Chapter 1068: Section 1069 Monty’s Obsession
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While everyone was still engaged in a boisterous discussion, Monty’s peculiarity went unnoticed by most due to the cover of his mask.
Only Sanders shot Monty a disdainful glance.
Although Sanders appeared aloof from the vortex of conversation, he was, in fact, observing the movements of everyone, especially Lord Monty.
Others may not be privy to the inside story, but as someone marked by the Thief of Time just like Monty, Sanders had a good understanding of some of Monty’s thoughts.
Indeed, the vast majority of those marked as “seeds” by the Thief of Time initially shared the same stance towards him.
Sanders was unwilling to be constrained by the Thief of Time and even held a loathing for him.
Initially, Monty felt the same way.
As a natural-born genius with lofty goals, truth was their sought-after shore; why would they allow the Thief of Time to steal their choices away? Even if it was a choice they would not have used.
But when did Monty start to change his train of thought?
Was it when he had exhausted the resources of the Frostmoon Alliance without being able to further advance? When he glimpsed the higher ranks of the world but found them out of reach? Or was it when during a particular cultivation session, he made that expedient choice and saw the Thief of Time flashing a satisfied grin, never to appear again?
Yes, Monty had not seen the Thief of Time again since that cultivation session.
That time, the Thief of Time took another choice away but also gave him ample compensation, allowing his combat strength to directly reach the pinnacle of the Southern Domain. Yet from that moment, he seemed unable to progress any further, and he never saw the Thief of Time again, despite making many life-changing decisions intentionally; the Thief of Time never reappeared.
He knew that the Thief of Time had completely given up on him.
Once the Thief of Time abandoned his “seed,” there were only two reasons: either the seed itself lacked ambition, or the seed’s “true choice” had been stolen from him.
Monty knew he was the latter.
From that day on, Monty no longer detested the Thief of Time and instead was eager to meet him once more, but to no avail.
Hence, the reason why he decided to breakthrough Legend using the method of Blood Soul Sacrifice from the Demon God’s descendant was precisely because he hadn’t seen the Thief of Time in so long.
It was only when there was no hope on the path ahead that he chose to take an unorthodox approach.
Therefore, his emotions were particularly complex upon hearing about the Thief of Time now.
Sanders could infer Monty’s psychological changes, but he actually sneered at Monty’s morbid mentality.
Monty never considered that his original choice might not have been wrong. The Thief of Time’s absence could just be leading him to make mistakes.
After all, the Thief of Time is an utter bastard.
He claims to fairly take the choices you abandon, but in reality, he’s always psychologically manipulating you, guiding you to make the decisions he wants.
That’s why Sanders was so outraged upon learning that Angel had been marked by the Thief of Time.
However, it seems Lord Monty has fallen completely into obsession, and even if you told him that his choices weren’t wrong, but it was the bastard Thief of Time who was wrong, he probably wouldn’t listen.
Obsession and inner demons have always been the roadblocks on the path to Legend.
Sanders lowered his brows, his gaze growing dark. As the voices around him grew louder in their discussion about the Thief of Time, he finally spoke up, “The matter of the Thief of Time, whether good or bad, is unpredictable. The more you speculate, the more you drive yourself mad. Besides, is now the time to talk about such irrelevant things?”
Sanders raised his head: “Lord Monty, the information you mentioned earlier, aside from the unstable energy and Abyssal Awakening, also mentioned a mysterious shop. What does that mean?”
Sanders’s words successfully shifted the focus of the wizards present.
Indeed, the Thief of Time was too remote for them, at most being a topic of casual conversation. The more pressing matter at hand was the situation in Lassudral, given that their lives were now tied to the hip with the entire Frostmoon.
“The mysterious shop, could it be that of Baltica in the Land of Rest?” Sinafa mused quietly.
After a moment of distraction, Monty finally regained his thoughts. He gave Sanders a long, deep look, sensing the hidden message in Sanders’s words, but it was already too late.
Then Monty shook his head at Sinafa: “The Resurrection Witch’s shop is not considered mysterious in the world of Demons.”
“The mysterious shop I’m talking about, I don’t know the exact details either. It seems to be a new shop that suddenly opened in Lassudral in the past two days. In a short time, this shop has stirred up a storm and caught the attention of countless great Demons.”
Monty’s words drew sideways glances and discussions from the wizards.
“There’s such a shop in Demon City? Mysterious shop, indeed it sounds very mysterious.”
“Could it be the work of some Mysterious Object?”
“Does this mysterious shop have any connection with what Lord Monty mentioned earlier, the Abyssal Awakening?”
The group began to discuss the shop, but without any means to get more information about Lassudral, all their discussions and speculations lacked a factual basis.
In the end, everyone’s gaze once again converged on Monty.
Monty himself didn’t have much information either, as his “eye” in Lassudral was none other than Morheim, or to be precise, Morheim’s left eye.
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An intermediate-rank demon from Morheim, how could it possibly fight against Monty for so long? It was simply Monty laying out his plans.
The left eye of Morheim, which was Monty’s hidden chess piece, would only show itself when Morheim’s main body was dormant or had lost consciousness. However, Morheim had no intention to rest, for the information he had was still too scarce.
But that wasn’t to say there was none at all.
“There’s another piece of information.” Monty hesitated for a moment, “That mysterious shop rumored to be deep within, its name is called—’Dreamy Fantasy’.”
“Dreamy Fantasy?” Everyone pondered the message, without any clues, it left them completely baffled.
When Sanders heard this name, for some reason, his heartbeat erratically skipped.
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On the other side, Angel’s heartbeat also suddenly quickened.
He rubbed his eyes and once again looked up towards the slowly fading fiery red figure on the distant street.
“Yes, this sensation, it’s so familiar…” Angel murmured softly.
He was currently on the roof of the ‘Dreamy Fantasy’ shop, and not far away, tall tree branches stretched over, shading a bit of coolness, casting mottled tree shadows on his face.
Fafnir rested against the trunk of a large tree nearby.
Angel chose this spot, in part because he coveted aura around Fafnir; within this Wind Domain, no major demon’s gaze could penetrate here.
Originally, Angel was pondering here, but suddenly, his peripheral vision caught a glimpse of a fiery red figure in the distant street, that vanished in a flash, but Angel felt a familiar fluctuation.
“It must be the chain I crafted…” Angel said, puzzled, “But, didn’t I give that chain to Popota? And Popota performed a Blood Soul Sacrifice, it shouldn’t appear in someone else’s hands.”
The fiery red figure seemed to have the shape of a demon, not a human. Could it really be his misperception?
Angel massaged his temples, his face full of confusion. If he thought carefully about it, even if it truly were Popota, he should not be showing up in Lassudral at this time.
“It must be my misperception.” With this thought, Angel lay back down on the rooftop, basking in the coolness of the tree leaves, feigning sleep just like Fafnir.
Time passed, and after roughly half an hour, Canaan’s voice suddenly reached Angel’s ears from the yard below.
“Shopkeeper, I found it outside! It’s the same pig demon person from before!”
Angel opened his slightly blurry eyes, looking down with a confused expression, only to see Canaan standing at the entrance to the yard, pointing at the lean white demon lying on the ground beside her.
Upon closer inspection, it was Morheim who had joined the customer experience at the shop before.
“How did it end up lying there?” Angel asked, puzzled.
Canaan shook her head, “I don’t know what happened. It fell from the sky, straight down here. It seems to have lost consciousness. Shopkeeper, what do we do now?”
Angel furrowed his brow. He was about to leave Lassudral and didn’t want to get involved with the demons here anymore. Especially since Morheim was a powerful demon who had contended with Lord Monty for a while.
However, it didn’t seem right to leave Morheim laying at the door of his own shop.
Angel thought for a moment, “Move it to the side, just so it doesn’t block the customers. How it stays unconscious is no concern of ours.”
Canaan nodded, In fact, for these unconscious demons, the locals of Lassudral typically would strip them clean and then see if they can sell them for money. But this pig demon person, with an unknown reason for unconsciousness and formidable strength, robbing it could easily backfire.
So what Angel said about ignoring it, Canaan agreed with.
She conjured two illusionary arms of water and lifted Morheim, placing him under a large tree at the edge of the forest.
After Canaan had placed him properly, she was about to return. But at that moment, in the unconscious Morheim, his left eye’s pupil began to show strange occurrences.
The black pupil turned into a series of characters.
Since there were no customers at the moment, Canaan didn’t rush back, standing by the side, she took in all the characters at a glance.
“Scoop out your eye? That’s not going to work.” Canaan shrugged her shoulders, “I mean, does your left eye have a different consciousness from the main body?”
The left eye did not respond to Canaan, but instead continued to form new characters.
This time, the characters weren’t telling Canaan to scoop them out, but asked: “What’s with your shop?”
“Didn’t you experience it yourself? Oh, right, it wasn’t you, it was your main body that experienced it.” Canaan broke into a laugh, it seemed this left eye indeed had separate consciousness from the pig demon person’s main body. Could it be some sort of parasite? Or maybe, a consciousness that formed on its own?
Regardless, Canaan found it rather interesting.
“What does your shop sell?” The characters changed again.
Canaan replied, “It’s a customer experience trip, yup. What do you experience? The rhythm of water, the cadence of the ocean. Well, you’re only an eye; you can’t experience it anyway, so why ask so many questions?”
The characters still transformed, but at that moment, the sound of footsteps came from the distant woods, apparently another customer had arrived. Canaan waved her hand, “There’s a customer, I’m leaving now.”
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