On Thursday afternoon, Abner finally returned to the city by carriage.
It was not because he had spent too long chatting with Edwina and nearly lost track of time. He had placed the Teleportation Altar in a small town outside Backlund, so the carriage ride back had taken most of the morning.
The Desire Apostle incident had put every official organization on alert, and Abner did not dare fly straight into Backlund with the Cloak.
The moment Abner stepped down from the carriage, he heard a howling sound.
He looked up instinctively. A gale swept away the gloom overhead, clearing out the thin, pale-yellow haze.
Bare branches swayed as the powerful wind carved a visible trail toward the southeast.
A few seconds later, everything returned to normal. All was calm again.
That wasn't a natural wind... It carried the familiar power of Gale... Had His Excellency the Spellsinger of God, Snake, gone after Jason Beria, the Demoness in disguise?
I'm not far from the docks, and the chase has reached this area... That means the assassination attempt on Duke Negan has either begun or is about to begin...
I hope I'm still in time... If Klein doesn't kill him in time like he did in the original story, I'll finish him off myself. I can't let that Devil escape and threaten my teacher someday...
With his mind made up, Abner headed for the nearest subway station.
Since he did not dare fly, the Steam Subway was much faster than running under Invisibility.
Inside a carriage outside the Quelaag Club.
Klein presented what he had learned about the Desire Apostle through Divination Above the Gray Fog to Ikanser, a deacon of the Machinery Hivemind, as a "deduction."
He still concealed his suspicion that the Devil's target might be Duke Negan...