"...That's... possible."
Since the misunderstanding had already gone this far, there was no point fighting it.
Bernadette fell silent again. How many of them were there now?
Father. Vincent. Mr. Fool. And now the True Creator.
Four people — three of them genuine gods, and one a "false god." Your world really does produce remarkable figures. And at this rate, she had a deeply unsettling suspicion that her own world might be harbouring even more of them.
After a long moment she said, flatly, "And you managed to break through to him with a song in that language?"
She had been on the verge of losing control during the ravings, but she had still caught snatches of it through the haze — Vincent singing first, then the True Creator humming along, and finally the two of them finishing it together in something like a duet.
An evil god's descent had been defused by a song. Could you believe it?
"Not exactly," Vincent said, thinking it over. "From that brief contact, the True Creator is clearly deep in madness. Any real communication is impossible."
Bernadette pursed her lips. "What would you want to communicate with Him about anyway? Exchange pointers on how to be an evil god?"
"My thinking is — whatever the Aurora Order's reputation and whether or not the True Creator is truly an evil god — He is still, at the end of the day, a genuine true god. Having a true god as a backer wouldn't exactly be a bad thing, would it?"
Vincent vaguely recalled that the True Creator had once been the embodiment of the ancient Sun God's negative emotions — but He had not always been an evil god. For a long stretch of the Fourth Epoch, He had been a proper god of the orthodox faith, and the Aurora Order had been a perfectly normal church. It was only after the seven gods had driven the True Creator to the Forsaken Land of the Gods, cutting off most of His worshippers and anchors, that He had begun, step by step, to lose His mind. And His madness had then driven His remaining worshippers — the Aurora Order — into madness as well. Their madness in turn deepened His, a vicious cycle that had spiralled down to what He was today.
Bernadette picked up the thread, her voice dry. "And then you'd have six of the remaining seven gods as sworn enemies, and slowly go mad yourself from His corruption." She paused. "Though I suppose, in that situation — choosing that over dying out of control — it might have been the only option left. You didn't exactly have a choice."
Then something occurred to her and she raised an eyebrow. "Come to think of it, when you ran into Mr. Fool and ended up attending His gathering... wasn't that basically the same situation?"
"Why do you keep finding yourself in these predicaments, one after the other? Do you have some sort of natural talent for attracting evil gods?"
Vincent: "..."
How should I know.
The two of them sat in silence for a moment. Then Bernadette spoke again: "So the True Creator gave you no clear instructions at all just now — other than taking back that cross?"
"Right."
She frowned, turning it over in her mind, and came up empty. Finally she pressed her fingers to her temple and shifted her thinking entirely. "Do you think... the True Creator might have had some connection with Father at some point?"
"That... I genuinely don't know."
Vincent let out a quiet sigh. "Less than an hour ago I was worrying that the gods might already have noticed our existence. And then it immediately got confirmed."
"I don't know if I jinxed it, or..."
Wait.
He suddenly remembered something. Before they had parted ways, the Little Snake had wished him "good luck," hadn't He?
And this was it?
That was less good luck and more spectacularly rotten luck.
Then again, he immediately reconsidered. Maybe the "good luck" had been the fact that a few verses of Katyusha had actually been enough to stop the True Creator's ravings cold — and keep them both alive. The luck hadn't been about avoiding the situation. It had been about surviving it.
Or perhaps the Little Snake had simply bestowed a general blessing of good fortune, with no control over how and when it manifested.
Bernadette interrupted his thoughts: "Go spend some time in the Nation of Disorder for a while."
"What — oh, I see."
She was going to have a bath.
He was about to withdraw when she asked quietly, "Do you think tomorrow's swap will go back to normal?"
"..."
Vincent smiled a little. "Whatever happens, I believe it will be the best arrangement fate has to offer."
Bernadette rolled her eyes. "That tells me absolutely nothing."
"Goodnight, Your Majesty."
"Goodnight."
The Amandeus Mountains. The headquarters of the Church of the Evernight Goddess — the Tranquil Cathedral of the Holy See.
The Servant of Concealment, Arianna, was seated in pious devotion before the Sacred Emblem. Without warning, a figure appeared beside her — as though reality had been quietly erased and rewritten, like a pencil rubbing cleared away. The figure was tall, dressed in a long black gown scattered with points of starlight, her features hazy and indistinct, impossible to make out clearly.
Arianna rose gently and addressed the figure: "Good evening, Your Highness."
"It's been a while, Lady Arianna."
The figure's voice carried a light, easy quality. She waved a hand dismissively. "Don't mind me — I've just come out for a breath of air."
"Of course, Your Highness."
Arianna watched the figure drift away into the distance, then quietly settled back into her seat and resumed her prayers to the Sacred Emblem.
The one who had just left was one of the Night Church's angels. She held no significant position within the Church, and yet her standing was something beyond rank.
Like Arianna, she bore a title uniquely her own:
Daughter of Concealment.
Meanwhile, Stephen led the three girls through the Spirit World and emerged near St. Samuel's Cathedral in North Backlund — close enough that if things went wrong, they could duck inside immediately.
Fortunately, the Shepherd did not give chase.
Stephen exhaled with relief. "Right. Good news: we're safe. Bad news: we've lost a carriage."
Audrey's green eyes sparkled with excitement. "Mr. Stephen, this is the street opposite St. Samuel's Cathedral, isn't it? That was extraordinary — from Jorwood District to North Backlund in a matter of seconds. What sort of Beyonder ability is that?"
"Ah, that's a Traveler's transit."
Fors's ears perked right up. That sensation of slipping between worlds — she knew it well. It felt almost identical to what she experienced every time she used her bracelet, except her bracelet couldn't cover anything close to this distance.
So that ability belongs to the Sequence called "Traveler."
"Traveler — is that a Sequence name?" Audrey leaned forward with a look of pure curiosity. "That's an extraordinary ability! So Mr. Stephen is a Beyonder of that Pathway?"
"Not quite. I simply have a Beyonder item that grants me a Traveler's ability."
Stephen didn't see any reason to be cagey with this girl who paid so generously. "The Traveler is Sequence 5 of the Door Pathway — the freest of all Beyonders in any Pathway. Even crossing from Backlund to the Southern Continent takes only a matter of minutes."
"!!!"
That's impossibly convenient!
With that ability, I could go anywhere I wanted, any time I liked!
Fors filed it away: The Traveler is Sequence 5 of the Door Pathway.
Audrey tilted her head. "But how does a Beyonder item channel the power of a Beyonder in the first place? Don't you need to consume a potion to gain Beyonder abilities?"
"That gets into some of the more specialised knowledge around Beyonder characteristics."
Stephen glanced at Fors and Xio, both of whom were very pointedly hanging on his every word, and decided not to make an issue of it. He gave a brief explanation of how Beyonders, Beyonder characteristics, and Beyonder items were all connected.
He wrapped it up with: "So to get yourself a teleportation ring like this, all you'd need to do is eliminate a Traveler, take their Beyonder characteristic, and have an artisan work it into an item."
"And precisely because a Traveler's ability is so incredibly useful, they tend to become prime targets for other Beyonders."
Xio and Audrey immediately turned to look at Fors.
Fors blinked. "???"
Didn't you just say Travelers are the freest of all Beyonders?
Free where, exactly?
You might be free — has anyone stopped to think about how the Traveler feels?
She suddenly had very little interest in continuing to advance.
To be continued…
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