The spirit world was quiet, and the real world had also fallen silent.
On this night when the crimson moon was dim and the stars shone brilliantly, the young man standing above the lake seemed invincible like a god.
With just a light word, he could make powerful spirit world creatures leave.
Such majesty seemed not much different from the gods of legend.
The yellow-robed monks who had originally been following Cardiff were no longer as firm as before. Their faith was wavering.
Even Cardiff himself was stunned for a moment, but he knew he could not let things continue like this, otherwise fewer and fewer people would choose to follow him.
"Under the protection of fate, tonight's Cardiff is the embodiment of luck. His mythical creature form is extremely stable. Tonight he will be invincible."
Cardiff added a blessing of fate to himself and began revealing his mythical creature form.
The first change appeared in his eyes. Arc-shaped lines symbolizing fate crawled across his pupils, then spread from the eyes to the eye sockets, forehead, and cheeks.
The flesh of his arms began to swell. Another pair of arms grew from his waist and armpits respectively. Each arm was engraved with dense black patterns, like a legend from beyond the starry sky, turning into characters that covered them.
A red tail about two meters long grew from behind his hips, bright red like fire, and then it began to burn fiercely.
His body also began to expand continuously amid waves of swelling flesh. The clothes on his body were directly torn apart, turning into ragged strips hanging on his shoulders and waist.
This was not a complete mythical creature form.
Hastur saw through Cardiff's reality at a glance. What a cunning person, he was planning to stab him in the back at a critical moment.
His gaze was deep as he spoke calmly.
"Tonight's Cardiff is an abandoned child of fate. His mythical creature form is always filled with various deficiencies. Two different consciousnesses are born in his mind. They argue, they fight, and they completely drive Cardiff into eternal madness."
In terms of fate, Hastur really wanted to see who between himself and Cardiff was the true favorite of fate.
When Hastur spoke the first sentence, Cardiff realized something was wrong.
His mythical creature form suddenly fell into chaos and imbalance, unable to maintain stability.
Not only that, a new consciousness seemed to be born in his mind. It rapidly grew from something insignificant at the beginning until it could gradually rival him.
This further intensified the collapse of his mythical creature form.
In the end, the arms on his left and right sides raised their fists and smashed them at each other.
With his navel as the center point, a blood-red crack split open and continued tearing apart to both sides, as if it wanted to rip his body completely in half.
Cardiff no longer had the mind to deal with Hastur. He was suffering a backlash from fate, and his misfortune index kept increasing.
He had become an abandoned child of fate.
At this moment, Cardiff heard bursts of low, hoarse whispers again, blasphemous foul words filled with defilement.
An unavoidable force spread through his unbalanced body. Starting from his feet, his flesh continuously split apart, chunks falling off. The blood flowing out was black, because it had already been polluted.
From his feet to his knees, to his waist and abdomen, then to his neck, the flesh all fell away until only a single head remained.
"Fate Reversal!"
Cardiff had not yet died. Opening his mouth, he let out a deep shout. The body that had been eroded and polluted by the foul words gradually repaired itself, and even the instability of his mythical creature form was suppressed and removed.
Hastur did not interrupt his recovery. He was observing the Beyonder pathway left behind by the King in Yellow through Cardiff.
The so-called Fate Reversal was more like a lower substitute for Will's Fate Restart.
Although it could avoid fatal damage, it was more used for self-protection and was far less miraculous than Will's ability.
"Chaos!"
"Imbalance!"
"Death!"
Hastur seemed like a god delivering judgment again. Cardiff's freshly restored body split apart once more, and his mythical creature form completely collapsed into imbalance.
Cardiff reversed fate again, returning himself to the segment of fate before he had suffered injury.
"Reversal of Fate!"
At this moment Cardiff heard a whisper that made his heart tremble with terror.
Fate continued to turn beyond his control, reversing from the fate where he had not suffered injury to the segment where he was on the verge of death.
How was this possible?! Cardiff was left with only a lonely head, a pair of eyes filled with terror staring in shock at the young man opposite him.
From the very beginning just now, this mysterious young man had displayed several Beyonder abilities that had no connection with each other.
There were abilities from the Judgment pathway, the darkness devouring from the Night pathway, the foul words from the Secret Supplicant pathway, and now he had revealed control over the Fate pathway.
Cardiff had seen shepherds from the Secret Supplicant pathway before. Although they could also use Beyonder abilities from multiple pathways, none were this terrifying.
Could he really be an incarnation of the god descending into the world? Was he the true blasphemer instead?
Cardiff gave a self-mocking smile. He had always waited for the gods to give him revelation, yet the gods had never even cast a single glance at him.
How could they descend into the world specifically for him?
With only a head remaining, Cardiff discarded his other thoughts. Calmly staring at the young man before him, he slowly said, "The entanglement of fate will not end because of this."
His final words vanished together with blazing flames.
Dead? So easily?
Hastur felt it was a little strange. He had carefully controlled the strength of his attacks, trying not to kill Cardiff directly, since he still wanted to learn about the King in Yellow through him.
Yet now, a Sequence 3 had died so easily in his hands, especially one involved with the Fate pathway.
Unless Cardiff himself no longer wished to live, he would never die so easily.
Was he someone who would commit suicide? Obviously not… hmm, someone is trying to change my fate.
Hastur slightly closed his eyes and found the abnormal strand of fate within the chaotic and disordered flow of destiny.
Cardiff had not died. He was silently hiding within Hastur's own fate!
If Hastur had not possessed strong perception regarding fate, it would have been impossible to discover that Cardiff had actually merged into a segment of his destiny.
He seemed to be assimilating his fate? No, he was stealing it.
Heh, a thief of fate.
"This is you seeking your own death." Hastur silently replaced the strand of fate Cardiff was stealing with the night before his own transmigration, when the original owner had held the resurrection ritual.
Hastur had no impression of that night, so he wanted to use Cardiff's ability of stealing fate to see it.
He himself did not want to take that risk. His spiritual intuition warned him that it was very dangerous.
Better to let Cardiff act as the mine-sweeper. With Hastur allowing it, Cardiff quickly stole that strand of fate.
But soon Cardiff let out a terrified scream, desperately trying to escape from that segment of fate.
But once fate becomes entangled, how could one come and go as they please?
Very quickly, amid extreme terror and despair, Cardiff completely perished.
He died on that strand of Hastur's fate.
From Cardiff's final death appearance, Hastur could sense the aura of the True Creator.
That night, the original owner had indeed sought the protection of the True Creator, and he had truly succeeded.
Within the entangled fate, there was also a trace of aura that did not belong to the True Creator.
A confrontation across distance between the True Creator and the King in Yellow?
Unfortunately, in the end, it was Hastur, protected by the Hall of Stars, who picked up the benefit.
Hastur roughly reconstructed what had happened that night in his mind.
Only after the fate there returned to calm and continued flowing forward did Hastur open his eyes.
Now Cardiff, who had always advocated turning him into the vessel for the King in Yellow's descent, was already dead.
Within the Yellow Robed Monks organization, only Madam Lisa remained, the self-proclaimed follower and devout believer.
Once she was dealt with, the Yellow Robed Monks organization would no longer be able to threaten him.
One of the mountains that had once pressed down on his head had finally been removed.
When Hastur's gaze swept across Madam Lisa, who had remained neutral and watching the battle, she lowered her head, bent her waist, and offered her loyalty.
"Your loyalty is worthless." Hastur sneered at such loyalty. Only bowing her head after the situation had become clear, such allegiance was not sincere at all.
People like Caius, who had chosen to place their bet early, were instead easier for him to trust. That was the reward for investors with good vision.
Madam Lisa lowered her head even further, her body trembling slightly as she said, "I should not have doubted your identity, nor should I have hesitated. But I swear upon the rest of my life that I will forever follow in your footsteps until the end of my life."
"Oaths are truly a good thing. In order to gain trust, they are often spoken too cheaply, turning words that should be sacred into something filthy."
Madam Lisa suddenly knelt on the ground, bowing deeply as she said with a sorrowful, choking voice, "The believer is guilty and is willing to accept any judgment or punishment. I only hope you will allow me to continue following by your side."
"Piety is the best way to please a god." Hastur left after saying his final sentence.
"Piety…" Madam Lisa slowly raised her tear-streaked face and looked toward the black star in the night sky.
Only now did she truly understand that sentence: "The twin suns sink into the lake, and the long shadow falls…"