Chapter 203: Escape

Chapter 203: Escape

Below the stage, Audrey and the others watched the scene as though they were appreciating a large-scale magic performance. For a short while, no one seemed able to react and understand what had actually happened.

A few seconds later, the scene descended into chaos. Amid screams rising one after another, the soldiers of the King’s Guard rushed onto the platform.

The cabinet members and nobles of the House of Lords either instinctively looked for places to hide, or summoned their courage and followed the guards to inspect the scene.

Audrey stared ahead, dazed. To her own surprise, she was not overly astonished. She merely found it unreal.

Any person or matter that Mr. World focused on meant it had entered Mr. Fool’s gaze. And up to now, Mr. Fool had never failed to achieve what He intended.

This was the will of a deity.

In the other municipal squares across Backlund, Melissa, Benson, and countless others likewise heard the explosion, then discovered that the king’s speech had abruptly ended.

After a brief silence, the people gradually grew restless. They exchanged glances, whispered among themselves, and murmured in low voices.

Fear of the unknown and of the future slowly occupied their hearts.

…

Outside Backlund, inside Ruin No. 1.

George III’s mind had already become extremely muddled. He only felt an irresistible, utterly insane consciousness erupting within Him like a volcano. It was changing His body and twisting everything around Him.

In a haze, He saw a giant black throne. He saw Himself sitting upon it, wearing an imperial crown, proudly looking down over reality, ruling all peoples, equal with the gods.

He reached out, trying to grasp that future. Yet countless curses and layer after layer of attacks from unknown origins landed upon Him, leaving Him forever unable to touch it.

“No…”

George III’s hand, half-illusory and transformed into rules, stopped in midair. His consciousness fully tore apart, and His body completely mutated.

Trissy, already collapsed into a mass of flesh and blood, was surrounded by countless thick serpentine strands of hair, covering this shadow of order.

Boom!

Outside the region corresponding to Ruin No. 1, the mountains and woods abruptly collapsed inward, raising a large amount of dust. It spread through the air like the densest smog.

Boom!

An enormous pit formed in that area, connecting with the Tasok River and drawing in rushing river water.

Rumble!

The sky high above darkened rapidly. A storm containing endless terror enveloped the place.

On a more distant mountain peak, two figures gazed upon the scene. For a moment, neither spoke.

One was White Saint Katarina, the Unaging Witch, wearing a holy white robe. The other was the Red Angel evil spirit, hooded, his face pale as though drained of blood.

After two seconds, White Saint Katarina sighed softly.

“The reason we needed to retrieve her was because the Primordial One told us that she possessed a powerful tendency toward self-destruction.”

The Red Angel evil spirit silently listened. His expression distorted slightly.

“I know who interfered with my response.”

Katarina thought of answer after answer, yet could not confirm any of them. In the end, she chose silence.

The Red Angel evil spirit slowly spat out one word:

“Evernight.”

After a pause, He suppressed the emotion in His heart and added, “Otherwise, I would have found Trissy Cheek long ago.”

Without waiting for Katarina to respond, the Red Angel evil spirit turned and left directly.

…

Inside another ruin, when Klein saw the secret mausoleum collapse with a thunderous crash and great swaths of blood flow out, he had only time for a flash of joy before he had to turn his attention back to his own situation.

George III’s ritual had failed. He had not become the Black Emperor. That meant Klein’s goal had been achieved. The next and most important matter was how to escape!

At that moment, taking advantage of the considerable disturbance caused by the destruction of the mausoleum, Reinette Tinekerr followed the agreement with Klein. She did not linger; she entered the spirit world first and fled into its depths.

The power she had borrowed from her past self was about to reach its end.

The beautiful-faced Angel of Concealment had also reached the limit of what Klein could maintain. After transforming into a strange world, she naturally vanished.

Within the half-collapsed ruin, Klein now faced Abomination Suah’s arms, Hermes from the ancient era, Emperor Roselle’s projection, William Augustus I’s projection, the Light Angel projection, and thunder whose source pointed somewhere unknown. Any one of them had the power to kill him with ease.

And for him to summon another historical image at the angel level would not be a matter of one or two tries, nor even three or four.

Without hesitation, Klein’s body turned illusory, trying to hide inside the gaps of history.

At that very moment, within the grayish-white fog in his vision, a vortex suddenly emerged. It was made of countless transparent worms, from which slick translucent tentacles extended in every direction.

Zaratul!

Zaratul’s true body had appeared!

He had been waiting all along inside the gaps of history!

At that moment, Klein’s action of entering the historical void could no longer be reversed. He could only watch as he was pulled toward the vortex, drawn straight toward its center.

He wanted to snap his fingers and ignite another paper crane, but discovered that no flame could surge up at all.

Having already probed him once, Zaratul had gained a sufficient grasp of his trump cards. Relying on suppression through status and the authority of mystery, He had made it impossible for Klein to manipulate flames again!

In addition, Klein’s intuitive premonition told him that the endpoint of Teleportation had been eerily linked to the vortex formed by those transparent worms.

He could not break free, nor did he have time to summon a helper of sufficient weight.

A Seer never performs an unprepared act.

The vortex formed from transparent worms slowly turned, welcoming Klein’s “voluntary visit,” while those slick, translucent tentacles approached with an irresistible momentum.

They wrapped around Klein, yet they caught only an ancient book with a dark cover.

A smear of fresh blood on its surface had not fully faded.

Groselle’s Travels!

In the most dangerous second, Klein had deliberately broken his own finger, allowing blood to flow onto the surface of Groselle’s Travels. Then, with a whoosh, he entered the world within the book, temporarily escaping the deadly trap Zaratul had arranged.

The instant he entered the book world, Klein reached out and grabbed forward, pulling from the gaps of history a marionette he had possessed only briefly.

Hvin Rambis!

Klein had experimented before. In this place, one could summon projections from true history, because this world belonged to Sefirah Castle. Prayers to The Fool within the book world were not obstructed either. Of course, if this had not worked, Klein had another solution: summon Audrey Hall, Miss Justice, who existed within the history of the book world.

In short, he needed a mid- to high-Sequence Beyonder of the Spectator pathway to take him into the sea of collective subconscious, into the City of Miracles, Liveseyd, and into the Hall of Honesty.

The faster, the better. Klein had no way of knowing how long a Sequence 1 like Zaratul would need to grasp the secrets of Groselle’s Travels, nor did he know whether the other party could forcibly descend into the book world.

He could only race against time!

Hvin Rambis, gentle and refined, wearing formal attire and a dark-red bow tie, stiffly grabbed Klein and directly entered the sea of collective subconscious formed by countless overlapping lights and shadows.

Relying on a Manipulator’s power, they shuttled through it at high speed. In only a few seconds, they arrived at the City of Miracles, Liveseyd, and reached the doors of the Hall of Honesty.

Klein ended his maintenance of Hvin Rambis as a marionette. Pushed by a fierce wind, he “sprinted” through the doors.

As he passed the vivid murals one after another, the voice in his heart echoed through the hall:

“The success rate of summoning 0-08 here should be rather high…

“Using it to draw or write something at the end of the mural on the left can influence the real world…

“Through its arrangements, Zaratul can make a mistake and allow me to find a safe path of escape…

“No. It would be easier to make Amon’s avatar join the battle and restrain Zaratul…

“No wonder the Goddess ‘fished’ Amon to Backlund…

“The mural on the right represents the book world. I can use 0-08 to draw another temporary door, letting me leave…”

While “sprinting,” Klein constantly reached with his right hand into the void ahead.

Five times. Ten times. Twenty times. After Klein borrowed strength from his past self once again, his right hand abruptly sank, dragging out a dim, classical quill.

0-08!

In the next second, Klein arrived before half of a giant pillar, so vast that no one knew how many people would be needed to encircle it.

It carried an obvious sense of the passage of time. This was the throne that had once belonged to the Dragon of Imagination, Ankewelt.

Klein circled around the stone pillar and reached the end of the mural. Raising 0-08, the quill, he was just about to write.

He had never experimented with what changes might occur from using 0-08 here before. The risk of accidents had been too great. He feared it might alert Amon’s brother and cause his plan to stop George III from becoming the Black Emperor to be discovered in advance.

But at this moment, he had no need to think about such concerns. He could focus entirely on weaving the development he needed.

Suddenly, 0-08 vanished before he began writing. It disappeared before reaching the limit of its maintenance time!

What happened… Klein felt a burst of surprise.

He immediately discovered that the Hall of Honesty had not magnified that sentence. The surroundings were extremely quiet.

His spirituality stirred. Klein slowly turned around and saw that the weathered stone pillar had at some unknown point become a cross more than a hundred meters tall.

Before the cross stood a huge, blurry figure, bearing everything on His back and looking upon all spirits with compassion.

Inside the Hall of Honesty, there were now rows of black-backed seats as well, yet only one worshiper sat there.

The worshiper had his eyes closed and sat at the center of the first row. He wore an extremely simple white robe, and a light golden beard covered the lower half of his face. His hands were clasped before the silver cross pendant at his chest, his expression gentle and peaceful.

Adam.

Chairman of the Twilight Hermit Order, King of Angels Adam.

Klein had not the slightest idea when He had arrived.

At that moment, Adam raised His head, revealing eyes so clear they resembled those of a child.

He slowly stood and spoke calmly:

“George III has fallen. Loen has suffered a severe blow. Intis will no longer stand by and has decided to seize the chance to launch an attack. This great war will now truly sweep across the world.

“Do you accept this ending?”