LotM: Surviving as a Marionette

While waiting for his spirituality to recover, Don organized his current list of personnel who needed to be recorded.

"Moreover, recording unfamiliar, high-positioned individuals carries very high risks."

He thought for a moment, "First is myself, to see what fate this can actually reveal... then Mother, Father, and Owen."

The fates of his own family members were naturally of the important category.

And this system-exclusive artifact gave very vague information each time, only symbolically placing extraordinary abilities in the introduction for explanation. He needed to operate it specifically to understand.

This thing had an upper limit on the number of stars it could record, which could be seen from that extraordinary ability that actively summoned meteorites—if used multiple times in a short period, it would occupy a 'star' slot.

"Then there's the theater core, Olson..."

"There are many in number, and priorities must be ranked... I don't know how many stars this star astrolabe can record at most."

After filling it up, he wondered if this upper limit would increase with his own sequence advancement... Don sighed. The system also had a 'cute and brainless' appearance regarding this, and it didn't have much information to reference for items given by the main system, the Knowledge Moor.

After the spirituality consumption from entering Euclid space had fully recovered, Don put on the mosaic glasses and began observing himself through the telescope.

"This perspective is indeed a bit strange..."

When observing himself from a third-person perspective, he could see the system hidden within his body, as well as several spirit threads extending outward in twisted patterns.

Those were spirit threads extending through the 'Biomimetic Marionette' module toward extremely distant marionettes.

After calmly observing for a while and finding no abnormalities compared to before, Don infused his spirituality into the star astrolabe. Following the flow of a strange power, a star slowly appeared and condensed on the astrolabe.

It was a star quietly floating there, about the size of a ping-pong ball. Its surface was illusory and hazy, with a crystal-like transparent luster, emitting weak white light.

This celestial body seemed not to exist in the real world. Don tried to touch it, and as expected, his palm passed through the crystal star without touching it.

It was more like existing in a high-dimensional space, with this star being merely a projection from that high-dimensional space.

Was it that the star representing him was special, or were all stars like this?

Calming his mind, Don continued his research.

As a Diviner, he had also learned extraordinary knowledge related to the field of astrology. Although this couldn't compare to the excellence of a Sequence 7 Astrologer from the Apprentice pathway, in the field of divination, all divination and prophecy were essentially revelations from the spirit world's information to the real world, just with many different ways of interpretation.

Don's spiritual intuition told him that he could obtain more spiritual revelations about the future from this crystal star.

He took out a gold coin and performed a simple divination.

With a ding, the gold coin flew up and then fell down.

Don glanced at it, his expression becoming somewhat strange.

The divination he performed was, 'In the near future, I will be in danger.'

The revelation from the divination was: Yes.

Placing the star astrolabe into the system space, Don performed the divination again.

But this time, the revelation from the divination was: No.

As a Diviner, daily divination about himself had always been a matter of course. Don's spiritual intuition was unprecedentedly enhanced near the star astrolabe, leading him to perform this divination.

"Similar to the power of gray fog, as long as one is within a certain range of the star astrolabe, interference can be eliminated, creating the most favorable environment for fate divination of the person represented by the 'star.'"

Don took out the astronomical telescope again. Observing stars was originally one of the functions of the astronomical telescope, and this time he aimed it at the star belonging to himself on the star astrolabe.

The next second, what Don saw was not the symbols representing past, present, and future inside the star, but a man of medium build with a gloomy expression, face pale as paper, yet with a very upright posture, faintly surrounded by black qi, with a huge mosaic behind him!

That was—

"Dark Side of Universe?"

Why would the figure of a divine descender of Dark Side of Universe appear in the 'star' symbolizing his future?

Was his danger coming from this ancient god?

The next moment, the field of view of the astronomical telescope suddenly elevated, revealing the scene around that divine descender.

It was a wasteland.

On the wasteland, flocks of vultures crouched on the ground, gnawing at something. Everywhere were remnants left by swords, spears, staffs, and clubs. It looked like a considerable conflict had occurred not long ago. The bloody smell seemed to transmit through the telescope, with rotting corpses, chopped torsos, and dark red and black chunks of flesh everywhere.

A very intense conflict, Don speculated.

In this scene, that divine descender of Dark Side of Universe was now standing at the center surrounded by corpses. He raised his head and stretched out both hands, as if embracing something above his head, while chanting something, praying to something.

Don's eyes narrowed.

"Are these the armors of Loen, Intis, and Feynapotter military forces?"

He identified the weapons and armor remaining on those bodies, constantly recalling knowledge related to this aspect.

The nations established by Augustus, Sauron, and Einhorn had different faiths from each other. These countries had been mutually hostile since the Fourth Epoch, plus the later Oath-Breaking War, War of the White Rose, and other wars with religious significance. In the early days of nation-building, conflicts at borders were inevitable due to religious beliefs, territory, and resources.

If Dark Side of Universe wanted to collect large amounts of sacrificial materials, besides densely populated places, where else could large amounts of sacrificial materials be collected?

That would naturally be national borders.

Years of warfare, changes in political situations, national conflicts, opposition of faiths—even if some people died, this was nothing more than ordinary.

However, he remembered that in Owen's previous letter full of abstract concepts, it seemed to mention that he was now at the Orkney Highlands?

---

The starting point of the Hornacis Mountain Range was on a vast plain with a dry climate.

This place bordered the Kingdom of Feynapotter, the Kingdom of Intis, and the Kingdom of Loen, and was also a buffer zone between the three countries that they secretly acknowledged.

But in recent years, as friction between the three countries continued, small frictions also occurred frequently in the border areas. Even though large-scale wars had not occurred, such open and covert struggles were not uncommon.

Refugees from various countries would often smuggle themselves here, entering other countries to seek livelihoods.

Therefore, this area at the foot of the Hornacis Mountain Range, called the Orkney Highlands, had also gradually developed due to the constant flow of people, grain, and weapons over the years. On the plateau, Saga Castle, built jointly by Loen forces and exiled slaves, had become the Kingdom of Loen's military fortress on the front lines.

Emerging from the spirit world, Don, who had already changed his appearance, and the disguised Traveler marionette took advantage of the night to enter the area.

(End of Chapter)