Chapter 61: The Gaze of a God

“Stop.... stop....”

Mel covered her ears, but she couldn't stop those words from cheering by her ears.

“Stop calling my name!”

The young girl cried out, on the verge of collapse.

Mr. Allen stood in the very center, looking down at Mel on the altar below, his eyes flashing with a crazy light.

His fingers drew complex runes in the air, and every movement triggered a violent reaction from the surrounding books.

Those ancient tomes, as if summoned, flew out from the bookshelves one after another, revolving around the altar.

“Look, Mel Rossetti. The torrent of knowledge is about to submerge this world, and I—will, in this torrent, under His gaze, achieve the crown.”

Mr. Allen's voice was filled with fanaticism, his eyes completely consumed by madness.

He reached out and gently caressed Mel's cheek, feeling the turmoil of Quintessence under the girl's skin.

“You... don't you dare....”

Mel raised her head, staring at Mr. Allen with resentment.

Tears mixed with blood slid uncontrollably from the corners of her eyes.

The moment those teardrops touched the altar, they were silently absorbed by the rough paper.

Seeing this, Mr. Allen gave a light chuckle.

“Then struggle until the very end, apostle of desire. I look forward to seeing what kind of expression will be on your face the moment you have an audience with the Truth.”

As he spoke, his finger lightly slid across Mel's throat, leaving a shallow, bloody mark there.

Blood flowed from the wound, but it condensed in mid-air into bright red symbols.

“Let's begin.”

Mr. Allen raised his hands high, and the entire library began to shake violently.

“The time of enlightenment has come!”

The bookshelves collapsed one after another like dominoes.

The lime from the ceiling rustled down, but suddenly froze in mid-air, turning into floating symbols.

The space around the altar began to distort, and countless pages swirled in mid-air, forming a huge vortex.

“With this—revise all phenomena!”

Mel felt her consciousness being torn apart.

Her memories, her emotions, her everything was being swallowed by that huge vortex.

She wanted to scream but found that her voice had disappeared.

Her existence was being redefined, being rewritten.

Countless words broke free from the pages, weaving a giant web of knowledge in the air.

Every symbol flickered with an eerie light, squirming as if alive.

Mr. Allen stood at the center of this web, his eyes completely replaced by countless tiny words, his voice trembling with fanaticism.

Just then, Mel suddenly felt a dazzling light flashing in the center of the vortex, as if something was about to descend.

Immediately after, a sense of oppression that transcended the material level fell upon her.

It was as if the weight of all the words, all the knowledge in the entire world, was pressing down on her soul.

In the ink of the words, in the paragraphs of the chapters, in the gaps between the pages of the books —some existence cast its gaze.

That was no ordinary gaze.

It was a line of sight composed of countless tiny symbols.

Every symbol contained the truth of the world.

Wherever that gaze reached, reality began to disintegrate, turning into the most fundamental stream of information.

“Crack—crack—”

Space cracked like a shattered mirror, revealing the torrent of data flowing behind it.

Mel felt her consciousness being torn apart.

Her memories, her emotions, her everything became transparent under that gaze.

She could see her own existence being broken down into countless fragments of information, each fragment flickering with a different meaning.

“No... don't...”

The girl's voice was already fragmented, her consciousness hovering on the brink of collapse.

She could feel that existence scrutinizing her, analyzing everything about her in a cold and rational way.

“Stop looking at me”

That existence's gaze grew stronger.

Countless symbols intertwined in the air, forming a vast information network.

Each node shimmered with a different light, representing a different field of knowledge.

Mel's body began to glow, the remaining Quintessence within her boiling under that gaze.

Her flesh and blood were being redefined, her soul was being rewritten.

“Omm—”

Amidst a low resonance, the entire library began to disintegrate.

The walls turned into waterfalls of words, the floor into an ocean of symbols.

The ceiling disappeared, revealing a starry sky made of countless fragments of knowledge.

In that starry sky, a certain existence was taking shape.

It was an entity composed of pure knowledge, every part containing endless information.

It had no fixed form but was constantly changing, as if demonstrating the infinite possibilities of knowledge.

Under the gaze of that existence, Mel felt a fear she had never experienced before.

It was not the fear of death, but the fear of being completely understood, of being completely analyzed.

Before it, everything would be analyzed, everything would be understood, everything would lose its mystery.

Mr. Allen fell to his knees, his eyes filled with fanatical tears: “Finally... finally...”

Suddenly, Mr. Allen's weeping came to an abrupt halt, along with the fanaticism and emotion on his face.

As if it had been frozen on his face.

Then, his expression became confused, became uneasy, became terrified, became angry and bewildered.

【Knowledge】 was not looking at him.

“How can this be”

Mr. Allen stood frozen in place, raising his head in disbelief, and disregarding the spiritual impact of looking directly at a deity, he angrily asked:

“Why!”

Bloody tears streamed from his eyes.

“Why aren't you looking at me!”

Suddenly, Mr. Allen seemed to realize something.

He whipped his head around to look at Mel beside him.

He could no longer contain his anger.

From beginning to end, the gaze of 【Knowledge】 had never moved away from Mel.

Everything he had meticulously prepared had actually been for someone else's benefit.

He would rather choose a Shepherd of the Red Moon than favor him!

“What kind of joke is this!”

His Adam's apple suddenly split into a living bookmark, and every roar was accompanied by the spray of shredded pages from 《Faust》.

“On what grounds is it you”

Mel suddenly stopped trembling.

The words by her ears no longer chanted her name.

The young girl raised her head, her pupils reflecting the emblem of endless tomes.

Just as the gaze of 【Knowledge】 was about to completely analyze Mel's existence and brand its own mark on her soul, a huge crack suddenly split open in the sky.

Blood-colored moonlight poured down as if it were tangible, dyeing the entire library an eerie crimson.

Those words floating in the air began to twist and melt under the moonlight, turning into dripping, blood-red ink.

The surrounding pages and tomes began to let out screams of collapse, and even the surface of the words showed tens of thousands of blood-colored cracks.

This was not damage on a physical level, but corrosion on a conceptual level.

“This....”

Mr. Allen staggered backward, crushing a copy of 《Principles of Astrology》 that was in the middle of a transformation.

What spattered from between the pages was no longer ink, but beads of blood reeking of rust.

“A dual divine selection.... and a dual divine selection by 【Knowledge】 and 【Red Moon】... this completely violates all laws of mysticism—”

His roar was cut off by the sudden, dull tolling of a bell.

The great cast-iron bell of Saint Margaret's Church rang fourteen times on its own.

The library's dome exploded with a boom, not destroyed by an external force, but torn open from a higher dimension by some existence.

Bricks and rubble floated in the air, each fragment reflecting a different phase of the moon.

But the most eye-catching was undoubtedly the full red moon hanging high in the night sky.

Victorian Calendar, Year 350, February 18th, two o'clock in the afternoon.

The sky had gone dark.