I, the wizard, the foolish Buddha.

The Thousand-Eyed King's confirmation of Roland and Brianna's identities was as reliable as Roland and Brianna's use of their signature magic.

The numerous Twilight Wizards immediately apologized and withdrew, and Olivia arrived shortly afterward.

“Don’t blame them. You two didn’t get in through normal channels. Your identities weren’t verified. Even if it were the Pope, they would probably test him.” Olivia actually spoke up for the Twilight Wizards.

Brianna asked, somewhat puzzled, "So it was His Majesty the Thousand-Eyed King who brought us in?"

Olivia said with some surprise, "Why do you say that? The ritual is not yet complete, and there is no holy monument here to reverse it. Even if Mr. Leonard wanted to, he doesn't have the ability right now."

As they spoke, both Olivia and Brianna frowned and looked at Roland.

What are you looking at me for!

Roland said, utterly speechless, "It really wasn't me. Oh! I know, it must be the Pope or Mario, right?"

"Enough! Roland!" Olivia scolded like an elder, "Stop throwing mud at others. He's in the Holy City today, there's no Holy Monument there, and he doesn't have time to deal with things here."

"Oh~~ Something big is going to happen today. The Pope will definitely be in the Holy City. But is Mario there too?"

Roland blinked and asked. He'd been living in seclusion for the past six months. Even when he went to the library, he was alone with Mario and Florence. So he still didn't know that Mario was Andorra.

"Stop pretending, you brat!" Brianna snapped angrily. "If you have the guts to do it, don't be cowardly and admit it! Next time, could you at least tell me beforehand? You almost got me beaten up by those freaks along with you!"

Roland: “???”

"Alright, alright," Olivia said helplessly. "I originally wanted Roland to come and take a look as soon as possible, but he's been staying in his study and hasn't had time to come over."
Zoe and the others are still preparing the ritual to summon Mr. Leonard. Let's not go and disturb them for now.

"Roland, since you're so curious about this place, I'll show you around."

This blame was inexplicably shifted onto Roland, leaving him feeling as frustrated as if a thousand alpacas were stampeding through his mind.

But his attention was quickly diverted, because he was indeed very curious about this place.

Brianna clearly stated that this place, which resembled a 'pantheon,' was the Orbis's secret laboratory for researching the god of madness. Yet, it was built beneath the 'Palace of Light and Shadow,' essentially placed right under the noses of the gods.

Even stranger, there was no trace of the mad god here, nor any equipment for studying madness. All that remained were books locked and sealed in the hands of the statue.

Olivia offered the following explanation for this matter.

"Because this is a place created by the gods. They used forbidden techniques to seal the God of Madness into a book, but they dared not look at such books again. So they ordered their followers to study the God of Madness here—the Orbis were ordered by the Kingdom of Heaven to study the God of Madness here."

They won't go crazy reading these books, because what's sealed within them isn't themselves.

Olivia pointed to a strange, ancient scripture held by a statue, its hands bound with chains, and said, “Roland, that is the ‘world of paper’ I have been talking about.”

Back then, the forbidden wizards put us into books one by one like this.

Now, we've each and every one of ourselves have been placed inside the book in this way.

Olivia looked at Roland: "The gods separated themselves from their own bodies, sealed themselves in a book, and placed the book here. But this plan is unreliable, because once they 'awaken,' they can find a way to take their book back into their own hands."

I am a successful example.

As Roland stared at the 'Book of Rest' that Olivia was patting in her hand, a thunderbolt struck his mind. A multitude of thoughts flashed through his mind. The reason the gods had always feared this world was never because of the existence of wizards.

Rather, it is because they are afraid of themselves.

They believed they were possessed by the god of madness, and that with the help of some great liar, the god of madness had been extracted from their bodies and sealed away in this place. But they had no idea that they had sealed away themselves!

So they forcibly split their originally incredibly powerful souls into two parts. The weakest half of their souls went to heaven, while the most powerful half was imprisoned by their own hands!
Thus, they lost the power of the mad god and would never know who they were again.
Thus, they became their own guardians, and that part of their soul that was imprisoned would never escape.

This amazing liar has fooled all the gods!
As the captain of this ship, he did everything he could before running away with his wife.

But he had not done his best, nor could he have completed the task under the circumstances at the time. So the rest of the work had to be done by his students—the wizards of the East who had received the forbidden wizarding tradition—and his son.

Olivia continued, “Every generation that is sent by the Kingdom of Heaven to study these books will gradually discover an astonishing fact—the gods are mad gods!”
Once the truth is known, it will only be a matter of time before it surfaces and is revealed to the world.

And once the world knows this truth, the gods will also know it.

The world of paper can no longer imprison the gods.

Because they had mastered almost all forbidden arts.
Therefore, the moment they discover what they are, their mad and evil spirits will crawl out of the paper, and the two split spirits will return to unity.

However, they have fallen into the trap of self-perception; even if they know who they are, they will believe that they are possessed by a mad god.

Thus, the world will enter a brief period of madness and evil. Afterward, the gods will defeat themselves, sever their own divine souls, seal themselves back into the book, and finally send this world into the ocean of the lower world to purify it of its pollution.

Thus, the world has fallen into the cycle of traps designed by 'Lord Nip' time and time again.

The gods, in their endless cycle, repeat what they have done in the past. They can never escape it. At least, in the eyes of humankind, this escape seems like eternity.

Olivia looked at Roland and said, "Roland, this place near the ocean of the lower world is an excellent location. According to the forbidden wizards' predictions, the gods' 'reincarnation' will be incredibly long."

At least like the dragons of the past, it will not come to a complete end until some huge variable falls to earth.

But they failed to consider one crucial point: the gods were far more corrupt than the fallen dragons, and their civilization was destined to end in a mere 70,000 years.
Now, they can't even maintain the angels of euthanasia, so the biggest variable has emerged.

When this world completely plunges into the ocean of the lowest realms and can never rise again, the cycle of reincarnation will cease. The world will enter an era of eternal madness and evil.

We and you will forever lose the ability to access the surface world, becoming things that can only exist in the lower realms.

The new underlying world will become incredibly vast, expanding uncontrollably until it completely devours all the surface worlds of the entire astral plane.

The entire process will be extremely brief, so brief that even if Neptune and the Third Holy Mother return, it will be too late to undo the damage.

Upon hearing this, Roland broke out in a cold sweat. He said, "You mean, once these books fall into the 'black hole' without the protection of the Angels of Ecstasy, the black hole will acquire a terrifying mass and, in an unknown celestial event, devour our universe completely in a very short time?!"
And then, are we destined to live forever in that bizarre, lower-class world?

“It doesn’t sound like a bad thing, does it?” Olivia said. “After all, that’s where we come from, but I don’t want to go back.”

Olivia looked up at the dim dome, above which lay a false sky.

She had seen what sunlight looked like, even if it was an artificial sun. But those who had seen it could no longer endure darkness. (End of Chapter)