Midnight.
At an abandoned clock tower in Backlund's docklands, a tall, muscular man emerged without a sound from the shadows at its base, climbing the stairs to the tower's topmost level.
In a corner of that top floor, a man spattered with flecks of blood sat slumped against the wall — broad forehead, black hair, brown eyes behind glasses. It was the con man, Lanevus.
Seeing the large man climb up, he lifted his head slightly, arching a brow. "Didn't I tell you not to come find me for a while?"
The big man said, his voice a low hum, "I just heard someone at the bar asking around about you."
"Ha. Isn't that to be expected? I've had a bounty on my head for a while now."
"It's not the same. It's been a while since your wanted notice went out — the people originally looking for you gave up, one by one, when the leads dried up. Someone suddenly asking about you again means they've picked up a fresh commission."
Lanevus adjusted his glasses. "Didn't expect someone your size to have a mind this sharp."
"Unfortunately, sharp — but not sharp enough. That just makes it look worse."
"Excuse me?!"
Lanevus staggered to his feet. "I mean — you got tailed the whole way here, and led someone straight to me, without even noticing. Idiot!"
The big man spun around sharply, just in time to see a figure slip out from the shadow behind him. He didn't hesitate, swinging a fist straight at the intruder — only to watch that figure raise a single slender hand and catch it, effortlessly.
The next instant, the big man felt his entire body lift off the ground, slamming hard into the wall.
"Finally found you."
Beneath the crimson moonlight, a face handsome enough to make women jealous broke into a delighted smile.
"Mr. Z."
Lanevus watched the Aurora Order's Divine Envoy without any sign of alarm, leaning against the wall, eyeing him sidelong, clearly unimpressed.
Mr. Z said, flat, "Are you coming back with me willingly, or should I persuade you?"
Lanevus flashed his signature mocking smile. "Who do you think you are? Some lunatic from the Aurora Order, servant to the True Creator — you think you've got me cornered?"
"Submit to me, Mr. Z."
He suddenly tore open his linen shirt, revealing a patch of skinless flesh across his chest and stomach, deep crimson in color.
That flesh, woven together, formed the shape of a hanged man!
Instantly, the surrounding void shattered like glass, the entire scene collapsing around them.
This was the presence of a god.
Almost instantly, Mr. Z found himself unable to resist, dropping to his knees, the flesh across his body writhing as if alive, desperately trying to tear free of him.
He forced his hands against the ground, gritting his teeth through the agony — but his eyes were full of fervent, ecstatic excitement. "Of course... you're the vessel our Lord chose. With you, our Lord's descent is sure — sure to succeed!"
"You lunatics — every one of you fools!"
Lanevus snarled, taking a sudden step forward, letting the True Creator's presence inside him erupt outward with even greater force.
Crack! Crack! Crack!
Every gas lamp centered around the clock tower abruptly went dark, plunging the whole area into total blackness, and that terrifying presence radiated out in every direction, jolting archbishops of the Church awake from their sleep across the city.
Lanevus yanked his shirt closed again. By the time of the second surge of divine presence, Mr. Z — who'd been kneeling before him — had already exploded into scattered chunks of flesh across the ground.
Lanevus stood there, panting, swaying slightly, drenched in sweat. He knew perfectly well — the "divinity" the True Creator had implanted inside him was both his lifeline and his death sentence.
If things kept going this way, the day the True Creator's consciousness fully descended would be the day Lanevus himself died. Which was exactly why he'd been deliberately, repeatedly leaking word of his whereabouts lately — waiting for a chance to use the Church's own strength to purge that "divinity" out of him for good.
Unfortunately, the Church hadn't shown up. The Aurora Order's Mr. Z had gotten to him first.
Once his breathing had steadied, he twisted around and leapt out of the clock tower's window, using the last of the True Creator's lingering power to melt quickly into the darkness.
"Just a little longer. Soon — soon, with the help of those idiots at the Church, I'll finally rid myself of the True Creator's 'curse,' and be truly free again!"
At the thought, that same mocking smile crept back across his face.
And it was right then that everything in front of him blurred, layered, warped, as if the whole world had been smeared with thick, heavy color. A man in a black robe stepped abruptly into his path, brown hair slightly curled, radiating an unusual hardness, dark eyes deep enough to seem like they held countless untold things.
"Interesting. You actually walked right up to my doorstep on your own."
The man smiled faintly. Lanevus scrambled to pull his shirt open again, ready to repeat the same trick — but a flickering, illusory, page-turning book flashed rapidly through the man's eyes.
The next instant, a bolt of lightning shot from his eyes.
A violent, wrenching pain tore through Lanevus's skull, everything going pitch black in front of him, and he lost consciousness, collapsing hard to the ground.
The man stepped forward, unhurried, hauling Lanevus up by one hand, then glanced to one side. "MI9 certainly hasn't wasted any time."
A man stepped out of the darkness, dressed in a shirt, his features cold and sharply defined. He glanced at Lanevus and said, "Sir, the 'vessel' is secured. We can begin our cooperation properly now."
"Of course. I trust your 'Wanderer' Beyonder Characteristic is ready as well."
...
Within the palace of the Nation of Disorder.
Vincent sat back against the stone chair, watching Bernadette's figure within the golden mist — currently in the Harry Potter world — his face full of astonishment. "Wait, what did you say? You killed Voldemort?"
Bernadette said flatly, "To be precise, I only killed Quirrell. Voldemort's still alive, somehow, through some other means." She paused, then asked, "Do you know anything about this?"
"I've got a rough idea."
Vincent nodded. "Voldemort must have made a 'Horcrux' for himself beforehand."
"A Horcrux?"
"It's a very particular kind of dark magic from that world. It requires murdering someone while splitting off a fragment of your own soul, turning it into a 'Horcrux,' to gain a form of immortality."
Bernadette looked thoughtful. "Something like certain pathways' use of avatars?"
"Sort of, yeah. But it's not quite the same. The 'immortality' a Horcrux grants is, if anything, even stranger — as long as even one Horcrux still exists somewhere in the world, its owner can never truly die."
"Even if you kill him with your own hands, he'll come back to life through some other means."
"So you're saying a person can make more than one Horcrux?"
Vincent nodded. "Exactly. In theory there's no fixed limit to how many you could make — but making one requires tearing your own soul apart, and once a soul's been torn, it can never fully heal. So I doubt anyone could realistically make an unlimited number of them."
"Tearing the soul apart?"
Bernadette suddenly raised an eyebrow. "I remember you mentioning you have a particular kind of 'magic' that lets you devour someone else's soul to strengthen yourself in various ways?"
"But the cost is that your own soul becomes incomplete, and it leaves you weakened."
"I get what you're getting at, but I can say for certain that ability of mine has nothing to do with making Horcruxes." As he said it, Vincent couldn't help giving the armrest of his chair a light pat. "Though — yeah, there is a real resemblance between the two."
She thought it over. "Did I ever tell you — while Voldemort was controlling Quirrell, he hunted and drank from unicorns?"
"You did. He left the unicorn's carcass at your door afterward, trying to frame you for it. Unicorn blood carries a certain curse, but for a fragmented soul like Voldemort's, it also acts as a powerful restorative — it can nourish and strengthen the soul, extend life." (What I could find only mentions life extension in connection to unicorn blood — but Voldemort's situation clearly isn't about needing more time to live; it's about needing to rebuild and strengthen a fragmented soul.)
Bernadette crossed her arms, leaning back. "I already know all that..." She paused for a few seconds, then said, quiet, "I don't think I ever mentioned this to you — when I saw the unicorn's blood, I felt a strange urge. To drink it."
To be continued…
Advance 100 Chapters are up on my Patreon!
pat reon.com/AlphaSenatus