"The power to transcend the Thirteenth Ring."
Though she knew this battle would decide everything, Miss Danist, standing beneath the tree, still showed respect for both sides:
"Laplace Klein Howard truly is a genius."
"Your association was actually capable of cultivating someone like him?"
Old Higgins, director of Apna Library, asked the diviner beside him. Mister Crystal, Adelaide Lenormand, gave a slight shake of his head. Meanwhile, Grandma Natalie of the Guiding Light Hermitage, standing beside him and watching the bloody light shoot into the heavens, recalled how Laplace Howard had sought the Hermitage's protection many years ago:
"What a pity. The idea he wanted to prove could never work. Escape has never been the solution. May civilization endure forever."
Blood-red light enveloped snowing Green Island. The power the diviner had just scattered throughout the island now surged back, as though everything on the island were being swept back with it.
A pillar of bloody light descended from the sky and enveloped him. "Edwardz," standing within the bloodlight, looked solemn and dignified, even carrying a trace of sanctity. One hand pointed to the heavens, the other to the earth. At this moment, he was the true master of this tiny world. After more than two centuries of preparation, everything on Green Island had finally become the last step for him to ascend to the Higher Place.
The tree-root Destiny Ring behind him finally melted completely in that bloody light. All traces of humanity vanished from him. "Edwardz," born from Green Island's blood tree, had finally become the master capable of controlling everything here.
If he had not yet failed to fuse with enough family members, then having already completed the great work of Create Space, he would have been able to use the ritual to make himself one of the