It seemed like Shiller was asking Mark, but also vocalizing his own thought process, until suddenly he noted something Mark himself might not even have noticed - Mark was a patient of multiple personality disorder.
People are always more sensitive to matters within their specialty, but Shiller thought his train of thought was quite logical.
After all, other than being diagnosed with multiple personality disorder, Mark's only other unique trait was being a Central Intelligence Agency agent. But you can't expect an ancient cosmic sorcerer who has lived for countless years to understand or acknowledge the special identity of an American agent — in Khonsu's perception, American history barely qualified as a blink of an eye.
With these thoughts in mind, Shiller cautiously asked, "Mark, do you suffer from episodes of memory loss?"
Mark opened his mouth, taking a moment to assess his surroundings. At that moment, the moon was at its zenith, the wind was biting cold high up on the skyscraper roof where two uncanny beasts stood confronting each other. This scenario hardly seemed conducive for a psychological consultation.
However, after a moment of hesitation, Mark said, "I have indeed fainted recently. Because of this, I am planning to resign from the CIA ..."
Shiller nodded in understanding. It seemed the timeline was fairly clear. If not for the plot deviations he had introduced, due to his frequent fainting and memory loss caused by the multiple personality disorder, Mark would have resigned from the CIA and become a mercenary.
"Mark, kill him!" That deep and eerie voice resounded again. The tone of the Moon God Khonsu had become somewhat urgent as if he wanted to stop Shiller from saying something.
Mark tried hard to control his body, apparently not really wanting to comply. In a lowered voice, he said, "No, even if he's a spy, he should be tried in court, and besides, he holds important information!"
"Kill him!" Khonsu growled.
"Don't rush…" Shiller's tone suddenly became calm. Khonsu's reaction confirmed his suspicion. He said, "Khonsu, every person chosen by a cosmic sorcerer has their own unique qualities."
"Dormammu needs his agent to possess a dark nature, Mephisto values the flames of anger and vengeance, Xeseon likes chaos in all things, and the Panther God Bast prefers darker objects…."
"So, you, Moon God Khonsu, you favor someone multifaceted, right?"
Shiller looked up at the flickering moon and said, "... Just like the moon."
"Just like the ever-changing moon worshiped by the people of Ancient Egypt, sometimes it's a new moon, sometimes it's full, completely different yet essentially the same, since you were born of that, naturally it would be close to your heart..."
All of a sudden, the moonlight froze. The cold lunar glow hung like a curtain falling from the sky, chilling, mysterious, yet indescribably mystical and surreal.
The moon, a fusion of ancient peoples' simple materialistic fantasies, regardless of whether it was Ancient Egypt, China, the East or the West, every civilization, every culture, every person had countless speculations and curious thoughts about the moon - the lone celestial body that hung in the beautiful night sky, especially its changes with time.
In the cold moon-glow, the massive figure descended once again. However, revealed in the moonlight rather than concealed in darkness, his horrifying visage became sanctified, like a sharp crescent becoming a full moon.
"But I think, a mere number of personalities cannot describe the mystique and ever-changing nature of the moon, don't you think so? Khonsu."
Shiller looked up into Khonsu's empty eyes. When a brightness like that of the moon arose from there, Shiller knew he had hooked the Moon God.
"What are you trying to say?" For the first time, Khonsu directly addressed Shiller.
Shiller pointed a finger towards his temple and said:
"In here, are all 365 days of the moon."
The moonlight grew brighter. Against the backlight, Khonsu looked ominous and terrifying, yet somehow incredibly dreamlike.
He extended his hand instinctively. His long fingers, bathed in rich moonlight, had barely touched Shiller when both the god and the man's consciousness plummeted swiftly into a space filled with white mist.
Standing before the towering gate, Shiller saw, atop this high tower, the first appearance of a full moon.
The moonlight gradually coalesced into the conscious embodiment of the Moon God Khonsu, who floated mid-air. The first thing he noticed wasn't the tall tower, but a massive serpent coiled atop it.
Ye Meng Jia De was sleeping soundly when he felt as if someone was watching him. His large vertical pupils slowly opened, he rubbed his eyes, and when he turned his head, he saw Kong Su.
Ye Meng Jia De had just woken up from a dream and was still groggy. Seeing Kong Su, who was floating in mid-air and glowing all over with a bird's beak, his hunting instincts were immediately awakened, and he bit down on him.
"Hold on!" Shiller shouted.
Kong Su seemed to be seeing this kind of scene in a dream for the first time. He was stunned for a moment, and in that instant, he was already bitten into the snake's mouth.
"Loose mouth! Let go! Ye Meng Jia De! Damn it, let go! What the hell are you doing! Look what you've eaten!!!!"
Shiller quickly flew to Ye Meng Jia De's side, slapping vigorously on his head to make him spit out Kong Su.
Regaining his senses, Ye Meng Jia De also realized that he seemed to have bitten something unpalatable. He opened his mouth, gagged, and spit out Kong Su who fell into the High Tower.
He climbed up from the ground, shook his floating bird beak skull head, and opened his hollow eyes.
He looked up and saw countless Shillers on the High Tower.
Shiller, who had just flown down, never thought that he would see such a complex expression on a face with a long bird beak skull. There was shock, surprise, and even a touch of emotion.
Shiller guessed that the emotional part might be Kong Su thinking that after so many years of human evolution, they finally embarked on the right evolutionary path. It was worth him squatting on the altar every day, watching the human race evolve for millions of years.
At this time, Ye Meng Jia De's head came over, and he asked, staring at Shiller with one of his giant vertical pupils, "Who is he? What are you guys doing?"
Shiller cleared his throat, stretched out his hand, pointed at the floor of the nearby tower and said to Kong Su, "You're choosing a personality to host, right? Do you need me to introduce some top contenders to you?"
Kong Su turned his head and then looked down at Shiller, saying, "I punish the sinful..."
"So?" asked Shiller.
"Sinners are extremely wicked..."
"Uh, what do you mean?"
Kong Su knocked his fist cane on the ground, looked sideways at Shiller, and then said: "He should be strong."
"You mean physically strong, like in combat? But I don't really like resorting to violence..."
Kong Su turned his head back, staring straight and repeated in a "not the best, only the most expensive" tone: "...needs to be the strongest."
But Shiller, unusually, was a bit hesitant. He asked, "Are you sure?"
Kong Su turned his head, staring at him with his hollow eyes. Shiller also stared at him, and after a while, he said, "That's what you said."
Having said that, he walked towards the stairs and then said, "Follow me."
The man and the god took the elevator to the tenth floor of the Thought Palace. Coming out of the elevator, they faced a pitch-black corridor.
After crossing the corridor, a large door appeared at the end of the corridor. The door looked a bit dilapidated, like the entrance of an old-fashioned mental hospital.
The two figures disappeared into the darkness inside the door, leaving behind only a bit of a dilapidated plaque written with three big characters - "Insane Asylum".