Screwellum straightened up. His mechanical face revealed no expression, but his voice remained calm and gentle.
"Apologies for my uninvited arrival. I hope I haven't disturbed you."
"Of course not, Your Grace. Your presence brings glory to this humble place." Bornova used one of his father's self-invented idioms.
"No need to be so respectful. Just use 'you.' Knowledge recognizes no rank or class—we praise the equality of thought."
Screwellum showed no trace of the arrogance of a genius nor the majesty of a monarch.
His arrival did not make anyone feel uncomfortable, yet everyone's spiritual intuition was screaming the same thing: this mechanical gentleman was dangerous—dangerous beyond imagination.
Bornova stepped aside and gestured toward the carriage behind him.
"Mr. Screwellum, this place isn't suited for entertaining distinguished guests. Please… move to the church so we can talk."
At some point, a palm-sized box appeared in Screwellum's hand. He handed it to Archbishop Horamick, who was standing nearby.
"A small gift for you. Please don't think ill of it."
Then, without commenting on the horse-drawn carriage as a primitive form of transport, he calmly stepped aboard—so naturally that it seemed as though he habitually used carriages back in his own homeland. His courteous behavior preserved everyone's dignity.
Bornova immediately followed, sitting opposite Screwellum, while the others stayed behind.
Horamick and the rest remained respectfully still until the carriage disappeared from sight.
Once it was gone, everyone crowded around Horamick, urging him to open the box.If the gift were truly important, it would have been handed directly to Bornova; since it was given to the secondary figure Horamick, it clearly wasn't anything significant.
When the lid was opened, inside were several translucent green butterflies. Up close, one could see faint mechanical textures on their wings.
The crowd exchanged looks of disappointment.
Until one person performed an appraisal— and then a sharp, explosive cry burst from him:
"These were created entirely from inanimate materials—without any extraordinary power involved—yet they are completely new forms of life!"
The entire group exploded into an uproar.
Horamick hastily closed the box and, with a fierce kick, sent a priest who was sneaking up to snatch it sprawling on the ground.
"It's mine! All mine!" he roared furiously.
Clutching the box to his chest, he kicked and grappled wildly with the others swarming toward him.
"You bastards! If you break them, I'll tear out your water pipes and sew them into your exhaust vents!"
No one dared use any beyonder powers— because everyone knew that if those butterflies were damaged, Archbishop really might carry out that threat.
Unfortunately for him, Horamick was a weak, pitiful, and helpless Beyonder on the Savant pathway—his sequence points all invested in intellect.
He was promptly knocked out cold by a priest on the Seer pathway.
In this Church that worshipped machinery and intellect, the Scroll Professor had never before realized how useful that Sequence-8 "Melee Scholar" potion had been.
Roaring, the Scroll Professor tore the box from Horamick's hands.
"No! Don't touch it!"
Pinned to the ground by two Melee Scholars, Horamick struggled and screamed in despair.
"Please! Give them back! I'll do anything!"
The Scroll Professor gave him a merciless glance.
The Seers surrounded him protectively, forming a barrier against the shameless Savants.
He raised the box high.
A new champion was born!
The Seers ripped their shirts apart and flung the fabric into the air.
"Yeah! We're the champions!"
Meanwhile, in a patch of grass nearby, two Sequence-5 Mysticism Magister exchanged looks.
They were members of the Church of Knowledge and Wisdom—undercover agents stationed in Backlund.
A few days earlier, they had been ordered by their superiors to seize an artifact from the Church of Steam and Machinery.
As they quietly prepared their spells, the pinned-down Horamick suddenly turned his head and made eye contact with them.
"Outsiders are trying to steal our treasure!"
He roared, and several gun barrels popped out from somewhere, unleashing a wild burst of gunfire toward the bushes.
The moment his shout rang out, everyone's opinion aligned instantly—forming a unified "Seer-Savant Alliance" against external threats.
Inside the carriage, Bornova and Screwellum sat silently facing each other.
Neither spoke.
Boronova didn't know what to say; Screwellum assumed that remaining silent in a carriage might be this planet's custom.
Streams of data flickered before Screwellum's eyes as the world around him was rapidly analyzed.
Finally, his attention returned to Bonoir—
to that gentle, calm smile,and those placid, lifeless eyes,as still as dead water.
Author's Note:
Hehehe… Screwellum's leg rings… slurp slurp…
Someone in the comments said that geniuses can't beat true gods… Well… how should I put this?
Take Chadwick, the 79th seat of the Genius Society—his invention, the Imaginary Collapse Pulse, destroyed twenty-four planets in a single test shot.
Just saying.
To make it clear: the inventions of the Honkai: Star Rail geniuses are far beyond what the True Gods of Lord of the Mysteries could create.
Also, to shut down that one take—"The Fool can solo The Herta if he hides in the Historical Void, since the Herta can't hit him there."
Please. The so-called Historical Void? One endlessly babbling parchment could easily deal with that.
When two sides are on comparable levels and time is sufficient, no individual's power can rival the advance of technology.
Sadly, on the LotM side, their god of technology and machinery… is another story entirely.
(End of Chapter)