The sudden presence of an "outsider" among the three blessed of the Evernight Goddess made things somewhat awkward.
Naturally, they could no longer discuss the Goddess's divine revelation to "go to the Hornacis Mountain Range." Angel glanced at the heads Reinette was holding and spoke first:
"Larion didn't contaminate the surroundings, did he?"
The Patriarch had shown obvious signs of losing control before his death. There was a strong possibility that the Beyonder characteristic he left behind, or the remnants of his body, had contaminated the surrounding area.
The headless Reinette shook her empty neck, and her heads swayed as well, speaking in turn:
"The contamination..." "Is concentrated..." "In the characteristic..."
The last head opened her mouth, letting the palm-sized bone crown fall. Angel caught it in midair with invisible threads. The threads touching it immediately underwent a noticeable change, turning into fragile strands tinged with the orange-red glow of twilight, ready to crumble at any moment.
"Be careful..." the last head warned.
Recalling the Evernight Goddess's earlier divine revelation, Angel flicked her threads and handed the contaminated Glory characteristic to Arianna beside her. Arianna swept her gaze over the crown from a distance, making it vanish as though it had been rubbed out with an eraser.
Once purified, this Beyonder characteristic would probably be given to a Sequence 3 Saint, such as Archbishop Anthony Stevenson, providing him with an opportunity to advance to Sequence 2.
It should have counted as Angel's spoils, but she already had a Sword of Glory and had no need to cultivate subordinates of the Twilight pathway, so she had no use for the corresponding characteristic. Moreover, the Goddess was exchanging Sealed Artifact 0-02—the contaminated, sentient Justiciar Uniqueness—for it. Its value far exceeded that of an ordinary Sequence 2 characteristic, so Angel naturally had no