Chapter 341: Two Truths And A Lie
(Time-Stilled World, The Mountain of Illusions, The Spectral Plateau)
Once Leo realized that he couldn’t get past this particular ghost without indulging it, he surrendered to his fate and asked, "Alright, tell me, how do I prove I’m worthy enough to pass?"
The three-headed specter did not move. For a moment, only the wind stirred, brushing gently across the flatland like the breath of a forgotten god.
Then the left-most head finally spoke, its voice calm and velvet-smooth. "You may pass by proving that your mind sees more than what is shown."
The right head picked up immediately, tone raspier, like the scrape of stone on metal.
"That you can pierce deception not with sword or skill, but with stillness and perception."
And at last, the central head leaned forward, blood-red eyes glowing slightly brighter.
"We shall each speak in turns.
One of us lies.
Two of us speak the truth.
Uncover the fraud three times in a row, and the path ahead shall open.
Fail, and you will be forced to turn back... with the mountain’s dead trailing behind you.... This time with the intent to kill"
Leo frowned when he heard the last line.
’The mountains dead trying to chase and kill him?’
That did not sound like a good outcome at all, however, he did not have much other choice but to accept the Ghosts’ conditions.
The thick mist that he ran into moments ago was now surrounding him on all sides, and something about this old ghost’s gaze told him that regardless of where he ran, he would always end up before it, until he gave it what it wanted.
’Great. So the three headed ghost wants me to play a game of two truths and a lie, but with my own life on the line?’ Leo mused, as he looked around, trying to confirm one last time as to whether or not he could run away from this situation without facing it?
Before sighing and nodding his head, when he realized that he could not simply run away from it.
"Fine. Let’s get this over with." He said, agreeing to the terms and conditions of the ghost, as the air around him immediately turned denser and the three heads before him began to laugh in synchronisation.
—-------------
(Round One)
For the first round of the game, the left head went first, speaking with the cadence of an old storyteller.
"In a city that’s now buried beneath ice, there once lived a race of architects who built towers upside-down after this world broke, believing that heaven was below and hell was above.
When outsiders eventually arrived at their town, they called the architects heretics and devil worshippers, however, when they chased them inside the upside down towers to punish them, those that went in never came out.
It’s said that the towers are a direct gateway to the afterlife, and that no soul who enters it can leave it alive—"
The middle head followed, his tone softer, melancholic.
"After this world broke, a great king ordered every book in his kingdom to be rewritten so that his name would appear in every victory, every miracle, every sacred text that had ever occurred in the history of this world.
He became audacious and leveraged the silence of the Old Gods to proclaim himself the new God!
However, because of his ambition, the soul of the dead god Zhanrok, punished him.... And when he died, his soul was forcibly scattered across the rewritten stories.
Now, any child who reads the forbidden texts aloud speaks in his voice and forgets their own for three days, as they are forced to anchor his anguished soul as a reminder to not learn wrong history."
Then, finally, the right head spoke.
"There was once a man who carried a mirror across the broken world, showing people who had lost themselves to the tainted mana their truest selves.
Most begged to look, some broke down in tears, others attacked him in rage.
However, it wasn’t until he saw his own reflection in the mirror that it finally cracked.
When asked what he saw, he said, ’Nothing. I was never real to begin with.’"
—-------
Leo stared at them.
Then blinked.
Then stared some more.
All three stories echoed with the same eerie quality..... they all sounded mythical, poetic, and unnerving.
Each one had just enough logic to feel feasible in a twisted world like this, and just enough nonsense to make him question everything.
He ran the stories through his head again, trying to dissect them.
Blind architects. Haunted books. A mirror that shattered on self-viewing.
Leo scratched the side of his head and let out a small frustrated breath.
"How the hell am I supposed to figure this out? They all sound equally garbage to me..."
He turned away, then turned back, then circled slightly around the ghost, trying to see if one of the heads was sweating or twitching or doing anything remotely suspicious.
But he found no tell-tale signs of lying on any of them.
All three looked as smug and unreadable as ever, as they maintained eye contact with him regardless of where he moved.
*Thud*
Eventually, Leo sat down cross legged before the ghost, as he rubbed his temples in perplexity.
"This isn’t a riddle. It sounds more like a fever dream.... Something that’s randomly made up in sleep" Leo muttered, as he tried to probe the heads into revealing more information about the stories they just narrated, however, the heads maintained their silence.
No matter how long Leo stared at one of them, or how he tried to engage them in conversation, the heads said nothing, as they waited in silence until Leo made his final choice.
’Fuck this is hard....’ Leo thought, as while on one hand, he wanted to trust his gut and just blurt out the answer that seemed most suspicious to him..... His gut was unfortunately yelling three different things at once today.
Maybe the mirror guy’s story is real? In a place like this, where tainted mana distorts the soul, a mirror that reflects your true self could be powerful enough to shatter psyches. And the part where he saw nothing? That doesn’t make it fake. It could mean he really was hollow... a construct or a ghost, never truly alive in the first place. That feels haunting, but possible.
The king’s story sounds insane, but then again.....so is this world. After the old gods went silent, maybe someone did try to erase and rewrite history to crown himself a divine figure. The punishment—having his soul forcibly scattered through the texts he defiled—doesn’t sound made up either. It’s poetic justice. And if those cursed books still exist, maybe reading them does let him speak again, even if just for a few days. That’s not impossible... just terrifying.
Even the upside-down towers could be true. If an isolated civilization went mad after the world broke, their logic might’ve flipped too. Building downward, toward what they believed was salvation..... it’s deranged, sure, but not beyond belief. And if the towers do lead to some kind of metaphysical realm, then maybe that’s why nobody ever returned. Not because the story is false... but because it’s working exactly as intended.
He frowned, biting the inside of his cheek, genuinely unsure.
All his training, all his instincts, all his cold-blooded calculation, appeared to become useless in this situation, as in the end he felt like he was going to be forced to make a simple guess and nothing more.
He couldn’t even tell if he was being toyed with.
If any of the stories that he heard here today were even genuine?
Or if all three of them were a lie and regardless of what he said he was going to lose....
As that, more than anything, made him feel like he was genuinely stuck in a tough spot, as this wisdom test turned out to be much more complicated than he had initially expected it to be.