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Howard's lips curled upwards when he saw that no one else spoke.
"Constant City was previously home to a Dream Stealer from the Marauder Pathway. She broke through to demigod last year and left Constant City, and has not returned since."
The surrounding members of the Arbitration Council were not surprised by this. Unlike Backlund, where churches, the military, royalty, and hidden organizations were intertwined and many powerful individuals were hidden, it was not uncommon to encounter a demigod.
Constant City was merely the capital of Midseashire County. As a demigod of the Spectator Pathway, as long as she avoided the areas where the major churches were located, and traversed the Collective Subconscious Sea and explored the Islands of Mind, it was not uncommon to discover hidden demigods, especially since she had not yet reached demigod status before.
Thump, thump, thump.
Pauli Derlau tapped the table lightly, his tone serious as he looked at Howard:
"'Gluttony', you had best stop monitoring that area."
"Those thieves are likely to cause big trouble, and she's already a demigod. Stay away from there and don't ask for trouble."
Seeing Howard nod slightly, Pauli Derlau immediately withdrew his gaze and said:
"The matter to be discussed today is the dragon worship custom existing in East Chester County of the Loen Kingdom."
"The dragon worship custom in certain areas there has not weakened at all over these years. I suspect that a Mind Dragon is still influencing that place in some way. Perhaps we can find clues about it through this."
"Who would be willing to handle this matter?"
The hall immediately fell silent. After a moment, someone broke the deadlock.
"This is a matter for Loen, and it's not really appropriate for us to interfere," Mr. "Lust" said, looking around. "Unless Mr. Pride and Mr. Gluttony truly don't have time."
Hvin Rambis spoke indifferently:
"I believe the matter I am responsible for is far more important than seeking clues."
Pauli Derlau nodded and looked back at Howard:
"'Gluttony', you will be responsible for this matter then."
"If you are worried about danger, I can help you separate some identities. They can go and explore, and even if they die, it will not affect you."
Howard chuckled softly and shook his head.
Let one of your "virtual personalities" enter my self-unrestricted Body of Mind and Heart?
Wouldn't I just become a fish to be slaughtered? Do you really take me for a fool?
Seeing the few people around him remain silent, he looked at Derlau and said:
"I will try to investigate. I won't trouble the President to act, but I need more detailed information."
Seeing Howard willing to try and investigate, Pauli Derlau did not continue the previous topic and nodded lightly:
"The detailed information will be given to you later, but I must warn you, this matter is quite dangerous, and you absolutely cannot be careless."
Speaking of this, Derlau paused and said:
"If you encounter an accident and cannot resolve it on your own, you can call out to Adam, and this will bring you salvation."
Howard's eyes darkened. He did not respond or speak further, while the other members of the Arbitration Council began academic exchanges in the spiritual domain.
"Alright, this Arbitration Council meeting ends here." After a while, Derlau clapped his hands lightly.
Howard got up and walked towards the door. He paused slightly in front of a cross with a grey-white dragon statue entwined around it, then stepped out and vanished from Eden.
-----------------
Constant City, Midseashire County. The bloody moonlight cast a pall over this steel forest, creating a strange beauty.
At the city center's bell tower, the colors became rich and vivid. Aaron, whose face had returned to Lucivide Joseph, slowly walked out, wearing a top hat and with the "Sword of Judgment" slung diagonally across his back.
"I finally found it." Standing at a high vantage point, Aaron gazed at this purely industrial city.
Although he was visiting for the first time, he had seen various photographs of Constance in newspapers and magazines in the past.
Those photographs were all black and white, documenting every aspect of the city.
Among them, three points left the deepest impression on Aaron:
First, the chimneys and blast furnaces stood in dense rows, as if creating an artificial forest, which was visually striking and represented industry even more than Backlund.
Second, buildings widely used concrete and rebar, constructed taller, larger, and more densely than similar structures in Backlund.
Third, many places were stained with coal dust, including people's bodies, but the air quality was slightly better than Backlund because of the strong winds from the sea.
Withdrawing his gaze, Aaron looked at the red moon in the sky and sighed helplessly.
He had departed from Osel in the afternoon, and even traversing the entire Loen should not have taken until evening to reach Constant City.
The main reason was that Aaron did not know the corresponding Spirit World coordinates. Traversing the Spirit World primarily relied on the guidance of his divination pendant, but divination was not omnipotent.
Some of the revelations given by divination needed interpretation, and Aaron, not being a Seer, found that the revelations he received in the chaotic information of the Spirit World were easily interfered with and distorted.
Because of this, Aaron went to several wrong places, even accidentally ending up in Indo Port on the Feysac Empire's coastal area, only reaching Constant City by evening.
The figure on the bell tower slowly dissipated, and Aaron's figure appeared at a nearby street corner.
Without expending effort on divination, Aaron directly hailed a horse-drawn carriage and instructed the local driver to go to 12 Iris Street, South Las District.
This was Flora Jacob's former residence, and also Aaron's destination for this trip.
As a heavy industrial city in Loen, even in the dead of night, there were still many pedestrians on the streets of the industrial district. Most of them wore dusty worker uniforms.
With a clatter, the carriage left the industrial district and arrived in the South Las District, where aristocrats and wealthy merchants mostly resided.
As cultured aristocrats and respectable merchants, they naturally would not choose to go out late at night. The streets here were empty, but such an environment was more suitable for Aaron's actions.
The carriage stopped at 12 Iris Street, in front of a two-story building. Aaron paid the fare and went around to the back of the building.
He first performed a divination with his divination pendant and received a revelation that there was some danger, but it could be handled.
Aaron put away his divination pendant. The Ring of Mysteries on his finger flickered slightly, and a slightly illusory door immediately appeared on the wall at the side-rear of the building.
Aaron drew his "Sword of Judgment" and slowly passed through the illusory doorway, arriving in a plainly decorated, dust-filled room.
Feeling no dangerous aura, Aaron looked up diagonally. A faint spiritual fluctuation emanated from the second floor.
Aaron pushed open the door from inside the room and saw the equally dust-filled ground floor hall. Unlike the room, the remaining footprints in the hall indicated that at least four people had already arrived before him.
Aaron frowned slightly. After searching the ground floor hall without any findings, he slowly walked towards the stairs leading to the second floor.
One step, two steps, three steps. As Aaron took his fourth step, he immediately felt something was wrong. His thoughts began to slow, his body stiffened slightly, and his movements became sluggish.
Without any hesitation, the hand gripping the "Sword of Judgment" swung downwards sharply. As the stairs collapsed, Aaron used the momentum to retreat, returning to the ground floor hall.
The sluggishness in thought and movement he had felt earlier had disappeared. Aaron looked at the collapsed section of the stairs and activated his Spirit Vision.
However, he still found no problem. If it weren't for Aaron's spiritual intuition far exceeding that of Beyonders of the same Sequence, and his Beyonder senses, which had been strengthened multiple times and came from a Sheriff, he would have found it difficult to detect the subtle changes in his body and react in time.
Recalling his previous sensations and the current situation where Spirit Vision yielded no results, Aaron had a vague suspicion in his mind. This should be due to the Marionettist's Spirit Body Threads ability.
As a demigod of the Marauder Pathway, it was not surprising for Flora Jacob to possess a Sealed Artifact or Mystical Item of a neighboring Sequence 5 Pathway.
Realizing this, Aaron actually felt relieved. With this Sealed Artifact corresponding to a Marionettist guarding it, the probability of the items on the second floor still being present would greatly increase.
After all, Spirit Body Threads are a very unique ability, involving the Spirit Body, Astral Body, Body of Mind and Heart, and Ether Body, and indirectly controlling the physical body through the Ether Body. It is very comprehensive, and therefore, ordinary Spirit Vision cannot observe Spirit Body Threads.
And ordinary thieves or low-Sequence Beyonders, without extraordinary perception and spiritual intuition like Aaron's, would only walk up to the second floor step by step, becoming controlled Puppets.
Standing in the ground floor hall, a smile appeared on Aaron's face. He was quite familiar with the Marionettist's abilities and already had a way to deal with them.
The essence of the Marionettist's ability is to manipulate targets like Puppets, using the "Spirit Body Threads" that exist in every living creature, turning them into his own Puppets.
It could be said that for an ordinary Marionettist, the strength and number of Puppets directly determined the upper and lower limits of his power.
The Marionettist Rosago's dramatically reversed defeat in that battle, where he was nailed to the pillar of shame, was also inextricably linked to his lack of Puppets at the time.
Aaron stood outside the influence range of the Sealed Artifact's "Spirit Body Threads." His spirituality surged, and the Ring of Mysteries flickered slightly.
A translucent, much smaller and more solidified eye then appeared. The surface of the eyeball had some disconnected, obscure patterns. It was the historical void image of the messenger Astolfo.
The Marionettist's Spirit Body Thread manipulation did not include historical void images that did not exist in reality. "Astolfo" slowly floated up the stairs, following Aaron's will.
A restrained Wraith's wail swept towards the second floor. Even the Spirit Body Threads, which even Spirit Vision could not observe, slowly distorted and suddenly snapped.
Four muffled thuds in succession. Four bodies fell from the ceiling, which was swallowed by blackness, hitting the floor. They were already unrecognizable, and two Beyonder characteristics emitting faint spiritual fluctuations appeared on the bloody, blurred ground.
If he were facing a true Marionettist, the opponent would naturally not be so weak. Even if the Spirit Body Thread control was interrupted by a Wraith's wail, the opponent could still use Puppets to switch positions and launch another attack.
But this was just a Sealed Artifact. Without human manipulation, the range of the Spirit Body Threads only covered the second floor, which is why it was so easily broken.
Seizing the gap where the Spirit Body Threads were temporarily interrupted, and without looking at the two Beyonder characteristics that had fallen to the ground, Aaron exerted force with his feet. Accompanied by the sound of the floor cracking, he rushed towards the second floor.
There wasn't a single footprint on the dust-covered floor of the second story; all footprints stopped at the stairwell. Relying on his spiritual intuition, Aaron directly rushed into the innermost room.
As soon as he violently broke into the room, that familiar feeling of obstruction reappeared. Aaron ignored it and directly rushed towards a gray pocket watch placed on the desk.
He pressed the rust-covered charm tightly clutched in his hand against the pocket watch. With a crunch, the charm shattered, transforming into silver-white and crimson interwoven patterns that enveloped the pocket watch.
Aaron immediately felt a lightness throughout his body. The faint sense of danger that had been present since he entered the villa finally disappeared.
A certain flying insect in a corner of the first floor slowly flew to the stairwell of the second floor, seemingly observing everything.
-----------------
On the outskirts of Constant City's Riverside District, unlike within Constant City, it appeared vast and desolate, without towering chimneys and blast furnaces, only stretches of forest.
Deep within the forest, a stone house with distinct features not belonging to the current era stood quietly.
Howard-Philip, wearing the "Gluttony" mask, emerged from the Collective Subconscious Sea, passing through an invisible membrane of light, and appeared at the stone house's entrance.
Howard entered the stone house and came before a mirror. As he stepped in, the corners of the "Gluttony" mask on his face instantly shrank and detached, floating quietly to the side, as if fallen into a deathly stillness.
Howard, however, showed no surprise. He slowly walked towards the mirror. Suddenly, he paused, as if sensing something, and turned to look in the direction of Constant City, a slight smile on his lips, and his figure vanished into the mirror.
Behind the mirror were layers of steps. In front of the steps was a solid, blurry, hazy "sea surface."
Above, streaks of light and shadow swayed and roamed. They were dense, they overlapped, like an illusory sea.
Howard was both familiar and unfamiliar with this. This was the Collective Subconscious Sea he knew well, yet it was different from what he usually saw and felt, though he couldn't pinpoint the exact difference, only a vague sense of disconnect.
In the center of the hazy, seemingly calm "sea surface" was an isolated island. An ordinary-looking old man stood on the isolated island, looking at Howard with a benevolent smile.
This old man's hair was completely white, but still thick. There were few wrinkles on his face, and his appearance was unremarkable, yet he seemed to be the center of the entire world.
Howard floated across the "sea surface" and came before the old man, bowing respectfully: "Teacher, I have something to report."
The old man's figure did not move, yet Howard felt his body straighten uncontrollably, and heard a gentle voice:
"I, Hermes, have lived since the Ancient Era, and have had few disciples. You have already acquired divinity and stepped into the demigod realm; you need not be so restrained."
Howard nodded and immediately released the restrictions on his Body of Mind and Heart. Scenes from his memories instantly appeared in the surrounding subconscious ocean.
Hermes calmly finished watching, pondered for a moment, then spoke kindly:
"Pauli Derlau did not discover the connection between you and me. As for that one..."
Hermes was silent for a moment, then slowly continued:
"That place is indeed very dangerous. There should be a secret behind the dragon worship. I cannot extricate myself now, and I'm afraid I won't be able to help you at critical moments."
"Later, I will separate an identity for you. Let 'him' complete the exploration for you. Remember, you only need to d
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