Myriad Devils-Chapter 114: Entering the third layer

"Not me?" Anon smirked.

He had just proclaimed how easy this mental tribulation was, only for it to create these illusions.

Illusions!

That was all he thought this to be.

Anon, he did not care about these people.

At the very least, not to the degree that they may have previously thought.

In his mind, he found that they thought of themselves too highly.

"This is not me?" Anon repeated Old Lady Su’s words again.

Then, he turned around, fixating his gaze at her and Elizabeth.

Then, he turned around again, lifting his gaze towards Catharina who stood higher up, before finally, he glanced to his side, toward Andrew.

There was also Melissa who hid behind Andrew, seemingly scared of Anon.

"You have all only befuddled yourselves and have developed a great many misconceptions." Anon showed a faint smile and continued, "I only ask of you all to utter my name."

"Not merely my given name, but rather, if you all are truly acquainted with me, call forth my full name!" Anon concluded, beckoning them.

For a short period, silence was his only reply.

Their faces did not hide the shock that they felt, and they were even too stunned to move.

"You know me not, so act not as if you know me." Anon emotionlessly stated.

Whatever words they wished to say were stuck in their throat.

Before Anon’s eyes, their bodies suddenly began crumbling into multicolored particles.

In a short time, there was only one who remained standing before him.

"Anon! You’ve taken everything that should’ve been mines!" Bolan bellowed wrathfully, "You’re a vile thing. I curse you to death! I wish you nothing but suffering! I hope guilt eat you away eternally!"

Towards these curses, Anon shook his head and sighed.

"Don’t worry, if it weren’t for these nightmares, I’d sleep whilst my stomach digested your flesh. There’s not an ounce of guilt, nor is there regret even the size of a mustard seed within my heart."

"Death has no sway over me. Whether I am vile or not, an object has no right to judge its owner. And finally, all things on this earth belong to the Xerxes." Anon proclaimed.

Smiling, he casually concluded, "Do not resent me when it is the world that has abandoned you."

His words were like lightning that zapped at Bolan.

"T-The world...?!" Bolan stumbled back, tripping on the stairway.

He lost balance and fell off the black stairway, his body fading away, erased from existence.

"I’ve long said that the minds of these people are corrupted and have been corrupted for the majority of their lives." Anon shook his head once again.

He paid no heed to what had just happened and instead chose to restart his ascension.

Pain blurred many things, and one of them was the passage of time.

The pain he felt confused him. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

He began seeing things that were not real, or maybe they were, and he was not knowing.

"Is this really what you want?" A figure appeared, stopping Anon.

He was tall, so tall in fact, that he was as much as twenty or thirty times taller than Anon.

Like a giant, he towered over Anon, and his figure was draped in darkness.

Still, what remained was a pair of burning amber eyes, like two sun stars that could not be hidden by the darkness.

"Killing the only remaining Xerxes. Son, you’ll be left alone in this deplorable world." The giant’s voice was hypnotic.

"Don’t you feel it? At night, the evil that is beyond mortal comprehension, staring at you. A threat much greater than anything in this small spec of dust floating in the universe." The figure’s words reverberated throughout Anon’s mind.

"And then, during the day, don’t you feel it? The mysteries hidden behind a thick starry veil. Again, a threat much greater than any lifeform on this little planet. Why bother with a dead person’s false words when you should be relying only on your father who is still in the living realm. It is your father that will protect you from even the greatest of threats." As these words fell, Anon remained silent.

This time, it was his turn to be too taken aback to speak.

But then, he smiled.

"You’re not wrong. Evidently, I have no strength to confront the unknown, and I have no knowledge of the unknown. You really are the only one who can protect me from the devil, and the hands unseen."

As he said this, Anon raised his gaze, and even though it was painful just to lock eyes with the pair of sun stars, he continued, "But you say, why bother with a dead person’s false words, and still, you acknowledge the devil, and the hands unseen that dead mother spoke of. This contradiction is proof enough that what dead mother says is not entirely wrong."

"Which of you are right, I knoweth not, but I rather place all of my cards on dead mother’s constructed path." Anon affirmed.

He said with an excited voice, "You see, to confront the incomprehensible, dead mother established a path that I now walk on. At the end of this path, I become something that is similarly incomprehensible."

Then, his voice became dull as he said, "Rather, your path leads to me becoming your property, reliant only on you. I remain comprehensible to lesser individuals."

"Naturally, the former path has been chosen by me, and I will walk it without regrets."

"My will is unshakeable, and my thoughts are firmer than the firmest mountain." Anon said this before repeating it continuously.

"My will is unshakeable..."

"...my thoughts are firmer than the firmest mountain..."

The figure shrouded in darkness rambled on for some time, but Anon kept repeating those words, and before long, the figure disappeared like all the other illusions that had previously appeared.

The pain intensified as a black flame rose from the stairs.

As he continued his ascent, the black flames became more and more intense, bending and twisting the atmosphere, burning his skin, melting his flesh, roasting his bones, and boiling his blood.

Soon, a black skeleton made its way to the highest point.

There, Anon was quickly swallowed by the red sky, entering a new layer of this strange world.

Opening his eyes, therein contained a mixture of gold, red, and black.

The red intertwined with the gold, and the black seeped into these two colors.

When Anon blinked, his now dark gold eyes shone with vibrance.

Though Seth was not in the garden, Anon did not seem bothered in the slightest.

"I feel as if, every breakthrough alters my psyche slightly." Anon said.

His words were akin to flowing water. The calmness that permeated his mind was not something he had felt before.

He remained seated for some time, adapting to the new sensations that the world around him gave off, and the strength that his body could now grasp hold of.

After all, he had entered a new layer of the second world, the final layer.

Though his recent experiences during his breakthrough appeared very simple, it was a mental tribulation that he had passed, seeing to it that his spirit had succeeded in another evolution.

If before, he was only capable of commanding three units of stellar cosmic energy, after metamorphosis, this number amplified to at least eighteen units.

His spirit grew sturdier and more refined, so more than just commanding a higher quantity of stellar cosmic energy, Anon’s very perception of the world changed every time he had a broke through.

Even rising from six simple tasks to six complex tasks would bring a subtle change in one’s perception.

Now, Anon had broken a great barrier, and was able to perform thirteen simple tasks simultaneously!

Four complex tasks to enter the second world.

Eight to enter the second layer of the second world.

Thirteen simple tasks to enter the third layer of the second world.

And then, eighteen to enter the third world!

Naturally, as the spirit grew more powerful, it became more and more difficult to increase the amount of tasks one can complete simultaneously.

Simply put, to go from four simple to four complex tasks was considered a huge bottleneck that allowed one to ascend to the second world.

Now though, for Anon to go from thirteen simple tasks to fourteen simple tasks, the difficulty was even more tedious than breaking into the second world.

Still, at that time, Anon had broken into the second world via cultivation alone.

Right now, he was within the Blood-Drip Jungle where danger, death, opportunity, and fortune resided.

To add to that, he also had the devil by his side.

With this devil, Anon could even utilize magic rituals to improve his cultivation.

Knowing this, Anon was calm.

He grew accustomed to his new strength, and then, he pinched the air in front of him, drawing a dark gold line.

The line that he drew remained in the air for a while, before turning into a circle. Right after, the circle expanded in size, becoming as large as Anon’s sitting body.

It rapidly spun in a circular motion, sending dark gold sparks into its surroundings before it then began disappearing from the atmosphere, and as it did, Anon chuckled to himself and rose to his feet.

Looking towards the sky, the light originating from the starry cosmic sky cascaded towards the depths of the crater, lashing against his face.

Anon was someone that did not have any blemishes on his face, and his eyes were even more tantalizing, now containing a slightly dark allure.

But as the light shone on his face, it only served to amplify a face that had been crafted by a supreme entity.

And just when this face seemed to be most at peace, it, along with the rest of his body began crumbling apart, transforming into countless dark gold particles.

The entire garden trembled, the dirt caved in before imploding as Anon appeared outside of the gorge in the blink of an eye.

In an instant, he generated a false body, leaving it to crumble in his wake!