Chapter 629 625 Who Is the Puppet?
Chapter 629 625. Who is the puppet?
"There is no vitality in your body, nor the silence of the dead. Even the life of a magical body has the flow and dissipation of magic. I can't see any description that fits you, but you claim to be the same as me?" Coal Ball said in surprise, "You look very much like a puppet, but, so..."
Coal Ball's three brains entered overload mode together, and Sera could no longer find a suitable word to describe Nihil.
Nihil's structure and behavior are like a puppet, but it has spirituality and intellect that are not in line with puppets. But if it is not a puppet, what is it?
"To be honest, I don't know what I should be called."
Nihil looked at his arms, stared at his toes seriously, and then turned his body lightly. In the silent church, Nihil danced on the glass. Coal Ball was the only spectator, and those supremes who pressed the freeze button were silent curtains.
The perfect coordination of her body made her perform many incredible movements in succession. She was so agile and lively that when Nihil moved, ordinary people would never realize that she was a strange life almost like a puppet without the influence of preconceived notions.
Without music or rhythm, this free-spirited dance ended with a standard thank-you gesture, and then Nihil kept the movement for a long time, motionless.
In silence, she raised her head and looked at the coal ball with a slightly puzzled and pleading look.
"I heard that excellent performances should be applauded."
The coal ball immediately waved its tentacles to make dull applause, but from the heart, Sera and Lulu even felt that Nihil was better than many court dancers in Mela.
Nihil smiled again: "They in the puppet theater always get applause from the audience. I learned all this through their eyes."
"Eyes... wait, I thought that was the effect of the embedded magic circle, could it be?" Sera asked hurriedly.
"Serkalo does have such a magic circle, but it is far from being so convenient. Those people are still working hard."
"In other words, the sense of being watched that we felt at the beginning of Gegran came from you?"
"Not just Gegran, along the way, the puppets that passed through the Supreme Hand were observing you for me. The word "watch" may not be accurate. I can't see the exact picture with my eyes. I can only judge what you are doing by the traces of magic fluctuations."
Even so, Coal Ball's scalp tingled. Assuming that the Supreme Puppet Master can make a large number of puppets, then Nihil's perception is not...
I want to say something, but I don't know where to start. From facing Nihil to now, Coal Ball's thoughts are very confused.
Nihil suddenly reached out and grabbed one of Coal Ball's tentacles, just like holding a friend's hand, gently pulled it, and motioned to follow him.
Going around the Supreme statue, passing through a pile of broken glass, pushing open the wooden door hidden behind them, and the two-person high arch built by green plants came into view.
Nihil waved gently to the flower beds on both sides, butterflies fluttered from the blooming flowers, and birds flapped their wings and flew to the branches, chirping crisply.
The gray marble castle hidden behind the temple was very different from the white castles guarding the temple. It had the same bas-relief and high-relief craftsmanship as the temple. The outer wall was not spotless and bright, but allowed vines to grow freely and wrap it. Except for the side facing the temple, the rest of the direction could only see the gray wall in the gaps of the vines.
The perspective effect was quite shocking. Under the backlight, the coal ball was hallucinated as countless vines dragging the castle into the abyss, and the reliefs floating on the surface of the castle were wailing human faces.
Walking in hand in hand with Nihil, everything inside the castle was very classical. This was a high EQ statement, because Lulu said it was not easy to find so many antique furniture.
Based on the decorative styles of desks and paintings, Sera's excellent historical knowledge allowed her to infer that this kind of furnishings were more popular in the area around the Mera continent about six hundred years ago, and its origin should be the time when the great age of navigation in the trade continent of Collai became more prosperous.
Coal Ball, who vaguely guessed that Nihil might be related to Vanessa, did not see any information about the teacher in the paintings in the hall. Instead, a young man who was dressed like a bard and still had a little immaturity on his face appeared in the paintings that could be seen everywhere.
Coal Ball and the other two were sure that this was not Sayer.
Unable to pull Coal Ball who was standing under the painting, Nihil turned around and looked up along the line of sight.
"Jisa Teng, the person who wrote down the data for me, created the map, and finally outlined the original me into reality."
Sera and Lulu widened their eyes, and Lulu immediately searched her powerful potion material library.
"Deformed sand vine, isn't this a kind of medicine and smelting plant that can grow in all kinds of harsh environments?"
Nihil smiled: "He abandoned his original name, just because a distinguished magician gave him a new name."
In the center of the library on the third floor of the castle, which houses a large amount of knowledge that has long been abandoned by the times, a huge elf portrait that came into view confirmed Coal Ball's guess.
Vanessa, no, in Selcarlo, she should be called a healer.
Before meeting Sayer, at the time when she was still traveling around the world, she came to Selcarlo and not only left the enlightenment of puppetry here, allowing countless people to embark on this path with longing, but also changed the name of a frail young man.
The distorted sand vine can adapt to various harsh environments. Whether it is a magic-rich or magic-poor area, whether it is dry or humid, as long as it takes root, it can survive tenaciously. This name is Vanessa's prayer for his fate.
In a separate room in the corner, on a desk surrounded by books, there is a booklet neatly placed, a pen and slightly rough paper. The ink dripping on the surface of the paper makes everything here seem to be maintained not long after the owner left.
"Nihil, do you think you are a puppet?"
Seeing the puppet map outlined in the booklet, Coal Ball's sight moved up little by little, and fixed on Nihil, who has been projected into reality and is no longer a line and storyboard.
"When I first realized that I could move and feel, I didn't have the concept of a puppet in my mind. In my eyes, I am no different from what you call a living being."
According to the words left by Ji Sha Teng after the atlas, it is not difficult to guess that his condition is very serious, and he has reached the point where he must make a simple wheelchair to move. Considering the name Vanessa once gave him, and the fact that she seemed unable to change the fact that he was seriously ill, perhaps Ji Sha Teng's disease is incurable, so even Vanessa can only pray for the illusory god of fate to favor him.
Ji Sha Teng designed many puppets, and his concepts and craftsmanship are all in the shadow of Vanessa. In addition to the basic settings of each puppet, Ji Sha Teng will also attach the background story he wrote for it.
On the last page, he wrote...
"I want to play with you, I want to play games with you."
The line of small words left by Ji Sha Teng was written heavily, penetrating the paper, and it was clearly visible when turning the page.
Loneliness traveled through time and space and came to Coal Ball. They seemed to see that more than 600 years ago, a young man at the desk endured the pain and loneliness and wrote these few words that could jump out of the paper to the creations he designed.
Sera turned the page and found that the sand vine did not give a name to the first creation he designed, but used a blank space to refer to it. Nisir was right. It had no name of its own since its birth.
"The kind you are talking about, do you mean the pioneers?"
Lu Yu suddenly understood the meaning of the initial conversation between the two.
"Pioneers... It's strange that I can vaguely understand what you mean." Nisir shook his head, "But, no."
"You and I are believed by countless people. Their longing, admiration, fear, and prayers are gathered here."
The fragmented sunset that sprinkled into the room from the gaps between countless vines fell on Nisir and Coal Ball, leaving two stretched shadows on the wall.
After a long silence, Lu Yu spoke: "Can you feel it?"
Nihil put his hand on his heart: "I am hollow, but I can accommodate the power that comes... To be honest, this doesn't make me feel like I'm alive, but more like a container full of water but with a crack."
"No matter how many times I try to heal..." Nihil covered his heart tightly, "it will break again, nothing can be retained, only their echoes are echoing... So, I can smell that you have the same smell as me."
"What is living... I can't accommodate any will, I am a void, and now I am imitating and learning from you like this?" Nihil shook his head, "I don't understand, I really don't understand."
Sera whispered in the chat room: "It's like a container realizes that it was originally just a carrier of some people's wishes and a tool to realize their wishes, and then began to think about whether it is a container or a living being."
"But why is Selcarlo's letter The worship will converge on you. The whole of Selkalo believes in the Supreme Puppet Master. "
Nihil raised his head and responded: "I am the Supreme Puppet Master."
"The Supreme Puppet Master chose me as the core of the Puppet City, iterated and evolved for me again and again, and infinitely piled up the craftsmanship to the limit of their knowledge, and then manipulated the Puppet City to satisfy every Supreme, but..."
"I'm 'alive'."
"They think they are manipulating me, but in fact, the Puppet City is controlled by me, and even the consciousness they deposited in my body is dominated by me."
Lu Yu understood something: "They don't know?"
"From the beginning to the end, I didn't know."
The fact that was too black humor made Lu Yu's mouth twitch. The puppet masters of Selkalo took great pains to arrange the puppet situation. The puppet city composed of the knowledge and experience of the strongest sixteen people, the ubiquitous magic circle, almost escaped the shackles of life, but was ultimately destroyed by mutual distrust.
The power and puppet-like immortality achieved through the huge puppet city requires a practical base point to dominate the overall situation, but the sixteen supreme puppet masters cannot believe that there are no greedy people among the other fifteen people. No one is willing to hand over this key node that can dominate everyone's consciousness and monopolize the results to others.
In the end, they chose a blank puppet without any consciousness and gave it all the authority and power.
Anyway, it is a puppet.
Anyway, it has no consciousness.
The one they chose was Nihil, who miraculously showed a weak self-consciousness when the magic tide came six hundred years ago.
Trapped in the body, Nihil stared at the world blankly. With limited perception, Nihil understood everything around him and was always learning. Then, at the crossroads of fate, he was selected by the sixteen supremes from the vast number of puppets of previous generations and sent to a place that could help him escape from the body.
As the core of the magic circle, it was not exposed. Through repeated technical innovations, it understood more and more, and gradually became able to speak and communicate in a human way. Knowledge made him powerful.
Finally, after a quarrel among the sixteen supremes, it tried to cut off their control over the puppet city for the first time.
As it thought, the supremes, no one realized that the moment they regained control, they continued to argue as before the closure.
That was ten years ago. It was also from that year that the puppet city was completely controlled by Nihil. The supremes realized their highest dream and became puppets.
At the same time, they became puppets in Nihil's hands.
It was from this year that the sentence pattern starting with "the supreme iron law" entered the vision of the secret meeting and has been gradually used to this day.
When asked why Nihil didn't use his own elements, Nihil was at a loss for a moment.
"I don't know what I have."
Just like the words written by the distorted sand vine that gave him bones and skin, Nihil's simple answer was full of loneliness and confusion.
At the same time, starting from ten years ago, the trial that emphasized mutual fighting was gradually standardized by Nihil. Almost all the escape and life-saving methods and rules that Coal Ball saw in the trial were rewritten by Nihil, or it was modified by the secret meeting. Before that, although the corresponding technology had been born, it was never promoted and used because the sixteen supreme puppet masters didn't care.
Although it was impossible to respond to the distorted sand vine, the game seemed to be the only real meaning of its empty existence.
Every session of the Flowing Light Trial, watching the trialists fight to the last moment according to the rules it set, always makes its empty body feel an inexplicable impulse.
Nihil couldn't describe it well, but he only knew that the feeling was very satisfying, just like a container with nothing was instantly filled with some kind of full object, making it want to have more.
"But I heard that you plan to extend the interval between trials to seven years?"
Nihil stared at the small book full of rule amendments, and the sense of satisfaction in his heart emerged again, and he nodded intoxicatedly.
"Why?"
"Although I don't know what I am, I can hear and see the sadness of my companions and families who died in battle." Nihil looked serious, "It's really strange. I was forced to sense emotions and imitate and learn things, but it really makes me uncomfortable."
"Even if the rules are perfect and the skills are improving, the inevitable death in the trial every five years is still too much. If we can reduce some of those cries, wouldn't it be nice?"
The three of Coal Ball were stunned. The huge sense of irony made them not know how to react.
The puppet masters who claim to be gods make fun of the trial participants at will, just like watching ant nests, and destroy them all when they are in a bad mood.
And the puppet who can only imitate and learn from the living and try to find himself is sad.