As a Beyonder who, under the identity of a member of the
In certain past scenes, at every advancement of his Sequence, he would hear the whispered murmuring of "Honnachis… Fregla… Honnachis… Fregla…" and on several occasions had nearly lost himself by reason of it.
What was different from past times, however, was that the content of the whispers seemed to have changed on this occasion.
Once the murmuring had subsided and what he saw before him returned to normal, Antoine knitted his brows slightly and said to himself, soundlessly:
"My mental state has been stable of late; I have not consumed any potion or attempted advancement — why should I hear the whispers of hidden Existences?
"There seems to be some difference compared with the previous ones…
"What does 'Oville' stand for? I lack sufficient information; I cannot decipher it at all…
"Dilan, Dilan — yes; the senior members of our Order have spoken of it: that mysterious and dread leader of ours once hid away an ancient fortress called Dilan…
"Sss, the moment I recall that Existence, I cannot help shuddering. Though He has returned to normal these past two years, the terrible tales and the actual destruction He left behind are enough to be a lifetime's nightmare…"
Antoine calmed his spirits, suppressed his doubts for the time being, and continued giving instructions to his subordinates.
…………
Before a tombstone, Klein, having just laid down a white bouquet, slightly tilted his head as if listening to something.
Though he heard nothing, yet, as the King of the Angels who already wielded part of the authorities of his pathway, he could keenly sense that something out of the ordinary was happening, that some hidden message was being conveyed to certain specific objects.
"So Tsalatu has not yet truly died?" Klein withdrew his gaze and murmured softly.
At that time, relying on tier, divine standing and authorities, he had forcibly halted Tsalatu's resurrection and had not perceived any irregularity. But when he later examined himself, he did discover a slight problem:
What he had drawn from Tsalatu's true body was a single, complete set of extraordinary characteristics from Sequence 9 to Sequence 1.
That is to say: there was only one share of "Miracle Worker" characteristic among them.
Yet the "Serpent of Fate"
And so, the actual situation made it indubitably clear: there had been a share of "Miracle Worker" characteristic missing from Tsalatu's person — and as to whether other extra characteristics, of "Ancient Scholar" or "Trickster" or the like, were lacking too, Klein, for want of sufficient knowledge of Tsalatu, had no way to guess.
On the basis of this state of things, Klein had long suspected that Tsalatu was not truly dead.
Of course, for the other to come back to life, things could surely not be so simple — for too simple a method would inevitably be too plainly seen, would inevitably be discovered by the highest of the pathway and effectively forestalled.
— When Tsalatu was able to separate out a Sequence-2 extraordinary characteristic, He was, beyond doubt, already a Sequence-1 "Mystery Pryer"; the enemies He had to face who could restrain Him were not many, but each was of a kind that had to be approached with the utmost circumspection.
For these reasons, Klein judged that He must have been doing something with that severed portion of characteristics — not directly to resurrect Himself, but, in a roundabout way, to lay multiple arrangements that required a juncture or some medium to set them to work.
"It would seem that He has, in a particular way, hidden that portion of characteristics — including the 'Miracle Worker' share — somewhere, and laid multiple coverings over it; else, when I advanced to 'Mystery Pryer,' I should have been able, through the 'Origin Fortress,' to see it directly…
"Mm; after that, He must have set aside some hidden way to guide certain objects to resurrect Him; heh — He has never accommodated a uniqueness, so He cannot do an 'all-channels broadcast,' and He must also be wary of the post-advancement me, or
He then let out a breath and complained, not in the least hiding it:
"Why are the high-Sequence members of the 'Seer' pathway so hard to kill once and for all?"
There are always preparations of every sort, every kind of trump card.
This truly made him understand why the Goddess had not directly disposed of that ancestor of the Antigonus family:
For a half-"Fool," death might very well mean new life!
"Still, finely-wrought hidden arrangements often mean a poorer ability to bear risk; perhaps Tsalatu's resurrection scheme will end up being a gift to some lucky one in the Secret Order — that is even more likely than His own miraculous return out of the mists of history; and there is also a chance of being interfered with, influenced and used by Outer
For the moment he had no intention of pursuing that 'Miracle Worker' characteristic; under the huge pressure brought on by Amon's 'mistake,' he had to seize what time he could to strengthen his humanity, stabilise his mental state, and journey to the depths of the spirit-world city Calderón to fetch the water of the 'River of
Once he had successfully ascended and the situation had regained its balance, he would not mind going to Intis and, starting with the Secret Order members, to uncover the 'treasure-vault' that Tsalatu had hidden away, so that this angel left over from the Fourth Era should sleep at last in peace.
Reining in his thoughts, he gazed for a while at the tombstone before him, then stepped slowly back, hands in pockets, and turning his body sideways, walked into the Spirit World.
For this stretch of time, he had been like a traveller in the mystical sense — at times going back to places he had once been, at times, under the guidance of fate, freely roaming the Spirit World, passing into different realities, witnessing different scenes.
His own portion of self-cognition and self-consciousness was thereby slowly recovering and being little by little strengthened; at present he could better cooperate with the anchor and, to a certain extent, suppress the will of the 'Honoured Celestial' as it strove, in part, to revive.
This made the stability of his mental state much stronger than when he had met the 'Goddess of the Night.'
In the Spirit World, where rich blocks of colour layered one on another like so many abstract oil paintings, Klein walked a few aimless steps, with no distinction of up, down, left, right, before or behind.
Then, following the guidance of fate and the spirit, he left this place and returned to the real world.
What first surfaced before his eyes was a not very large plaza and a church belonging to the 'Goddess of the Night.'
At that very moment, many people were entering the church, their faces glad.
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