Silas was immersed in mad hallucinations.
He saw a world dim and chaotic, filled with countless terrifying, massive figures.
They were insane yet cold, evil and cruel, constantly fighting, recklessly unleashing their might.
Diminutive humans were like ants, cowering at their feet, struggling to survive.
That was the ancient age of ignorance, before the torch had illuminated it.
That was a mad age when humans were like insects, barely clinging to existence.
Within the chaos, a golden point of light quietly appeared, then gradually expanded until it became a humanoid outline.
This figure had no clear features but was hazy and illusory, as if formed from pure golden light.
The golden figure walked through the chaos, hearing helpless wails from every corner of the world, witnessing the various sufferings people endured.
The figure showed a compassionate, sacred smile and spoke:
"Let there be light: and there was light.".
With him as the center, golden radiance like sharp swords pierced through darkness and carved open the chaos!
The monsters hidden in the gloom revealed themselves: one-eyed giants as massive as mountains, eight-legged black demon wolves, illusory dragons soaring through the sky.
All were shattered by the light and vanished without trace.
The earth became bright and clean, and people could rest and recuperate.
The golden figure gazed peacefully at all this, then turned and stepped onto a stairway reaching toward heaven.
Devout hymns rang out across the earth:
"Praise You, great Lord,
Our Savior, who shall rise,
All believers in You shall find salvation…"
Numerous glorious angels surrounded the golden figure, accompanying Him as He ascended to the highest reaches of the sky. Suddenly...
The world inverted.
Light became darkness, the sacred hymn twisted into blasphemous ravings, the heavenly stairway transformed into a scaffold descending into the abyss.
The golden figure was stained with filthy blackness, passively gaining a corporeal body, hanging upside down on an inverted cross, blood dripping.
He opened crimson eyes containing only endless madness...
"Cough, cough!"
Silas jolted awake.
Opening his eyes, he found himself sitting on the sofa in his residence.
On the table before him lay the scripture he'd barely started writing.
Right, I was working on this damned thing just now...
Silas felt his head splitting with pain, the aftershock of the hallucination still lingering in his mind, stimulating his psyche.
It's been a while since I fell into sudden madness... I wonder what triggered it this time... Wait, that scene I just saw was so strange.
Was it because I was fabricating the creation part of the scripture before going mad?
And that scene... could the True Creator really be the original Creator after falling?
No, not necessarily. It could also be that bastard deliberately interfering with my perception...
Chaotic thoughts churned into a mess in his mind. He couldn't help but clutch his head and say:
"Cecilia, what time is it..."
Before finishing his words, Silas suddenly froze.
Time seemed to stop in that second. He maintained his previous posture, frozen motionless.
Only his slightly dilating pupils proved he was alive.
The headache no longer mattered.
He suddenly felt very tired, as if a hole had opened at the bottom of his heart, draining all his strength and emotions, leaving only an empty shell.
"Tap."
The small black cat came around from behind and nimbly jumped onto the table.
It gazed quietly at Silas with its deep blue eyes.
"Brother, live on."
In a daze, Silas seemed to hear once again Cecilia's voice before she died.
Back then, her beautiful eyes had reflected the flickering firelight on the shattered street as she spoke words that were both blessing and curse.
Silas moved.
He grabbed the pen from the table, tip downward, and thrust it straight through his thigh!
"Pffft!"
Blood spurted, splashing onto the table and his body. Intense pain traveled up his spine, rushing straight into his brain.
His face contorted, but at the same time, the dazed, melancholic expression from moments ago vanished, replaced by ferocious rage.
Flames of hatred spread and burned, scorching his heart, filling this shell anew.
His sister's revenge hadn't been satisfied yet. Where was the time for him to wallow in sorrow?
"Meow."
The small black cat nimbly jumped backward, avoiding Silas's splashing blood.
It was already accustomed to his sudden fits of madness and showed little reaction.
The pain brought Silas fully awake. He pulled the pen from his thigh.
"Shhh..."
The terrible wound began healing the moment the pen was withdrawn, the splattered blood automatically gathering and merging into his blood-red robe.
However, while his wound could heal, the pen was just an ordinary object. After such rough use, it was completely ruined.
Need to buy a new one...
Silas muttered, looking at the small black cat on the floor.
"Are you hungry?"
He asked.
"Meow."
The small black cat opened its blue eyes and meowed solemnly.
"Wait a moment."
Silas tossed aside the barely-started scripture, rose from the sofa, and entered the kitchen.
On the cutting board lay raw meat he'd brought back from the gang's provisions.
He picked up the kitchen knife and cut off a piece, doing some basic preparation.
The flat side of the knife was bright as a mirror, reflecting M's phantom.
"Are you alright?"
She asked.
"Just fine."
Silas replied indifferently, talking to the knife.
He cooked the cut meat for a while until it was fully done, then let it cool before transferring it to a plate and placing it on the floor.
"Meow."
The small black cat called out once, walked over, sniffed cautiously at the meat, then began eating in small bites.
Silas petted its head, but it paid him no mind.
Fine, at least it's not food-aggressive and biting me.
Silas watched the little cat eat for a while, then simply sat down on the floor, deep in thought.
He was still thinking about the hallucination he'd just seen.
Setting aside speculations like the True Creator deliberately interfering with him, he had some strange sense of déjà vu.
The words spoken by that golden figure and his image felt like they matched up with certain things from his past life.
Some of His prayers, the believers' words and actions, also seemed similar to his past life.
What's going on? Another transmigrator fellow?
There are way too many transmigrators in this world!
Silas frowned, pondering.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the small black cat had already licked the plate clean and then jumped back onto the table before the sofa.
It seemed very curious about the things on top, batting at the white paper and broken pen, as well as a small black sphere... the Beyonder characteristic extracted from the Seer Gabriel.
Silas had taken it out when grabbing the pen and placed it on the table.
The little black cat played around generally, quickly taking great interest in that floating little sphere.
It first touched it with its paw, then sniffed it lightly with its nose, and then...
"Don't touch it!"
Silas suddenly felt something was wrong, but before he could move to stop it, he saw the small black cat open its mouth and swallow that Beyonder characteristic into its belly!
"Boom!"
He used Flaming Jump and appeared before the kitten.
"Spit it out!"
Silas tried to reach into the cat's throat, but the small black cat just looked at him, its face showing a "what are you making a fuss about" expression of disdain.