Chapter 4

14

"...You've already fully mastered the Seer potion?"

In the Nighthawks' recreation room, the group animatedly discussing the "Seer rules" Klein had compiled fell silent for a moment at those words. The Nighthawks all turned toward the old Mystery Pryer standing in the doorway he had just opened. Old Neil, who had hurried over upon hearing that Klein had submitted an advancement application, wore a classical black warlock's robe. With a felt hat of the same color in one hand and a wrapped box in the other, he stared at Klein in astonishment, looking him up and down several times.

"For that, I must praise the Goddess, and thank you for your guidance." Klein gave a dry laugh and spoke with a perfectly straight face.

"You actually found inspiration in the Mystery Pryer's maxim and Daly's experiences..." Old Neil looked him over a few more times, then stared for a while longer before shaking his head with a bitter smile. "The younger generation truly is formidable. If it had been twenty years earlier, if only it had been twenty years earlier, I would have..."

"Perhaps it wouldn't have made much difference. The Church doesn't have the Mystery Pryer's Sequence 8 formula," Klein said consolingly.

"Perhaps the Holy Cathedral has it... or perhaps I could have found it at an underground exchange. Still, I'm glad I didn't advance, and have lived for decades with my mind intact. Praise the Goddess." The old Mystery Pryer remained downcast for a few minutes, then composed himself and raised the paper box with a smile. "This is a day worth celebrating. As it happens, Sally baked quite a few biscuits and a butter cake. She just learned how from Mrs. Mary. You're all in for a treat."

Everyone's expression changed instantly.

"Mrs. Celeste baked treats?"

"Biscuits? What flavors? Are there any chocolate ones?"

"It's been ages since I last tasted Mrs. Celeste's baking!" Leonard cheered. Even the usually quiet Miss Seeka Tron looked eager, and Frye, the most aloof of them all, sat a little straighter. The silent recreation room grew lively again. Smiling, Old Neil opened the box and took out a cake large enough to share among everyone, arranged the biscuits of various flavors, then went to make coffee for them.

Leonard snatched up the first milk cookie with quick hands and popped it into his mouth in delight, but when he chewed, it had neither flavor nor texture.

Leonard: ?

Leonard's expression shifted. He lowered his head and pretended to chew, whispering under his breath:

"Old Man, you're stealing even this?!"

What's all the fuss about? It's only a cookie. The mysterious Parasite's aged voice sounded. Just take another. Hmm, it does taste quite good.

Leonard's face fell. Reluctantly, he swallowed the biscuit, which felt like a lump of dirt in his mouth, and reached for another. He carefully slipped it into his mouth and gave it an exploratory chew. Its rich milky flavor and crisp texture conquered his taste buds; the cookie was still warm. Bliss swept over Leonard, and he couldn't help agreeing with the Parasite. "Yes, Mrs. Celeste really is a wonderful baker... She's very kindhearted, too. She's always volunteering to help Mrs. Mary at the poorhouse..."

The other Nighthawks heard Leonard's murmurs. Although they hadn't noticed anyone speaking to him, his words suited the situation, so they merely assumed he was talking to himself.

The Parasite-Pallez, an Angel of the Marauder pathway-caught a word that interested him and asked a leading question: The poorhouse?

Yes, the poorhouse, the one on Lower Street in Tingen. Suspecting nothing, Leonard saw Old Neil starting to hand out tea and coffee and hurriedly raised his hand for a cup. I heard Mrs. Celeste was once caught up in a Beyonder incident and almost died. Luckily, the poorhouse's director at the time treated her, so she held on until the Nighthawks came to rescue her. Ever since then, Mrs. Celeste has always worried about Old Neil getting into danger. Fortunately, Old Neil has stayed at Sequence 9, and he doesn't have much combat ability either, so he's essentially a clerical worker with a safe job.

The one sponsored by the Ernst Charity Foundation? Pallez sounded thoughtful. How much do you know about that foundation?

Huh? Isn't it just a long-established foundation that's been around for over a hundred years? Leonard paused in the middle of chewing his butter cake. Taking his cup, he walked away from the others and asked nervously in a low voice, "Old Man, does it have some dark secret?"

No. It's a perfectly good place. I was only asking.

Pallez flatly denied it and stopped answering after that. No matter how desperately Leonard fretted over the curiosity he had stirred up, he said nothing more.

15

That morning, I opened the letter from the editorial department. In courteous language, they expressed their satisfaction with the first draft of my play, enclosing revision suggestions and payment for my previous manuscript. I slipped the several dozen pounds into my wallet and took less than a second to grasp their suggestions. Aside from the occasional serious flaw in the logic, most concerned details and wording that needed further polish.

This reminded me of experiences I would rather not recall, such as that child urging me to revise my honorific name over and over, refusing to stop until not a trace of anything devilish remained.

"Please revise it again, Lord. This makes it difficult to spread the faith."

"Must you include 'bloodthirsty' and 'catastrophe and slaughter'?"

"Please stop using 'ruthless murderer' to identify yourself!"

"Lord, I think the first version was better after all..."

Utterly exhausting, in body and mind... Especially when the child finished with, "May you soon rediscover the light and humanity in your heart." As if I had any such things in my heart. I had thrown them all away when I embarked on my journey through the Sea of Stars. Humanity's poisonous juices brought nothing but betrayal and fear: abandoned because of trust, destroyed because of attachment, dying in the mire because of virtue, just like that imperfect Sun. To me, those words were no different from wishing me a speedy bout of food poisoning.

In the end, I worked a little trick into my honorific name: "the monarch from the Land of Deep Black." The Land of Deep Black referred not to the Abyss, but to the cosmos. Since Sequence One of the Devil pathway was called "Filthy Monarch," even if I blatantly put the word "monarch" there, the seven gods would only think I was acting in advance, rather than connect it to the well-behaved Monarch of Decay outside the barrier.

And the line "the essence of withering" could point directly to me.

After all, I was the only one on the Withering pathway, and the same went for Decay.

Someone reported to me that the Demoness Sect had sent a proposal for cooperation. One of their key members was preparing to advance, and they hoped for opportunities to cooperate in the future. Saint Tenebrous, who received their envoy, consulted my ally. My ally answered with ravings, so Saint Tenebrous had to spend ten minutes rolling around on the floor as a ball of flesh sprouting damaged internal organs, assorted severed limbs, and eyeballs. Still, he was mentally resilient. In other words, anyone who wasn't resilient enough couldn't have survived this long in the Aurora Order, much less become a Sequence 4 Saint.

He spent two minutes piecing himself together and molding himself back into a human, then consulted me while the Demoness watched him, repeatedly opening her mouth to speak only to think better of it.

This was a privilege my ally had granted me, owing to my status as a "Remnant of the Old Days" and a thousand years of cautious, mistake-free conduct. Whenever his mind was unclear, I had the right to make decisions in his stead, on matters great and small.

I replied to Kisma, "We can consider it," then sent the Demoness away.

Among the High-Sequence Beyonders of the Aurora Order's Shepherd pathway, a few were refreshingly different. Their brains seemed only half broken, leaving the other half available for thought. Saint Tenebrous Kisma was one of them. In all fairness, I was currently just an Angel of the Devil pathway, saddled with a sect that was something of a burden. The Aurora Order had Angels of its own. In the eyes of my ally's believers, I clearly wasn't qualified to be compared to their great Lord and was only fit to serve as his subordinate. Stiffer, the Angel of the Holy Word, represented that faction.

So I was glad there were still people with functioning brains here, who could call my ally over to arbitrate when Stiffer challenged me and nearly got beaten to death.

Still, remaining at this Sequence was quite troublesome. I had been masquerading as an Angel for over thirteen hundred years. Granted, that was perfectly reasonable for a Devil; murder and arson were practically written into the pathway's description, after all. The seven gods wouldn't let me do as I pleased.

My potion was already fully digested, and although my ritual to advance from Sequence 2 to Sequence One wasn't the most perfect, it had long since met the requirements. I had lain low long enough. It was time to find an opportunity to "advance" to Sequence One... But Farbauti was still in the Mother Tree of Desire's grasp, along with his sole Sequence One characteristic and Uniqueness, while the other Sequence One characteristic my ally had promised to help me find remained missing.

Switching to the Prisoner pathway wasn't viable either. The Chained God was also with the Mother Tree of Desire. Robbing the Abomination Suah of his Sequence One characteristic would be worse than consuming my own ready stock. Ultimately, I had no intention of truly becoming a god, much less an orthodox deity. I was already a Great Old One. I merely intended to find an opportunity to tear open the seal, locate the remaining half of my sefirah, fully accommodate it, and gain the authority to reduce everything to chaos.

Yet even now, I still couldn't sense where the Sea of Flowers was.

I pushed aside the voices of the Aurora Order members and my own followers praying, selectively answering a few. Their prayers were all fairly routine. The typewriter on the desk operated by itself as I began revising my manuscript.

16

This Tarot Club gathering began as usual. After completing the transaction for the Telepathist formula and earning Miss Justice's praise through the mysticism knowledge he had diligently studied lately, Klein, the Fool, shifted his gaze to the few pages of Roselle's Diary before him.

On the yellowish-brown parchment, the somewhat crooked, wildly scrawled Chinese read:

"August 5th. I witnessed the strength of a High-Sequence Strongman. Simply terrifying. They've undergone a qualitative change in some respect, becoming like gods. No wonder they're called Demigods..."

"August 6th. The seven Churches' strange attitude toward potions strikes me as odd... There must be a secret hidden here that I don't know about."

"August 9th. The events of these past two days have left me feeling rather uneasy. Will the Industrial Revolution I personally set in motion, the age of steam and machinery I forged with my own hands, become a breeding ground for the descent of evil gods?"

"Something else happened today that cheered me up a little. My high-profile reproductions of Earth's literature attracted a fellow countryman—well, perhaps 'foreigner' would be more appropriate. He found me by mysterious means and is undoubtedly a High-Sequence Strongman. I would have liked him more if he hadn't opened with, 'Would you like me to go ask Alexandre Dumas for royalties?' Damn it, he couldn't understand a thing I was saying. It was so embarrassing that I wanted to use an item to blast a hole right there and bury myself in it."

Reproductions. Klein nearly laughed aloud. It seems Emperor Roselle, that literary plagiarist, still had some sense of shame! He could easily imagine just how awkward the scene must have been. To think there were other transmigrators in this world. He wondered whether he might have a chance to meet one. Although Roselle's account suggested that the other person hadn't come from the same country, Klein still felt a faint sense of anticipation. His brow relaxed slightly, and his fingers began tapping gently against the edge of the Bronze Long Table, drawing everyone's attention.

High-Sequence Beyonders can live a very long time, but even Emperor Roselle has passed away. Is this transmigrator really still alive?

At that thought, Klein's spirits sank a little again. Then the description "a breeding ground for the descent of evil gods" caught his attention. After pondering it for a while without reaching any conclusions, however, he abandoned the idea of delving deeper. He stopped tapping the Bronze Long Table and told the Hanged Man, the Sun, and Justice before him, "You may begin your discussion."

Alger, the Hanged Man, immediately spoke:

"Mr. Fool, Miss Justice, I've just received some intelligence. Vice Admiral Hurricane Qilingus has infiltrated Backlund to carry out a mission, and he'll be staying there for quite some time..."

TBC

*So Qidian actually notifies you of the reader count? That startled me. I tried posting this, and people really are reading it. Thank you!

*Did you think I'd figure out how to save Old Neil? No, I went in the exact opposite direction. In this world, Mrs. Celeste never died at all, and they spent over thirty happy years together.