City of Silver.
The residents of the City of Silver, who had personally witnessed the light of the Stars descending upon them, were preparing under Chief Colin's leadership to hold a grand ritual in a few days.
The objects of worship would be the Lord they had always believed in, as well as the Stars, who had once manifested a miracle and brought light and hope to the Forsaken Land of the Gods.
The only problem was that they had no idea how to construct a statue for the Stars. When they asked Mr. A, even he was unable to give them a definite answer.
Because of this, the City of Silver could only use a sky filled with stars to represent the Stars. Mr. A offered quite a few suggestions from the side to prevent them from confusing the Stars with the Evernight Goddess.
If their ritual somehow ended up being directed toward the Evernight Goddess, that would be an enormous act of disrespect toward the Stars.
With this sort of ritual, nothing might happen if you simply didn't perform it. But if you worshiped the wrong deity, you would definitely invite divine punishment.
Don't believe it?
You could try calling out the honorific name of the Lord of Storms for help while preparing offerings favored by the God of Knowledge and Wisdom, then hold the ritual right outside the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun.
"But Lord Envoy, even you don't know how to conduct a ritual for the Stars?" Someone asked Mr. A this question, causing him to freeze for a moment.
Wasn't he supposed to be the most devout believer of the True Creator? How had he ended up helping organize a ritual for the Stars?
When Mr. A returned to his room to rest with complicated emotions, he encountered Elder Lovia again along the way.
"Heh, it seems I'm not the only one who has betrayed their faith." The cold, merciless mockery tore open the wound in Mr. A's heart that had yet to heal.
This time, he didn't argue with Elder Lovia. Instead, he returned to his room in a daze to rest.
Lovia raised an eyebrow slightly as she watched Mr. A's thin, lonely figure disappear into the distance.
Elsewhere, Derrick was also hiding inside his home. After shutting the doors and windows, he devoutly prayed to Mr. Fool, thanking Mr. Fool for his guidance.
Above the gray fog, Klein wore a complicated expression.
He hadn't actually played any role in this matter. Amon's avatars had also been dealt with by the Stars. He had simply been a spectator.
"Sigh, I'd better stop thinking about these things for now. It's more practical to divine the whereabouts of a few more pirates and earn enough gold coins to pay back Miss Messenger as soon as possible."
Klein suppressed his other thoughts and began using the powers of the gray fog to perform divinations.
Recently, because he had been continuously hunting pirates with high bounties, many pirates who were on the bounty list but weren't particularly strong had become terrified and gone into hiding.
This forced him to rely on divination to locate them.
...
Above the silent wilderness, there was no longer any lightning raging through the sky. Everything was dark and devoid of light.
Amon had already recalled all of His avatars in the surrounding area to avoid being targeted by the Stars.
At this moment, He sat on the soft grass, His eyes fixed on the pitch-black sky as He murmured the name "Stars."
He had never offended the other party, yet the other party seemed to have harbored hostility toward Him for quite some time. That was why, when responding to Mr. A's prayer, the Stars had immediately targeted Him.
Fortunately, the ones that had appeared in the City of Silver at the time were only His avatars. Even though they had been destroyed, the damage to His true body wasn't too severe.
He pondered carefully for a while longer, but truly couldn't remember when or where He might have offended the Stars. Judging from the other party's status and authorities, they shouldn't be one of His old acquaintances either.
While Amon was pondering this, on the Sea of Ruins within the golden ocean, a lone ship was cutting through the turbulent waves.
On the Future, Cattleya received a report from the crew and reluctantly left the guest room where Bernadette was staying.
She saw that there was only a single young figure standing quietly at the bow of the approaching ship. He was handsome and bore some resemblance to the former Mr. A.
Before Cattleya could send anyone aboard the other ship to inquire about the situation, the figure who had been standing at the bow suddenly vanished from sight.
She clearly hadn't even blinked, yet the other party had simply disappeared into thin air.
Cattleya sucked in a sharp breath, her scalp tingling. She immediately realized that this was yet another troublesome figure. She could only order the crew at the helm to steer the Future away from the other ship to avoid any conflict.
After dealing with the matter, she returned to Bernadette's room. However, she found herself unable to push the door open.
Standing outside, she could vaguely sense that compared to when she had left, there was now an unfamiliar presence inside.
Could it be that young man from earlier? Cattleya remained outside the door and couldn't help but sigh inwardly.
This era was truly terrifying. Mysterious and unfathomable figures kept appearing one after another.
...
Puning Harbor.
Having arranged everything that needed to be handled next, Hastur could finally relax for a while.
Since he intended to spend some time in the Intis Republic, he had set aside quite a bit of time beforehand to arrange everything that needed to be done during his absence.
With Caius faithfully carrying out his orders and Lady Lisa remaining here to oversee things, he wasn't worried about any accidents occurring.
Knock, knock, knock.
Hastur, who had just closed his eyes to rest, frowned slightly and said, "Come in."
The door opened, and Caius walked inside. He first gave a respectful salute before lowering his voice and saying, "My Lord, everything has been taken care of. Prince Leonard will need to rest at home for at least a month before he can recover."
"Mm. Don't make too much of a commotion, lest it attract unnecessary trouble."
"Everything was carried out according to your instructions, My Lord."
Caius then explained in detail exactly how he had dealt with Prince Leonard.
It could all be summarized in a few words:
Failure to acclimatize.
After all, he was a member of the royal family who had lived in Backlund all year round. It was his first time leaving Backlund and coming to a remote region like Southville County. It was perfectly reasonable for him to have trouble adjusting to the local environment, right?
Getting an upset stomach from eating unfamiliar food was also perfectly reasonable, right?
Frequently having nightmares while sleeping and becoming mentally exhausted was equally reasonable, right?
Hastur was going to leave Southville County for a while, so it was also perfectly reasonable that Prince Leonard would be unable to concentrate on official business during that period, right?
After listening, Hastur dismissed Caius. He then rose from his seat, left the study, and instructed the servants to prepare several changes of clothes.
Everything here had more or less been arranged. Tomorrow, he could leave Puning Harbor with Sharon.
This time, he had no intention of bringing Ariella along. He simply instructed Ariella to behave and stay at home.
Faced with Ariella's pitiful expression of having been abandoned, Hastur promised that while he was away, it could eat as many dried fish as it wanted. Only then did its overwhelming sorrow diminish somewhat.
"Meow, meow..." Having reluctantly agreed to stay home, Ariella immediately turned around and ran off to Sharon to complain pitifully.
Unfortunately, Sharon didn't indulge it this time either. She merely promised to bring back some Intis specialty dried fish when they returned, finally making Ariella smile in satisfaction.
Early the next morning, before the sunlight had even fallen upon the waters of Puning Harbor, a ferry had already departed for a coastal port in the Feynapotter Kingdom.
The best route from Puning Harbor to the Intis Republic was by sea.
They first needed to pass through the Feynapotter Kingdom, then Segar, before finally reaching the Intis Republic.
The journey would actually take a very long time, so Hastur only planned to take the ferry to the Feynapotter Kingdom, spend a few days there, and then use the spirit world passageway to travel directly to the capital of the Intis Republic. This would save a considerable amount of time.
Otherwise, a round trip like this would take at least half a year.
Half a year wasn't much to him, but Prince Leonard certainly couldn't remain bedridden at home for six whole months.
Inside the VIP cabin, Hastur took out the mirror Sharon had given him and placed it on the table.
After a while, Sharon's figure appeared on the surface of the mirror before stepping out from within it.
She disliked crowded and noisy places, so she used this method to let Hastur carry her with him.
"Get some rest. It'll take about five days to travel from Puning Harbor to Loss Harbor in the Feynapotter Kingdom."
Sharon walked over to the window where she could see the waves of the sea outside and stood beside Hastur.
"Do you know what's been happening in the Southern Continent recently?"
"I do. The East Balam Empire was already the country most likely to unify the Southern Continent."
Hastur replied, assuming Sharon was worried about the future of the Highland Kingdom. He added, "The Highland Kingdom was one of the countries that allied with the East Balam Empire relatively early. In the future, it will become the strongest nation in the Southern Continent after the East Balam Empire."
Sharon shook her head slightly and looked directly at Hastur.
"Is that your intention?"
"This has nothing to do with me. It's the tide of the era pushing them forward. At the same time, it's also the best way for them to protect themselves from being harmed."
In the past, the Southern Continent had essentially become a colony of the Loen Kingdom and other nations. For the nobles and powerful figures, there wasn't much difference, but for the ordinary people at the bottom of society, becoming a colony was certainly not a good thing.
Now that the situation had changed, if the East Balam Empire could unify the entire Southern Continent, it would undoubtedly be a good thing for the people living on that land.
Of course, for the Loen Kingdom, this was equivalent to losing a source of wealth and resources.
Sharon remained silent for a moment before asking, "Does this have something to do with your messenger, Gregrace?"
"I generally don't interfere in Her affairs."
Hastur reassured Sharon and promised her that Gregrace's appearance was a good thing for the Southern Continent.
"Sometimes, I feel like you've already gone very far," Sharon murmured softly.
Then she returned to her usual silence, with hardly any emotion visible on her face.