Chapter 174: The Other Peruth
He roughly counted, and he had already seen it happen five times—perhaps even more.
For most people, experiencing a life-or-death crisis once in a lifetime would be an eventful journey. But for Peruth, the frequency was a bit excessive.
“There were indeed a few times I almost died, but each time a strong desire to survive suddenly emerged. That’s how I managed to make it to today,” said the person sitting among the thorny bushes, coughing twice and answering a question that wasn’t really a question, in a hoarse voice.
Peruth slowly lifted his head, revealing a pale face drained of blood. Squinting slightly as if he couldn’t see clearly, he asked, “So, who are you?”
Why do you speak to me in such a familiar tone?
Yu Mo could hear the unspoken words. He stepped through Peruth’s blood and stood before him.
Peruth was half-sitting, half-lying down, seemingly unfazed by the stranger’s approach. Yet, there was an attack spell ready in the shadows under his hand.
The young man kneeling on one knee before him appeared calm and distant, but a faint ripple of emotion flowed in his dark eyes.
He reached out and pulled Peruth out of the thorny bush.
Peruth grunted softly as the faint glow of magic beneath his palm flashed briefly before vanishing.
The sensation of thorns being pulled from his flesh was unpleasant, but this stranger had indeed helped him.
After falling into this thorny patch, he had lost his strength and nearly lost consciousness, unable to get up.
The pain in his body was one thing; he was utterly exhausted and had decided to rest here for a while.
“Lean on me and rest,” the young man offered.
The young man said this, and though he was tall and slender, Peruth was slightly taller. At this moment, his body was entirely pressed against him, and the blood from his wounds instantly stained the young man’s pure white shirt red.
Peruth gazed at the red stain, discovering something surprising.
Although there was still an unavoidable hint of stiffness, he didn’t resist being close to the young man; he even felt the urge to embrace this stranger’s body.
It seemed he truly was wounded enough to be on the verge of death, his body sluggishly losing its usual alertness and resistance.
Yu Mo held the blood-soaked man in his arms amidst the thorns, looking up toward the distant reflection of the divine kingdom.
The divine kingdom was the dwelling place of the gods. In the past, whenever a new god was born, the kingdom would open.
Legend had it that if a human could cross the ten thorn-covered mountains beneath the divine kingdom and wade through the red river, they might enter the gods’ realm and gain immense power.
This path, which no one had succeeded in traversing, was also called the Path of Death.
But Peruth seemed to have succeeded; he had reached the divine kingdom and gained the power of the moon.
Now, the divine kingdom lay before him, and Peruth had likely already crossed nine thorn mountains; this was the last one.
Even though he might already be a powerful magician, he was still utterly exhausted by the time he reached here, collapsing on the tenth thorn-covered mountain.
These weren’t ordinary thorns; they couldn’t be cleared by any power and could only be endured step by step.
Peruth was heavily clothed, making it hard to tell how many wounds he had, but Yu Mo could see that his clothes were nearly soaked with blood.
“Although I don’t know who you are, thank you.”
After resting against him for a while, Peruth seemed to regain some strength, slowly standing upright while holding onto Yu Mo’s shoulder and gazing at his face as he spoke.
“You seem to have appeared here all of a sudden, without a single wound. It really makes one curious,” Peruth said, a hint of scrutiny and doubt, mixed with something else, in his gaze.
Peruth maintained a friendly demeanor, or at least appeared to: “Are you also heading to the divine kingdom? How about traveling together?”
“I can walk with you for a while,” Yu Mo replied.
He touched the sapphire star necklace on his chest and began moving in a certain direction.
As they walked, the black thorns that grew along the path tore into his shoes and pants, grazing his skin. The razor-sharp thorns hurt to step on, but the wounds healed quickly, only to be reopened by the thorns again and again.
It was painful, but bearable.
After taking a few steps, Yu Mo felt someone pull him back.
Peruth was looking down at his leg. “So you can get hurt.”
These life-and-death manifestations occupied a space between reality and illusion; if he accepted them, he’d be drawn into reality—along with its injuries.
“Tell me, why are you going to the divine kingdom?” Peruth asked Yu Mo.
“I’m not going to the divine kingdom; I’m just walking with you for a while.” Yu Mo freed his hand and said, “Let’s go.”
But before he could take another step, Peruth held him back again.
“If you’re not going to the divine kingdom, stay here. Don’t go any further.” Peruth’s tone had lost much of its earlier warmth, with a hint of finality.
Yu Mo said, “I thought you’d want me to walk with you a bit longer.”
“But on this path of death,” Peruth replied, “there are no real companions.”
He released Yu Mo’s hand, adjusted his cloak, and prepared to move forward.
“Do you not want to see me get hurt?” Yu Mo broke through the unspoken emotion that Peruth himself might not fully understand. “Even though you don’t know me?”
Peruth turned back, studying him intently, and then seemed to have a realization. “Are you the trial that the Path of Death set for me?”
That would explain why this stranger unsettled him, read his thoughts, and tempted him to stay.
Yu Mo’s expression remained calm. “Yes, I am the trial of the Path of Death. Now that you’ve seen through it, you may go.”
Peruth said, “If you were just an illusion, a trial with no real existence in the world, I think I’d be disappointed.”
With that, he finally turned and walked away.
Yu Mo stood motionless, watching Peruth’s figure as he climbed further up the thorn-covered path. He looked down to find the wounds on his own feet gone, and the blood on his shirt—Peruth’s blood—was disappearing as well.
But the surrounding landscape remained much the same. He was still on Thorn Mountain, though seemingly a little closer to the divine kingdom in the sky.
Ahead of him lay another figure, even more battered than before, sprawled on the thorny path.
When Yu Mo approached, the man lifted his head, his voice rough and dry. “So there’s someone else in this cursed place besides me?”
Peruth had forgotten their recent conversation.
Yu Mo stepped through the thorns, fresh cuts opening on his legs and bleeding anew.
This time, he didn’t pull Peruth up from the thorny ground. Instead, he leaned down, and as Peruth looked up at him, bewildered, he drew close to his lips.
Peruth felt his chapped lips being moistened, his initial surprise shifting to stunned disbelief.
A stranger, someone he’d just met, had kissed him.
And yet, he didn’t immediately pull the weapon from his belt and drive it into Yu Mo’s chest. Instead, his heart was racing.
As the unexpected kiss ended, Peruth looked at Yu Mo and chuckled, propping himself up with some effort. “So, are you the type who takes an interest in someone close to death? But I doubt I’m in any condition to satisfy you.”
Yu Mo’s tone was even cooler than the color of his lips. “You truly are beyond understanding.”
Peruth was silent for a moment. This stranger’s actions seemed even harder to understand.
“Don’t just lie there; get up.”
Peruth loosened the weapon at his waist, shook his head with a sigh, and unsteadily got to his feet.
“Can I ask why you suddenly decided to kiss a stranger?”
“No reason. You should be on your way.”
Once again, he watched that familiar figure walk off into the distance. The blood that had stained him from being close to Yu Mo faded away.
But in the next moment, he found himself still within the thorny thicket, now a bit closer to the reflection of the divine kingdom.
For the third time, he was struggling up this final mountain. It was so difficult for Peruth to make any progress.
“You really are beyond understanding,” Yu Mo said as he lifted Peruth’s head from the thorns.
If this was the moon’s power, obtained with such difficulty, then why had he given it up so easily?
“What… is beyond understanding?” Peruth asked, opening his eyes as he leaned against him.
“Who are you?”
“I don’t feel like answering that question anymore,” Yu Mo replied, placing a hand in front of Peruth’s eyes. “Rest now.”
Peruth caught a faint rose-like scent from his wrist as Yu Mo’s cool fingers gently pressed against his eyelids, like falling snow covering his eyes.
Peruth didn’t pull away from the stranger’s embrace; instead, he became lost in thought, mulling over questions unrelated to the present moment.
Something that seemed like snow, with the scent of flowers, distant yet close, something of the night and mystery.
“…It’s the moon,” he murmured to himself.
Lifting a hand wrapped in bandages, he touched Yu Mo’s face.
Yu Mo lowered his long lashes, his expression calm, without flinching from Peruth’s blood-scented hand, allowing those exposed fingers to brush over his cheek and nose.
The fingers were rough with tiny, unhealed cuts, leaving a faint smear of blood on his face.
“Do I know you?” asked the person lying peacefully in his arms.
…
The bloodstains on his face and body faded away.
When he looked up again, he finally saw something other than the thorn-covered mountain.
A wide, shoreless red river lay before him. A lone figure emerged, dripping wet from the red river, and collapsed on the shore.
This time, Yu Mo did not approach. He merely watched from afar.
Not long after, the figure struggled to its feet, head hanging low, dragging itself forward, soaked in red, as it took weary steps toward the divine kingdom.
He was finally nearing the end.
Even without Yu Mo’s intervention, he hadn’t given up—his tenacity was almost terrifying.
Yu Mo stood still, and as the vision began to fade, the dripping figure seemed to sense something, turning back to look at him.
Then everything vanished once more.
The red river and the divine kingdom just a step away faded, leaving behind only grayness.
In this vast gray world, silent as death, something like snow floated in the air.
It was ash, ash falling all around him, reminding Yu Mo of the endless blizzard when he first entered the realm between life and death.
But this gray world was not cold—only profoundly quiet, devoid of life.
“This is the ash of the world,” said a voice behind him.
Yu Mo turned and saw the corner of a grand temple. He recognized it as the Empire’s Holy Temple of Light, a place he knew well, and this particular corner was familiar too—Peruth had often sat there, gazing out at the city.
Now, someone sat on the stone bench in that corner of the garden.
At first, Yu Mo thought he had finally found the cardinal he sought in the correct time, but on closer inspection, he realized something was wrong: this person was dressed in papal robes.
“Would you like to come and sit for a while?” said Peruth, dressed as the Pope.
He looked much the same as the cardinal Yu Mo was familiar with, though his demeanor was more mature and solemn.
The look he gave him was unfamiliar.
Yu Mo realized immediately that this was not the Peruth he had encountered before; this was Peruth from another space or time.
So this Peruth did not know him.
Yu Mo sat down in the empty seat across from him.
The man smiled at him, as if he understood everything and didn’t bother to ask, “Who are you?” or “Why are you here?” Instead, he began to talk casually.
“Although this world was already a mess, I seem to have made it worse.”
“Did your world end?” Yu Mo asked.
“Unfortunately, I once tried to stop it, but in the end, I only hastened its destruction.”
“So, it seems you’re dying too?”
“Perhaps. The human part of me will die. I am about to become the new god.”
“A new god? Then you succeeded.”
“No, I failed.”
Peruth, in his papal robes, rested his hand on the table, and his fingers began to dissolve like the ash drifting in the air.
“I am about to become a terrible dark god, forced to wander in the gaps of space and time, having lost my world.”
“Well, I wish you a pleasant journey,” Yu Mo said, standing up.
Peruth remained seated across from him, his amber eyes gradually turning gray and white. “And I wish you luck as well, my lover from another world.”
The gray ash fell from the sky, dense and endless, as the final corner of the temple collapsed.
A surge of golden light rushed forward, and Yu Mo was suddenly engulfed in a golden sea.
He saw towering columns rising before him.
A figure dressed in a cardinal’s robes had been pierced through the chest by a scepter, pinned against a smooth, hard pillar. Blood trailed down the pillar in a long streak.
Finally, he had found him.
