Chapter 4: Three Chairs

Chapter 4: Three Chairs

The Wraith-formed Senor, under Klein’s control, passed through thick soil and stone, arriving beside Sharron. He saw a broken armrest buried ahead, carved with asymmetric patterns. It was similar to the splintered wood they had found earlier, yet also different.

This armrest was not purely deep black. Within its patterns, there was a dark-red color, as though iron and blood had intertwined.

Recalling the scene from that past nightmare, Klein confirmed that this was not the high-backed chair used by the young man suspected to be Medici.

This was a second chair!

There had been at least two high-backed chairs inside the room that sealed the evil spirit!

“Klein” and Sharron said nothing. Each circled in a different direction, searching for additional traces.

It did not take long before they discovered proof of a third high-backed chair!

It was a segment of chair leg, mainly dark red, with pure black used as its patterning, completely different from the previous two types of broken wood.

“Perhaps this is an issue caused by the Fourth Epoch’s asymmetric characteristics…” Klein knew Sharron’s style, so he took the initiative and spoke, offering an explanation even he did not quite believe.

After all, in the nightmare caused by the evil spirit’s aura, the high-backed chair that had appeared at least had a unified color.

Sharron shook her head with a very slight movement.

“Three carries more ritual meaning.”

She meant that if Blood Emperor Alista Tudor had wanted to harm innocents back then, there would not have been only one victim. The room that had sealed the evil spirit might once have contained a ritual.

Klein froze slightly upon hearing that. An image suddenly flashed through his mind.

Inside a spacious, dim room, with a certain place as the center, three high-backed chairs of different styles were arranged. On each chair sat a humanoid creature, head lowered, breathless. Among them was Red Angel Medici.

The scene grew clearer and clearer. In an instant, Klein linked it to two other matters:

The Sequence 0 Black Emperor potion’s main ingredients were the Uniqueness and two Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristics, not including the one the user personally possessed.

And Blood Emperor Alista Tudor seemed to have forcibly jumped from the Black Emperor pathway’s Sequence 1, Prince of Abolition, into the non-neighboring pathway’s Sequence 0, Red Priest, becoming a half-mad true god!

As his thoughts turned, Klein quickly formed a guess:

A ritual to advance to Sequence 0, one involving the level of true gods, had once been held inside this room!

Of course, judging from the complicated ritual required by the Black Emperor, this place should only have represented the potion portion. The pathway symbolizing “war” clearly required chaos and conflict across the entire continent to match it.

Blood Emperor Alista Tudor himself did not possess the corresponding Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristics. Therefore, his Red Priest potion needed three Sequence 1 angels or Sealed Artifacts to provide the characteristics. That was why there had been three high-backed chairs here!

Right. The evil spirit suspected to be Red Angel Medici said that the method to free it from the seal was to find direct descendants of the Sauron, Einhorn, and Medici families, take ten milliliters of blood from each, and mix it with holy water… Sauron and Einhorn were angel families that controlled the Hunter, or Red Priest, Beyonder pathway. They survived from the Fourth Epoch to the present. One has already declined and can only control Intis’s intelligence agencies and one military faction, while the other remains Feysac’s royal family… With that thought, Klein gained a new judgment about what had happened inside this room and about the evil spirit’s true identity.

Sitting on the other two high-backed chairs had been the ancestors of the Sauron and Einhorn families—Sequence 1 angels!

Adding in War Angel Medici, who had very likely controlled the pathway’s Uniqueness, the main ingredients of the Red Priest potion were complete!

And that evil spirit was most likely not simply Red Angel Medici. It had also fused with the residual spirits and hatred-filled will of the ancestors of the Sauron and Einhorn families!

Hiss. Three Sequence 1 angels were once “sacrificed” here! Their curses before death, along with the lingering influence of the ritual itself, made this room extraordinarily terrifying and caused it to be sealed? Good thing I reported it to the Church ahead of time and had them deal with it. Otherwise, relying only on ourselves, even if Miss Sharron and I had both advanced to Sequence 4, we might still have died here and become that evil spirit’s food… Klein felt a burst of fear, followed by gratitude.

At the same time, he increasingly understood why the Red Priest card had fallen into that evil spirit’s hands. After all the high-level figures of one pathway had been buried within these underground ruins, the attraction between Beyonder characteristics would naturally guide the holder here without deviation.

Moreover, the Emperor once said that what is separated must converge, and what converges must separate. After Blood Emperor Alista Tudor fell, the true god characteristic He possessed—that is, the Sequence 0 characteristic—should also have split into four portions, right…

One portion would return to abstraction and concept, becoming the Uniqueness. The remaining portions would be three Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristics. If that were not the case, then once someone became a god, the corresponding Beyonder pathway would never again have any Sequence 1s…

Could one or two of those Sequence 1 Beyonder characteristics also have been drawn into the sealed room? This should also be one of the reasons why the Card of Blasphemy was attracted here! The more Klein thought about it, the more he felt he had underestimated that evil spirit before.

As expected of angels who rose from the Conspirer pathway… Klein, standing beneath the tree, controlled Senor and had him speak.

“Perhaps it truly was a ritual.

“Anything involving Blood Emperor Alista Tudor would certainly be of a very high level.”

Sharron quietly listened, then added, “Sauron, Einhorn, Medici…”

Miss Sharron also suspects from the evil spirit’s requested details that the three high-backed chairs in this room once belonged to different angels… Klein thought briefly, then took the initiative and revealed something through Senor’s mouth.

“Blood Emperor Alista Tudor should have been the true god of the Hunter pathway. The corresponding Card of Blasphemy is Red Priest.”

Sharron was silent for several seconds, as though she had understood a few things. Then she said, “That card is gone.”

She meant the Red Priest card the evil spirit had once displayed.

“Perhaps the evil spirit had already freed itself before the Nighthawks and the Machinery Hivemind destroyed this place,” Klein said, giving his guess. “And it took away all the Beyonder characteristics here, along with the Red Priest card.”

Sharron silently looked around half a circle.

“It is very cunning. It would not leave behind such obvious clues.”

True. The Beyonder characteristics outside the sealing room were clearly all below Sequence 4. For an evil spirit once at the level of a King of Angels, they held no attraction whatsoever. The Red Priest card is the same… It would make sense for it to take away the things inside the room, but why leave not even a single trace behind? It’s almost like telling others: Haha, I fooled you. I have successfully escaped. Come chase me if you can… Wait. Maybe that is exactly what it wants to express! The more Klein thought, the more amused he became. He made Senor speak.

“No. Being cunning does not mean leaving no clues behind.

“Sequence 8 of the Hunter pathway is called Provoker.”

At that moment, the appearance of Red Angel in Klein’s mind had Anderson Hood’s picture pasted onto it.

Sharron listened motionlessly. Her lips parted slightly, but she said nothing.

Klein likewise sank into brief silence, feeling that Beyonders of the Hunter pathway really did possess a very distinct style.

By comparison, the red-haired Elaine hardly seemed like someone from the Sauron family.

Still, she had a lot of talent in provoking Vice Admiral Ailment… Mm. Members of the Sauron family once enraged the Emperor half to death too… Klein silently exhaled and lampooned inwardly.

The quiet atmosphere was soon broken by Klein. His puppet Senor glanced left and right and made a joke.

“Perhaps that is why they were captured here.”

“Who was helping Alista Tudor?” Sharron asked, her figure transparent and illusory, but she did not seem to expect an answer.

“Perhaps it was the six gods…” “Klein” thought of the six divine statues in the outer hall.

However, he quickly became uncertain.

“But the seven gods supported the Trunsoest Empire, and Sauron and Einhorn were both great nobles of that empire.

“Of course, it is possible that they first supported Tudor, then broke with Him after He went mad.”

If it wasn’t the six gods, does that mean another deity was supporting Alista Tudor? Who could it have been? Klein silently wondered.

Sharron did not linger. Her figure floated upward, returning to the surface beside the tree.

Klein put away Senor’s Wraith form, letting him enter the gold coin inside the iron cigarette case. Then he casually asked, “Actually, I’ve always been very curious. Pure evil spirits and Wraiths that do not possess Beyonder characteristics—where does their power come from?”

“The spirit world,” Sharron answered simply.

Beyonder characteristics are conserved, but the source of Beyonder powers is not necessarily the same? Mm. It’s also possible that the spirit world itself is the product of certain Beyonder characteristics… Klein nodded and glanced at the ground beneath his feet.

“I will continue investigating the evil spirit’s whereabouts. If I gain anything, I will tell you.”

He planned to ask Magic Mirror Arrodes later.

As he spoke, he smoothly took out a fountain pen and sticky note. Swish, swish, swish, he wrote down the method to summon his messenger, then handed it over.

“If you have any matters, you can write to me.”

Sharron accepted the paper and looked at it carefully twice.

“I am at Bravehearts Bar.

“Letters can be sent to 126 Gard Street, Hillston Borough. The recipient is Madam Marya.”

“Very well.” Klein tucked the fountain pen into his pocket. In front of Sharron, he used his ritual silver dagger to create a wall of spirituality, resealing the iron cigarette case.

Then, like a gentleman, he went to another street to hail a rented carriage and escorted Sharron all the way back to the Backlund Bridge area.

After finishing all of that, he returned to the high-end hotel he had rented in Hillston Borough, changing appearance and switching carriages along the way.

…

Bayam, Seaweed Bar.

After drifting at sea for some time, Danitz once again set foot in the City of Generosity, preparing to help coordinate certain matters for the Resistance.

He lowered his peaked cap and sat in a corner of the bar counter, planning to first listen to recent rumors and avoid the miserable fate of becoming a bounty due to outdated or inaccurate intelligence.

Just then, he heard an adventurer beside him say to his companion, “Do you think Gehrman Sparrow will find someone to claim Blood Admiral’s bounty on his behalf?”

Huh? Danitz subconsciously raised his head, staring blankly in confusion at the speaker.

Why would that madman Gehrman Sparrow look for someone to claim Blood Admiral’s bounty? No, why would he be able to claim Blood Admiral’s bounty? Danitz suddenly broke free from confusion and chaos and grasped the crucial point.

He abruptly lowered his head again, preventing his gaze from exposing his astonishment and bewilderment.

The adventurers beside him continued speaking.

“How could he? No one would dare claim it for him!”

“Exactly. Unless they want to bear the Church of Storms’ wrath, or betray Gehrman Sparrow!”

“Forty-two thousand pounds… If I could get that bounty, I would immediately go to Backlund and become a wealthy man!”

“Haha. Shouldn’t you first enjoy yourself at the Red Theater for half a year?”

“Maybe Gehrman Sparrow can claim the bounty from Intis, Feysac, or Feynapotter. Though it wouldn’t be as much as forty-two thousand pounds, it definitely wouldn’t be small…”

As the adventurers spoke, they began imagining what life would be like if they possessed 42,000 gold pounds. They even argued until their faces reddened because their ideas differed.

No way… They mean Gehrman Sparrow killed Blood Admiral? No. Although that madman always had ideas in that direction, he lacked the necessary helpers and needed the captain’s cooperation… Anderson Hood? Danitz stood, pressing down his peaked cap. Head lowered, he hurried toward the billiards and card rooms, places where some newspapers were often kept.

Only after he left did the earlier adventurers look at his back and lower their voices to discuss him.

“Do any of you know him? Sneaky and timid. He obviously has problems!”

“I didn’t see his face clearly, but I think he should be one of the pirates’ people, here in Bayam to gather intelligence.”

“Should we…” One adventurer made a throat-slitting gesture.

“Maybe he’s someone we can’t afford to provoke. Let’s wait until this period passes.” Another adventurer stopped his companion.

Danitz entered an empty billiards room, went to the corner, picked up a stack of newspapers, and quickly flipped through them. Gradually, his expression twisted slightly.

“What exactly did that madman do? Did he really kill Blood Admiral? It’s only been a few months, and his strength has already risen to this level! And, and the newspapers don’t mention Anderson Hood at all…” Danitz was both shocked and relieved. He felt deeply that choosing to submit whenever he faced Gehrman Sparrow had always been extremely wise. Otherwise, others would long ago have read in the newspapers that he had been hunted and exchanged for bounty money.

No, no. Back then, my death would not even have been qualified to appear in the newspapers… Hiss. Gehrman Sparrow really is a member of an evil organization… As his thoughts continued, Danitz suddenly froze, as though he had turned to stone.

Because he seemed, possibly, maybe, to also be a member of that evil organization…

“Haha. The Church and the military always like exaggerating things. Mm. It’s a secret organization, not an evil organization!” Danitz consoled himself, once again developing the feeling that the organization behind Gehrman Sparrow was extraordinarily mysterious and powerful.

The hunting of one of the seven pirate admirals, Senor, was proof!

Phew… Danitz exhaled and, with fear, praised The Fool in his heart, expressing his attitude of wanting to work seriously.