Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 381 Fraudster

"I think I understand what you mean."

Milo glanced back at the silhouette of the church building nestled in the rain and mist high in the sky behind him.

He recalled the person he had met in the prayer square, the guy who looked just like him.

"The legendary Imnar can mimic any creature. What did you see in the square?"

Marshall asked Milo.

“I saw myself,” Milo replied.

Marshall walks on the road.

Unlike ordinary cats, it is not afraid of rain and does not care at all about its paws getting wet in the puddles. It even deliberately chooses the deepest part of the puddles to jump around.

As it passed a low-lying area, it suddenly stopped and stared at its reflection on the water. Raindrops falling from the sky kept hitting the water, and the ripples kept Marshall's reflection in a blurry state.

A deep, penetrating light, the kind that only appears in humans when deep in thought, flickered in its sapphire-blue eyes as it gazed at its own blurry reflection and said to Milo:
"Imnar's imitation of living beings is etched into the soul. It seeks out the most authoritative or influential individuals in a civilization and imitates everything about them. After a long period of imitation, it evolves from an imitator into a fraudster, deceiving the entire civilization, deceiving the ethereal rules, and even deceiving the gods, ultimately replacing the one being imitated, like a reflection after the rain stops, no longer blurry."

“So, according to you, the name Imnar might not have originally belonged to it, right? Maybe Imnar was once an imitator.” Milo could understand the message the cat in front of him was trying to convey, but the feeling was a little strange.

“Who knows? Of course, these are all just rumors.” Marshall stepped over his reflection in the puddle and continued forward, adding, “It has played so many roles, it probably forgot who it is long ago.”

"Wouldn't it be a lot of pressure for a kitten to have so much knowledge?"

"I can't help but joke," Mai suddenly said.

But this kind of pointless chatter only earned Marshall's speechless look:

"In the dream world, the history of the cat civilization is much longer than that of you humans."

"Ok."

Milo shrugged and then asked:
"According to you, this is its way of survival: imitation, deception, substitution, playing various roles in countless civilizations, and ultimately replacing that role's position under the rules from the source. So, can I understand that it is trying to replace me?"

After all, what he saw in Prayer Square was just another Milo.

“But it didn’t kill you, which is strange.” Marshall seemed to have also noticed the problem.

The beasts on the bridge and the attack in the Prayer Square, when all these are considered, cannot be considered the true killing moves of an Old One.

If its goal is to replace Milo's place in this world, then it should do everything in its power to eliminate Milo, and it should not allow Milo to rescue Daisy, thereby learning its true name through the Eye of Thinking.

But whether on the Church Bridge or in the Prayer Square, Milo could sense that the creature with the same face as him had never truly revealed its fangs.

Milo never tried to ponder the words spoken by these ancient rulers, but for some reason, he could sense a kind of... a kind of confusion in Imnar's previous words.

And it wasn't Milo who was confused, but Imnal himself.

……

On a muddy suburban road, a person and a cat braved the rain.

They were both constantly thinking and refuting each other in their minds.

The rain continued until it gradually subsided and eventually stopped completely.

On the way away from the church bridge, Milo and Marshall talked quite frequently, but later they both fell silent.

And just as the puddles on the ground clearly reflected the shadows of Milo and Marshall...

They both stopped walking almost simultaneously.

Click!

A crisp sound of metal mechanical structures turning filled the air.

That was the sound of the revolver releasing its safety mechanism.

...

At this moment, the composition of this scene in the fields after the rain is truly remarkable.

The clouds in the sky remained gloomy and heavy, showing no sign of dissipating anytime soon. On the desolate land, a road carved out of the grass was almost completely filled with water.

There was only one law enforcement officer and a little black cat on the road.

The black cat stood directly in front of the law enforcement officer with its back to him.

The law enforcement officer held a revolver, the muzzle pointed diagonally downwards in front of him, locked onto the dark-furred cat.

The hammer at the end of the revolver was already as hot as magma, causing the surrounding air to distort and ripple.

Standing on the field where there is no sound of wind or rain, if you hold your breath, you can almost hear the sound of the thick clouds pressing against each other in the sky.

But soon, the law enforcement officer broke the oppressive silence by speaking first:
"What a sad thing this is, that you have really forgotten your real name."

……

...

From the moment Milo left the Star Clock Tower, Daisy, lying on the stone platform, had been suppressing a great sense of panic.

She trembled violently, her hands clenched into fists so tightly that blood seeped through the blindfold covering the upper half of her face. The curse had been lifted, yet she was now facing new torment.

This unusual scene threw Isabel and the other contract scholars into a panic.

In contrast, the nuns serving at the Star Tower and Defoe and others were much calmer, because they could sense that the Eye of Thinking was forcibly watching a corner outside.

……

Daisy saw Milo pass by Prayer Square, saw him cross the Church Bridge, and watched him walk a distance towards the city of Nanwei.

Throughout the entire process, she was in immense agony and pain. Her fragile mind and body were being overdrawn, and she was in danger of falling back into a near-death state at any moment. But she was unwilling to stop because she had noticed some clues, some terrifying clues.

Daisy only stopped using her Eye of Contemplation when she saw the scene of the law enforcement officer pointing his gun at the kitten in the wilderness.

At that moment, she knew that Milo was safe.

So she calmly allowed her subconscious to take over her tired body and fell into a coma.

……

boom!
On the field, Milo pulled the trigger.

But just as the scorching bullet burst from the barrel, the shadow of the black cat Marshall vanished, even faster than its reflection in the puddle.

Only when the bullet pierced the water, and the splashing water completely blurred the reflection, did everything that seemed illogical finally return to normal.

...

Milo pressed his hand to his artery, stood there for a long time in the damp wilderness with his gun in hand, until the vague sense of crisis completely subsided before he put the revolver back on his waist.

They then returned to the church bridge and searched for a long time along the canal bank below the bridge before finally finding the real little black cat, Marshall.

He picked up the dirty kitten, covered in weeds and mud, and dipped it into the rising canal water. After a few dips, he got a kitten that was about 80% new.

Marshall appeared to have suffered some serious injury, but there were no obvious wounds on its body, only a small wound on its left chin that was oozing blood. This wound was not what actually caused it to fall into a coma.

Milo picked up the kitten and listened to its belly with his ear.

He muttered to himself:
"Hmm, not bad, I won't die."

After tucking the kitten into his arms, he finally began his journey back to the city.

……

To be honest, the past half hour has been quite dangerous.

Milo not only lost Rebecca's cat, but also almost brought back a fake cat disguised as an Old One.

He couldn't imagine what would happen next.

Fortunately, Milo no longer needs to waste brain cells imagining those consequences.

Because he saw through Imnal this time, the same trick wouldn't work a second time.

However, in general, Imnar's series of plots still succeeded.

Yes, it finally learned its real name.

That is its true purpose.

The curse placed on Daisy, the Eye of Thinking; the use of wild beasts to lure Marshall; the attack on Milo in Prayer Square; and the creation of those eerie illusions to confuse Milo—all of this had only one purpose: to learn her own name through the Eye of Thinking.

Although the whole thing sounds bizarre.

But, as it itself said, after countless roles, deceptions, and substitutions over the long years, this Great Old One, in order to conform to the power of the rules, eventually forgot its original form.

It forgot its own name.

Perhaps for humans, a name is just a label.

But for the Great Old Ones who have mastered certain rules, or even for the very beings who are manifestations of the laws themselves, names are simply abbreviations of those laws.

Just like how the casting of first and second sequence magic requires knowing the true name of the god to be summoned, it is the same principle.

Forgetting one's name is tantamount to abandoning all the power contained within it.

……

The Marshall that had been talking to Milo the whole way was Imnal.

Of its countless deceptive statements, perhaps only one is true: "Having impersonated so many creatures, it has probably long forgotten who it is."

...

Unfortunately, Milo told Imnar's name to Imnar himself.

Perhaps, in the Prayer Square, it wasn't that it didn't want to kill Milo, but simply that it wasn't absolutely certain yet.

Now, it is believed that it is fully confident.

(End of this chapter)