pertwk Chapter 4223 The Final Test
Chapter 4223 The Final Test
Chapter 4223 The Final Test
Echo Library, ground floor, border area.
"It does not matter."
The rabbit girl murmured those words softly.
This was Angor's answer when she asked him, "Is the death of the Lord of No Flame related to you?"
He brushed it off with a casual "It's not important," and then moved on to the next topic.
In the team chat channel, no one else paid any attention, and the topic seemed to have been moved on.
But the rabbit girl was different; she actually cared a lot about the answer to this question.
After all, the Lord of No Flame is the only demon god to fall in recent decades. Although according to various signs, He has not truly and completely perished, and there are likely still embers in His true name, true spirit, and true body, the essence of His fall will not change. Even if He can "revive," He will almost certainly not be able to return to His former status in the short term.
This was a major event that the original entity had also paid attention to.
She certainly wouldn't overlook it.
——It doesn’t matter.
Ingres's answer was subtle.
If someone else had answered like that, she thought it might have been intentional, or they might have wanted to mislead people into thinking they were related.
But the rabbit girl knew Angell; he wasn't the kind of person who put on airs with ambiguous words.
He is usually quite frank.
She also believed that Angell's answer was honest. He didn't say "irrelevant," which, given his character, meant "relevant."
His "It's not important" is actually avoiding the direct answer of "whether it's related or not," and in a sense, it puts the "relatedness" out in the open.
"So, the fall of the Lord of No Flame is really related to him?" The rabbit girl lowered her eyes, her mind filled with countless thoughts.
How did Angell manage to do that?
How much of a role did Angor play in the fall of the Flameless Lord? 1%? Or 2%?
As for more than 50%, the rabbit girl dared not even think about it, because the gap between Angel's strength and that of the Lord of No Flame was too great... Even the difference between his true form and that of the Lord of No Flame was like an insurmountable chasm.
The more I think about it, the more confused I get.
Forget it, she's just a childhood fragment of someone who likes rabbit plushies... These adult matters are for adults to worry about...
The rabbit girl sprawled out on the chair in front of the large bookshelf, looking like a lazy bum, her mind completely blank.
Time passes slowly.
After some time, the rabbit girl saw the team chat channel start flooded with messages again.
Upon opening it, I was taken aback.
Gray Porcelain: Hahahaha!!
"Gray Porcelain: Hoho la la la!!"
Gabriel: ?? Are you crazy?
"Gray Porcelain: You don't understand, we just went to the border area! Do you understand?"
Gabriel: What do you mean, "Do you understand?" What are you even talking about?
Gray Porcelain hummed twice more, keeping everyone in suspense, before finally replying, "We've just arrived at the border region. This border region is actually quite large, with dozens of giant glass towers; it's very expansive both horizontally and vertically."
"At first I thought we would have to go through the Book Spirit Trial at least two or three more times before we could completely lock down the rift."
"But who knew! We'd just entered the glass tower—and it was just one of the towers we randomly chose—and then we stumbled upon a crack in the main hall!"
"I reckon the fissure didn't even have a chance to escape before we bumped into it!"
"In short, all three rifts are now complete!"
If they want to complete the normal mode, they can simply close the rift at the same time, and that will be considered a success.
This is also where gray porcelain feels fortunate.
The cracks in the first two layers required at least four positioning cursors to lock them in; however, the situation in the third layer was more complex, with both horizontal and vertical axes, yet it only required three positioning cursors to lock the cracks in.
This was undoubtedly due to luck.
Gabriel: Should we close the fissures simultaneously now?
"Gray Porcelain: No, no!!"
"Gray Porcelain: We locked onto the rift too quickly; we're still missing one hidden piece of information. Mr. Angell went to find the Book Demon, so I'll lock onto the rift here."
When someone is near the rift, the rift will be locked and cannot be moved.
Therefore, the gray porcelain was left next to the crack to lock it in place; while Angell went alone to find the last book demon.
After the initial excitement wore off, Gray Porcelain left another message in the team chat.
"Gray Porcelain: If the last piece of information confirms the sealed entity's identity as the Abyss Demon God, could we... perhaps consider retreating?"
Gabriel was about to mock Gray Porcelain for being cowardly when he saw Gray Porcelain's words, but before he could speak, Angel spoke first.
"Angol: Whether to retreat or not, we'll decide after we close the rift and see if we get any additional intelligence."
"Rabbit Hole Commander: That's what I think too. Generally, once we complete the normal mode, we get information about the perfect completion mode. Then we'll see if we can find any deeper information."
In the rabbit girl's view, there must be some deeper information.
After all, sealing and killing are different.
The previous two stages, both Nereid and Golden City, were combat stages. Combat stages don't require much in-depth information; just fight.
But sealing is different. There are hundreds of ways to seal, and different methods of sealing are used depending on the item, type, and life form to be sealed.
For example: physical sealing, energy sealing, ritual anchoring, interlayer sealing...
Some seals even require specific external elemental environments or biological fields.
For example, she had previously heard a story from the Orderly Guild about a group of mysterious hunters who went to seal away a certain "Disorderly Mysterious Bird Doll" that caused the apocalyptic disaster.
That strange, mysterious bird doll can turn anyone who hears its cry into the doll. Furthermore, everyone else will lose all memories associated with that "person."
This kind of "listening" is not about simply closing your ears; it's a conceptual understanding of listening.
For example, it believes that its bird call can be heard within ten meters, and that even a deaf person within ten meters can hear its call.
This mysterious bird doll initially only allowed people a few meters, tens of meters, or hundreds of meters away to hear its call. In addition, it could not move on its own, so as long as people stayed away from it, they could avoid being turned into dolls. Therefore, it was not initially considered to be a disordered object.
Until one day, the range of its cry began to expand, first to tens of miles, then to a country, and later to an entire continent.
The final cry was a spatial dimension, one percent of the spacetime surrounding that world, was transformed into dolls.
It includes several civilized worlds.
At this point, the Orderly Guild realized something was wrong and sent a large number of mysterious hunters to contain and seal it.
It is said that several legendary hunters perished in this containment incident. Finally, a top hunter took advantage of the moment when it cried out and entered the primordial world, which had been completely turned into a kingdom of dolls, to seal it away.
The rabbit girl was unaware of the sealing process.
But it is said that in the end, they only used a very ordinary gashapon capsule shell to contain the mysterious bird doll.
The Secret Treasure Gashapon originates from a mysterious object that can continuously produce special gashapon. Opening the gashapon will yield some surprises or frights.
Because there is no risk of disorder, these treasure capsule toys are even sold by the Orderly Guild... Every year, the Orderly Guild makes a fortune just from selling capsule toys.
Once the gashapon is opened, the shell is essentially useless; it's usually given to alchemists to be melted down and used as a kind of treasure-level material.
But it is this useless thing from the gashapon capsules that is widely circulated in the source world: the eggshell.
That's how the mysterious bird doll was sealed away.
Sealing and containment can be quite peculiar; a very powerful being can be sealed using a simple method. But the prerequisite is that you know what that method is.
Similarly, they need to go to the Perfect Challenge mode to seal the "god".
We can't just tell them nothing and let them go to seal it, can we?
Therefore, the rabbit girl thought that after they completed the normal mode, the Wonderland would provide a hint on how to seal it.
If this sealing method is relatively simple.
For example, something like an "eggshell"—even if it really is an abyss demon, as long as it can be sealed in a targeted way, it's worth a try.
Everything depends on the deeper intelligence that follows.
……
While everyone was silently waiting for the opportunity to clear the normal mode, Angell arrived in front of a glass tower.
"Grey Porcelain just said he felt danger here..." Angel muttered to himself, "There's either a trap here, or a book demon or a book spirit."
"Go in and have a look."
Angell walked into the glass tower, muttering to himself.
He seemed to be muttering to himself, but in reality... he was putting on a show for the observers.
Indeed, when they struck it rich and locked the last rift, the observers seemed to sense something and returned to the outside of the glowing bubble where they were.
To avoid a situation like Maggie's low score, Angell naturally had to put on an act.
And indeed, the last Book Demon did exist inside this tower, so Angel simply used the danger sense of the gray porcelain as a reason.
In fact, gray porcelain does not have this danger detection function.
But it doesn't matter, since the observer just left and doesn't know what happened inside, we can just make up a story.
Angell stepped into the glass tower and then pretended to search, climbing up floor by floor.
It must be said that the inside and outside of the glass tower are completely different. The light blue glass blocks out the darkness of the void, but softens the light from the lamps, which then spills into the space of each floor.
The walkways inside the tower are made of stacked thick books, spines facing up. When you step on them, you can feel the elasticity of the pages. Occasionally, a page will gently spring open, revealing paper filled with writing inside. The writing on the paper will glow briefly before slowly fading away.
Suspended bookshelves line both sides of the walkway, piled high with all sorts of books: pulp-paper bound volumes, bound periodicals, bone books, leaf books, and occasionally, shell books soaking in water tanks...
In addition, you can see floating chairs and tables, some of which have hot tea and snacks on them.
Angel picked up a cup of hot tea with a faint milky aroma, stood in front of the dark blue glass, and looked out... Outside was the Flying Book Path in the void, and a large number of floating book lamps, dark, desolate, dreamlike, and... a sense of the apocalypse.
Inside the glass tower, there is warmth, soft yellow lighting, cozy milk tea, and thick carpets and sofas.
The stark contrast between his inner and outer self gave Angell an ultimate sense of security and satisfaction.
Even reading here offers a sense of tranquility and profound enjoyment.
Is this the feeling that the people who built this place originally wanted?
As he ascended floor by floor, occasionally munching on snacks and sipping hot tea, Angell seemed more like a leisurely reader than a challenger.
When he reached the twenty-ninth floor, he stopped.
His gaze fell on the dark blue glass.
Through the reflection in the glass, he could already see a dark cloud of fog on the thirtieth floor.
He feigned surprise: "What luck! It's a book demon!"
Then, he muttered to himself, "Since the book demon is on the thirtieth floor, its birth space should be nearby. I'll look for it... I hope it's not too difficult to solve."
Angell didn't care whether the observers were looking at him or not; he was just giving a casual performance.
The layout of this floor is not much different from the other floors. The only difference is that there are five oil paintings hanging here, each with a different subject.
But some parts of them are missing.
Or rather, some parts of them were missing.
For example, in the very center is a painting of a starry sky, but one area of the starry sky is blank, as if the painter hadn't had time to paint it before stopping.
The same applies to the other paintings.
Ingres walked up to the paintings and murmured to himself, "Something feels off about these paintings. Could the hidden space be here?"
The above statement was naturally meant to appease the observer.
In fact, Angell knew very well that the hidden space was indeed there.
However, Angel was still somewhat confused about how to unlock this hidden space.
Are you looking for a missing puzzle piece?
Or... he'll become the painter and fill in the missing parts?
Angell pondered for a moment, then decided to first examine the surrounding books and arrangement from a god-like perspective. Based on his past experience, whether searching for a puzzle piece or drawing, there was a high probability of clues nearby.
A moment later, Ingres found the paint and brushes in a corner of this floor.
Then, from the bookshelf in the middle of each floor from the 25th to the 29th, I took down a copy of "Harbor Art Appreciation".
This is a journal, with five issues placed on different shelves.
Each issue features one artwork recommended by the editor.
The five recommended paintings in the five phases correspond exactly to the five missing paintings on the twenty-ninth floor.
However, the painting in the journal was complete, while the one in front of him was incomplete. Considering the paint found on the 29th floor... Angell probably knew that he was asked to complete the painting.
However, it's different from regular touch-ups.
The missing parts of the five paintings are actually mostly solid colors.
In other words, redrawing doesn't require drawing skills, because you don't need to draw.
What is needed is...
You need to adjust the color to the corresponding position.
The puzzle of this hidden space doesn't test your drawing skills, but rather your sensitivity to color.
If it were truly a test of painting skills, Ingres might have been somewhat at a loss. Although he could paint, his style was fixed and might not be suitable for contemporary works.
But if it's just color correction, he's confident he can pass.
After all, as an alchemist, he needed extremely high artistic skills, and he was quite proficient in basic things like color mixing.