642: 161.
Once a Guardian 642: 161.
Once a Guardian Prada’s story was hard to grasp in its logic.
Without understanding its true aning, Lu Li could only divide his attention to maintain the connection with this “thread.”
Lu Li had done similar things before—the story of the Jimmy Siblings.
So he showed neither unfamiliarity nor hesitation.
His remaining attention returned to the multiple-choice question above, weighing whether to respond in the tone of “Paradise” or—
His thoughts were abruptly interrupted as the young professor, who had distributed the test, walked straight towards him.
Her narrow eyes were curved, and the unmasked fervor seed almost enough to lt Lu Li.
Maintaining the thread of thought connected to Prada, Lu Li watched as the young professor squeezed next to him.
Her soft body terrifyingly seed like it could engulf his own.
“The first three questions were just a decoy…” the young professor whispered, her body appearing to endure unbearable pain, accompanied by a muffled grunt.
“The last three…
answer truthfully to your heart…”
Shaking, she left her seat, and Lu Li gazed at her retreating figure, quietly pondering.
She had helped him once; was this the second ti?
His eyes touched the flowerpot at the edge of the table, and Lu Li suddenly recalled the notion that had co to him in the depths of his mind, along with the only hint he received after entering “Paradise.”
“The Master knows everything, and will arrange everything accordingly.”
So, Lu Li made his choice: to protect the townspeople, find a way to expel the evil spirits, bring lost travelers back to town, and cohabit with the Eye Demon Worm.
Lu Li was not a man of radical action.
If communication were possible, he would not be stingy with his kindness.
Writing down his answer, the only thing that puzzled Lu Li was the last question, which hardly seed like a question at all.
But it didn’t seem to need pondering or answering, as if it were just a stain on the test that could be ignored.
As soon as Lu Li finished the questions, the young professor collected the parchnt, and Lu Li was montarily free until the results were announced.
Under the odd stares of the other students, Lu Li, who had finished the test early, left the classroom.
In the once bustling but now empty and silent grey garden, all the wandering figures had disappeared.
Lu Li sat down on a bench, quietly waiting for the outco.
But an unexpected figure appeared on the top of the stairs.
The young professor, holding Lu Li’s parchnt, rushed toward him, next to the fountain, with the frenzy of soone who had received the desired answers.
As she approached the standing Lu Li, she slowed down just before colliding with him, as tender and ardent as a long-lost lover, throwing herself into his arms.
“Do you feel it?
I have a body now…” A faint whisper ca from the young professor’s mouth, or rather…
from Anna.
She had almost forgotten what it felt like to be human.
After becoming a ghost, she had no sense of touch, no taste or sll, no pain; she felt like a self-aware shadow, excluded from the world.
That feeling was far more unbearable than eating food without any seasoning.
But after entering Paradise, Anna, now bestowed with a body, regained these sensations she had lost but not forgotten, especially after hugging Lu Li, every part of her body and soul rejoiced.
“Why did you co here…” Anna gently rubbed her cheek against Lu Li’s shoulder and neck, feeling as if she might lt into his embrace.
Lu Li’s voice seed still calm, “An hour has passed.”
“But I told you to go back.”
“I didn’t listen.”
Coming from Lu Li, these words were more touching than any sweet nothings, and Anna looked up, her curved eyes gradually taking on an intoxicating haziness.
It seed that sothing was about to happen, but at this mont, the clueless Lu Li asked, “What’s the situation in the Royal City now?”
He already knew why Anna hadn’t been able to return to the farmhouse within the one-hour deadline.
“To say it’s been a long ti…” Anna didn’t want to break this mood.
“Start with the important things,” Lu Li released Anna and sat back on the bench.
Anna sat down close to Lu Li, “The ‘Master’ is an Ancient God, and It is searching for sothing.”
“Searching for what?”
“I don’t know…
It could be a certain existence, or maybe sothing intangible and elusive.”
“Who told you these things?” Lu Li asked, noting that this phrasing was not Anna’s usual style of speaking.
“An elder Demon Hunter scholar…
He told these things before he died.” The human body amplified Anna’s emotions, and any thought she had shone through those curved eyes, like her current admiration, “He was a remarkable person…
he talked to as if it was as normal as speaking with another human being…”
Anna had only ever felt this way with Lu Li.
Although so other people could also remain calm in her presence, the very distinction was, in itself, a form of alienation.
Moreover, Demon Hunters themselves correspond to the Legendary Scout, akin to the grand human legends like the all-seeing night watchn.
“Do you want to hear the elder scholar’s analysis?”
“Yeah, but first tell , what is an Ancient God?”
He had last co across the term ‘Ancient God’s Body’ in Richard’s plan, and yet that wasn’t the correct term, at least not according to that illusory and elusive consciousness that corrected its true existence: the Old Ones.
“Ancient Gods have existed since ancient tis, old divinities that are deeply connected to humans, and at the sa ti, more akin to the religious depiction of ‘Divinity,'” Anna spoke, clearly relaying the words of the elder Exorcist, “They are like more powerful Evil Gods, yet not as chaotically evil.”
They are like the Guardian Gods of this world, fending off otherworldly invasions.
Toward humans, they mostly harbor an attitude of indifference.
Only those who believed in Them received a sliver of care.
Although the Ancient Gods were not as benevolently disposed toward humans as the fictional gods of religions, their indifference was sufficient.
Choosing to ignore the ants overtaking one’s backyard rather than crushing them underfoot was an act of benevolence itself.
But for so unknowable reasons, these entities that spanned the river of ti gradually faded away.
So fell into slumber, so were sealed, and others had already died…
The dead divinities did not dissipate; their divine bodies and divinity continued to adhere to their will, remaining in the world and slowly altering their surroundings.
And the incident in the Royal City stemd from this: a body of a long-dead Ancient God was dumped here, its vast powers shifting the rules, turning the Royal City into a “sanctuary.”
“He thought this invasion was a malicious ga.
Those beings from the starry skies noticed the gathering of Exorcists, so they threw the Ancient God’s Body here…”
Setting the Guardian Gods, who once protected the world and humankind, against humans was an act filled with indescribable malice.
“But His residual consciousness didn’t do that,” Lu Li murmured.
The only beings in the sanctuary slaughtering humans were those strange creatures…
The City Guards, as embodints of divinity, still adhered to justice.
“Yes, the old man said the sa…” Anna recalled the elder’s stirring lant when he spoke of this, “The great Divinity has died, its body frivolously toyed with by outsiders, yet Its remaining divinity still can’t bear to harm the people…”
“What is It called?”
Lu Li thought of the last paragraph on the test paper.
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