Chapter 83: Ruin No. 1

Chapter 83: Ruin No. 1

“No…” Qonas Kilgor stood frozen where he was, an overwhelming sense of despair surging up inside him.

As a military demigod who had experienced no small number of dangers, he clearly understood the situation he was in. He could already hear the footsteps of death drawing closer and closer.

He wanted to make a desperate final struggle. He wanted to reveal his mythical creature form. But after the command was issued through his sluggish thoughts, it had no effect whatsoever.

His body had been “parasitized.” It was no longer under his control!

At that moment, Qonas Kilgor could not even shed a single tear.

Beneath the illumination of the enormous crimson moon, time passed second by second. Suddenly, Qonas Kilgor raised his left hand and touched his own close-cropped hair.

He had already become Klein’s marionette.

In truth, at the very end, he had still had one chance. Because the duration of “parasitism” could not last as long as the time required for complete marionettification, there had been two or three seconds in which he could have tried to reveal his mythical creature form.

The problem was that he was still affected by Misleading and Deception. His own thoughts also became increasingly stagnant and slow as time passed, making it impossible for him to grasp that brief opportunity.

Klein looked at his new marionette and silently breathed out. He then raised his head, looked toward that clear, fresh-red moon, and said,

“It is done.”

Within that enormous crimson moon, a black dot instantly appeared, then descended from the sky. It was Arianna, the Archbishop of the Church of Evernight and Servant of Concealment, wearing a simple robe with a bark belt.

In this concealed world, the ascetic used no Beyonder power at all. She simply floated in midair, casting her gaze toward the Fallen Count below.

She lightly raised her right hand. Above the military demigod’s head, the faintly blurry spirit of Qonas Kilgor emerged, and because of that, Klein lost control over the marionette.

He was not too surprised. After all, he had not yet separated a Worm of Spirit and transmitted it through the Spirit Body Threads. In essence, his control over that marionette still belonged to the Sequence 5 stage, not yet at the demigod level.

“Where did you go just now?” Arianna asked calmly as she looked at Qonas Kilgor’s spirit.

Qonas Kilgor’s expression distorted slightly. Then he answered,

“Ruin No. 1.”

…Is this a promise in the domain of contracts, or a suggestion at the psychological level? As Klein watched the “spirit channeling” from the side, he detected something from the Fallen Count’s reaction.

However, this would not affect anything, because this was a concealed world—a world known to no one, a world no one could sense.

“Where is that ruin located? To whom did it once belong? What is it currently used for?” As an archbishop of the Evernight Goddess, an angel of the corresponding pathway, Arianna could share a certain portion of the authority of Concealment. Thus, she did not begin with simple questions, but directly entered the heart of the matter without the slightest worry that something unexpected would happen.

Qonas Kilgor’s spirit trembled slightly, giving the impression that it might explode on its own. Yet in the end, nothing happened.

Hesitantly, he answered,

“That ruin is located in the Striven section of the Tussock River, deep underground. It has arrangements that interfere with divination and prophecy.”

The Striven section… That is quite a distance from the mountain where Mr. A once was, and also from the place where you vanished earlier. It seems you are all quite cautious. And that point-to-point “teleportation” is much better than I expected… In Klein’s mind, a map of Backlund’s northwestern outskirts rapidly took shape.

Qonas Kilgor continued answering,

“That ruin once belonged to the Blood Emperor, Alista Tudor. As for what it is currently being used for, I do not know. I…