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Klein followed the stairs into the passage. When he reached the buffer zone, he saw Dunn talking to a slightly strange-looking Leonard, making some comical "arm extension movements" with his hands.
Although Klein noticed that the poet classmate's aura color was a bit off, he thought it was due to the sudden mission interrupting the other party's holiday, so he didn't think much of it and walked over with some curiosity.
Looking at Klein approaching, Dunn nodded slightly, then said seriously:
"Sealed Artifact '2-049' has been escorted and delivered. The subsequent operation might require your sensing of that notebook."
"Also, follow me and do this movement, keep it going, never stop, remember, never stop, this is related to your safety!"
"Okay." Seeing his captain so serious, Klein quickly nodded, feeling a little surprised. The Sealed Artifact arrived so quickly, it seemed the Church took this matter very seriously.
Then his thoughts began to race, wondering what that Sealed Artifact looked like and if this operation would be dangerous.
Considering that with his level of confidentiality, he probably wouldn't be able to know the details, Klein resisted the urge to ask, and the corner of his eye caught the poet classmate beside him, who seemed to be spacing out again.
Dunn coughed lightly, then led Klein and the now-attentive Leonard to push open the door of the duty room. Inside, they saw two escort personnel sitting there, as well as a dark iron box engraved with brilliant stars and a crimson full moon.
Is that the Sealed Artifact inside? I wonder what "2-049" looks like. Klein curiously examined the box.
Thump! Thump!
Just as Klein entered the room, violent knocking sounds suddenly came from inside the dark iron box, causing its surface to bulge repeatedly.
It was as if something terrifying had awakened inside the box, violently knocking, each thud striking the hearts of everyone in the duty room.
After calming this Sealed Artifact and personally experiencing this eerie feeling of sluggishness and stiffness, Klein dared not slack off in bending and extending his arms. He followed the Nighthawks out of Black Thorns Security Company and boarded the carriage.
After confirming his identity as a descendant of the Antigonus family at the Ray Bieber residence, Klein finally saw what Sealed Artifact "2-049" looked like.
It was a strange-looking, palm-sized, brown Puppet!
It had distinct joints, its body was wrapped in brown oily rags, and its face was painted with red and yellow Clown makeup.
Although this strange Puppet was pointing the way, it turned its head and looked at Klein with pure black, pupil-less eyes, slowly spreading its stiff lips into a Clown-like smile.
Looking at the dark and deep mouth, Klein, who met its gaze, felt all the hairs on his body stand on end, and a strong, unprovoked fear suddenly surged in his heart.
Is it sensing the lingering aura of that notebook on me, or... While Klein's thoughts raced, the carriage stopped, and everyone got out while almost uniformly bending and extending their arms.
But this comical and absurd scene did not bring a smile to Klein's face. His expression was incredibly grim at this moment, and the familiar surroundings made him instantly realize that this area was near his home.
Benson, Melissa... Klein's unease grew stronger, not only because of his previous worries but also because no one knew what changes that notebook would bring to Ray Bieber.
Sensing Klein's anxiety, Dunn stopped, following the guidance and halting not far from Daffodil Street No. 2. His gray eyes remained profound, and after a moment of contemplation, he said to Klein:
"When facing a Beyonder incident, always remain calm. First, divine if there is danger inside. It would be even better if you can roughly determine the degree of danger. We will handle the rest."
Klein nodded, feeling a bit unsettled, then heard Leonard, who hadn't spoken much, suddenly say:
"You can also divine if there's danger around."
Secret Order... This name flashed through Klein's mind. He immediately took a breath and entered a state of ethereal calmness.
A moment later, Klein opened his eyes and looked at the citrine pendant, which was rotating clockwise but with very little amplitude. He frowned slightly, feeling something was off, and said with an uncertain tone:
"There is indeed danger, but the danger isn't great…"
Dunn then looked at Mr. Eyre Hassen, who came from Backlund and was wearing a gray double-breasted trench coat. They were both Nightmares, more Apprentice at secretly influencing enemies.
Although pedestrians on the street moved away after seeing their police uniforms, to avoid causing a greater impact, the two Nightmares jointly guided the dream, which was enough to handle most situations.
At Daffodil Street No. 2, a slightly bloated strange man sat in the living room. His limbs were somewhat withered, but his belly was distended, as if something was trembling within it.
A faint crimson moonlight seemed to spill through the window, shining on the strange man's face. His rapid breathing gradually became steady, and his gasps were slowly covered by the sound of poetry coming from the door.
Dunn and Eyre Hassen slowly walked towards Ray Bieber, whose identity was still vaguely discernible. Suddenly, his distended abdomen mysteriously became transparent, and a black-covered notebook vaguely appeared.
Ray Bieber's gray-white pupils suddenly snapped open, and secret symbols intertwined on his abdomen, collectively forming a vertical eye!
The chanting abruptly ceased. Dunn met the gaze of that eerie eye, and his ears were filled with illusory gasps. The entire dream then collapsed.
Outside Daffodil Street No. 2, Eyre Hassen directly fainted. Dunn's gray eyes were tinged with a hint of gray-white, and he forced out a painful low growl:
"The weakness is in the abdomen, be careful…"
His body began to tremble, and something beneath his clothes bulged in patches and writhed in place, as if hiding countless slippery, scaleless venomous snakes.
Without time to check on the captain and his companion's condition, the remaining Nighthawks simultaneously looked at the suddenly collapsing house wall. A faint gray-white mist diffused, accompanied by hallucinated gasps and a strong sense of palpitations.
After being stimulated and forcefully shattering the dream, Ray Bieber was enveloped in gray-white mist. His body, which was originally only slightly distorted, completely mutated in a short time.
One after another, pale white broken bones protruded from beneath his skin. The overall gray-white surface was full of crevices, like a human brain that had been stripped of its "outer shell."
This Monster was covered in flowing gray-white, rotten, viscous fluid, while its head was relatively normal, and its bloated abdomen constantly emitted gray-white mist.
Looking at the gray-white mist, although worried about Benson and Melissa, Klein's heart pounded. This reminded him of that mysterious gray fog space.
After an intense battle, Leonard dragged out a section of yellow-brown and blood-stained intestine from the Rampager Bieber's abdomen. Inside, an ancient, old notebook was vaguely visible.
"Get down!"
The smile on his face hadn't even fully appeared before it abruptly changed. Leonard's urgent words had barely fallen when his body suddenly glowed. The Rampager Bieber, as if melting, instantly exploded.
The shockwave of flesh and blood instantly sent several Nighthawks flying. Leonard and the others fell to the ground, either groaning in pain or struggling unsuccessfully to stand up.
As a Seer with little combat ability, Klein, who had been outputting demon-hunting bullets from a distance, was ironically the least injured.
Klein, who was about to check on his teammates' injuries, paused. He saw a thin, brown arm extending from a cracked dark iron box two or three meters away from him.
Sealed Artifact… "2-049"… Damn it! Klein's heart tightened, and he immediately prepared to dive backward a few meters away, to escape the effective range of Sealed Artifact "2-049."
Just then, a playing card, like a sharp sword, pierced the ground in front of Klein, making his forward lunge pause. A slightly playful voice sounded:
"As expected of a Nighthawk, splendid, truly a splendid performance."
A person in a tailcoat with Clown makeup on his face emerged from the shadows. His right hand, wearing gray-white gloves, carefully picked up the fallen Antigonus family notebook, while the unconscious Benson and Melissa were casually tossed to the ground by him.
Just unconscious, no life-threatening danger… Klein, who had not closed his Spirit Vision, instantly made this judgment, and even in such a dire situation, he felt a slight relief in his heart.
Calmly raising his gun, the silver demon-hunting bullets were emptied in a few seconds. The tailcoat Clown seemed to have predicted the trajectory of all the bullets, twisting his body incredibly, and not a single shot hit.
Damn it…
Klein was instantly dumbfounded, unable to tell if the opponent was too strong or if his marksmanship was too bad.
After this mission, I must practice my marksmanship well… He self-critiqued in his mind, but Klein wasn't overly nervous.
The Sequence of this sudden appearance might only be mid-to-low. Otherwise, he could have acted earlier, no need to wait until the Nighthawks were injured before appearing.
Klein, who was about to give this guy a surprise with the "Moonlight Ring" he got from Mr. Emperor, suddenly felt his head buzz, and his thoughts became sluggish. Sealed Artifact "2-049" behind him had already climbed out of the box.
Klein, whose thoughts were becoming increasingly sluggish, struggled to perform the transference ritual. When the boundless gray-white mist reappeared before his eyes, faintly, Klein seemed to hear Leonard's voice:
"Old man… old man…"
Looking at the majestic and grand temple, Klein, whose thoughts had returned to normal, divined and confirmed that he could break free from control after returning to the real world. Worried about his body outside, Klein quickly returned to the real world.
"You, a mere ordinary person, can survive the pollution of this notebook. I admire you greatly, and I am willing to accept you."
"I know you are a Seer. What the Church of the Evernight cannot give you, our Secret Order can."
"To show you my sincerity, I will tell you now that the Sequence 8 corresponding to Seer is 'Clown,' and Sequence 7 is 'Magician.'"
Magician? Secret Order… Klein almost failed to maintain his "Marionette" state. He never expected his casual guess back then to actually be true.
"Hehe, the initiation ceremony is also very simple. You just need to personally kill a Nighthawk."
"Alright, make your decision. Trust me, you don't have much time to waste."
Klein, who originally wanted to feign ignorance and pry more information about the subsequent Pathway of Seer from this Secret Order member, felt the increasingly strong killing intent in his eyes. He sighed inwardly with regret and immediately took action.
The spirituality he had secretly accumulated for a long time surged into the "Moonlight Ring." Shadows instantly converged, forming illusory shackles that tightly bound the tailcoat Clown.
Forcibly pushing this ability, comparable to a mid-sequence, with the Sequence 9 position, Klein, who was under immense spiritual burden, dared not hesitate and immediately raised his reloaded revolver.
After a series of bangs, the tailcoat Clown, with a large hole blown through his chest, still had an expression of disbelief on his face. The Antigonus family notebook fell to the ground.
Looking at the open notebook, Klein hesitated for a moment but still walked over. He did not see The Fool with the brilliant headdress from his dream on the pages, but instead saw a vertical eye composed of numerous mysterious patterns and hidden symbols!
A faint gray-white mist seemed to drift past his eyes, and that symbol then disappeared, replaced by new text:
"Sequence 8 'Clown'"
"Main ingredients: One crystallized horn from an adult Hornacis gray mountain goat, one complete Human-Faced Rose;"
"Supplementary ingredients: 80 ml of pure water, 5 drops of mandrake juice, 7 grams of black-edged Sun flower powder, 10 grams of golden cloak grass powder, 3 drops of poisonous hemlock juice;"
Klein, who suddenly snapped back to reality, had a ghost-seeing expression and quickly moved away from this bizarre notebook, only to find that it seemed to be closed again by an invisible force.
His expression was somewhat unpredictable. Although he had obtained the coveted Sequence 8 potion formula, the suddenly appearing bizarre symbol still made him uneasy.
After checking on Benson and Melissa's condition, Klein looked with a slight headache at Leonard, the only other person at the scene who wasn't unconscious but had a strange expression.
Staring at the "Moonlight Ring" on Klein's hand, Leonard forced himself to sit up and asked with a rather strange tone:
"Is that a Mystical Item? Where did you get it?"
Klein, who had already prepared a countermeasure, responded without batting an eye:
"Sir Blessed gave it to me last time and told me not to spread it around."
He said this with great righteousness, after all, it was indeed given to him by Mr. "Emperor." Without waiting for Leonard to ask further, Klein added as if casually:
"Oh, by the way, during the fight just now, I seemed to hear you shouting 'old man, old man.' Did I mishear?"
Leonard's expression instantly stiffened, and he gave a dry laugh, no longer continuing the topic.
-----------------
After reaching an agreement with Pallez, Aaron left. Considering that some old entities in Backlund might detect Alvin Gallows's aura.
Aaron came to Backlund alone and skillfully summoned the Magic Mirror Arrodes in a room in the suburbs.
Automatically ignoring the syrupy address, Aaron took out the sealed "Book of Calamity" from his storage and placed it on the mirror's surface, speaking calmly:
"There is an elven ruin of Cohinem on Sonia Island. I hope you can use this item to help me pinpoint the location of that ruin. Well, a rough location would also suffice."
Sonia Island has been Feysac Empire territory since the "Twenty Years' War" ended more than seven hundred years ago. As the mastermind who eliminated a Church of the God of Combat Archbishop and a Feysac royal demigod, Aaron felt he had already maxed out his enmity.
Moreover, Sonia Island is almost equivalent to a small continent. Instead of searching for a needle in a haystack at his own risk, it was better to let Arrodes help him find it.
Specks of light emerged from the "Book of Calamity," merging into the mirror surface. As the mirror surface fluctuated, the presented image was slightly blurry, with faint flashes of electricity passing through:
In the depths of the primeval forest, withered yellow vines covered decaying wooden buildings, with steles exposed in some places, desolate and eerie.
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