It was around one in the morning when Hastur finally left the Bravehearts Bar.
It had been a long time since he had last seen Maric, and before he knew it, he had drunk a little too much.
He had originally intended to have the Bravehearts Bar prepare a carriage for him to return home, but after sensing a familiar aura, he ultimately chose to walk back instead.
Following the street and passing through an alley, he arrived at the riverside. A green vine grew upward from the ground. Hastur reached out and placed his hand on the vine, and his entire body followed the growth of the vine, arriving above the clouds.
Hastur chuckled and said, "It's so late, yet you still haven't rested. Are you admiring Backlund's moonlight, or are you specifically waiting here for me?"
"Are you interested in investigating the Abraham family?"
Today, Bernadette was wearing a pair of red high heels and a knee-length burgundy dress. She looked slightly taller than usual, with an added touch of intellectual charm.
"Now?"
"Rats hiding in the darkness always like to come out to hunt in the middle of the night."
Hastur glanced down at Backlund beneath him and said thoughtfully, "They want to cause trouble for Fors again."
"You know that little girl?"
"Speaking of which, I was the one who helped her become a believer of the Lord of the Stars."
"Then let's go."
Bernadette did not waste any more words. She casually opened a door and brought Hastur through it, arriving at a street in the Northern Borough.
The two of them began walking toward St. Samuel Church.
Hastur asked curiously, "They're hiding near St. Samuel Church?"
"That's a very smart choice."
Hastur was rather pleased about this. Although Fors was a little too content to laze around, she could still be useful at critical moments.
"To dare to make a move near St. Samuel Church. They certainly have some nerve."
A hint of coldness appeared at the corner of Bernadette's lips. "After all, the Beyonder pathway they inherited is best at running away."
Hastur thought about it and found that it made sense. As long as they acted quickly enough, with a Traveler present, even a Sequence 4 demigod would be unable to catch them.
Eight hundred meters west of St. Samuel Church, inside a room at the end of the second floor of an inn, Fors and Xio were lying on the same bed.
Even though this place was very close to St. Samuel Church, they were still worried about their safety tonight.
Those people were like poison that had seeped into their bones. Once they latched on, only tearing out flesh and scraping away the bones could get rid of them.
Fors touched the bracelet around her wrist with one hand while tightly holding Xio's right hand with the other. The moment anything suspicious happened, she would immediately take Xio and leave this place.
Inside the pitch-black room, there was only the faint light of the crimson moon shining through the window.
"Xio, are you trembling?"
"I-I'm not. I just want to use the washroom."
Xio couldn't help but blush.
"Keep holding it in."
"Fors, doesn't your stomach feel anything at all?"
"Xio, you're the one who drank too much water."
"..." Xio blushed and awkwardly said, "Whenever I get nervous, I'm used to drinking a little more water."
The two whispered to each other. At this moment, the surrounding air suddenly froze.
A loud chant rang out!
"I arrive, I see, I record, this place is forbidden..."
Before the sentence could even be completed, Fors activated the bracelet on her wrist and instantly took herself and Xio away from the bed.
Crack.
A mysterious stone on the bracelet split apart.
Fors had already brought Xio to a street approximately one hundred meters away from St. Samuel Church.
"Let's go quickly."
After seeing where they were, Fors was delighted. She grabbed Xio's hand and was about to run toward St. Samuel Church.
But the street before them suddenly twisted and transformed. In the blink of an eye, it became an increasingly narrow, dark path, while the only remaining light at the entrance gradually disappeared.
Fors and Xio did not have time to escape before they were completely trapped inside this dark world.
A sound of footsteps came from behind them, emerging from the darkness and silence.
Fors hurriedly fiddled with the mysterious bracelet on her wrist, but this time, the bracelet had lost its ability to travel through space.
Their greatest means of escape had failed. Fors and Xio's faces instantly turned pale. Their bodies trembled slightly as they pressed their backs together, able only to continuously pray to the Lord of the Stars for help in their hearts.
"I didn't expect to get an additional harvest."
An unremarkable male voice came from in front of Fors.
"Who are you?"
"The person who led you into the Beyonder world didn't tell you about our family?"
After the exchange, the dark world gained a little more light. Fors and Xio could barely make out the silhouette of the person who had arrived, but they could not see his appearance clearly.
"What family?" Fors asked tremblingly.
"Abraham, a family destined to shine with boundless glory."
The man was extremely proud. His voice involuntarily rose considerably as black tentacles surged from all directions, tightly binding Fors and Xio.
"Trying to stall for time through conversation? Naive."
At this moment, a ray of light erupted from above, tearing apart the dark world before them. Countless black tentacles instantly turned to ashes.
"Heh."
Seeing this, the man merely sneered. He attempted to leave through teleportation, but he was unable to do so successfully. The face that had remained firmly confident until now finally showed a trace of panic.
"To deal with people like you, the first step is to prohibit your ability to teleport freely."
A familiar voice rang out, and Fors and Xio's hearts both stirred.
Why does this voice sound like Mr. Hastur? Has he already returned to Backlund?
"Mr. Hastur?" Fors cautiously tried calling out.
Hastur?
A strange and cruel smile appeared on the man's face. He said ominously, "I've finally been waiting for you!"
As soon as he finished speaking, he knelt on one knee and thrust his right hand into his own chest.
Blood gushed from his heart, forming a bright-red and mysterious pattern on the ground.
It looked like an overlapping, illusory door. Behind the door, it seemed as though a powerful and mysterious existence was awakening and approaching, wanting to use this door to cross over.
As His aura spread, the entire space emitted cracking sounds, as if it could no longer bear the strain and was about to shatter.
Fors and Xio were unable to breathe under the pressure of this aura. Their throats felt as though they were being tightly strangled, and they were on the verge of suffocation.
Suddenly, they felt something wrap around their waists, followed by an enormous force. The two of them were simultaneously pulled away from this place.
"What a persistent nuisance. Unfortunately, your brains aren't exactly working."
A voice tinged with disdain rang out, and the world before them underwent another transformation.
The man kneeling on the ground, using his own body as a door, was stunned to discover that directly in front of him was St. Samuel Church. There was no sign of anyone else around him.
"Ah!"
The gradually expanding door first swallowed his body and drained his blood, before being easily suppressed by St. Samuel Church before his eyes.
Eight hundred meters away from St. Samuel Church, Fors and Xio had returned to their room at the inn where they were staying, as if nothing had happened just now.
"Xio, pinch my face and see if I'm dreaming."
Still shaken, Xio pinched Fors hard on the cheek. Fors immediately cried out in pain and told her to stop.
"This isn't a dream. But did those things really just happen?"
"I don't know either. It just feels like we had a dream."
Fors lowered her head and glanced at the bracelet on her wrist. One of the stones on it was already missing.
She murmured, "Let's just treat it as having been a dream."
Above the clouds, Hastur looked solemnly down at the divine power left behind inside St. Samuel Church, which was suppressing that Sequence 5 Traveler from the Abraham family.
Fortunately, he had made preparations beforehand and guided this matter toward the Church of the Evernight Goddess.
Otherwise, if he had been alone, he really might have fallen into a trap through carelessness.
From what had happened tonight, it could be seen that the corruption of the Abraham family by the Mother Goddess of Depravity had already become very deep.
Every member of the Abraham family could potentially become a door through which the Mother Goddess of Depravity could descend.
They seemed to have specifically come after him. The moment they sensed his aura, they would stop at nothing to use their own bodies as doors and guide the power of the Mother Goddess of Depravity into the world.
"She wants to deal with the Lord of the Stars by targeting His believers."
This was Bernadette's judgment based on what had happened tonight.