Today's Wynchester was destined to be extraordinarily lively—providing the evening papers and the next morning’s gazettes with an abundance of explosive headlines.

  On a certain street.

  Heisinger of the Bureau of Occult Affairs wore a dark expression. Once matters unfolded in public, many methods had to be used with restraint.

  However, with the Cleaners—and with the royal family’s control over Wynchester’s newspapers—certain actions were still tolerable.

  The cleanup should be left to the professionals!

  Heisinger bared his teeth in a savage grin. The whip in his hand blazed with flame, then suddenly curled inward.

  In the next instant, he sprang up, taking two or three strides across a line of rooftops as he pursued a fleeing glider.

  Amid the astonished cries of the onlookers, a talisman ignited, granting Heisinger a boost in shooting precision.

  Bang!

  He snapped his whip. A mass of orange-red fire shot out like an artillery shell and struck the moving glider dead-on!

  In the raging flames, Lucivar’s figure exploded at once, turning into a burst of Firework—countless scraps of paper and ribbons spraying outward, raining down like a shower of festive petals.

  One speck of colored confetti even landed on Heisinger’s shoulder, turning his expression utterly ugly.

  ……

  In another direction.

  Riding an updraft, a fleeing glider rose—higher and higher—until it became a black dot, leaving the pursuers on the ground only able to stare upward.

  But then, a massive airship pierced through the clouds. It cast a shadow that pressed down upon all beneath it, abruptly swallowing the glider in its coverage.

  On the steel deck, Director Jacob of the Bureau stared down at the target below—like a white moth—and snorted.

  “Fire!”

  The airship’s autocannons opened up, pouring down dazzling flame. Countless bullets formed a curtain of steel, easily shredding the glider that served as the target.

  At the same time, fireworks detonated in abundance—without question, this Lucivar was also a decoy body!

  Queen’s District.

  Two opposing clock towers stood like twins, a famous landmark of the Queen’s District—the Twin Clock Towers!

  A glider wobbled its way to the top of one tower. Lucivar unfastened his safety harness and, without hesitation, discarded the glider. He didn’t spare a glance for the Occult Constabulary closing in below. He leapt straight into the clock tower.

  He pulled out a key and opened a small room at the highest level of the tower.

  Inside was an alchemical bench prepared in advance. Various rare materials were laid out directly on its surface. Among them was also the primary ingredient for a Veil-path Transcendent to advance to the Fourth Sephiroth!

  “The performance continues.”

  Lucivar murmured, then began mixing a potion at speed.

  This was the true core of his escape plan!

  As he activated the advancement ritual he had prepared long ago, his thoughts grew increasingly lively:

  “The Bureau won’t let me go. They’ve mobilized so many people this time, and so many important figures. Heh… never mind a Third Sephiroth—at this scale, even Beyond Mortality-grade beings can’t run!”

  “But among those Beyond Mortality-grade beings… there is no pure Veil Fourth Sephiroth Transcendent!”

  With a confident smile, he poured a bottle of liquid—black as ink, filled with countless writhing shadows—down his throat.

  I’ve gathered enough impact. I’ve built achievements. I’ve fulfilled every requirement!

  Now… I will keep climbing upward!

  The next moment, his body abruptly turned unreal. His face twisted in agony. He bent over, clutching his head and howling.

  In the sunlight streaming through the window, Lucivar’s body could be seen changing violently. His soul and flesh were fusing at a deeper level. From the Ethereal Realm, innumerable strange runes seeped out and branded themselves into every inch of his blood and flesh—driving away radiance, giving birth to shadow.

  And on the floor, his shadow was gradually fading.

  No—this was not fading… it was being absorbed by his body!

  He was becoming a Fourth Sephiroth The Shadowless!

  At the same time, a curtain of pitch-black night had already arrived beneath the Twin Clock Towers.

  In that peaceful, silent darkness, a female figure stepped out slowly—Fiona, the Night Witch. At her side was a plain old man—the Philosopher, Xistos.

  Farther out, numerous Bureau members rushed in to encircle the area and seal the streets.

  “We advance. We will reach the end… this is the first step, and also the last step!”

  “Proof complete!”

  Xistos seized Fiona’s arm and stepped forward. In an instant, the two of them arrived on the clock tower rooftop.

  But it was already too late!

  Through the opening doorway, they saw Lucivar—his transformation complete.

  His shadow had vanished entirely. He had become someone who, even under sunlight, cast no shadow at all—

  A Shadowless One!

  Seeing the two of them, Lucivar did not panic. Instead, he bent and offered a bow.

  As he bowed, his body was already rapidly turning intangible—fully entering the Ethereal Realm!

  “I sealed the Ethereal Realm in this area. Why can he still enter?” Fiona asked in a distorted voice.

  “At low ranks, Veil Transcendents can enter the Ethereal Realm together with their bodies,” Xistos explained. “That maximizes resistance to corruption, but it also has a flaw: both body and spirit are in the Ethereal Realm. They lose the body’s coordinate in the material world and can easily become lost—eventually turning into Ethereal Realm creatures. Of course, many members of the Shadowless Cult pursue exactly that.”

  He continued, “But… once one becomes The Shadowless, things change. The Shadowless are favorites of the Ethereal Realm—like native life-forms there. They can easily sense and locate coordinates in the material world from within the Ethereal Realm, and they do not become lost. Therefore, a Beyond Mortality-grade The Shadowless possesses a core ability known as Ethereal Realm Transposition!”

  “He advanced to Beyond Mortality,” Fiona felt a deep powerlessness and despair. “With Ethereal Realm Transposition, he broke through the Bureau’s Ethereal Realm lockdown… and can appear anywhere. How do you catch someone like that?”

  Inside the Southern Country private room.

  Javon’s spirit had already possessed Oclair, waiting for a long time.

  In his divination today, there was one core factor—

  the most suitable time to hunt magician Lucivar.

  When the wall clock pointed to the time indicated by the divination, William suddenly felt the air turn colder.

  That small pennant floated up into the air, burst into flame, and fell into ash.

  “Lucivar’s location!”

  Javon used his spirit-body to complete the final divination—and at the same time, he directly entered the Ethereal Realm!

  A pure Veil Transcendent’s simplest escape is to bring the body into the Ethereal Realm along with the spirit!

  And to avoid getting lost in the Ethereal Realm… the best choice is to advance to the Fourth Sephiroth!

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Combined with his frenzied crimes before this, the magician should be at the threshold of advancement. After this, he will absolutely be able to advance!

  If I were him, I would most likely choose to advance into Beyond Mortality right under the Bureau’s encirclement… then stroll away openly!

  Following the occult linkage obtained through divination, Javon appeared in the Ethereal Realm—then immediately took another step.

  In the Ethereal Realm, distance held no strict meaning. The next moment, it was as if he had crossed countless spans of space and arrived in a place of dim, dead silence!

  The surroundings resembled an abandoned graveyard. Broken headstones lay in chaotic collapse. Some graves had been dug open, and from within had grown human-shaped forms—pitch-black, gaunt, both hands holding their faces, frozen in various terrified, twisted screaming expressions.

  This should be the “safe” Ethereal Realm site Lucivar selected. It looks horrific, but the danger level is controllable.

  Javon’s intuition spread rapidly. Amid countless black human figures, he found the hidden target.

  —The Shadowless Lucivar!

  At this moment, the magician was half-kneeling on the ground, clutching his head. His face was savage, his muscles twitching unnaturally, his expression filled with pain.

  He had just advanced into Beyond Mortality. The corruption he had accumulated exploded all at once. What’s more… right after advancing, to evade the authorities, he had repeatedly forced the use of The Shadowless’s core ability.

  Now that he had reached his predetermined safe location, he stopped suppressing it. All side effects erupted in that instant. He was at the strongest point of his life—and also the most vulnerable!

  Lucivar knew that now he had to gamble everything. Either he stabilized the Fourth Sephiroth… or he lost control completely, was assimilated by the Ethereal Realm, and became an Ethereal Realm monster known as a Shadefiend!

  At that moment, Javon arrived—following the divination!

  Oclair’s form materialized behind Lucivar. Without giving him any time to react, he immediately used Malevolent Spirit possession.

  There was only one chance. He could not allow Lucivar any time to respond. Otherwise, catching a Veil-path Transcendent again would become extraordinarily difficult.

  Now that the possession succeeded, even if the magician tried to Transpose again, it would be useless—because Javon had already bound himself to him.

  Lucivar felt the temperature plunge. An extra consciousness abruptly appeared inside his body.

  “Who?!”

  As if sensing something, he roared. His body turned half-transparent at once. Countless shadows wriggled within, forming chains that lashed toward a Malevolent Spirit figure overlapping him—dressed in noble formalwear!

  The two Transcendents’ Essence made contact, suppressing each other, struggling for control of the body.

  “You… aren’t… an Ethereal Realm creature. You’re… a Transcendent!”

  Lucivar, still resisting corruption, managed to force out a complete sentence.

  One of his hands struggled into a snap. Like a conjurer, he produced a silver card and slashed it toward his own body.

  The surface of the silver metal card was etched with countless complex patterns. Its edge was razor-sharp, as though it could cut even a soul!

  Snap! The next instant, Lucivar’s other hand seized the arm that was attacking him. Javon’s voice came from within him:

  “Stop struggling. You can’t run.”

  Then Lucivar felt the other side suddenly stop blocking him. Off guard, the card skimmed his body, carving a wound in an instant.

  As if mirrored, a matching wound appeared across the surface of the Malevolent Spirit’s body.

  Seeing this, Lucivar accelerated his self-harm, trying to force the Malevolent Spirit to retreat in fear—so he could reclaim control.

  Why isn’t he leaving? My body can’t hold much longer…

  Lucivar threw away the silver card, gripped the ruby-tipped cane, and shouted into the air:

  “You can’t defeat me! You should know this cane—it can erase all transcendent abilities. Even if you’re Beyond Mortality, I can erase the effect of Malevolent Spirit possession and drive you out!”

  “Then why not try it directly?” Javon sneered. “Why talk so much? Afraid I won’t believe you?”

  “Lucivar. Stop acting.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about!” Lucivar’s expression shifted. His grip tightened around the cane, yet he still did not activate anything.

  “If you walked a composite path, you might have fooled me. But I happen to know Veil very well…”

  Javon’s voice came from within Lucivar’s body. “Veil is the symbol of the Ethereal Realm and illusion. So your core ability before this had only one: illusion!”

  “You were never a magician. You’re a swindler! That cane isn’t any arcane artifact—it’s just a prop. You made everyone believe it was an arcane artifact that could erase all transcendent power. The first time, you used illusion to create the effect. After that, as more and more people believed, it gradually gained the ability to erase. The more believers, the stronger it becomes!”

  “So your former occupational ability was this: as long as others believe you possess some ability, you gradually truly obtain it. And the more believers, the stronger that ability becomes. It looks powerful, but it has a fatal flaw: in front of those who don’t believe you, all your abilities fail. You become no different from an ordinary man!”

  Javon’s voice was like an icy blade, piercing deep into Lucivar’s core.

  Lucivar’s face went pale. With a bleak, miserable look, he said, “You even know that… who are you?”

  Javon did not answer.

  He had allowed the performance to be completed and let the man escape only to fatten him up.

  The one who had cost him a bar—how could he let him off easily?

  Now, it was time to close the net.

  With Lucivar’s will broken, the Malevolent Spirit’s control became easier—deeper.

  Javon made Lucivar raise an arm and snap his fingers.

  Snap!

  The air turned inexplicably cold. A layer of white frost spread across the graveyard. Ice formed over Lucivar’s legs and crept upward…

  “Back then, I was a spectator—so I chose not to expose your trick.”

  Javon controlled Lucivar to draw his revolver and press it to his own head.

  “Now, let the greatest magician guess—will the muzzle spit fireworks, or bullets?”

  “You’re… the one in the bar…” Lucivar’s face twisted violently. “Spare—(me)…”

  Bang!

  The gunshot cut off his plea. Lucivar’s head exploded like Firework. His headless body collapsed to the ground.

  Malevolent Spirit Oclair surfaced, silently watching Lucivar’s Essence precipitate—trying to fuse with the cane, forming a powerful arcane artifact.

  Javon reached out and grabbed, tearing that mass of shadow free. He watched it compress and converge in his palm until it became a black twelve-sided die. The pips on its faces kept shifting endlessly.

  “The Veil Beyond Mortality remnant is in hand. Only the last one remains—Tower!”

  Javon exhaled slowly and looked down to check the spoils.

  Then he noticed the Iron Crown.

  Wasn’t it supposed to be the Heart of the Sea necklace? He even has to swindle that. Javon clicked his tongue and reached to pick up the Iron Crown.

  Suddenly, his expression changed. Danger Premonition screamed in alarm!

  A layer of gloom surged up from beneath the ground, becoming a black tide that swallowed Lucivar’s corpse and the Iron Crown.

  Within the black tide, a colossal black tree thick with thorns abruptly rose into view—its trunk bound with a massive crimson humanoid figure!

  “As expected…”

  Feeling the immense Sephiroth pressure that belonged to The Crowned One, Javon sighed. “The magician fled here because someone was waiting to receive him!”

  The force behind the magician… is the Cult of Desire …

  Watching the graveyard and the twisted figures gradually drown beneath the black tide—watching that towering thorn-tree and the blood-red giant within—Javon understood many things in an instant.

  Above, the sky was covered by a layer of liquid like crude oil. This space was sealed. There would be no return to the mortal world.

  The crimson giant had no features. Its blurred face dipped slightly, as if staring down at an ant.

  Javon felt pressure from the Sephiroth itself.

  This leader of the Cult of Desire—the God of Suffering—had clearly opened the Sixth Sephiroth.

  A true The Crowned One!

  He had reached the pinnacle of the mortal world.

  And Javon had opened only three Sephiroth. Even counting Oclair, he was at most comparable to the Fourth Sephiroth.

  The higher the Sephiroth, the greater the gulf between ranks. Such a gap was despair itself.

  When that intent descended, Malevolent Spirit Oclair’s body was pierced by a suddenly sprouting thorn!

  An iron-black thorn-tree formed in an instant. Its branches stabbed through the spirit’s unreal body and hoisted it up.

  A blood-red tide poured down. A lethal curse landed directly upon the Malevolent Spirit.

  Fourth Sephiroth against Sixth—at this moment, the spirit was as fragile as paper, unable to resist. It rotted at once, dying rapidly!

  The items on its body—including Lucivar’s remnant just obtained—fell away.

  Javon, in his state of Spirit of Null Observance, watched the scene unfold.

  After the Malevolent Spirit died, the God of Suffering did not leave. On the ground, the black tide parted, and a decayed black-iron crown rose into the air, suspended upon the thorn-tree.

  His target… is the Iron Crown? So the magician didn’t choose an item at random. The God of Suffering values it more than even a Beyond Mortality remnant?

  For now, preserving the spoils comes first. We can play properly another day.

  When Javon saw the die begin to rise as well, he acted.

  Occult power surged. In the next instant, Oclair—the Malevolent Spirit—reappeared, extending a transparent, unreal right hand to seize the die in midair.

  For that single instant, even the God of Suffering seemed to freeze—like he had witnessed something inconceivable.

  Let’s play properly.

  Oclair beckoned. A dark red talisman that had fallen to the ground flew into his hand.

  It looked as though it had been carved from an entire block of dark red crystal. Inside it, countless three-dimensional mysterious symbols flowed and coiled.

  The blood-red giant dipped his head sharply. From that talisman, he sensed a trace of pressure. That tiny ant could not only resurrect—he could even mobilize Essence worthy of notice!

  “Crimson!”

  Oclair spoke a Spirit Language word and activated the high-tier talisman in his hand.

  Powerful Ethal surged at once, becoming a current that circulated around him in an endless cycle—like an invisible crown.

  This was one of Javon’s prepared trump cards: a high-tier talisman made using the remnant of a clone of the Blood Chalice Archbishop!

  I can’t forge that remnant into an arcane artifact, but I can guide out part of its power and make it into a talisman… it’s just a bit wasteful…

  Javon saw a colossal phantom of a blood-red holy chalice appear. Dark blood poured out of it, breaking through the darkness created by the God of Suffering.

  The Ethereal Realm seal shattered at once!

  Seizing that chance, Malevolent Spirit Oclair vanished without a trace.

  ……

  Above the graveyard, the colossal God of Suffering watched for a long time in silence.

  Only when new fluctuations appeared in the Ethereal Realm—when Bureau members tracked their way in—did he slowly disappear, taking the Iron Crown with him…

  Inside the Southern Country restaurant’s private room.

  William saw Javon’s body shudder. He opened his eyes.

  Delighted, William asked, “Mr. Morley—you’re back?”

  “Yes.” Javon opened his right hand and looked at the shadow die. Though he had expended a high-tier talisman, obtaining it was not a loss.

  “Oh, and the magician is dead.”

  William froze. He followed behind Javon in a daze as they paid and left the restaurant.

  The two stepped outside and saw that the exhibition hall was still in chaos, the onlookers packed thick around it. They hired a carriage and left the scene quietly.

  Inside the carriage, Javon closed his eyes, replaying everything that had happened today.

  Even if they trace the Morley identity, all I did today was take a walk through the exhibition and dine at a nearby restaurant. Many people did the same. The private rooms at Southern Country probably held plenty of nobles who came to watch the show… I won’t stand out.

  I’m not afraid of official screening. What worries me is that “pseudo-god of suffering.” In front of him, I exposed some things. He may guess Oclair’s identity and link it to Javon Yuggs. And that talisman will, one hundred percent, draw the Lotus-Eaters and the Blood Chalice Archbishop.

  Elvander being Javon Yuggs might be discovered. But in truth, Javon Yuggs is also a false identity. I’ll be fine—though I’ll need to write and warn the relevant people to be careful.

  Cult of Desire… that pseudo-god’s ambitions seem vast. His Paths can be basically confirmed as Sanguis and Umbral*. Most likely, he is also a believer of the Ossuary Lord.*