Mysteries: Arcana Wars

Klein woke up from the feeling of falling.

He gasped for air and looked around in shock. The dizziness and confusion crushed his spirit and will more and more severely, and the illusion left terrible scars on his soul.

Am I... still in a fantasy world, or have I returned to reality?

Like some kind of stress response or a conditioned reflex, as soon as this thought popped into his mind, Klein felt his body twitch and his stomach ache. Then he vomited out an old Fifth Epoch antique pocket watch.

【Fantasy Compass】

Without having time to think about why he swallowed Melissa's pocket watch, Klein tremblingly opened the pocket watch on the ground with his foot.

The pointer is zero.

This is reality.

Klein felt relieved and slumped in his chair.

I...finally escaped from that horrible illusion!

But where am I now?

The surroundings were dim, with only a glaring light shining down from overhead, illuminating only Klein himself. Some light escaped to the surrounding walls and was reflected back, suggesting the soft and gentle texture of leather.

This is an... interrogation room?!

All the walls are covered with cloth...are they afraid I'll commit suicide?

Klein wanted to get up to investigate what was going on, but he found that his hands were tied to the back of the chair.

There was a finger-sized piercing on each wrist, and some strange metal came out from the holes in the wrists, just the right thickness to fill the two holes, stringing the two hands together tightly and then fixing them to the chair.

The wound did not bleed, nor did it cause any real pain. Klein could only feel the coolness of the metal and some strange touches, which was the feeling of the spiritual insects that made up his hand crawling on the metal surface. The small insects wanted to close the abrupt gap, but they could not escape from the crowded group.

It was another strange room and another scene where he was tied to a chair.

...Why is this scene so familiar...I always feel like I've seen it before...

His shattered thoughts were struggling to piece themselves together, and Klein's recent memories gradually emerged.

It seemed that after I fainted in the casino, I opened my eyes again in the interrogation room of the Church of the Lost God. I found an opportunity and ran away when the dealers were not paying attention. However, due to the influence of the embers of disillusionment, I ran to the top of the church hall without a clear mind, and then stepped on empty air and fell down.

In fact, at this stage, Klein had no memory of the real world at all. His consciousness was completely pulled out of the illusion due to excessive use of Void Smoke.

In the illusion during this period, he became the mad god Alice trapped in a chair. Suddenly, he changed his identity and was chased by Alice. While escaping, he fell through a door.

Afterwards, a familiar, elegant, and hazy face caught him steadily. However, before Klein could see clearly who he fell into, his eyes rolled back and he fainted, losing consciousness again.

Tormented by the embers of disillusionment, I didn't know when I ate Melissa's old pocket watch. It might be when I was caught by the dealers in the casino and subconsciously wanted to escape.

The more I recalled and thought about it, the more I felt a splitting headache and a strong sense of dizziness.

If everything I just saw in the illusion came from the real history that was erased, then how should all of this be explained?

Confused and terrifying speculations flooded into Klein's fragmented mind, and a headache exploded in his skull as he thought about it.

That person in the black robe...why does he look so much like me...

If, I didn't actually defeat Tianzun——

If, my endless battle with Him is still going on -

Then, aren't my current struggles and pains, madness and confusion all tricks set up by the Heavenly Lord in collusion with the outer gods? !

Confused thoughts were running rampant in Klein's mind, and some kind of extreme and radical twisted logic was quickly taking shape. Alice's madness in the illusion was like a tide, leaving a wet and short-lived mark on Klein's beach, which was gradually fading at a slow speed.

...Outer Gods, the Church, Alice...

Now my enemy has another [Tian Zun]? !

And...Melissa, and that beautiful dream...

Are these all traps carefully set up for me by Tianzun?

He endured the nausea and tried to gather some spirituality, but found that the Embers of Disillusionment had disrupted all his spirituality. Not to mention using extraordinary abilities, even trying to arouse some spiritual intuition was difficult. Now he was no different from a group of insects wrapped in skin.

The swarm of spirit insects wanted to bypass the metal confinement by decomposing and surging, but as expected, it failed. Klein's sense of direction and control were shattered by the aftereffects of the hallucination. Even if he didn't move as an insect swarm, he couldn't move as a human. No part of his body obeyed his commands.

...I was in this situation. How could I break through the blockade of the dealers and rush out?

How did I get to the top of the dome and how did I fall down?

Klein was puzzled. His sluggish and confused thinking could not give a reasonable explanation for the absurd reality, which only brought him excruciating pain and nausea.

Just as Klein was thinking about the current situation, the door to the interrogation room opened.

Someone came in. The man was wearing a black casual hat that covered most of his face, revealing only his neat long hair that reached his back. The loose black casual clothes and a pair of black boots were not memorable styles, but when worn by the man in front of him, they gave Klein a very elegant feeling.

What attracted Klein's attention even more was the spear in the man's right hand.

It is more like a dagger with a long pole than a spear. The double-edged dagger at the tip is made of obsidian. The style is simple, but it is finely polished and has a sharp blade. It is firmly fixed on a slender metal stick. The unique connecting components and the subtle reflection of the stick suggest that this metal stick has great value in manufacturing technology.

His spiritual intuition was still paralyzed, and Klein could not sense any mystical significance of this extended dagger, but he was certain that this extended dagger must contain infinite mysteries of physics.

Klein's attention was drawn to the strange dagger, but he didn't notice that the man finally stretched out his left hand hidden in the shadows to Klein in this trance.

He dragged a folding chair from behind him.

Unfolding, laying flat, sitting steadily, crossing his legs, the man sat outside the only light, never lifting the brim of his hat that covered his face.

"Let's get acquainted again, sir."

He held his spear at his side.

"You can call me the Nine of Spades. I'm from the Contemporary Virtue Research and Study Society. Nice to meet you."

"……Hello……"

Klein struggled to squeeze out a few dry syllables from his throat. He was trying to regain control of this body.

Wait… Nine of Spades? [Contemporary Virtue Research and Study Group]?

Didn't I run to the church before? Why was I caught by those bastards from the Virtue Society again?

Could it be that the one who picked up the body in the casino was not the church dealer, but the Virtue Society?

...No, in a sense, being caught by the Society of Virtue is no different from being caught by the Church of the Lost God...

Why did they pick me up then? Did they really want to recruit me as the Five of Plums said?

But...how did I fall from the church hall?

Klein's limited rationality made it impossible for him to come up with any answers on the spot, and his chaotic spirituality did not support on-site divination. It was really difficult to guess the thoughts and intentions of these psychopaths. It was even possible that they were just here to have some fun and amuse him.

Forget it, he decided to first see what the purpose of these bastards was, and then act accordingly.

“Hello, sir.

"I believe you have realized that, unfortunately, you have fallen into our clutches.

"In the next few days, I hope you can cooperate with us and answer honestly so that we can all have a good time."

Bang, bang, bang! The long stick hit the ground three times.

"First question, sir, please answer me:

"who are you?"