Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 168 The Meaning of the Undead

Defoe looked like a busy old man.

He fits the image of a pastor that Milo has in mind: kind, benevolent, upright, and with a strong sense of approachability—basically possessing all the elements a high-ranking clergyman should have.

I wonder if he likes little boys...

Ahem...

...

“I won’t waste your time.” Defoe didn’t seem to be the type to ramble on and on. He didn’t try to convey any doctrines about the Tree of Gold to Milo and Theon, perhaps because he knew that the man in black’s heart was as hard and stubborn as a rock, and there was no need to waste words on him.

"In the final analysis, we have overstepped our bounds in this matter, but I hope that you two can understand, because we are investigating a sinner who has deviated from humanity. In essence, our initial intentions are the same."

“We can’t pursue this even if we want to. This case is classified as a confidential file in the law enforcement team. To put it bluntly, this kid and I were also conducting an investigation in violation of regulations,” Old Theon said frankly.

“Then I think our conversation will proceed relatively smoothly.” Defoe was satisfied with Theon’s attitude.

Milo simply stood there silently, observing everything inside the Star Clock Tower.

Defoe pushed back his chair and slowly rose, taking a yellowed draft paper from his desk and handing it to old Theon.

“Ethan Field lost his ability to speak after the Great Library incident, but for the first week his basic motor skills were still normal. We tried various ways to communicate with him, but he never answered any of our questions with pen and paper. However, he did write a lot of things, some of which we still cannot understand.”

Several crumpled sheets of draft paper were bound together. Besides the flamboyant handwriting, there were some abstract line drawings that looked like children's doodles, as well as some traces of saliva or snot.

Old Theon frowned and quickly flipped through the few pages of draft paper.

After confirming that he couldn't understand even a single punctuation mark, he stuffed them all into Milo's hands.

Milo, on the other hand, carefully flipped through the pages, searching for anything recognizable among the dense foreign text, asking questions as he read:

"Did he write all of these down voluntarily?"

Defoe paced back and forth in front of his desk with his hands behind his back.

He looked to be at least sixty years old, but he was in very good physical condition, with an upright posture and agile movements.

Defoe said as he walked:
"That's right. In the first few days, whenever he was lucid, he would write like a madman, without eating or drinking. At first, we thought this was a sign of his mental derangement because what he wrote made no sense at all. But on the fifth day, after he stopped writing, his body began to atrophy and he completely lost his ability to move... I thought he might be recording the various changes in his own organs, but after studying what he recorded, I found that it didn't seem quite like that..."

“These…don’t really look like them.” With Milo’s level of education, he naturally couldn’t understand what secrets these extremely abstract line drawings and densely packed formulas could possibly hide.

“I had a few old friends who are fluent in foreign languages ​​translate the text above. Most of it is just… strange rambling, like the last sentence in Arabic on the first page.” Defoe pointed to the draft in Milo’s hand and said, “That sentence means—'That eternal existence does not die, but in strange eternity, even death dies.'”

"What do you think it means?" Milo looked up at Defoe.

However, the wise old man threw the question back at Milo: "What do you think?"

Perhaps it was an illusion, or perhaps it was just old and blurry vision, but for a moment Defoe realized that the young man before him seemed to be genuinely contemplating this somewhat illogical statement.

The truth is, Milo was indeed thinking seriously. Upon hearing those words, several mysterious concepts immediately popped into his mind, corresponding to certain terms in the sentence. Are they the Ancients, the Daybreakers, or the Old Gods, existing eternally?

The information the Scarlet Witch conveyed to Milo was too fragmented and lacked a coherent structure, forcing Milo to interpret it based on incomplete understanding and guesswork.

He himself may not have realized that he was trying to decipher the words written by a person who was physically diagnosed with a mental illness.

Perhaps Defoe was right; this was the rambling of someone on the verge of losing their mind.

However, for Milo, once he learned of the existence of the concept of vision, he had reason to believe that what Ethan Field wrote was not entirely meaningless.

He doesn't have a high enough level of spiritual vision.

So after gaining insight into something beyond our comprehension, Ethan paid a heavy price.

But before he completely fell into the abyss, he recorded what he had learned in his own way, which is why, as Defoe said, he recorded and wrote without eating or drinking.

He must have seen something shocking enough, something that made him willing to give up his life to record it.

……

"This sounds a bit like the story of Wilfred Fenich."

Milo narrowed his eyes slightly.

If I remember correctly, Fenich's manuscript was compiled by him from the original text of the so-called "Necronomicon".

Is it possible that Finich also had the same experience as Ethan Field, only that his process was longer and long enough to allow him to write more than two hundred fragments?

Milo vaguely felt a chill.

Perhaps this is why evil texts are prefixed with "evil."

Those who comprehend it will desperately want to preserve the part they have understood, in order to "share" or "protect" their gains in another way.

Like Finich and Ethan, they used various rare foreign languages, ancient languages, and special codes and formulas to encrypt the encryption, simplifying it while simultaneously complicating it.

The simplicity refers to the fact that these obscure ancient information and knowledge have already been digested by their minds, while the complexity refers to the encryption methods added by the compilers themselves.

It's like an endless curse.

All those who comprehend it will give their lives for it, and will pass it on and protect it in a similar way.

Perhaps this is the true meaning behind the title "The Necronomicon"?
……

“I don’t know how much value this will be in your hands, but it is the most effective clue the Church can provide,” Defoe said calmly.

(End of this chapter)