Chapter 227: Angel Families

Chapter 227: Angel Families

Just as Klein picked up the diary, Audrey added another sentence:

“Mr. Fool, there will also be ten more pages of the diary delivered to you afterward. They are the payment for the blessing you previously provided.”

She repeated her private promise, lest Mr. Fool believe she had forgotten the matter. The reason she had first offset the information about the Twilight Hermit Order was because she wanted to settle one “debt” completely, and because it carried a slight desire to show off.

Payment for providing a blessing… Magician Fors chewed over those words and suddenly discovered that she had overlooked a very important issue.

In the matter of the Abraham family, Mr. Fool did send an “angel” to help me interfere with divination! I should pay a corresponding reward too… It’s over. I actually never thought of this at all before… I thought it was like other rituals: once it ended, it was completely over… For a moment, Fors felt somewhat panicked.

In ordinary ritual magic, when one prayed for help from a deity or corresponding existence, offerings were presented in advance, while essential oils, hydrosols, and herbal extracts pleasing to the target were burned. This was equivalent to having paid the reward ahead of time. But in rituals related to the Fool, many steps could be omitted, and the price could be paid afterward—or even not at all. That had caused Fors, accustomed to the former, to unconsciously do nothing more than offer thanks.

She hurriedly looked toward the head of the long bronze table and said sincerely, “Honorable Mr. Fool, your interference with the divination helped me tremendously. I will also gather ten pages of Roselle’s diary for you as quickly as possible.”

Seeing the performances of Miss Justice and Miss Magician, the Sun, Derrick Berg, suddenly understood. He had found a way to fully express his gratitude.

But the City of Silver has no so-called Emperor Roselle’s diary… Uh, Mr. Fool is very interested in history. I should read more similar materials and documents… Derrick’s thoughts shifted, and he made a promise to Mr. Fool, who sat high above.

The Hanged Man watched all of this from the side, no longer harboring the slightest doubt that Mr. Fool had “angels” as attendants.

Every organization needs someone like Miss Justice… The power of role models is endless… Klein, who had gained many “creditors” out of thin air, sighed happily inwardly.

As the lofty Mr. Fool, he had always felt too embarrassed to ask directly for payment. Furthermore, he had always believed that casually helping the members of his own organization was a normal and reasonable matter, and there was no need to make it too mercenary. Because of that, he had not manipulated the World into performing a corresponding act to remind everyone.

Of course, if Justice and the others were willing to pay voluntarily, Klein would not refuse.

“Very well.” He nodded with a smile, then returned his gaze to the diary in his hands.

“January 13th. I have established stable contact with Mr. Door.

“This powerful Beyonder, lost deep in the darkness and trapped within the storm, did not impatiently urge me to complete that complicated and difficult ritual to help him return to the real world.

“He seems to have understood that he must present something sufficient to move me, rather than offer three illusory wishes, before I will consider whether to take the hidden and enormous risks involved in saving him.

“For the time being, Mr. Door did not bring that matter up. Instead, he chatted with great interest about the tarot cards I invented—heh, the word ‘invented’ definitely needs quotation marks. From this point, one can see that Mr. Door truly can contact the real world at certain times and in certain ways, thereby observing many things.

“While discussing the Moon card, I thought of something Zaratul had once mentioned. He said the Life School of Thought worships the moon, rather than going one step further to the Evernight Goddess. Yes, I added the latter half myself!

“I consulted Mr. Door, this Fourth Epoch powerhouse, on this question. He chuckled twice, likewise avoiding a direct answer, but compared to that secretive, evasive, infuriating Diviner, he was far more candid.

“He told me that if he had to choose a tarot card to represent the Evernight Goddess, he would not choose the Moon card. His choice would be:

“The Star card!

“Now that is very interesting. I pressed him and asked who the true owner of the Moon card was. His answer became even more playful.

“He smiled and said that the Moon card currently has no owner.

“If I did not misunderstand, what he means is that the summit of the Moon pathway is empty. The Sequence 0 position is vacant!”

That’s not right. Doesn’t the Primordial Moon exist? Seeing this, Klein immediately had that thought.

He had long anticipated the idea that the Moon card did not represent the Goddess. Whether it was the faith of the Life School of Thought, the attitude of the vampires, or the records in the Book of Secrets, all of them had faintly pointed to one problem: “Night” did not equal “Moon.”

Relatively speaking, the vampire progenitor Lilith and the Primordial Moon seemed more like the Sequence 0 of this pathway.

According to the City of Silver’s history class, Lilith had very likely already fallen in the dark Second Epoch, but the Primordial Moon was an existence that still had believers today and had responded before. Of course, those who prayed to It generally did not meet good ends… Why did Mr. Door say the Moon currently had no owner? From the Book of Secrets, one could see that the Primordial Moon had existed continuously even in the Fourth Epoch… Klein nearly frowned.

Soon, he roughly came up with three guesses. First, Mr. Door did not know enough and was unaware of the hidden Primordial Moon, but that possibility was very low. Second, the so-called Primordial Moon was actually an alias of some deity and had not essentially occupied the Sequence 0 position of the Moon pathway. Third, it was a Sequence 1 of the Moon pathway or a corresponding Sealed Artifact pretending to be It.

“There is also another possibility: the ‘uniqueness’ of the Moon pathway is responding on its own.” Klein muttered silently.

In the Sequence 0 potion formula described by the Black Emperor card, the most important Beyonder material was actually not all the characteristics of Sequence 1, but something named “uniqueness.” Different pathways had different “uniquenesses.”

True gods are unique!

Aside from the first guess, the other possibilities are all quite plausible… Which Beyonder pathway is the Moon pathway? Klein flipped to the second diary page and, fortunately, discovered that it was connected to the previous one:

“I continued pressing, but Mr. Door refused to say more. Heh, he wants to use this to whet my appetite and make me rescue him? No way!

“I hid my curiosity and turned to teasing Mr. Door for not being respectful enough toward true gods. He leisurely—yes, leisurely—answered that this was the attitude of the Fourth Epoch’s great nobles toward deities.

“This fellow is far too good at showing off! However, I really am interested in the great nobles of the Fourth Epoch, so I took the opportunity to ask further.

“Mr. Door told me that during the Tudor Dynasty, there were five great noble families: Abraham, Antigonus, Amon, Tamara, and Jacob. Each of these families could be called an ‘angel family’ and possessed terrifying strength.

“‘Angel family’—the name alone explains many things. It truly makes one yearn for them! Mr. Door said that in the Fourth Epoch, angel families were not limited to these five. There were also the Zaratul and Zoroast families that had always remained loyal to the Solomon Empire; the Augustus, Sauron, Einhorn, and Castiya families of the Trunsoest Dynasty; the Andrerad and Beria families that acted in secret; and, one step beyond angel families, the Witch Family descended from a true god.

“So the final victor of the Fourth Epoch was the Trunsoest Dynasty. But where did their imperial family go? Augustus, Sauron, and the other four angel families divided up the Northern Continent.

“As Mr. Door said last time, the number of top powerhouses in the Fourth Epoch exceeded my imagination. However, most of them have already been buried in the dust of history. Even the Sauron family has declined and been overthrown by me. After another thousand or two thousand years, perhaps even families like Augustus will no longer exist. Only those true gods seem to shine upon the real world forever.

“Although gods did fall in the Fourth Epoch, that should have been only a very small number. This makes me think of something—a line I remembered from web novels in the past, which can be used here after some modification:

“Without becoming a true god, one is ultimately ash!

“The exchange time ended. Mr. Door went offline. He truly resembles a prisoner released for fresh air at fixed times. And he really does know enough. When he mentioned the Zaratul family just now, there was even a faint contempt in his tone.

“Perhaps I should maintain my relationship with Mr. Door. Besides the Church of Steam, Zaratul, and that secretive, ancient organization, I should leave myself one more path of retreat.

“A crafty rabbit has far more than three burrows!”

When Emperor Roselle made his final struggle, he only thought of that organization suspected to be the Twilight Hermit Order and did not mention Mr. Door at all. Something seems to have happened in between… So the ancestors of the Loen royal family, the Augustus family, were that glorious—they were actually an angel family. But why did the imperial family of the Trunsoest Dynasty they served simply “disappear” like that… Klein immediately connected several matters together and found himself increasingly eager to peel away the fog covering the history of the Fourth Epoch and see its truest appearance.

This had also been the greatest interest of his body’s original owner.

Perhaps that underground ruin with two parallel seats of honor and a terrifying evil spirit will answer many of my questions… Klein lowered his gaze and turned to the third diary page.

“June 2nd. Bernadette gave me a back massage!

“Having a daughter really is good. She knows how to care for her old father. Although I saw through what she wanted at one glance, at least she was willing to keep up appearances, and she did a decent job.

“I asked her which Beyonder pathway she wanted to take. She said she had not decided yet, but that she really liked the maxim: ‘Do what thou wilt, but harm none.’”

“June 3rd. I met Florent again. He has become very different from before, almost like another person. No, he still has his original memories and some vivid, defining personality traits. That is enough to prove he is himself.

“What exactly did he experience to undergo such a great change?

“Perhaps I can use a metaphor to describe it relatively accurately: some monsters are patchwork creatures of the flesh, while he is a patchwork creature of the mind.”

“June 5th. I obtained an ancient text, and it actually mentioned the name of the Primordial Demoness—not the honorific name type!

“She is called Cheek. That is a male name.

“This ancient text must be fake, right?”