Inside the small theater of the Leys Circus.
As long as it feels familiar, there's no problem for Seer not to remember. Klein pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses, leaned back slightly, and whispered a few words almost silently.
Immediately afterwards, he pretended to rest and closed his eyes for about ten seconds, but actually used Cogitation to quickly fall asleep and received clues from his dream.
It was a rather dim room, with only a single candle flickering dimly on the coffee table. The people sitting around were all wearing long black hooded robes and iron masks that only covered the upper half of their faces.
Klein deliberately rubbed his temples, opened his eyes, and continued watching the animal training performance.
He has deciphered the revelation and understood the source of the familiarity:
The scene in the dream was the gathering of Beyonder convened by the old man known as the " Eye of Wisdom ".
There was a Apothecary in the show with a chubby face who liked to remind others in a sarcastic way. He was clearly a kind-hearted guy, but he always gave people the feeling of being punched.
Could it be that " Apothecary "? It doesn't seem like it. When did he learn how to tame beasts...? According to the Nighthawks ' internal records, the " Apothecary's" Spirit Vision is not like that of the " Seer," which can distinguish the subtle colors of emotions. Hmm, they are quite adept at distinguishing the colors of auras... Klein's thoughts slowly drifted away, without affecting his enjoyment of the performance on stage.
In his Spirit Vision, the emotions of the black bear, tiger, and curly-haired baboon were indeed quite unstable. With a certain degree of stimulation, they could easily erupt on the spot. This indirectly confirmed that the chubby man who had spoken earlier was not causing trouble. He seemed to be able to read the thoughts of the three animals and understand their impulses.
With his reminder, the Beast Tamer, though filled with intense anger and his face darkened, instinctively softened his movements and became much more careful, and the performance ended smoothly.
After that, a simple but humorous play was performed, and only after it was over did the Magician come up to perform.
The Magician, dressed in a tuxedo, a matching bow tie, and a tall top hat, immediately made a fire-breathing gesture upon entering the arena, drawing cheers and applause from the Spectator.
It's a very simple technique... Klein, who already has exceptional eyesight and has watched many magic tutorials, understood the key after just one glance.
Next, the Magician performed classic tricks such as escaping from a locked box, removing a hat and flying a dove, pulling out flowers, and card magic. Klein thought he could easily see through every trick, but he was surprised to find that at times, he didn't get anything out of it at all because his attention was drawn to where the magician wanted him to go, and he ignored the key details.
He clearly doesn't possess any extraordinary abilities, yet his methods still manage to deceive my eyes. Hmm, the key is his control over attention... The second rule of Magician: fully mobilize the target's attention to achieve the desired effect? Klein made a guess in his mind that he wasn't sure if it was right or wrong.
This requires feedback to be obtained through " Acting ".
Just then, the Magician's performance ended, and the Spectator gave him a warm round of applause and cheers, bringing the atmosphere in the arena to its peak for the afternoon.
"Heh, the third rule: Magician's performance needs applause from the Spectator?" Klein muttered to himself, half-jokingly and half-guessingly.
A little after three o'clock, he tugged at the collar of his black double-breasted tuxedo, got up and left the small theater. He didn't try to approach the chubby man who seemed to be Apothecary, but quietly memorized his appearance—a hasty "pickup" might provoke an overreaction.
Klein took a horse-drawn carriage back to Minsk Street.
The carriage was double-decker, with passengers on each level. As was customary, Klein chose a window seat on the lower level.
The carriage moved along and stopped for a while. He had been half-closing his eyes, recalling the Spirit Intuition he had just had, when suddenly he felt a pang of anxiety and became clear-headed and rational, just like the reaction when someone forcibly invades your dream or you are directly Spirit Channeling.
At this moment, he knew for certain that he was no longer in the real world!
With his rich experience, he pretended to be nonchalant, glanced around, and noticed that the gentleman in a tailcoat and top hat on his left was still reading the newspaper, leading two children. A woman in a light blue dress was scolding a disobedient child with a headache. Next to her, someone was eating bread and drinking their own tea... Everything was exactly the same as before.
However, in Klein's quietly activated Spirit Vision, none of these passengers emitted the corresponding aura color or emotional color!
They have no Ether Body!
They were clearly talking, eating bread, and reading newspapers, yet there was no trace of them being alive!
Was this an illusion, or had they suddenly died and were merely continuing to act according to their pre-death habits? Klein tried his best to remain calm, turning his head to look out the window. He saw carriages and pedestrians coming and going on the street, just like in the afternoon.
However, they also lacked any distinguishing aura or color... As the carriage moved forward more slowly, Klein grew increasingly solemn, not understanding what had happened.
He looked down and examined himself, seeing a clear Spirituality radiance that was completely different from everyone else around him.
Just then, he suddenly heard a roar, a roar that didn't sound like it came from a human!
Klein quickly looked up and noticed a large black dog on the street.
Its sharp, white teeth were stained with blood-like marks; it was the Devil giant hound, the Devil giant hound that had committed countless bloody crimes!
The black hound rapidly swelled into a towering Devil, with bat-like wings on its back and ram's horns covered in mysterious patterns sprouting from its head. It gazed up at the sky and uttered a single, filthy word in Devil Language:
" Depravity!"
Almost as soon as it opened its mouth, Klein confirmed that it was real, because it had an aura and emotional color, and was radiating a strong Spirituality light!
As the Devil giant hound roared, several illusory pedestrians around them suddenly exploded, turning into black mist that billowed into the air, obscuring their vision.
But Klein could vaguely see that there were many more "real people" with aura colors in mid-air and around him, using extraordinary abilities that radiated Spirituality light.
What's going on? Ordinary people are all illusions, but Beyonder are all real... Did the Nighthawks and Mandated Punishers find that Devil giant dog and use a special Sealed Artifact to create a battle environment that wouldn't disturb the real world? That Sealed Artifact only targets Beyonder and has no effect on ordinary people? So, I just happened to be passing by and unfortunately got dragged into it? Klein's thoughts raced, and he roughly guessed what had happened to him.
This is truly a bizarre disaster... He was just beginning to reflect when he suddenly heard a scream, a piercing scream, a tremendous scream.
The surrounding black mist that had been obscuring the view suddenly dispersed, and the giant Devil hound crashed heavily to the ground, its body splitting vertically into two pieces. All the light in the air focused on a certain object, making it resemble a pure the Moon, illuminating the deep darkness.
The Devil giant dog, its vitality undiminished, roared once more, its body suddenly exploding, using its soul and flesh as fuel to ignite a towering flame interwoven with pale blue and crimson.
However, the flames lost all their brightness as soon as they reached mid-air, and were absorbed by the bright, moon-like object.
It vanished without a trace, and the Devil giant dog simply and completely perished, leaving not even a trace behind.
"So powerful..." Klein was just beginning to marvel when he suddenly thought of something: what if those official powerhouses discovered that there was a wild Beyonder in the carriage he was riding in, Beyonder different from the illusory people around him!
His heart tightened, and his scalp tingled as he pulled out a paper figure. With a flick of his wrist, he transformed it into himself—a version of himself devoid of aura or emotional color.
He himself, however, used the special properties of the " Substitution Technique " to hide in the "shadow" of the paper figure.
Just then, Klein heard someone hum softly on the other side of the street from the other side of the carriage.
The soft snort contained obvious anger and resentment.
Who? It doesn't sound like an official Beyonder's voice... Klein was puzzled, but dared not remove his Stand and peered out.
Immediately afterwards, several pairs of eyes swept over, but none lingered for long.
When all of this faded away, Klein saw cracks appear in the surrounding void, shattering like glass.
Then, the real feeling washed over him, and he knew clearly that he had returned to the real world.
He quietly removed the stand-in and sat back in his own seat. Inside the carriage, some passengers were reading newspapers, some were eating bread, and some were scolding children—it was no different from before.
But in Klein's eyes, they regained their aura and emotional color.
In addition, compared to before, the horse-drawn carriages have clearly traveled a considerable distance.
"It seems that in that special battle environment just now, time and scene were synchronized with reality. If that battle had lasted longer, the carriage might have driven out of the area of influence, leaving me alone there. Being alone there... that would have obviously exposed me... Fortunately, Backlund is the Land of Hope among Capital of Capitals, and all three major churches have High-Sequence individuals here..." Klein thought with a slight sense of lingering fear.
He originally thought that even if they identified the target, it would take the Nighthawks and Mandated Punishers several days to find the Devil black dog. Moreover, this was contingent on the target not leaving Backlund —this was certain, because leaving Backlund meant stepping outside the ritual's boundaries, which would cause the advancement to fail. For Devil, the negative impact of a failed ritual would likely cause them, already struggling on the edge of bloodlust, to lose control completely.
Who would have thought that in just one night and half a day, the Devil giant hound was discovered, Execution, and Purification!
Absolutely terrifying! This is Backlund... this is the true power of the three great churches! A Sequence 6 cultivator who was about to advance had only revealed his identity and left a negligible trace, yet he was found so quickly and killed so easily... This is a " Devil " that can sense danger in advance! It seems that certain Sealed Artifact have the advantage over this... From now on, I must be more cautious and careful! Klein felt that he had learned a profound lesson.
At that moment, he remembered the strange hum he had just heard.
"It seems to be a companion of that Devil giant hound? Its master? He wasn't discovered. Perhaps he secretly Manipulation the Devil giant hound's final self-destruction... Of course, it could also be a member of another Concealment organization dissatisfied with the official Beyonder..." Klein suddenly looked out the window opposite the carriage. He saw that the passersby outside were all ordinary, some wearing woolen coats, some wearing top hats, and some wearing brightly colored long skirts. There was nothing wrong with them.
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