Mystery: The Traveler Who Holds the Star Key

Icy cold, bone-chillingly cold.

This was Orion's first sensation upon opening his eyes.

Immediately following was a burning sensation in my lungs, as if I had swallowed a handful of shards of glass.

And two legs that were almost numb but were still moving mechanically.

"Huff... huff..."

He was running.

He was running for his life in the labyrinthine sewers of East Backlund.

Why am I running?

who am I?

The excruciating pain felt like a red-hot steel rod stabbing into my temple.

Fragments of memory poured into his brain like a blizzard.

It's not about overworked office workers who die from exhaustion, nor is it about that familiar modern city.

This is the Kingdom of Rune, Backlund.

This body was named Orion Abraham—

A down-on-his-luck wanderer, haunted by a curse.

Now, it's not just the curse that's chasing him.

"Clatter".

From a far corner behind us, came a sticky sound, like a wet rag being slapped against a wall.

Orion turned around abruptly, his pupils shrinking.

In the dim glow of the gaslight, he saw a writhing shadow.

That's not the kind of shadow a human being should have.

The shadow stretched and split on the wall, like countless tentacles made of flesh and blood, greedily sniffing out his tracks.

Flesh and blood magic...

This disgusting malice...

A thunderbolt flashed through Orion's mind.

As a reader who had read "Lord of Mysteries" three times, he almost instinctively matched the scene before him with the setting in his memory.

"Aurora Tour"!

The "Secret Prayer" route!

Only a group of madmen who worship a "true creator" would use such a tracking technique filled with filth and depravity.

Are you afraid?

of course.

His teeth were chattering, his adrenaline was soaring to its limit, and even his fingertips were spasming uncontrollably.

But... that's right!

Hahaha, that's right!

An almost perverse, tingling excitement suddenly exploded in Orion's veins, flowing through his body like molten lava.

This feeling is both crazy and so real.

Compared to this moment, there's the thrill of my heart about to leap out of my throat.

Those so-called "victories" won in my past life by playing games all night in front of the computer screen seem so pale and fake;

Even those moments of intimate contact with the opposite sex in the dead of night, reaching the clouds amidst warm breaths, cannot compare to even a fraction of the trembling I feel now.

It was a blissful state of being torn apart and then reassembled.

He really did time travel.

He is no longer the spectator who lies in bed dreaming in front of a glowing screen.

He truly entered the book that haunted his dreams, a book that still made him tremble even after reading it three times.

He is alive.

He lived like never before.

call……

Orion took a deep breath, suppressing the maniacal smile in his eyes.

But reality didn't give him more time to reflect.

The madness and the extraordinary that exist only in words.

Those monsters that once amazed him through the pages of paper.

At this moment, a blood-dripping butcher's knife is being used to take his life from behind.

"Damn it..."

Orion cursed under his breath and staggered into a narrower side road.

He quickly reviewed the events in his mind:

Although the original owner was a novice extraordinary being—

The "Apprentice" of Sequence 9.

But because of that damned family curse, he dared not delve too deeply into the potion's power, his spirituality was pitifully weak...

Why would the Aurora Club target them?

Could it be because of my thin Abrahamic bloodline?

Or was it because I accidentally overheard something I shouldn't have at that party?

There wasn't time to think it through.

Because an even more deadly crisis erupted within her body before the pursuers behind her.

It was a chilling rejection reaction etched deep into the soul.

It was like forcibly shoving a red-hot iron into my stomach.

It was as if the surrounding space had suddenly come to life, transforming into the contracting stomach wall.

They tried to force him out of this "foreign object," or... to completely digest him.

Orion's veins began to throb wildly under his skin, as if countless tiny worms were trying to burrow through his flesh.

The murmurs in my ears were no longer faint background noise, but had turned into the sharp noise of fingernails scratching a blackboard:

"Leave...this...wrong...location..."

That was a spiritual lament.

As descendants of Abraham, as wanderers cursed by space.

His body sensed that "boundary" more precisely than the most sophisticated pocket watch.

That's the limit.

This feeling of suffocation told him:

The time he spent in this area had already exhausted the "24-hour" safety period.

There are about ten minutes left...

No, it might not even be ten minutes.

The feeling was like the last breath of oxygen in a drowning person's lungs being rapidly sucked away.

Once he's exhausted, he won't need the Aurora to do anything; he'll lose control first and explode into a dazzling firework of flesh and blood.

Ahead lies the dead end of spatial repulsion, behind lies the butcher's knife of a madman.

This is a truly hopeless situation.

Orion abruptly stopped in his tracks.

In front of us was a thick stone wall covered with moss.

Normally, for him as an "apprentice"...

This obstacle is nothing more than an illusory door.

But now, there's no road.

The little bit of spirituality he possessed had long been exhausted during his escape.

Now, he only needs to forcefully activate the "open door" once.

Even if it's just passing through a wooden plank.

Even delirious ramblings would instantly shatter his reason.

This caused him to lose control before his pursuers could.

He was trapped by his own weakness.

The footsteps behind him grew closer, accompanied by the pursuer's frantic whispers:

"Praise be to the Lord... how warm... how warm is flesh and blood..."

Orion leaned against the cold, damp wall, panting heavily.

He reached up and wiped the blood from his face. His previously panicked eyes suddenly calmed down.

That kind of calm and cunning that belongs to modern people, who have read the script, has regained the upper hand.

Can't run away.

Since there is no solution at the physical level, we can only seek a "dimensional reduction attack" at the mystical level.

At this point in time, in Backlund.

There is only one person who can save him and is willing to save him.

It was neither that ancestor who kept talking in his sleep nor those seven high and mighty gods.

Instead, it is a "false god" that has just awakened and is looking for believers.

Orion's lips curled into a crazy smile.

He knew it was risky; he was gambling with his life for that "what if."

But he had no choice.

He quickly crouched down, ignoring the excruciating pain in his fingertips, and used his blood-stained fingers to rapidly trace lines on the ground.

It wasn't a complicated magic circle, just a simple, irregular circle.

The shadow behind them had already loomed over them.

A bone knife, gleaming with a blood-red light, was already raised.

Orion did not turn around.

He closed his eyes and, in his heart, spoke in a voice that was almost a roar, yet incredibly devout.

He uttered the ancient Hermesian name that would change his destiny, and the destiny of the world:

"A fool who doesn't belong to this era..."

The air seemed to freeze for a moment.

The pursuers behind him froze, as if sensing some kind of fluctuation that made their spirits tremble.

Orion spoke extremely fast, each syllable seeming to be squeezed out from his very soul:

"The mysterious ruler above the gray fog..."

The bone knife slashed down with a sharp, mournful sound.

It wasn't just a physical attack; it also came with a curse that caused flesh to rot.

"The King of Yellow and Black, who holds the key to good fortune!"

"Heretical!!!" the pursuer shrieked.

The blade touched the skin on the back of Orion's neck.

The cold touch was already there.

However, the next second.

boom!

A deep red light suddenly burst forth in the narrow sewer without warning.

It's as if a hole has been torn open in space itself.

The pursuer's bone knife missed its target, striking the sewage-saturated stone slab with a thud, sending sparks flying.

The figure that had been huddled in the corner vanished into thin air.

Only a faint smell of blood remained in the air.

And the lingering echo of that revered name...

……