Chapter 334: Entirely Molded Into His Shape

The Nightmare Butterfly told Saul that the reason it suddenly hatched was because he had brought something back from outside.

That “thing” was actually the Nightmare Butterfly’s dream—the core of their race’s inheritance.

“Actually, all of us Nightmare Butterflies were born from the dream of a high-ranking wizard. Ever since then, our numbers have only declined. In the past hundred years, even many True Wizards don’t know of our existence anymore.”

“The egg isn’t our child. It’s actually a new vessel. When our current body dies and dissipates, our consciousness will transfer into the new egg. The medium of that transfer is a dream. But not all eggs can complete the metamorphosis—most are just dead eggs. This time, the Penny of the past secretly hid the inherited dream in your own dream. But… after awakening, she couldn’t resist the curiosity to observe you.”

Saul raised his chin slightly, signaling the Nightmare Butterfly to continue.

“At first, maybe I only wanted to observe your recent history. But your history was just too strange. There were always fragments missing… That made my curiosity heavier and heavier, until I couldn’t help but see the day you arrived…”

“Ahem!” Saul suddenly cleared his throat and interrupted Penny.

It was a reflex—he didn’t want anyone else to hear what Penny was saying.

But then he realized: Penny only appeared in his own field of vision, and didn’t truly exist within the Wizard Tower. The misty figures hidden in the room, and the occasional black silhouettes, couldn’t see or hear it.

At this moment, Little Algae was…

Wrapping Saul and the chair round and round like a python, then unwinding it again in loops.

Looking quite bored.

Saul gave Little Algae a light pat on the head to make him behave, then continued, “So you know… I’m from another time? You understand what I mean, right?”

“Yes, I understand what Brother Saul means.” The Nightmare Butterfly’s wings trembled lightly, like someone shrinking their shoulders, “It was precisely because I saw that scene that the Penny back then couldn’t help but look further… and that’s how I ended up like this. I’ve lost almost all of my power, and I’ve become Brother Saul’s possession.”

“You really don’t remember what you saw back then? Not even a tiny bit?” Saul leaned forward, eyes locked tightly on the Nightmare Butterfly.

It trembled even more violently, quickly pleading, “Brother Saul, I really don’t remember. And my dream tells me that if I recall it, I will die—truly die, as in one less Nightmare Butterfly in the world.”

Saul slowly leaned back against the chair. The pressing aura he had just emanated was now fading.

He actually didn’t really want to know that part of history right now anyway.

Especially in a dream, he had almost collapsed just from seeing a part of what Penny had witnessed.

Now that he thought about it, it had felt like an explosion in his mind—like an entire world had suddenly been stuffed into his brain.

Even the diary hadn’t been able to pull him back from the brink of collapse.

Fortunately, in the final moment, Saul’s self-protection mechanism kicked in and blocked his senses, knocking him out.

And the Nightmare Butterfly… most likely survived by diving into the diary, after Saul called out its name and acknowledged its existence in that final moment.

Now it seemed the Nightmare Butterfly really had seen something—probably even more than Saul had—enough to almost break down such a powerful being.

“Then I’ll keep the Nightmare Butterfly,” Saul thought. “Someday, I will explore my own history. When that time comes, the Nightmare Butterfly’s memories might be of help to me.”

He smiled, growing more relaxed. “If you can’t recall, then forget it. But I remember your first words after I passed out were ‘this won’t do’—what did that mean?”

“Mm…” Penny began to slowly flap her wings, as if searching her memory.

Saul simply watched her quietly, not rushing her.

“I remember now. Brother Saul, the soul body you projected into that corpse was too clean. I haven’t seen such a cleanly stripped consciousness in a very long time. But such pure soul bodies are extremely easy to become vessels for powerful lingering wills. When he entered that female corpse, he happened to run into some lingering will—it took over his consciousness almost instantly.”

“Lingering will?” Saul mused and nodded.

Half the corpses in the morgue had been vessels that Lady Yura prepared for herself in life. That female corpse might have once carried Lady Yura’s soul body.

If that were true… then it was pretty much confirmed—the voice crying ‘kill me’ had belonged to Yura.

Just like Mentor Gorsa had said, Lady Yura’s independent soul experiment had failed.

And not only that, Saul suspected Lady Yura had already been seriously corrupted.

In those repeated cries of “kill me,” there was no trace of rationality.

“Even if the resurrection experiment creates a suitable vessel, allowing Lady Yura’s soul body to survive safely and long-term—if she’s already been corrupted, is she still herself?”

Thinking of Lady Yura, who believed herself to be “Vini,” merely a replacement, Saul couldn’t help but wonder:

“Is such a resurrection… truly a resurrection?”

Had Mentor Gorsa ever considered this question?

“He must have!”

Suppressing his complicated emotions, Saul continued questioning Penny, “But I need to conduct soul body transfer experiments. This is a matter of life and death. Do you have any way to help me make the consciousness I control resist the lingering will inside the corpse?”

Saul squinted at Penny—this counted as the first real test for it.

Penny seemed to sense that pressure, too. She couldn’t help but flap her wings, flying half a circle before quickly landing again.

“That soul body is entirely under your control—it’s your warrior. You need to equip him with a sword and armor.”

Saul hadn’t considered that angle before, and grew a bit interested. “Soul bodies can be equipped?”

Penny cautiously explained, “A soul body, of course, can’t be casually altered—the purer, the better. But you can armor them externally with energy. Your stored soul fragments would work.”

“I see what you mean. Use energy to wrap the one I’m protecting—to defend against outside attacks. Hm… could I use this method to resolve a vessel’s rejection issue?”

“That… probably won’t work.”

“Yeah,” Saul quickly realized the reason himself. “The physical body would reject the added layer of energy surrounding the soul body.”

Using a human body as a vessel really was troublesome. If the soul inside wasn’t its original one, the body simply wouldn’t accept it.

Even Herman had said that when he entered his own corpse, he felt a slight rejection. That must’ve been because his body was completely changed, and his soul body had also been modified through Saul’s diary.

So now, the two had developed an irreconcilable contradiction—barely maintaining a façade of harmony, living a life of shared body but separate dreams.

“And now I’m back to the starting point. Why is it that my soul can inhabit this body without any rejection at all?”

Not only that—after the torment of being forcibly separated from his soul, Saul was now using this body more and more naturally.

But through Penny’s hints, Saul had a new theory: the part of his history he couldn’t recall might have added a protective membrane to his soul. That protective layer stopped others from probing into his past, and also made it so the body couldn’t tell whether this soul was its original.

In the beginning, this body had grudgingly accepted the soul from another world.

Later on, it started testing the new soul from time to time.

But those tests had put Saul on alert.

And now, after two rounds of wizard body modifications, this vessel had been fully molded into the shape of the new Saul!

(End of Chapter)

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