A-Ran looked at the three people in front of him. The Archmage pursed his lips, his gentle eyes filled with the torment of pain, while the other two were clearly too flustered, placing all their morale on the Archmage. This unimaginably powerful fellow—it was said that the Psijic Order disappeared for a period at the beginning of the Second Era. Were they from that time period? But how could they have foreseen such a distant crisis? Why were they the ones to appear? What did they represent? Nine people, the Nine Divines? No, impossible...
In the corner, a tall man in a black robe stood silently. Behind him was a dark purple disc. On one side facing him was an epiphyllum pattern, and on the side away from him was a world pattern. Dense, impenetrable Annihilation shadows surged from it, transforming into countless weighty roots connecting to the man. The face under the hood was precisely Simon.
Shadow magic can summon versions of oneself from different timelines...
The High Elf mage quietly left.
Jonas was stunned for a moment, then looked up as the Brass God turned its head to gaze at the location of Black Marsh. From his position, he could see the numidium's side profile, like a pillar supporting the sky in a dream, behind the colorful, ragged, gray-yellow dust clouds.
"So beautiful," the boy said sincerely. Just looking at the Brass God, his heart inexplicably slowed its beating. He heard another deep, hollow, cold, crisp heartbeat, and he was resonating with It—this subtle feeling was fleeting.
At this very moment, the end of the world had indeed arrived. All things plunged into a cold, desolate melancholy. The fierce winds brought a drastic drop in temperature; it would not be higher than three degrees Celsius. He could see the seawater when he looked down. The tsunami had just swept through here, and now the land was exposed. Strange marine creatures were left on the surface. The high mountains were somewhat cut shortened, and the basins were filled with seawater. What was called land was actually wetlands.
Morrowind was probably cracked open, and even the strata on the Skyrim side were severely affected. Numerous The Rifts spread out like tree branches, and seawater continuously poured in, but there was no sign of them filling up.
The population of Nirn was estimated to be drastically reduced. Only three hours had passed, which on a cosmic scale isn't even the blink of an eye, yet the mortal world had already met its end.
Jonas saw floating corpses for a thousand miles, and the broken materials of houses were scattered in disarray.
An incomparably tragic sight.
Are there even a thousand people alive now? A hundred? Or even fewer?
Winterhold must be gone, it couldn't possibly still be there. Solstheim goes without saying.
Jonas counted the place names he knew one by one, estimating how many survivors there might be. This seemed like an instinctive reaction, but he himself didn't really want to think about these things.
He wondered, had he ever killed anyone?
It seemed not; he was merely an observer of slaughter... Some memories surfaced—
The child cried to the man, who wiped the tears from his cheeks and gently asked, "Why are you crying?"
"I don't want to kill him anymore. Can he come back to life?"
"Not for now."
"When can he?"
"When you can transcend time and space, and overcome life and death."
"Alright then, I'll definitely save him later." The boy wiped away his tears and smiled again.
"You need to think carefully; this might be a task you can never complete in your lifetime."
"When I die, I won't owe him anymore."
This memory was like a steel needle, pricking Jonas's head with a saw-like pain.
"A man must remember his promises; he must never give up on things he has decided to do."
"Is there anything, sir, that you absolutely must accomplish?"
"Yes, I have it in my memo, which I can check from time to time."
Jonas clutched his head, falling from the air and landing in the mud, covered in stains, letting out a cry of pain.
The wheat seeds in the comb sprouted, the emerald green shoots grew a short length, and upon closer inspection, they looked like a spring lawn. The tall Troll mixed the chopped malt with the soaked crushed corn kernels, putting them together in a bucket to soak and ferment. When he returned in the evening, he scooped out the corn and malt, and poured the squeezed pulp into a pot to boil. Small bubbles gurgled out, and the warm aroma of malt and sugar filled the stone shelter, filling the crevices of clothes and hair, filling the alveoli, permeating the body, making the whole person sweet... He remembered, he remembered everything!
He didn't grow up in the Crystal Tower; he was a wandering child, and his youth was spent by Mr. Baishan's side.
A beautiful epiphyllum quietly lit up between his eyebrows. Jonas was glowing, a pure lotus in the mud, blooming today... The Shadow King was gazing at the remnants of the Psijic Order.
Simon had long realized that his state was incomplete. He had lost control over the Pure Land; where he once could hold a flower, now he could only grasp a petal. Such a difference was very obvious. But his shadow magic had advanced by leaps and bounds, sensing thousands of versions of himself across different timelines.
After descending into the elder scrolls world, Simon remembered being born in 4E177 in The Rift to a merchant family. His parents disappeared while trading during the Great War, so he wandered the streets. At the age of ten, he joined the Thieves Guild. After helping the Dark Elf Kalia get revenge, he became the new Nightingale, gaining the favor and reward of Nocturnal. From then on, he had a gifted affinity for shadow energy, gradually delving into shadow magic and achieving considerable success.
He commanded countless thieves, gradually gaining control of the Black-Briar family, becoming the de facto ruler of The Rift. The title of Shadow King was widely circulated in the Underground of Tamriel.
He had originally planned to unify the gray areas of Skyrim first, using the massive Thieves Guild to aid his magical research, and he did so, until he met the Breton girl named Jonas, thus entering his elder years prematurely—some people appear to be an ordinary single old dad on the surface, but secretly they are a ruthless and terrifying godfather of the underworld.
Simon comprehended the path of CHIM three months ago. He twisted the Pure Land into a pipeline system connected to Oblivion, allowing him to mobilize endless Oblivion energy, the effect of which was completely consistent with the eye of magnus.
A day ago, he sensed that many parallel world versions of himself were disappearing, so he secretly snuck into the Saarthal Dragon Mound, only to be ganged up on by the four mages and beaten so badly he couldn't lift his head. After feigning death, Simon successfully hid in the shadows.
Shadow magic was not very suitable for combat, and those four old guys were seasoned veterans, with exquisite control over their spells. The Shadow King was utterly defeated and convinced.
But now it was his home ground. The next two hundred-plus battles for those four were actually just parallel world projections summoned by the Shadow King, not very strong. And during this process, Simon's CHIM will was constantly permeating the four people's minds.
The Archmage integrated the Crystal Tower into himself, placing his hidden strength at the peak of the second layer. The Shadow King, however, had only just barely stepped into the threshold of the second layer. Killing the Archmage was almost impossible. So Simon's plan was to use chaotic shadows to blunt the Crystal Tower's Dawn magic, rendering it inactive.
This was a deception, both to prevent the opponent from noticing the objective fact of his weakening, and to actively weaken the opponent's strength. It was like placing a layer of blue film on a lake, maintaining the surface water level, but actually slowly draining the water beneath.
For the Shadow King, this was already a reverse path of CHIM, and it adhered to the most fundamental principle of Oblivion—the annihilation of possibilities.
Slowly embrace death in a beautiful dream!
The Shadow King cackled, Long Live Sithis!
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