After the Lord of the Abyss Awakens - Chapter 29.1

In the consciousness space.

If thought was also a dimensional space, then there should be a structure inside, a progressive structure that rises step by step from bottom to top.

Now, Xiu Si had entered that structure, standing before the gate of that enormous structure.

It was very strange. At first glance, it appeared to be a huge hall, towering like a mountain, with layers of intricate overlapping, shimmering with golden light and adorned with mithril.

When you closed your eyes and looked again, it changed its appearance.

The “content” was emptied in an instant, all outward appearances vanished, leaving only a dark skeleton. They were made of lines, like an ant formation, like a maze, like a path leading to a great structure.

The scene suddenly changed again, becoming even more simplified, transforming into the most essential geometry and letters, finally leaving only ten spheres and about twenty-two line segments.

This scene suddenly appeared before Xiu Si, greatly impacting him. His whole body froze, and he couldn’t help but open his eyes wide to discern its specific appearance.

At this moment, it changed back to that immense, boundless radiant hall, with every wall glowing, like countless layers of brilliant starry skies overlapping.

It was magnificent and grand, almost the pinnacle of craftsmanship and aesthetics that humans could not reach.

Just looking at it for a few seconds was enough to elevate the soul, making every cell in the body tremble.

Xiu Si stared blankly at this scene, unable to tell if it was flat or three-dimensional, whether it was just a few steps away or unreachable, impossible to reach even if one ran for a lifetime.

What… exactly was it?

Xiu Si was curious inside. He struggled to raise his gaze, trying to lift the mountain of consciousness, wanting to see the top of it, to know its ultimate form.

The scene before him suddenly began to flicker, sometimes brilliantly prosperous, sometimes bleakly skeletal, bringing multiple shocks.

This made him even more curious. What kind of mystery was it exactly? What was up there?

Xiu Si struggled to raise his gaze 30° upward, approaching his limit. Cold sweat poured down his back as if he bore a heavy weight, his skeleton trembling.

But he didn’t give up. He fought against the pressure suppressing him, persisting stubbornly, determined to see that singular ultimate.

The scene then became turbid, as if countless lights were shining simultaneously. Sometimes it was as gorgeous and elegant as a church’s stained glass window, sometimes as ordinary as an old wooden window found anywhere.

Finally, something happened, and a blazing white light rushed into his eyes.

When Xiu Si opened his eyes again, he saw the scene of the real world.

Cold sweat dripped from his forehead. He shuddered involuntarily, many doubts arising in his mind. What had just happened to him? Had he suddenly dreamed? Seen a hallucination?

“…”

Xiu Si was bewildered. Then he discovered that his magic power had increased. When he opened his status panel, he saw that his magic talent had jumped to 10 points!

What was going on?

Xiu Si was dumbfounded. It had been less than a month since his resurrection, and his upgrade speed these days surpassed any previous period. Was this the result of accumulated efforts finally paying off?

But amazingly, this surge of power didn’t feel unreal. It wasn’t the feeling of “you suddenly mastered power beyond yourself”, but rather like power that had grown naturally from his flesh and blood.

It wasn’t sudden, but rather very natural. There was a feeling that he should have possessed this power all along.

Xiu Si was stunned, not understanding what was happening. He only felt… could it be that after being dead for thousands of years, he had mysteriously triggered some cheat code? Had this old antique finally become magical?

He was an old antique himself, so anything happening to him should be normal, right?

After all, this world was full of mystical things. A little strange occurrence happening to oneself, what was so odd about that?

Xiu Si thought for a moment, attributing all this to luck for now. He knew that once his system recovered, all these strange phenomena should be explained.

Well, that was about done.

He finished his business and returned his focus to the real world. Looking down, the first thing that entered his view were two cat cubs looking up at him.

Their emerald eyes sparkled with concern.

Like two beautiful green gems.

Xiu Si paused, suddenly remembering something – almost all of his cubs had emerald eyes.

The reason was simple: he liked emerald eyes.

Emerald, the color of lake water, comfortable and peaceful, a color of tranquil times.

In reality, on days off work, he often went for walks by the lake. Sometimes he just spaced out, sometimes he fed the fish, took some landscape photos, relaxed his mind, and emptied his thoughts.

“Lakes” were like a symbol in his life, holding extraordinary meaning in his heart.

When work was busy and his mood inevitably became irritable, he would think about lakes, and his mood would calm down.

In this other world, he had entrusted this symbol to his cubs, carrying a kind of hope and expectation.

He hoped – they would be beings that could bring him peace and tranquility.

Thinking of this, Xiu Si couldn’t help but smile.

Of course, when actually creating them, he had adjusted the color values, with some variations in depth, corresponding to their rank order. The higher the rank, the deeper the color. Vassago’s eyes were a deep green close to black, looking like green gems under certain natural light.

Recently created Paldr was an exception. His eyes seemed like they were meant to be gold, like the color of sunrise. So he didn’t adjust the color. The little black bird was the same, feeling like they were meant to be misty gray, like the sky just before nightfall.

The two of them really looked like twins, perhaps due to some fate. It was almost as if… they were like the God of Light and the God of Darkness.

Xiu Si paused, his gaze tinged with confusion, but his train of thought was interrupted by a paw from the gray cat before he could think further.

The gray cat’s soft paw touched him, bringing warmth, asking what had just happened to him.

What happened? Xiu Si glanced at the clock nearby and was surprised to find it was already ten o’clock at night.

So fast? He looked again, and outside it was completely dark, with the sound of howling wind occasionally coming through.

Ah, had so much time passed? No wonder the children were worried.

Xiu Si turned his gaze back and said with a smile, “I’m fine, I was just too focused and lost track of time.”

The gray cat blinked, tilted its head, then pounced on him, seeming happy about its father’s level up. It stretched out its paws, gesticulating, and cuddled into its father’s arms.

Xiu Si realized and couldn’t help but smile, “Did you level up too?”

The gray cat nodded, indicating that because its father had leveled up, it had also leveled up, and was now level 27!

The red cat, not to be outdone by the gray cat, immediately chimed in, also reporting level 27.

Their nonsense was like a snowball, getting bigger and bigger as it rolled, developing to the point where they could say anything now.

Yet their father, with his thick filter for them, was very receptive.

Xiu Si believed them without a doubt, even picking them up and lifting them high, saying with a smile, “Then it looks like I need to keep working hard, so you can level up along with me.”

The gray cat and red cat nodded vigorously.

Xiu Si patted their heads, “Don’t worry.”

“You need to be high level to avoid being bullied” – this was what he used to tell them when encouraging them to level up.

But in fact, he didn’t want them to suffer and struggle to level up. If possible, he alone suffering and struggling would be enough. It just so happened that one of the ways to level up in the Creator profession was through the leveling up of creations, which could bring experience to the creator.

He hadn’t expected that, in fact, when the creator leveled up, the creations could also level up along with them.

Mutual assistance wasn’t bad at all.

Xiu Si felt that since his resurrection, his luck had improved considerably.

“By the way, have those two not woken up yet?”

Xiu Si was of course asking about Aelioge and Beelzebub.

At this point, Inpos couldn’t mock those two anymore, so he answered Xiu Si, saying they were learning the method of leveling up in dreams from Vassago, and that Father shouldn’t worry about them at all.

Those two could fall into the deep abyss’s molten pool and act as if it were nothing, treating it like a hot spring.

It was just a subspace. If anything could happen to them there, the sky would fall. Inpos had an inherent trust in Aelioge and Beelzebub’s teamwork.

Normally, mocking was fine, but that was only allowed among siblings. If anything else mocked them, they would team up and kill everything that did so.

Just like they killed the Abyss God thousands of years ago.

Hearing this, Xiu Si felt relieved.

“But, have they all gone into the dream realm?”

In this other world, the dream realm was a world parallel to reality, said to be even more vast and boundless than the real world. In the dream realm, present, past, and future coexisted in a special state. Many races lived their entire lives in the dream realm, feeding on the dreams of various creatures, such as the Dream Demon race and the Succubus race.

Xiu Si had never seen these two races, but he’d heard they were formless spiritual beings that would appear in the form you most desired or found most beautiful, to tempt you and such.

It all sounded a bit scary. He could only hope the children wouldn’t encounter any Dream Demons or Succubi while leveling up in their dreams. Otherwise… he didn’t dare imagine.

However, it was getting late, and it was time to tidy up and prepare for bed.

Xiu Si opened his system panel and checked on the little black bird’s status. The illustration of the little black bird in the guidebook was more detailed than before, its feathers much fluffier. It had progressed from ordinary plastic modeling to Disney-level modeling, with physical rendering showing the feathers floating and looking quite natural.

Had he performed exceptionally well during his focused state?

Xiu Si smiled slightly, very satisfied. He observed the sleeping little black bird repeatedly, only looking away after confirming there were no issues. He then turned his attention to the box next to it.

The little white bird was also sleeping, its fluffy feathers rising and falling with shallow breaths, in a clear, rhythmic pattern.

It was truly radiating light and heat at all times.

What a miraculous child.

“They will surely become good friends.”

Xiu Si anticipated in his heart, as if already seeing a scene of the two birds playing happily together.

He was really looking forward to it. But for now, you two should sleep well.

Xiu Si glanced at the panel next to the guidebook. Unfortunately, apart from the level status, many other status values were [???].

His system really had too many malfunctions. He needed to find a way to fix it.

Xiu Si seemed to have made some kind of decision, planning to go somewhere tomorrow.

Meanwhile, in the palace late at night.

“Any new news from Sarah?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

The room was very quiet. As they talked, they fell into silence.

After a long while, Anna looked up and asked, “Helen, what do you think of the situation?”

Helen lowered her gaze, pondering, “It’s hard to say. Sarah in the dream… wasn’t in a normal state.”

Anna’s eyes changed slightly. After a pause, she said, “Is the curse acting up?”

Helen frowned, her lips pressed into a line, “Mm, possibly.”

The curse on the Aust Empire’s royal bloodline wasn’t an ordinary curse, but a curse from the gods.

It was a terrifying curse that was almost impossible to remove. Unless they could become powerful enough to erase the curse themselves, or the source of the curse died out, the curse would accompany them and their descendants forever.

As a price for provoking the crazy god, this was already considered light. Back then, who knew how many old magicians’ lives or other prices were paid to reduce the disaster to a minimum.

However, even so, the empire could hardly escape its fate of destruction.

Anna sighed, her brows tightly knitted, her face showing a tired paleness.

The Divine Kingdom of Light’s affair had just passed, now there were apostles of the otherworldly god causing trouble, plus the attitude of the Continental Human Alliance. The prospects of the Aust Empire were truly bleak.

It was as if they had been cursed by the Goddess of Fortune.

But thinking like that was just an excuse. The truth was that the karma created by the previous generation of rulers was too heavy, and hadn’t been resolved even to this day.

It had nothing to do with luck. Everything was the result of people’s own actions.

“Your Majesty…”

Helen looked up, hesitating to speak, and the silence that had just been broken returned.

There were too many worrying matters, and they were all troublesome issues that couldn’t be resolved quickly. Anyone in that position now would be extremely troubled. She couldn’t imagine the pressure on Anna, and the only person who could help share Anna’s burden was in subspace, in a state that couldn’t be called completely normal.

Anna was the sister of the previous king. On the Dark Day, all other blood relatives died, only she survived. She took over this mess of the Aust Empire, and in the blink of an eye, twenty or thirty years had passed. She was already feeling extremely tired. With the curse’s influence, she could physically feel her life force draining, and even her sanity was declining, going downhill more and more.

She knew that facing the otherworldly god, the empire had too few cards to play. Even if all the “hidden” cards were laid out, it probably wouldn’t be nearly enough. At least a human-level powerhouses in the top ten would need to step in for there to be any chance of turning the situation around.

But half of the top ten human powerhouses were from the Continental Human Alliance, and the other half were the guardian gods of top-ranked countries. There was no hope of cooperation from the former, and the latter was even more impossible.

The top-ranked human countries were all great empires skilled in warfare. There was no reason for them to send out their most treasured national guardian gods just to protect an ordinary human country.

The concept of a human destiny community only made sense when there was a common external enemy. Without a common external enemy, it was almost meaningless.

Anna remained silent, not continuing this topic. Instead, she asked Helen, “How is your history compilation work going?”

Helen paused. Under the light of magic, her face looked somewhat pale, but her eyes were determined, looking very powerful.

She said, “It’s in progress.”

Recompiling history was a requirement of the Abyss Lord Aelioge, who attached great importance to this matter.

Come to think of it, did Aelioge’s choice of the Aust Empire’s historian as the compiler mean that the Aust Empire was a special place for him?

Did Aelioge’s choice to let the Aust Empire compile the history mean that he wouldn’t sit idly by and watch the Aust Empire head towards destruction?

This matter had significant implications. Because if they could have the Abyss Lord’s assistance, the empire’s chances of survival would certainly increase.

But the problem was that you still didn’t know the motives behind the Abyss Lord’s recent series of actions.

Anna asked, “Are there any difficulties or obstacles?”

Helen pondered, and after a few seconds replied, “Apart from the vast amount of historical materials involved, which will take a long time, there aren’t any particularly difficult aspects.”

Anna then asked, “Is the logic easy to organize?”

There was a hint of curiosity in her tone.