Volume 4: The End of the World Chapter 69: Madness and the Lighthouse
Although she could clearly recall her past memories, Flora still felt that she did not belong here.
It was a feeling of discomfort, as if she were enclosed in a sculpture, which constantly eroded her will. The clearer her memories were, the more intense her torture became.
The soul is not the same as a collection of memories. After all, when the soul of the deceased is reincarnated, it does not bring along the memories of its previous life.
The gods of death, who have different images in myths of different regions, all have a common duty - to erase the memories of the souls of the deceased. After the theory of the seven holy spirits was established, this became the most important power of the holy spirit "the dead", forgetting.
On the other hand, the shape of the soul in each life is shaped by the memory of this life. In addition to high-level undead like liches who can forcibly occupy the body, whenever the shape between the body and the soul is not compatible, it will cause madness.
The so-called madness is the product of the deviation between the identity that one identifies with and the identity in the eyes of others. This is why the Moon Realm of the Mad Fool uses the theater as its imagery - in the never-ending theater, the actors on the stage will never have the opportunity to be themselves, so they are eternally crazy.
At this moment, Flora felt like a clumsy actor in a crazy theater.
"So who do you think your true identity is?"
On the way to the so-called "end of the world", after listening to Flora's intermittent complaints, Ebony couldn't help but ask curiously.
"It's probably Floral Cain as well. If, as you said, there is another Ravenwood, then I should be the Duke of the Sacred Tree on the other side. Of course, there is no basis for this, it's just a hunch."
Flora answered without even thinking.
In her opinion, even if her soul was affected by false memories and her senses were hijacked by some unknown force in this world, so that she could not recall her experiences on the other side, her identity as the Duke of the Holy Tree should not change.
"So... you think playing yourself will lead to madness?"
Ebony asked, remembering what she had said about madness earlier.
"I just feel uncomfortable because I always feel like I have forgotten a very important mission... But the right to define madness is never in one's own hands, but in the cognition of others. No madman would claim to be a madman."
Flora replied.
"And you still say you're like an actor in a theater of ecstasy?"
Ebony continued to ask.
In response to this, Flora looked at Wu Mu strangely and said:
"Haven't you always thought I was crazy? Or to put it another way, hasn't this country where the dead imitate the living been completely insane in your eyes?"
The answer was so frank that Wu Mu didn't know how to respond for a moment.
Because the implicit meaning of this sentence is that compared to what Flora is sensing now, she would rather believe that Ebony's nonsense-sounding speech is real.
However, in reality, Ebony, whose mind has been tortured for many years in this kingdom of the dead and whose heart has long been numb, can't really tell whether it is the world that is crazy or he himself.
After a long while, Wu Mu hesitated and asked a question that he thought he would never ask:
"What if... I'm the one suffering from hysteria?"
For many years, he was forced to live with countless undead. If it weren't for the occasional appearance of forest elves who shared the same worldview as him, he would have collapsed mentally. In fact, he had felt more than once that the ones who were truly crazy were actually the minority.
"It doesn't matter."
Flora said this and turned to look into the distance, her voice very calm.
"The world you described earlier sounds better.
"For me, no matter which world is real, that is enough reason for me to choose it."
…………
After the two left the Holy Tree City, Ebony communicated with the beast spirits in the forest and summoned two giant, skinny birds of terror.
The abilities that he had gained by engraving the beast spirit tattoo in another world could also be used in this strange world. However, the things he summoned were like the forest elves who thought they were still alive, with a stench of corruption all over their bodies.
Resisting the physical discomfort, Ebony rode on one of the Fright Birds, while Flora rode on the other. There was no expression of disgust on the other's face, but she skillfully controlled the Fright Bird to take off and guided Ebony to fly to the edge of Ravenwood Forest.
"Are we going to fly along the Green and Gold Avenue?"
After identifying the direction clearly with the pale moonlight, Ebony asked loudly to Flora against the howling wind.
"Yes, the destination of this journey is the edge of Ravenwood - the boundary marker drawn by the Empire near the lighthouse of the Healer's Seat."
Flora's cold words seemed to be carried directly into his ears by the wind.
"But why there? If, as you said before, the current Ravenwood is just a fictional world, then no matter which direction we fly, can we fly to the edge of this world?"
Lying on the frightened bird that was filled with the stench of corpse, Ebony asked, enduring the suffocating smell.
It was a long distance to fly east from the Holy Tree City to the Physician's Star Lighthouse. If it flew south to several seaport cities near the Broken Sea, it would at least save half the time.
"Without proper guidance, we will never be able to leave Ravenwood on our own."
Flora replied calmly.
"Why?"
“We will always lose our way. No matter how long it takes, we will eventually return to where we started. Of course, the greater possibility is that we will be lost and never come back.”
No matter how loud the wind whistled around them, Flora seemed to be whispering beside him, making her voice echo directly in his ears.
"How do you know that?"
Ebony asked confused.
"My adoptive parents and I have tried this in the past."
The tone of Flora's reply made Wu Mu not intend to delve further into this topic, so he asked another question:
"Then why is it Green and Gold Avenue?"
"Because since the conquest of Terra, in addition to the teleportation array set up in the Imperial Embassy, if you want to enter the Jade Province by land, you must take the 'Green and Gold Avenue' planned by the Star Council back then."
The imperial official road built with three star lighthouses as nodes completely eliminated the disadvantage that due to the excessive vitality of Ravenwood Forest, once the road was neglected, it would be immediately occupied by various plants.
The people of the Star Council built this barren green-gold road through the circulation of metal magic. This road has become one of the few channels in the entire Jade Province that can communicate with the outside world, except for the canal system.
"The Green Gold Avenue is one of the few places on land in Ravenwood that has a causal intersection with other places on the Vic Continent, so..."
Flora stopped talking suddenly in the middle of her words. Then, she stood firmly on the back of the Fright Bird in the whistling wind , and looked into the distance where the green and gold road stretched.
"What's wrong?"
asked Ebony, who had sensed something was wrong.
"The beacon of the Healer's Seat... just went out."
…… ……
"You can't even fly to the edge of Ravenwood if you go north... What is this? A Möbius strip?"
With the help of transformation and storm thrust, plus the blessing of lightning spells, William was like a jet fighter capable of short-distance jumps, constantly flying over Ravenwood. However, no matter how he advanced left and right, he returned to the original place every time in an extremely strange way.
It's like being trapped in a ghost wall.
This made William wonder - is the entire Ravenwood area, like a Möbius strip, a circular space structure? No matter where he flies, he will never be able to get close to the reality of the edge of this area?
Just as he was muttering to change his train of thought, a dim light that was originally barely visible within the observation range of his etheric domain suddenly went out.
And that direction is...
"East? The star beacon of Physician?"
"That star beacon went out?"
