Chapter 330: Courting Death

Diary of a Dead Wizard

Blue sand trickled down grain by grain from the top of the hourglass.

Throughout the process, Saul carefully observed the threads of mental power wrapped around Herman’s soul, while using his unique semi-immersive meditation technique to monitor other changes in the female corpse.

After about ten minutes, Herman seemed to have completed the fusion and controlled the corpse to open its eyes.

"How do you feel now?" Saul picked up pen and paper, just about to record Herman’s response.

But in the very next second, Herman suddenly opened his mouth wide, "AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

The sound was piercing! Shrill beyond belief!

Its frequency was so abnormally high that it instantly surpassed the range of human hearing.

Yet Saul could still hear the shriek with his heightened mental perception.

"Something’s wrong!" Saul gritted through the sensation of invisible blades scraping against his skull and reached out a tentacle toward the female corpse, intending to extract Herman.

But the moment his tentacle touched the body, a long-lost voice, like it had broken through some barrier, suddenly pierced into his mind from the outside.

“KILL ME!! KILL ME!! KILL MEEEEEEEE!!!!”

Saul felt like an enormous hammer smashed into his head. His skull vibrated violently like a struck tuning fork.

His mental will was instantly overwhelmed. In the final moment, it was purely on instinct that Saul managed to extract Herman’s soul.

Then, his eyes rolled back—and he passed out cold.

Darkness descended.

"Rustle—"

Someone lightly turned a page.

"That won’t do, Brother Saul."

"Who?!" Saul’s eyes snapped open.

Above him stretched a clear, cloudless blue sky. A gentle breeze brushed his skin like sprouting blades of grass.

A little girl’s face appeared overhead, her soft strands of hair brushing across Saul’s forehead.

Her eyebrows curved gently, and her silver irises sparkled like a starry sky.

"…Penny?"

The girl smiled.

Suddenly, her face leaned in close, silver eyes nearly touching Saul’s.

At this distance, he shouldn’t have been able to see anything clearly. Yet this time, he saw everything vividly.

Within her silver irises were countless tiny eyes.

Each of them a perfect hexagon, densely arranged. These hexagonal eyes formed a large, circular pupil. Sometimes bright, sometimes dim—as if stars twinkled within.

Through her silver eyes, Saul saw himself.

Each of his figures reflected in each hexagonal eye—thousands upon thousands of him.

And every “Saul” was doing something different. Some were studying, some dissecting corpses, some meditating…

“These… are things I’ve done before… Penny’s a Nightmare Butterfly. Could she still be alive?”

“Is what I’m seeing… my own history?!”

Saul thought vaguely, a strange curiosity rising—about his own past.

It was odd.

Back when he had the power to observe history, he never once thought of using it on himself.

Yet compared to the diary or the Little Algae, wasn’t he the one closest and most familiar to himself?

Only now, facing those silver eyes again and recalling the Nightmare Butterfly’s ability to peer through time, did he suddenly realize:

He could observe himself.

He just… never thought to do it.

Now he finally had the chance—to follow these countless eyes back through his past; to uncover the mystery of his transmigration; the truth behind his death and resurrection; and the reason for his soul’s unique singularity.

A flicker of unease stirred in his heart. A whisper of dread. But those feelings were quickly smothered by the gleaming starlight in her gaze, leaving only burning curiosity and frantic anticipation.

“Let me see what happened… between my death and rebirth. Let me see—I'm so close…”

The tension, the thrill of imminent revelation stretched his mouth into a wide grin.

And then—it was as if he really did see something.

Light and darkness coexisted.

Blinding brilliance veiled unfathomable shadow.

“Closer… just a little closer…” he whispered.

Light began to warp. Darkness followed close behind. The two swirled together like ice cream, exuding a seductive sweetness.

"Rustle rustle—"

Saul heard the flutter of turning pages, but the syrupy sweetness quickly drowned out the sound.

"Closer! Closer!!" His voice grew wild.

"AHHHHHHHHHH!!!"

Suddenly, a wretched, agonized scream shattered Saul’s trance.

He snapped awake—saw the little girl above had staggered away.

She clutched her temples, face twisted in utter torment. Black pus streamed from her tightly shut eyes.

"AHHHHHHHH!! Brother Saul!!! I was wrong! It hurts! IT HURTS SO MUCH!!!"

Penny, with her silver eyes, collapsed in pain.

Saul turned and watched her thrash across the grass.

The once-soft, pale green blades suddenly turned black and rigid, transforming into sharp spears that slashed at the rolling girl without mercy.

Black slime gushed from her wounds, soaking the ground.

Saul watched as her flesh was slowly shredded—until she finally rolled to a stop, barely twitching.

Her face turned toward him, hair tangled over her features, revealing only one eye.

That eyelid was deeply sunken, as if something behind it had melted into pus and dripped out through the socket.

“Penny.” Saul called softly, a tinge of sorrow in his voice.

BOOM—

All sound halted.

Time itself seemed to pause—her hair, her clothes, frozen in midair.

Saul felt a wave of fatigue.

He slowly closed his eyes.

…

“Yaaawn…”

Before his eyes opened, a huge yawn escaped his mouth.

He stretched his limbs wide, enjoying the sensation of muscles pulling taut.

With one hand in his hair and the other pushing off the ground, Saul sat up.

“Felt like I had a dream…” he murmured, rubbing his bleary eyes. Only then did he realize he was lying on the floor.

"Why am I on the ground? Did I sleepwalk?"

But in the next second, blurry memories slowly sharpened—his face darkening as they did.

He lowered his head and asked his left hand, “Herman, how are you?”

In his transparent palm, a dark mass pulsed faintly—but it looked much more scattered than before the experiment.

As Saul watched, the shadow expanded a little.

That wasn’t good.

Without hesitation, he commanded the diary to retract Herman’s soul.

The shadow vanished instantly from his palm.

Saul sighed.

They had a few more experiments lined up, but that last entry into the female corpse triggered something—he must’ve accidentally provoked a lingering grudge inside the Wizard Tower.

But what happened after that was even stranger.

“Why did I dream about the Nightmare Butterfly… Penny? She even did something to me…”

Saul jolted upright. “Why would I dream about Penny?!”

Ever since becoming a wizard apprentice, he’d rarely dreamt—and each dream had meaning.

After reaching Third Rank, he hadn’t dreamt once.

But now, after fainting… he dreamt of a Nightmare Butterfly?

And met Penny in the dream?

That couldn’t be a good sign.

Saul rushed past the three corpses nearby and dashed toward the back of the shelves—where he had sealed the Nightmare Butterfly’s cocoon.

But when he arrived, the test tube that once held the eye-shaped cocoon…

Was empty.

(End of Chapter)