Chapter 278 Destiny
The long, deep tunnel exuded a foul, damp, musty odor. The stone steps were narrow and steep, and the first half was mixed with the smell of motor oil and metal, but the deeper you went, the stronger the smell of death and decay became.
Magnus pinched his nose exaggeratedly and complained in a muffled voice to Old Brown in front of him: "My God, old man, how many years has it been since they had a thorough cleaning here?"
"You know it."
Old Brown held a kerosene lamp. The flickering flame magnified their shadows, echoing like a pendulum against the rough, cold walls. "Since the fall of the goddess of fate. To escape the light, the night, the sea, and the human heart, all the weavers who are still sane have hidden underground, carefully breeding the spiders of fate, making this place even more hidden—don't touch it."
The old man suddenly turned around. The bard whistled nonchalantly, withdrawing his fingers from stroking the densely packed threads that covered the entire wall.
As his fingers fiddled with them, the delicate threads began to emit a faint fluorescence in the darkness. A closer look revealed a startling realization: it defied simple description, resembling the flowing stars, the undulating universe, like breathing, like the tide, undulating and flowing, presenting an ever-changing, trance-inducing, magnificent brilliance.
"Thanks to the silk cocoon spun by the Fateful Spider left by the goddess, the divine power of the gods is isolated, preventing them from spying on this place, and the weaver can breathe." He stared sternly at this powerful but rebellious compatriot: "If you damage it..."
Magnus stood in silent confrontation with him for a moment, then suddenly shrugged and raised his hands in surrender: "Alright, alright, I'm not that crazy yet."
The tunnel continued to extend downward, with several forks appearing at regular intervals. If the factory in the Fog Castle were to dig deeper, they would be surprised to find that the underground of the Fog Castle had already been connected in all directions like an anthill, and it was intricate and complex.
They stopped in front of a small iron gate. Magnus looked down and saw a tray, seemingly pushed out of the narrow vent below the gate. On it lay a half-eaten piece of bread and a bowl of cold bean soup with only the bottom remaining.
Old Brown knocked politely on the iron door, but he didn't seem to be prepared for an answer and took out his key and unlocked the door.
Magnus narrowed his eyes.
A man sat leaning against the wall, his body covered layer by layer by countless dreamlike spider silk threads of fate, climbing up his lowered head, breathing and rising and falling like a living thing, with layers of seemingly irregular halos changing and surging with it.
The ends of his limbs were also entangled in spider silk, like the dense root system of a plant, blending into the silk cocoons spread throughout the room. There were also several fateful spiders that also emitted fluorescent light crawling up and down around him. The big ones were almost as big as the palm of your hand, and the small ones were only the size of a fingernail.
"Oliver! My old friend!"
Magnus shouted enthusiastically. He snatched the oil lamp from Old Brown's hand and walked towards the man whose head was bowed, his features blurred. All the fateful spiders panicked and scrambled away upon sensing the light. The bard seemed to kick something mid-sentence. He paused, bent down, picked up a furry object, and brushed off the small spiders that hadn't had time to dodge.
It was a well-made, extremely realistic owl headpiece, with its lifeless yellow gemstone eyes, quietly and coldly reflecting the bard's exaggeratedly cracked mouth.
"You look great." He praised the owl headband sincerely and emotionally: "Look at you, as always, uh, feathers are smooth and shiny?"
A figure that seemed long dead slowly stirred, raised its head, and spoke in a hoarse, sharp voice: "Who am I talking about? Why is there such a stench of desolation in the spider's nest? It turns out to be you, Magnus."
Under the dim oil lamp, his face looked extremely terrifying - the facial features seemed complete at first glance, but if you looked closely, you could find that every inch of skin and flesh was not where it should be, his eyeballs were twisted to the corners of his forehead, his nose was crooked to one side, and his mouth was turned to his cheek - as if it was a Rubik's Cube that had been finely cut and twisted in half.
"Magnus, Captain." The bard stared at the owl's face from behind his hood and emphasized with a smile, "Don't speak so harshly, dear Oliver. If it weren't for these little creatures who worked hard to spin silk and weave webs, you would have died of the curse long ago."
Owl sneered. His emotions gradually became more and more excited, and the anger in his voice could hardly be concealed. "Great, who gave me this appearance?!"
The story of the goddess of fate is real.
But their purpose wasn't to prevent the death brought by "fate," but to gain "direction." To obtain a prophecy on how to find eternal life, the gods united and sacrificed the vast majority of the soul of the goddess of fate, Lamodo. The goddess's remaining soul chose not to live, leaving behind her final divine creation, the Fate Spider, for her followers. She then burned the remaining souls and unleashed a curse.
A very simple and crude curse, but because it conforms to the laws of the world, it reveals extremely powerful power: anyone who tries to change the fate of the gods, even the gods themselves, will have their soul and body separated by fate.
Logically speaking, most people are unable to truly meet the concept of "change." However, Owl, or Oliver, is an overly lucky yet unlucky fanatic who has been inexplicably affected by the changes.
Oliver was once a saint, but at that time he did not devote all his attention to the society, but was determined to pursue the truth of becoming a god.
He had heard the rumor that "the goddess of fate wove the destiny of the gods with golden scissors, silver shuttles, and bronze spinning wheels." Luck favored him, and he actually found the artifact left behind by the gods. At that time, he seemed to be overwhelmed by ecstasy and tried to touch the artifact like a possessed person. As a result, the moment his fingertips touched the spindle, he triggered the curse of the goddess of fate and became the honor he is today.
Originally, Oliver was doomed to die, but with the help of his old friend Wyatt, for some reason, the few remaining crazy weavers in the world saved him. The silk thread spit out by the fate spider temporarily sewed up his soul, so that even though his strength dropped greatly, at least he would not die immediately from the broken soul, but he had to come for mending regularly.
This time, the mending took an extremely long time—no, strictly speaking, he was under house arrest.
The weavers must have done something to him. His soul had almost become one with the threads of the fateful spider, leaving him powerless to resist.
...When the seminary and the church were in conflict, he was forced to be absent. Owl did not want to guess, nor did he want to guess, whether his loyal old friend Gibson Wyatt was involved in this matter.
"Don't be so, poor old friend." The mysterious bard shook his head sympathetically. "I really don't want to lie to you, but your soul is almost unable to hold on. It is like a piece of silk that has been pierced by needles and threads and is full of holes."
The owl gnashed its teeth and stared gloomily and coldly at the bard who took out a handkerchief and pretended to wipe his tears.
"Dear Oliver, do you want to completely lift the curse?" Magnus, who had finally had enough of acting, suddenly asked without warning.
"This is a curse from the gods," Owl said coldly. He thought this pervert with a strong desire for performance was trying to tease him again. "Who can break the curse imposed by a god after burning his soul?"
Another winked at him. "Maybe another god?"
“…”
The owl suddenly raised its head and stared at the bard whose face was painted in so many colors that it was impossible to tell whether it was sincere or just nonsense.
"He's a young and powerful new god whose godhood involves the concept of 'change.'" Magnus ignored the gaze that threatened to burn him through and sighed a few times. "Sounds like it's appropriate, doesn't it?"
The owl stared at him intently: "Do you have any connection with that god?"
"Friendship?" The bard immediately took a step back and waved his hands exaggeratedly: "No, no, no, I dare not have friendship with that person."
He even suspected that if he appeared in front of the other party again, considering how much the god cared about his lover, he would probably lose half his life.
Magnus calmly snapped his fingers, and the fateful spiders hiding in the shadows of the human body suddenly dispersed like a tide, and the spider silk bound to the owl gradually fell off.
The bard tossed the owl mask in his hand and threw it to Oliver, who stumbled to his feet.
"—But you do, dear Oliver, and the other person is an old acquaintance of yours." Magnus said mysteriously, "He is a very merciful god. If you beg him, maybe he will soften his heart and grant your request and save your life."
...or is it someone I've known for a while? The owl was stunned for a moment, then his pupils shrank sharply, obviously having a guess.
——It turned out to be him…it turned out to be him! Oh, gods, the god he had been searching for his whole life was actually right beside him——
“Ha, hahaha…hahahahahaha!”
Deep in the room surrounded by spiderwebs, the owl suddenly burst into an unusually neurotic laugh. His terrifying face looked particularly hideous in the fluorescent light of the spiderwebs. His laughter gradually turned into sobs, and finally into a long, sobbing gasp.
"Ah, you've got someone in mind, haven't you?" Magnus observed the other man's drastic mood swings with interest. "And as far as I know, you're the teacher and supervisor of that god's lover—with such a close relationship, what are you worried about?"
Even Owl, who was still on the verge of madness, couldn't help but sober up a little at this moment: "...What, lover?"
Aha, from the first moment they met, he knew that there was something wrong between the two people - poor Rabelais, in his confused anger and ecstasy, he thought with some gloating pleasure that the student he had carefully protected was still stolen!
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