Chapter 6

19

Contact had been lost.

The team sent to Tingen to oversee the Descent of the True Creator had gone silent.

When I received the news, I was in the underground church attached to the Aurora Order's Backlund base. Aside from the occasional worshipper suddenly exploding into chunks of flesh, it was quiet enough for me to work on my writing. The Listener knelt before me to deliver his report, trembling so violently that he looked ready to collapse into a puddle of flesh and blood.

I did not respond immediately. Only after finishing the next line of dialogue with my old-fashioned quill and meticulously adding a period did I set aside the manuscript and writing board on my knees and turn toward him.

"What happened?"

From his incoherent answers, I pieced together the general course of events. First, I knew this descent was really a diversion. Using a human woman as the mother to gestate a vessel for a god's offspring had extremely stringent requirements, making the ritual very difficult to complete. The Divine Child was therefore a smokescreen; the real vessels were the members conducting the ritual. They knew nothing about it, but they would surely consider it an immense honor, so none of us had spelled it out.

Of course, to me, the smokescreen and the fallback were equally acceptable. If the Divine Child's arrival could make everything succeed in one stroke, all the better.

But now a problem had arisen.

The two members conducting the ritual had vanished without a trace. They had sent no reply for three days and were probably dead. Yet Z, who was responsible for the operation, had still sent neither a report nor a request for help. That made no sense.

This was also a failure on my part. Strange. I should have been "watching" that place all along, yet at some point I had withdrawn my gaze because I felt this descent could not possibly fail. Why? What had influenced me?

I recited my ally's honorific name and listened. Chaotic words flooded my mind, carrying corrupting, dangerous knowledge that could instantly make ordinary people and Low Sequence Beyonders outside the Shepherd pathway explode. With practiced ease, I isolated them and cast them into the filthy abyss within my consciousness. Recalling those traces of distorted fate, I gave it a little thought and confirmed that something truly extraordinary was hidden in that small city. Then, judging by previous failed descents, that something was very likely... Adam.

"-Understood. You may leave."

After a brief silence, I told the still faintly trembling Listener, "Tell the custodian of the Sealed Artifacts that I want a Beyonder item from the Apprentice pathway, at least Sequence 5."

20

About ten minutes later, I received the Sealed Artifact I wanted. It met my requirements: an item corresponding to the Traveler Sequence, in the form of an emerald ring. It had no living characteristics and could teleport at very short intervals. Its drawbacks were an extremely strong tendency toward convergence while worn, an inability to pinpoint destinations accurately, and incessant blood-curdling howls inside the wearer's mind. Quite a few drawbacks, really.

Blood-curdling howls, a yearning for convergence... I understood. This was most likely part of the tribute the Saint of Secrets or Mr. X had brought when defecting to us, taken from the Abraham Family they had betrayed.

Abraham. I remembered that Mr. Door was still in the Mother Goddess's hands.

There was Roselle, too. Although I had secretly corrupted Him, the tiny amount of corruption I had applied so furtively could hardly beat the Mother Goddess of Depravity, who had never restrained Herself. Watching the crimson moon devour Roselle, I could only sigh helplessly. I had covertly hinted to Him at the coordinates of my true body, suggesting that He go there, but that fellow never did what anyone expected. He had headed straight for the moon and become a tool in someone else's hands.

In my hands, He would at worst have fallen into eternal numbness and chaos. The Mother Goddess was not nearly as kindhearted as I was.

All right. Time to go to Tingen and see what was happening. I slipped the ring onto my finger and infused it with spirituality. Indeed, I could not clearly picture my destination in my mind. So I simply chose a direction, opened a blue "door" in the air, and stepped through.

My surroundings changed abruptly. I arrived on a narrow street lined with low buildings, with wastewater running along the road and corpses and rubbish piled against the walls. This was the East Borough, a breeding ground for despair. There was no one in sight. I roughly calculated the distance and my spirituality, preparing to open another door and leave. Suddenly, a fluctuation of spirituality came from the alley ahead. A door of light opened out of thin air, and a familiar figure stumbled out in panic.

"What's going on?!" Miss Fors Wall shouted in despair. "We're still in the East Borough! Why did we only move two streets?!"

A petite woman emerged from the door with her, holding a Triangular Dagger. She glanced in one direction, then jolted as though struck by lightning. She stared fixedly that way, her body as rigid as stone.

"We're done for," the petite woman said through gritted teeth. "He saw us. I made eye contact with Qilingus."

Miss Fors's face instantly went deathly pale, drained of every trace of color. She looked at the bracelet on her wrist, which had only two stones remaining, and reached to yank one off-then she saw me. Shock, fear, and inner conflict flashed across her face as she blurted out, "What are you doing here?"

That convergence was far too quick. My gaze swept over the bracelet on her wrist, and I understood. Then I smiled and asked, like an ordinary passerby who knew nothing of the approaching danger:

"Good afternoon, Miss Wall, and to you as well, miss, though I don't believe we've met. I'm gathering inspiration in the East Borough. May I invite you both to afternoon tea?"

21

Fors's pupils instantly shrank to pinpoints. There was no time to explain. How could she explain the horrors of the Beyonder world to an old-fashioned gentleman who led a normal, peaceful life? Gritting her teeth, she tore one of the last two stones off her bracelet and shouted, "Come here, quickly!"

"Please trust me, Mr. Vaughn!" she said, speaking faster than she ever had in her life. "I'll explain afterward. Just come with us now!"

Judging by the confusion on his face, Mr. Edward still seemed oblivious to what was happening, but he nevertheless walked briskly toward them. They were only four or five meters apart, a distance an adult could cover in a few steps. Fors had no time to mourn the fact that only one stone remained. Racing against the clock, she opened the door. Just then, Xio, who had already been tense to the breaking point beside her, suddenly cried out, spun around, and shoved her toward the not-yet-fully-formed door.

"You go first!" The petite Arbiter's expression held a resolve Fors had never seen before. "Qilingus is already here!"

Fors's eyes widened in disbelief as she looked up at the sky. She noticed that Edward, now only two steps away, had also raised his head to look in that direction. What she saw instantly chilled the blood in her veins. The cruel, bloodthirsty pirate admiral had planted a foot on a windowsill and, using the Wind-blessed's abilities, was gliding toward them like a great bird! A bloodthirsty smile hung on his face, his body light and agile. Like a hawk hunting its prey, like a vulture swooping down, he watched their dying struggles from above with contempt, his eyes filled with the wild joy of certain victory.

"Fors, go!"

"No, no! Xio, come with me-"

Fors's legs would not obey her in her terror, and her thoughts seemed to have frozen. Her fingers clenched around Xio's clothes as she tried to pull her through the door with her. Just then, she felt her body leave the ground. Before she could even wonder why, she saw Xio's feet lift as well. Edward Vaughn had reached them and seized each woman by the back of her collar, one in either hand. With incredible strength, he threw them both through the newly completed door.

"...Wait!" Only after she fell into the brightly colored tunnel did Fors's stalled mind begin working again. Through the gap behind Edward Vaughn, she saw Qilingus gliding toward him. But there was nothing she could do. She could only cry out in despair:

"No!! Mr. V-"

22

Qilingus had seen clearly. That woman was not a Traveler, but she possessed a Beyonder item of the Traveler Sequence. Although it had only one stone left, that would be enough for him to carry out his planned murder and escape at his leisure.

He licked his lips, his crazed, bloodthirsty grin widening further. He could already picture himself torturing those two before tearing them to pieces.

With the wind's help, he crossed two streets and alleys in mere seconds, arriving directly in front of the door. Qilingus reached out, deciding to feed this middle-aged man obstructing his plans to Creeping Hunger first, then take the Mystical Item at his leisure. Just then, his spiritual intuition suddenly screamed a deafening warning, only to fall deathly silent the next instant. Qilingus was bewildered and alarmed. The hand wearing Creeping Hunger was less than an inch from the gentleman's back.

The gentleman slowly turned around.

Qilingus suddenly found himself unable to move.

What was happening?! The pirate admiral was aghast. That inch of distance and fraction of a second seemed to stretch infinitely, yet the man he had never considered worth his attention remained entirely unaffected.

"If you die here, Miss Wall and her companion will certainly suspect me... Still, you look rather tasty."

"I have work to do. You interrupted me."

Edward Vaughn regarded him calmly, with neither mockery nor contempt. His irises and pupils were both black, hazy and devoid of light, yet they reflected Qilingus's terrified expression with perfect clarity. He stood straight and elegantly, chest out and head raised, and walked with slow arrogance, like a meticulously crafted doll. His gaze lingered on Qilingus's Creeping Hunger for a second. Then he fell silent, apparently giving the matter a moment's thought, and a terrifying, lava-like light flowed through the depths of His eyes. He raised His cane and pointed its jeweled tip at Qilingus's chest from a distance.

"Get lost."

Blasphemous Words from the abyss spilled from His mouth.

With that single utterance, Qilingus instantly suffered a devastating blow. His entire breastbone caved in, and every bone in his body gave off a teeth-grating sound of twisting and shattering. His face flushed bloodred in an instant. Blood seeped between his teeth, his skin split, and his limbs bent awry. Shredded flesh and blood immediately soaked his clothes. Then, as though struck head-on by a battering ram at full force, he was hurled away like a cannonball, smashing through the top of a dilapidated clock tower hundreds of meters away and raising a thick cloud of dust.

Edward Vaughn turned His back, and the perceived flow of time returned to normal. He stepped into the brightly colored tunnel before Him. The blue door gradually closed behind Him, just in time to conceal Qilingus being blasted away. At that moment, Miss Fors had not even finished the first syllable of her brief cry of "Mr. Vaughn." Her remaining words caught in her throat as she stared in disbelief at the man who, after saving them both, had entered the door in the final half-second with all His limbs intact.

"Thank goodness, thank goodness..." She wanted to cry but had no tears, trembling uncontrollably at the thought that this older gentleman had nearly lost his life because of her.

"Don't be afraid, ladies. We're safe now." Edward comforted them gently, His face also showing the relief of a narrow escape. "It is a gentleman's duty to protect women and children. None of us was hurt."

"...Now, then, would you like to come to my home, have a cup of tea, and explain to me what exactly happened?"

TBC

*Thank you all for your recommendation votes! What a wonderful surprise! Thank you!

*Edward: Ah, this looks delicious... An item from the Shepherd pathway? Could he be one of my ally's subordinates? Can't eat him, then. Get lost.