The black sun hangs high

Chapter 36 "Theseus"

"You want me to play a game with you?"

Hugh thought this in his heart, and naturally said it out loud. However, when he heard his own voice, he was surprised to find that he could actually make a sound, which was a first for him in the dream world.

Before Hugh could ponder the reason, the strange figure whose face was shrouded in mist nodded, and then a voice whose gender was indistinguishable entered Hugh's ears.

"of course."

Hugh recognized the voice as the same one he had heard when he first arrived in the dream world and was "kicked" into the abyss.

He stared at that indescribable, chaotic face for two seconds, but such a simple action made him feel a severe sense of dizziness. So Hugh could only quickly look away, and then, with heavy unease and doubt, he hesitantly sat down on the cushion next to the other person.

The cushion was as soft as I remembered, but now it had an awkward chill about it.

That peculiar voice once again emanated from the black figure's body: "You're anxious and curious, aren't you? Don't rush, play a couple of rounds with me... You can ask questions as we play."

Left with no other choice, Hugh had to extend his hand.

As if he had been waiting for this moment, the fighting game on the screen switched back to the main menu the instant he picked up the controller. After two consecutive sound effects, the screen entered the character selection interface for the two-player battle mode.

"What... do you really want to play games with me?"

Hugh glanced at the figure beside him in confusion, then turned to look at the screen. However, the unusual game footage made his eyes widen in surprise.

The five or six rows of game characters that should have been displayed in front of him have all disappeared. In the center of the screen, only a cartoonish "character" head is slowly bouncing in the character frame.

"This...is this?"

Hughes was incredulous because he saw his own face.

To be precise, it's the face of Hugh Ernst's body.

His gaze shifted to the right half of the screen, where he saw an even more astonishing scene. In the character selection interface controlled by the mysterious black figure beside him, countless character frames were densely packed together, with the figures within constantly moving, like living masks.

"Don't be nervous, it's just a game. Shouldn't you be very familiar with it?"

Hugh swallowed hard and said, "But I have never... controlled myself."

"Oh, is that so?"

A cryptic laugh echoed from the black figure once more. He had now completed his character selection, and a huge "VS" logo, accompanied by flamboyant and dynamic special effects, was prominently displayed in the center of the screen.

"Then, it will be Mr. Hugh Ernst... who will confront his enemy, an adult shapeshifter!!!"

Accompanied by the strange yet incredibly excited tone of the mysterious black figure, the scene on the screen began to change rapidly. Against the classic arena backdrop, a thin young man with pale skin, wearing a long black trench coat, fell from the sky. He scrambled to his feet and looked ahead with extreme tension.

This appearance is almost exactly the same as when Hugh himself fought those enemies.

"This is impossible."

Hugh stared in disbelief at the scene on the screen. He tentatively pressed a button on the controller and found that he actually made a move in the image. At that moment, Hugh's first "enemy," the adult shapeshifter controlled by the mysterious shadow, pounced on him.

An incredibly absurd virtual duel unfolds in this dreamscape filled with countless mysteries.

Fortunately, as a planner who had been working in the industry for many years, although he was not very good at this type of fighting game, he had rich gaming experience and a relatively good understanding of the game. Therefore, after the initial confusion, Hugh quickly mastered the knack. Strangely enough, Hugh Ernst in the game screen could always make the actions that perfectly matched Hugh's thoughts. It seemed that what controlled him was not the game controller, but the consciousness in Hugh's mind.

At this moment, Hughes finally got the chance to ask a question.

While manipulating "himself" to deal with the other party's attacks, he cautiously asked, "I want to know, how should I... address you? Or rather, who exactly are you?"

Theseus.

The name came from the dark mist, and he said, "Of course, if you want to show your respect for me, you can consider reciting all my names and titles, but it's meaningless, and I don't want you to spend half a day reciting my name every time we meet."

In the game, the adult shapeshifter that Hugh had defeated in real life lunges at you. Its body extends into various strange shapes under Theseus's control. A series of fierce attacks forces Hugh's character to retreat repeatedly. Hugh is forced to control his character to shrink into a corner and keep trying to defend against the opponent's attacks.

However, Theseus did not stop talking. He said, "However, as this is our first formal meeting, it is still necessary for me to introduce my most commonly used titles. Please listen carefully."

As these words were spoken, thick black mist began to appear on Theseus's face. It looked quite similar to the mist and words that sealed off various things in the dream world. But in the next second, the mist gathered together like a sharp arrow and quickly pierced towards Hugh's body.

Faced with this "sneak attack," Hugh had no idea how to deal with it. So he could only watch helplessly as the mist merged with his body. At that moment, he felt a terrible chill run through his entire body. This suffocating cold eventually gathered in his mind and formed a bell that could stop all thoughts and ideas.

The sound was far louder than the clock tower in the center of Seren.

Shocked by the resounding bell, all of Hugh's movements ceased. On the screen, "Hugh Ernst," whom he controlled, also stopped moving and fell into a dazed state, passively taking hits.

At this moment, a large number of mysterious symbols that he could not understand emerged in Hugh's mind. They quickly arranged and recombined, and under the influence of some invisible force, they were gradually disintegrated into countless fragmented sounds and images.

It was as if a huge and chaotic ball of yarn had been forcibly stuffed into his brain. Amidst the indistinguishable sounds that seemed to come from countless different mouths, the black threads that made up the ball of yarn twisted and turned, like sea anemones growing on the seabed, constantly capturing tiny creatures with the current, or like black venomous snakes lurking in the abyss... In the midst of a deep sense of dizziness, Hugh gradually heard and saw the sounds and words that he could understand and accept.

Theseus.

"The messenger from the ancient land."

"The invisible god of fate."

“The weaver of farcical dramas.”

"The singer of the lost gods."

"..."

"..."

Following Theseus's name are countless strange titles and affixes that make Hugh's head spin, and these affixes are not just words, but also many devout and fervent prayers.

These sounds were very distant, as if they drifted from countless corners of the starry sky. These sounds should have been chaotic, but when they came together, they became incredibly harmonious and unified, just like a chaotic orchestra being led and coordinated by a professional conductor. In the end, Hugh successfully heard high-pitched, excited, and even frenzied shouts from them.

They were calling out the many mysterious names that Theseus possessed.

As these voices grew louder and louder, their praise of Theseus finally came to an end, and in the end, Hughes successfully remembered two more names that were perhaps most important to Theseus.

"The Father of the Forgotten Familia!"

"The Master of a Thousand Faces and Myriad Changes!"

As the name "Lord of a Thousand Faces and Myriad Changes" crashed into Hugh's mind, all the chaotic sounds ceased. The confusion and agitation vanished completely from his mental world in an instant, and everything returned to silence, leaving only the call from a distant world still echoing slowly in his head.

"Snapped."

During the long period of blankness, the game controller in Hugh's hand fell to the ground.

Theseus, shrouded in black mist, looked at the game screen in front of him. In that illusory game scene, the adult shapeshifter that had been torn apart by Hugh's Touch of Karron had now become the victor. The thin, pale youth was now tightly wrapped by the shapeshifter's fully unfolded, translucent body, and the shapeshifter's viscous fluids, which had an anesthetic effect, were now dragging its prey little by little toward the abyss of death.

This kind of death is destined to be slow and painful, because the shapeshifters never directly take the lives of their victims when they "prey." Only living prey can provide them with a continuous stream of concrete and effective knowledge and wisdom. However, the victims can feel their minds being gnawed away bit by bit and their bodies being melted away bit by bit while they are completely unable to move...

"Boring."

Despite having won the game, Theseus suddenly sighed, and within that swirling, amorphous black mist, a distinct emotion of boredom was revealed.

He glanced at the incredibly realistic shapeshifter in the game screen, which was devouring "Shug Ernst's" body, then reached for the controller in front of Hugh and casually pressed a few buttons. The humanoid figure enveloped by the shapeshifter suddenly started moving again. He struggled to raise his hand, and then black Calron's Touch surged from his palm, directly affecting the shapeshifter's interior.

Just as Hugh had done in Ernst’s old house, the shapeshifter’s body was unable to withstand the power of the magic. Its viscous body was torn apart and destroyed on the spot, and countless translucent fragments were scattered all around. In the upper right corner, the shapeshifter’s “health points” were also cleared to the bottom in an instant.

"The current trend is very good, and there is no need for any more changes."

Theseus put down the handle, clapped his hands lightly twice, and chuckled softly.

Under the influence of this laughter, all the strange phenomena that had been disturbing Hugh's mind instantly dissipated, and he awoke from his dazed state, but a strong sense of fear arose in his heart.

The moment Hugh regained consciousness, he realized a terrible truth.

That was the laughter of Theseus, almost exactly the same sound that suddenly appeared in his mind when he manipulated the Running Rats to infiltrate the Law Committee's headquarters. He was certain that the reason his control over the Running Rats had loosened at that time was because of the interference of this laughter!

"Was it you before...?"

"of course."

As if he had seen right through Hugh's thoughts, the strange black figure with many titles and extraordinary powers, but whose identity remained a mystery, quickly responded to Hugh's question, saying, "But don't worry, it's just a little interference... As a qualified screenwriter, I can't just stand by and watch the performance go in the wrong direction."

Theseus's face trembled violently, revealing a simple yet exaggerated smiley face: "Judging from the current outcome, my intervention was entirely correct, wasn't it?"

Hughes pursed his lips tightly, staring intently at the elusive, self-proclaimed god-like black shadow before him, and asked, "So all of this was orchestrated by you?"

"I arranged it?"

As if he had heard a joke, Theseus chuckled: "My dear, how could you have such a strange idea?"

The chaotic, pitch-black face suddenly lunged forward, almost touching Hugh's face. Within the swirling black mist, Hugh heard Theseus speak in a teasing tone: "The fate of Seren, the trajectory of the Vaan situation, Hugh Ernst's destiny… weren't all of these written by your own hand? And those enemies you encountered, didn't you used to like them a lot? You even used the Iris Guard as your chat avatar. What, now you don't like them anymore?"

A heavy sense of mockery and malice flowed from that face, crashing down on Hugh's reason like a flood, almost dragging him into a vortex of despair and anger. With Theseus's action, the entire dream world began to tremble. The mist that enveloped the surroundings and the darkness that separated the inner and outer worlds seemed to come alive, bursting into joyful laughter.

(End of this chapter)