"Holy shit, what the hell is going on? Didn't Edward and Mr. A always get along? When did they start ripping each other apart?"
Klein didn't have time to think. He quickly deployed another spare Marionette, finished lacing it to his spiritual thread, and sent the Apprentice Pathway Marionette straight through multiple walls toward the church. At the same time, Klein himself moved toward the church as well.
"Huh?"
The instant the Marionette passed through the wall into the church, Klein felt a strange twitch in his connection—for a split second it seemed the link with the Marionette had dropped. Then it snapped back.
Through the Marionette's eyes, Klein soon saw the interior of the church clearly again. The door that had appeared in the wall still stood wide open. Mr. A had one foot poised inside, but his body hung rigid; something unseen gripped his neck and lifted him into the air. He drifted there, eyes slowly rolling white, his appearance still disturbingly beautiful.
Zaratul's symbol really was wrong!
Klein guided the Marionette cautiously closer, every sense on guard.
Suddenly, a powerful pull emanated from that doorway. Klein turned instinctively and then could not look away.
Beyond the lighted portal he could just make out more bodies suspended in the air—old and young, male and female, dressed in styles both exquisite and threadbare, ornate and casual. From behind each hanger protruded a transparent, slick tentacle patterned with intricate, maddening runes.
Countless such tendrils reached deeper into the hall, where an ancient, enormous stone throne sat inset with dull gold and gemstones. A writhing mass of translucent maggots lay curled upon that colossal chair, slowly undulating and endlessly multiplying, sprouting near-imperceptible tendrils.
This…this was the mythical creature form of the Seer Pathway—his spirit answered without hesitation.
Klein stiffened and resolved to yank the Marionette back and flee.
But he failed.
Control of the Marionette seemed to be wrested away by that unknown high-sequence Seer. The Marionette walked, step by step, toward the lighted portal. As it neared the threshold it suddenly bent down, as if to pick something up.
At the base of that ancient throne, Klein finally saw a tarot card lying quietly. Its face bore Roselle—the Emperor—wearing ornate headgear, clad in motley robes, shouldering a staff hung with luggage as if setting out on a journey. His expression brimmed with yearning; a little dog trotted at his side. In the upper corner, starlight traced the words:
"Sequence 0: The Fool!"
The Fool card?!
Klein, who already possessed the Tyrant and the Red Priest cards, understood at once what this card represented. But now it was in the hands of that mythic high-sequence Seer. Even glancing at it might throw him into madness…
"What? Why am I fine?" he thought in disbelief.
Even separated by a Marionette, staring directly at a mythical creature-form of a high-sequence Beyonder would unhinge a demigod—let alone someone at Sequence 5.
Before he could finish the thought, the Marionette had reached the portal and stepped through into the hall hung with corpses.
Klein's sight followed.
Instinct screamed that the Marionette's situation was extreme and that his action was reckless, but another voice in him insisted: this was a once-in-a-lifetime chance. If he could wrest control back and seize the Fool card, he might not have to worry about formulas all the way up to Sequence 0.
He would gamble.
Klein inhaled, forced a channel into the Worm of Spirit hiding within the Marionette, and bit by bit reestablished a sense of the Marionette's presence.
At that moment, one of the transparent, slimy tentacles whipped toward them. Through the Marionette, Klein felt his spirit shudder as if death were seconds away.
In the same instant he regained full control of the Marionette. He blinked and dodged the tentacle, appearing directly before the ancient throne—before the heaped cluster of translucent maggots.
He bent, snatched up the Fool card lying under the seat, and immediately vanished in a string of flashes to escape through the door.
But his movement had provoked the curled maggots. Tendrils sprang into being and spread like a celestial net toward the Marionette.
So close.
Just inches.
Klein focused, using the recorded spiritual thread to frantically interfere with the rapidly approaching tendrils while he spun the Card of Blasphemy and hurled it through the portal. The Fool card sailed across the threshold and fell into the church.
In the next second, the light door slowly closed. Klein's awareness was pushed out and returned abruptly to his own body, severing his connection to the Marionette.
But Klein's spirit was in an exhilarated frenzy. Even though the Marionette had failed to escape at the last moment, the Fool card had at least been thrown out and confirmed to be lying inside the church.
Despite his excitement, he did not forget to perform several rounds of divination first, confirming the church's safety before carefully making his way over. After all, having lost two Marionettes, he had no choice now but to take the risk personally.
Soon, he reached the church doors.
Ding.
He flicked the coin again. After ensuring there were no major issues, he stepped into the church.
His eyes took in once more the eerie forest of inverted corpses. Passing through the "corpse grove," Klein arrived before the altar. The Fool card lay quietly on the ground, radiating a constant pull upon him.
Even better—his Marionette was lying intact on the ground. It must have escaped in the very last moment.
Klein hesitated briefly, then reestablished control over the Marionette. A few seconds later, the Marionette patted dust off its body, stood up, took two steps forward, and bent down to pick up the card.
"It still works!"
A wave of joy washed over him—followed immediately by another discovery: his Marionettist potion had somehow digested itself by a significant portion!
Could it be because I seized back the Marionette's control earlier?
His previous acting guidelines had mostly focused on obeying the Marionette's identity. He hadn't expected that pure manipulation of the Marionette could also digest the potion.
As Klein infused spirituality into the Fool card, it activated instantly, transforming into a miniature, illusory book. Under Klein's guidance, its pages flipped rapidly:
Sequence 4 – Bizarro Sorcerer…
Sequence 3 – Scholar of Yore…
Sequence 2 – Miracle Invoker…
Sequence 1 – Attendant of Mysteries…
Sequence 0 – The Fool…
Silently, Klein put the card away again.
The Seer pathway's Sequence 0 title…is the exact codename I chose for myself above the grey fog. Is that really just a coincidence?
His mind drifted back to the beast tamer girl from the Tingen circus—the one who had made him perform a Tarot reading.
Was she truly just an ordinary person?
Thinking of that, he glanced again at the five Chinese characters carved onto the statue.
A chill ran down his spine.
He closed his eyes and steadied his emotions once more. Controlling his spirit body threads to keep them from drifting up toward the church ceiling, he bent down to retrieve the obsidian tablet.
After confirming the important item was undamaged, he felt mildly reassured. Then he turned toward Zaratul's tin-white urn—only to find it gone.
But he had clearly seen it when entering with the Marionette earlier…
Oh, right. When the Marionette lost control, it did make a crouching-and-picking motion. Did it pick up Zaratul's urn then?
So the Marionette's loss of control—was that Zaratul's doing?
When, then, had the urn been discarded? Was it now inside that palace-like hall?
Klein knew that Zaratul would not have "helped" him without a motive. So had that motive been achieved already?
Holding the obsidian tablet again, he reinserted it into the hollow in the back wall. The wall lit up once more, turning transparent, revealing the ancient stone slabs outside, the broken wall, and drifting cloud mist.
He snapped his fingers sharply, igniting a tree outside the church—preparing to use Flaming Jump to escape at the first sign of danger.
"Now I need to seriously consider how to leave this place."
———
Backlund, Cherwood Borough.
Fors had lost count of how many times she had moved with Xio. This time, Fors gritted her teeth and spent a large sum renting a house in the Cherwood Borough—very close to the Church of Storm's Holy Wind Cathedral.
Neither she nor Xio believed in the Lord of Storms, but that didn't stop Fors from planning to rely on the Church of Storm to deal with the war looming at any moment. After Xio firmly refused to leave Backlund, this was the compromise Fors chose.
Naturally, the rent—nearly two pounds a week—was exorbitant. But after several Tarot Meetings and multiple transactions running into hundreds or even thousands of pounds, spending a little money for the Church's indirect shelter was, without doubt, a very worthwhile investment.
Of course, the price was that Fors now needed to write another bestselling novel as quickly as possible—or she would go bankrupt soon.
"But why is it that after an entire morning…I still can't write a single line!!!"
Fors clutched her hair in despair. She glanced toward the door and saw Xio—who had gone out early—enter with a grave expression, her lips moving as if she wanted to speak but couldn't.
"What's wrong?" Fors asked blankly.
Xio pressed her lips together. "I'm sorry, Fors."
"???"
Fors nearly jumped out of her chair. "Sorry for what? What are you apologising for?"
"Just now…the Feysac Empire launched an air raid on the North and West Boroughs. You were right…Feysac has declared war on Loen."
"What?"
Fors froze. Though the matter had already been discussed at the Tarot Club, she hadn't expected it to come so quickly.
Just then, the voice of a newsboy rang out from the street:
"Extra! Extra! The kingdom declares war on Feysac!"
"Extra! Extra! The kingdom declares war on Feysac!"
Xio lowered her head again. "I'm sorry, Fors. It's my fault for insisting we stay."
Fors tossed aside her pen and smiled warmly. "You're still investigating the truth behind your father's unjust accusation. It's fine~ I don't believe Feysac would dare bomb this place. If they accidentally destroyed Holy Wind Cathedral, wouldn't that be equivalent to declaring war on the Church if Storm?"
"They're not that stupid."
Xio hesitated, then asked cautiously, "Fors…are you hiding something from me?"
"Huh?"
"Where did you learn the war was about to break out?"
"This…I…"
Fors scratched her head. Suddenly she remembered what Mr. Fool had told her last Tarot Meeting—find an opportunity to have Xio recite the three-step prayer.
She had been struggling to find an appropriate moment for days. But now…
"Xio, do you trust me?"
"Of course I do!" Xio answered instantly.
Fors no longer hesitated.
"Yes. I joined a mysterious organisation and began worshipping an ancient deity. I've already recommended you to this deity, and He has accepted you!"
Fors extended both hands. "Welcome to the fold."
"..."
Xio froze.
It's over. My best friend has been ensnared by an evil god. And now she wants to drag me down with her.
What do I do? Should I knock her out right now and drag her to the Church for an exorcism?
———
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