Chapter 72: Midnight Clock Tower

Chapter Seventy-Two
Midnight Clock Tower

Audrey had already agreed with Xio and Fors on emergency contact methods. Through the golden retriever Susie, she very quickly passed Mr. Fool’s hint to the two ladies as information she had obtained through another channel.

In the corner of an old church, Xio unfolded the paper ball while thinking about how to confirm Lanevus’s identity, how to create chaos, and how to seize the opportunity to avenge Williams.

…No need to confirm. That is Lanevus?

Xio’s eyes abruptly widened. She hurriedly scanned the content that followed and saw the words written clearly on the paper:

“It can only be reported to the Church of the Evernight Goddess.

“Warn them that Lanevus carries the divinity of the True Creator.”

“Divinity? The True Creator’s divinity?” Xio blurted out, staring blankly at the golden retriever responsible for delivering the message. She discovered that the dog looked just as baffled.

“What?”

Fors had been listening, but suddenly felt that something was wrong. She swiftly snatched the paper and read it quickly.

After a moment, her lips moved. Not knowing whether to laugh or be angry, she said, “This… Is this supposed to be a joke?

“How did we get mixed up in an incident involving an evil god and divinity?”

This was only supposed to be catching a crafty swindler worth two hundred pounds!

As for Fors’s question, Susie could only use innocent eyes to express: I am only a dog. I do not know what is going on either.

Fors did not expect a dog to answer her doubts. She turned her head toward Xio and said, “Miss Audrey is probably not as naive and simple as we imagined. She has many secrets.

“Perhaps this is a contest between the nobility, the Church, and an evil cult organization.

“However, it is obvious that she did not know about the divinity earlier either. She was used as well. Mm… perhaps the person using her is her father, Earl Hall.

“The fortunate thing is that the matter ends here. You do not need to take risks anymore. After finding someone to report it, you can peacefully collect the bounty.”

Xio froze briefly.

“Yes…

“I hope—I hope the Nighthawks can avenge Williams. They are so powerful. They definitely can. They definitely can…”

Before her voice had faded, she suddenly turned her head to look to the side, as though speaking to herself.

“I am still too weak.

“Too weak…”

Xio abruptly raised her hand and covered her mouth and nose.

…

I am still too weak… Otherwise, I would choose to avenge him myself, but now I can only settle for the next best thing… Let alone the “Giant” beside Lanevus and those hidden helpers, Lanevus alone, after receiving “divinity,” is already someone I probably cannot handle…

As long as the Nighthawks receive the information, judging from their response speed, they should act tonight. The Backlund diocese is second only to the Church’s headquarters. It has many Sealed Artifacts and many powerhouses. There is no need to wait for additional helpers…

After finishing his explanation, Klein returned to the real world, pasted on a little beard, changed his hairstyle, and stared blankly at the mirror for several minutes.

He was expectant, excited, melancholy, and powerless.

Before evening arrived, he left Cragg Club and returned to Minsk Street. On the way, he stopped by a general market and casually found a very busy stall with excellent business, buying several masks, including a clown mask.

He decided that tonight, he would observe the operation to capture Lanevus.

He wanted to personally watch that man pay the price for the madness from before.

Of course, with his strength, he could only watch from very, very far away. He did not even have the right to approach.

When eleven o’clock came, when many people had already entered dreams, Klein changed into his gray-blue worker’s uniform and disguised himself as he had the previous night. Then he put on a peaked cap, circled several streets away, hired a rental carriage, and headed for the Backlund Bridge area.

Once there, he switched to walking and made his way to East Balam Dock.

During yesterday’s interview, the questions he had asked included “Where do you live at present?” and “What is the surrounding environment like?” Thus, he knew very clearly that at night, Lanevus would be inside the dormitory provided by the dock union.

However, Klein did not approach that place. He carefully went around it, his target being East Balam Dock’s clock tower.

In Backlund, apart from large cathedrals with towering iconic bell towers, many government buildings were also equipped with one. They were not necessarily very tall, grand, or beautiful, and were often mainly practical, like this one at East Balam Dock.

Compared with the surrounding buildings, which were at most three stories high, it was like a giant rising into the night, overlooking the entire area.

Klein easily flipped into the interior of the clock tower. Along the spiraling stairs that seemed to stretch upward without end, he moved swiftly through the darkness.

At last, he reached his destination: above the enormous wall clock. Around him were dark-yellow railings, and overhead was the pointed roof, so close it seemed within reach.

Taking several steps forward, Klein hid in shadow, identified the direction, and looked toward the dock union dormitory.

It was a two-story brick-red building. The pedestrians who occasionally passed by had already become nearly black dots in Klein’s vision.

He watched for several seconds, then took a step back, merging even deeper into the darkness.

At the same time, he took out the mask he had newly bought and put it on his face.

It was a clown with the corners of his mouth curved high upward, and red paint on the tip of his nose.

A happy clown.

…

Wearing that clown mask, Klein stood within the thick darkness and patiently waited for the scheduled show.

This wait lasted two hours.

After the hands of the large wall clock below passed one o’clock, he suddenly saw something fly over from afar.

It was a gigantic airship painted deep black.

If not for the faint moonlight shining upon it, it would have been hard to distinguish from the night. It was not like what newspapers and magazines described, producing exaggerated mechanical roars. Its propellers rotated silently, and the whole craft was as quiet as a vulture that had discovered prey but had not yet found its chance.

A strong yet light alloy supported the cotton skeleton. Beneath it hung a boxlike structure with machine-gun ports, throwing ports, and cannon ports. At a glance, it was full of intimidation.

No sound… This must be temporarily handled with supernatural methods, right?

Wearing the clown mask, Klein watched the airship slowly descend and formed a certain guess.

At that moment, what puzzled him most was that for a small-scale Beyonder battle in a densely populated urban area, they had actually dispatched an airship!

Were they not afraid of accidentally harming civilians on a large scale? Were they not afraid of causing panic?

Very soon, the airship hovered roughly ten meters above the ground. This made Klein worry even less about being discovered, because his own position was far higher than that.

As he observed the situation below, he suddenly formed a guess: the airship was most likely not meant to enter the battle. Instead, it would control the airspace, monitor the scene from above, provide the operation team with a better viewpoint, and guard against accidents and possible escape attempts.

At that moment, three figures wearing black trench coats silently appeared in front of the two-story brick-red building.

The person leading them wore no hat. His gold-brown hair had been cut extremely short, and his dark-green eyes were deep like a lake without wind or light.

The collars of his shirt and trench coat were turned up high. Both his palms were covered in gloves as red as blood.

A silver-white metal suitcase was bound to his left hand by chains of the same color.

This was Crestet Cesimir, one of the nine senior deacons of the Church of the Evernight Goddess’s Nighthawks. He was also one of the three giants of the Red Gloves. During this period, he happened to be in Backlund.

Cesimir looked ahead once, then turned his head toward the subordinate on his left.

“Use Sealed Artifact 1-63.”

“Yes, Your Excellency Cesimir.”

The Nighthawk crouched down and helped Cesimir undo the chains around the silver-white suitcase.

Throughout the whole process, Crestet Cesimir’s muscles were extremely tense, as though he was resisting something.

The Nighthawk on the left silently inhaled, then pressed down sharply, causing illusory ripples to split open across the surface of the silver suitcase.

The light in the surroundings abruptly vanished, as though all of it had been drawn into the suitcase. A bone sword less than a meter long, radiating a moist, pure-white light, slowly floated up.

Its blade supported an ancient silver-plated mirror.

Inside the mirror, the reflected scene appeared layer after layer, endlessly overlapping with no end.

The Nighthawk on the left picked up the mirror and aimed it at the brick-red building.

The building was clearly reflected within, and everything seemed unchanged.

Cesimir, however, slowly exhaled. He stretched out his left hand and gripped the bone sword less than a meter long.

Some of the surrounding light returned.

“Let us go in.”

He began moving toward the entrance of the brick-red building.

The three Nighthawks opened the door and entered the gloomy, dim house, heading straight for the stairs leading to the second floor.

Just then, a tall but thin figure emerged from the shadowed corner. He wore black clerical robes, had pale-yellow slightly curled hair, and dark-brown eyes like a wild beast’s.

“So you are the Sword of the Goddess?” the nearly two-meter-tall “Giant” said in a low voice.

At the same time, his right palm clenched fiercely.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The union staff inside the brick-red building exploded one after another in their sleep, without even the chance to scream.

Their bodies split apart, transforming into thick, viscous flesh and blood. Half surged toward the “Giant,” wanting to weave into a cloak that could resist spells and reduce damage. The other half gathered into a furred crimson carpet, spreading toward the three Nighthawks.

Crestet Cesimir merely watched quietly, doing nothing at all.

Silently, those masses of flesh dissolved, collapsed, and fell like raindrops, yet they did not stain the floor red.

Inside each room, figure after figure reappeared, still sleeping.

“This is the world inside the mirror—a world inside the mirror that targets only Beyonders. The flesh bombs you implanted beforehand inside those ordinary people are merely illusory here.”

Cesimir shifted the holy bone sword into his right hand and raised it. The surroundings lost all light completely.

“Hmph!”

The “Giant” suddenly gripped his left shoulder with his right hand and forcefully tore off the entire arm. Then he hurled it, bone and blood together, forward.

Boom!

His arm exploded like a bomb, turning into a rain of blood that poured toward the three Nighthawks.

At the same time, flesh around the stump of his left shoulder began wriggling madly. A new arm slowly grew out, temporarily lacking skin, a bloody limb slick with raw flesh.

Pah, pah, pah!

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle!

The crimson raindrops accurately avoided Cesimir and the others, landing on the floor and swiftly corroding deep, black marks into it.

Yet no matter how hard they tried, they always missed the three Nighthawks by the smallest margin, as though it had been destined.

“My enemies are often not lucky enough.”

The corners of Cesimir’s lips curved slightly. With a sliding step, he appeared before the “Giant” in an instant.

The “Giant’s” gaze sharpened. His body suddenly melted like a candle, becoming sticky flesh that rapidly seeped into the floor.

Following the momentum, Cesimir dropped to one knee and stabbed the holy bone sword in his hand into the floor.

“No!”

Within the dense darkness, a roar filled with pain and fear erupted for an instant, then was completely swallowed by tranquility and silence.

Cesimir stood, drew out the bone sword, and saw a drop of dark-red blood slowly falling from its tip. On the floor, flesh seeped outward and congealed into a despairing face with slightly drooping lips—the face of the “Giant.”

Pah! Pah! Pah!

Three shadows appeared in succession around Cesimir, but every one of them inexplicably fell, dragged down by countless invisible things.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Another Nighthawk fired. The silver-white bullets seemed engraved with the Sacred Emblem of Darkness.

The three attackers hiding inside the shadows revealed themselves, twitching as they lost all signs of life.

“Rose Bishop, Hermit… People from the Aurora Order.”

Cesimir frowned slightly. Without turning toward his companions, he said in a low voice, “Something is wrong with this matter. It is strange. Be careful.”

Before his words had finished, he heard footsteps—tap, tap, tap—echoing within the tranquility and silence.

Immediately afterward, he saw Lanevus, dressed in a linen shirt, his face sharply contoured, walking down the dim stairs. His expression was indifferent and calm, without the slightest hint of fear.

“I am very curious,” Cesimir said casually, seeming not to notice the abnormality. “To the Aurora Order, you should be a blasphemer. Why would they send people to protect you?”

Lanevus revealed his signature mocking smile.

“That is very simple.

“Because I am no longer purely Lanevus.”

He paused. His gaze suddenly turned cold.

“Now, I am also the True Creator!”

He abruptly pulled open his linen shirt, exposing the portions of deep-red flesh on his chest and abdomen that had no skin.

Those pieces of flesh were connected together, forming the shape of a man hanging upside down.

With a thunderous crash, the surrounding void shattered like glass. All scenes collapsed and disintegrated.

This was the aura of a deity.