Bear School Astartes

Chapter 395: 395. Master William

”What do we do now? Should we kill him?”

Yuri, with both arms broken, was pinned to the ground by Henrik’s knee on his neck as the Old Hunter looked up to Lann for an answer.

The magic tools on him—two slug-like soft creatures—were found and packed by the Old Hunter, along with the mercury bullets and blood vials on him.

Seeing this, the Demon Hunter crouched down as well, reaching out to turn the face of the struggling choir member toward him.

He carefully checked for any signs of beast transformation.

But the result was the same: from appearance, the person seemed perfectly normal.

”Can you talk to me, Yuri?”

Lann asked softly. But the other had no intention of responding, struggling even more fiercely, to the point where the snapped bones in his wrist pierced his skin and stuck out, yet he still refused to stop.

Lann sighed, looking at the madness in his eyes.

With a ”crack,” Lann twisted his face to the complete opposite direction.

Henrik, unfazed, stood up, supporting himself on the body.

”He kept muttering something about ’glory of the cosmos’, have you heard of this?”

Lann stood up too, asking Henrik casually.

He hadn’t expected the Old Hunter to answer him, given the environment resembled the 18th or 19th century, where ’cosmos’ had no reasonable explanation, mostly tied to religion and myths.

But the Old Hunter, having lived his whole life in Yan’an, surprised Lann.

”The cosmos, yes, something the choir always chant about. They believe that beyond the sky we live under, there’s something they call the ’cosmos’. That gesture with hands raised just now was the spell-casting preparation for the [Distant Call].”

”It was an attempt by the choir to communicate with the astral realm of the faraway, but they failed. During the failed communication, stars exploded, and they turned a communication spell into an attack spell, a case of ’failure being the mother of success’.”

Listening to this, the corners of Lann’s mouth twitched slightly.

Nineteenth-century astral communications, huh?!

Does this mean the Ancient Gods not only appear in the dungeon labyrinth but also in the cosmos?!

Lann of course knew what the ’cosmos’ was, but after learning about this world’s situation, he didn’t want to connect his learned ’cosmic view’ with this world’s views.

Who knows, maybe this world’s cosmos is an endless dark sea inhabited by various Ancient Gods?

Should it be said... Thanks to the choir’s failed development of [Distant Call]?

”Yan’an really is a place riddled with disasters.”

Lann commented expressionlessly.

Though Henrik didn’t understand why the young man said that, he concurred deeply: ”Who can say it’s not?”

The entire building wasn’t large, and it took the two of them only five minutes to search it from top to bottom.

Finally, they found a key on a desk filled with books and instruments, then made their way to the last unopened door.

”Open it. If Master William is still alive, this would be the only place.”

The Old Hunter spoke, a bit disappointed, as he had little hope that Master William survived.

Lann opened the door.

And what they thought was the deceased Master William appeared right in front of them.

Behind the door was a terrace extending out to the surface of a lake, with no railings.

On the edge of the terrace lay an elderly man dressed in elaborate finery, reclining on a rocking chair, holding a scepter in hand.

He looked frail and stiff, with pale, aged skin on his neck even sprouting strange fungi.

Henrik paused in surprise, then cautiously approached the rocking chair and bowed.

”Master William?! You’re still alive?!”

Henrik’s surprise was evident.

Given the dire circumstances of the night, finding an elderly man who couldn’t even rise from his chair alive was astonishing.

Though Henrik could easily approach and greet him, Lann found it quite difficult.

When he neared the old man, the strange sensibility in his mind seemed to receive the greatest stimulus since his birth!

The stimulation even caused a violent distortion in his vision.

The Demon Hunter instinctively rubbed his eyes hard, illusions overlapping with the reality before him.

In his vision, not only had Master William’s neck sprouted fungi, but even beneath his rocking chair, a large spreading fungal mass emerged!

And on that fungal mass, some ghost-like deformed little figures were swaying. A few brave ones even made eye contact with him.

It wasn’t until Henrik pulled on his arm that he snapped back to reality with a shake of his head.

He opened his eyes wider, looking at the elderly man perpetually swaying silently on the rocking chair.

”Oh, your [Arcane Vision] is developing quickly, outsider.”

Suddenly, the silent old man spoke.

The voice was exactly the same as the one Lann had once heard in the hallucination of Lawrence’s skull.

The old man wore a metallic visor, completely blocking any light, yet Lann felt he was watching him. Very deeply.

”Why?” Lann removed his hand pressing on his forehead, withdrawing his arm from Henrik’s grip. In just that moment, he was actually sweating!

The Old Hunter seemed completely oblivious to Master William’s words, nor could he see his lips moving. He merely watched the young man speak to the elder man with curiosity.

”Why is it that just seeing your servants, and you, makes me...”

”This is the proof of the success of the [Arcane Vision] theory, outsider.”

Sparing Lann from finishing his sentence, Master William began to explain of his own accord.

”When human [Vision] is enhanced, naturally it steps onto the threshold of the divine. Your [Arcane Vision], upon seeing me, has already been stimulated. Indeed, just seeing is enough.”

The old man’s voice was gentle and soothing, like a grandfather lulling a child to sleep.

”Lawrence believed if evolution of blood has not commenced, blindly pursuing enhancement of vision is as impractical as ’skipping the first floor to reach the second’ in construction. But, young man, Ancient Gods are counter-intuitive beings. To become a life similar to an Ancient God, one must also use counter-intuitive means. Exactly...”

”We must directly achieve the ’second level’, which is the enhancement of vision. Otherwise, ruthless self-evolution of blood would only be humanity’s downfall.”

Even on the day of his betrayal by Lawrence, Master William’s tone never changed.

This emotionless calm even made Lann doubt—

Should he be called... Him?

”I came... to hear that Byron Vis was the first to initiate Ancient God research, I hope to dispel my confusion here.”

Lann had not forgotten his goal.

”Ah, yes, yes... the knowledge of the Ancient Gods...”

The rocking chair swayed gently, Master William’s words drifted like light murmurs of a dream.

”If you want to break the time cycle, then you just need to enter the lake from there and slay the god within, outsider.”

The Demon Hunter’s cat-like eyes abruptly widened!