In the Nobility District, inside Viscount Klein's study. Viscount Klein was bound to a high-backed chair, his neatly kept black hair in disarray, his deep green eyes fixed unblinkingly on the man wearing a comical clown mask before him. The Clown, who was intimately familiar with the magician known as "Sage," had used his fifth-rank strength to subdue Viscount Klein with ease in a surprise assault.
"So you're the Clown Her Highness spoke of? Truly insane—how dare you attack me!" Viscount Klein, Administrator of the Altor City Hall, bellowed with a mixture of fury and a trace of panic.
The Clown threw his head back and laughed. "My lord Viscount, don't tell me the magic you just used was triggered by an item. What's wrong with me arresting an evil magician in accordance with the provisions of the Holy Scripture? Or perhaps you'd prefer I call you 'Mr. Sage'?"
Viscount Klein's feigned anger crumbled. Stunned, he stammered, "How did you—" He caught himself halfway, suddenly afraid the Clown was trying to trick him into revealing information.
"My lord Viscount, we've long since uncovered your situation, but we never arrested you. The main reason was to see whether you would repent—after all, you are a noble of considerable standing. Unfortunately, you didn't. However, this is your last chance. Simply tell me the Professor's whereabouts, and you'll be allowed to keep both your noble title and your position as Administrator. You'll only need to secretly join the Night Watch." The Clown glanced out the window, worried the "real" Night Watch agents might arrive at any moment.
Understanding dawned on Viscount Klein, and he sneered. "So this is about capturing the Professor. Having ties with someone on the Purification Sequence is indeed dangerous. But I don't trust you—you've been expelled from the Night Watch and are a dangerous fugitive. I'll wait for the actual Night Watch to arrive."
His reaction was exactly as the Clown had predicted. No底线 for keeping secrets, no resolve—just like most nobles: arrogant yet slippery, willing to even collaborate with devils if the price was right! So after learning his identity had been exposed and that he was captured, he would be far more calculating than other magicians. And his current mockery was clearly an attempt to negotiate better terms!
The Clown's exaggerated grinning face leaned close to Viscount Klein's. He clicked his tongue. "Not a bad idea, but you've run into me, and I'm in a hurry. I'm worried that any delay might alert the Professor, so I'll have to impose on you, my lord Viscount Klein."
Just as Klein's expression twisted in alarm, the Clown's ten fingers began to twitch and curl, making Klein's muscles spasm in response. His eyes, mouth, and other features opened and closed at the Clown's command. Gradually, "Sage" Klein's gaze grew glazed and unfocused—as though not only his body but also his mind and soul had fallen under control.
Compared to the other knight-class Night Watch agents, the Clown could extract truthful intelligence without even resorting to Divine Arts.
"What is your code name? Are you a formal magician? What school?" The Clown began with simple questions to calibrate the effect.
Klein's eyes cleared from their haze, returning to what seemed like normal. Yet he smiled in a way that was entirely out of character and replied, "Reporting to Lord Clown: I am a formal magician. My code name is Sage, and I specialize in the school of Stars. Because I could not activate my bloodline power, had no potion recipe, and my standing at the time was insufficient to receive a grant from the Duke, I found some books that our ancestors had secretly collected after killing a magician, and began studying them, attempting to recreate the potion recipe for activating bloodline power. I discovered I had a particular aptitude for the school of Stars, and so I sank ever deeper."
Having confirmed the effect, the Clown did not bother asking further about Klein's personal matters. He went straight to the point. "How did you encounter the Professor this time? And how do you contact him?"
"Reporting to Lord Clown: after returning on the night of the concert, the Professor sought me out. He used the fourth-circle spell 'Mirror Image' to speak with me over a distance, demanding that I attend the next magical circle gathering so he could relay news from the Magic Parliament headquarters." Klein answered without concealment. "After I agreed, we met once in private—at an unoccupied villa with a garden at 116 Gisu District. The contact signal was... but I don't know his true hiding place. The meeting location was decided by him in advance."
"So it really is the cautious, cunning Professor. Could I use the contact signal to set a trap? But he'd easily see through something like that—he's the type who thrives on scheming." The Clown muttered to himself, not believing his own intellect could rival the Professor's. Suddenly, a spark flashed through his mind. "116 Gisu District? Isn't that where Lucian Evans used to live? The neighborhood is remote, the place still hasn't been rented out, and there's only an old servant watching over it—perfect for hiding! Given the Professor's secret connection to Lucian Evans, he could very well be hiding right there!"
The Clown felt his blood boiling, his entire body trembling with excitement, because he had very likely discovered the Professor's hiding place. If he hadn't thoroughly investigated Lucian Evans, scrutinizing every last detail, no one would have thought of it. But having been burned by the Professor's schemes before, he forced himself to stay calm and analyze whether there might be traps or conspiracies: "Lucian Evans is recovering in his villa in the Nobility District. Natasha is reportedly handling ducal affairs today and hasn't left Ratasha Palace. If either of them suddenly appeared at 116 Gisu District, anyone with eyes would see it as a trap targeting me and the Night Watch—after all, I never infiltrated Lucian Evans's home, and they have no reason to be there in the middle of the night."
"Setting me up to fight another powerful expert? Impossible. This is inside Altor, not the Melzer Black Forest. A clash at my level would immediately draw the attention of high-level experts, and afterward Juliana and the others would arrive with a Night Watch squad and the Tribunal's liaison." The Clown knew the ideal course was to wait for Juliana and the rest, but the fire in his heart burned fiercely. The grief and rage of being wrongly accused and sentenced to death, the fury of watching his comrades die—all of it drove him to want to capture the Professor with his own hands. And he had a certain confidence in his own strength, after all, he had had direct contact with the Professor and possessed firsthand intelligence, unlike those who judged the Professor's terrifying power solely from the Purification Sequence.
After careful analysis, and seeing that Juliana and the others still hadn't arrived—worried that his handling of Viscount Klein might alert the Professor—the Clown quickly made his decision. "I'll go there first and conduct a careful reconnaissance, advancing step by step." He would check whether any concealed, ambush-type magic circles had been set up. If he found the Professor, he would engage him, trigger the Divine Arts grand array of Altor, and draw the attention of the high-level experts. If he didn't find anything, or if the villa seemed too eerie, he would hide and hand it over to the main Night Watch force.
Using his puppet abilities to seal Viscount Klein's spiritual mark, the Clown then took paper and pen from the desk and wrote down everything he had learned—this was to prevent the Night Watch agents arriving later from wasting time interrogating Klein. They would only need to confirm what he had written against Klein's mouth.
Having done all this, the Clown left the Nobility District and rushed to 116 Gisu District.
The entire garden villa was shrouded in dark shadows, like a lurking beast—a deeply unsettling sight. The Clown inspected the villa's surroundings carefully and meticulously, finding no trace of any magic circle deployed. His confidence gradually grew, and he slipped inside, leaving afterimages in his wake. But along the way, he never stopped checking his surroundings, preferring to move slowly rather than step into the Professor's trap.
The villa was empty. After knocking the old servant guarding the place into a deep sleep, the Clown concealed himself in the darkness, cautiously searching through the rooms one by one, hoping to find some clue. The basement and first floor were quickly cleared, and the Clown proceeded even more carefully to the second floor.
…………
Back at Viscount Klein's residence. Vardo, the "Acting Agent" of the Vorlite Tribunal, led a small squad of Night Watch agents to the second floor in complete silence, attempting to locate and secure Viscount Klein. They had not made a public arrest, fearing that the nobles living in the surrounding villas would notice and that word would leak, allowing the Professor to escape.
The moment he set foot on the second floor, Vardo's nostrils—his thick brown beard covering nearly his entire face—flared slightly. Then he spoke in a grave tone: "I smell blood. I sense the aura of death."
"What? Lord Vardo—is something wrong with Viscount Klein, or did he kill a witness and flee?" Juliana feared that the Clown had lost control of the dark bloodline's madness.
Vardo was a tall man. In two or three strides he reached the study door, and said solemnly, "Only one dead person. And it's the blood of the Moshin clan." The Moshin clan was the family to which Viscount Klein belonged. As he spoke, he pushed open the door, and a thick stench of blood surged out at them.
Juliana and the others peered warily into the room, and every one of them frowned. Even the Night Watch, long accustomed to killing and death, instinctively recoiled from what looked like a slaughterhouse dissection scene. The entire room was a carnage of blood and flesh—tiny scraps of meat and droplets of blood scattered everywhere, not a single intact bone or piece of skin to be found. The sight was brutal, bloody, and unnervingly grotesque.
"This kind of killing scene looks awfully familiar..." one of the Night Watch murmured.
Most of them remembered at once: those torn apart by the Clown's Marionette Strings ended up looking basically like this.
"Impossible. The Captain wouldn't have killed Viscount Klein." Juliana murmured, her face pale.
But Vardo ignored the filth and blood covering the room. In a single step he was at the desk, where he picked up the piece of paper held down by an inkwell. He read it carefully, then raised his voice and declared solemnly, "It was left by the Clown. He confirmed that Viscount Klein is indeed the Sage, and he suspects the Professor is hiding at 116 Gisu District. This is his handwriting and the Night Watch's internal cipher—no one can forge it."
Even Juliana, who trusted the Clown the most, couldn't help but draw a sharp breath, and she began to believe that the Clown had killed the evil magician after learning the Professor's whereabouts, his blood boiling with excitement. If the Sage's identity had not been Viscount Klein, this wouldn't have been a strange or serious matter for the Night Watch.
"The fact that Viscount Klein was a magician—the Tribunal has conclusive evidence of this. He resisted arrest and was killed. That's justified. We should hurry to 116 Gisu District; the Professor may be plotting something." Vardo, the most sympathetic of the Tribunal's three liaisons toward the Clown, quietly buried the matter.
"Yes, Lord Vardo!" the remaining Night Watch agents replied in unison. An evil magician killed was an evil magician killed!
…………
Meanwhile, the Clown stood guard against both traps and the Professor's possible appearance as he carefully examined the second floor for any traces. But it was genuinely the state of a place that had long been unvisited and poorly maintained. Room after room, just as the Clown was about to lose hope, he suddenly sensed a presence inside the study before him!
A Great Knight's awareness allowed him to clearly perceive a man leaning against the floor-to-ceiling window, apparently savoring the cool night breeze.
"The Professor?!" The Clown was startled. He hadn't expected to find the Professor so easily, so simply! And the man hadn't detected him earlier?
Despite his many doubts, when facing a powerful, evil mid-rank magician, the Clown dared not let his guard down. He immediately shot out his Marionette Strings while darting to the side, accelerating to avoid being locked onto. With the full release of his fifth-rank Great Knight strength, the study door shattered. As a blur of motion, the Clown froze at what he saw—the man by the window was Lucian Evans!
His entire body was bound in a twisted standing position, his handsome face frozen in a stiff, eerie smile. Then, under some unseen force, he toppled sideways and backward, falling toward the floor below like a swan struck by an arrow. The black formal coat wrinkled by the ropes, the stiff and grotesque smile, the scene of his body arching backward as if frozen in time—all of it combined into a grotesque oil painting that was forever branded into the Clown's mind.
The Professor had actually killed Lucian Evans just to frame him? This was something the Clown could never have guessed.
In midair, Lucian Evans burst open like a flower in bloom, blood and flesh scattering in all directions.
(To be continued)