Chapter 178: The Monster Pathway

Chapter 178: The Monster Pathway

After several minutes, Daly Simone and Leonard Mitchell, who had made successive errors in judgment, finally arrived at the top of that steep stairway.

They descended level by level, moving very slowly and cautiously guarding against their surroundings, ready to fight at any moment.

Yet until they reached the bottom, they discovered nothing abnormal, not even any useful traces.

Daly again grabbed at the wind and brought her hand close to her ear, listening carefully.

After a few seconds, she looked around and said, “There was the sound of a gunshot. A weapon once fell at the bend of the street ahead. That—what was his name, Enzo—is dead. Dead…”

“Who did it?” Leonard asked, rather astonished.

In his view, because he and Daly had repeatedly suffered all kinds of misfortune earlier, Enzo had essentially already escaped pursuit. There was no possibility of someone secretly monitoring from the Rose School of Thought acting to eliminate him and erase clues.

If so, who had killed this Beyonder, who was suspected to be Sequence 6 or Sequence 5?

One had to know that tonight’s operation by the Red Gloves had made use of sealed artifacts in advance to perform a certain level of anti-divination. There should have been no one able to foresee it and specifically wait here to hunt the fleeing Enzo.

Daly shook her head.

“Those little fellows did not see it. It should have been a Beyonder very skilled at anti-divination…

“Perhaps it was Enzo’s enemy, and they were already planning to act tonight.”

She simply gave her guess, then split up with Leonard to search the nearby blocks and see whether they could find any overlooked clue.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Leonard circled to the railing area of one of the streets and lowered his voice.

“Old man, did you notice anything?”

The Pallez Zoroast inside him waited two or three seconds before answering.

“You two should have heard a scream just now and used it to correct the direction of your pursuit.

“That was Enzo’s scream. He seems to have seen something extremely terrifying and indescribable, something that could directly harm and corrupt his spirit body.”

Leonard froze. The light in his eyes contracted slightly as he repeated in a low voice, “Something extremely terrifying and indescribable…”

…

Inside the hotel room, Klein Teleported back with his new marionette.

He then had the marionette stand at his side, while he pulled over a chair and sat down. He studied the marionette, then sighed.

“A Beyonder of the Monster pathway, but still not as good as Senor. He cannot hide on the surface of a gold coin and be carried around. He can only follow beside me all the time…

“From the perspective of his pathway, he is not part of the Rose School of Thought’s core personnel. But his Sequence is not low, so he should still receive a certain degree of attention. In other words, if I do not disguise him, I could easily be watched by the Rose School of Thought because of him…

“On the other hand, perhaps I can also use him as bait to fish up another Wraith. When the time comes, he can act alone while I hide nearly two hundred meters away, waiting for prey to bite.

“No, that will not work. I cannot be influenced by greed. The Southern Continent is an active region for the Rose School of Thought. Once my whereabouts are exposed, given the Mother Tree of Desire’s special attention to me, not only would a saint come, perhaps even an angel might descend directly!

“Mm. I should disguise this marionette. As a Faceless, my ability in this regard is rather decent.

“Then I can continue using mysticism to search for the next marionette, wait for Danitz to finish investigating, and wait for Mr. Azik to come find me.”

Klein swiftly made his decision. Using a combination of methods, he preliminarily figured out the level and Beyonder abilities of his new marionette:

This was Sequence 5 Winner of the Fate pathway!

Among the Sequences of this pathway, Sequence 9 Monster belonged to the type with extremely high inspiration. They could often hear sounds others could not hear and see things others could not see, so that they occasionally glimpsed images of the future and possessed keen intuitive premonitions toward danger.

Beyonders of this Sequence often fell into trance-like states and murmured words others could not understand, to the point that they were treated as true monsters.

The corresponding Sequence 8 was called Robot. Beyonders would gain terrifying computational ability and precise control. All aspects related to the body would be clearly enhanced, making them naturally gifted in combat, shooting, and similar fields.

At the same time, they also obtained divination and anti-divination abilities.

Sequence 7 was called Lucky One, or Luckster. Beyonders at this level would often encounter things like picking up money after leaving home, enemies missing every shot, dice rolls going exactly as hoped, or the girl they liked happening to like them back. However, they could not control it. It was passive. Furthermore, this luck was not fixed. It rose and fell. Sometimes it was especially powerful, sometimes no different from that of an ordinary person. Therefore, it was difficult to rely on completely, and restraint was necessary.

Sequence 6 was Calamity Priest. On one hand, Beyonders would passively encounter all kinds of calamities, but they could foresee them, prepare for them in advance, and find ways to eliminate or lessen their effects. On the other hand, they could actively draw calamities of varying degrees to involve targets or enemies. They themselves relied on their “specialty” in luck to avoid the overwhelming majority of dangers, then take advantage of chaos to attack. Simply put, they could pull an opponent into the environment most advantageous to them.

Of course, many Calamity Priests could also make full use of the dangers they passively encountered to strike at enemies.

At the same time, Calamity Priests could create a Mental Storm, relying on their spirituality—which was higher than that of other pathways—to directly affect an opponent’s spirit body, causing a certain degree of dizziness or mental confusion. If a Calamity Priest’s enemy entered the latter state, they would become extremely prone to making mistakes, causing the calamity to snowball until it devoured them.

At Sequence 5, Winner, Beyonders gained a certain degree of control over their own luck. They could both rely on self-restraint to accumulate large amounts of luck and, at critical moments, dramatically resolve lethal crises again and again. They could also occasionally encounter extremely low-probability good fortune in ordinary life—for example, because of someone’s mistake, inexplicably inheriting a sum of money; or because of a humorous reason such as a strange walking posture, gaining the favor of an excellent member of the opposite sex; or having pursuing enemies stupidly lose their way or make errors in judgment.

At this level, Beyonders of the Fate pathway had intuitive premonition abilities that reached a very high standard. Whether in divination or anti-divination, they could be considered mysticism experts.

In addition, they could grant enemies misfortune to a limited degree, making the target relatively unlucky.

“Beyonders of the Monster pathway truly go to extremes. Aside from matters related to spirituality and the field of fate, they have practically no other Beyonder powers. Even physical capabilities and computational ability only come from the Robot stage, and later improvements are quite limited… This is practically the standard charlatan I imagine. They have no real offensive or defensive abilities and survive entirely by intuitive premonition and fate’s favor…

“I have to admit that this is the most special of the twenty-two Beyonder pathways. For all the others, I can find or guess a corresponding neighboring pathway. Only Monster appears so unsociable, one lonely path standing by itself… Perhaps a Beyonder pathway whose main body is fate is destined to be alone?”

Klein silently sighed a few times and gained some ideas about how to use his marionette.

Of course, he still needed to divine above the gray fog whether passive luck and calamity still existed when the Beyonder had effectively died.

If they did, Klein would have to face trials of calamity from time to time.

“In comparison, Blood Admiral Senor was still the better marionette. People always understand how to cherish and regret only after losing something.”

Klein shook his head self-mockingly. Starting from the characteristics of the Monster pathway, he thought of several effective methods for dealing with its low- and mid-Sequence Beyonders:

First, make them see him directly without giving them time to react, causing them to suffer mental baptism and physical harm from looking directly at the gray fog or other images, driving them toward losing control.

Second, throw out special items and let the Monsters, who could see sights they should not see and hear sounds they should not hear, undergo a test. In this regard, Klein had a blood crystal originating from a high-level devil that could be useful—the Speaker’s Breath.

Third, lure them into inflicting misfortune upon him, then pretend to be unlucky and counterattack at the right opportunity.

As thoughts surged, Klein made the marionette proactively empty his pockets, taking out 35 pounds, 10 soli, and 7 pence in cash, along with a leather wallet.

On the surface and inner lining of the wallet were embroidered a flower and a name respectively. It seemed to have been entirely handmade and customized.

“Enzo… Whether or not that is your name, you will be called Enzo from now on.”

Klein glanced at the marionette at his side. His gaze naturally moved downward and stopped on the platinum ring set with an emerald on the other man’s right hand.

Through divination, he learned that this ring was named Green Flower. Its effect was very simple: treating all kinds of illnesses and injuries that were not too serious.

Precisely because of this, its negative influence was also very minor. It only attracted mosquitoes and insects.

“Good thing I’m not the one wearing it… Mm. Beyonders of the Monster pathway seem to rarely wear mystical items. Even if they do, they at most have one or two of relatively low level. Is this a requirement of fate?”

Thoughtful, Klein withdrew his gaze and looked at marionette Enzo, who was staring at the wall. In his heart, an impulse grew stronger and stronger:

He wanted to borrow this Monster pathway marionette’s eyes to look at himself and see exactly what special things the other party could perceive about him!

“Could this be extremely dangerous? Even if I am the one who sees it, could there still be a chance of losing control? No. Back in Tingen, Ademisaul, who was below even Sequence 9, looked directly at me, and it only caused his eyes to bleed and pain for some time…

“Although I have improved greatly now, just now, after Winner Enzo saw me, he also did not collapse directly. His reaction was somewhat similar to mine when I encountered Demoness of Despair Panatiya’s partial mythical creature form…

“Go above the gray fog and divine it? No. This involves the gray fog itself. The result will definitely be interfered with… Try relying on my own divination abilities in the real world?”

Klein casually took out a gold coin and let it flip and leap between his fingers.

After some time, the gold coin sprang up with a clang, fell back down, and landed in Klein’s palm.