Chapter 145: Self-Questioning

Chapter 145: Self-Questioning

Backlund, East Borough, inside a cramped rental apartment.

Dressed in a relatively thick jacket, Klein stood behind the desk, looking at the glass window ahead while carefully sensing the speed at which his Bizarro Sorcerer potion was being digested.

“It really is fast. Faster than all the progress I made over the past three months combined… Still, that couldn’t be helped. Before obtaining the Staff of Life, I couldn’t provide sufficient treatment. I had to care whether those who were frightened could endure it with their hearts, so there was no way to create urban legends in hospitals…

“Likewise, if war hadn’t broken out, finding other demigods would have been quite difficult. Most of those whose whereabouts could be confirmed were also in their own home ground. To secretly infiltrate, create an eerie and terrifying atmosphere, and leave no trace would inevitably require turning innocents into marionettes. Even if I had no other choice, I wouldn’t consider that…” Klein shifted his attention away from himself and sighed inwardly.

Then he repeated a word silently in his heart:

“War…”

At that moment, though the distant streetlamps still cast a faint glow, East Borough had already sunk into total darkness. Only occasionally could patrolling policemen carrying lanterns be seen passing by.

In ordinary times, these policemen would never have been this diligent. Now, however, because war had broken out, they had to carry out the corresponding prohibitions and ensure public order.

“War…” Klein whispered the word once more. In a daze, he seemed to have already seen part of the ending.

Loen’s King George III would finally break through the restraints. No longer needing to worry that one of the Seven Gods would forcefully stop him, he could formally advance every ritual related to the Black Emperor. What happened next would mainly depend on him—or rather, Him. As long as He could withstand the impact brought by the potion, as long as He could preserve the necessary rationality, He would ascend to godhood and advance to Sequence 0.

The Einhorn family of Feysac would use this war, one capable of sweeping across the entire world, to allow key members to digest their potions greatly and prepare the corresponding rituals without excessive difficulty. Their overall strength would climb to a new level.

As for Amon’s brother, He would consume the potion amid the rolling tides of the age, transform, and become the Visionary, adding another true god to this world…

As his thoughts drifted, a question suddenly burst forth in Klein’s mind:

“Can you accept such an ending?”

Can you accept such an ending… Klein’s mouth opened slightly, then slowly closed. Everything before his eyes seemed to pierce through the limits of time and distance, returning to the past, returning to other places.

It was the Great Smog that had blanketed all of Backlund—pale yellow tinged with iron black, so thick it was almost tangible, faintly pungent and choking, cold and damp.

It was a homeless man slowly approaching death beneath the blows of illness, hunger, pain, and cold, yet still struggling desperately to survive. For a portion of food, for a little pay, he squeezed himself to the limit and did not dare slack off at all. At last, he saw a glimmer of life and bought the ham he had longed for. Yet in that blurred, hazy smog, he collapsed headfirst and never rose again.

It was a diligent, hardworking widow. For survival, for her two children, she abandoned all dignity and made herself fierce, supporting a roof that could shield them from wind and rain with crude words, with joints aching from day after day of dampness. But in that Great Smog, the roof collapsed. The child she had tried so hard to protect died in her arms.

It was a girl who longed to study, who dreamed of a beautiful future, who loved her mother and younger sister. She labored in a room filled with moisture, always carrying one small hope. Yet when the Great Smog descended, she could no longer see the future she yearned for.

It was a girl who, under the care of her mother and older sister, studied with all her might. She had gone through too many hardships and had finally begun walking step by step out of her predicament. She had hope of making herself better, hope of letting her mother and sister no longer be so exhausted, hope that their small family of three might live the life they had imagined. But all of it eventually shattered. In that terrible smog, the girl was left utterly alone. No matter how much pain or joy she had, there was no one left to share it with. The family life she had imagined had not even appeared before it was gone forever.

It was one living being after another falling like stalks of straw. It was family after family, person after person, with pain carved into the marrow, never to be erased.

It was the student who clearly should have had a bright future, yet was left with only half a body, intestines spilling across the ground.

It was the child who came home from school only to discover both parents gone, becoming an orphan in a single moment.

It was the ordinary person writhing in pain, crawling with difficulty, wanting to approach the future, yet unable to draw the final breath.

It was the people in the cemetery, silent enough to make the heart ache, weeping until they fainted again and again.

It was the earth soaked in blood.

It was the sky thick with gunsmoke.

It was shell after shell, cold and merciless.

And the true mastermind who pushed and created all this—the greatest culprit—would step, one pace after another, up a staircase built from layers of corpses, ascend to the divine throne, receive cheers, and cast off aging.

Can you accept such a development?

Can you accept such an arrangement?

Can you accept such an ending?

“No. I don’t accept it.” After a long silence, Klein suddenly spoke, his voice low.

The sound echoed through the room at once, overlapping in layers, resonating with itself.

“No. I don’t accept it!”

While the echoes still lingered by his ears, the corners of Klein’s mouth slowly rose into a self-mocking smile.

“The Seven Gods have tacitly allowed it. What meaning is there in you not accepting it?”

Klein fell silent once again. Only after a very long time did he exhale. With a calm expression, he murmured to himself, “Even if it has no meaning, there are still things that must be done.”

How could everything in this world be guaranteed to succeed, guaranteed to have value and use?

The corners of Klein’s mouth lifted slightly. He withdrew his gaze, turned around, and entered the inner room of the rented apartment.

Although he had made his decision, he did not intend to act recklessly. With his current level and status, no matter how much he struggled, it would be extremely difficult for him to have any effect on George III’s matter. Other than throwing away his own life, there would be no result at all.

Furthermore, if his actions caused chaos within Loen at a critical point in the war and allowed the Feysac army to successfully invade, the number of innocent casualties that followed would be ten times, perhaps even a hundred times, greater than the Great Smog of Backlund.

“What I can do right now is prepare. On one hand, I need to improve myself. On the other, I need to make more arrangements and patiently wait for an opportunity…” Klein silently muttered to himself. He found a clump of paste-like black substance, separated half of it, and evenly smeared it across the surface of a mirror.

This was the method used to contact the witch Trissy.

However, until the black substance had completely “evaporated” and disappeared, the mirror showed no abnormality.

“No response… After being frightened by Miss Messenger, an angel, Trissy has decided not to have any further contact with Gehrman Sparrow?” Klein sighed inwardly and walked over to sit by the bed.

His thoughts quickly shifted to the reason why the Demoness Sect had helped King George III.

“…First, the witches need disasters to digest their potions and hold rituals. Second, George III made them some kind of promise? Promised that they could preach openly? No, the Seven Gods would never allow that. Even if the Black Emperor became Sequence 0, with the Primordial Demoness and the True Creator added in, they still couldn’t resist the alliance of the Seven Gods. Of course, after this war, whether that alliance will still exist is another question…

“In that case, since the Seven Gods know George III is cooperating with the Demoness Sect, they shouldn’t allow Him to become the Black Emperor…

“Then the promise must be something else? The Demoness pathway has a true god. There are very few valuable things left outside… A neighboring pathway? That would be the Red Priest pathway… From the Blood Emperor Alista Tudor, George III—no, Amon’s brother—not only obtained the secret mausoleums needed for the Black Emperor, but also an angel-level Beyonder characteristic or a Grade 0 sealed artifact of the Red Priest pathway?

“With there being a Sequence 0 but no Sequence 1, this is probably the greatest hope for the upper ranks of the Demoness Sect to go further. Mm, the Primordial Demoness should also be very interested…

“That would explain why the Demoness Sect provided help… The matter of the Red Angel evil spirit seeking out White Saint Katarina isn’t as simple as He made it sound… No, He didn’t say anything. He merely used common sense and reactions to guide me into thinking that way…”

Klein’s thoughts gradually became clearer. He decided to make White Saint Katarina his breakthrough point and set her as his next target. Before that, however, he had to hear the Queen of Mysteries Bernadette’s prophecy and learn what she had been trying to accomplish in Backlund.

Only by understanding more of the situation could he find and seize an opportunity.

Early the next morning, The Hermit Cattleya relayed the Queen of Mysteries Bernadette’s message:

“Between twelve and twelve-thirty today, Serenzo Restaurant, Golden Theater.”

That was the name of a private room.

Klein arrived at 11:55. He directly deceived the waiters with illusions and made his way to the target room without anyone stopping him, then patiently waited outside.

After a while, he took out his gold-cased pocket watch, snapped it open, and glanced at it.

Then Klein put away the watch, counted silently to ten, and raised his hand to knock on the door of the Golden Theater.

At that moment, his marionette Qonas was sitting leisurely on a street chair opposite the restaurant, reading a newspaper. Enyuni, meanwhile, was with a group of students distributing pamphlets that promoted the evil image of Feysac. Of course, the three of them would swap positions from time to time, making it impossible for anyone to accurately determine who was who.

“Please come in,” Bernadette’s voice sounded from within the private room.

Very impressive. Just now, I didn’t sense anyone inside, nor did I notice anyone enter… Mm, that’s also because I didn’t activate my Spirit Body Threads vision… Klein muttered silently to himself, turned the handle, and pushed open the door.

The first thing that entered his eyes was a great expanse of gold. Only afterward did he see the chestnut-haired woman seated at the head of the dining table.