If it was something the Knowledge Worm couldn’t eat, it was definitely something he couldn’t touch.
Lu Yuan’s gaze lingered on the roots coiled in the skull’s left eye socket for two seconds before withdrawing it.
He needed something else.
Deep in his left eye, beyond where the Knowledge Worm was curled up, even further in, floated a teardrop-shaped key. Lu Yuan’s consciousness sank deep into his eye, reaching toward the key.
Just then, movement came from behind.
Dense gear-grinding sounds echoed from inside the Great Ascendant’s metal skeleton—muffled and urgent. His body was forcing a reboot.
Lu Yuan whipped his head around.
The Great Ascendant’s metal skeleton was moving again.
The silver-grey pupils, previously frozen by The Man on the Wall’s force field, spun once more. The luster within the two metal spheres returned, and their focus sharpened.
An aura surged from within the Great Ascendant. It was completely different from the dark hue of the seed’s roots. This aura had a peculiar color—an extremely deep, eerie green. It seeped from the gaps in the metal skeleton, spreading along the joints and chest seams, flowing slowly through the metal’s patterns.
Grey-white text jumped out at the edge of his vision.
【Target Check: Great Ascendant (Parasitized) (Anchor)】
【One eerie summoning another existence? An interesting method.】
Lu Yuan’s eyes were fixed on the word “Anchor.”
Eerie green, an anchor, and summoning another existence.
Something clicked in his mind.
The night A.M. had recruited him into the society, after he left, Lu Yuan had used Knowledge Seeker to spy on the eerie green aura remaining around the chair. Once those thread-like residues took shape, his vision as a Knowledge Seeker had been forcibly pulled into a dissipating deep green rift.
Then he had seen that city.
A black, towering ancient city, thrusting straight into a night sky of pure darkness. Every few steps along the city walls, a burning green eye was embedded—living eyes, churning with resentment and distortion.
The entire city was like a funnel, sloping toward the center from all directions. The center of the funnel was filled with chains, so dense they lost the concept of number, becoming a tightening cocoon made of chains.
Within the massive cocoon of chains was imprisoned a curled-up silhouette, twisted in a way that defied classification as any known creature.
That thing had spoken four words back then:
“Save me... leave...”
Then: “I can... grant you... everything... you want...”
Now, the same eerie green was surging from within the Great Ascendant. The grey-white text was clear: “Anchor.” The Great Ascendant’s body was the medium for that existence. He had made a deal with the thing in the City of Chains, turning himself into a summoning channel.
The power of that city was descending through the Great Ascendant. The eerie green luster spread from the metal skeleton, clashing violently with the force field of The Man on the Wall surrounding him.
There was no sound to the collision of the two powers, but Lu Yuan could feel the pressure in the air suddenly change in quality—shifting from the vast, heavy oppression of The Man on the Wall to the sharp friction of two distinct forces crushing against each other.
The suppression from The Man on the Wall was being forcibly pushed back. The thin frost on the surface of the metal skeleton began to crack, falling away from the joints piece by piece. The writhing of the roots slowed abruptly, and the black tentacles that had been squeezing out of every gap stopped completely, drooping limply against the metal surface.
A muffled click came from the Great Ascendant’s shoulder joint as the metal plates turned slowly, driven by internal gears.
His silver-grey pupils regained focus.
He looked at Lu Yuan.
Lu Yuan stood his ground, motionless.
The Great Ascendant smiled. A mechanical face couldn’t manage much expression, but those silver-grey pupils, relit, held a hint of amusement.
“You actually made a deal with The Man on the Wall beforehand.”
There wasn’t a trace of anger in his voice.
“I truly didn’t expect that.”
His gaze lingered on Lu Yuan’s face for two seconds before he tilted his head slightly. The joints of his metal neck clicked softly.
“It seems you have your own plans as well.”
Lu Yuan didn’t respond. His gaze shifted from the Great Ascendant’s pupils to his chest. The eerie green luster still flowed slowly over the metal skeleton, entangling with the remaining black roots in the gaps—green and black interlacing, crushing each other.
The Great Ascendant paused for a beat, then continued.
“Then why don’t we cooperate?”
His tone became more casual.
“Since you’ve already joined us, you should naturally be clear about the power standing behind us.”
Lu Yuan gave him a cold look.
He was naturally clear.
The city he had glimpsed with Knowledge Seeker on the night of his induction was that “power behind them.” The oath of the Forbidden Lore Society, the emblem, the ripple markers—all pointed to that thing. Morris had made a deal with it, and the Great Ascendant had made a deal with it too. The entire Forbidden Lore Society was trading with an imprisoned forbidden existence and calling it a “mission.”
The difference was that someone like Morris knew when to stop, whereas the Great Ascendant was completely overestimating himself.
Lu Yuan didn’t speak.
Seeing that Lu Yuan wouldn’t bite, the Great Ascendant didn’t mind. He continued on his own, his voice carrying a mechanical echo from within his metal chest.
“The Man on the Wall is but a fragmented existence. Utilizing Him to gain even greater power—that is a true trade.”
Lu Yuan looked at him.
The Great Ascendant’s entire body was parasitized by the seed’s roots, and he had been pinned in place by The Man on the Wall’s force field, only regaining mobility by relying on the forced intervention of another forbidden existence. Eerie green and black light flashed alternately on the metal skeleton, and black filaments still seeped from the cross-section of his severed arm.
In this state, he was still talking about “utilizing” and “trading.”
Lu Yuan let out a cold laugh.
“With just you, a rank 4?”
“And so what if I am? Aren’t you only a rank 2?”
The Great Ascendant hadn’t expected Lu Yuan to mock his rank and reflexively countered.
Lu Yuan didn’t look at him again after that.
He turned to face the skull. Deep in his left eye, the key still floated quietly behind the worm. The link had been interrupted by the Great Ascendant’s recovery, but now Lu Yuan sank his consciousness back down, past the curled-up Knowledge Worm, and touched the teardrop-shaped surface.
The key seemed to have been waiting for a long time.
As soon as Lu Yuan’s consciousness touched it, a surge of power erupted from the teardrop surface, spreading along the optic nerve and flooding his entire body. It was incredibly fast—taking only a single breath to travel from his left eye to his fingertips.
Grey-white text jumped violently at the edge of his vision.
【You have touched the Authority...】
【Sanity: -5... 50/140】
The world changed.
All colors vanished from Lu Yuan’s eyes, and the entire space at the top of the tower was covered in massive patches of color. Everything was stripped of its original appearance, leaving only the colors corresponding to their essence.
The massive skull before him became a block of interlaced black and pale cyan, the two colors blurring at the skeletal outline and bleeding into each other.
Black flowed through the runic grooves on the floor, interspersed with a multitude of red threads spreading from the flow of the inscriptions.
The seed roots coiled in the skull’s left eye socket became a mass of extremely dense dark color, deeper than any black around it—so deep that Lu Yuan’s gaze was sucked in the moment it landed on it.
The black flames that had been burning on the seed’s surface maintained their form, but from this perspective, they lost all heat. Lu Yuan could feel that the flames were merely the seed’s surface defense.
Behind him, the Great Ascendant became a silhouette of interlaced dark silver and black. Silver was the essential color of the metal skeleton, while black was the trace left by the root’s infiltration. The two colors crushed against each other within him, their boundaries blurred and indistinct.
Lu Yuan felt a realization dawn upon him; this was the Authority of the Sea of Knowledge responding to him. Every color he saw corresponded to the essence of things, observing the world from the perspective of the Sea of Knowledge.
The Great Ascendant saw the change in Lu Yuan.
The luster radiating from within him was far too conspicuous. Under the perspective of the Authority, Lu Yuan’s own body was shrouded in a layer of flowing colors, completely different from the colors of the skull, the seed, or the inscriptions.
The Great Ascendant’s silver-grey pupils contracted sharply.
“You actually have an Authority as well?”
For the first time, true surprise appeared in his voice. The composure he had shown when proposing cooperation vanished, replaced by something Lu Yuan was very familiar with: scrutiny and a rapid reassessment.
“You are tainted by another forbidden existence?”
The Great Ascendant paused for a beat, his silver-grey pupils scanning Lu Yuan as if quickly connecting fragments of information.
“I see. No wonder your file was blank.”
His tone actually calmed down, as if all the things he couldn’t understand suddenly had an explanation.
Lu Yuan didn’t turn back.
“Blank file.” The Great Ascendant had mentioned his imperial file, and A.M. had said the same thing the night he was recruited. As a member of the Forbidden Lore Society, it wasn’t surprising he could find that out. It was perfectly reasonable for the Great Ascendant to have access to that level of information.
But now was not the time to think about that.
The Great Ascendant did not retreat.
His body began to emit a more intense eerie green luster. Chains surged from the gaps in his metal skeleton, wrapping around his torso and limbs.
Those chains were of the exact same origin as the ones seen in the City of Chains on the night of his induction—dense, with a faint ghostly green glow, and tiny patterns could be seen writhing between the links.
Relying on this power, he forcibly resisted the residual suppression of The Man on the Wall and approached Lu Yuan step by step.
“But even among Authorities, there are differences.”
As the Great Ascendant spoke, his pace did not falter. The eerie green chains on his body made a low clanking sound, each step accompanied by the friction of the metal links.
Lu Yuan felt the pressure change as he approached.
Rate on N.U.
