Lu Yuan looked at the cross-section of the Great Ascendant’s severed arm.
Black roots were already surging from the gaps in the cut, spreading outward. The seed had burrowed deep into his body even before the arm had been detached. The amputation had only removed the surface; the roots had taken hold much deeper than anyone had imagined.
The Great Ascendant did not hesitate. The temperature of his mechanical body suddenly surged to its limit, and visible flames coiled up from the metal surface. The layer of skin covering the outermost part of his frame charred and curled instantly under the high heat, peeling away from the metal in flakes.
A massive humanoid metal skeleton was exposed within the tower’s peak. Gold and silver alloys intertwined to form the torso, gears at the joints spun at high speeds, and steam billowed from every gap in the frame.
His head was a smooth metal sphere, with two silver-grey pupils embedded directly into it and nothing else around them.
This was the first time Lu Yuan had seen the Great Ascendant’s true form.
Furthermore, the Great Ascendant seemed even stronger in this state, as the high heat suppressed the spreading speed of the roots at the severed arm’s cross-section.
The Count’s attendant moved faster than anyone else.
The moment the Great Ascendant had pulled the seed from the skull, the smiling man had already supported the Count’s arm and retreated three steps.
His smile had vanished. One hand was pressed against the hilt of the sword at his waist, while the other rested on the Count’s shoulder. He didn’t leave immediately, but he was ready to move at a moment’s notice. He seemed to be confirming something.
Arthur did not retreat.
The moment the seed burrowed into the Great Ascendant’s arm, Arthur’s gaze swept quickly toward the Dean, his lips moving slightly.
The Dean nodded.
The old man’s pace suddenly became very fast, making him look like a completely different person from the frail figure who had struggled up the stairs earlier. He strode across the platform toward the smaller red ring on the floor, crouching down to press his hands against the ring’s inscriptions.
In the next moment, the inscriptions lit up.
It was no longer the faint residual shimmer from before; ghostly blue light surged from the grooves of the small ring, spreading outward along the floor’s patterns.
The walls, the dome—the runic grooves that had been dim for who knows how long lit up one by one. The entire Polymath Tower was responding.
Adrian ran the fastest.
The moment the seed entered the Great Ascendant’s arm, the old Bishop had already grabbed Agnes’s arm and retreated toward the stairs. His steps were not hesitant at all, and his normally kind face was now devoid of expression. However, he freed one hand as he ran.
His tome flipped open, the pages churning on their own. Several golden lights drifted from the pages; they were extremely faint, landing on every person within the tower’s peak.
Kraus, Lu Yuan, Arthur, the Dean, the Count, and the attendant each received one.
The Great Ascendant did not.
Grey-white text jumped out.
【Detected that you have received the Angel’s favor; your resistance to contamination has been significantly increased.】
Before Lu Yuan could think further, Kraus grabbed his arm and pulled him toward the stairs.
“Go.”
Kraus said only one word. Lu Yuan did not hesitate, following the force of the pull to retreat.
He looked back as he withdrew.
On the floor, the mass of black roots spreading from the remains of the severed arm did not stop. It extended slowly along the gaps in the platform’s inscriptions, its direction clear—it was heading toward the large ring and that massive, deathly silent skull.
Its speed wasn’t fast, but it showed no intention of stopping.
The inscription defenses activated by the Dean could not block it. The ghostly blue inscriptions that had just relit went dark one after another wherever the roots passed.
The roots touched the edge of the large ring and then continued to climb, following the skull’s jaw and cheekbones all the way to the eye sockets.
The black roots burrowed into the hollow interiors of the sockets.
That massive greyish-white skull came to life.
A focal point suddenly appeared in the once-empty sockets. A sliver of a silver shadow flashed deep within, followed by dark flames surging from inside the sockets, churning to fill the entire hollow. Lu Yuan stared for a moment before realizing those weren't flames.
The seed’s roots had coiled and taken hold deep inside the sockets, condensing into a mass of dark matter that was now embedded in The Man on the Wall’s eye sockets.
The seed had parasitized its remains.
It had become a part of it.
The attendant stopped watching.
The moment the roots entered the eye sockets, he half-carried, half-dragged the Count toward the stairwell. The silver cane tapped against the stone floor with rapid, sharp sounds, swallowed by the echoes of the spiral staircase.
Kraus pulled Lu Yuan along, following close behind.
Just as they stepped onto the third step of the spiral staircase, a dull vibration echoed from the space at the tower’s peak behind them.
Lu Yuan looked back.
The skull parasitized by the seed was slowly rising from the large ring. Freed from the constraints of the floor inscriptions, it hovered in the very center of the peak’s space, the dark roots coiled in its sockets emitting a faint light.
A voice emanated from within the skull.
Deep, ancient, and carrying a heavy resonance.
“I am The Man on the Wall. State your wish.”
Blinding black light erupted from the skull’s eye sockets, enveloping the entire Main Tower in an instant.
Lu Yuan felt a massive force pressing in from all directions. Grey-white text flickered frantically in his vision...
【You are under Sanity impact... Checking... Check successful】
【You are under Sanity attack... Checking... Check successful】
One after another, they showed no sign of stopping.
Then, the world went silent.
After the black light dissipated, everything inside the tower appeared unchanged.
But Kraus’s hand let go.
Lu Yuan looked down. Kraus stood beside him, motionless. His eyes were open, his pupils hadn't dilated, and he was still breathing, but his entire being seemed frozen from the inside. His hand still held the posture of pulling Lu Yuan’s arm, his fingers slightly curved, but there was no longer any strength in them.
On the stairs ahead, the attendant and the Count had also stopped. The attendant half-supported the Count’s body, frozen on the steps in a running posture. The tip of the silver cane hung in mid-air, never falling.
Lu Yuan looked down the stairs. Further down the curve, the figures of Adrian and Agnes were also fixed in place. The Church elder’s tome was still open, the pages stopped on a certain leaf, with golden light shimmering slowly on the surface—a slightly more lifelike sign than the others.
Everyone was frozen.
The grey-white text was still flickering.
【You are under Sanity attack... Checking... Check successful】
【You are under Sanity impact... Checking... Check successful】
Lu Yuan was the only person in the tower who could still move.
He couldn't understand it. Kraus’s Sanity level shouldn't be much lower than his own, and the attendant was at least a rank 4 transcendent. How could people of this level be pulled in by a single strike? Yet he hadn't even wavered. Was this a technique of The Man on the Wall, or something else?
He couldn't figure it out.
But he couldn't just stand here.
With a thought, Lu Yuan activated Timekeeper · Acceleration. The flow of time around him changed abruptly, and everything else became sluggish. He bent over to hoist Kraus onto his shoulder, grabbed the attendant’s collar with his other hand, and yanked the Count from the attendant’s half-frozen embrace to drape him over his other shoulder, then charged down the spiral staircase.
He blurred past floor after floor. The inscriptions on both sides of the stairs stretched into fuzzy lines in his vision.
The ground floor of the Main Tower. The bronze gate was right ahead.
Lu Yuan charged toward the exit with the three men...
But the expected departure did not happen. Instead, Lu Yuan slammed into something invisible, and he and the others were bounced back, his back hitting the stone floor hard. Kraus and the Count rolled off him, and the attendant fell nearby.
Lu Yuan pushed himself up from the ground. The door was right in front of him, half-open, and the light from the corridor was visible through the gap. But when he reached out, his hand met an invisible barrier—hard and cold. As his fingertips pressed against it, the grey-white text flashed.
【Detected Infinite Domain. His domain has been released. Begging for mercy might be a good choice...】
The Main Tower was sealed. There was no way out from the inside.
“Lu Yuan!”
Glock’s voice came from outside the door. He had been guarding the entrance the whole time; he had seen the black light envelop the Main Tower and was already rushing toward the door.
“Don’t come closer!” Lu Yuan shouted back sharply. “Find Lake and the Guardian! Tell them the Polymath Tower’s Main Tower is sealed and everyone inside has lost consciousness. Go, quickly!”
Glock paused for a split second outside. He saw Lu Yuan’s face through the crack in the door and saw Kraus and the Count lying on the ground.
Without asking questions, he turned and ran. The sound of his footsteps rapidly faded down the corridor.
Lu Yuan deactivated Timekeeper. Sanity consumed too quickly under acceleration, and there was no point in keeping it on if he couldn't escape.
【Sanity: -2... 71/140】
He leaned Kraus, the Count, and the attendant against the wall, confirming that all three were still breathing, then turned and charged back up the stairs.
There were still people at the top of the tower who hadn't been moved down.
Midway up the spiral staircase, Adrian was leaning against the wall.
Agnes lay beside him. Her black hood had slipped off, and her moon-white hair was scattered across the stone steps, motionless.
Adrian’s condition was slightly better than the others. His eyes were half-open, his lips were trembling slightly, and a layer of faint golden light flickered on his body. The tome lay open on his lap, the warm glow on the pages pulsing slowly, brightening and dimming as it fought against something.
Clearly, his faith and the Angel’s blessing were helping him resist falling immediately into The Man on the Wall’s power.
Lu Yuan did not linger. He hoisted Adrian onto his left shoulder, grabbed Agnes’s collar with his right hand, and continued upward.
The bronze gate to the tower’s peak was still open.
Lu Yuan stepped inside. Arthur was frozen at the edge of the platform, maintaining his posture of crouching to check the inscriptions. The Dean was kneeling beside the small ring, his hands still pressed against the inscriptions, with ghostly blue light leaking from between his fingers, but he was no longer moving.
Lu Yuan set Adrian and Agnes down, then walked over to hoist Arthur and the Dean onto his shoulders one by one, moving them to the stairwell.
After two trips, he had transported everyone to the ground floor of the Main Tower.
Then, he went upstairs once more.
Only one person remained in the space at the tower’s peak.
The Great Ascendant stood on the platform, less than five steps away from the hovering skull. His metal skeleton was still burning, and the silver alloy emitted an eerie luster.
Some unburnt charred fragments still clung to the surface of the skeleton. At the cross-section of his severed arm, the roots were being suppressed by the high heat, with only an occasional black thread poking out before being forced back by the heatwave.
He saw Lu Yuan walk in from the stairwell, and his silver-grey pupils turned toward him.
“You weren't affected?”
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