With a "clang" sound, the silver fork in Dante Wayne's hand fell onto the plate.
The sound of a fork falling was a bit sharp in the slightly empty restaurant. The maid who was waiting nearby was startled and quickly stepped forward to ask about the situation: "Mr. Dent?"
Dante did not respond to the maid's inquiry. The city-state governor still sat there blankly, as if his soul had temporarily left the body. After a while, he suddenly blinked. As if his consciousness suddenly returned to the surface from the edge of drowning, the sounds from the real world boomed in his ears - he took a sharp breath and heard the maid's voice coming again: "Mr. Dent, are you okay?"
Dante Wayne stared blankly at the fork that fell on the plate, and slowly reached out to pick it up. He found that his hands were shaking extremely badly, and countless intertwined and confusing memories were shuttled and superimposed in his mind. He felt that There was a burning pain near the eye socket, and the ruby prosthetic eye became as hot as if it was burning.
He suddenly turned his head and broke the silence with a deep voice before the maid spoke for the third time: "Did Vanna have someone send you any news?"
The maid was stunned for a moment and looked at the respected consul in front of her with some doubts: "...Who is Vanna?"
The next second, the maid was startled by Mr. Consul's suddenly livid face and gloomy aura.
Dante Wayne's expression suddenly changed, as if the air pressure around him had dropped. He was silent for several seconds with a livid face, but in the end he tried to maintain a calm attitude and waved to the maid, speaking as calmly as possible. : "You go out first, don't come in yet."
The maid left confused and slightly nervous, and the restaurant became completely quiet. Dante Wayne sat quietly at the end of the dining table, and he was the only one at the huge table.
It seemed that he had been like this for the past eleven years, sitting alone at the dining table, living alone in this empty mansion.
Layers of complicated and confusing memories were shuttled and superimposed in his mind, and "reality" from different dimensions seemed to be overwriting his memory, but Dante just sat there quietly, letting his memory be constantly overwritten, as if he was talking in his sleep. Repeating softly: "Fanna is still alive...Fanna is still alive..."
He suddenly looked up.
At the other end of the dining table, a figure appeared at some point.
It was himself—or at least it seemed like another self.
It was a grayish-white entity, wearing the same clothes as Dante Wayne, with the same appearance and hairstyle. Even every wrinkle on the back of his hand was the same, but the figure's facial features were slightly blurred. There are only two hollow and sunken holes in his eyes, and there is endless emptiness and weirdness inside.
Dante quietly stared at the gray "self" across the dining table, and the other person also raised his head and stared at him quietly. After a long time, the gray figure suddenly opened his mouth, revealing a silent smile, and his sunken and hollow eyes The turbulent flow of light and shadow reflected in his eye sockets.
The thing spoke, and the skin on its face squirmed and cracked and closed again: "Ah, there is finally a hole in your heart, Mr. 'Myself'."
Dante Wayne stopped murmuring repeatedly and stared at the figure sitting opposite, his own "reflection": "What did you do?"
"Frankly speaking, I don't know either. It just happened. The surprise came too quickly. A loophole took the initiative to eliminate me." The thing across the table shook his head, "But don't you want to see all this? You don't have to bear it anymore. Under the pressure brought by the truth, there is no need to worry about responsibilities and the future... Everything is returning to normal, and eternal relief and peace are waiting for everyone, just like the promise you received many years ago - everyone's All wishes will be fulfilled..."
As the thing spoke, it slowly stood up from across the table, with a twisted and broken smile on its face: "I know your heart very well, just like I know myself..."
Dante Wayne also stood up slowly. There was no weapon in the restaurant, but he always carried a dagger with him. Now he gripped the only weapon tightly and stared at the gray figure: "It's just a void, a shadow of nothingness... Are you worthy of understanding people's hearts?"
"I am your soul reflected in the subspace..." The gray figure opened his hands, as if he didn't care about Dante's hostility and provocation, "The subspace understands everything, including the shallow and ridiculous human heart... Come on Come on, kill me, and then see me again, it seems like we haven’t done this tour for a long time..."
The gray shadow's words stopped abruptly.
Dante Wayne looked across the dining table in astonishment. He saw a bunch of green flames spread here from nowhere, and pounced on the phantom like a predator that smelled its prey. He tried to avoid it, but the flames burned directly on his body as if ignoring the laws of space.
A shrill howl and a weird whistling sound came at the same time, and the sharp sound waves instantly shattered all the glass in the restaurant. However, the sound was imprisoned in this space and could not be transmitted outside - so layers upon layers of The sound continued to echo in the restaurant, becoming more and more weird and terrifying.
Dante Wayne watched blankly as his subspace projection gradually twisted into a pool of weird and crawling "grease" in the flames, and the roaring and whistling sounds were still coming from the grease, and he could only barely distinguish it. Apart from some vicious curses, there was only one word that had any meaning: "Homeless!"
This word was almost shouted by the "grease" at the top of his lungs.
Then, the grease was burned away, leaving only pale ashes in the flames. Dante Wayne stared at all this blankly, and the next second, a searing pain suddenly filled his body.
The incineration of the warp projection now acts in reverse on the main body.
The dagger fell to the ground, and the Archon's relatively strong body fell to the ground immediately. Dante curled up in pain, feeling as if he was also being burned by flames. This belated flames were tearing and destroying his soul. and mind, but in the hallucination of the rising flames, he saw that the spreading green flames were just slowly patrolling around him, but had no real intention of "preying".
Those spiritual fires made a final circle, swayed twice in front of the Archon, and quickly spread to other places.
Dante even felt that the flame "poofed", as if he was expressing his disdain for food that did not suit his taste.
He felt that he might have been unconscious from the pain of burning his body.
The next second, all the pain left as suddenly as it came. Dante felt as if his mind was suddenly relaxed as if a spring stretched to its limit was suddenly relaxed. This sudden relaxation became the final blow that destroyed his consciousness. A strong feeling of dizziness hit him, his vision went dark, and the perception of the entire world began to fade away quickly.
Before he completely lost consciousness, he heard the sound of the door opening, the maid's exclamation, and the chaotic footsteps of others after being disturbed.
…
Vanna calmly looked around the empty archives, trying to find traces of the middle-aged priest.
In the first two minutes, she didn't move, didn't try to leave, and didn't touch anything in sight.
This is to prevent you from accidentally touching the source of pollution after being trapped in some illusion, causing your own sanity to be invaded.
It wasn't until she confirmed that the objects in her sight were normal entities and protected her mind that she came to the back of the administrator's curved desk and reached out decisively to press a button under the desk.
That was the electric bell that sounded the alarm.
The bell rang, echoing in the empty archives.
Vanna lowered her head again and looked at the lantern in her hand.
The middle-aged priest disappeared, but the lantern he lent to him was still in his hand. The lantern was emitting a soft and warm light. Although the archives was not dark, the sacred flame when the grease burned still seemed Something was dispersed, forming a hazy halo within a few meters of the surrounding area.
Fanna walked around the administrator's rest area again, but still couldn't find any trace of the priest.
The alarm ringing continued, sharp, ear-piercing, and heart-stopping.
Fanna returned to the curved table, her eyes falling on the pile of scattered parts and the marks written in blood.
The ringing echoed hollowly, no one entered here.
The young judge suddenly understood——
It was not the middle-aged priest who disappeared.
It's herself.
The moment this idea emerged from the bottom of her heart, Fanna felt that the "atmosphere" around her had changed. It was as if a curtain was suddenly lifted, and another dimension that overlapped under reality revealed her true appearance. She suddenly With my eyes wide open, I saw boundless flames burning everywhere in the archives!
And in the blazing sea of fire, a figure holding a black umbrella stood not far from him at some point.
The figure was tall and thin, exuding a strange aura. He raised an arm towards Vanna in the flames, and a low and hoarse voice came from his body: "You..."
Fanna only listened to one syllable, and in the next second she had already taken out the big sword from her back, which an ordinary person could barely hold with both hands. Then she held a lantern in one hand and raised the big sword in the other, and jumped from three meters away. hack.
"heresy!"
(End of chapter)
