingdom, the disappearance of his sister, and his inability to control himself.

Antigonus did not know why he had these strange nightmares, nor could he think about why. In one dream after another, his consciousness was in a daze, sometimes clear and sometimes confused.

Occasionally, He could glimpse strange scenes through dreams, in which there was a palace familiar to Antigonus, but on the chair that originally belonged to Him in the palace, a strange, twisted monster was now perched.

Antigonus was not lucid; he could not understand what this scene meant, and he only felt anger occasionally.

Even though it was his favorite chair, Antigonus, even in his dazed state, still remembered that he used to transform into a wolf and sleep on it, while his sister would laugh at his childishness and groom him.

But now His favorite chair has been taken over by a monster.

Antigonus was somewhat angry, but He rarely stayed angry for long; He would forget about it and continue to wallow in the endless nightmare from which He could not escape.

But Antigonus doesn't always have nightmares. Occasionally, he has some good dreams. In those dreams, the Land of Night is still that peaceful little country, and his sister is still the same as always. Antigonus will lazily lean against somewhere, basking in the sun, while watching his weak but stubborn believers put on some kind of festivities that he himself doesn't know the meaning of.

Antigonus couldn't understand what his followers were thinking or what the meaning of these things was, but since they wanted to cause trouble, Antigonus didn't bother to stop them.

Only occasionally would Antigonus feel sadness, a sadness that came out of nowhere. How strange!
The wolf in the dream yawned, gazing at the Night Kingdom within the dream. Its muddled mind was unable to process anything complex; it could only stare wide-eyed at the believers before it, trying to find the reason for its sorrow.

Naturally, Antigonus found nothing. However, strange images flashed through his mind for some reason: a collapsed church, believers lying in pools of blood, and his sister looking at him expressionlessly.

As a diviner, Antigonus should have taken these images seriously, but the wolf shook its head, banishing them all, and continued to lazily lean back in its chair, gazing at the kingdom that He had created and protected.

"It was really not easy to find you, Antigonus."

Just then, Antigonus suddenly heard a strange voice, which made Him instinctively look over and find that a strange presence had appeared beside Him at some point.

He was a very refined-looking man with slightly curly black hair and bright, sun-like golden eyes. He wore gold-rimmed glasses and looked like a cultured scholar.

But Antigonus knew that the other party was definitely not a scholar. Even though he was in a daze and had almost lost all his reason, Antigonus's instinct as a diviner still made him instantly realize the danger the other party was.

"Who are you?" Antigonus asked.

“Me? You can call me Lucifer.” The man, Rolin, smiled. He looked at Antigonus before him and said slowly, “But more important than who I am, Antigonus, do you really want to continue indulging in this dream?”

This is not reality, but Antigonus's consciousness space, or you could say his dream. When Rolin used Nyarlathotep's power to suppress the Celestial's will, he discovered that Antigonus's own will, besides being entangled with the Celestial, was also partly trapped in a nightmare.

So, following his habit of "since I'm already here," Roland naturally entered this dream world to awaken Antigonus's part of the will.

"A dream?" Antigonus's eyes seemed clear, but he was still confused, clearly not awakened by Rolin's words.

“It seems we still have to use some force. I hope you won’t be left with too much psychological trauma!” Luo Lin shook his head, raised his hand, and snapped his fingers.

"Crash-"

At that moment, a sound as if something was shattering rang out, accompanied by the collapse of this dream. But outside the shattered dream was not reality, but a terrifying distortion and chaos.

……

Antigonus opened his eyes.

Terror still lingered in His eyes. The once-famous Half Fool curled up like a wolf cub startled from a dream, His entire body etched with helplessness, as if He were not a unique angel king, but a weak, pitiful, and helpless dog.

"Awake?"

(End of this chapter)