Volume 7: The Hanged Man Chapter 38: The Importance of Ideas

　　When she entered the tomb of the “Black Emperor”, Bernadette vaguely “saw” a black shadow, but after she got out of the flood of information and reorganized her body with a huge amount of pure knowledge, she did not perceive anything, and it seemed that what she had just experienced was just an illusion.

　　This “Mysterious Queen” didn’t rush to go deeper into the mausoleum, but stayed where she was and cautiously surveyed the situation around her.

　　Without the need to use the ability of “peeping secrets”, everything here was clearly presented in front of her eyes:

　　The interior of the “Black Emperor’s” tomb was empty, except for the deep black walls and the high platform in the center, there was nothing.

　　On top of the platform, there was a seat prepared for the giants, which seemed to be made of iron, with complicated and twisted strange patterns engraved on the surface, and the top of the backrest was extended upwards in the shape of a crown.

　　At the moment, there was no figure present on this heavy, huge seat, which seemed to be awaiting the return of its emperor.

　　Bernadette was just about to take a tentative step, approaching that high platform, when she suddenly realized that her body was completely unable to move, as if she was firmly bound in place by invisible shackles.

　　Immediately afterward, a pair of illusory and sacred pairs of white feathered wings naturally unfolded behind her back, as if she was passively fighting against something.

　　In the next second, on those pairs of angelic wings, white feathers drifted down one by one, sprouting monstrous, thin, furry limbs in midair, while the gaps created by the feathers layering over each other opened one after another, seemingly transforming into countless eyes.

　　The deformed feathers then let out a clear laugh, making a “cackle” sound that echoed throughout the interior of the mausoleum.

　　They all came to life and became miniature “feathered men”.

　　It reminded Bernadette of some fairy tales her father had told her, in which there were always little elves no bigger than a thumb.

　　In a flash of thought, Bernadette felt an itch in her right eye.

　　The lashes of that eye grew rapidly, turning into a tiny arm that braced itself against her face in an effort to pull the eyeball out.

　　”I see it! I saw it!” The veins in Bernadette’s right eye bulged out, and she made a childish, light-hearted sound on her own, as if she had gained her own spiritual intelligence and consciousness.

　　This is also a kind of “new life”.

　　Almost at the same time, Bernadette’s left ear drooped violently, covering the ear canal.

　　”I don’t want to listen! I don’t want to hear it!” This ear shouted in a slightly shrill voice.

　　If she didn’t use her aura to sense it, Bernadette would have thought she was surrounded by another little girl who was covering her ears and stomping her feet and screaming.

　　Without giving her any buffer, the “Sage’s Forehead” in the center of her forehead took the initiative to detach itself from her body and floated into the air.

　　The surface of the vertical eyes made of grains of “diamonds” flashed with countless cold light, as if one miniature eye after another had grown.

　　Inside each eye, the figure of Bernadette was reflected.

　　The “Sage Forehead” had also gained a certain amount of living characteristics.

　　Just as the level 0 seal was about to awaken and affect the target in some way, a pale, slender, illusory palm reached out and grasped it.

　　The living character of the “Sage’s Forehead” then quickly dissipated, as if it had entered the end of its life.

　　The palm, which was clearly female and had an icy pale color, came from behind Bernadette, where a figure with only the upper half of its body had appeared at some point.

　　This silhouette emerged from Bernadette’s back, the whole tends to be almost transparent, rather illusory.

　　”She was wearing the same type of clothes as Bernadette, wearing the same feathered tricorn hat, with eyes as blue as the projection of the sea, just like Bernadette herself, the part of the spirit that she had drilled out of her body.

　　However, the face of this Bernadette’s half-body shadow wore a pale mask that glittered with metallic luster.

　　This mask only had holes in the eye area, the rest of it didn’t have any gaps, making Bernadette’s silhouette appear extremely cold and honorable, but lacking the aura of a living being.

　　This was the third and last “0” level seal she possessed, an item made by Emperor Rossel after he returned from the Southern Continent in his later years, called “Pale Death”.

　　Its negative effect was to make the wearer die little by little until he became a corpse and became its slave.

　　At this moment, Bernadette was utilizing this to suppress the abnormal activation of her body.

　　It was when this bust emerged that her right eye fell silent, and the eyelashes that had thickened and lengthened into arms withered and fell off one by one.

　　Her ears likewise ceased to emit sound and slowly opened back to normal.

　　If there was no such suppression, Bernadette’s five senses, arms, and legs would have broken with her one after another, and turned to “freedom”.

　　After initially stabilizing her body, Bernadette tried to take a step forward, but she was still unable to make any movement, and could only drive the half-body spirit.

　　After some thought, she had the spirit behind her remove a ceremonial silver dagger from within her clothing pocket, and leaned down, slashing at the middle of her right boot.

　　With a stabbing sound, the leather boot flew half short.

　　Immediately afterward, Bernadette used her half-spirit body to tear the pants at the left knee, cut off the corner of her jacket and shirt, and plucked a few feathers from one side of her tricorn hat.

　　Such attempts seemed to have nothing to do with transcendence, like a capricious and rebellious girl trying to dress differently from her normal aesthetic.

　　However, as Bernadette completed this series of actions and cautiously took a step forward, her body was actually able to move, and she no longer had the feeling of being bound in place.

　　The invisible suppression disappeared, and the “Black Emperor’s” tomb seemed to accept Bernadette as she was.

　　Who would have thought that the means to deal with such an anomaly could be done by an ordinary person?

　　Moreover, Bernadette suspected that the more she fought with her extraordinary abilities, the deeper she was affected.

　　This was because she just had the feeling of facing an invisible deity, and only by “pleasing” the other party’s aesthetics could she be forgiven, or else she could only rely on her Sequence 0 level of authority to get around it.

　　In addition, fortunately enough, Bernadette not only used to be a knowledgeable “occultist”, but also has a fairly in-depth understanding of the “Black Emperor” pathway, clear about what the authority of this field contains, understand that it represents the shadow of the order, a distortion of the normal order. It is a distortion of the normal order.

　　So Bernadette started by dressing herself, initially distorting the normal order of her body, and then she was recognized and accepted by the invisible deity.

　　”Well, in occult related events, knowledge and thoughts are more useful than abilities some times …… In that situation just now, any resistance would be seen as a provocation to the internal order of the mausoleum, and would trigger unpredictable and absolutely horrifying changes, while once the crux of the problem is found, the negative effects simply can be dissolved …… “Klein above the gray mist nodded gently, learning a lot from the “Mysterious Queen”.

　　Although he is already a sequence higher than the other party, and even equal to the King of Angels within the “Source Castle”, and has experienced a lot of great things, but after all, the growth is too fast, in many details of the problem is still lacking, and now it is just through this kind of observation to make up for one or two.

　　After taking a step, Bernadette began to follow her spiritual intuition and walked towards the high platform in the center, towards the huge unoccupied seat on the high platform.

　　One step, two steps, three steps, and suddenly a breeze blew across the back of her neck.

　　The breeze was eerie and icy, sending a tingle through Bernadette’s body.

　　This instant, she seemed to feel a dark shadow appear behind her.

　　Wordlessly, on the back of her head, her long chestnut-colored hair parted on its own, revealing a pair of eyes that grew on her scalp.

　　Those were nearly transparent, cold and unfeeling eyes without eyelashes.

　　”Eyes of Peeping Secrets”!

　　These eyes turned slightly, seeing the shadowy curtains of the Mysterious World appearing visibly distorted inside the mausoleum.

　　However, it did not detect the dark shadow, nor did it find the source of the chilling wind that had just come from it.

　　Just as Bernadette was trying to close these “eyes of mystery” to minimize the possibility of accidents, the eerie, cold breeze suddenly passed through her mind.

　　Her thoughts became active one after another, and became more and more uncontrollable, moving in the direction of the unthinkable.

　　It seemed to be a tendency, irreversible, to fly into confusion.

　　Without hesitation, seizing the few seconds she could still think, Bernadette had the half-spirit behind her remove the pale mask.

　　Then, she put the “pale death” mask directly on her face, while the half-spirit retreated back into her body and became one with her.

　　From this second on, Bernadette’s mind would follow her body into death, but her thoughts would be unstoppably active, becoming slightly confused.

　　These two contradictory states canceled each other out, forming a fragile and delicate balance that helped Bernadette get back her ability to think.

　　For Bernadette, the negative effects of “Pale Death” were more useful at this moment than the extraordinary effects of “Pale Death” itself.

　　Keeping that balance, Bernadette took a few more steps forward.

　　In the process, she felt a black shadow hovering around her, but she couldn’t detect it.

　　After several seconds of thought, Bernadette’s azure eyes once again grew dark and lost focus.

　　She was trying to foretell the consequences of one of her choices.

　　Soon, a corresponding image appeared before her eyes:

　　Putting on the Sage’s Forehead once again, she was once again transformed into a sheer torrent of information, bypassing the obstacles and heading for the central platform.

　　However, just as she approached it, the torrent of information suddenly disintegrated, lost its order, and reorganized itself into several Bernadettes based on different cores, including a little girl in a cake dress, a tall young woman, a girl full of sadness and disbelief, a lady with a twisted and pained expression, and a stoic queen who had become calm and resolute.

　　The prophetic image passed in a flash, and Bernadette’s eyes regained focus for a moment.

　　That’s when she saw the dark shadow.

　　It stood right in front of her, no more than a fist’s length away from her!

　　The face made of pure shadow completely dominated her vision.