Chapter 1200: The Ominous Casket

Both The Hermit Cattleya and Justice Audrey had made contingency plans for the case where Butis's Grade 0 sealed artefact returned to normal. After all, they weren't confident they could kill a demigod in such a short time.

If Butis hadn't fallen into the trap, suffering 'Spirit Plague', 'Sleeping Beauty', 'Mania', and a fatal blow, leaving him in a deranged state, he would have had many opportunities to Teleport away without being stopped.

As such, Cattleya and Audrey could only wait for Butis to return to the 'safe house', release Fors, wait for feedback from her 'Eye of Secret Observation', and then remotely influence the situation, creating an opportunity for Miss 'Magician' to summon an image from the Historical Void.

At this moment, facing Butis, who was clearly in an irreversible state of losing control, and his mad attempt to fully open that Grade 0 sealed artefact, Cattleya in the center of the field and Audrey hiding outside the grove simultaneously made a similar move. They each took out a faintly translucent, dark charm and spoke a single word in the Giant language: **'Star'!** This was the 'Teleportation' charm, a charm Klein had made himself based on the 'recorded' patterns, symbols, and runes in the 'Riemannano's Travel Notes'.

Since the Sefirah Castle can channel the power of the Marauder Pathway, there's no reason it can't respond to a prayer from the Apprentice domain!

As for the materials needed for the charm, both the 'Mystic' Cattleya and the 'Traveler' Fors understood them well enough, no instruction from Mr. Fool was required.

Just as Audrey and the others were about to activate the charm and Teleport away, planning to return in a minute or two to check the situation, Butis, with a cruel smile and madness in his eyes, suddenly froze.

No matter how hard he tried, he couldn't open the third layer of the 'Casket of the Ancient'!

It was extremely heavy, as if wrapped and suppressed by layer after layer of power, making it impossible to open.

It was as if Butis was trying to open a new world, not a box.

An instant later, he seemed to sense something. The madness in his eyes faded, replaced by extreme surprise, extreme horror, and extreme fear.

Drip, drip. One by one, orbs of light slid off Butis's body. Touching the ground, they transformed into insects woven from brilliant starlight.

These insects curled their bodies into semicircles, enclosing a wondrous glow that looked like illusory doors.

Butis, who was transforming into an incomplete mythical creature form, suddenly and uncontrollably collapsed and disintegrated.

With two thuds, his eyeballs fell to the ground, stained with dust.

These eyeballs were frozen with an indescribable terror, remaining intact, unlike the rest of his body.

A Sequence 4 'Secret Mage' died like that.

Thud! The 'Casket of the Ancient', silver-black on the surface and inlaid with many jewels, crashed to the ground beside Butis's eyeballs, looking like a common jewelry box from a noble household.

Above the Gray Fog, inside the ancient palace, Klein breathed a sigh of relief. Filled with doubt, he lowered the 'Scepter of the Sea God' in his hand.

He had been about to mobilize the power of the Sefirah Castle, pushing 'Lightning Storm' at the level of an Angel to prevent Butis from opening the third layer of the 'Casket of the Ancient'. However, the 'Saint of Secrets' counterattack, which was meant to drag everyone into death, had failed before it even began, meeting unexpected defeat from the start.

After leaving the first battlefield, The Hierophant Xio immediately prayed to Mr. Fool according to the plan. Alerted by this, Klein found an opportunity to enter the space above the Gray Fog and monitor the battle through the crimson stars corresponding to The Hermit and Justice.

During the transfer to the second battlefield, Justice Audrey also seized an opportunity to pray, allowing Klein to directly interfere with the real world through her crimson star.

This was the reason why Audrey's main body arrived at the destination a little later than The Hermit Cattleya.

'According to what the Magic Mirror, Arrodes, said, the third layer of this Casket of the Ancient holds something very terrifying. I thought the True Creator gave it to Butis to create a terrible disaster at a critical moment, showing his nature as an evil god, but it turns out it can't even be opened...' Klein glanced at the crimson star representing The Magician and found it covered in a layer of black ash, seemingly frozen, making it impossible for him to see the scene inside and confirm Miss Magician's state.

This was the first time he had encountered a similar situation, showing the level and strangeness of the Casket of the Ancient.

The magic of 'Sleeping Beauty' and the 'Spear of Longinus' he had seen before also gave him some ideas. After learning about the Beyonder power 'Mysterious Reappearance' in the private gathering, Klein overthrew his previous guesses about Bernadette's fairy tale magic.

He had originally thought that the Emperor had created those spells for his daughter based on Earth's fairy tales, or that Bernadette had deliberately created them following the fairy tales he told her after her father's fall, to express her grief. Now, it seems the answer is different. Some fairy tales before the First Epoch might actually have been 'Mysteries'.

This meant that those fairy tales originated from real mysterious incidents that happened. They circulated among the people, gradually becoming stories, and were recorded and reworked by writers.