West Borough, Carlpensa Hotel.
Fors helped Lawrence into his room and laid him down on the bed.
It was a rather luxurious hotel, with thick, soft, grayish-yellow carpets everywhere except the washroom. On the walls hung imitations of famous oil paintings.
Lawrence gasped for air and said, "Thank you, Miss Wall, and please forgive a dying man for not being able to bow."
"No, Mr. Lawrence, your problem has eased. As a former medical doctor, I can tell you without a doubt that you can still live. After some rest, we'll go to a clinic or a hospital," Fors consoled him.
Lawrence smiled. "I know my physical condition very well. You don't have to comfort me. Besides, I'm an amateur astrologer. I already had a premonition that I'm going to die in this hotel in Backlund."
Aside from some superficial concealment, everything he said was the truth. He was already close to eighty, and he was no longer that robust and spirited young man from before. If not for the Sequence potions that elevated his constitution, he might have already been buried in some random cemetery.
Originally, Lawrence thought he could live for another ten years, but who would have thought that he would encounter a rebellion caused by the former Traveler Botis. He suffered relatively serious injuries at the hands of the Aurora Order, and his remaining descendants all died in that disaster.
This dealt him a great blow, and he almost didn't manage to recover from it. The search for his brothers and their descendants in Backlund had only resulted in him receiving news of their deaths, dealing him a significant blow to his mental wellbeing once more.
Compounded by all these things, Lawrence clearly felt that his life had come to an end.
His initial plan was to return to the graves of Laubero and Aulisa again and present a bouquet of flowers. He would then return immediately and meet with the other members of the Elder Council to set things in order before his death, but being an elderly man, his condition was beyond his control.
Without waiting for a response from Fors, Lawrence struggled to retrieve a palm-sized notebook from the inside pocket of his half-open coat.
The hard paper cover of the notebook was bronze green, giving off a very ancient feeling.
On its surface, the words: "I came, I saw, I record" was written in ancient Feysac.
Lawrence placed the notebook on the quilt in front of his chest and took a deep breath.
"Miss. Wall, if I die here, can you help me send it to Pritz Harbor?"
"Mr. Lawrence, you'll be fine," Fors emphasized.
At the same time, she subconsciously glanced at the notebook and found that it wasn't thick at all. There were a total of three types of papers inside, one of which was a yellow type of parchment which had very few pages. The other was yellowish-brown goatskin and the number of pages was in the middle of the range. The last was comprised of ordinary white paper and was the most common.
Lawrence laughingly said with great difficulty, "I mean, Miss. Wall, will you help?"
"Pritz Harbor isn't far. It's not even a trip. If it needs to be rushed, then I can even make the round trip in half a day by taking the steam locomotive." Fors nodded.
Lawrence breathed a sigh of relief as his mind seemed to recover a little.
"After I die, wait ten minutes. Retrieve the glowing object from my body, and then send it along with this notebook to Dorian Gray at the Pritz Harbor's Fishermen Association. The forty-two pounds in cash in my wallet will be the reward and my gratitude. As for these clothes of mine, let it turn to ash along with me."
"No, you don't need to give me anything. No, you'll be fine, Mr. Lawrence," Fors said earnestly.
As if he hadn't heard her, Lawrence whispered to himself, "Maybe Dorian will give you additional rewards, but it depends on you... I believe you. From Aulisa's matter, I can tell that you're a good girl..."
He suddenly seemed to turn lucid as he said to Fors, "Ms. Wall, can you go down to the first floor and bring me a jug of water? I don't know when the waiter will come over."
"No problem." Without thinking, Fors took a water jug and walked out of the room.
After walking a few steps, she suddenly felt that something was amiss. The water jug in her hand was heavy, and there was obviously a lot of water in it.
Just as she was about to turn around and ask, she suddenly sensed a strong fluctuation of spirituality in the room.
That was... For a moment Fors froze, and then she understood what Mr. Lawrence was trying to do.
As death approached, he could clearly sense that something was wrong with his body. He was afraid of losing control and turning into a monster.
He wanted to die as a human, not a monster, so he chose to end his own life.
That was the last form of decency for a Beyonder.
Of course, if he had turned into a monster, all his plans would have come to naught.
With this in mind, Fors became dejected. She waited outside for nearly ten minutes before she pushed open the door and entered.
She saw Lawrence lying silently on the bed, looking like he had aged considerably. Beside him was a "diamond" the size of an eye.
The light which shone in through the window was constantly refracted by the "diamond," forming a scene as beautiful as the radiance of the stars.
Fors sighed and performed a careful examination. She found that the cause of Lawrence's death was the most ordinary form of cardiac arrest.
...
Cherwood Borough. 15 Minsk Street.
Klein rested for a while after getting home. He then went above the gray fog, having plans to divine the situation with Will Auceptin.
He had the paper crane fly out of the trash pile in the corner and made it land on the long bronze table in front of him. Then, he took out the topaz pendant that was wrapped around his sleeve.
As he held the spirit pendulum in his left hand, Klein used Cogitation to adjust his condition before recalling the scenes he had seen in the woods outside the cemetery.
He might not have noticed some of the details, but it was certain that his spirituality wouldn't miss any. This divination was mainly about using this point and relying on the gray fog to eliminate all distractions.
After finishing his preparations, Klein took out a goatskin parchment and wrote the divination statement: "Will Auceptin is completely dead."
Then, he pressed the paper crane next to the divination sentence, almost causing the topaz pendant to touch the words.
After entering a state of Cogitation and completing all the steps of the spirit dowsing, Klein opened his eyes and looked at the result.
The topaz pendant was rotating counterclockwise at a fast frequency and high amplitude.
It was a negative result.
That meant that Will Auceptin wasn't completely dead!
This... Klein was surprised, but it seemed to be within his expectations.
He thought for a moment, then he changed the divination statement: "That corpse was Will Auceptin's."
This time, the spirit pendulum gave a positive result.
The body did belong to Will Auceptin!
An idea came to Klein's mind, and he wrote a new divination statement: "Will Auceptin's corpse will resurrect."
After a few moments of calmly performing the divination, Klein saw the revelation.
The pendulum was rotating counterclockwise with a fast frequency.
That meant that Will Auceptin's corpse wouldn't be resurrected; or in other words, no reanimations!
It looks like Will Auceptin had voluntarily or was forced to abandon his previous body, and he is surviving in another way... This matter has something to do with the Snake of Mercury? Klein tried to divine additional information, but he failed repeatedly, including the statement: "Will Auceptin's present state."
However, he repeated the divination using dream divination and inquired "Will Auceptin's current location." He received a similar scene: a dark room with the sound of running water.
However, the feeling it gave him seemed to be a little different.
Forget it, there's no need to waste any more time on this. I'm not planning to get involved anyway... Klein put away his spirit pendulum and prepared to return to the real world.
Through the prior divination and everything that had happened before, he had a theory about Will Auceptin, but he couldn't confirm it.
He suspected that Will Auceptin was another Snake of Mercury!
As a Sequence 1, a Snake of Mercury wasn't the only one. There could be up to three in existence at the same time!
The Snake of Fate, who wielded destiny naturally, could locate Aaron's Astral Projection through the paper crane and show him a false revelation. Without a doubt, it also had the ability to change a person's fate.
For some reason, Will Auceptin had become weak and was under the threat of the second Snake of Mercury. Everything he did was to escape his counterpart.
As for the reason for their conflict, the answer was simple.
Without a Sequence 0, there could be three Sequence 1s at the same time, but once there was a Sequence 0, there would be no Sequence 1s!
Regarding this sentence, the formula of the Dark Emperor potion clearly stated the truth.
One of the main ingredients of the recipe was: two Beyonder characteristics of a Prince of Disorder!
Prince of Disorder was Sequence 1 of the Dark Emperor pathway!
As a Sequence 1, if one wanted to advance to Sequence 0, then one had to obtain all the Beyonder characteristics of the other two Sequence 1s of the same pathway!
With this guess in mind, Klein was increasingly afraid of getting involved with Will Auceptin's case.
If my deduction is correct, it would be a genuine "fight between deities," and I can't afford to get myself involved... Klein's spirituality descended, and he disappeared from the ancient palace above the gray fog.
...
In Empress Borough, in an inconspicuous house, the Beyonder gathering organized by Mr. A proceeded as scheduled.
Fors and Xio had changed their clothes, and they accompanied Viscount Glaint, who was wearing an iron-black mask, into the hall. They randomly chose a seat and sat down.
Viscount Glaint wrote down his needs to the attendants before the gathering officially began. He also prayed to the goddess that there would be a response later.
As usual, Fors maintained her usual languidness and, in a rare instance, covered herself with a hood, concealing her face with the shadows.
She was thinking about the situation with Mr. Lawrence.
She knew very clearly what that "diamond" the size of an eye was. It was a Beyonder characteristic left behind by him. However, for the time being, she was unable to confirm what Sequence it belonged to.
Fors had casually flipped through the notebook, only to find that many of the pages were still blank. The written content was filled with all sorts of strange, odd, and mysterious symbols and magic labels, exceeding whatever she knew.
What it is isn't important. What's important is that I keep my promise... Fors warned herself.
At this moment, Mr. A, who was seated on a single sofa and was wearing an exaggerated hood, said hoarsely, "I have a mission.
"Help me find people who believe in the so-called ‘Fool.'"
Ah? Fors instantly snapped back to her senses.
