Reporting It to the Church

In the first-floor dining room, Owen watched Cyril emerge silently from a crack in the wall and asked curiously:

"Did you find anything?"

Cyril shook his head helplessly. "No. We got here too late. Something must have happened here not long ago, and now there isn't a soul around."

"The second floor is a communal dormitory, filthy and messy. If we searched carefully, we might turn up a little hidden spending money, but it'd be too much trouble."

"The third floor was probably where the incident started. The whole floor's been corroded and rotted away by some kind of power. Now it crumbles at a touch, so there can't be anything left."

"In short, this was a loss-making trip. We didn't even earn back the fare for the carriage ride here."

Owen gave a listless little laugh. "Let's just say we came out to broaden our horizons. This is the first time I've ever come face-to-face with a supernatural incident."

Cyril asked curiously, "How did it feel?"

Owen said, "Terrifying. I couldn't control my emotions or desires at all. I didn't even know when I'd fallen under its influence."

"If you hadn't been with me, would I have vanished just as abruptly as the gang members here?"

Cyril shook his head slightly. "I'm not sure. The picture on the tablecloth couldn't make people disappear. There must have been some other factor behind the people here vanishing; we just haven't found it."

After a pause, he added with great seriousness, "I have to get you to become a Seer as soon as possible. That Crystal Ball is completely unreliable."

Owen chuckled. "Why do I get the feeling you want me to become a Seer even more than I do?"

"In this world full of danger, Divination is far too important."

Cyril shrugged and sighed. He picked up the tablecloth, which had been rolled into a stick, then opened another "door" in the wall and led Owen away from the house, which was full of strangeness and danger.

On the empty, silent street outside the house, Cyril was about to leave the circle of lamplight when he suddenly stopped and turned his head in surprise toward his left. He felt as though someone there was watching him.

But no matter how carefully he looked, the place was empty. There was nothing there.

In a hidden corner beyond his sight, the black-haired woman who had spoken with Adam stood beside him, watching him quietly.

They were very close—close enough that a gust of wind could have made their clothes brush against each other. But the chance for Cyril to sense anything amiss never came.

"What's wrong?"

Owen turned to look at Cyril, who had stopped behind him, and asked nervously.

As he spoke, he cautiously glanced around, afraid some other strange danger might appear. He really didn't want to experience again that helpless, uncontrollable feeling.

Cyril withdrew his searching gaze and shook his head at Owen. "It's nothing. I just feel like the night is especially dark."

Owen looked up at the sky, puzzled, then nodded in agreement. "Yeah. There's no Crimson Moon tonight, and no stars. Even the streetlamps around us seem dim."

Cyril followed his gaze and looked up at the dark sky. At one moment, he felt a spark of inspiration flicker through his mind, then vanish before he could grasp it.

Is this what it means to lack inspiration? If I were an Astrologer now, I'd surely be able to discover something.

He sighed inwardly, shook his head, and gathered his thoughts. Then he hurried to catch up with Owen, and the two of them left the unusually silent street.

After his figure disappeared, the darkness in the place he had watched—imperceptible to the naked eye and intuition alike—was swept aside by an invisible force, revealing the beautiful young black-haired woman.

The classical robe draped over her swayed gently with the ripples in the surrounding darkness. She seemed to blend into the darkness, yet also rise above it, with the darkness gathered around her.

Across from her, beneath a dim yellow gas lamp, Adam stepped out of a Blind Spot of Consciousness where no one could notice him and appeared in the light.

They looked at each other without speaking.

After a long silence, the black-haired woman spoke first. "His intuition is very sharp."

Adam didn't seem surprised. "Perhaps, from a higher dimension, the hidden world is also just a special dimension dependent on reality."

The black-haired woman seemed to have mentioned it in passing. She immediately moved on, speaking in a detached tone that nevertheless carried an inexplicable gravity:

"The authority of the Door is connected to the birth of the Lord of the Mysteries. It cannot be given to him."

Adam nodded slightly. "The Door is only a transitional step. An empty position needs real power of a similar nature to support it."

"Of course, he'll have to discuss this with the future Lord of the Mysteries himself. What I can do is provide them with a high-enough-level Notarization after reclaiming the authority of the Sun, ensuring that the authority of the Door can ultimately be recovered."

The black-haired woman, surrounded by darkness, said slowly, "Corruption is also a form of power. Even if we joined forces, we couldn't kill a True Deity in a short time—especially one corrupted by the Primordial God Almighty."

"If we fail, once the other gods realize what's happened, we won't get another chance. We'll also face the rejection of all the Orthodox Gods."

Adam said, "On this matter, my position is the same as the True Creator's."

In West Borough, on the square outside Saint Samuel Cathedral, Owen leaned closer and asked in a low voice:

"What are we doing here?"

Cyril glanced around as he answered, "We're reporting the Blood Axe Gang to the Church. I keep feeling that there's more to what happened there than meets the eye. Just to be safe, it's better to let the Church handle it."

Owen blinked in confusion. "But, aren't you a follower of the God of Steam and Machinery? Why come to the Church of Evernight?"

"And we went there too. What if they trace it back to us?"

Of course, it's to avoid the Church of Steam's Magic Mirror Alrodes. When the Machinery Hivemind team hits a dead end in their investigation, they'll definitely consult the mirror. It'd be a problem if that sycophantic mirror exposed us.

Cyril thought this to himself, then casually came up with an excuse. "It's precisely because I'm a follower of the God of Steam and Machinery that I should report it to another True Deity's Church."

"And they won't trace it back to us. The Church will probably use Divination to investigate, but the incident there involved an evil god. Add your Crystal Ball's anti-divination ability, and even the Church won't get any useful information."

Owen nodded, still doubtful. He had plenty of questions, but Cyril's last remark frightened him. His mind was now full of evil gods, and he no longer felt like asking.

At the side of Saint Samuel Cathedral, Cyril carefully glanced around. Once he was sure no one was nearby, he placed a hand against the wall. A glow of blue light spread out from beneath his palm, forming a hazy, insubstantial door on the wall. Then he tossed a paper airplane through it.

After that, he ran toward a nearby house without looking back. Using Door Opening, he passed straight through the row of adjoining houses and emerged on another street.

Just then, a carriage rolled slowly down the street. Cyril brushed past it, and where the driver couldn't see him, he put his hand against the carriage wall and slipped inside without obstruction.

At the same time, on the street beside Saint Samuel Cathedral, an elderly man dressed in a black clerical robe trimmed with red descended slowly from the air amid gusts of cold wind. Five Dark Sacred Emblems hung on his chest, and his eyes were quite deep-set.

If a Beyonder had activated Spirit Vision there, they would have seen that the old man was actually standing on the palm of a gigantic spirit, rather than flying under his own power.

Of course, that didn't mean he was weak. His Potions simply focused on different things.

He was the Archbishop of the Church of Evernight stationed at Saint Samuel Cathedral, as well as the head of the Church of Evernight's Backlund Diocese: Anthony Stevenson.

He held a paper airplane in his hand and looked in the direction Cyril had gone. After hesitating, he decided not to pursue him.

In theory, he should have received a warning from his Spirituality the moment the other man used Door Opening on the church wall. But he hadn't. He only sensed anything after the folded paper in his hand had landed.

"He has an ability that can counter Divination, and he can affect Spirituality's perception too..."

"A mid- or High Sequence Apprentice?"