An Open Conspiracy

Faced with the "Angel's" embrace, Colin Iliad was not surprised. He calmly accepted it all, as if he had long been prepared for such a turn of events.

The ceremony began. He stepped forward, took the "Silver Knight" potion, and poured it into his mouth.

Silently, the body of this "Monster Hunter" swelled up, transforming into a several-meter-tall giant with a grayish-blue base, tangled bluish-black veins, and a deep black crack on his forehead.

Every inch of this giant contained an indescribable mystery and vast, terrifying power. Apart from his head, which still retained a human form, the rest of him was close to a mythological creature, emitting a strange spiritual influence.

The next second, Colin Iliad's head seemed to cave in, softening and writhing slowly around the deep black crack at its core, as if it were forming a nebula vortex.

This agony was unbearable even for the Chief of the City of Silver, a "Monster Hunter" who had slain countless powerful creatures. He let out howls that made the heads of ordinary beings feel like they were splitting, plunging their minds into utter chaos.

If Colin Iliad hadn't already evacuated the personnel from the circular tower, leaving only the demigod-level Waite Hillmon to guard against accidents, there would surely have been quite a few Beyonders directly losing control.

Under the pull of an invisible force, the remains of six powerful creatures positioned at different points of the ritual floated up, revolving around the transforming Colin Iliad. Through some mysterious connection, they awakened parts of this top-tier "Monster Hunter's" memories.

It was the experience of hunting a "Devil." It was the attack that personally ended the pain of the previous Chief. It was a life of triumphing over powerful monsters time and time again.

Manifesting within the altar like a series of paintings, they would sometimes merge into Colin Iliad and sometimes pull away, helping him anchor himself, maintaining a degree of clarity amidst the extreme pain and transformation.

Only at this moment did Colin Iliad understand the essence of this ceremony. As a Sequence 4 "Monster Hunter," every hunt of a powerful creature was a baptismal battle imbued with intense spirit, leaving deep imprints on his life.

It was with the help of the imprints left by these intense spirits that he could locate himself after consuming the potion and not lose himself in the pain and madness.

This reminded Colin Iliad of a name recorded in certain ancient texts of the City of Silver: "Anchors"!

Upon reaching Sequence 3, one was already a deity in a certain sense, able to respond to prayers within a certain range, and thus required anchors.

Because it wasn't yet the Angel level, the anchors didn't necessarily have to be believers. Other things could substitute, such as the vivid, mystically significant imprints in one's life.

In the awakened memories, Colin Iliad gradually retrieved his self-perception, felt his body again, and grasped its changes.

Next, overlapping wings made of illusory light grew from his back. They combined with the surrounding "paintings" and continuously contracted inward, collapsing into a suit of silver armor on Colin Iliad's body—sturdy, gorgeous, yet weightless.

—After a "Monster Hunter" advances to "Silver Knight," there are slight differences depending on the god that bestowed the blessing. The previous leader of the "King's Court Hunters," the "Light-Slayer" Milgrund, had received a blessing from the Giant King, so his Silver Knight domain abilities were all slightly stronger.

Colin Iliad, on the other hand, could occasionally cause the "Silver White Rapier" he condensed, which could "teleport," to exhibit random, biased, and unpredictable changes during attacks.

Besides this, he could also gain a certain peculiarity when entering his "Quicksilver" state.

As the silver armor took its final form, Colin Iliad completed his advancement. Apart from the lack of a vertical single eye on his head, he was already equivalent to a mythological creature.

At this moment, he raised his right hand and swung it to the side. At a small hill outside the City of Silver, a sharp silver radiance erupted from thin air, tearing apart everything around it and splitting the hill in two.

............

While Colin Iliad was advancing to "Silver Knight," Derrick Berg completed his ritual of praying for a bestowment and received a small metal tube.

Seizing the chance of the City of Silver Chief's anomaly drawing most of the attention, Klein, within the ancient palace above the Gray Fog, suddenly reached out and summoned a bullet and the "Death Knell" revolver from the Historical Void.

Immediately after, having divined in advance and confirmed that there were no Amon parasites in the large area around the little "Sun," he unhesitatingly opened the cylinder and loaded the "Deceit Bullet" into it.

*Smack!* Klein's right hand flicked, closing the cylinder. Then, using the mystical connection, he aimed from afar at his original place of death.

*Bang!* He calmly pulled the trigger, firing that single bullet.

At the same time, using this Beyonder power, purely through his own will, he pried into the power of the "Sefirah Castle."

The expanse of gray fog boiled again, and this space also came to a boil. A vast, slightly somber power surged out like a tide, enveloping that bullet, piercing through the intervals, and shooting into the real world.

The light within the "Sefirah Castle" suddenly dimmed. Klein suppressed his fear and terror, held the historical projection of the "Death Knell" revolver, simulated the sensation of a weightless freefall dive, and "leaped" towards the deep crimson star representing the "Sun," leaping towards that small tube of his own blood.

On the desolate wilderness of Chernobyl, the Amons in their pointed soft hats all raised their heads simultaneously, looking up at the lightning streaking across the high sky, looking at a patch of profound darkness that not even the lightning could illuminate.

The Amons pushed up their monocles simultaneously. They were silent for a moment before laughing wryly. "He doesn't seem like the kind of person who could come up with a method like this..."