Chapter 213: “1-42”

Chapter 213: “1-42”

The Apostle of Desire, who had once worn the human skin of Patrick Jason, immediately stopped. Startled and uncertain, he looked around.

Only now did he vaguely sense danger approaching.

He was at the edge of a garden. Because of the deep winter, the plants inside had withered away, exposing black-brown soil.

On the street to his right, there had not been many pedestrians on a workday afternoon to begin with. At that moment, only a few people passed by here and there, and none of them noticed anything abnormal.

A flash of silver suddenly reflected in the Apostle of Desire’s eyes. A full suit of armor was walking over from the other end of the garden.

From its left shoulder diagonally downward, a patch of congealed blood stained it, exuding a bewitching beauty. The armor itself seemed extremely heavy. Every step made the ground tremble slightly.

The moment he saw that bloodstained silver armor, the Apostle of Desire felt his breathing grow difficult, as though he had encountered the most terrifying natural enemy.

How did it get here so quickly? Did they see through my trick so fast? The Apostle of Desire recovered his calm, recovered his cold-bloodedness, and focused his entire mind on sensing the emotions and desires of the Beyonder inside the bloodstained silver armor.

Yet what left him in despair was that the silver armor completely isolated his Beyonder abilities.

It was as though he had touched a stone, touched a cold suit of armor with no wearer inside!

The Apostle of Desire had no choice but to raise his right hand. His enormous bat wings spread open, and flames tinged with blue rapidly gathered around him.

Just then, silver light flashed at the web between his right thumb and index finger. His thumb fell to the ground with a swish, the cut smooth and neat.

Swish, swish, swish. As silver radiance flickered, the remaining nine fingers of the Apostle of Desire were severed at the same time. The suitcase he was carrying fell to the ground with a smack.

The Apostle of Desire’s pupils immediately shrank to needle-points. He abruptly flapped the enormous bat wings behind him and fled in another direction as fast as he could.

Without him noticing, the shadow beneath his feet had shrunk, hiding in a single point.

The Apostle of Desire had only run two steps when countless silver rays suddenly burst from within his body like blossoming fireworks.

The viscous black liquid covering his surface fell to the ground like rain. His forearms, arms, shoulders, ribs, neck, and other parts scattered with perfectly smooth cut surfaces.

Smack, smack, smack. The Apostle of Desire’s pale, bloodstained large intestine, his wriggling stomach pouch, and his still-contracting, still-swelling heart all fell and scattered across the ground.

Where he had stood, bright-red blood was thickest. Farther outward, it splattered in a radiating pattern, forming together a beautiful flower of death.

A Sequence 5 powerhouse, an Apostle of Desire who had just accomplished an impossible assassination, was dismembered just like that, without the slightest ability to resist.

This was a Grade 1 Sealed Artifact.

This was the Sealed Artifact “1-42,” which had once taken the lives of more than a hundred thousand people!

Leonard Mitchell, wearing that terrifying suit of armor, took two difficult steps forward. After examining the ground covered in dismembered flesh, he raised his voice.

“He is not completely dead!”

He paused, then added, “Different Demons have different traits. This Apostle of Desire’s trait is shadowification. He just abandoned his own body, leaving behind only his shadow.”

While ordering some Nighthawks and members of the Machinery Hivemind to keep ordinary people away, Soest the Spirit Warlock examined the scene and listened to Leonard.

He took out his pocket watch, clicked it open, and glanced at it. With a grave expression, he asked, “Only ten minutes left. Is that enough? Don’t push yourself.”

“No problem! ‘1-42’ has locked onto him. I can feel its excitement,” Leonard said without hesitation.

Soest opened and closed the five fingers of his red-gloved hand and said to the other Nighthawks, “Bring hot water and follow Leonard closely. If anything goes wrong, switch immediately and dig a ‘bathtub’ on the spot!

“Also, leave marks behind. The rest of us will catch up very soon.”

Thud, thud, thud. The bloodstained silver armor began running in pursuit. It looked heavy, but it was inconceivably fast.

Soest watched those Red Gloves leave, then turned to Ikanser.

“Deacon Bernard, lead the remaining members of the Machinery Hivemind to that house. Keep watch over the duke’s guards and all other living people at the scene.”

“Keep watch?” Ikanser instinctively asked back.

Soest nodded gravely.

“How could the Apostle of Desire be certain that the duke would go to that house today, and even precise it down to a specific point in time, allowing him to lure away the Singer of God in advance at exactly the right moment?”

Ikanser instantly understood.

“You mean some member of the duke’s guards, or someone trusted by the duke, is an accomplice of the Apostle of Desire?”

Otherwise, it would have been impossible to grasp the timing so perfectly!

The so-called operation would have had no chance of success at all!

“I can only say that this reason is the most probable. We cannot rule out the possibility that a master of prophecy is hidden behind the Apostle of Desire.” Soest said no more. Leading a second group of Nighthawks, he followed the marks to reinforce the teammates ahead.

With a dark expression, Ikanser led the remaining Machinery Hivemind members back toward the residence of Duke Negan’s mistress.

He lifted his head and looked at the pale sun behind the thin fog, knowing that the situation in all of Backlund, even the entire Loen Kingdom and the whole world, would change because of what had happened today.

…

Inside the dark sewers, a shadow was clinging to the base of the stone wall and swiftly swimming in a certain direction.

He intended to use the bloodstained armor’s tall, heavy build, which would make it inconvenient to move through certain narrow areas of the sewers, to shake it off.

Yet each time the shadow advanced a certain distance, it would stop, stiffening in place.

Its black surface continuously swelled and solidified, as if it wished to grow new flesh and blood. But because it lacked material, success was impossible.

The Apostle of Desire let out painful gasps, feeling that, in his present state, he might fall into the abyss of losing control at any time.

After calming for a while, he no longer cared about reducing the harm of the problem and continued fleeing for his life, afraid that the terrifying bloodstained silver armor had already silently caught up behind him.

…

Inside the Krag Club, Klein entered a resting room and carried a newspaper to the side of the toilet.

He was worried that the Apostle of Desire might escape ahead of time, leaving hidden dangers for him, Isengard Stanton, Kaslana, and the other innocent private detectives. Therefore, he prepared to go above the gray fog and conduct another divination to confirm the other party’s current situation, so that he could adopt a targeted strategy.

Repeating his previous process, Klein used a paper figurine to replace himself. Then he sat in the position belonging to the Fool, materialized Jason Beria’s handkerchief, and divined the other party’s current location.

Inside the gray, hazy dream world, Klein saw sewers without light. He saw a living shadow. He saw the other party seem to try filling itself into a flesh-and-blood body, only to fail each time. He saw fine black dust shed from its surface.

The image then rose upward to the ground, revealing a towering cathedral.

The Cathedral of the Holy Wind… Klein opened his lightly closed eyes and grasped the situation of the Apostle of Desire.

The other party truly had not been caught, but seemed to have suffered heavy injuries. His condition was extremely wrong, carrying traces of something strange and uncanny.

His suitcase is gone as well… He must have dropped it when he was wounded… Klein pondered briefly, then used divination to recall a map of Backlund and materialized it before his eyes.

Likewise, he also created a rough layout map of Backlund’s sewers.

He had once made full use of the sewers and had always gathered similar information. His focus had been the East Borough, the Backlund Bridge area, and Cherwood Borough where he lived. Through effort, he had long since completed his first-phase goal and figured out the main layout of the sewer network. If he wanted to refine it further, it would require a very long period of persistence. Sometimes, Klein even wanted to sneak into Backlund City Hall and directly steal a look at the corresponding design blueprints.

Based on the two maps and the scene he had seen in his dream divination, Klein discovered that the Apostle of Desire Beria had not fled in the direction of the Tussock River. Instead, he was doing the opposite, heading straight toward Hillston Borough, apparently intending to pass through it and enter the area in Queen Borough with the artificial lake.

“In other words, he is getting closer and closer to me…” Klein’s heart stirred, and he suddenly had an idea.

Although I can’t determine exactly which sewer passage he’ll pass through, I can combine this with divination to judge… He is heavily injured, in a very strange state, and his interference in this regard has become extremely weak. As long as he isn’t too far away, it isn’t impossible to find him. After all, I’ve once seen his true appearance and grasped a little of his aura… Finding people is my specialty… I must do something. I can’t let him escape just like that! There’s still enough time! After confirming the degree of danger, Klein made up his mind and returned to the real world.

He took out candles and swiftly set up a ritual, summoning himself and responding to himself.

Not long afterward, inside the washroom, there was now a figure clad in black full-body armor, wearing a pitch-black crown and a cloak of the same color. It was Klein, transformed into spirit-body state and carrying the Black Emperor card.

He had also “contained” the Sun Brooch, the Biological Poison Bottle, and other mystical items, striving to ensure nothing would go wrong.

Then he hid himself in the air and left the Krag Club from another direction.

The current Klein could fly, so he was extremely fast, yet he stirred no sound of wind, because he was a spirit body.

He “brushed” past a tree and took a dry branch with him.

Using Jason Beria’s true appearance that he had once seen, the slight aura he had memorized, and the handkerchief as mediums, Klein used dowsing combined with the layout map and rapidly determined the sewer passage the other party would pass through.

Entering that pitch-black, stinking place, Klein moved at top speed through many narrow areas and arrived at a comparatively spacious section.

A dark river flowed. Mixed smells filled the surroundings. He adjusted his direction from time to time, tightly pursuing Jason Beria.

…

The Apostle of Desire nearly lost control again and hurriedly stopped, clinging to a damp wall and cold pipe as he struggled to restrain the bloodthirst and killing desire in his heart.

Huff, huff. The thin shadow rose and fell slightly.

Just then, he abruptly turned his head and looked toward the place he had passed through.

What first entered his “eyes” was a suit of black full-body armor and a black crown, outlining an extraordinarily majestic figure.

Behind that figure, a weightless cloak swayed gently as he moved forward.

…

“Nearby!”

A heavy, bloodstained suit of silver armor climbed down the iron ladder at an entrance and entered the sewers.