Chapter 85: Seize the Opportunity

Chapter 85: Seize the Opportunity

As Alger transmitted orders to the Mandated Punishers, he had already drafted a plan in his mind for what he would do next.

He would seize the time to pray to the Lord of Storms, hoping to receive the Lord’s protection or assistance. Then he would immediately head underground and use his Beyonder powers to forcefully suppress the three Grade 1 Sealed Artifacts, including the Azure Door.

If, during this process, the Lord of Storms responded to his prayer, or if the abnormality causing the seals to fail ended in time, then naturally, there would be no need to consider any other response. But if neither happened, and he began to feel the strain, he would ask Mr. Fool for help.

For Alger, once things reached that point, regardless of what method he used or how he tried to conceal it afterward, he would not be able to escape suspicion. After all, suppressing three Grade 1 Sealed Artifacts single-handedly was simply too inconceivable.

At that time, his only choice would be to abandon his post and flee the moment the abnormality ended and the seals took effect again. All his years of effort and struggle would go to waste, and the position of cardinal he had finally obtained would be lost.

However, compared to his own life, these were costs and sacrifices he could accept.

As for the drastically reduced probability of obtaining the Book of Calamity and other such consequences, Alger did not care too much about them at present. He was still far from the level at which he needed to consider such matters. Of course, as a demigod and cardinal of the Church of Storms, he believed he was surely under the Lord of Storms’ gaze. If he abandoned his post and fled, surviving afterward would require the protection of some other existence. Otherwise, his end would be unimaginable.

And in that matter, he could only rely on Mr. Fool.

Taking a deep breath, Alger quickly recited:

“King who rules the skies, Emperor who governs the seas, great God of Storms, I beseech Your gaze; I beseech Your protection.”

After finishing the prayer, Alger reached out with his hand, drawing up a hurricane that wrapped around him and carried him underground.

A little more than ten seconds later, outside the Waves Cathedral, the tide beating against the embankment surged upward with a crash and rose into the air.

The deep-blue seawater then poured down, covering the cathedral as though forming a thick barrier.

Within the barrier, silver-white lightning flashed again and again, drilling toward the underground.

…

Rumble!

Lightning fell like a torrential rain, illuminating the whole of Utopia and most of the Berserk Sea.

At that moment, a massive cathedral suddenly appeared in midair, its base pitch-black and inlaid with countless skulls.

It hovered above the region where Zaratul stood, drawing all the lightning in the surroundings toward itself. Among its innumerable pale skulls, twisted electric serpents leapt and writhed, while its stained-glass windows reflected dazzling light.

Rumble!

In the areas Adam’s Cathedral of Bones failed to shield, Zaratul’s marionettes, the historical projection of the Abomination Suah, and Klein’s marionettes were all torn apart in an instant by the raging thunder. Some vanished outright; others shrank and charred into blackened marks.

Even Roselle Gustav’s historical projection, which had transformed into a torrent of information, could not escape at that moment. A fierce electromagnetic storm swept through the city and destroyed every structure of information.

Taking advantage of the Visionary blocking the Tyrant, Zaratul stepped forward and entered the void before Him.

That void had been connected through the Attendant of Mysteries’ Beyonder power to another island in the Berserk Sea that He had marked in advance, reducing the distance between the two points to zero.

Zaratul’s black-robed, hooded figure swiftly vanished into the void lit by lightning. Yet in the next instant, the place where He appeared was not the faraway island, but the air above Utopia’s Iris Hotel.

Just now, when Zaratul had been stunned for a moment by the might of the storm, Klein, inside Sefirah Castle, had seized the opportunity. Using the Curtain draped over his body, he mobilized the power of the sefirah and forcefully “grafted” the void before his target to the Iris Hotel, quietly altering Zaratul’s critical arrangement.

This was the suppression exerted by a King of Angels of the same pathway over a Sequence 1 angel.

Rumble!

Thunder that seemed as if it would never cease came crashing down, engulfing Zaratul’s face, which was covered in long, dense white beard.

There was no emotional change in Zaratul’s pitch-black, lightless eyes. His body rapidly faded and disappeared amid the streaks of lightning.

What had come was only an image from the historical void.

His true body was hiding in some fragment within the fog of history.

Seated in The Fool’s chair, Klein immediately cast his gaze down toward the grayish-white fog below, toward the countless light spots within the mist.

For the moment, he could not find Zaratul. The other party had surely mastered some hidden history known only to Him, or to an extremely small number of existences. Yet not being able to find Him did not mean Klein could only watch and patiently wait for Him to reach His limit and be unable to remain within the fog of history. As the owner of Sefirah Castle, an existence whose status had reached that of a King of Angels, even if Klein could only make preliminary use of this sefirah, he could still accomplish many things.

The next second, Klein opened a box and summoned the Fool card, accommodating it into his body.

In an instant, he became The Fool, wearing motley-colored garments and a magnificent headpiece, his aura profound and terrifying yet tinged with a ridiculous, absurd quality. The whole of Sefirah Castle trembled softly in response.

Knock!

Klein, in the form of The Fool, struck the edge of the mottled long table with the end of the Staff of the Stars held in his right hand.

In the real world, grayish-white fog emerged into view, with an ancient palace faintly visible above it.

Within that ancient and majestic palace, a strange door of light formed from countless spheres of radiance was rapidly outlined, emitting an invisible and terrifying suction force.

The entire fog of history immediately boiled. In a place Klein had not lit up, Zaratul’s figure quickly appeared, irresistibly drawn toward the immeasurable heights above.

The law of Beyonder characteristic convergence!

With the aid of Sefirah Castle, Klein had directly projected the convergence force between Beyonder characteristics into the fog of history!

At that moment, Zaratul’s hooded, black-robed figure suddenly collapsed, flattening into a pale paper figurine.

His true body then appeared on another island in the Berserk Sea and quickly used the Attendant of Mysteries’ Beyonder power to connect the convergence pull to sheet after sheet of paper figurines.

Seizing the gap the paper figurines had bought Him, Zaratul swiftly made a wish.

“I wish for my Beyonder characteristics to become temporarily calm.”

The instant His words fell, He clapped His hands together and fulfilled His own wish. This allowed Him to escape the suction brought about by Sefirah Castle, the Fool card, and the Attendant of Mysteries Beyonder characteristic.

At the same time, He took a step back, accurately stepping onto a milky-white stone.

That stone had long since been connected by Him to a certain location and solidified to some degree.

As Zaratul stepped on it, His figure vanished instantly, disappearing to parts unknown. The stone itself seemed to weather away, crumbling piece by piece.

From the immeasurable heights, The Fool Klein’s gaze descended. It swept across the surroundings but failed to find Zaratul’s figure.

That meant the other party had escaped his sight.

Klein did not hesitate. He immediately shifted his focus to another matter.

Having already made preparations, he caused the various gemstones on the Staff of the Stars to light up, simulating the Marauder pathway’s ability to deceive rules. He changed the location where his body would revive to a marionette outside Utopia.

—Previously, a few residents of Utopia had gone to other cities and other places for various reasons, in order to deepen the town’s interaction with the real world. Klein now chose a travel enthusiast, who was currently in a mountain range.

As the latter half of his “revival” began, Klein took out the Fool card and summoned the nine spirit world specialties he had prepared beforehand. Together with the Curtain, he accommodated them into his body.

Immediately afterward, he used the Staff of the Stars to mobilize Sefirah Castle’s power, once again simulating the Marauder pathway’s ability to deceive rules, causing the nine spirit world specialties and the Curtain to “become” part of his body.

The next second, countless fragments of light appeared around that marionette standing halfway up a mountain.

From within the marionette, a Worm of Spirit flew out and continuously split apart, merging with those fragments of light.

Very quickly, the fragments of light condensed into a sphere, and the sphere stretched and solidified into Klein’s figure.

No sooner had Klein’s figure been outlined than it transformed into transparent, distorted worms and scattered in every direction, causing the Curtain and the nine spirit world specialties to fall to the ground.

Then the Worms of Spirit completed their reorganization. Some evolved into a half top hat, a shirt, a vest, formal wear, and trousers.

Klein wasted no time. He immediately drew up the Curtain and the spirit world specialties and began preparing the potion in earnest.

For him, this was the best moment to advance to Attendant of Mysteries.

On the one hand, the ritual’s effect had been completed with the help of the Lamp Genie, and it would not last forever; it would gradually disappear. On the other hand, Adam—the one most likely to ruin his ritual—was currently being suppressed by the Lord of Storms and could not spare the effort to interfere.

If he drank the potion and advanced to Sequence 1 under ordinary circumstances, Klein was truly worried that Adam the Visionary would, at the critical moment, use the sea of collective subconscious to quietly give him a negative emotion. If that happened, losing control would be inevitable.

The main purpose behind his earlier shout of “Leodero” had not been to deal with Zaratul, but to hold back Adam, that true god!

—When carrying out the Attendant of Mysteries ritual, one could not use the power of Sefirah Castle in advance to distort a divine kingdom prototype into existence and isolate the inside from the outside, thereby allowing Klein to advance within it. Doing so would prevent the ritual from establishing a connection with the corresponding region of the spirit world, rendering it ineffective.

In less than ten seconds, a potion as dark as the sea under night appeared in Klein’s hand. At the same time, the figure he had left inside Sefirah Castle snapped its fingers, satisfying the small number of wishes accumulated within the prayer points of light and the crimson stars, allowing the last remaining bit of the Miracle Invoker potion to be completely digested.

The figure inside Sefirah Castle then faded on its own, making Klein’s true body whole and allowing him to drink the potion in the best possible state.

As thunder once again lit up the sea, Klein raised his right hand, brought the bottle taken from his marionette to his mouth, and gulped down the potion inside, light as air.