His pupils contracted. He understood in an instant: Spirit Body Thread control — a Marionettist.
He pushed out with what little force remained, and looked toward the woman across from him — to find her movements equally sluggish, eyes wide with shock as they met his.
Not her.
The same thought flashed through both their minds simultaneously, and the answer left only one option: the driver.
Klein felt his body and thoughts grinding to a halt. The Sealed Artifact 2-049 — the Antigonos Family puppet. That's what this was. And the only way to shake off the wooden state it imposed was for someone else to physically touch you, breaking the stupor.
But in this sealed carriage, with both of them already under its influence, that wasn't happening.
Focus. Lord of Chaos.
His thoughts were slowing to a crawl. He forced his jaw open, but not a sound could come out — his throat was locked, as though someone had silenced it. All he could do was work his lips in soundless, desperate shapes:
"Ruler of the Realm of Entropy, Arbiter of the Unbalanced Scale, Shadow Between Order and Rules."
"Save me."
Cheap shot, I know.
On a regular day, I want nothing to do with the Lord of Chaos — don't trust Him, keep my distance, scared of getting shot in the back the moment I let my guard down. But the second things go sideways, I come crawling without a shred of shame.
That's really...
Before he could finish the thought, his mind all but stopped. The last thing his peripheral vision caught was the little window at the front of the carriage sliding open — the driver's grinning face peering through. The muscles of that face began to move in a strange, crawling way, reshaping themselves, until what looked back at him was a man with black hair, blue eyes, a handsome face, and the faint shadow of a beard.
"Given enough time, this is one of the hardest abilities below high-sequence to counter," he said with a pleasant smile.
"My original target was only the great detective here. But since you accepted his invitation to ride along — that's just your bad luck."
"Oh?"
His eyebrow ticked up. He watched the face across from him ripple and distort, slowly resolving back into its original shape, and smiled. "A Faceless. How interesting."
"Farewell, both of you."
...
On the other side of things, Bernadette and Vincent had just finished hearing from Katrina about the plans of the Demoness Sect and the Loen royal family — and it was, broadly, what Vincent had known from the original: the Demoness Sect assisting the royal family in unleashing a catastrophic smog event, manufacturing mass deaths to bury years of disappearances and illicit human trafficking.
In exchange, the Demoness Sect would receive what they wanted from the royal family.
To pull this off, the Demoness Sect needed the Aurora Order to stage a descent ritual — a divine descent event dramatic enough to pin the full attention of the Churches on it, tying up a significant portion of their force so they couldn't move quickly to stop the smog.
The Aurora Order's role, success or failure, would both serve that goal.
Of course, as Katrina put it, the Castilla and Tamara family powerhouses would also use the chaos as cover to launch their own strike against the Augustus Family.
And Katrina's hope was that the Aurora Order's contribution would go beyond simply staging the ritual — ideally, they'd pull in Angel-tier combatants to join the hit on the Augustus Family outright.
As it happened, both Bernadette and Vincent found this extremely convenient news to receive.
But — was it really that simple?
"The Churches already have a rough sense of what the royal family has been up to. Given that — why would George III go ahead with something as conspicuous as a smog event? Wouldn't that just hand them ammunition?" Vincent raised the question. "And if the Churches ever lose their patience and push back — what's George III's plan?"
Bernadette was equally puzzled. She thought for a moment and said: "So this whole thing is more complicated than she made it sound. The real question right now is: what role do the two of us play in all this?"
"Stop the disaster, help you finish the ritual, digest the 'Shadow Box' potion along the way, and ideally blow up George III's entire ascension plan in the process."
She pursed her lips. "You certainly have big ambitions."
"Ha — experience has taught me that when setting goals, you should aim as high as possible. The actual outcome usually falls well short of what you aimed for, so if you aim small, the result will be worse still."
Vincent smiled, then changed tack abruptly: "Want to try the Shadow Box?"
Bernadette looked up. "You mean — the second function?"
"Exactly. Let's see if we can use the Shadow Box to lower the difficulty of whatever we're trying to do."
"It'd have to be one thing at a time. Out of the four goals you just listed — pick one to start."
"Then go straight for the biggest: lower the difficulty of destroying George III's ascension plan."
Bernadette let out a quiet laugh. "Using a Sequence 5 ability to reduce the difficulty of interfering with a Sequence 0 ritual — you've got some nerve. Have you already forgotten what happened when I tried to divine Father's location?"
"Ugh."
Just as they were speaking, Vincent caught a signal from the Nation of Disorder. He told Bernadette he'd be a moment, and stepped directly into the ancient, towering hall within.
The old Scale was pouring out a stream of golden mist. As he fed spirituality into it, a familiar figure took shape within the golden light — golden hair, delicate features, eyes like green crystal. Backlund's most dazzling jewel.
Huh? She's reaching out on her own?
Of everyone Vincent had granted Boons to so far, only Xio occasionally initiated contact — checking in, making reports, asking for guidance. Everyone else, after receiving their Boon, went silent. Never reached out again.
Naturally. They all treated the "Lord of Chaos" as some kind of evil god. The less contact the better. Vincent was fine with that — he just needed them working, keeping the Scale balanced, letting him digest his potion. As long as they showed up and did the job, he wasn't going to chase them down for a chat.
He raised his hand, poured more spirituality in, and linked with Audrey — manifesting before her as a tall, indistinct, and mysterious silhouette seated in golden mist.
Audrey's heart gave a small, involuntary skip. The way the Lord of Chaos appeared was almost identical to Mr. Fool — but she knew Mr. Fool was a benevolent and gentle divine being, while this Lord of Chaos was almost entirely unknown.
"Great presence — I'm sorry to disturb you."
She lowered her head carefully. "Mr. Fool… Mr. Fool asked me to pass along a question."
"Oh?" Vincent rested his chin on his hand with something like genuine interest. "Go on."
"He asked me to ask you… whether you know how to go home."
"How to go home" — she recited the sounds in Chinese, poorly understood but carefully drilled into her pronunciation beforehand.
Vincent wasn't surprised. Klein reaching out with this as his first real exchange wasn't unexpected. For Klein, getting home was the single greatest goal of his entire life.
"Tell the Fool: I know."
He smiled softly. "But if he wants the answer, he'll need to come ask me himself — not send one of his believers to relay it. That's a little… impolite."
"Oh."
Audrey's head dropped further. Am I... caught in the middle of some kind of divine standoff?
Vincent paused, then added: "Anything else?"
"No... nothing."
She immediately changed her mind. "May I ask, great Lord of Chaos… what is your relationship with Mr. Fool?"
To be continued…
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