Before the four starlight falls from the hands of Order.
Earlier.
An uninvited guest came outside this old house that the Crowley family had abandoned for more than a hundred years.
He wore a heavy wool-collared cloak and a pale grimace mask, like a ghost, traveling between the night and the shadows, and finally stopped in front of the tall black iron gate outside the old house.
Dang chang!
The guest pulled the bell on the door. The harsh sound echoed inside the iron gate, awakening the sleeping devil grass on the wall and the three-headed dogs who were dozing in the yard. A few glimmers appeared in the depths of the house.
No inquiry, no code words.
The heavy iron door creaked and slowly opened.
Behind the door is a dark world. In the depths of the house, you can vaguely see several wizard towers of different heights. The dark buildings are located among them. There are curved stone corridors between the towers and buildings, and there may be several low stone walls to isolate them.
The stone walls and stone corridors are covered with bumpy spell marks, but moss has grown in many pits, proving that there had been fierce battles here a long time ago.
The wizard wearing a grimace mask quietly walked through it, noticed some of the intact columns and wall tiles, and could also see the sentences from the Old Crowley's Book of Law:
——People praise the fools, because they and their gods are fools.
——The pain of falling apart is not worth mentioning, only the joy of integrating into all things is everything.
——Come out, children, enjoy your love under the stars!
Just as he saw the last sentence, a subtle rustling sound suddenly began to sound from all directions, like the sound of a spring silkworm going up the mountain. Soon, the calm night in front of him seemed to be the lake water wrinkled by the wind, rippling with translucent ripples.
The guest stopped cautiously.
Click!
The night was broken before his eyes, and everything in the house—from the wizard tower to the dark buildings, to the three-headed dogs, to the stone walls and corridors—is gone one after another, and replaced by a garden covered with mandalas, with a colorful mushroom house in the middle.
An old wizard with loose heads and teeth, crane hair and chicken skin walked out of the mushroom house with a crutch.
"What's up?"
The old wizard's expressionless face and his voice was hoarse and harsh.
"——News came from the island that the location of this laboratory has been revealed to the young man."
The guest's voice was very soft, almost whispering, as if he was worried that he would be heard by others a little louder: "He may come or may not come. Whether he comes or not, we hope you have prepared accordingly. In addition, this is just a negotiation of contact nature, if the other party does not agree with our conditions..."
"How could you agree?"
The old wizard interrupted the grimace wizard and looked at the guest in front of him deeply: "The mask on your face has been worn for too long and you no longer have the courage to face the reality of this world... Do you want that young man to give up the position of dean but refuse to pay the same price, or you cannot pay the same price...but hope that he agrees with your request for respecting the elderly and loving the young? Ha!"
He raised the wooden stick in his hand and pointed it around.
"—I think your thoughts are more like fairy tale than my mushroom house." The old wizard's wrinkled face squeezed out a touch of mockery, stopped, and asked back: "So, you just said, what if he disagrees?"
The wizard wearing a grimace mask was silent for a few seconds.
"—If he doesn't agree immediately, we need to show our strength appropriately." Speaking of this, he looked around and had a hint of confusion in his tone: "But I noticed... I mean, the reason we activated this abandoned laboratory is because we have conducted dimension experiments here before, which can achieve small-scale dimensionality upgrades or dimensionality reductions..."
"Simple dimension upgrading and dimensionality reduction may scare ordinary great wizards, and they have no meaning to legends." The old wizard interrupted the ghost mask impatiently again.
"As far as we know, he is not always in a legendary state..."
"So? Don't the falcons stuffed into the cage know the vastness of the sky? Even the weakest legend of the side door is still a legend. Their vision will not disappear because they are temporarily out of the legendary state... just like the mask on your face. Do you think your mask can block the gaze of a legend?"
"--cannot."
"Then why do you still wear a mask?"
“…”
"If you don't say it, I will answer for you. When you wear a mask, you are not guarding against the legendary wizards, but the guys around you who secretly plot against legends with you. Similarly, I don't need the plan you prepared, because you don't have much confidence in you guys... So, don't think about using simple "dimension upgrade" or "dimension reduction" to scare that young man... Compared to this, getting lost in the dimension is actually a more terrible thing."
"get lost?"
"Yes, get lost. The endless maze wrapped in layers of dimensions." The old wizard laughed softly, and the wooden stick in his hand paused heavily: "——A brilliant snake, burn in this world."
This is a mantra that is transformed from the Book of Dharma.
The blazing flames ignited at the feet of the two wizards and spread around them. In a moment, the Mandala Garden and the Mushroom House were swallowed up. The temperature of the flames and the burning pain were real, but to the surprise of the guests, the remaining charred world after the flames burned was actually the deep old house covered with stone walls and stone corridors.
It's just that different from the deep breath before, at this moment, the night in the yard exudes a burnt smell.
The bumpy traces of spells on the wall and the motto written by Old Crowley were still clearly visible, and he could easily see a sentence he had never seen before - every man and every woman is a star.
"——These were all fake just now?" The guest couldn't hide his surprise.
The old wizard tilted his head and smiled strangely: "Why do you think these things in front of you are real?"
Click!
The translucent ripples appeared again in front of the ghost-faced wizard, and everything in front of him turned into pieces.
The debris dissipated.
The ghost-faced wizard found himself still standing in front of the tall black iron gate of the old house, pulling the rope of the doorbell in his hand. The devil grass on the wall had just spread its sharp leaves, and the whimper of the three-headed dog behind the door was still accumulating in his throat. The lintel of the "Book of Law" in the lintel, "I split for love, split for the opportunity to gather" seemed particularly eye-catching - everything I had experienced before seemed to be just an illusion.
He let go of the hand holding the doorbell.
He pushed the pale mask on his face.
He let out a sigh of relief, turned around, and quietly disappeared into the dark night.