Chapter 81: Deception

Chapter 81: Deception

After Qonas Kilgor finally figured out which Beyonder pathway his enemy belonged to, the Gehrman Sparrows in the garden, vineyard, and manor’s main building all raised their left hands at the same time. They curled their middle, ring, and little fingers, extended their index fingers and thumbs, and formed the simple outline of a handgun.

Those index fingers, representing barrels and muzzles, swiftly aimed at Qonas Kilgor in midair. Their corresponding forearms all jolted upward at once, as though struck by the recoil of a shot.

Bang bang bang bang bang!

Amid deafening sounds, beside the Fallen Count in white shirt and black trousers, one illusory white dove after another suddenly emerged and flew in all directions, creating a sight both magnificent and beautiful.

This was the random mutation brought by the “tin” pocket watch—Concerto of Light and Shadow. It had transformed shells of air capable of collapsing houses into completely harmless “doves of peace”!

Qonas Kilgor, who had used Confusion to interfere with the enemy’s volley, saw the doves flap their wings and scatter high into the sky, yet he showed not the slightest astonishment.

He had long since prepared himself mentally.

He had endured that Sealed Artifact’s negative effect for several years!

Seizing this opportunity, he raised both hands without hesitation—the one gripping Concerto of Light and Shadow and the one holding the strange handgun—and prepared to strike them together.

This was Distortion, Distortion targeting every Gehrman Sparrow below.

For Qonas Kilgor, when fighting a Bizarro Sorcerer, the most troublesome point was that he could not distinguish whether the enemy before him was a marionette or the true body—unless that marionette had been crudely made.

Because of that, he did not dare use many of his Beyonder powers, for they would be ineffective against marionettes.

Area-of-effect Prohibitions were acceptable, but Deprivation aimed at a single target had no practical combat value at all. No matter how many Beyonder powers were deprived from a marionette, the true body would not be affected. At that point, the opponent could resolve the issue simply by switching to another marionette.

For similar reasons, Qonas Kilgor had also strategically and temporarily given up Amplifying the negative effects of the mystical items carried by those marionettes.

Likewise, Bestow from a Fallen Count would be even less useful—less useful than Deprivation. Deprivation could at least make a Bizarro Sorcerer’s marionette lose the corresponding Beyonder powers, while the negative states granted by Bestow could not interfere with a marionette at all. Whether passive negligence, loss of fighting spirit, impatience, agitation, or focusing only on money, none of them held any meaning for a marionette, which was essentially a dead person without its own thinking or tendency toward action.

Therefore, Qonas Kilgor decided to first resolve the problem of distinguishing marionettes from the true body.

In this area, others might have no way, but a high-sequence expert of the Lawyer pathway certainly did not have such concerns.

Everything had rules. Everything followed certain patterns. Demigods of the Lawyer pathway excelled at finding loopholes in those rules and exploiting them for their own use.

Coupled with the fact that he had fought other Bizarro Sorcerers before and, afterward, had seriously considered how to deal with similar situations, Qonas Kilgor was quite certain at this moment. He believed that Distortion could counter his enemy.

He knew a Bizarro Sorcerer could seamlessly swap between his true body and all his marionettes. He planned to “distort” that fact, changing it so that the Bizarro Sorcerer could only switch places with two or three specific marionettes!

In that way, the difficulty of distinguishing the true body from the marionettes would be reduced to the minimum.

Of course, if Distortion were not unable to exceed certain necessary limits, and if the number of area-of-effect Prohibitions had not already reached the upper limit, Qonas Kilgor would certainly have used a simpler method to handle it. For instance, he would make it so that the Bizarro Sorcerer could only switch with a single marionette, or directly prohibit all people from swapping positions with marionettes.

Pa!

Qonas Kilgor’s hands, respectively holding Revere’s Desperate Scream and Concerto of Light and Shadow, struck together, as though he were performing an action that compressed a large area into a small one.

Fallen Count—Distortion!

Silently, a red flower stained with deep shadows appeared in his hand, as though it wished to be offered to the Gehrman Sparrows inside the garden, vineyard, and manor’s main building. And those mad adventurers—some thick, some thin, some normal, and some frightening—showed not the slightest abnormality.

Qonas Kilgor had also encountered the random mutation brought by Concerto of Light and Shadow!

It had changed the effect of Distortion into summoning a flower from the garden below.

At this moment, the illusory doves that had formed from the air shells had not yet fully scattered!

For an instant, the battle between the two demigods suddenly gained a touch of absurdity, farce, and comedy.

Of course, neither Gehrman Sparrow nor Qonas Kilgor thought so—especially the latter, who once again felt a familiar sense of helplessness.

He did not pause. He immediately prepared to strike his palms together again and complete Distortion, using quantity to fight against random mutation.

However, Gehrman Sparrow was not a dead man, nor would he observe some turn-based battle etiquette. That entire patch of mad adventurers either formed handgun gestures or aimed with Death Knell revolvers whose authenticity was impossible to determine, all targeting the Fallen Count in midair.

At the same time, Qonas Kilgor’s heart stirred. He turned his head slightly and looked upward, only to see another figure emerge within the huge crimson moon that hung silently above the pitch-black spire.

This figure wore a silk top hat, a black windbreaker, a human-skin glove, and held an iron-black revolver. His face was cold, his features deeply carved. It was another Gehrman Sparrow!

With the crimson moon behind him, he glided downward, his figure growing larger and clearer. The long-barreled iron-black revolver in his hand had already been raised, aimed at Qonas Kilgor.

Bang! Bang!

A bullet interlaced with transparent and translucent parts shot from the muzzle, flying straight at Qonas Kilgor.

This was a Deprivation Bullet—a bullet made with a Worm of Time left behind by Amon’s avatar!

Unlike Deprivation of the Arbiter pathway, its essence was theft. It could steal the last three Beyonder powers the target had used, in chronological order, and allow the user to use them.

However, once Deprivation of the Arbiter pathway selected a target, it could directly deprive them. The Deprivation of this bullet did not absolutely require striking the enemy to take effect, but the target had to remain within a certain area and not leave that region. In other words, one was impossible to dodge and could only be resisted or weakened through level, status, and one’s own Sequence characteristics, while the other could be effectively evaded if noticed ahead of time.

Klein had given up on sneak attacks and delayed for two reasons. On one hand, he wanted Qonas Kilgor to use up Prohibit or Deprivation on Beyonder powers that appeared important to him but were not the key to this battle. On the other hand, he was waiting for the first random mutation to appear so he could seize the gap between two mutations and use the Deprivation Bullet to steal three of Qonas Kilgor’s powerful abilities.

For those two objectives, he had even handed the Death Knell revolver and Creeping Hunger to Winner Enuni, making him seem like the real Gehrman Sparrow rather than a marionette.

At present, Qonas Kilgor would lose Distortion, Confusion, and Magnify.

Bang bang bang bang bang!

The Gehrman Sparrows below also began firing in unison.

Suddenly, all those air shells and that Deprivation Bullet exploded, transforming into brilliant fireworks of red, purple, yellow, and green—yet they could not illuminate the deep night.

Concerto of Light and Shadow had once again produced a random mutation!

It had created effects multiple times in succession, seemingly requiring no pause and possessing no interval.

A smile immediately appeared on Qonas Kilgor’s face. He struck his hands together with a sharp pa.

All of a sudden, one young man after another under the light of the huge crimson moon, all wearing silk top hats and black windbreakers, dimmed in succession. Only two remained in their previous state.

The Fallen Count’s Distortion had taken effect!

This meant that Gehrman Sparrow could only swap positions with those two normal marionettes!

Immediately afterward, Qonas Kilgor did not pause for even a moment. He swung his arm and threw the flower held together with the pocket watch.

The flower’s speed abruptly increased, and its body seemed to gain some unknown weight. Like a sharp arrow, it shot toward one of the normal marionettes.

This attack had been Magnified, and it also carried the effect of Bribe—Weaken!

Boom!

The flower struck the ground like a cannonball, stirring up violent shaking.

The shockwave it produced overturned every normal and abnormal human nearby, either tearing them apart or heavily injuring them. In particular, the two marionettes able to swap places with Gehrman Sparrow’s true body were turned into pieces of flesh and blood.

Qonas Kilgor remained calm. While Distorting his direction in midair and circling in flight, he raised Revere’s Desperate Scream and aimed it at the Gehrman Sparrow descending from the crimson moon.

At the same time, he secretly prepared Bestow.

He wanted to give the target the negative state of “lacking fighting spirit.”

Just then, Qonas Kilgor’s mind suddenly blurred. His thoughts faintly became sluggish for a moment.

This is… marionettification… Qonas Kilgor’s mind tightened. He already understood his own situation.

He then saw that the Gehrman Sparrow descending from the crimson moon was not as distant from him as before. The distance between them was only around one hundred meters.

The other party had actually, without anyone noticing, entered the range where he could manipulate Spirit Body Threads and had remained there for at least three seconds, while Qonas Kilgor had noticed nothing!

Deception!

The Deception Bullet made from an Amon avatar!

When Klein—or rather Winner Enuni—had pulled the trigger earlier and fired the Deprivation Bullet, he had not fired one shot, but two!

This was his method for guarding against random mutation.

When mutation had already occurred once, two bullets fired with a slight interval between them, even if struck by a similar phenomenon again, would only have one affected. After all, that was intermittent random mutation. Two or three consecutive occurrences were possible, but the probability of four or five consecutive occurrences was extremely low. Thus, with multiple attacks, at least one—and possibly more—would not mutate!

At that time, the second Deception Bullet had also been concealed by the noise of the marionettes firing in unison.

This was also another reason Klein had made Winner Enuni use the Death Knell revolver: to rely on his luck!

In the end, he had successfully “deceived” Qonas Kilgor, allowing Winner Enuni to silently invade the other party’s one-hundred-and-fifty-meter safety zone, manipulate his Spirit Body Threads, and complete the initial stage of control.

Once this began, it meant a Beyonder power had taken effect. Since it had not encountered mutation, it would not mutate afterward!