"...His Excellency Adolf von Menzel," the Count of Leipzig tried to force out a friendly smile, "Of course I know your identity..."
Although he still didn't know whether Hong Xiang was dead or not...but when he tried to ask for help, the empty echo coming from the depths of his blood gave him a not very good answer.
——Even if Hong Xiang is not dead, all contact with them has been cut off.
To him, this is no different than death.
But the look Adolf looked at him became even colder.
Suddenly, Adolf asked: "I heard that you have a special understanding of art?"
"...Ah, yes."
When this issue was mentioned, the Count of Leipzig became energetic.
Even the originally timid and cautious voice became much louder: "I carved other 'me's into immortal works of art - are you interested in my works? Haha... I mean, after all, you are
I am quite happy to be praised by you as an artist who is quite famous throughout the world."
"How did you do it?"
Adolf asked softly.
"I feed my flesh and blood to others," the Earl of Leipzig said solemnly. "With the love that accumulates over the years, when they eat enough of me, they gradually become another me. And in
On this basis, each body has its own characteristics, which are different life experiences from mine... Those slight differences become the skeleton of art.
"I discover the brilliance of each person and find the source of their immortality. Then I add the ingredients - that is my fierce, sticky and deadly love.
"I let them arrive with me in the realm of eternity...because my heart also longs to become something eternal!"
"...That's it."
Adolf sighed.
He asked the last question: "Who taught you this?"
"I am self-taught without a teacher."
Count Leipzig's face was filled with a confident smile: "That comes from deep in my heart..."
"--wrong."
Adolf spoke and interrupted the Count of Leipzig: "That's what I taught you."
"……What?"
The Count of Leipzig was stunned for a moment.
At that moment, his eyes suddenly opened wide.
It was like being struck by thunder in the brain, and the memories that had been "preserved" in the past were suddenly unsealed.
That was his memory when he studied art with Adolf——
"I can't surpass you, teacher!"
The noisy boy shouted: "Ever since I saw your paintings, I can't get them out of my mind no matter what! No matter how I paint, there are still shadows of those paintings in the paintings..."
"In other words," the young man hiding in the shadows said gently, "you think that I have become your bondage... right?"
"I never said that."
The young man muttered: "But it is true - there is a saying, and I am right! I want to paint my own paintings, not Menzel style paintings! But the more I learn from here
, the more I lose my true self..."
"Then what do you want to get?"
The young man asked patiently: "What is your style?"
"My fierce, sticky and deadly love!"
The young man stood up without hesitation and praised loudly: "Never-ending love - unlike your stillness, I want to create moving art - never-ending art!"
Looking at his shining eyes, the young man was a little distracted for a moment.
He stared blankly at the confident and dazzling young man, whose resolute face was now as pale as a stone statue.
"...Ah, that's true."
The young man was silent for a long time, and lowered his hands somewhat dejectedly.
His drooping cheeks disappeared into the shadows: "You and I are not the same person, Finn. You do not belong to the path of the twilight... But you are right, I may not be suitable for teaching people."
As he said this, he reached out his hand and gently touched the young man's head:
"——Then, you are free."
The dim yellow power penetrated into his brain and slowly seeped out from his eyes. The memory was "preserved" deep into the depths, along with every painting of Adolf he had ever seen. It belonged to Adolf.
The influence was gradually erased, leaving only the purest, already formed skilled skills and talents.
Finn Heinrich opened his eyes slightly.
That's...
——He once firmly believed that he was a genius.
"Did I hurt you, Finn?"
Adolf spoke softly: "Your 'artworks' are you but not you.
"That incomplete version of yourself... is it the real you?
"Is the life based on your incomplete self your life?"
Adolf remembered the scene when he saw the Count of Leipzig again.
At that time, I was standing in the vast snow, and saw the elegant and noble Moon Child saluting me, showing an evil smile.
He looked at each other coldly.
But the other party was so arrogant that it seemed as if he had never seen him before.
"—I come with the goodwill and greetings of my master, my esteemed father, my blood, Mr. Franz Pomponazzi."
So said the Count of Leipzig.
At that moment, Adolf knew... Finn was already dead.
At this moment, he was not speaking to the Earl of Leipzig. Instead, he was speaking softly to the thin and handsome young man from the past: "Maybe it's my fault that I didn't teach you well. The evil you did was also part of mine."
This is my sin.
"I thought about it, what else can I do in the end? Why don't I teach you this last lesson."
Adolf reached out his hand and pulled off his left arm.
But even so, the empty cuffs did not splatter with blood.
He then threw his left arm violently like an axe.
When it touched the body of the Count of Leipzig, it was like a drop of blood submerged in water.
The Earl of Leipzig's body suddenly shattered into bloody flowers——
But they did not scatter to the ground, but condensed into a pure white canvas in the void.
"Pain. Love. Peace. Joy. Sadness. Anger... Human emotions have colors. The human soul is the best palette, and human memory is the best paint."
Adolf said softly: "This is what I taught you, but you seem to only remember the colors of pain and love."
As he spoke, he stretched out his right hand and pressed it on his forehead.
He took out a touch of green memory and flicked it into the void.
That symbolizes the "past". It is all that makes up his personality.
Just like the Count of Leipzig lost a memory and became no longer completely the Finn of the past...
"Since you are so obsessed with 'body' art, so obsessed with eternity and never-ending..."
As he spoke, Adolf took out another dark blue soul and flicked it on top of the previous memory, mixing the colors together.
This symbolizes the "future" - he had the opportunity to become an apostle.
"——Then let us complete this final art together."
He said it.
I want to give Aiwass a final gift as a thank you to him.
As the last painting in my life, it is a work of art that engraves my entire life...
——How can you not crush your own soul to create this immortal thing?
He heard the conversation between Aiwass and the teacher.
For the future "Yao Tiansi"... it would be too mediocre to use mundane things as gifts.
"Throw your body into the sun..."
Adolf whispered, reaching out and taking out his still beating heart.
He crushed it into pieces, turned it into thick red viscous paint, and threw it into the paint tray.
This is life, which represents "now".
Memory, soul and life - he shattered everything about himself, leaving no room for anything.
Although Hengwo gave up herself ten times, she still retained "I" in the end.
Adolf, on the other hand, chose to give up completely.
Beyond the limit of "1", we have entered the realm of "0".
From then on, his life entered the final countdown.
Aiwass said to the teacher...the path where the sacred numbers add up to eleven may have the power to cause miracles.
The beauty of the holy number two and the dusk of the holy number nine add up...to make exactly eleven.
The zeroth path is also the tenth path.
——Finn's "love" and the "nothingness" he arrived at after abandoning everything are also eleven.
If his own artwork can help Aiwass ascend even a little bit, it will be equivalent to adding fuel to the sun's fire.
...When you think about it, it's really amazing.
Such thoughts suddenly appeared in Adolf's mind.
My childhood wish... actually has a chance to come true...