Chapter 303: Awakening Darkness, Memories of the 'Believer'

"Ask away. If I don't know the answer, I'll just check with Avia and the others later."

Wang Yu picked up a piece of ore, tossed it into the furnace beside him, and flipped the switch. Channeling the power of the Chariot to envelop the melting ore, he began to draw out the impurities bit by bit, turning his head to speak to the Lady of the Night.

It was truly rare for this deity to take the initiative to ask him a question. He had no idea what she wanted to know; if it concerned esoteric knowledge, his own learning was likely insufficient to provide her with an answer.

"If there exists an entity that committed heinous acts in the past, but after a long passage of time, it has forgotten its former self—even its body and power no longer bear any relation to what it once was—should it then be held accountable for the sins it committed?"

"Or, to put it another way, can these two existences—the one of the present and the one of the past—be considered the same person?"

The Lady of the Night spoke slowly, her tone betraying a sense of bewilderment and inner conflict.

"Huh? Damn!"

Wang Yu listened intently to the Lady of the Night. He had been multitasking while smelting the ore, but as he listened, his focus shifted entirely to her question.

After hearing the full inquiry, he instinctively let out a confused sound of disbelief, only to have his hand scalded by slag bursting from the red-hot ore. He cursed aloud, then scrambled to stabilize the ore with the power of the Chariot.

"So, you're asking me a philosophical conundrum about whether I am truly myself?"

Wang Yu synthesized what the Lady of the Night had said, summarized the question she sought to resolve, and pulled a stool over to her rocking chair to confirm.

"Philosophy? I suppose so."

The Lady of the Night’s tone was uncertain; after all, she was not Avia, and she struggled to keep up with the Earth-born slang Wang Yu occasionally let slip around his own people.

"Well, for questions without definitive answers, I can only offer you my own perspective."

Wang Yu waved his hand, wondering how on earth the Lady of the Night had ended up asking him such a thing.

"Let’s put it this way: I’m a hypocrite. As far as I’m concerned, there is no past life and no afterlife. I am who I am; only this present self is me. If someone told me I wasn't me, but some kind of copy, I wouldn't give them the time of day. I know damn well who I am."

"As for someone trying to kill me because of something my 'past life' did, I’d send them to the afterlife first. If I didn't do it, I didn't do it. It’s a bit twisted to pin someone else’s actions on me. That business about memories, bodies, and powers being swapped? It’s basically the same thing."

"But like I said, I’m a hypocrite. If someone did something that caused me serious harm, and I wanted them to pay the price, even if they claimed their memories were gone and they were a different person, I’d still punch them until their skull exploded."

Wang Yu laid out his incredibly simple worldview, then scratched his head, realizing his words might have been entirely useless.

"Seems like I said a whole lot of nothing. In short, do what you feel is right. Just don't carry burdens that aren't yours, and don't let others use excuses to shirk their own. People have eyes; just judge for yourself whether something is real or a lie."

Wang Yu looked up and glanced at the Lady of the Night, who had sat up from her recliner to listen. She seemed to be taking his seemingly meaningless opinions quite seriously.

"Is that so? I think... I understand. Thank you for your insight."

Nodding as if she half-grasped his meaning, the Lady of the Night seemed to have found a solution to her problem. Her form began to fade, preparing to vanish from the space within the Seed of Eden.

"Hey! Hold on a second. Clear this up for me first. This isn't some classic 'I have a friend' scenario, is it?"

Wang Yu, his brow twitching, used the power of the Chariot to grab the rocking chair that was about to disappear along with her, speaking with a sigh of resignation.

The Lady of the Night wasn't idle; no one would randomly come to ask him this for no reason... Wait, she actually was quite idle... No, that wasn't right; she had been busy learning "C language" lately...

Regardless, that wasn't the point. Wang Yu wasn't an idiot. Given the way she asked, the "entity" in her question was clearly herself.

Was Wang Yu supposed to wonder, "What has the Lady of the Night been through lately?" and just let her leave? Was he really that dense?

"It is nothing. I merely wished to ask."

The Lady of the Night, her chair held fast, stopped fading and replied in a flat tone.

"Do I look that stupid to you?"

Wang Yu pointed at himself, utterly speechless.

"............"

After staring at his disgruntled face in silence for a moment, the Lady of the Night, who had already stood up, sat back down in the rocking chair with a resigned air.

"Spit it out. I’m going to ask Avia about this when she gets back anyway."

Wang Yu pressed her.

Wang Yu was not a man who liked to pry into others' secrets, but that came with a prerequisite: the other person had to be someone whose capabilities gave him peace of mind.

If the person telling him "it's nothing" had been Avia or Zieg, Wang Yu would have tucked his curiosity away entirely; if they didn't say, he wouldn't ask.

The problem was that the person speaking to him now was the Lady of the Night, and he truly could not feel at ease with a deity who, in his eyes, was a bit dim. Who knew if she might suddenly have some strange epiphany and erase herself from existence?

"Recently, I have felt my power growing. My abilities have acquired things I did not previously possess. These powers are related to darkness, but they are far more potent and absolute than my own."

"I can command this power, and I can easily channel it through the Tree of the Night Sky to my believers. However, I can feel a barrier between myself and this power. I am certain that this power does not belong to me."

The Lady of the Night recounted her ordeal, mentioning the sudden emergence of this darkness-related power.

"You are the embodiment of power itself, aren't you? If those aren't your powers, to put it bluntly, 'They are not you'?"

Wang Yu interjected.

"Yes. Just as you said, these powers are merely things I can utilize, but they are not me, nor do they originate from me."

"It is simply that they appeared where I exist, followed me, and began transmitting memories and visions to me."

The Lady of the Night nodded, confirming Wang Yu's assessment.

"Memories and visions? I suspect those are the reason you asked me that question. Show me."

Wang Yu rubbed his chin. What the Lady of the Night described reminded him of something; he needed to gather more information.

The Lady of the Night waved her hand, and flowing darkness permeated the space of the Seed of Eden, gradually manifesting into visible images and sounds.

The stars were brilliant, the clouds had vanished, and the sea breeze stirred small waves that lapped against the pier of a tiny fishing village. Only a few wooden huts still had lights on; the rest were dark, and one could hear the sounds of snoring and hushed conversations.

A middle-aged sheriff, with the strength of a high-ranking apprentice knight, walked alone through the streets of the seaside village, guarding this place of little wealth and few strong men, preventing mermen from the sea and bandits from other villages from entering.

The sheriff’s footsteps suddenly faltered. He looked up, scanning the distant night sky. The bright stars there seemed to dim suddenly, as if obscured by something.

"Clouds are rolling in. I’ll have to remind the older fishermen not to head out tomorrow morning. If the rain and wind hit, they won't make it back to the pier in time."

The sheriff muttered to himself. Accustomed to life by the sea, he was well-versed in how changes in the heavens signaled changes in the ocean. If dark clouds suddenly covered the stars in the middle of the night, there was a high probability of strong winds and heavy rain tomorrow.

This small fishing village was nestled in a bay within the coastal mountains. The lighthouse on the coast was easily blocked by the two mountains flanking the village. Once the weather turned, with fog and rain, it would be difficult for those out fishing to find their way back by the lighthouse's guidance.

The final outcome was usually being devoured by sea monsters or mermen in the lightless night. There was a slim chance the fishing boat would drift back empty, but it was far more likely that not a trace of them would remain in this world.

Withdrawing his gaze, the sheriff stopped paying attention to the stars over the deep sea. Those who sailed from the village were old hands, some even followers of the Lord of the Ocean and Storms; they had their own experience. As long as he remembered to give a warning, there shouldn't be any trouble.

But what he failed to notice was that there were no clouds in the sky over the deep sea at all. The stars had been completely swallowed by darkness, and the sea, reflecting the starry sky, had plunged into total blackness along with it.

The lighthouse, which could still cast a faint, barely perceptible beam of light through the mountain pass, vanished entirely. Starting from the direction of the sea, it seemed as if everything was being gradually erased, or rather, hidden away.

Unaware, the walking sheriff felt one side of his body gradually shrouded in shadow. The darkness came from the deep sea, spreading to the village, swallowing and concealing everything in its path, beginning to devour this village that few even knew existed.

The light faded, and boundless darkness and silence replaced everything in the small village. Between the bays, there was nothingness.

When the first ray of sunlight pierced the darkness, the bay between the two mountains remained as it had been—except for the small fishing village. Everything about it had been erased from the coast; nothing remained, as if it had never existed at all.

"I saw a massive black arm reach out from the deep sea, finally clutching that village in its grasp, and the next day, the village was gone. Is this the 'entity' of darkness you were talking about?"

Wang Yu finished viewing the visions bestowed upon him by the Lady of the Night, the hidden truths within them unveiled through the singular lens of Her perception.

Indeed, that is Her power, far deeper than the strength I possess; if mine is the velvet of night, then Hers is the absolute void of darkness.

My authority is concealment and sanctuary, while Hers is nothingness and oblivion... yet now, this power seems to manifest within me, and a voice whispers that I am Her.

The Lady of the Night recounted the details of the colossal, shadow-wreathed hand that had eclipsed the heavens, her tone heavy with bewilderment and inner turmoil.

Let me think; your situation, first of all, is overthinking—what She is has nothing to do with you, She is She and you are you; as for these intrusive thoughts, well, being influenced by believers can cause this, but you have the Tree of the Night Sky...

That being said, if this power bypassed the Tree of the Night Sky to reach you directly, I have seen such cases before: the Firekeeper, the Librarian, Samuel Hayden.

The phenomenon manifesting within the Lady of the Night bore a striking resemblance to the resurrection of the fallen God of Knowledge within the vessel of Samuel Hayden, save that one was reborn in the closest of men, while the other in the closest of gods.

And the condition for such a resurrection is that someone must still remember the fallen deity; does this mean someone has recalled that ancient god and identified the Lady of the Night as that very being?

Wang Yu’s thoughts raced, deducing the conclusion based on all he knew.

Then, those visions and those thoughts are, in reality, the memories of some newly emerged believer of the Lady of the Night?