Making a Plan

Though Fors was usually a little lazy, once she started acting, she was remarkably efficient.

After receiving Aster's hint in his letter, she quickly chose to start with aristocratic literary salons. Leveraging her identity as a writer, she easily made contact with the two nobles, Glaint and Audrey.

With the help of their influence, Xio Derecha was soon cleared of her charges. In return, Fors needed to introduce them to Beyonder gatherings and help them gain Beyonder powers.

"Here we are." With the two occult novices behind her, Fors knocked on the door.

She had chosen to bring the young lord and lady to the Beyonder gathering hosted by Mr. A, because it was the largest and fairest gathering Fors had ever attended.

A servant opened the door, and the four disguised figures filed inside. They soon saw the scattered gathering participants. Some concealed their faces in various ways, using hoods and masks, while others did not care at all and openly revealed their features.

"The organizer of this secret gathering is Mr. A..." Fors, who was about to point out Mr. A to Audrey, suddenly froze.

She discovered that someone she did not recognize was sitting in the single-seater sofa Mr. A usually occupied!

The man had heavy dark circles beneath his eyes and brown hair sticking up like a hedgehog's spines.

He had made no attempt to conceal his appearance... Was he a participant, or the organizer replacing Mr. A to keep the gathering running? She had not seen him at the last gathering either... Fors could not help making a few guesses.

"Uh, but Mr. A isn't here right now, and I don't know who this gentleman is either." Turning the conversation back around, she did not say anything further on the subject.

Audrey was also curiously watching the middle-aged man seated in the single-seater sofa. Having entered her Spectator state, she quickly analyzed quite a few things:

He had a certain degree of confidence, but also some inferiority... That was normal; everyone was a collection of contradictions.

He seemed to be worried about something far away from him, yet still capable of threatening him...

He looked quite relaxed while sitting there, but his body occasionally tensed up, as if he were uncomfortable... Did he feel unsuited to sit in that position? Or was he uneasy because the responsibility did not match his capabilities?

Audrey shifted her gaze to the blackboard nearby and began searching for the goods she wanted.

Though she was somewhat curious about the middle-aged man who seemed to have taken the gathering's original organizer's place, the Beyonder materials and mystical information written on the blackboard attracted Audrey even more.

During a lull in the participants' discussions and transactions, the middle-aged man with dark circles suddenly stood and hurried toward an empty trading room.

After locking the door behind him, the black-robed middle-aged man suddenly dropped to his knees and prostrated himself on the floor. His voice trembling, he greeted, "Oracle, Hainas Vincent greets you."

The shadows in the room surged rapidly, gathering on the wall into the silhouette of a woman. A deep voice echoed through the room. "Mr. A's gathering is now under my control."

"Return to Tingen and cooperate with Mr. A's actions."

"This is the Lord's decree."

Hainas Vincent devoutly kissed the floor. "I obey only the Lord's will."

"No matter how I looked at it, it seemed completely impossible..." Aster returned helplessly to his hotel room and removed the wig from his head.

During this period, he had gone to the Church of River and Sea every day, using prayer as a pretext to scout the place. Yet the more he investigated, the more pessimistic Aster became.

Drawing on his experience from his previous life clearing similar instances, Aster had basically figured out the rotation schedules of the Mandated Punishers and clergy within the Church of River and Sea. Though there was still a portion he had not yet investigated clearly, even the current guard contingent he knew about was not something he could handle.

The Mandated Punishers were not like the Nighthawks, that bunch who liked staying up late. Without a doubt, their defenses would be relatively weaker at night.

If Aster truly intended to storm the church, he would have to compress all his actions into five minutes.

In other words, within five minutes, he needed to enter the church, kill the three ordinary clergy on duty and the two Mandated Punishers guarding the Azure Door, forcibly destroy the Azure Door, enter it, take away 1-27, and escape the interception of the Mandated Punishers who had long guarded the Sealed Artifact beyond the door...

Using the destruction of the Azure Door as the dividing point, everything before that had to be completed within one minute. If it took longer than a minute, the Mandated Punishers would raise the alarm. Then Aster would not only face the Mandated Punishers on rotation that day, but the entire Mandated Punishers force. The Machinery Hivemind and Nighthawks might even come to surround and suppress him after receiving the call for aid...

With Aster's current combat ability, the first half of the operation would not be especially difficult for him. Especially if he caught them unprepared, he would not even need a minute to kill all the guards.

But the real difficulty lay in the latter half of the operation. Setting aside how to quickly and accurately find 1-27, simply destroying the Azure Door was a considerable challenge.

Ordinary Mandated Punishers needed the permission of the guards inside to enter the Azure Door, and it would be difficult for Aster to solve that problem peacefully. But storming the Azure Door would inevitably alert the Mandated Punishers. The Azure Door itself also possessed extremely powerful defensive capabilities. For Aster, who lacked high-burst physical damage, destroying it within three minutes was basically a pipe dream.

Even if Aster truly managed to enter the Azure Door and find 1-27, that would not mean the operation was over—the method he knew for controlling 1-27 would cause him to lose most of his Beyonder Abilities for a short period. He would be unable to deal with the guards beyond the door or the Mandated Punishers' subsequent pursuit and divination. Moreover, as a Beyonder of the Death Pathway, once Aster entered the door, he would inevitably be eroded by the sealing core of the Azure Door. If the worst possibility came to pass, he might even lose the strength to flee.

Aster was not confident he could evade divination from a Storm Pathway Demigod—his identity change through the Witch's Kiss gloves could only fool Beyonders below Demigod level. Thus, even if he transformed into a Demoness to seize 1-27, his true identity would inevitably be exposed.

For that very reason, Aster did not particularly want to obtain 1-27 by forcefully assaulting the place—breaking into the church, killing the guards, and seizing a Sealed Artifact would be an enormous provocation against all the orthodox churches. It would mean he would face an intense manhunt and pursuit. Even if Aster, who was not yet a Demigod, could use 1-27 perfectly, it would be difficult for him to survive even half a month under such relentless pursuit.

But if he could steal 1-27 in a relatively gentle manner, it would mean only the Church of Storms' Mandated Punisher teams would pursue him. At most, the Church of Storms would notify the other churches about his wanted notice rather than request their assistance—one of your Grade 1 Sealed Artifacts was stolen by a Beyonder who was not even a Demigod, and you came asking us for help?

Even if the Church of Evernight and the Church of Steam and Machinery would not refuse such a request for assistance, the Church of Storms would not choose to bring in other official organizations. After all, those chauvinists still cared about their pride. So long as there were no casualties, they would prefer to conceal the whole affair... At most, they would report that 1-27 had been lost and remind the other churches to remain alert.

But Aster truly could not think of any way to infiltrate beyond the Azure Door and obtain 1-27 without launching a direct assault.

If only I had a piece of Faceless equipment... Whenever he encountered a problem that could not be solved through direct combat, Aster felt somewhat helpless.

Among the spirits I control, there aren't any that can change my appearance either... There are ones that can create illusions, but they can't solve the problem of my voice... Aster left the hotel and strolled along the Khoy River, pondering whether there was a way for him to obtain 1-27 without directly clashing with the Mandated Punishers.

No matter how he thought about it, he could not come up with anything... Shaking his head helplessly, Aster began considering whether he could create an opportunity to fish in troubled waters by bringing other forces into the matter.

But after weighing the pros and cons, Aster decisively abandoned the idea.

Those cult organizations that would clash with the Mandated Punishers showed no regard for anyone once they acted. Their attacks would very likely cause casualties even more horrific than Aster's direct assault on the church. And Aster, trying to fish in troubled waters and steal the Sealed Artifact during the chaos, would very likely be treated as an accomplice of the cultists and taken down along with them by the enraged Mandated Punishers...

And even without considering the pros and cons, purely from an emotional standpoint, although Aster considered himself absolutely not a good person, he was likewise unwilling to associate with those deranged, fanatical cultists. He had not fallen so far as to massacre civilians.

No matter what, I'll keep these plans as alternatives... If the day truly comes when I have no choice but to carry them out, what do principles and humanity matter?

Having made up his mind, Aster glanced at his pocket watch and decided to return to the hotel for dinner.

He had not come to the Khoy River merely for a walk. He was also there to complete his daily quests. Through his tireless acting as a Spirit Medium and completing quests over this period, Aster's character level was about to reach level 30.

Mm, Justice Audrey Hall and Hanged Man Alger Wilson have both issued commissions to find Beyonder materials for the Spirit Guide. As for supplementary materials, I've already asked Swain and Fors to keep an eye out... Once I advance to Spirit Guide, I'll formally begin preparing to seize 1-27... Aster thought leisurely as he walked toward the hotel.

Just then, he saw a figure also walking beside the Khoy River.

More accurately, there were two people Aster knew very well.

One was Klein Moretti, a member of the Nighthawks. As for the other, Aster knew him well too.

In fact, he knew him very well as the boss from the game.

[Counterfeit Death God—Azik Eggers]!