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"I know you're in a hurry, but don't get ahead of yourself."
Dozens of indistinct portraits floated in the pitch-black world. Medici sat on the other side of the table, holding a card whose face was almost entirely black. Only where lightning illuminated it could the outlines of a city be seen.
The "Betrayal Banquet" had taken place at the end of the Third Season, a battle in which he had become a powerful accomplice to colleagues who each harbored their own ulterior motives. Not only had it been the most painful, despairing event for Medici, it had also been the most painful, despairing moment for this world!
Rituals were both a shortcut to obtaining a potion's power and a way to generate more anchors, tying great deeds closely to an individual.
"Ladyboy, how could you possibly compare to me?"
He loosened his fingers and dropped the card onto the table.
Together with the "Backlund Great Plague" the Primordial Demoness had played, the two cards slowly melted into the table.
The card table before them became a miniature world. Modern cities and buildings rapidly sprouted on the Primordial Demoness's side, transforming into Loen as it had been over a hundred years earlier. Just like the Great Smog at the end of December 1349, an unprecedented plague had swept through this city then. Afterward, in the plague's aftermath, Backlund had established a more comprehensive sewage system, the most advanced of its time, surpassing Intis's "Roselle's Legacy."
People the size of fingernails appeared in the city. Some covered their mouths with handkerchiefs or hands, some lowered their heads, some pulled their collars over their noses, and others wore crude masks.
But none of it helped. The Demoness's plague was the dark cloud drifting through the city, permeating the air of every