Chapter 300: Causality: A Soul of Enormous Mass
Gregory continued, “Have you ever heard the saying, ‘Everything has its cause and effect. Encounters that seem random are actually arranged by fate.’ In philosophy, this idea is usually classified as fatalism and dismissed as a form of idealism. But in the supernatural world, a considerable number of people are staunch believers in this theory. Even today, humanity is still unable to either prove or disprove it.”
Within the supernatural community, more than half of its members believe that every action a person takes, every person they meet, every word they speak, every deed they perform, and every consequence that follows… none of it is accidental. It is all inevitable—destined from the very beginning.
In other words, although people appear to possess free will, the course of their entire lives is already fixed from the moment they are born.
The unseen force that determines each person’s destiny is known as the Law of Causality.
It is like an immense, flawlessly woven web. Every strand in the web can be regarded as a person’s thread of fate. Each thread occupies its own unique place while remaining tightly intertwined with countless others. Every thread is influenced by the rest, even as it profoundly influences them in return.
“Shelly claimed that he twisted the warp and weft of space-time itself and reversed the deaths of both you and him. If what he said is true, then after all these years, he must have passively grown into an unimaginably terrifying mass of energy! Here, let me use this handkerchief as an example…”
Gregory pulled a handkerchief from his shirt pocket and used a black ballpoint pen to color one of its threads.
“Let’s say this blackened thread represents Shelly, while the handkerchief itself represents the Law of Causality operating normally, before it was disturbed. According to the original course of events, Shelly was supposed to die during the Mayflower Apartments incident you mentioned. His thread of fate should have come to an end at that point.”
The ballpoint pen moved downward to a point in the lower middle of the thread. Gregory tapped it twice, then pressed harder, wedging the tip into the gap between two threads. Catching the black thread, he tugged it sharply to one side.
The brute force distorted not only the black thread but all the surrounding ones as well. A hole large enough for the pen to pass through was torn open in the handkerchief.
“See? Because every thread is connected to the others, moving just one thread creates enormous changes across the entire handkerchief of causality. In the original timeline, Shelly was supposed to die more than twenty years ago, and his thread of fate should have ended there—but it didn’t! He shifted his own thread and rewrote his ending. From that moment onward, every second of every minute, every moment of every day, his distorted fate has been influencing everyone around him…”
An art dealer who should have gone bankrupt paid off all his debts overnight and saw his career return to its peak, thanks to the meteoric rise of his friend Shelly’s fame.
A promising fine arts graduate abandoned her bright future after becoming entangled in a love triangle involving Shelly. She left her hometown and never recovered from the setback.
Thomas—a person who should never have existed—was born several years ago because of a chance encounter between his parents.
Nor were the people closest to Shelly the only ones affected. Those whose lives had been altered by Shelly continued, in turn, to influence others over the years, creating ever-expanding ripples.
Take that art dealer, for example.
With Shelly’s help, his business recovered. As a result, his ailing wife was admitted to the best hospital and regained her health. His young daughter transferred from a chaotic public school to a private high school with far better academic standards, where her grades improved dramatically. She was expected to earn admission to an Ivy League university the following year. With greater financial resources, he was also able to invest in discovering new artists. Many previously unknown painters benefited from his support, and the life trajectories of those artists—as well as their families and friends—were changed in turn.
Of course, everything Gregory had described was merely a hypothesis based on the premise that Shelly had survived against all odds. As for how these people’s lives would actually have unfolded on the original timeline, no one but Shelly could possibly know.
Even so, the conclusion drawn from that hypothesis alone was already astonishing.
Shelly, like the proverbial butterfly, had done nothing more than lightly flap his wings along a predetermined path of fate—yet in the world governed by causality, that single act had unleashed a hurricane.
And change itself is a form of cause and effect.
By setting countless changes into motion, Shelly had unwittingly accumulated an immense burden of causality. As a result, the mass of his soul had grown to an almost immeasurable magnitude.
“That may be the real reason he chose you and Thomas as sacrifices. Strictly speaking, neither of you siblings should exist. Your life should have ended during the Mayflower Apartments incident—it was Shelly who changed everything. As for Thomas, he was a new life born only after Shelly escaped his destined death. Because of those extraordinary circumstances, both of you are wrapped in an exceptionally dense web of causality. The weight of that causality is second only to Shelly’s own. If he used the two of you as sacrifices, it really might have generated enough power to open the Door.”
Clearly, Shelly’s earlier statement had led the SAI to conclude that Shelly was the one who had altered the threads of fate—not Everly, who had only been a few months old at the time.
That was exactly what Everly wanted.
The fewer eyes focused on her, the safer she would be.
So she said nothing to correct their assumption.
Gregory’s explanation confirmed Everly’s own suspicions about what had caused the incident. But even as the pieces finally fell into place, a deep sense of dread settled over her.
“If that’s the case…” she asked, looking helplessly at Gregory and Remia, “does that mean I could be targeted again in the future for the same reason?”
Everly already had more than enough bad luck. Wherever she went, bizarre incidents seemed to find her. If she also became a magnet for cultists coveting the causality bound to her, she’d have no hope of living a peaceful life.
Fortunately, things had not deteriorated to the extent she feared.
“SAI conducted a thorough investigation into Shelly’s social circle and found no connection whatsoever between him and the Order of Dagon’s Secret Decree. In other words, everything—from coming into contact with spirit vision, to obtaining the statue, to secluding himself to paint his final masterpiece—was entirely of Shelly’s own initiative. The Order had nothing to do with it,” Remia reassured Everly.
Things as intangible as destiny, fate, and the Law of Causality are simply impossible for ordinary people to perceive. Even those with spirit vision cannot see them clearly unless they have reached a level comparable to Shelly’s.
So once Shelly died, the causality surrounding Everly effectively became a secret as well.
“By the way, is your Eye of Horus amulet broken? Don’t worry. Once your name has been cleared, I’ll apply to the organization for a new defensive artifact on your behalf. After all, you played an indirect role in preventing a major catastrophe. As the sole survivor of the incident, getting you a replacement shouldn’t be difficult.”
“Really? Thank you, Remia. You’ve done so much for me.”
Hearing those words, the tension that had gripped Everly at last began to ease.
The third interrogation concluded smoothly.
After all three rounds of questioning, Everly remained in the hospital for several more days. Naturally, the SAI couldn’t simply accept her testimony at face value; they undoubtedly carried out their own investigation behind the scenes to verify every detail.
Only after the cuts and bruises on Everly’s body had nearly healed did the SAI finally lift the restrictions placed on her and release her.
On the day she regained her freedom, Remia greeted her with the promised defensive artifact—a necklace fashioned from the dried skull of a chameleon.
“This is an amulet handcrafted by a Vodou priest. If you find yourself in danger, put the skull in your mouth. Under the amulet’s power, your body will blend into the surrounding environment like a chameleon, making you extremely difficult to spot with the naked eye. That said, be careful. If you make large movements or produce any sound while it’s active, there’s still a significant chance you’ll be discovered.”
The skull’s limitations were fairly significant. It could only be used for concealment, and while it was active, the wearer couldn’t make any large movements; otherwise, the camouflage would be broken. Furthermore, the amulet deceived only the human eye. If someone used a thermal imaging camera, the artifact would become completely useless.
That said, it had its advantages.
The chameleon skull amulet had a total effective duration of about twelve hours, and unlike many troublesome artifacts that couldn’t be deactivated once activated, its usage time was cumulative rather than continuous. The wearer could remove the skull from their mouth at any time to pause the countdown, then put it back in later. As long as there was time remaining, the amulet would continue functioning.
All things considered, it was a high-quality artifact that could prove invaluable under the right circumstances.
Grateful, Everly gave Remia a heartfelt hug. Between the defensive artifact and all the intelligence she’d shared, Remia and Gregory had truly become Everly’s benefactors.
As they escorted Everly out, the two of them also gave her a general update on what had been happening in the outside world.
A horrific incident had occurred during Shelly’s posthumous art exhibition. Aside from Everly, every attendee had died—including Thomas, the other heir to the inheritance.
Because the tragedy had been caused by supernatural forces, the details of the case could not be disclosed to the public. As a result, shortly after the incident, the SAI’s Ascamona State Branch had begun a cover-up operation. They told the media that the deaths had been caused by mass hydrogen sulfide poisoning from a leak of geothermal gases at a hot spring.
They chose that explanation because the region was famous for its hot springs, and similar accidents had occurred there before, making the story believable. Moreover, hydrogen sulfide poisoning can induce delirium, causing victims to become irrational, impulsive, and even violent—barely enough to account for the screams that witnesses had reported hearing from the exhibition hall.
Of course, the hot spring gas leak was merely the public cover story. Even the SAI could not deprive the victims’ families of their right to know what had truly happened.
They could only obscure particularly sensitive details—especially those likely to cause psychological contamination—and, after fulfilling their obligation to inform the victims’ families, require them to sign strict confidentiality agreements so that the truth would remain known only to a very small circle.
As the root cause of the entire tragedy and the person ultimately responsible for all the deaths, Shelly’s estate was naturally required to compensate the victims’ families.
Since Shelly was dead, and Everly was now his only remaining heir, that legal responsibility likewise fell to her—unless she chose to renounce her inheritance.
There was no way Everly would do that.
The whole reason she had traveled such a long distance to attend Shelly’s posthumous exhibition was to inherit that enormous fortune. She had even been dragged into the world inside the paintings and endured untold hardships because of it. Now that it was finally time to reap the rewards, there was no chance she would back down.
Besides, Shelly’s estate was vast. Even after paying the astronomical compensation, there would still be a substantial amount left. Overall, Everly would still come out ahead. The only question was how much she would ultimately inherit.
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