She is
the stubborn victim of her own wishes
, like a firefly, like a false star,
fading with the dawn*
—Backlund
's spring is always shrouded in a heavy and sticky gray, like a layer of dust on a drink that was spilled on the ground and not cleaned up. This must be a curse from a weather wizard before his death... Uh, is this the old popular thing, the hell joke? Pallas threw away the idea and hummed a song while cleaning the dust on the bookshelf. "Tonight, I will taste a kind of delicacy of the old humans - hot pot with Klein. This is very reasonable."
She casually took a feather pen that had run out of ink from Klein's study and happily wrote in her notebook. Before she left her father's kingdom of God forever, this notebook was already inlaid with twelve kinds of gems of different colors. But after that, it never received new decorations. It just lay quietly in a dark underground warehouse for thousands of years, waiting for the call of the star angel from time to time.
Athena had a small warehouse in the basement of the Storm Lord Church in Loen. To put it simply, she had made room for her in a corner of the church where the sealed objects were stored, to store her extraordinary items. In the Third Age, Leodro, who was still a wind angel, owed her a favor. She had wanted to forget about it, but he said to her fiercely: Don't think about repaying the favor in the future.
Well, now that you've said that, I'll definitely force you to repay me in the future. Athena approached him jokingly - she always broke the safe social distance with anyone at inappropriate times. In short, she was an angel with no sense of boundaries. Others were very fond of her. After all, to put it in vulgar terms, she was really beautiful. In the Third Age, she was called "the glory of heaven, the most dazzling star of the Lord, the symbol of holiness and beauty." Isn't this click literature! Athena commented like this thousands of years later.
But Leodro just pushed her hand away in disgust and took a step back, as if he would be burned by her hanging golden hair.
"Stay away from me," he said.
He must be a staunch homosexual! Medici complained after hearing about this.
After she lost her body in the Third Epoch, her power has been continuously weakening, and she can only barely maintain her angelic status. She once had some magical items whose power was not weaker than that of level 0 and level 1 seals. Except for the good luck necklace given to her by Ouroboros, the side effects of other items would cause some trouble to her at present, so she had to store them temporarily. As long as you have the ability of "door", you can use it whenever you want. Is this Doraemon's pocket... She remembered Roselle's complaint: Speaking of it, "door" is also very similar to any door! If I had known earlier, I would have taken the apprentice path, not only would I be qualified to compete for Sefirah Castle, but I could also realize my childhood dream.
The emperor is indeed a child at heart... She thought of that lovely little girl, Bernadette, who always had a lot of wonderful fairy tales from the old days. Damn it, why does my dad always use dark fairy tales to scare me... Is it too late to recognize Roselle as my father now?
Roselle: ...No, considering our age, I'd better kowtow to you to avoid shortening your life.
In the current extraordinary world, unless one is very experienced, it is difficult to discover the true strength of the other party if the other party intentionally hides it. Although Pallas knew that there were some big figures around Klein, such as he and Salinger's son, they had no chance to see through her yet. So she lied to Klein with a clear conscience. Well, as long as she found a reason to pretend to upgrade slowly later, she had also exchanged for the "acting method" at the Tarot Club, which greatly increased the upgrade speed. Well, everything was reasonable.
Klein discovered that Pallas seemed to have found a job recently. As the only daughter of a banker, she didn't need to work to maintain a decent life because her family regularly sent her money. Therefore, she was bored and helped Mrs. Doris take care of her black cat every day. It didn't take long for her to win the favor of the lady, who even wanted to pair her with Lawyer Jurgen. The avatar that Pallas was using now was different from the one in the Fourth Epoch. She was not a traditional beauty. She had a thin face, a slightly curved nose, and gray eyes that looked particularly serious when looking at others. Klein could see that Lawyer Jurgen seemed to have a good impression of her.
"Anyway, I found a job," Pallas said vaguely while dissecting a piece of delicious goose liver. "Nine to five, weekends off, reasonable salary, about three pounds and ten soli a week. Not bad, I can pay my own rent!"
This is truly the highest ideal of all office workers. Klein nodded in agreement. His previous job was too dangerous, and his current job provided unstable income. He took a sip of the sweet iced tea beside him and asked, "Where do you work?"
"I joined the Made Punishers," Miss Pallas said lightly.
"Puff—" Klein choked and almost rudely sprayed a mouthful of sweet iced tea at the other person. He held it in, but began to cough continuously.
He asked again to confirm: "You should be a civilian staff member, right?"
"No, it's the same job as before, just an ordinary 'Punisher'." Pallas smiled and took out a handkerchief and wiped Klein's face. Klein was startled by this sudden intimate gesture and almost jumped up from his chair. He quickly took the handkerchief and wiped his face himself.
Speaking of which, Klein had discovered before that Miss Pallas was missing something in her head. She seemed to be accustomed to having overly intimate physical contact with others. He had seen her and Mr. Jurgen studying a legal document very closely together before. Her fingertips touched each other's hands, but she had no reaction, while Jurgen's face had already turned red.
No, let's not talk about this for now. How could she become a Made Punisher? ! Klein had some understanding of the Made Punishers because of his previous work and his contact with the Hanged Man Alger. His impression of them was that there were more men than women in the team, and the men were generally rude, and the missions were also dangerous. Klein glanced at Miss Pallas, a typical weak woman, and his heart was filled with worry and confusion.
"Don't underestimate me! I am a Sequence 6, but you haven't upgraded yet, right?" Pallas said mercilessly.
Klein, who had not yet completed the last step of collecting potion ingredients, said: "…"
"But you will soon be able to defeat monsters and level up successfully." Pallas said while mashing the mashed potatoes in his hand, "The law of aggregation of the same extraordinary characteristics, this is the information I exchanged at that mysterious Tarot Club. The subsequent formula of the fortune teller may come to you on its own, you just need a little favor from the god of luck." For example, to win over Will Auceptin? Haha, the other party seems to be a little desperate because of the big snake. If he follows the guidance of fate, he should soon come to the future owner of the source castle for help, right?
Pallas raised the silver fork and shook it at the other party: "Trust me, my intuition-"
"Always good." Klein finished for her with a smile.
Pallas knew that Leodro might not recognize her. After all, Adam and Dark Night had done a perfect job, and even the Red Angel Ghost ignored her now. Dark Night's secret power was too strong for her to resist. Adam didn't know why he kept bending his elbow outward. Was he trying to see her suffer? My father who was divided into two equal parts was not that boring, was he... Pallas thought.
She appeared in Leodro's dream in the name of Athena... No, she sent down an oracle... Oh, that's not right either, she just told him that her followers were active in Backlund recently and needed a superficial job as a cover.
So the next day after praying, she received a rather cold oracle from Leodero:
Can.
Leodro, you are very much like the emperor who likes to say "I know"... But at least you are not a riddler, should I say I am relieved?
So the next day, this man with connections was hired as the punishment substitute, and on the first day he became friends with the other team members (meaning playing cards).
What she didn't know was:
One day, in the astral world, the Lord of Storms suddenly visited the Goddess of Night. He appeared in front of Night solemnly, coughed and stopped talking, as if he wanted Night to ask first. As a goddess who was usually easy-going, Night saw through his intentions and asked, "What's the matter?"
"I seem to have found some traces of the Star Angel." Leodro said with pretended disgust, "It has been thousands of years. Is she still haunting each of us? When she was a child, she always shouted Adam's name in the middle of the night to harass Him. I didn't expect that after so many years, she is still the same."
The night just smiled mysteriously. "It seems that she didn't come to see me." He said. * Then He saw Leodero leave very satisfied.
In the Fourth Age, Bethel gave Athena a golden green cat's eye stone with an unusually beautiful fire color as a birthday gift. He carved the stone into the shape of the dragon horns on her head.
It's really rare that older angels also have birthdays.
"How do you know my birthday?" Athena asked curiously.
"I was with Amon that day and asked him casually. And Alistair also mentioned this to me a few days ago." Bethel took a sip of tea and said lightly.
"I am so touched! I really like this gift! What should I do? How can I express my strong gratitude? Can I give myself to you in return?"
Bethel immediately retracted his crossed legs, sat up straight, and looked at her with some fear, as if she was a decent woman who was about to be robbed. As everyone knows, Athena is already engaged to Tudor, and the banquet will be held tomorrow. He doesn't have the hobby of not trespassing on others on the eve of the engagement!
"But, if you were to marry me, would you have given me some extraordinary characteristics? Yar is really stingy! He didn't give me any extraordinary characteristics and said they are useless to me! How can they be useless? I can feed them to Solomon's dog!" Athena complained loudly.
Bethel: "..." How on earth could Alistair stand her? Was it because she was pretty?
"Do you know what the morality of angels is?" Athena curled up on the sofa in an unpresentable manner, like a cat ready to pounce. She stretched out a finger and shook it, pretending to be deep and said: "Uniqueness is the best dowry of angels."
Bethel's mouth twitched. He couldn't help but tease Athena, "You are a dreamer, what do you want the uniqueness of the 'door' for... You're not going to feed it to the dogs, are you?"
Humph, I can't tell you that. Athena smiled but said nothing. In her heart, she was actually thinking, after Adam became a god, she could only reach Sequence 2 at the highest level in the Visionary Path. She must take back the extraordinary characteristics of the 'Door' that were taken away by the night. Oh, where should she go to get it? It seems too difficult to get her own body back from the goddess, and the three copies of Sequence 1 characteristics have been taken back by Bethel... Is she going to backstab Bethel? But it seems that she is a bit overwhelmed now, so she needs to make a detailed plan...
She felt no psychological pressure when she thought about this, even though the other party had just carefully prepared a birthday gift for her and they had always gotten along well.
Only at this moment did she realize that, ah, she really wasn't a human being with flesh and blood. Medici was also a mythical creature, so why did he have such abundant emotions? This would probably be the reason for his failure. She made a curse-like prophecy.
Later, Athena skillfully inlaid the gem in the Pen of Alesuhod, but the pen had already been transferred to Night at the end of the Fourth Epoch, and was taken away by Ince Zangwill. Well, she learned from her dream that the pen seemed to have been recovered by Adam. Sure enough, it would return to Him after all the twists and turns... It should have been given to him directly at the beginning.
She could sense the whereabouts of the things she once owned and the people she had lived with for a long time from her hazy and revealing dreams. But it was difficult for them to find her. Hum, the enemy is in the light while I am in the dark. It is a good way to survive, suitable for a sewer rat like me. She continued to hum and think.
One evening, Klein finally got away from his busy schedule and was just about to lie down in his room to rest for a few days. As luck would have it, Mrs. Summer was invited to a large banquet and she enthusiastically invited Klein and Miss Pallas to attend.
Mrs. Summer seemed to have heard about Pallas and Lawyer Jurgen, and she expressed her strong disapproval. "The only daughter of a banker with assets of thousands of pounds should at least marry a nobleman, even a baronet, so that it would not be a waste." Mrs. Summer warned her.
"Oh, if I can't marry this noble gentleman, then my great looks, elegant manners, superior character, and even my soul will disappear forever in Calderon!" At the banquet, Miss Pallas Stuart elegantly lifted her skirt and curtsied to the gentleman in front of her. She delivered the above words in a dramatic tone, successfully scaring away the thirteenth blind date introduced to her by Mrs. Summer. In particular, she had added automatic muting to the last place name, which sounded like a stand-up comedian who was angry and blurted out an indescribable swear word, instantly doubling the frightening effect. Klein looked at her with a twitching brow, and the clown's ability could not cover up his speechlessness.
Although the banquet was boring, some things happened that neither she nor Klein had expected. Raft Pound, the baronet who was related to the Quaternary Ruins, suddenly appeared at the banquet. The guests invited to the banquet were indeed high-end, and some minor nobles would appear, which was why Mrs. Summer insisted that they come. But this descendant of Tudor suddenly appeared here, and there was always something indescribable about his abnormal appearance. His face looked very bad, and his blue eyes, which should have been clear, looked very gloomy.
"Be careful. He seems to be contaminated by extraordinary power." Klein saw Pound walking towards Pallas from the Baron, and he quickly and vigilantly protected her behind him.
Oh my god, I don't admit that I have such a filthy offspring! He should have nothing to do with me! After all, Ali and I only have one child. During the Fourth Epoch God War, Amon told her that the child had died. As for where the other children came from, I don't know! Is this the case that the person who dyes others green will eventually be dyed green! No, Ali didn't have time to have any illegitimate children, I was always by his side until he died... Is he a time management master... Pallas complained wildly in her heart, hiding behind Klein. She can read the hearts of others, but she only saw a tangled mass of madness and chaos in the heart of Baron Pound.
The gloomy man walked towards them step by step. He gave Pallas an unnatural smile. Pallas was really afraid that he would suddenly kneel down and call her ancestor, so she pretended to be terrified and shrank behind Klein, while Klein raised his cane in a defensive posture.
At this moment, the lights in the hall suddenly went out, and everything around was plunged into darkness. The crowd was in a commotion, and when the lights came back on, Klein discovered that Miss Pallas had disappeared from his side.
The moment before Pound opened his mouth, Pallas's spiritual intuition gave her a frantic warning, so she immediately moved the two of them to the deserted outskirts of Backlund.
"Red Angel, let me tell you this." Pound spoke in a hoarse voice, as if someone was controlling his mind. "The True Creator gave Him a divine oracle. He finally found you."Don't look back
My lover who never regrets
When I whisper to you, you see ahead
Black thorns and quagmire
And behind you is a beautiful dream
---
That day, Miss Pallas and the strange-behaving Baron Raft Pound suddenly disappeared from the banquet. The traces of contamination left by the extraordinary ability at the scene were too serious, making people feel that there was something fishy behind this incident. Klein was uneasy and hurried back home. Just as he was about to go into the bathroom and divine the whereabouts of Miss Pallas above the gray fog, the window of the room made a loose sound. Klein turned his head and saw Pallas jumping in lightly on one leg from the window - however, the skin at the knee of his right leg was completely ulcerated, and his calf was bent in an unnatural shape. Klein hurriedly stepped forward to support her, carefully carried her to the sofa in the living room and laid her down, and then hurried to the side to call the family doctor urgently.
"They are from the Secret Order. They seem to have the ability to change their appearance, and they have magical items that can transfer instantly." In order to avoid Klein from questioning her relationship with Baron Pound, she lightly put the blame on the Secret Order. Who made me hate you, Zaratul? I'm so sorry! She frowned, as if she was enduring pain, but in fact she was talking nonsense seriously: "It seems to be because of the law of killing each other in the same way? They seem to have been secretly keeping track of your whereabouts. This action... should be a threat or warning to you."
"So, that's not the real Baron Pound?" Klein became serious, somewhat self-blaming. He didn't contact Melissa Benson and the others because he didn't want to implicate the people around him.
No, that was actually the real Baron Pound... Haha, I'm really good at deceiving people. I don't know his purpose, I don't even know if he is my descendant... Where did he come from? I won't be fooled by Amon at that time, right? In fact, the child is still alive and well? Oh my God, then I will really become an ancestor, don't do this kind of thing!
At this time, the family doctor rushed over. After seeing Miss Pallas's wound, he gasped. Fortunately, although the wound was serious, it was just an ordinary abrasion and fracture, without any signs of infection from the Beyonder ability. Otherwise, we would have to go to an underground black clinic to avoid being exposed... While the doctor was treating the wound, Pallas was playing secret communication with Klein in a volume that the family doctor couldn't hear. Klein said that you should talk less... Doesn't this lady have a pain sensory nerve? She looks very weak.
Speaking of the people of the Secret Order, they can change their appearance, so they must be at least Sequence 6 Faceless People... Klein thought. Miss Pallas has the same status as the other party, and the audience has no direct combat ability in the early stage. How did she escape?
As if he saw Klein's confusion, Pallas held up the silver-white ring on his chest and showed it to Klein. "This is a magical item with a luck bonus. I bought it at a certain extraordinary item trading fair. It seemed to have caused the opponent's skills to lag, so I took the opportunity to disrupt his mind and buy time to escape." Whose blessing do you think I accepted! I accepted the blessing of an angel king! Pallas shouted in his heart.
"I think you might need a bodyguard..." Klein wondered if Miss Sharon could protect her at the same time. The situation today was too dangerous. The competition among peers in the Extraordinary World was quite fierce, but he didn't expect the people from the Secret Society to be so lingering.
There will be one soon... and it's an angel... Are you surprised or not? Pallas complained. She still remembered what Pound said at that time, that Medici seemed to have found her and would find a chance to come to her. Thinking of the grudges during the Fourth Epoch God War, she felt a little guilty for some reason, and felt that she was very much like the scumbag hiding behind the door. She thanked Klein for his kindness and said that she would try to hire a bodyguard soon. "Don't worry about the money. If you don't have any, you can ask me for a loan." Klein was tough on money for the first time, and he himself found it a little incredible. He can also sell the Black Emperor's potion formula recently, so he is relatively well-off... right?
Pallas smiled when she heard this. Her smile was always so sincere, as if she was really a lively and lovely adolescent girl. "I am still very rich! Don't worry."
My father, who is divided into two parts, each of them wants to mess with me... Life, no, how hard it is to be an angel. Pallas sighed and thought. Under the dim light of the gas lamp, she was like a lifeless wax figure smiling, quietly watching the needle and thread go in and out of her skin, and felt a subtle pleasure. She remembered that time, in the ghostly palace, she hummed a song and painted on the abandoned wall with her own blood, with shocking wounds all over her body. Alistair Tudor held a candlestick and appeared behind her like a ghost. She heard footsteps, but did not turn back.
"Yal," she whispered, as if saying some gentle words of love, "Are you willing to kill me?" Her thin body was soaked in the cold winter wind that passed through the corridor.
Alistair put a white robe on her, which was soon stained dark red by the thick blood, like a coronation dress. He knew that those who crossed into a different path of essence or lacked stable believers were prone to mental madness. Duke Amon seemed to be like this. But wasn't she a Sequence 3 dreamer? Logically, this shouldn't happen. Alistair thought of the details of his time with her. She usually looked detached, and sometimes even stupid, like an ordinary noble girl with an empty head and only love. Except for her name, she was nothing like that great being. Everything about the Star Angel had long been buried outside of history. No one knew about her authority, her appearance and personality, and the cause of her death. Everyone only knew from her title that she was once an angel king of the "Gate" path.
Alistair remembered that when he was young, he was not the most outstanding child in the family. His brothers were eyeing him and wanted to squeeze him out of the competition. At that time, he was preparing to be promoted to a demigod, but he was unable to merge with the new magic potion in his body. If this continued, he would definitely lose control at the next promotion ceremony and become an ugly monster like one of his brothers. That day, he handled some affairs for his father and unconsciously walked in the suburbs. He walked in front of an unfamiliar church. This is a spire church, with some common architectural styles in the Fourth Epoch, but it is abruptly pure white. Alistair seemed to be led into it by some special temptation. Its interior is small and cramped, surrounded by walls that seem to be blackened by a fire. Only a few broken rays of moonlight shine through the colored windows, just shining on the top of the statue on the altar. The statue stood alone, the girl closed her eyes, and her soft face was hidden under the veil. He sat at the girl's feet and wiped the dust off the base of the statue. There was a short word written in ancient Feysac language on it: eternity. When he touched the word, he was pulled into a hazy dream. In the dream, he saw a blonde girl running in a corridor surrounded by white stone pillars. He could only see a vague image. The girl put a homemade wreath on her head and said to herself while facing the book in her hand: "I'm afraid I can't finish the reading homework given by my father... Um, eternity." She recited the words in the book. "Maybe eternity is just a blackened room with spider webs inside."*
She gave a pure smile. "I really like this text," she said.
The dream just dissipated in her pale smile.
Alistair knew clearly that what he had been obsessed with from the beginning to the end was nothing more than an illusory cold statue, a shadow that only existed before the Third Age, an extremely beautiful and huge illusion.
In the corridor, the blood-soaked blonde girl finally came to her senses. Ah, it seems that she has lost control again. Athena sighed as if she had long been accustomed to it, turned around, and saw Alistair behind her, his blue eyes staring at her seriously. I may need some psychological treatment... Athena sighed, took the candlestick from the other party, rubbed her sleepy eyes, but blood was all over her face, making her look more like a mental patient. She walked barefoot on the soft carpet and went back with Alistair obediently, like a child who had made a mistake. In the Fourth Epoch, the gods walked on the earth, and a demigod was nothing, but at a certain moment, the pressure displayed by Athena even reminded him of when he faced Solomon when he was young. But it was only for a moment, this illusion was like a slight distortion caused by hot steam. When you try to touch it, you will find that it is just an illusion of nothingness.
"She seems to have a huge secret. If we don't figure it out, perhaps all of us will become her burial objects." He remembered what Bethel hinted to him at that time.
Do you not understand or do you not want to understand? Ali. After all, she is not hiding anything. Everything is just a thin veil. In his deepest dream, the nightmare took the form of a blonde girl, mocking him.
---
"They are searching for the trace of the true creator in the Sonia Sea." At this week's Tarot Club, Alger exchanged the information he knew with Miss Power - Pallas.
The reward given by Miss Pallas was a teleportation item with some of the abilities of a traveler. "It can only be used three times, and I have already used it once, so you'd better wait until the situation is critical before using it." It seemed that the reward was a bit too generous, and Alger looked at her in surprise.
"I looted this from the recent attacker. Seeing it reminded me of the injury I suffered that day, and I thought it was unlucky. So I'm giving it to you." Pallas said lightly. Klein, the Fool, who was sitting at the top, tapped the armrest of the chair with his fingers. This must have been looted from the faceless man of the secret society... Klein thought, how come she didn't forget to take things from others when she was busy running away? This seemingly weak fellow villager is so terrifying!
Miss Strength seems to be in a bad mood recently. Audrey secretly observed this mysterious girl. She always looked careless, but her gestures were full of elegance and nobility. She should be an old-school noble, but I don't know any nobles who look like her. Could she change her appearance? What's more mysterious is that as a spectator, Audrey can't even read the slightest thought in her heart. Her status is higher than mine, and she is likely to be a Beyonder of the spectator path. Audrey judged so.
Miss Strength had rarely spoken at the gathering, except for asking the fortune teller for the formula of Sequence 6 (asking for Klein) and often requesting to discuss the contents of Roselle's diary alone. But at this gathering, she seemed to be immersed in some kind of uneasiness, and spoke before everyone else could speak:
"I need all the information about the true creator."
Everything... Such an absolute word. The Tarot Club members couldn't help but speculate on her motives. They seemed to often discuss the information about the fallen Creator, as if they had some inseparable connection with Him. The Tarot Club members were so terrifying! Sun Derrick secretly admired her in his heart, and after being slightly tricked by Miss Strength Pallas, he spilled out everything he knew about that existence like pouring beans. His appearance made Miss Strength laugh.
"Pfft. Oh, excuse me. I mean, I can provide a magical item with a purifying effect. It can prevent some unknown entities from possessing you to a certain extent, but the effect is limited. I think it will be useful to you." Haha, maybe it can help Amon... She knew from her predictive dream that Amon seemed to be preparing to go to Silver City to cause trouble recently.
Miss Strength actually likes sunny dog-type men! Miss Justice seemed to have eaten a big melon and smiled happily.
---
"You have to be careful. Your friend seems to have had contact with people from the Aurora Society. One of my colleagues said that he saw her walking with a tall, thin young man with black hair that day. It is said that the young man is some kind of envoy of the Aurora Society." When discussing the case one day, Kaslana deliberately sent Detective Stuart away and said to Klein privately.
"Friend?" Klein pondered the other party's intention of telling him about this behind Detective Stuart's back, and guessed, "Are you referring to Miss Pallas Stuart?" Klein had discovered before that she had the same last name as Detective Stuart, but in this era, as long as they were not from a prominent family, there were many ordinary people with the same last name, so he didn't think much about it.
"Yes. But I don't know the exact relationship between her and Detective Stuart. I think they are distant relatives?" Kaslana said carefully, choosing her words. "I heard that Detective Stuart once lived in the banker's house for a while when he was in trouble, but later he felt embarrassed and went out to find a job. So I don't think their relationship is particularly close."
At this time, Detective Stuart came back from smoking a cigarette, and their conversation did not continue on the previous topic.
After returning home, Klein once again went to the gray fog to divine. The pendulum showed that Miss Pallas had no ill will towards him. He once again tried to divine Miss Pallas's life experience, but he still only saw the deep and quiet night. Strange, since Miss Pallas has joined the Mandated Punishers, it means that she should be a believer of the Lord of Storms... Why does she always transfer to this meaningless night every time he divines? Klein really couldn't figure it out. He always felt that this lady, like Mr. Azik, had too many mysteries.