Empress Borough, Royal Manor.
Prince Edessak had originally wanted to linger in bed a while longer with his beloved girl, but a knock on the door disturbed him.
Annoyed, he lifted a corner of the blanket, then glanced at the girl who was still asleep. His expression softened, and his movements became much gentler.
He got out of bed, put on his clothes, and opened the door.
After walking a little farther away, his face instantly darkened, and he barked, "What happened?"
"Clergy from Saint Samuel Cathedral have come. They say they have something to ask Your Highness."
"What are they doing here?"
"They didn't say clearly, only that they specifically asked to see Your Highness."
Edessak went downstairs to the hall and met the clergy from Saint Samuel Cathedral, who were unexpectedly young.
There were three clergy members in total. Two of them were very young, looking only in their early twenties, while the other was slightly older.
After a brief introduction, Edessak learned that the two young clergy members were named Leonard and Klein.
"We're here mainly to ask about a series of coincidences that happened near Prince Edessak some time ago."
"People inevitably encounter some coincidences in life. What's wrong with that?"
"We suspect that these coincidences are not simple, but were arranged by someone."
Edessak frowned slightly. He had also been troubled by this issue recently, especially regarding Baron Hastur Campbell. He had run into a series of coincidences that kept him from meeting the other party.
If it was arranged by someone, then wouldn't that Baron Hastur Campbell be highly suspicious?
Was he deliberately creating a string of coincidences just to avoid seeing him?
Thinking of this, Edessak recounted everything that had happened during this period, placing special emphasis on Hastur's matter.
"Compared to investigating me, you should be interrogating that Baron Hastur Campbell instead."
"We won't let go of any suspicious points."
Leonard smiled as he explained, then swept his gaze around and said, "I heard Prince Edessak recently took a liking to an ordinary girl. Could you let us see her?"
"This is my private matter! You're going too far!"
Edessak completely lost his earlier good temper and became extremely irritable.
Faced with the imposing aura of a prince, neither Leonard nor Klein took it seriously.
"We strongly suspect that the girl is a witch, a heretic of the Demoness Sect!"
The one who said this righteously was Leonard. Looking at the somewhat stunned Prince Edessak before him, he felt a sense of shared misery.
Back then, he too had been bewitched by a witch. Thinking about it now was really embarrassing.
"Who gave you permission to slander her! None of you have the right to see her!" Edessak completely tore away all pretense and shouted loudly, "See the guests out!"
"Quiet." Leonard used his Beyonder ability. On the other side, Klein and another clergyman had already forcibly gone upstairs.
This kind of behavior looked a bit overbearing, but the Evernight Goddess Church had always held a very domineering position in the Kingdom of Loen.
In this regard, even the Storm Church couldn't compare.
Crash!
It was the sound of glass shattering upstairs. Soon, Klein hurried downstairs and said in a deep voice, "That girl was taken away. They left through the window."
Leonard chuckled and said, "Prince Edessak, it seems the ordinary girl you like isn't ordinary at all."
Edessak collapsed onto the sofa, covering his face with both hands, in pain and helplessness.
"Put away your overflowing emotions. Would you really believe in a witch's loyalty to love?"
"No! We truly love each other! You wouldn't understand!"
Fine, you're true love, and I'm the one who doesn't understand.
Leonard felt something both absurd and pitiful. He didn't bother with the deeply infatuated Prince Edessak anymore. They had to prepare to close the net.
Since they had chosen to lay things bare directly with Prince Edessak, naturally more than just the three of them had come.
People had long been lying in ambush all around, waiting for Ince Zangwill to appear.
....
By the stream, inside the small house, sunlight had already poured onto the windowsill. A few more lines had appeared in the diary on the desk.
"Strange, is something happening today? Everything seems so normal, calm, without any accidents. Is it an illusion?"
"Still very strange. Could something unknown to me be quietly happening? Ince Zangwill is also very puzzled. But even if he thought about it for a lifetime, he wouldn't be able to figure out what exactly is going on."
"Could it be... secrecy! It's secrecy! Someone is concealing something.!"
"This is a method specially aimed at me by the Evernight Church!"
Seeing this, Ince Zangwill could no longer remain calm. He really wanted to curse out loud.
If he hadn't been blocked by that Demoness of White, he would have already left Backlund. How could he have drawn the Evernight Goddess Church's attention?
At this moment, he didn't care what was happening. He put away 008, took the diary, and prepared to leave here, then head to the train station to quietly leave Backlund.
No sooner had he left than someone found the small house by the stream.
Compared to Ince Zangwill still being able to flee, Panatiya had already been discovered.
She was also carrying an adult girl. With her serious injuries not yet healed, she couldn't escape very far.
The girl didn't try to run. Instead, she sneered, "Heh, so you have this day too?"
Smack!
Panatiya directly slapped the girl across the face and said viciously, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have ended up like this today!"
If she hadn't gone to check on that Baron Hastur Campbell, she wouldn't have been seriously injured and not yet recovered, and she wouldn't be getting chased around with nowhere to escape by a group of Red Glove squads weaker than herself.
"This is the punishment you deserve!" The girl's cheek was slapped red, and blood slightly flowed from the corner of her mouth, but her tone was still sharp.
When neither the Demoness of Black nor the Demoness of White showed up, Panatiya already knew she had been abandoned.
The Demonesses would no longer confront the church directly for her, but would take this opportunity to hide their tracks to avoid being found by the church as well.
Panatiya looked at the dense crowd not far away and said fiercely, "Then let more people be buried with me!"
She let go of the girl and directly rushed into the dense crowd, beginning to use Backlund's smog to spread a terrifying disease.
To make this disease more violent, she didn't hesitate to use her own blood to intensify its effect and range, completely giving up any possibility of survival, recklessly running from the edge of the Empress Borough, all the way across the West Borough, South Borough, and Dockyard.
Only when her blood was nearly drained and her spiritual power exhausted did she stop her flight.
She looked back in the direction she had come from. At that vast expanse of sickly green mixed with threads of red smog, a smug smile appeared on her face.
When a Sequence 4 Despair is willing to sacrifice herself, how much pain and despair can she cause ordinary people! If the church's Beyonder members hadn't already surrounded her, after just a bit more time, the Despair potion in her body would have been completely digested.
Because at this moment, she too was in despair, perfectly matching the conditions for acting as a Despair.
She would die today, but many more people would be buried with her!
She wanted those church members who chased them like hyenas to know not to casually drive a demigod into a desperate corner!
Also in the Dockyard.
In a hidden room, Mr. A looked up at the abnormal heavy smog in the sky and felt all kinds of negative emotions from the Dockyard, sorrow, pain, despair, and so on.
This was the best nourishment for their Lord's descent. Last time, when Lanevus, who served as a vessel, was killed, he took away the divinity left behind by the Lord and placed this divinity in the chaotic, despair-filled Dockyard, letting it absorb all kinds of negative emotions to continue growing and complete itself.
It had always been very slow, but today, this process had clearly sped up by more than tenfold!
Mr. A felt puzzled about this. Clearly, he had already ended his cooperation with the Demoness Sect, yet Panatiya chose to use her life to bring about their Lord's descent.
So who was also the Lord's loyal believer?
But there was no denying that Panatiya, this Despair, greatly helped the grand cause of their Aurora Order with her sacrifice, and also drew away all attention, buying enough time for their Lord's descent.
"Could it be that the Lord had already seen through all of this, which is why he made me terminate my cooperation with the Demoness Sect?"
Mr. A trembled all over, hurried to the basement, knelt before the Lord's statue, and devoutly worshiped.
Archbishop Anthony, who was stationed at Saint Samuel Cathedral, was also very puzzled.
Clearly, their main target today was Ince Zangwill, and they hadn't been desperately chasing that Despair. That Sequence 4 definitely had a chance to take someone and leave.
But she suddenly chose self-sacrifice and even used her own blood to stir up a widespread disease disaster.
Since when did the witches of the Demoness Sect become so indifferent to their own lives?
Or was this Sequence 4 using her life to cover for Ince Zangwill?
Archbishop Anthony couldn't figure out how Ince Zangwill could have such great charm.
To deal with this sudden catastrophe, he had someone notify the archbishop of the Holy Wind Cathedral to be responsible for the aftermath.
When the storm would blow, all disease smog would be purified. It was just that in the process, many people would die.