“You weren’t affected.”
The confusion had vanished from his tone.
Clearly, the Great Ascendant had confirmed it. When he had first asked on the stairs, there was a hint of testing, but now his tone had completely changed.
A low click echoed from his mechanical joints as the Great Ascendant tilted his head slightly. The movement was stiff on the metal skeleton, but the meaning was clear.
He was re-evaluating Lu Yuan.
After a brief pause, the Great Ascendant spoke again.
“Of course.”
“Since A.M. chose you, it means you indeed have some unique qualities.”
Lu Yuan’s expression did not change.
But something in his mind suddenly tightened.
A.M. Andre Morris. The young man who sat behind the desk in the outer city bookstore with a teacup, wearing a dark grey overcoat with deep green satin piping on the cuffs.
The Great Ascendant knew him.
Not just knew him; the phrasing “chose you” implied he knew what had transpired between Lu Yuan and A.M. The Ritual of Remembrance, the induction into the society—things that shouldn't be known by a third party.
And he was in that same circle.
The Great Ascendant’s silver-grey pupils shifted slightly as he continued.
“Coupled with the information gathered recently, you truly have forged a path of your own regarding Sanity.”
A sliver of scrutiny flashed in his silver-grey pupils.
“Impressive.”
Lu Yuan did not respond.
From the very beginning, the Great Ascendant was more than just a representative sent by the Ascension Society. His silence during the meeting, his cooperation upon entering the tower, his initiative in walking toward the skull and pulling the seed from the gap in its jaw—none of it was improvised. He had been waiting for this opportunity all along.
At the same time, he had been secretly observing everyone, including Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan didn't look at the Great Ascendant’s face; he lowered his gaze slightly, focusing on the other’s metal chest.
“You did all this just for the seed?”
A hint of a smile appeared in the Great Ascendant’s silver-grey pupils. A metal face couldn't manage complex expressions, but Lu Yuan could see the subtle change.
“It doesn’t matter if I tell you.”
His voice paused for a beat.
“You’ve already joined, after all.”
Lu Yuan’s brow furrowed slightly.
“The Forbidden Lore Society.”
When the Great Ascendant spoke those three words, his face showed nothing special—of course, a smooth metal sphere wouldn't show much anyway.
The Forbidden Lore Society.
The organization behind A.M. that had never been named, with its ripple marker and shell emblem, and the creed “The forgotten, I shall remember.” Now that it had a formal name, Lu Yuan pressed those words deep into his heart.
“My mission this time is very simple.” The Great Ascendant’s gaze shifted to the skull hovering above the round platform. “To imprison this Man on the Wall.”
As he said this, his silver-grey pupils turned toward the skull, carrying a hint of irrepressible interest.
Lu Yuan stared at him, a look of gravity flashing in his eyes.
“The Empire shouldn't have issued such an order, right?”
The Great Ascendant’s pupils shifted back.
“Of course not.”
His voice carried a faint trace of disdain.
“Those fools at the center are greedy and stupid, but even they would never do something so risky.”
“This is the result of a discussion between A.M. and me.”
As the Great Ascendant spoke, his silver-grey pupils swept over the skull parasitized by the seed. The roots coiled in the eye sockets were writhing slowly, emitting a faint, dark glow.
“Judging by the current situation, the results seem quite good.”
With that, the Great Ascendant turned and walked toward the skull.
The joints of his metal skeleton emitted a heavy gnashing sound, and steam hissed from the gaps in the frame, trailing a pale white wake through the space at the tower’s peak. He walked calmly, his steps even, as if approaching something that already belonged to him.
Lu Yuan watched his back coldly.
“The result of a discussion between A.M. and me.”
It was true that A.M. acted outside the box—climbing through windows into people's rooms at midnight, demanding they join the society the moment he opened his mouth, and never giving more than a fraction of the full story. The man certainly didn't play by the rules. But there was a line he would not cross.
That night in the room at the alchemy workshop, Morris had sat in the chair by the window and led Lu Yuan through that oath, word by word. As each word fell, a substantial force had attempted to write itself into his body.
There was one line in particular.
“I do not reach out to the abyss, nor shall the abyss swallow me.”
What was The Man on the Wall?
The check from the grey-white text had made it very clear. An existence that, even in an incomplete state, could lock down the consciousness of everyone present in a single strike. Actively seeking to imprison such a thing was reaching out to the abyss.
The Forbidden Lore Society had carved this sentence into its induction oath. Although that force attempting to write itself into his body had failed with him, it wasn't an empty phrase; for other members, it was a substantial contractual constraint.
The Forbidden Lore Society could not possibly have approved this action.
Therefore, this wasn't A.M.’s intention at all.
The Great Ascendant was using the name of the Forbidden Lore Society to execute his own plan. As for his true purpose—what he intended to do with The Man on the Wall after imprisoning him—Lu Yuan didn't have time to think about it.
Because the Great Ascendant was already almost at the skull.
He had to be stopped.
But how?
The Great Ascendant was rank 4. Even with one arm severed and his skin burnt away into charred fragments to reveal a pure metal skeleton, he was still rank 4. The speed and judgment he had shown when cutting off his own arm earlier proved everything; even injured, this man was far beyond Lu Yuan’s ability to handle.
Timekeeper · Acceleration wasn't enough to contend with him, Stasis couldn't stop him, and he didn't have enough Sanity for Deprivation—plus, one shot likely wouldn't kill him.
The Flame revolver’s six silver-plated bullets wouldn't even leave a dent on that metal skeleton, and Sanity bullets couldn't deal a fatal blow.
The Knowledge Worm had already fallen into a deep slumber the moment the Infinite Domain appeared.
Was there any other way?
Suddenly, Lu Yuan thought of something.
His gaze shifted from the Great Ascendant’s back to the skull hovering in the air.
Before entering the tower, in the corridor, Arthur had personally said that there were only two ways for The Man on the Wall to communicate with the outside world: physical contact and associative summoning.
The mediums for associative summoning were true names, memories, or objects connected to the entity.
The true Man on the Wall was suppressed deep within the remains, but He wasn't dead. The grey-white text still detected “The Man on the Wall (Incomplete Form)”; the seed was merely parasitizing Him.
If someone from the outside actively called out The Man on the Wall’s name to trigger an associative summoning, was it possible to wake the true Man on the Wall suppressed by the seed?
Waking The Man on the Wall meant Lu Yuan would be pulled in as well, but The Man on the Wall could do nothing to him.
But if he didn't take this gamble, the Great Ascendant would succeed.
Kraus was still below the tower. So was Adrian. So was everyone whose consciousness was locked.
Lu Yuan made his decision.
The Great Ascendant’s back drew closer to the skull. Only two steps remained.
Lu Yuan closed his eyes.
The Man on the Wall.
The moment he whispered the name in his mind, something deep within his brain jolted. It was extremely faint, like a pebble dropped into a calm pool of water, ripples spreading from an unknowable direction.
The Man on the Wall.
When the second silent call fell, the hovering skull suddenly shuddered violently.
It was no longer the dark light released by the seed. Fine cracks appeared on the grey-white bone surface, and a silver-white shimmer seeped from the fissures, distinctly separate from the dark roots coiled in the eye sockets.
Two forces pressed against each other on the same remains. The cracks on the bone surface grew denser, and the silver-white light grew brighter.
The Great Ascendant sensed the anomaly, but his footsteps only faltered for a moment. His silver-grey pupils flickered; he didn't think there was any other possibility.
Lu Yuan opened his eyes and looked at his back.
“So this matter is your own plan?”
The Great Ascendant did not look back. He had reached the front of the skull, and his remaining metal arm slowly rose.
“What difference does it make?”
The mechanical voice emanated from within him, devoid of any fluctuation.
His metal fingers reached toward the skull.
Just as his fingertips were about to touch the grey-white bone surface...
“State your wish.”
The voice vibrated out from within the skull.
The inscriptions on the round platform trembled, plaster fell from the dome, and the ground beneath Lu Yuan’s feet vibrated continuously and finely. Completely different from the deep, ancient echo when the seed was pretending, this time the voice ground through from the depths of the marrow, carrying an irresistible pressure.
Lu Yuan could hear it; the one responding this time was the true Man on the Wall.
The Great Ascendant’s metal arm froze in mid-air.
The flames covering him were extinguished in an instant, and the temperature of his metal skeleton plummeted. A layer of thin frost began to condense at the joints, spreading rapidly along the patterns of the frame.
Then came the roots.
The black roots that had been suppressed by the high heat at the cross-section of his severed arm suddenly surged out, spreading frantically along every gap in the metal skeleton. The roots pried open the metal plates at the shoulder joints, chest, and neck, like countless black snakes writhing out from the crevices.
“What did you do?!”
For the first time, the Great Ascendant’s voice lost its composure.
Grey-white text flickered at the corner of Lu Yuan's vision.
【You are under Sanity impact... Checking... Check successful】
【Sanity: -3... -3... -3... 62/140】
Lu Yuan did not answer his question.
In the next moment, the world changed.
Grey mist surged from all directions.
Everything in his vision was swallowed by the grey mist. The dome vanished, the round platform vanished, and the Great Ascendant’s metal skeleton and the hovering skull disappeared as well.
The sensation beneath his feet changed; it was no longer the coarse stone surface of the Polymath Tower’s peak, but a perfectly carved rock platform.
Lu Yuan stood upon it, surrounded by a grey void.
It was the same grey void as before, with mist everywhere in every direction.
The rock platform was not small—much larger than when he had been projected in through the Knowledge Worm. It was at least seven or eight paces across. He stood near the edge and looked down; more silhouettes of rock platforms loomed in the depths of the grey mist. They were of various sizes, scattered at different heights, hovering intermittently.
He stood at a point that was almost the highest of them all.
Rate on N.U.
