Mysteries: Arcana Wars

Chapter 439 Consultant Therapy

You don't trust your own divinations.

You don't trust gifts from others.

You don’t believe...

Audrey's words echoed in Klein's mind like a cry.

You don't believe this story in which you are the protagonist.

Klein was silent. He didn't dare to deny this fact.

The large wooden box lay quietly in his arms, its stretched cracks and clumsy fillings speaking a unique language to Klein.

Audrey's sharp words made Klein suddenly understand what the wishing machine was saying.

"I understand……"

He stroked the scars on the wooden box, his surging emotions suppressed beneath his calm appearance, causing his hands to tremble constantly on the wooden surface.

"The answer to divination does not lie in how we combine these images to obtain a specific truth.

“It’s about [believing].

“These images, rather than needing to be [solved], need to be [arranged].

“Compared to [divination], what we really want to do is more like being an author, a director, and an actor.

“When we do divination, it may seem like we are interpreting images, but in reality we are using them to write a suitable story as a [script] to pave the way for the future.

"After divination, what we need to do is to take ourselves as the protagonist, and the world as the stage, and perform this script as best as possible, so that this script becomes a real future.

"The more devoted the performance is, and the more it conforms to the script, the closer the wish will be to existence. Finally, the wish will break through the boundary between reality and illusion and become reality, and the wisher's dream will come true.

“So the true meaning of this divination is a mysterious script stored deep in one’s heart, a wonderful performance that breaks reality.

“It doesn’t matter what the script is about.

"What's important is that no matter what is written, as long as I believe that [the script] is true, then it must be true and must be performed on the real stage."

"So, it seems that Mr. Merlin has stopped at the first step." Audrey reminded implicitly.

Klein nodded helplessly.

Yes, he died at the first step towards the gift:

Klein didn't believe his own story.

Stories I made up, stories I was the protagonist of, stories I heard from other people...

Klein still cannot give absolute and complete trust to these stories.

How wonderful it would be if everything could be as simple as a quiz game. Just raise your sign, and the words "yes" and "no" can solve all problems and clearly express your attitude towards everything.

But life was as thick as porridge and as tangled as hemp. The unknown, unreachable past and future seemed to Klein like an incomprehensible swamp. Any expression of a stance seemed so weak in this mire. Whether it was yes or no, it would sink powerlessly to the bottom of the quagmire. All flimsy and absolute judgments were meaningless, as fragile as a childish joke.

Its antidote must be a string of painful and lengthy codes. Only this string of fine and complicated chains can anchor oneself in the stirring of the torrent of fate and finally open the rusty lock.

Since waking up, Klein has experienced many things. He has been constantly thinking, exploring, and doubting whether the Melissa in the illusion told him the true past or used half-truths to induce his actions.

Sadly, even after months of being forced to be together, Crane still questions Melissa's existence.

In other words, the story Melissa described to Klein was too "perfect" and too "reasonable," making Klein yearn for it but not dare to accept it completely.

After Rorsde Bayam returned, Klein finally began to believe that he had become the true Lord of Mysteries at the end of the Fifth Epoch, and had left many clues and backup plans for his current self in the Sixth Epoch.

The entire Church of the Lost God was a formidable proof, and Antigonus's decadence further confirmed his own strength. Faced with such overwhelming evidence, Klein had no choice but to fully believe that after merging with the Celestial Lord, he had become the Lord of the Mysteries.

He wasn't Klein, Tianzun, or Zhou Mingrui anymore, but rather a fusion of all three. He no longer cared which of these three he was. Three distinct arrows pointed at him. But the madness etched into his soul still whispered eternally within the rift, shaking the trinity's self-perception. Klein could only use his rationality and paranoia to suppress those pesky, dangerous thoughts.

But when he started to think about Melissa and whether the forces led by Alice really existed or were just a story made up by the Lord of Mysteries, Klein began to waver.

There may be an antidote to the doubt. The so much empty smoke and dust swirling around in my hands, coupled with my personal experience of the afterglow syndrome, are all strong evidence of Alice's existence.

Klein lowered his head and opened his hands. A golden star coin lay in his palms.

Maybe I just...

But I still don't dare to place all my trust in that crazy being called Alice.

He seemed like a gambler, trembling with fear as he held the chips, not having the courage to take a gamble, while Alice was the dealer, staring at the chips outside the lights and laughing. Whether it was the timidity of hesitating to move forward or the indulgence of going all out, in his eyes, they were all reduced to the ugly appearance of gamblers and drowned dogs, and he gained new jokes.

Klein might not win, but Alice will definitely not lose.

Is he his own imagination, or the invasion of foreign gods?

After a long silence, Klein clenched his fist and held the star coin tightly in his palm.

Today, disaster is approaching, facing ferocious enemies, what other choice do I have?

I can only force myself to believe it.

Thinking of this, Klein suddenly laughed silently again, and even felt a sense of relief.

Klein normally expended his energy battling these suspicions and mistrusts. Now that he had grasped this point, it was as if a pair of giant hands had suddenly torn down the protective wall of defense, allowing bits of "trust" to flow in through the shattered ruins. The spirit used to fight against the enemy was finally free. His tense nerves suddenly relaxed.

Yeah, give up.

Actually, you don’t need to think so much.

Give up thinking, give up remembering, give up exploring.

Just put aside all those ridiculous and useless absurd struggles, follow the script on the stage cleanly, and walk forward with an empty head.

This is the self that everyone expects of me, and this is the self that I expect of myself.

Please read this! Please comment! Please join our book club!