Outside Trier.
"Get out. We're here."
Hastur spoke calmly, signaling that Ulrich could hurry up and leave the carriage.
"Thank you."
Ulrich thanked him before getting out of the carriage. He glanced at the outskirts, free from the confinement of high walls, and felt immensely refreshed.
Just as Hastur was about to drive the carriage away, Ulrich hesitated for a moment before asking, "Can you tell me the name of the lady who saved me earlier?"
Hastur smiled.
"No. I wouldn't reveal a lady's name without her permission. That would be very impolite."
"If you want to know, you can return to Trier and ask her yourself."
Hearing this, Ulrich decisively shook his head. He had no bargaining chips left. If he returned to the city now, he would definitely be caught, tied to a stake, and burned alive.
"What a pity. You don't have the courage to throw caution to the wind for the sake of romance."
After saying that, Hastur drove the carriage away, leaving behind Ulrich with a complicated expression.
"Even if I really had that kind of courage, there's no way she'd ever be interested in me."
Ulrich sighed. He took one last look at Trier, where he had lived for more than a decade, then turned around and embarked on his new journey.
Hastur did not drive the carriage directly back into the city. Instead, he left it by a road in the outskirts and openly returned to Trier alone.
When he returned to the hotel, Cattleya and Sharron had already come back and were quietly discussing something.
"Did you send him away?"
"Mm. The transaction is complete."
Hastur nodded, sat down at the tea table, poured himself a cup of tea, then asked Cattleya what had happened after he left.
Everything had gone as expected. The Eternal Blazing Sun's eye had been eaten by a dog and then sent back to the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun.
If anything was going to happen, it would happen tonight.
However, before they received any news of the Rose School of Thought and the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun making their move, they heard a newspaper boy outside shouting that an important figure of the Sauron family had suddenly been assassinated.
"My Lady has started taking action."
Cattleya spoke excitedly, then went downstairs and bought three newspapers.
Hastur took one of them and began reading. It was an emergency edition printed today, and the front-page headline was about the assassination of an important member of the Sauron family.
After finishing the article, Hastur glanced at the newspaper's name: The Intis Vanguard Evening News.
It certainly lived up to the name Vanguard. Before the other newspapers had even reacted, it had already published such a major event without the slightest concern that doing so might damage the Sauron family's reputation.
Perhaps the person behind this newspaper was Bernadette.
Cattleya read the front-page story two or three times. Although she said nothing, her sparkling eyes clearly proclaimed, "The Queen is so cool!"
Even Sharron read through it once. Then she pointed at a small line of text in the article and said, "She may have run into trouble."
"Trouble?" Cattleya immediately leaned closer and looked at where Sharron was pointing. It read: "The assassin was a mysterious woman."
Cattleya only needed a moment to understand what Sharron meant.
With Bernadette's formidable strength, if she wanted to assassinate someone, there was no need for her to personally show herself, much less allow anyone to see her true appearance.
She might have encountered some trouble, which was why such crucial information had been left behind.
"There's nothing you can do to help." Hastur promptly dampened Cattleya's impulse to rush over and assist.
Cattleya fell silent for a moment before smiling faintly. "I believe in My Lady."
Little Star, your eyes have already betrayed what you're really thinking.
Hastur glanced at Cattleya and smiled. "I believe in her too. No one in Trier can keep her from leaving."
He believed Bernadette was fine. If she had truly encountered an unbeatable enemy, Bernadette would certainly have sought help from the Stars.
The fact that she had not spoken meant that her situation was not that dangerous.
Most likely, someone had recognized her during the assassination, which was why this newspaper had deliberately referred to her as a mysterious woman.
That night, the temple of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun suddenly erupted into commotion. A group of church personnel who had only recently fallen asleep raised torches and began searching everywhere.
Tonight, just moments ago, the temple had suddenly been infiltrated by thieves. The divine eye that had only been returned earlier today had been stolen in the span of a single night.
Bishop Mork, who was responsible for guarding the temple, was so furious that his hair seemed ready to burst into flames. In the end, he could only suppress his anger and unease for the moment and order his people to search for suspicious traces.
"Where is His Holiness the Pope?"
"His Holiness left the church this afternoon."
Thinking about everything that had happened today, Bishop Mork inwardly cursed Bernadette for choosing this particular day to cause trouble, forcing His Holiness to personally deal with the matter first.
...
"Why do you insist on chasing me?"
High above Trier, amid the clouds, Bernadette stared coldly at the Pope of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun before her.
If not for His sudden interference, there was no way the Sauron family would have discovered her assassination attempt.
"I bear you no ill will." Ross Hurley gestured for Bernadette to remain calm. His gaze overlooked the turmoil unfolding below as he calmly said, "I'm merely waiting."
"Waiting for what?"
"For someone to enter the game."
"Does it have something to do with me?" Bernadette frowned slightly.
"No. I'm merely using your appearance to divert other people's attention while simultaneously giving them an excellent opportunity to act."
"You want to lure out the blasphemers hiding in the shadows?"
Ross Hurley shook his head with a smile. "That description isn't quite accurate. The only difference between us is our faith. They are equally devoted to their own beliefs."
"You really are an old fox." Bernadette reassessed the elderly Pope. "You deliberately obstructed me before, only giving me an opportunity to carry out the assassination today. Heh, and the Sauron family even regards you as their savior."
"It was a necessary sacrifice."
There was no unnecessary expression on Ross Hurley's face, as though the important Sauron family member who had died was merely an insignificant ant that could be seen anywhere.
"Actually, I didn't need to go through so much trouble at first. But someone seemed to see through the matter and deliberately sent the item back to me. I could only go along with the situation and temporarily alter my arrangements."
A sharp gleam completely unfitting for his age flickered within Ross Hurley's seemingly cloudy eyes.
Yet He did not appear angry because of this. Instead, there was even a hint of admiration in His words.
"That round stone really is an eye lost by the Eternal Blazing Sun?" Bernadette realized the crucial point.
Ross Hurley smiled. "Yes. It truly is the eye of a god."
...
Tonight, Trier once again became noisy and chaotic because of the theft of a sacred relic from the temple of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun.
The only ones who could truly enjoy the tranquility of the night were those hidden in the darkness, conducting their activities underground.
"Lord Suah, we have fulfilled our mission. We finally stole that divine eye from the temple of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun!"
"You did well."
Suah the Abomination accepted the round stone they respectfully presented. Even with just a simple glance, He could tell that the stone contained power capable of burning mountains and boiling seas.
This truly was an eye belonging to the Eternal Blazing Sun.
Once the newborn sun received this eye as nourishment, it would probably soon rise into the heavens and replace the original Eternal Blazing Sun.
No wonder the Mother Goddess had specially issued a divine revelation ordering Him to accomplish this task.
After confirming the value of the eye, Suah carefully questioned them about the details of how they had stolen it tonight.
Tonight's success had come a little too suddenly. He had been failing constantly lately and had originally thought that He would disappoint the Mother Goddess's expectations once again. Unexpectedly, everything had gone smoothly.
There was a saying that when something was abnormal, there was bound to be something strange behind it.
It wasn't that He suspected there was some sort of trick involved. He simply didn't have that much faith in His own luck.
Yet He had already confirmed that this round stone truly was the eye the Eternal Blazing Sun had lost in the mortal world.
Perhaps the Eternal Blazing Sun's luck was even worse than His own.
"Tonight, the Pope of the Church of the Eternal Blazing Sun wasn't inside the church. He went to surround and capture Bernadette after she assassinated an important figure of the Sauron family. That was what gave us our opportunity..."
Suah listened silently, a mocking smile appearing at the corner of His lips.
Surrounding and capturing Bernadette was no simple matter. Even He had failed several times.
After confirming that there was nothing suspicious, Suah finally brought the Eternal Blazing Sun's eye before the enormous black tree.
Atop the canopy, the densely overlapping branches slowly pulled apart, and strands of light began radiating outward.
The golden newborn sun, which had remained in deep slumber all this time, finally awakened.
Light resembling the first rays of a newborn sun illuminated the entire underground chamber, dispelling all darkness and shadows.
Compared to when it had first appeared, this sphere of light increasingly resembled a true sun.
"I have retrieved the item you require."
Suah suspended the Eternal Blazing Sun's eye in midair.
Under the illumination of the newborn sun atop the tree canopy, the physical seal covering the surface of the Eternal Blazing Sun's eye slowly began to peel away.
Soon, a miniature sun appeared in midair.
With one large and one small sun shining before Him, even Suah narrowed His eyes to avoid being dazzled by the intense light.