LotM: Surviving as a Marionette

The system was situated in this space and could similarly observe the appearance of the parasite through the body's perspective.

Don signaled the system to cast an identification spell on it, but the system indicated it was impossible.

They were unable to influence things that were in an 'observed' state; identification was equally impossible to perform.

This space and dimension were far higher than the real world and the spirit world. Without meeting certain conditions, they could truly only act like readers, unable to interfere with the story's direction.

But this also had its benefits.

"It's just shallow parasitism."

Don was like a ghost, following behind that boyish-faced knight.

He discovered he could clearly hear the communication between this boyish-faced knight and the parasite within his body. Although this also required consuming a lot of spirituality, he had borrowed plenty.

His future self was truly generous—the spiritual power lent out was much more than many Sequence 5s combined.

"If I'm really borrowing spirituality from my future self, then that version of me who lent the spirituality must have already reached at least Sequence 2, or even Sequence 1 level."

A bigshot of this level would have vast amounts of spirituality; lending out some wouldn't affect themselves at all.

Then, extending this further, could he borrow items other than spirituality from his future self?

For example, the Sun Scepter with complete Beyonder characteristics? Or other marionettes and mystical items that his future self might control?

Or perhaps, borrow the system that might have already devoured the God of Craftsmanship or the Hidden Sage in the future?

Even if only for a few seconds, it would be enough for him to play some new tricks.

"Hiss, thinking about it this way, the Yesterday Once More charm is much more powerful than I thought."

Of course, this also required experimentation to figure out the rules before it could be used as a trump card.

Whether he needed to use the Yesterday Once More charm within Euclid's Space to borrow power from his future self, or if he could leverage this power in the real world as well.

Moreover, the power of the Yesterday Once More charm wasn't at its strongest yet.

The essence of charms was to pray to higher beings for power and use materials and corresponding symbols that could bear the load to fix the obtained power.

The Theater Core had no object to pray to. The Yesterday Once More charm also belonged to a type of charm—praying to oneself, responding to one's own prayers. It was only the Theater Core of a Sequence 2 Miracle Invoker's status. Without the Gray Fog participating in the response, the Yesterday Once More charm it created wasn't at optimal effectiveness.

Naturally, the total amount of power that could be prayed for from past selves would also decrease.

Moreover, there weren't many Spirit Worms left in the theater.

After becoming a sealed artifact, the Theater Core could no longer autonomously split corresponding Spirit Worms. The Spirit Worms now used to make Yesterday Once More charms were all leftover stock from before the theater. Well, this issue also needed to be resolved somehow.

Should he go rob the Secret Order and capture a few Bizarro Sorcerers to split Spirit Worms for him to play with every day?

Old Zaratul was dead, and little Zaratul might still just be an Antiquarian...

Making note of his little schemes, Don, supported by divinity and vast spirituality, discovered under this close-range observation that he could 'flip through' some information of the person he was observing like turning pages of a book.

Don waved the Sun Scepter in his hand. Spiritual power caused that boyish-faced knight's three-dimensional form to gradually collapse and flatten, spreading out like a paper figure.

Then, the paper figurine's flat body opened page by page, with densely packed text suddenly flooding into Don's spirit body.

He could certainly refuse—the power of divinity could resist this kind of infusion—but Don didn't stop it.

This was itself part of testing the rules.

"In this space, observed things have no secrets to speak of."

Just like archived book characters, major and minor events were all recorded in detail within.

"What do you call this, Heaven's Door?¹"

Don roughly reviewed the transmitted data, which contained the boyish-faced knight's life history, then summarized again.

"The more detailed, the more spirituality consumed."

"Even for an ordinary person, if you wanted to browse this person's entire life in minute detail, the spirituality required would be equally enormous."

Don looked toward the middle-aged man beside him.

As a parasite, he was only shallowly parasitizing an ordinary person, merely using this to hide himself.

He could only see everything the host saw and hear all the sounds the host heard, but couldn't interfere with the host's thinking or steal his thoughts.

This kind of shallow parasitism was difficult to affect the host, but could also indirectly indicate that this parasite wasn't like Amon.

Of course, perhaps it was also a kind of disguise.

After Don confirmed this wasn't some Amon avatar fishing for law enforcement, he prepared to browse through the other party's records.

However, browsing this parasite's data required consuming hundreds or thousands of times more spirituality than the boyish-faced knight.

The heavy sensation before him prevented Don from compressing this middle-aged man's body into paper figure form. Under the premise of ensuring his own spirituality remained abundant and he could do other things, he could only read some basic information from the other party.

However, after reading it, Don's expression became strange again.

"Ha."

Pallez Zoroast.

Sequence 1, Worm of Time.

Was Tingen this lively?

---

Theater With Curtains That Never Draw.

Don crouched on the ground and dry-heaved twice, alleviating the dull brain pain caused by spirituality depletion.

A dozen Yesterday Once More charms were placed on the table, and the War Bishop marionette was also re-controlled by the Theater Core, now standing to the side watching Don crouched on the ground.

Don prayed to the theater, and after receiving a response, his spirituality was restored.

Upon leaving Euclid's Space, the system recovered the Sequence 4 Beyonder power from his body, then re-established connection with Don, liberating the Marionettist's Beyonder characteristics. Only then did he return to his body, withdrawing from the pseudo-demigod state.

"This harvest was quite substantial."

[Host, what's going on with your spirituality?]

The system asked curiously.

After re-binding with the host, the anomaly in Don's previous spirituality values also appeared in the system's logs, and it discovered the problem.

The War Bishop marionette also cast a timely observing gaze.

"How should I put it." Don slumped in his chair, somewhat listless due to spirituality depletion. "There was a bit of an accident."

He picked up the charm from the table and used it.

The Yesterday Once More charm transformed into a historical gap, allowing Don to see the ocean, see mermaids, see himself advancing to Marionettist.

He saw the Never-Ending Theater, saw himself preparing the theater, also saw the Sun Scepter, saw the Knowledge Moor and himself floating in mid-air.

That was his 'Observer' status self.

But he didn't borrow the power from when he was at that status, because that version of himself was filled with Maddening Knowledge. The power brought by the Yesterday Once More charm would probably disappear in just a few seconds.

After all, this was all illusory.

Note: Heaven's Door, a Stand from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, possesses the ability to transform people into books and read all information about them recorded on the pages.

(End of Chapter)