Recently, Things Had Been Unsettled

In an abandoned West Balam dockyard, the battle between Maric, a member of the Temperance Faction of the "Rose School," and the "Zombie" Jason and "Werewolf" Tiel of the Indulgence Faction began.

Maric, who had been fleeing moments ago, suddenly turned around, drew a black revolver, and fired six shots in succession at Jason and Tiel.

At first, the two members of the Indulgence Faction did not take the revolver seriously. Both Zombies and Werewolves possessed excellent defensive abilities, and ordinary pistol bullets could not even pierce their skin.

But the moment the bullets were fired, both of them froze and instinctively dodged, because what shot out of the revolver turned out to be six small fireballs!

Maric was mainly attacking the "Werewolf" Tiel. Since they were relatively close, three bullets struck him. His entire upper body was engulfed in flames, and his clothes and body hair ignited instantly.

Maric's fingernails on his free hand suddenly lengthened. He lunged forward and drove them into Tiel's chest.

Jason hurried forward to rescue him, only to find that the pistol in Maric's hand had already become a pure-white scepter. All three people present were weakened to some degree.

Maric raised his hand, and a Purifying Slash struck Jason, carving a deep golden wound across his chest.

The golden color soon vanished and turned charred black. Jason's face grew even paler, and he retreated two steps. Purifying Slash countered him to a certain extent.

But he also knew that he had to rescue Tiel at any cost, so he endured the intense pain and continued forward.

At that moment, a figure appeared in his eyes—a woman dressed in a black court gown, with pale-golden hair and exquisite features.

It was the "Wraith," Sharron!

Jason was possessed! He viciously clutched his own throat.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Maric dug out Tiel's heart—the Werewolf's only weakness.

The flames on Tiel's body had gradually diminished. He covered his chest in terror, feeling his strength rapidly ebb away.

At that moment, the red ornament on Tiel's body attracted the attention of Sharron, Maric, and Klein!

Tiel's clothes had nearly all burned away, but the exquisite ornament had not suffered the slightest damage. It was shaped like a full moon, with one black-red gemstone after another set around it. In the center was a symbol representing the moon, along with numerous mysterious markings.

It was the Scarlet Lunar Corona!

None of the three—Klein and the others—had expected the enemy to let the lowest-Sequence Tiel carry this Sealed Artifact.

But after turning the matter over in their minds, they realized that this was indeed sufficiently unexpected.

According to the original plan, Sharron would certainly possess the Sequence 6 Jason, while Maric would both block Tiel's support and besiege Jason.

If Tiel brought out the Scarlet Lunar Corona at that moment, both Sharron and Maric would be weakened. The enemy's Sequence 5 "Wraith" would certainly seize the opportunity to attack, leaving Sharron's side in an extremely passive position.

Fortunately, Klein had witnessed the power of the Arrow of Flames and the scepter the previous night, and had rented them from the Hermit.

Klein's thoughts at the time had been simple. The "Zombie" Jason was not afraid of flames, but he would certainly instinctively dodge the bullets from the Arrow of Flames.

Maric did not possess any fire-related abilities, nor had he used this Beyonder Weapon before. Jason would therefore certainly first take a brief look at the weapon in Maric's hand.

That created an opportunity to kill Tiel!

Thus, they had temporarily changed their plan. Maric would use the two Magical Items to try to kill Tiel first.

The actual battle went more smoothly than planned. The Arrow of Flames could not cause any substantial damage to a Sequence 6, but against the Sequence 7 Tiel, it could block his vision for two or three seconds and affect his judgment.

Another thing they had not expected was that the Scarlet Lunar Corona was actually with Tiel!

Maric lunged forward to seize the Scarlet Lunar Corona. At that moment, Klein suddenly attacked, firing at the ground not far from Maric.

The Enchanted Bullet forced Steve, the "Wraith" who had been preparing to possess Maric from the empty space, out into the open.

Maric charged forward and did his best to hold Steve back.

Klein, meanwhile, used Flaming Jump to leap to the side of the "Werewolf" Tiel, whose flames had not yet completely gone out, and obtained the Scarlet Lunar Corona.

After that, the battle held no suspense. Klein weakened the two enemies, Steve and Jason, while Sharron first sent Jason through the Gate to the Underworld.

Then the three of them surrounded Steve. Although the "Wraith" still possessed another Magical Item, it was useless. He was soon killed completely.

Klein gained a rich haul of spoils from this battle.

While cleaning up the battlefield, Maric handed the scepter, the Arrow of Flames, and the 120 pounds in cash he had prepared long ago to Klein. "I have to say, this was a very worthwhile deal."

He asked Klein, "Can I buy the Arrow of Flames?"

He did not particularly like the scepter, because he would also be weakened when using it.

Klein said, "I'll ask for you."

At dawn, Odys stretched vigorously. His spirits and stamina had recovered nicely, and he prepared to go out and find a café for breakfast.

Unexpectedly, just as he reached the shop in front, someone knocked on the door.

Odys glanced at his pocket watch. It was only a little after seven. Was someone already here to buy herbs?

When he opened the door, he found Max standing outside.

The square-jawed captain of the Machinery Hivemind first observed Odys for several seconds before smiling and saying, "You look energetic."

"Not bad." Odys gave a bitter smile. "The advancement process was indeed more dangerous than I imagined."

He knew that his good friend had come to check on his condition.

Max handed Odys a kraft-paper bag. "Freshly bought red-bean toast."

"Perfect. I was wondering how to deal with breakfast." Odys stirred the stove's fire and set some water to boil. As he chatted with his good friend, he ground some coffee.

"Backlund hasn't been peaceful lately." Max took out a cigarette and lit it. "Another Beyonder battle took place in the Harbor District yesterday."

Holding the cigarette in one hand, he closed the shop door with the other. "Captain Ikanser paid a considerable 'price' before learning that it was probably an internal battle within the Rose School."

"There was a woman wearing a black court gown with pale-golden hair; a man who could manipulate corpses and seemed to have a layer of black fur covering his body; and a man with greasepaint on his face, dressed in a double-breasted formal tailcoat."

Odys's movements as he brewed the coffee did not pause at all. "Do you have portraits?"

"You might not know this, but even a Sequence 7 of this Pathway possesses powerful anti-divination abilities." Max smiled helplessly. "Especially that man with the greasepaint. Even after we used a Sealed Artifact, we still couldn't clearly make out specific information such as his hair color or height."

Of course you couldn't see!

Odys thought: Since Captain Ikanser had paid the price, the Sealed Artifact you used must have been the Arrodes Mirror. That fellow was the Fool's lackey. Even without interference from Above the Gray Fog, there was no way he would let you obtain any useful information!