Chapter 342: An unlikely breakthrough
(Time-Stilled World, The Spectral Plateau, Round One Of Questioning)
Leo remained seated, legs crossed and brow furrowed, the silence between him and the specter growing heavier with each passing second, as though even the air around them had paused to await his decision.
He had run through each story in his mind again and again, searching for a crack, a misstep, a hidden clue buried beneath their myth-like cadence.
The tale of the architects seemed almost plausible in a world this fractured, where madness often became logic and belief could warp reality itself.
He could genuinely believe that there did exist a broken tribe somewhere in this world that would have tried to dig downward toward what they believed was salvation, when the sun disappeared.
However, perhaps it was because the story was too believable that he wondered if it was a trap?
In contrast, the king’s story was drenched in arrogance, ambition, and poetic punishment, and yet something about it also made no sense.
According to the ancient records he read, there was no mention of any ancient king that did something like this.
Nor did it seem like Zharnok was in a state where he could dish out such petty punishments after losing his physical body.
The story itself sounded like a folk lore straight out of a children’s book.... And somehow Leo couldn’t make his mind on whether it was true or not?
And finally there was the mirror man’s tale.... hollow and haunting, speaking of self-reflection and erasure, yet somehow lacking the same weight as the others, as though it was a fabricated lie while the other two were anchored in reality.
It was the only tale where the main subject of the story was kept vague, as if the spectre was trying to cover a wide base without being specific, so that its lie could pass as the truth.
And while being vague was a tell-tale sign of lying, Leo knew that it could also be a trap, which was why in the end he did not feel confident in locking the third choice either.
*Sigh*
He exhaled slowly, then whispered under his breath, "It’s either the second or the third...I have a strong feeling it can’t be the first" but even as he said it, the words felt unsatisfying.
Because his gut refused to pick one over the other, and despite all his instincts, calculations, and learned caution, Leo couldn’t bring himself to stake his life on a blind guess.
"I can’t gamble here," he murmured to himself, shaking his head slightly, "not like this... not when failure means being hunted down by the dead."
And then, like a glint of sunlight breaking through the clouds, a memory stirred within him.
A memory of his recent conversation with the old dragon, where the old beast had once mentioned that if Leo could master the Codex, he would be able to tell truth from illusion, to distinguish the real from the fabricated, not just in objects or people, but perhaps in the very fabric of stories themselves.
Leo blinked, the realization snapping into place with unexpected clarity.
’Right...’ he whispered internally, a quiet intensity settling into his thoughts, ’the Codex.’
If he could perceive the aura of a liar from the spectre as it narrated the stories, perhaps he could find a way to move forward without having to gamble his life on it!
’Yes... that’s the best shot I have–’ Leo concluded, as he stood up slowly and faced the ghost once more, this time not with uncertainty, but with quiet resolve.
"Can you please repeat the stories for me? I need to hear them again to confirm what I already know!" he said, his tone firm but not confrontational, more a request than a demand.
The three-headed specter tilted its skulls in eerie synchrony, as if amused by the audacity of his ask, yet it made no protest, and once again began its strange recitation.
But Leo no longer listened with his ears alone.
He had already been watching the spectre with mana pooled behind his eyes, when it narrated the story the first time, but this time he tried the hardest to blur his vision and only focus on the faint outline surrounding the ghost, which he presumed to be its aura.
At first he saw nothing much, just the same skin color aura blurring just beyond its illusion of a flesh, as he focused on nothing but the faint boundary between where the spectre’s outline ended and where its aura should be.
The first head began to speak again—about the buried city, the upside-down towers, the gateways to the afterlife—and as Leo listened, he noticed a subtle ripple of tension in the specter’s aura, not hostile or deceitful, but warped with pride, as though the speaker reveled in the strangeness of its tale.
The aura surrounding its body remained unnoticeable till the end, however, just at the end, he perceived a slight splash of black that disappeared as soon as it appeared.
The second head followed, recounting the king who rewrote history and was punished by a forgotten god, and here the aura shifted once more, duller this time, laced with a bitter sorrow that hinted at regret or remembrance, as though the story bore the weight of real consequence.
The second head’s aura also did not change throughout his speech, however, just towards the end, it also flickered with a faint splash of black.
Finally the third head began its tale last, as it talked about the man and his mirror, and Leo narrowed his gaze once again and followed the story till the end, right until the final moment where the story concluded and the third head’s aura flickered black as well just like the other two before it.
’The hell?’ Leo cursed, a frown developing on his face, as he did not expect this outcome at all.
All the three ghosts gave off the same aura at the end of their stories, which did not help him narrow down his suspects at all.
However, this turned out to be a blessing in disguise.
Looking towards his own body, Leo focused on the fringes of his finger and mentally began to speak truths and lies alternatively.
’I don’t miss my family at all–’
’I wonder if Dumpy is alive and okay?’
’I have never thought about shoving an umbrella into professor David’s rear end,’
’I am scared of death’
His reasoning behind this experiment was to check as to whether or not his own aura flared black when he lied versus when he did not, and although he did not notice any results for the first ten or so lies he spoke, when he finally spoke the eleventh, he noticed the faintest flicker of black emerge around his fingers.
’Huh? Was that it? Did I finally succeed?’ Leo wondered in joy.... As he felt encouraged and continued on with the method for a while longer.
Until he could continuously perceive a faint flicker of black emerge at his fingertips every time he lied.
’This might be it.... But I need to look into the codex to confirm!’ Leo concluded, as he reached into his storage ring and retrieved the [Sevenfold Revelation Codex] at once.