Bang!
In the very next second, Edward's body collapsed, shattering into countless Worms of Star that scattered like drifting motes of light.
Lilith lunged forward in panic, trying to grab hold of him, but her fingers touched only fading specks of starlight.
"Edward!"
"Lilith…I'll…come back…for you…"
His voice lingered faintly as his body dissolved completely into starlight. In the space where he had stood, a door of light appeared—one that led back to the outside world.
Almost instantly, words flitted rapidly across the Mirror—Arrodes' reflective surface:
"Go, Lady Lilith! Quickly! She'll break free of your soul's bindings any second now!"
"Hurry!"
"Run for your life!"
Lilith grabbed Arrodes without hesitation, stepped backwards, and plunged into the glowing door.
"Lilith!! Get back here!!!"
The furious roar that followed was cut off as the door slammed shut—sealing the endless wrath of the Mirrored Original Creator within its broken world.
A flash of light—
And Lilith's vision swam. When it cleared, she was back in her own room, in the real world.
"Mama!"
A delighted cry rang out.
"Mama, you're back!"
"Mm. Lil Krismona."
Lilith exhaled softly and murmured to herself, as if confirming reality with her own voice:
"I'm back."
"Where's Mr. Edward?" Krismona asked anxiously. "He said he went to look for you."
Lilith's gaze softened.
"Edward…will come find me very soon."
She smiled faintly.
"He definitely will."
———
Death for the second time felt almost identical to the first.
After the darkness faded, Edward once again stood before that vast, radiant river of stars. Each glittering beam mirrored fragments of memories—screens of flickering lives, each belonging to a different person.
All he had to do was step into one of those memory streams, and he would be reborn through that person's recollection of him—though the result would inevitably be shaped by that individual's fixed impression of him.
Just like last time—When he resurrected through Bernadette's memories, he'd been reborn as a child…and that lingering childishness had constantly influenced his actions and thoughts.
If possible, he didn't want to come back as a child again.
But as that thought crossed his mind, another realisation struck him.
After his promotion to Sequence 2, his humanity had begun to fade rapidly due to a lack of anchors—even that precious "childlike innocence" could no longer hold it back.
That meant the key to this next resurrection wasn't about avoiding childishness—It was about preserving as much humanity as possible.
Yet when he examined the countless memory-streams before him, he quickly realised that the question itself had no solution.
It was a fundamental law of the mystic world:
The higher one ascended through the Sequences, the less human one became.
That was why the gods needed believers—to anchor their fading humanity, to maintain their sanity and stability.
So instead of fretting over how to preserve his humanity, the more practical question was how to rebuild faith as quickly as possible once he revived.
"In other words," Edward mused dryly, "I'm about to start preaching again, huh?"
He sighed.
"All right then. What kind of church should I found this time?"
A pause. Then, deadpan:
"The Holy Fire Meow-Meow Church?"
———
Year 1350, Future.
Capital of Intis, Trier.
Bernadette stood quietly on a street both familiar and foreign.
Not far ahead was the house where she had grown up—now transformed into a memorial museum for Emperor Roselle Gustav. For a moment, she felt as though nothing had changed…as though it was still yesterday.
She lowered her gaze and continued down the cobblestone path she had walked countless times before, until she reached Emerald Street.
House No. 28 stood at the end—a once-grand villa, now long abandoned.
It had been empty for decades.
After her father's assassination at the White Maple Palace, the Intis Empire collapsed in chaos. Those who had stood closest to Roselle—his loyal supporters, his old friends—had either been executed or fled Trier before the purges reached them.
The Sparrow family, despite holding no official positions and living quietly, had been no exception.
Their friendship with the late Emperor had sealed their fate.
From that day on, no one had ever lived in this house again.
Bernadette pushed open the creaking iron gate of the overgrown garden. The air smelled of rust and rain-soaked weeds. Each step she took through the tangle of grass stirred another fragment of memory—laughter, warmth, confusion at Mr. Sparrow's sudden disappearance.
The swing her father had built for her still hung from the old oak, its wooden seat long since rotted away. Only two rusted chains remained—one longer than the other—clinking faintly in the wind like the echoes of a forgotten childhood.
She paused before them for a long moment, then turned toward the villa's door—
The very place she had first met Lilith.
Creak—
The door opened.
Standing in the entryway was a girl in a white shirt and jeans, her face bright with a gentle smile.
She lifted a hand and waved.
"Ah, you're here, Lil Bernadette."
Lilith stepped forward with light, easy steps, her voice bright and teasing, "I thought you'd go to that hotel in Backlund instead."
Bernadette's lips pressed into a thin line.
"It's been a long time, Lilith…sister."
"Hahahahaha!"
Lilith burst into laughter, doubling over as she held her stomach.
"So formal! You sound like a stranger!"
"Well, it has been more than a hundred years," Bernadette replied calmly. "And I've grown up since then."
"Huh? It's been that long?"
Lilith waved a hand lightly. In an instant, the overgrown weeds around them shimmered and melted away, replaced by the vibrant garden of old. The rusted swing creaked back to life, its seat gleaming as though freshly polished. Lilith sat down and began to sway gently, humming as she looked at Bernadette.
"Want to join me? You used to fight me for this spot all the time, remember?"
Bernadette was silent for a moment before saying quietly,
"I don't swing anymore."
"Ah, what a pity."
Lilith chuckled softly, rocking back and forth.
"For us Beyonders who live long lives, keeping a bit of a young heart is the best way to preserve one's humanity."
Bernadette frowned slightly.
"And yet, you've been sustaining your humanity by stealing the descendants of the Sanguine Ancestor as anchors, haven't you?"
"Ahem, well—Krismona did help me develop a few followers."
Lilith gave a few delicate coughs, hiding her smile behind her hand.
"Anyway, tell me, what brings you here?"
"Where's Mr. Sparrow?"
"I told you already—he's somewhere safe."
"Mr. Sparrow…he is Edward, isn't he?"
Lilith nodded.
"You must've known for a long time."
Bernadette hesitated, her eyes clouded with thought.
"Even so…I still don't really understand. What exactly happened between you two? How did things become…this?"
"Oh?"
Lilith tilted her head, resting her chin on her palm.
"You mean you haven't guessed at all?"
"I did have my suspicions," Bernadette admitted. "When Father was assassinated, you two were also targeted in the aftermath. That incident caused Mr. Sparrow to lose his memories, and you…you were cursed into becoming a cat."
She recited her theory in a calm, deliberate tone, though a frown tugged at her brow.
"But there are still too many inconsistencies that don't add up."
"So?"
Bernadette shook her head.
"I don't know."
Lilith laughed softly.
"You're such an untruthful child. You've already figured it out, haven't you?"
Bernadette's lips parted but no words came out.
"That's right," Lilith said brightly. "The Mr. Sparrow you first met, and I—we were from the future. We travelled back through time to the past. So, when you found us back then, it wasn't that we'd lost our memories of you…it was that we truly didn't know you yet."
Bernadette's pupils shrank sharply.
Indeed, she had once entertained that possibility—but it had always seemed far too absurd.
As a Mystery Pryer who ascended through knowledge and mystery, Bernadette prided herself on understanding the hidden laws of the world more deeply than almost anyone alive. And yet, she had never encountered even the slightest credible record of a Beyonder being able to truly travel through time.
Because such a thing would inevitably lead to the ultimate paradox—the collapse of cause and effect itself.
"So…" Bernadette's voice trembled as she asked softly, "you knew from the beginning that Father would be assassinated? That the Intis Empire would fall with his death?"
"Yes," Lilith said simply.
Bernadette clenched her fists tightly, forcing herself not to ask the obvious—
Then why didn't you stop it?
Because she already knew the answer.
To change the past would be to break the chain of time itself—and bring catastrophe to all worlds.
After a long silence, she finally asked, barely above a whisper:
"Then…Father…he really is dead?"
Lilith nodded gently.
"He is."
Bernadette's throat tightened.
"But," Lilith added with a mischievous grin, "he's not completely dead."
She chuckled softly.
This world had a way of turning irony into poetry—"Mr. Didn't-Live-Properly" had become "Mr. Not-Quite-Dead," while "Mr. Not-Quite-Dead" had turned into "Mr. Didn't-Live-Properly."
Lilith hopped lightly off the swing and came to stand before Bernadette. Rising on her toes, she reached out and gently ruffled Bernadette's hair.
"Don't worry, Lil Bernadette," she said with a wink. "Give me some time—and let me carry the whole match."
———
Backlund.
After receiving the Marionettes that Miss Empress had sacrificed to him, Klein felt like he had never been this rich in his entire life.
Three puppets.
Two Sequence 5s.
One Sequence 4.
With just those three, Klein thought, he could hold his own against almost any demigod—and still get away in one piece.
Of course, as a newly advanced Marionettist, he could only control one at a time, so naturally, he chose the strongest: the Sequence 4—Brigadier General Qonas Kilgor, the Deputy Director of MI9.
A man of immense power and influence within the Loen military…now silently turned into Klein's puppet.
According to Lilith, this man had been deeply involved in the Great Smog Incident—a sinner of the highest order. So Klein felt no guilt about using him. In fact, his military connections would make it far easier to digest his potion and advance further.
The other two puppets were Ludwell, the once-infamous Admiral of Hell, and an unfamiliar Beyonder in his thirties whom Klein didn't recognise. For now, they remained safely sealed inside a small leather pouch Lilith had gifted him.
"Still don't get how Edward managed to turn living people into Marionettes for me to control…guy acts like he's a Marionettist himself," Klein muttered.
Marionettists didn't simply control corpses. They took control while the target was still alive, injecting Worms of Spirit through invisible spirit body threads to seize command of the target's spirit body, astral body, mental body, and ether body—turning them into vessels of their will.
Once the process was complete, the target died, yes—but mere corpses couldn't be made into true puppets.
He shook his head. There was no point dwelling on it.
"Better focus on digesting the potion and getting the Bizarro Sorcerer formula first."
Taking a deep breath, Klein stood in the open square before Saint Samuel Cathedral.
Under the power of disguise of a Faceless, he gazed up at the monumental Cathedral of the Evernight Goddess, bathed in sacred darkness, her divine radiance streaming across the stone plaza.
Lilith's words echoed again in his mind:
"You mean you didn't know? You, Klein Moretti, have been the Evernight Goddess's Blessed from the very beginning."
Klein frowned.
"I'm a what now?"
He rubbed his temples, exasperated.
"If I really was the Goddess's Blessed…why didn't I ever know about it?"
After all, he'd only been with the Nighthawks in Tingen for a few months. The highest-ranking official he'd ever met was The Goddess' Sword.
So when exactly—and why—had he become the Evernight Goddess's Blessed?
———
[Note]: Don't forget to VOTE. It keeps me motivated.