Chapter 73: A Mocking Smile

Chapter Seventy-Three
A Mocking Smile

Atop the clock tower of East Balam Dock, Klein, wearing a clown mask and concealed within deep darkness, had been quietly gazing at the dock workers’ union dormitory and at the airship hovering above it.

He could not see the concrete process of the battle, much less know exactly what stage the operation inside the brick-red building had reached. All he could do was force himself to endure, judging whether things were good or bad from the changes in the surrounding scene and from the occasional black dots passing by.

Just then, he saw one gas streetlamp after another in that area abruptly go out.

All of them went out!

The place became pitch-black.

Immediately afterward, a sensation that had left an impression upon him so deep it could hardly be deeper erupted from within the brick-red building and surged outward. Even from such a great distance, Klein could not stop his whole body from trembling. His legs weakened, and his back bent.

It was the feeling of being looked down upon and crushed from the very essence of life.

It was the feeling of something impossible to resist, impossible to face.

No. One must not look directly at a god…

In a daze, Klein seemed to return to that time. He returned to the hall of Blackthorn Security Company, as though he were once again activating spirit vision, attempting to peer into Megose’s mental state, attempting to look at the infant inside her womb.

That feeling was exactly the same as now!

No. Now it was even more extreme, even more terrifying.

How could this be? Does Lanevus not possess only a little divinity bestowed by the True Creator? At most, perhaps one or two corresponding items as well! How could he create the feeling of an evil god descending?

Before Klein could free himself from his body’s trembling and the runaway state of his thoughts, he suddenly felt a deep, tranquil, unfathomable blackness swallow that earlier aura that could not be looked upon, could not be pried into, and could not be resisted.

The two were annihilated together. Around the area, gas streetlamps leapt back into reasonably bright flames one after another, and the airship that had been unable to stop descending floated back up again.

Everything returned to how it had been at first, as though not the slightest change had occurred.

But Klein did not think so. He forced himself to stand straight and understood that something crucial had happened inside the brick-red building.

There is no longer that sensation of essence and level surpassing Beyonders. There is no longer that aura of an evil god’s descent. This means the True Creator, or Lanevus’s scheme, failed… But the Nighthawks’ side must also have suffered a severe blow. They may not have strength left…

Just then, Klein’s heart stirred. He hurriedly removed the pendulum from inside his left cuff, held it with one hand, and spoke in a low voice.

“The current Lanevus no longer possesses danger.”

After swiftly repeating the statement seven times, he opened his eyes and saw the citrine pendant rotating counterclockwise, but not quickly, and not with much amplitude.

This indicated that Lanevus was still a dangerous person, but the degree had already become quite low.

What Klein cared about even more was another point:

The divination had not failed again!

This meant Lanevus had already separated from the divinity bestowed by the True Creator. There was separation in essence!

A cold wind that seemed to soak into the bones blew past. Klein abruptly shivered and felt as though an electric current had instantly drilled from the soles of his feet into his mind.

Perhaps I can do something!

That thought flashed through him. He no longer hesitated. On the dark top level of the clock tower, he took four steps counterclockwise and entered above the gray fog.

He wasted no time. Sitting down directly, he manifested a yellowish-brown sheet of goatskin and a divination statement:

“Lanevus’s escape route.”

Klein leaned back, rapidly recited the statement, and entered a deep dream.

Inside that illusory, broken, hazy world, he saw channels flowing with sewage, dim and filthy passages, and metal pipes with traces of rust.

It was cramped. It was enclosed.

It was the sewer!

Klein woke at once. Immediately wrapping himself with spirituality, he dropped into the gray fog.

The moment he returned to the real world, he immediately stepped back several paces to the side of the clock tower facing away from the airship.

Klein did not take the spiraling stairs. He directly flipped over the dark-yellow railing and, using the platforms, protrusions, and decorations on the building’s outer wall, jumped down level by level. His balance was as steady as though he walked on flat ground.

In only a short time, his feet landed on the solid stone slabs beside the street.

…

Inside the brick-red building, the two Nighthawks wearing red gloves lay unconscious by the door. The ancient silver-plated mirror had rolled into a corner, no longer showing the slightest special quality. It was completely impossible to tell that it was a Grade 1 Sealed Artifact.

Yet one could clearly sense that it was recovering bit by bit.

Crestet Cesimir knelt on one knee at the intersection of the corridors. From the corners of both his eyes, lines of liquid resembling both blood and tears slid down.

His short gold-brown hair drooped weakly. The upright collars of his trench coat and shirt had already become tattered, revealing his rather pointed chin and his thin, hard mouth.

As he panted continuously, half-illusory, half-transparent faces with twisted expressions surfaced upon each of his teeth.

Cesimir supported himself against the ground with his red-gloved left palm and struggled to raise his neck, looking ahead.

Directly before him was the stairway leading to the second floor. Standing above those steps was Lanevus, his linen shirt completely open.

Lanevus stood rigidly there. Between his chest and abdomen, the moist, pure-white holy bone sword had pierced through him.

The skinless flesh that had outlined the hanging man was now completely gone, leaving only a hollow cavity.

Vaguely, through that cavity, one could even see from Lanevus’s front to his back.

Lanevus moved with extreme difficulty. Then he suddenly laughed loudly, madly.

“Haha! Haha! Thank you!”

“I truly must thank you!”

“Truly, look into my sincere eyes. I really must thank you!”

“If you had not discovered this in time and rushed here, then in a few months I would truly have become the vessel of the True Creator’s descent. At that point, how would my state be any different from being dead?”

Cesimir was visibly stunned as he listened. He could scarcely believe that this man, whose greatest reliance he had desperately destroyed, could be so joyful at this moment.

At present, he wanted to stand but could not. He wanted to resist but had no strength.

Lanevus saw his confusion and coughed while laughing.

“Do you know? For someone like me, after doing something so worth being proud of, having no one to share it with is the saddest thing.

“Cough. When I was in Tingen City, I was deceived by the True Creator. Not only did He intend to return by creating a child, He also secretly planted a ‘sapling’ inside my body.

“No. I even believe Megose’s child was merely His feint. He did not even require members of the Aurora Order to protect her or divert attention. From the beginning, He seemed to know that the matter would fail.

“The real arrangement for His descent was on me. After I arrived in Backlund, the divinity He had bestowed upon me suddenly combined with the ‘sapling’ inside my body. Haha! Can you imagine? I was being replaced bit by bit, replaced by Him bit by bit! By the end, I would become the True Creator.

“Before I could think of a method, the Aurora Order found me through their sensing of the divinity. Fortunately, their heads are full of simple-minded lunatics. Haha. There are always so many stupid people.”

Cough, cough, cough! Lanevus spat out a mouthful of dark blood, seeming to recover a bit of mobility.

With difficulty, he took a step forward. For some unknown reason, his sharply contoured face abruptly softened quite a bit, becoming more like his original self.

Lanevus pressed one palm against the stair rail and smiled with abundant mockery.

“Fortunately, for the True Creator to fully descend, to completely replace me, He needed vast amounts of pessimism, despair, numbness, resentment, and primitive evil. Only Backlund—only the East Borough, the Factory Borough, and the Dock Borough—could satisfy His requirements. That gave me a chance. It gave me a chance to come into contact with other people.

“I knew that simply having the people I contacted call the police was unrealistic, because the people I contacted were quite possibly members of the Aurora Order as well.

“At first, I tried to incite a strike and make the police department notice me. As a result, I was warned by the Aurora Order and tortured. I could only end it in a hurry.

“I pretended to be a little close to losing control and obtained the chance to go into the sewers to vent. During that process, I secretly used my blood to contaminate some creatures living there, turning them into fierce mutated monsters. Unfortunately, before you could follow that lead here, the Aurora Order discovered the matter again. It seems one of their members died at the hands of the mutated monsters. Sigh. Now that I no longer have the divinity or the ‘sapling,’ my blood will no longer have that effect.

“After that, I was controlled even more strictly. Still, I found another opportunity. I killed a prostitute using the cruelest method, hoping to draw the police’s attention. Who would have thought that the Aurora Order would actually disguise that case as part of the serial murders? I still failed to wait until rescue arrived.

“I had no similar opportunities left, so I could only switch to a more subtle method. I actively requested that the most vicious, most insane, most radical Aurora Order members watch over me, and that fit exactly with their thinking. Heh. Could they not use their brains? That kind of lunatic could cause trouble at any moment. Sure enough, you came!”

Hoo…

At that moment, Lanevus exhaled and moved his body, seeming finally to have shaken off the residual influence.

He pulled out the holy bone sword piercing through his chest and abdomen and said regretfully, “What a pity. I cannot take it away. Otherwise, you would lock onto me and find me very soon.”

After the pure-white bone sword completely left his body, not a single drop of blood flowed from that exaggerated wound. The vanished portion seemed not to have belonged to Lanevus.

Lanevus pressed his right hand to his chest and bowed to Crestet Cesimir and the others.

“The people on the airship outside should be recovering soon. I cannot remain any longer.

“Thank you. My heartfelt thanks.

“Although you are very stupid, you helped me in the end.

“For foolish fellows such as yourselves, this is your honor.”

At this point, he straightened and, with a smile full of mockery, said, “Goodbye, foolish Nighthawks.

“Use your lives to see me off.”

Gripping that holy bone sword, he suddenly rushed forward several steps, trying to stab Crestet Cesimir.

But at that moment, his eyelids began to grow heavy and sink. His entire being wanted only to collapse and sleep.

“So you still have some strength left. That is troublesome…”

Lanevus bit his tongue lightly. Suddenly, he threw the holy bone sword in his hand toward the Nighthawks unconscious by the door!

“No!”

Using the strength he had finally managed to gather, Cesimir waved his hand, causing an invisible thing to deflect the holy bone sword away.

Lanevus seized that chance. With pounding steps, he ran to the side, vaulted out of the brick-red building through the washroom window at the end of the corridor.

Immediately afterward, he pried open a manhole cover by the street, climbed in, and dropped swiftly into the sewers.

Lanevus seemed extremely familiar with the place. Even though everything around him was pitch-dark, he could run, leap, turn, and flee quickly toward the depths of the maze-like sewer.

Suddenly, he instinctively stopped and leaned his body backward.

Pff!

A card stabbed deep into the right side of his chest, and blood swiftly dripped from its edge.

Lanevus lifted his eyes and, using his own dark vision, saw the attacker.

It was a medium-built man dressed in a worker’s uniform. On his face was a mask with high upturned lips and a bright red nose.

It was a happy clown.