Amon tugged at the corner of his mouth, saying with a mix of emotion and probing, "I guess, no matter what the prophecy says, you won't refuse my offer."
Without waiting for Leyton's reply, he raised a hand and pinched the monocle over his right eye, and a blinding white light instantly swallowed everything.
This situation lasted less than a second. The blazing white light gradually receded, revealing a sky where stars, the Sun, and the Moon coexisted, appearing extremely chaotic.
Beneath the chaotic sky was a cluster of ancient, ornately decorated buildings, arranged in a staggered fashion, somewhat similar in layout to the real Sasitan, but completely different in many details.
The city's streets seemed to have many pedestrians dressed in ancient styles coming and going, looking lively, but no sound was emitted, making it eerily silent.
They were like puppets on strings, only able to move according to fixed procedures, their faces numb and rigid, without any trace of vitality.
Besides their numb and stiff expressions and movements, they also bore many signs of mutation. Some had fish-like scales growing on their skin, some had eyes that had turned into cold vertical pupils, and others had grown tails, ears, or short, thick, heavy fur.
Beside Leyton, Amon began to introduce the situation here like a tour guide: "This is a manifestation of their spiritual corruption."
"Their?" Leyton keenly noticed Amon's choice of words.
Amon nodded lightly and said, "Yes, although what you see of them still barely maintains some human form, this is just a calm facade. They have long since completely mutated into Monsters over a long period of time. Even a slight stimulus will immediately reveal their true Monster appearance."
As if to verify his words, Amon smiled and walked up to a man dressed like a Sailor, reaching out and gently patting his shoulder, saying, "Do you see the fish I placed here?"
The man with the numb and rigid expression slowly turned his neck, emitting creaking sounds, as if his head might fall off at any moment.
"Fish."
"Fish… fish…"
He repeated Amon's words again and again, but could only utter the single syllable "fish."
As he opened his mouth, the thick sideburns covering half his face moved up and down, revealing the transparent, slimy, viscous, and fanged mouthpart within.
This no longer resembled human lips at all; it was more like the mouthpart of some marine creature. Slimy, transparent mucus continuously dripped, and the thick sideburns on his face began to writhe as if alive.
"Fish… I see… see…"
"Ho ho…"
The words from its mouth gradually became incoherent, finally leaving only the hoarse sounds of air friction.
One by one, even more slimy tentacles slipped out from beneath his clothes, and his entire body instantly collapsed into a heap. Colorful tentacles, pieced together from many chunks of flesh, extended from the gaps in his clothes, still oozing a yellowish, pus-like, slimy liquid.
The surrounding light suddenly dimmed, and the air seemed to be tinged with a deep blue at that moment, as if submerged in the sea, with fine water droplets continuously seeping out into the air.
Leyton unconsciously reached out to cover his mouth and nose. He felt a strange sense of suffocation, and his mouth tasted salty and damp, as if he had suddenly been plunged into the deep sea.
Amon raised a hand and pinched the monocle over his right eye. The anomalous scene around them suddenly vanished, and even the surrounding space turned into an empty gray-black void.
Only that colorful mass of tentacles, pieced together from many chunks of flesh, continued to writhe, drawing its tentacles towards Leyton and Amon with a primal desire for madness and destruction.
The deep blue flowing in Leyton's eyes briefly froze. Before he could make a move, specks of brilliant golden starlight had already emerged, emitting unparalleled light and heat, instantly filling the entire space.
The tentacles that were still writhing instantly melted like candles into drops of liquid, continuously dripping downwards.
The madness and primal desire for destruction emanating from the tentacles also rapidly receded, while an extreme fanaticism, an extremely fervent emotion, arose.
Leyton's expression suddenly became solemn. He felt his spirituality rapidly draining, along with a small portion of his will, merging into this false world, evolving in an extremely distorted and Evil direction, and simultaneously establishing some connection between himself and this false world.
Without hesitation, he followed his intuition and reached out his right hand to grasp at the void. A layer of dim mist with a "Concealment" effect was caught in his hand.
The surrounding light and heat quickly dimmed, and any connection that had just formed between him and this false world was instantly severed.
Amon raised the monocle over his right eye, and with a look of belated realization, he said, "This world, constructed from information, is not perfect. The lower-level rules are too simplistic, with too many logical loopholes. This also causes any Beyonder power to be infinitely magnified here."
"Just now, it was clearly just a very ordinary out-of-control Monster, yet the aura it emitted directly formed a half-true, half-false ocean."
"Although it's just a false world constructed from information, the dangers encountered here will still, to some extent, feedback onto our true spiritual bodies."
Leyton glanced at Amon thoughtfully and added in a flat tone, "This city constantly erodes the spirituality and will of intruders, especially when using Beyonder abilities. This situation becomes even more severe."
"I'm somewhat curious, if one cannot control oneself well and cut off the connection with this world in time, what will be the final outcome?"
Amon chuckled, reminiscing, "I experimented before. Once spirituality and will are completely eroded, this world will automatically generate a new you, truly becoming a part of this place, just like the one I greeted earlier."
Leyton nodded thoughtfully and said, "No wonder you said the people here had long since mutated into Monsters."
Amon said with a sigh, "In the midst of despairing Darkness, this false world became their only light and salvation. When they indulged in it, they had already cast danger aside."
As he spoke, he reached out and gently pulled at the space in front of him.
With a tearing sound, a dramatic crack was pulled open in the area shrouded by the dim mist.
With the appearance of the crack, Leyton felt the already dim light and heat around him become active again, and extreme fanaticism, extreme excitement, began to breed in the surroundings.
Restraining the urge to use his Beyonder abilities, Leyton followed behind Amon and stepped through the crack, leaving this area.
As soon as he stepped out of the crack, he found that the surrounding scenery had changed. He and Amon had arrived in front of a magnificent and opulent palace complex.
Leyton's gaze calmly swept over Amon, understanding that he had altered the position of the other end of the crack.
Feeling his gaze, Amon turned back and raised a hand, pointing to the magnificent and ancient palace complex behind him and said, "This is the manifestation of the Sasitan temple in reality. It is alive. The Artisans here created it using the heart left by that 'Angel,' and it is also the core of this information world."
"It will be some time before it becomes active. We need to speed it up a bit."
As he spoke, Amon gently shook the monocle made of crystal in his right hand. A huge, ancient, mottled phantom suddenly appeared above his head.
This phantom was like the face of a stone-carved wall clock, divided into twelve segments in total, each either gray-white or dark green-black, intermingled but with clear boundaries, and possessing different symbols.
An indescribable, invisible torrent suddenly surged from within the colossal phantom, as if it had traversed a long history. Everything around them was swept up by this torrent, advancing rapidly along the scale of time.
This world, constructed from information, was like a toy that could be manipulated at will for him, Leyton thought to himself, while staring intently ahead, at the palace architecture that undulated like a heart.
The decorative gears on the walls all began to turn, continuously making clicking sounds, and the staggered palaces constantly rose and fell, adjusting their positions.
The Sun, Moon, and stars that appeared simultaneously in the sky also began to pulsate, sending out ripples, searching for their respective positions.
During this process, Leyton's eyes once again became extremely profound, losing focus, a vast expanse.
Extremely blurry figures constantly flashed through his mind. They were connected to each other, yet also separated, like different personality facets of a single person.
It's mad… The consciousnesses of numerous indigenous inhabitants, along with the corruption they carry, have formed different personality facets here. No wonder that 'Angel's' resurrection contingency failed… Once resurrected, He would turn into it, becoming a Monster with only mad instincts. Self-slumber was the best choice… Unfortunately, He met Amon.
While sighing, Leyton raised his hand and condensed eyes containing countless stars, flashing with cold, pure light, cruel and indifferent.
These eyes had no eyelashes; they blinked and merged into this world of information, transforming into dim specks of light that drifted around, collecting information about this place.
Amon finished his act of stealing time, crossed his arms over his chest, and said calmly, "So you were interested in this information world itself. I thought you wanted the 'Angel's' relic; I even woke It up for you."
Leyton turned his head to look at Amon and said plainly, "What do you want to gain from It?"
Before he could finish speaking, this world suddenly trembled, and huge fissures spread outwards from the central, tallest, and most magnificent palace, like a dense and enormous spiderweb.
☰