This is an Endless Cycle

Shana returned to Johan Town carrying a box.

The townspeople saw someone familiar in appearance before them, but his eyes and demeanor had completely changed. They called out his name.

"Young Shana?" The town blacksmith stood in front of his shop, questioning the person walking into town uncertainly.

"Shana has returned," said a woman who had once worked as a servant for the Shana family as she emerged from a nearby building.

"Shana, where have you been lately?" More people gathered.

It had been over a year since Shana left home.

Nothing in Johan Town had changed. Only Shana had changed.

Shana walked through the town roads carrying his box. The exhaustion on his face was impossible to hide. He lifted his head almost mechanically, responding perfunctorily.

"Mm..."

"I'm back."

The distant Shana family castle grew closer. The castle's stone walls bore marks from ancient wars. Impacts from Divine Techniques testified to this ancient family's long history and deep foundations.

During the City of Fire Protection era and the founding of Suinhor, this castle had served as a strategic stronghold.

Only in the last two hundred years had it gradually settled into peace as part of Suinhor's heartland, allowing the structure to slowly fall into disuse.

Shana had returned. He stood silently beneath the castle windows.

The castle windows were high, too high to reach even with an outstretched hand.

It felt almost like a prison.

An old man was helped out from the depths of his room by a maid. He spoke to Shana from the center of the great hall.

"You're back!"

"Did you get the Wisdom Stone?"

Though phrased as a question, the old man already knew the answer.

He knew everything, yet he kept it all hidden in his heart.

Only then did Shana turn around. "Yes."

The old man's deep gaze fell upon Shana. "You did very well, better than me."

"The Shana clan has waited countless years. At last, we see dawn's light in you."

"I am old now. We of the Shana clan are like this. Live a few decades, and our bodies become this frail."

"The future depends on you."

"It's time you knew certain things."

Shana looked around. "Where is Father?"

The old man told Shana, "He is not home."

Shana asked, "Is he also out executing a mission?"

The old man replied, "You, he, and I. Each has their own mission and purpose. You will know when it is time for you to know."

In the darkness, Shana followed the old man deep along the corridor. Paintings and carvings of the Shana family came into view one after another.

They stopped behind the first stone tablet, inscribed with the words "When the Creator returns, that shall be when the gods awaken."

The old man opened a hidden door.

The hidden door turned with a faint sound, revealing a sloping passage leading downward.

"In all his years in this home," Shana thought, "this is the first time I knew this carving was actually a door."

The old man led Shana deep inside as oil lamps lit up one by one along the passage.

The two entered a stone chamber.

With a rumbling sound, the chamber descended downward.

The space below was even larger than the one above, like a vast underground palace. The sound of rushing water could be heard.

The Shana family had used technology beyond their era to build this place, harnessing water power to drive the underground palace's operations.

"This is beneath the lake," Shana realized when he saw the strange structures below.

In the center of the underground palace, Shana saw a giant, bowl-like depression.

At its deepest point, a bottomless dark hole lay beneath a layer of untouchable white webbing that covered the entire depression.

Shana saw familiar threads extending from deep within the cavern. Thread after thread stretched out from the dark hole, tangling together to form something resembling a womb.

Shana asked the old man, "What is this place?"

The old man answered, "This is the tomb where the Shana clan is buried. It is also the womb that nurtures the Shana clan."

The old man led him toward the dark hole. Within the densely interwoven white web, a small, raised bulge could be seen.

Inside was a fully formed Snake Person infant.

When Shana leaned in to look, the child's eyelids twitched. It seemed to open sleepy eyes to glance at him once.

Shana felt a chill spread from his spine. His entire body went rigid.

He turned his head to look at the old man.

"What is this?" he asked.

The old man told him calmly, "This is the new Shana."

Then, in a tone Shana found absolutely unacceptable, he revealed a truth even more impossible to accept.

"In the future, he will also call you father."

"Congratulations, young Shana."

Shana's expression changed instantly. "So this is how I was born too?"

"This is what the Shana clan is?"

"We aren't even human? We aren't even really alive? We're just puppets?"

"These threads are the power controlling us. This is what you call fate?"

"That Camon, he was someone you sent to supervise me completing my mission, wasn't he?"

Shana's next words were utterly offensive.

"You're not even really my grandfather."

"You're just another earlier manufactured puppet, another marionette on strings."

The old man looked at Shana as if observing a naive child who could not weather storms.

"You find this so hard to accept?"

But the old man failed to notice how cold and ruthless his own gaze was.

Shana could no longer be bothered to say more to him. He felt he had seen the whole truth.

His eyes revealed hatred and disgust as he looked at this elderly Snake Person, covered in age spots and reeking of foul odors.

"You said some god would guide me, but you were just controlling my fate all along."

"To achieve your goals, you killed everyone on Silver Fish Island."

Shana practically spoke through gritted teeth. "You... bloodstained old thing who can't even be called human."

The old man paid no mind to Shana's offense. "A mission is a mission precisely because it must be completed."

"No matter how you struggle, no matter what you think, no matter if you are willing."

"You must complete it, young Shana."

Shana shouted loudly, cutting off the old man.

"Don't give me that nonsense!"

"I don't believe your lies."

"It's not that we want to complete some mission. When we were manufactured, we were bound with threads and chains."

Shana looked at his grandfather. "There is no mission at all. You're just manipulating our fates."

The old man glanced at Shana and spoke in a calm tone.

"Only a handful of people."

"Why are you making such a big deal out of it?"

Shana stared at him in disbelief. "Just a few people?"

"That was an entire island of people."

"Every single person there was alive. They weren't numbers to be calculated. They were living people."

"They had families, they had children."

"What gave you the right to decide their deaths? Why don't you die instead!?"

Shana let out a roar as immense spirit power burst forth from within him.

On Shana's brow, a Divine Artifact in the shape of a shard manifested.

A flash of light shot out, freezing the old man in mid-air.

The old man did not resist. Perhaps he lacked the power to resist such overwhelming force.

He looked at Shana. "Using the Wisdom Stone to activate the Original Sin shard's power?"

"Shana, what are you doing? Are you going to kill me?"

Shana turned and walked toward the center of the depression.

The old man, suspended in mid-air, watched him. "What are you trying to do?"

Shana walked deeper inside without looking back. "I will destroy this place. I will destroy this den of evil."

"No new members of the Shana clan will ever be born. No one will complete your so-called mission."

Shana declared resolutely, "Let your divine guidance and the Shana family mission..."

"Go to hell!"

Shana waved his hand. An immense power directly pierced through the dome above.

Water poured down from the breach as stone after stone fell.

The entire underground palace began collapsing from the top down.

Below Shana, the giant bowl-shaped depression with its unknown black hole also cracked layer by layer.

The old man hung suspended in the dark depths, able only to watch silently.

Shana had abandoned him here, leaving him to be buried underground.

He did not fear death. Instead, he looked at Shana with a pitying smile.

"No matter what you do."

"No matter how extreme."

"No matter how mad."

"It is all just a catalyst in the pursuit of liberation. It is all just our struggle in endless despair."

"For liberation, we can sacrifice anyone. To complete that mission, we can even use ourselves."

"This is a cycle beyond death and time, young Shana."

Shana hung in mid-air, rising with the widening cracks above.

"Now, it is all over," he stated.

"Boom!" A massive stone fell, crushing the old man into pulp.

At the same time, the underground palace floor completely split open.

Shana saw a bottomless hole that seemed to lead to the earth's core.

He could faintly see countless corpses piled into a mountain below.

The bones belonged to countless races, densely packed together.

Many species could be traced back billions of years.

At the very top lay Snake People corpses, at least several dozen.

Generation after generation of Shanas.

This was a mass grave, their bodies discarded like trash.

Shana viewed it all as the poisonous legacy of their clan, his eyes filled with disgust.

But soon, everything was buried beneath the fallen rocks, lake water, and gravel.

Shana rose high into the air, bursting out from the lake.

A whirlpool could now be seen in Johan Town's lake, marking the spot where Shana had just emerged.

The lake's water level kept dropping, but new water flowed in from far away to replenish it.

Everything was buried beneath the lake. Everything related to the Shana family became part of the past.

At least, that's what Shana believed.

Shana descended from above. He looked at the partially collapsed castle nearby, then toward Johan Town in the distance.

He felt no attachment.

Having killed his "grandfather" and learned the truth he sought, Shana immediately turned and left Johan Town.

He would go find the other person, Camon.

He believed that without the old man and Camon, everything would truly be over.

After Shana left, half a month passed. Then, Shana's "father" returned.

Everyone in Johan Town spoke of the ground collapse, their hearts filled with fear.

"There must be something in that lake."

"I knew something was wrong."

"Stay away from the Shana family."

"Everyone in that family is like a madman."

"Young Shana was the same. He went away and came back crazy."

They only quieted when they saw Shana's "father." Shana's "father" ignored them all and headed directly for the Shana family castle.

He had already registered in the City of Fire Protection to inherit the Shana family's Oath-Taker status, the noble status of the Suinhor City-State.

From now on, he would be the Shana family patriarch and the lord of Johan Town.

"Father" stood by the lake, looking into its depths and speaking aloud.

"Is the old man finally gone?"

His weathered face finally showed a trace of excitement. "Now it's time for me to know all the secrets."

"Father" walked into the lake. He could sense something calling to him from below.

Shana's "father" descended deeper into the water. Layer upon layer of white threads emerged from the lake bottom, wrapping around him.

An immense power carrying ancient and complex memories transmitted from the threads into the depths of his mind.

"Father's" eyes turned blank white, but his consciousness seemed to traverse time.

He saw dense white threads everywhere.

Above the threads, in an unknown place, there were two stones.

No one knew where these two stones were hidden. No one could find them.

Neither the threads nor other powers were their true form, only manifestations of their power.

The two stones were embedded in a stone tablet carved with a marionette, clearly imitating the ancient style of the Royal Bloodline era.

It was very similar to the legendary "The Marionette of Fate" by Saint Stan Tito.

However, this tablet radiated powerful waves of force. Its reverse side held an intricate, three-dimensional ritual array so complex it made one dizzy just looking at it.

The ritual array was formed by multiple overlapping arrays. It combined the power of both stones to achieve some inconceivable ability and effect.

This was a Divine Artifact with a very high sequence number.

Though it lacked the profound meaning of its legendary predecessor, it was still precious and important.

One stone on the tablet sprouted white threads that fell from the sky to the earth.

Because this stone was the manifestation of knowledge and memory, it could control others' bodies, steal their wisdom, and even modify their memories.

But it could only target beings with wisdom, as it had none itself. It could only plunder the bodies of others.

Thus, it borrowed others' bodies and wisdom to gain the ability to think.

The stone bore the memory of some servant. It would follow a certain plan, generation after generation, until that plan was fully achieved.

The other stone projected shadows. Each shadow was a personality imprint that actively sought carriers.

Like the first stone, it too was just an inanimate object.

But its split shadows merged with another race, passing down through generations of that race's divisions.

At the same time, because this stone was the manifestation of desire, it instinctively sought what belonged to it, parts it had once lost.

The Shana clan carried personality imprints created by one of the stones.

They possessed the personality of the same person, completing their mission under the threads' control.

The plan seemed perfect and complete.

But problems arose.

The threads for monitoring and control appeared. The puppets for seeking and completing the mission appeared.

However, the carriers who once had wisdom, the species with wisdom, vanished in time. New wise species were slow to appear.

The light of wisdom came from the Creator, who left this world 250 million years ago.

Without carriers, without wise puppets to control, the stones lost their function, lost all meaning.

They attached themselves to all sorts of unwise species, becoming stupid things without higher wisdom. The original plan became empty talk.

Thousands of years passed.

Millions of years passed.

Shana's "father" felt countless species' memories flood into him. Though they flashed past instantly, vanishing just after crossing his mind, he could experience the eternal, cycling pain and loneliness within.

Shana's "father" trembled violently in the lake, his face a mask of terror and despair.

Finally, a turning point arrived one day.

In the swamp jungle, a beast with a sail-like back looked toward the sky.

A silver moon broke through the barrier between illusion and reality, appearing in the mortal sky above.

The Creator, who had vanished for 250 million years, descended upon this world once again.

All sequence-numbered tools regained their radiance. Powerful forces and the power of law ruled all once more.

That feeling, that excitement, deeply permeated Shana's "father's" body.

In that moment, it felt as if a spark of light pierced through the gray, suffocating despair of the world.

Soon after, a large tribe of Snake People following Alcina migrated here. They planned to establish their tribe and town.

They rushed into the lake to bathe, laughing and playing. Threads burst from the water to control them.

One Snake Person was dragged to the lake bottom. A shadow entered his body.

That was the beginning of the Shana clan.

Shana's "father" received such vast information. The impact wasn't just on his consciousness but also ravaged his body.

His form suddenly hunched over. His face aged considerably in mere moments.

"Father" choked on water and swam desperately back to the shore.

He still gasped for breath like a drowning man, staring at the sky in disbelief.

"So..."

"So this is what Shana is?"

"This is the so-called mission? The so-called divine guidance?"

"Father" cried out in despair, nearly screaming himself hoarse.

But after the despair subsided, he knew nothing could be changed.

He didn't understand what the stone tablet carved with the marionette represented. He understood even less about the specific power of the Knowledge Stone and the Desire Stone.

But he knew...

If even 250 million years of time, if even death itself could not bring this mission to an end...

What more could he possibly do?

What could he resist?

"Father" turned over, helplessly clutching his head.

He kept repeating one phrase: "Must complete the mission."

"Must complete it!"

"Must... must... complete it..."

"At any cost, must complete it. It should end... it should end..."

"Should... end..."

At this moment, the lake surface stirred again.

"Father" lifted his head to look.

Dense white threads extended up from the lake, bringing a child before him.

It was the new generation's Shana.

"Father" walked forward uncertainly, his lower body submerged in water again. He took the child delivered by the threads.

"Wah!" The child woke upon touching him, crying out loudly.

"Father's" mind suddenly flashed back to the old Shana's words: "How long have you waited?"

He held the child.

As if all strength had been drained from his body, he tilted his head to look at the lake surface and the distant shore.

His entire being felt like a marionette, devoid of any self.

"This is an endless cycle."

Suinhor City-State.

A village east of Maya City offered a view of Lava Mountain in the distance.

The village wasn't famous and had never produced any notable figures.

It was said that King Smerkel had passed through and stayed here many years ago. This was the most boast-worthy detail about this nameless village.

Shana arrived here. He had discovered this village was Camon's hometown.

"Camon?"

"Who would have such a strange name? We have no one called Camon here."

This was what the villagers told him.

Shana immediately described Camon's appearance. He even took out paper and pen to draw Camon's likeness.

The villagers instantly recognized the person Shana spoke of. "He's not called Camon, he's called Lendel."

Shana asked, "Lendel?"

A villager nodded. "That's right, that's his name."

The villagers spoke over each other, all seeming to know this Lendel.

"But he was no mercenary. Couldn't fight, much less kill anyone."

"He was just a cowardly tanner. Though a few years ago, he suddenly stole a mercenary's leather armor and ran away. Haven't seen him since."

"He had no relatives in the village, just a bachelor."

When Shana mentioned Camon said he'd been to sea, the villagers burst out laughing. "Gone to sea?"

"He gets terribly seasick. Forget the ocean, even a small boat rocking on the river is enough to make him dizzy."

Shana felt that except for the appearance, the villagers' description of Camon completely mismatched the Camon he remembered.

But Shana believed Camon must have gone to sea.

The scenes he described, his sighs and regrets, could not have been faked.

"How could someone who had never gone to sea describe the black storm and everything that happened at sea so vividly?" he wondered.

Shana spent another two years investigating, following Camon's claim of going to sea.

In the Land of Sunrise, he found a sailor who claimed to have followed a captain named Camon.

But when Shana saw this sailor, he was startled. The man looked very old.

"If he was a sailor back then," Shana considered, "it must have been decades ago?"

Yet when Shana asked, the old sailor immediately shouted excitedly.

"Yes, yes, yes!"

"Captain Camon! What an interesting man!"

"When I was young, I followed him to many places."

"Unfortunately, he never returned after his last voyage."

"They say he encountered the most terrible black storm at sea, the most fearsome thing on the ocean."

"I wasn't on that trip because I'd found a wife and didn't want to risk adventures at sea anymore."

Though he said this, one could see the old sailor deeply missed his days of ocean adventure. He deeply missed that interesting captain.

Shana took out his drawing and asked if the old sailor recognized the face.

"No, no, no," the sailor replied.

"He didn't look like this. He had a big beard, and a scar right here on his face."

Shana thought he had found the wrong person, perhaps just someone with the same name.

He stood up, preparing to leave.

At this moment, the old sailor suddenly remembered something. "Wait! In the last few voyages, there was a noble youth."

"Fair-skinned and delicate, always holding a book, saying he was a scholar."

"He stayed by the captain's side back then, talking about exploring the outside world together."

The man looked at Shana and suddenly froze. He jumped up and rushed over to Shana.

He looked Shana up and down, finally asking in confusion.

"Oh!"

"Wasn't that you?"

"Yes, Shana!"

The old sailor's mouth split in a wide, nearly toothless grin.

He seemed to see an old friend after many years.

"You're Shana, right?"

"Shana, it's me!"

"The drunk from the Sailwind!"

Shana nodded slowly. "I am Shana."

The old sailor was even more shocked. "How have you not aged at all?"

"Still the same as when you were young?"

Shana didn't know how to explain and could only fall silent.

Shana had found answers, but he felt more confused than before when he had none.

He didn't understand who Camon really was. He didn't understand who he himself was.

He stood by the ocean.

Today, fog had risen over the sea, obscuring everything.

In the mist, he faintly saw himself hanging in mid-air, helplessly letting others pull his strings, a marionette.

Shana looked at the people around him, at the busy sailors on the dock.

He felt any of these people could be Camon, but he would never find him.

Shana felt a deep fear creeping in.

But the more things seemed this way, the stronger his resolve became.

He had to find Camon. He had to know what the other man truly was.

"I will definitely find him!" Shana vowed silently.

"Then I will make him pay the price. I will definitely find him."