Chapter Ninety-Nine: A Glimpse of the Cruel World’s Reality

"You seem certain I won't kill you?" The aged traveler appeared indifferent to the brush with death moments before. After a simple treatment, he didn't so much as glance at the wound on his left chest; instead, he clasped his hands behind his back and paced around the bearer of glory suspended by spider-like threads of blood. His emerald eyes flickered with an inscrutable light.

"Not certain," replied Amy, her demeanor uncannily natural for one defeated, for one who now stood as a prisoner at the mercy of others. In her jet-black eyes, there was neither the bitterness of bearing humiliation nor the servility of flattery—only calm, a chill, winter-lake calm. "I'm merely betting on the possibility you won't kill me."

"And if you lose your wager?"

"It's just death."

"You truly treat your life as nothing." After this brief exchange, Ignatius's demon-like, twisted face softened into a smile tinged with both admiration and bitterness. "If your surname were not Ulysses, I would have given your answer ninety points. But unfortunately... you are Ulysses—the final cornerstone of the ancient code established at Hammurabi."

"The holy city of Hammurabi," the youth remarked, unsurprised yet touched by a natural sense of awe. "So, the surname Ulysses has even greater significance than I imagined."

"Indeed, greater than you imagine." The old man cast her a glance with his emerald gaze. After a few coughs, he shook his head and began to speak in a low, steady tone. "I assume you are familiar with the Night Watchers who guard the Wall of Eternal Night."

Amy nodded, but said nothing.

"The Night Watchers' ideals sound noble, but in truth, theirs is a thankless task. Only those with nowhere else to turn would abandon all that the lands of order offer and join the Wall of Eternal Night, where chaos constantly threatens to devour them." Ignatius sighed softly. "Yet, as humanity's first and most crucial bulwark against mindless, blind chaos, the Night Watchers are no less important than the knights who patrol the realm under the royal banner. They are an indispensable force within the world of order."

He paused:

"Such a force—who would entrust it to desperate fugitives? Especially after the emergence of the Mist of the Nameless, with Prometheus, the royal capital, losing its grip on the wilds, control has dropped to zero. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say the Night Watchers' commander is the uncrowned king of the borderlands."

"And then?"

"To ensure this force does not spiral out of control, the Night Watchers received their true masters." The old man's gaze grew chilling as he stared at the black-haired youth before him. "They are Fitzgerald, Gladstone... and Ulysses."

"But in the end, they're merely a branch of the bearers of glory." Amy remained unmoved by her family's past grandeur. "That hardly elevates us to the status of 'cannot die.'"

"You must understand, this world... is vast, yes, but Hemtica is merely a corner of the lands of order, and those lands are but a trivial speck within the mindless, blind chaos." Ignatius spoke with a sigh, then shifted his tone. "But in truth, it's also very small. The Church, the Knights, the Cult of Chaos, and the Mother of Black Goats who spawns countless nameless things—ultimately, there are only these few powers."

"The Knights and the Church are both on the side of order. Though their interests and creeds are irreconcilably opposed, in the face of ever-encroaching darkness and chaos, cooperation is their norm." The old man closed his eyes gently. "Yet even so, it's mere survival—countless high demons, the Lords of Darkness whom ordinary bearers of glory cannot hope to defeat, and the Mother of Black Goats, whose mere shadow creates the deepest night—any one of these would exhaust the bearers of glory; any two allied could send most cities clinging to fire seeds into the end called death."

"But they—or more precisely, the Cult of Chaos—have never done so." After a brief pause, the knife was drawn. "Do you know why?"

"Because of Ulysses?" Amy answered, her tone certain.

"That is part of the reason, but ultimately it all comes back to Hammurabi." Ignatius sighed. "Hammurabi is called holy for a singular reason: it once produced the greatest code—the Code of Hammurabi. The first and only code in human history, its laws are not just iron rules unshaken for millennia, but the destiny of all humankind."

"From the selection of kings, to the formation of the knights, to the rise of the Night Watchers... all the major events of the second millennium are foreshadowed within." His voice—not just his voice, but even his hunched body—began to tremble. "But this is no prophecy; it is a predetermined fate—a fate with no solution."

"What do you mean?" The youth narrowed her eyes.

"You, I, and the entire lands of order had our fates sealed at that moment." Ignatius's voice carried madness. Azure veins bulged beneath his blue-purple skin, emerald eyes nearly protruding from their sockets; his twisted features barely bore traces of humanity. "On the first page of the code, written in golden letters: 'In the third millennium, the world loses its light.'"

"Sounds like a plot from a knight's novel." Amy shook her head—not from stubbornness, but because the old man's story contained too many inexplicable gaps, the greatest of which concerned the Holy Code of Hammurabi. "'In the third millennium, the world loses its light'—if that's a lie, it must be the worst I've ever heard. The Holy Code of Hammurabi is widely circulated in the mundane world, yet I've never seen any version with such words on its first page."

"You are mistaken." Ignatius, though clearly descending into madness, showed no anger at the youth's doubt. He simply gazed at the young bearer of glory with his clouded emerald eyes. "The original Holy Code of Hammurabi has never been shared in the mundane world. It is the covenant established by the ancients, the tablet of fate that frames the order of the world. What circulates among mortals is merely written law drafted by bearers of glory according to their revelations. The true original, save for the vanished ancients, is known by none."

"Full of holes." Amy was not swayed by the old man's words. "If no one but the vanished ancients ever saw the original, how did the Holy Code of Hammurabi come to be written and passed down? And how do you know the prophecy 'In the third millennium, the world loses its light' was inscribed on its first page?"

"You know, when mindless, blind chaos manifests in the world of order, the unnamable, formless things gain shape—and a name." Ignatius paused. "Whether it was Leviathan, the sea beast that nearly drowned Hemtica, or the beast of apocalypse Six-Six-Six that dragged Prometheus into eternal darkness—when such things descend, their names echo throughout the world. The birth of the Hammurabi Code was the same. When the ancients sealed their covenant upon it, it became the book of fate, and its existence was naturally known and recounted by the world. Of course, this is why so many versions of the Hammurabi Code exist."

"If no one but the ancients ever saw the original Hammurabi," the youth replied, her pitch-black eyes as deep as a mist-shrouded night in the lower districts, "then how did you learn of the prophecy, so neither obscure nor cryptic?"

"Where? You should already suspect the answer, but it is so fantastical you instinctively deny it." The old man's twisted expression suddenly eased, his tone gentle beyond belief. "Yes, just as you guessed—I once met an ancient. An ancient still alive."

"You speak as if all the ancients are dead." Amy mocked coldly.

Unexpectedly, Ignatius did not respond. He simply pressed his blue-purple lips together, his face dark and damp as if water might drip from it, gazing into the empty distance. Only after thirty or forty breaths did he return to himself and speak in a low, hoarse voice: "Yes. Most, in fact the vast majority of the ancients, are dead."

Before the youth could absorb the immense weight of those words, the old man lifted his head. In his chilling green eyes flickered an emotion difficult to name. "In fact, you—and most bearers of glory—should have seen them. At least you should have felt their presence."

"What do you mean?"

Though the traveler who had crossed the deepest night did not clarify, a suffocating sense, like a serpent coiling ever tighter, swept over Amy, occupying her mind inescapably.

"Nothing in particular." Ignatius shook his head weakly, age written uncontrollably across his face. "I just wanted to tell you the truth—a trivial fragment of this world's cruel reality."

Seeing the tension on the young bearer's face, he chuckled softly. "Relax—with your disregard for life and death, a trifling scrap of irrelevant detail shouldn't be enough to break you."

Amy was silent.

Break completely—

Those words gave no comfort whatsoever. Yet, at the same time, the truth Ignatius spoke of possessed an unparalleled allure for one who longed to break free from the shackles of destiny.

So she remained silent. Only silent.

"It seems you're ready," the old man wiped away his smile. Even his demonic, twisted face seemed to possess a sacred solemnity in that moment. "When the ancients willingly chose death, the sacred flame would ignite their remains, and from them a source-less fire would be born. We, their descendants, call this eternal flame the fire seed."

"In other words, the fire seed is the burnt-out remnant of the ancients—the final trace they left in the world. We built order and civilization atop their corpses."

"Even in death, they live among us in another form, sheltering us."

"But now—"

He paused, his gaze lingering on the youth, then spoke the last words.

"The long night has come, and the fire seed—"

"—will go out."