Mystery: Big Alarm Clock Ghroth Path

Chapter 293 The Mutual Probing Between the "Iron Knight" and the "Disaster Priest"
"Task?"

Upon hearing this, Dunn Smith didn't say much, but simply nodded slightly.

"By the way, why hasn't Leonard come back?"

Although he could roughly guess the reason, Dunn still asked.

"Leonard has been transferred to Port Pritz for a mission, and he asked me to give you my regards."

Daly shook her head: "This guy was still joking, 'When the captain comes to Backlund, I might become the captain's captain.'"

"This kid's really got some skills."

Dunn laughed, his tone deliberately teasing.

That being said, Leonard, the former captain, is happier than anyone else to become an important member of the "Red Gloves" team in Backlund.

"Getting back to the main point, let's go inside. Don't keep Lord Cecima waiting."

Dai Li stopped smiling and urged him on.

……

An hour later, in the basement of "Blackthorn Security Company".

Dunn Smith, who had been promoted to Sequence 6 "Requiemr" of the "Sleepless" pathway, opened his eyes.

A hint of darkness flickered in the depths of his originally gray eyes, flashing briefly before returning to silence.

"Congratulations on your promotion to 'Soul Soother'."

Seeing this, Daisy knew that Dunn had been promoted, and took the initiative to hug him.

"Congratulations on your promotion, Captain Dunn."

Cecima also spoke up, and the blond man in his thirties carrying a briefcase paused before continuing:
“In fact, I came to Ahowa County this time not only for your promotion, but also to announce a secret mission.”

Please explain.

Having been prompted by Daly earlier, Dunn was now mentally prepared and spoke without hesitation:

“I received instructions from the Sanctuary that the ‘Witch Cult’ has dispatched more than 25 members of the mid-to-low sequence to prepare to release a mystical pathogen that can cause a large number of deaths and injuries in the upper and middle reaches of the Tasok River, and the Akhova County basin in Tingen is one of their key targets.”

"'The Witch Cult'? Haven't they been silent for months? Why are they doing this now?"

Upon hearing this, Dunn immediately and instinctively asked a follow-up question.

"This is part of the war."

Cecima spoke softly, explaining.

"By the way, speaking of this, Your Excellency Cecima, there is something important."

Dunn suddenly realized some key issues and said:

"Since Ince Zangwell's defection, we have been closely monitoring the movements of all clandestine organizations in and around Tingen through our informants."

"Just yesterday, Mr. P, who is suspected to be the new envoy of the Aurora Society in Akhova County, suddenly left Tingen and went to the upper reaches of the Tasok River in the western suburbs. I don't know what he was going to do."

"I have already sent Luo Yao and Cohenli to track it... Although there has been no unusual news so far, I only realized the seriousness of the situation after you mentioned it."

"Should we increase personnel deployment for this incident?"

As the captain of the "Night Watchers" squad, Dunn knew a little about the cooperation between the "Aurora Society" and the "Witch Cult" during the "Backlund Great Smog" incident. So when he heard Kreste Cecima talk about it, he immediately connected the two events.

"...We don't need to invest too many people in Mr. P's side."

Cecima paused for a moment, seemingly organizing her thoughts, before finally speaking.

"what?"

Dunn was slightly taken aback, and even Daly was a little confused by Cecima's thought process.

"...What I mean is that Luo Yao and Cohenli can hold back and wait for us to go and join them."

Upon hearing this, Cecima gave a more reasonable and clear instruction this time.

Hearing what the "Sword of the Goddess" said, Dunn's doubts lessened considerably.

He nodded, summoned all the members of the "Night Watch," took two combat-use sealed artifacts, and then boarded two official carriages of the Ahowa County Police Department, heading out of the city.

Due to the war, the Sanctuary has greatly shortened the rest periods for all "Night Watchers," and because of the arrival of "Goddess's Sword" Cecima today, all "Night Watcher" squad members are on standby.

This also includes two newly recruited members of the "Night Watch," both of whom were survivors or witnesses of extraordinary events and later became the "Corpse Collector" and the "Diviner," respectively, filling the positions of Frye and Klein.

About an hour later, they arrived at the designated location and met Cohen and Luo Yao, who were lying in wait.

After greeting Cecilia, Dunn, and Daly, Dunn took the initiative to ask about Mr. P's situation.

"Reporting to the captain, this afternoon, Mr. P and another member of the 'Aurora Society'—preliminarily identified as a 'Hermit'—engaged in a battle with two members of the 'Witch Cult'."

"At the time, the 'Witch Cult' seemed to be preparing to release some substance into the Tasok River, but Mr. P discovered and stopped them. They have since disappeared and we don't know where they went."

what?
Upon hearing Cohen's report, Dunn and Daly showed expressions of extreme surprise.

They suddenly understood why Cecima, the "Goddess Sword," had seemed so dismissive of Mr. P.

When did the Aurora Club start protecting the lives of ordinary people?

"...Ahem."

Cecima seemed to realize what Dunn and Daly were thinking; he coughed lightly twice, then shifted their attention again:
"We will split into two groups and search along the riverbanks upstream and downstream. If we find any members of the 'Witch Cult' below Sequence 5, we can annihilate them directly."

"If you encounter a member of Sequence 5, do not alert them. Report to me immediately and I will handle it."

"Yes!"

……

Similar situations to those in Tingen County and East Chester County have also occurred, with unidentified private detectives and even members of the "Aurora Society" cult joining forces with official Extraordinary squads to investigate and eliminate members of the "Witch Cult."

These two groups were completely busy with their own things, investigating the clues they had and fighting their own battles. The leaders of both sides seemed to have some kind of consensus and were trying their best to avoid fighting and conflict.

In contrast, the "Witch Cult" was the real victim.

Not only did they fail to complete their original poisoning plan, but three Sequence 5 members were also killed in Wintershire, Interseashire, and East Chestershire by the Extraordinary Ones of the Sanctuary, the military, and Mr. C of the Aurora Society, respectively.

One of these three Sequence 5 "Witches of Pain" had just been promoted, while the other two were new demigod candidates for the "Witch Cult," which was a huge loss for the "Witch Cult."

When the "Witch Cult" chose to make a deal with the royal family of the Fussac Empire, the Einhorn family, they had already formulated a battle plan.

Whether it was Katrina Pelle's mission to assassinate "Galactic Admiral" Roger in the South Sonia Sea, or her subsequent poisoning of water sources in Backlund, both were important strategies that could influence the overall course of the war.

To achieve their strategic goals, they even created a Sequence 3 sealed artifact specifically targeting Roger's "Old Box." After all, in their view, even if Roger possessed a Sequence 4 sealed artifact and was himself a Sequence 4 in strength, as long as they had sufficient intelligence, Katarina would definitely be able to use the "ageless witch's" uncanny and difficult-to-kill characteristics to truly eliminate Roger.

So, in fact, the "Witch Cult" was very wary of Roger, the demigod who had caused them great trouble in the "Great Smog of Backlund" incident, and had made what they considered to be sufficient preparations for battle. However, they still greatly underestimated Roger's true abilities.

The first thing to be affected is Roger's two abilities: "Secret Insight" and "Leakage." In fact, because Roger, who carried the Geheros Source Essence, possessed powerful anti-divination and anti-prophecy abilities, the "Witch Cult" had always had little knowledge of these two abilities. They could only guess from Roger's battle with the sealed artifact 1-097 "The Shepherd's Coffin" that they seemed to have the ability to disrupt "herding."

However, considering that Roger himself was a "shepherd," it is difficult to say whether this is a fusion skill based on the "shepherd" ability.

Furthermore, since Roger has been using the "Spirit and Flesh Blade" of the "Black Knight" in combat after advancing to Sequence 4, his extraordinary ability as the "Leaker" at Sequence 5 has been downplayed recently, so the "Witch Cult" has lacked the corresponding vigilance.

What they didn't expect was that it was the "Judgment Star" ability, which was two whole levels below the "ageless witch" Katarina Pelle's level of power, that, under the "amplification" of the "fallen count" Chunas Korg's almost divine skill and Roger's incredible luck, could directly "decipher" the occult connection between the "ageless witch" and the "mirror," thereby abolishing Katarina's resurrection ability!
This was an unexpected event, and the death of Katerina Pelle became the trigger that had far-reaching consequences.

Even though Katrina Pelle didn't participate in the poisoning plan for safety reasons, Roger had coincidentally overheard his sister Cecilia Abraham mentioning the possibility of poisoning the water source.

It's hard to say that this wasn't influenced by "fate," but as a result, he naturally guessed that the "Witch Cult" planned to poison a large number of ordinary people in Rune by poisoning the water source, thereby affecting the war situation. He also sent the relevant intelligence to Luna Augustus, the demigod of the Augustus family and the deputy director of the Ninth Military Intelligence Bureau of the Rune Kingdom.

Under the intelligence network operated by this female intelligence chief, the list of almost all the "Witch Cult" members involved in the poisoning was locked and shared with the Church of the Goddess of Night, ultimately leading to the failure of their plan.

It must be said that Luna did an excellent job of keeping the secret. She seemed to have used some high-level anti-divination methods in handling this matter, so much so that the "Witch Cult" did not realize that their plan had been leaked.

For the "Witch Cult," since the people carrying out the plan were already in place and they had already made a promise to the Einhorn family, and the Church of the Night would not take action until the very last moment, by the time the "Witch Cult" realized that they had become stuck in a rut, it was already too late.

Only a very small number of pathogens were released into the river, but this information was also known to MI9, and they were cleared away by occult methods before entering residential areas and could not pose any threat.

Just when the "Witch Cult" was feeling extremely frustrated, the three "righteous demon" candidates that Roger had Cecilia send out had been secretly sent to a military base in southern East Chestershire to begin formal training.

All three of them had taken the "criminal" potion provided by Cecilia and gained corresponding extraordinary abilities.

But this is only the beginning, because what awaits them is intensive training comparable to purgatory, intelligence personnel code of conduct, ideological construction, and knowledge and skills training.

Roger kept abreast of all these situations through Cecilia and Sam's communication, and Luna would occasionally send Sparkle the parrot to Roger to report on the changes in the mental, physical, and spiritual state of Jordan and others, without involving classified information.

"Hey, I have to say, I underestimated Jordan a bit before."

Roger sat in the captain's cabin of the "Star Lord," petting the "recordant" cat Bandit who was checking the latest logbook for errors, while reading the letter Luna had given him.

He and Luna had originally expected that Jordan Phillips would not be able to pass the first round of training and would be eliminated soon, but they did not expect that this seemingly weak young man would not only survive but also not fall too far behind Michael and Aria in performance.

Luna also gave it high praise, admitting that she had underestimated Jordan's potential, but also said that the difficulty of each of the subsequent four rounds of training exceeded that of the first round, and Jordan might not be able to cope.

Regardless, Luna's attitude towards Jordan softened considerably. She told Roger that if Jordan could survive the third round of anti-torture training, they could consider sending him to MI9, an intelligence agency behind enemy lines, for training. What he could achieve there would depend on his performance.

"Anti-torture training? That sounds terrifying."

Roger clicked his tongue repeatedly as he read this. Although he had never been exposed to the anti-torture training of this world's intelligence agencies, he had read many related historical records and watched numerous films and television dramas in his previous life. Anti-torture training covers a wide range of topics, including cognitive improvement, emotional desensitization, strengthening psychological defense mechanisms, pain management, adaptation to extreme pain, simulation of confinement, and sleep deprivation adaptation training, among others.

These subjects not only cover all aspects of civilized and brutal interrogation, but trainees must also be able to expose as little information as possible while enduring these tortures, construct a false but logically consistent intelligence chain, master passive resistance strategies and grasp the window of opportunity for prisoner escape, etc., so as to wait for rescue or escape in the process of establishing a complete cycle of desensitization-tolerance-game.

Moreover, unlike the world of the previous life, this is a world with extraordinary abilities. Intelligence agents even need to master some special anti-mystical interrogation techniques, and death is not their final destination, because psychic abilities will make them reveal all the information.

The worst-case scenario is that MI9 uses special means to directly destroy the integrity of their souls—but that's the worst possible option, so "survival" becomes more important than ever.

If nothing unexpected happens, these training sessions will be conducted by MI9's actual "interrogators," and their frequency and intensity will far exceed those of conventional training.

"Hopefully they can pull through... especially Jordan, poor kid."

Roger shook his head, put down the letter, and went back to the deck.

In the darkness of the night, Roger could vaguely see the outline of Sonia Island on the right side of the ship, and the Amanda Mountains on the left, rising slightly above the horizon.

In the past two days, the "Star Fleet" has conducted another inventory of supplies, and Roger has also given a pre-battle mobilization to ensure that all crew members have a full understanding of the situation to come.

As he was deep in thought, he suddenly saw a huge burst of fire in the distance.

The flames came in bursts, many landing on the north coast of Sonia Island and causing massive explosions.

However, this was only the beginning. Soon, the northern horizon was almost completely illuminated by artillery fire, and the roar was deafening. Even Roger, who was extremely far away, could hear it.

"A major battle between Fussac's inter-naval fleet and the Rune Navy? This..."

Before Roger could finish his mutterings, he suddenly saw a streak of intense white, rich, and extremely bright firelight flash across the sky.

As the flames reached their zenith, the spearhead turned downwards and began to accelerate.

In the blink of an eye, the flames exceeded four times the speed of sound, and a huge sonic boom resounded through the night sky.

The next second, the flames landed on Sonia Island, and the entire northeastern sky turned white!

Before Roger could react, a violent hurricane rose from the sea, carrying up a large amount of seawater and forming a devastating scene like a waterspout, which swept towards the Minsk Strait with overwhelming force!
Seemingly in response to this cataclysmic scene, a much dimmer white starlight emerged from the spot where the white flames had previously shot out.

However, just as the starlight was about to touch the waterspout, a sudden burst of white light appeared, splitting into many beams, each of which flew towards the waterspout.

This triggered a massive explosion, and the powerful pressure from the collapse of the waterspout, carrying a large amount of steam, rushed toward the "Star Fleet" at an extremely violent speed in an instant!
This caused the crew members of the "Star Fleet" who witnessed this scene to show extremely terrified looks, and many of them began to roar in fear, as if they had developed a deep-seated fear of this catastrophic power!

"Don't panic!"

As Roger spoke loudly, he hurriedly separated his shadow from his body, and "Fallen Shadow" appeared beside him, wielding "Demon Slayer".

The instant the silver-white broken sword, engraved with countless strange runes, was released, a huge curtain of light mixed with pitch-black shadows, like the aurora mixed with dark clouds of the universe, enveloped the front of the "Star Fleet"!
These curtains seemed to hang upside down from the sky, instantly blocking the air pressure filled with violent impact and high temperature and water vapor, protecting the entire "Star Fleet" within them.

After this scene unfolded, the island of Sunya and the Strait of Minsk suddenly fell silent, and the battle between the storm and the flames subsided as if it had never happened.

This relieved the previously terrified crew of the "Star Fleet," and cheers and praises for Roger echoed across the sea.

"Such terrifying power... Is this the result of a battle between demigods from the Fusak Empire and the Storm Church?"

Compared to those who were cheering, Roger appeared calm on the surface, but inwardly he was secretly astonished.

Although he himself is already a demigod-level "Black Knight", in terms of combat performance on large-scale battlefields, the "Hanged Man" path is far inferior to the "Red Priest" and "Tyrant" paths.

The mere exchange of blows, with neither side using their full strength, created enough wind pressure to destroy ordinary ships dozens of nautical miles away. If Roger hadn't intervened in time to protect the "Star Fleet," at least half of the ships would probably have had to be sent for repairs.

It was Roger's intervention that transformed the two opposing demigod forces into a three-way balance, bringing the intense conflict back into equilibrium.

After a brief silence, the northern sky darkened completely, with only occasional artillery fire remaining. It seemed that the frontline commanders of both countries were extremely wary of the terrifying pressure from the southern end of the Sunia Strait and had unanimously issued orders for their naval forces to temporarily retreat.

Roger breathed a sigh of relief, but he knew very well that this was only temporary. If nothing unexpected happened, many "eyes" and spying/insight-seeking sealed objects would be pointed at him at the same time, waiting for an opportunity to obtain information about the "Star Fleet" or launch a occult attack directly.

Fortunately, the "Star Fleet" is still in a state of "keeping secrets" and resisting divination and prophecy. As long as Roger does not use angelic-level methods to investigate, he can keep the secret of the "Star Fleet" until they actually cross the Sunia Strait and reach the northern foothills of the Minlminsk Mountains.

"It seems the intensity of the war has indeed increased... Although the two demigods who just exchanged blows were merely testing each other, their actions signify the formal entry of the high-level combat forces of both countries."

Roger believed that similar things must be happening on battlefields all over the world, and that in the heart of the Intersea and the northern lands of the Hornach Mountains, demigods would be personally fighting each other even more frequently and fiercely.

"Philip, pass the order: all ships in the fleet, proceed at full speed! We aim to cross the Sunia Strait before dusk tomorrow!"

"Yes!"

Philip loudly accepted the order.

Beluga Sea, Northern Region.

Klein Moretti, disguised as Gehrman Sparrow, stood on the bow deck of the "Future" of the "Star Pirates," watching the flagship of the "Star Admiral" break through layers of waves and head towards the faintly visible Gargas Islands in the northeast.

After his previous battle with "General of Disease" and his subsequent role as Gehrman Sparrow providing some assistance to the "School of Life," his "Faceless" potion was quickly and completely digested.

Afterwards, Klein made a deal with Cattleya through the "Source Castle" that he would advance to the Sequence 5 of the "Diviner" path, "Master of the Mystic Puppet" that night!
As the fog rose, Klein began to faintly hear the beautiful, enchanting song coming from the sea.

After a while, the "Future" approached a reef, and a member of Cattleya's crew came to Klein's side.

"Mr. Sparrow, you have arrived at your destination."

Klein nodded, then climbed the rope ladder off the "Future" and sat on the reef.

He pulled out a bottle of magic potion that he had just prepared. The potion was completely black, and there seemed to be countless tiny insects, barely visible to the naked eye, swimming rapidly inside.

Klein suppressed his agitation and impulse, and to the mermaid's song, tilted his head back and swallowed the potion.

……

At three o'clock the next afternoon, as the rust-colored starlight burst forth before Roger's eyes, he finally sat down once again at the bronze table "above the gray fog".

Miss Justice's cheerful greeting followed:
"Good afternoon, Mr. Fool~"

After greeting everyone else as usual, and having served today's copy of the Emperor Roselle's Diary with Miss "The Magician," Klein, as always, entered into a rare moment of peaceful reading.

At this moment, Klein was no longer as uneasy as before when facing the diary of Emperor Roselle. He had experienced too much at sea recently, so much so that nothing could surprise him too much unless Emperor Roselle turned into a "witch".

Upon seeing Klein begin reading Emperor Roselle's diary, the "Hermit" once again cast a curious glance her way.

This once again caught Klein's attention, but he only pondered for a moment before reading the diary in his hand.

The beginning of these three diaries recounts the process of Emperor Roselle and Edwards exploring the "Abyss," during which they witnessed thick black fog, numerous rotting corpses of "demons," and ultimately, the extremely dense corrosive aura at the deepest part of the "Abyss" forced Emperor Roselle to flee with his Knights of the Apocalypse to save their lives.

If Klein hadn't heard about Roger's bizarre encounter at "Blackwing Reef," he probably would have just considered it a somewhat fantastical story. However, after reading the information Roger submitted about "The Abyss" and "Demon King" Fabti, and personally experiencing the mystical events related to the "Mother Tree of Desire," Klein now had many new insights.

That is, the "Abyss" should indeed have been corrupted by the "Mother Tree of Desire", and the extraordinary characteristics of the Sequence 1 "Divine Abomination" obtained by the "Demon King" Fabuti should have played an extremely important role in this corruption process!
"Therefore, 'criminals' should indeed be adjacent to 'prisoners'... This can be seen from the names of the pathways, and they are likely to be inextricably linked to the 'Mother Tree of Desire'."

"If that's the case, then we should be able to deduce that the 'Mother Tree of Desire' might be some kind of existence beyond the Sequence 0 level... like an ancient god such as the Phoenix Greygarley, but perhaps at a higher level?"

"But this raises another question: how does the 'Mother Tree of Desire,' stripped of the extraordinary characteristics and uniqueness of Sequence 1, which is devoid of the paths of 'criminal' and 'prisoner,' continue to maintain its divine status?"

Klein suddenly felt a sense of profound ignorance, realizing how much he knew more.

He sighed softly to himself and continued reading.

The two subsequent diaries are as follows: the first recounts some familial interactions between Emperor Roselle and Bernadette Gustave, as well as Roselle's feelings about becoming a father for the first time; the last recounts how Emperor Roselle used his "Generalist" abilities to replicate the silver plaque that had previously led him to time travel, and after infusing it with spirituality, he saw an endless, strange gray fog.

This immediately caught Klein's attention. He had previously speculated that the mysterious space above the gray fog might be related to the uniqueness of the "Diviner" path, but now his thoughts had completely changed.

"Could it be something else?"

He couldn't figure it out for the moment, so he could only address the "Tarot Club" members below him:
"You can start."

Something happened to me yesterday.

Roger, the "Wheel of Fortune," spoke first:
“Yesterday, while I was sailing near Sunya Island, I saw blazing white flames and a huge storm clashing in the direction of the Minminsk Strait. Judging from the power, this should be a battle between demigods.”

"The former should be the 'Iron-Blooded Knight' of the Fusak Empire, while the latter should be the 'Disaster Priest' of the 'Storm Lord' Church."

"This is a signal that the Fussac Empire is no longer optimistic about its own situation and is preparing to send its high-ranking combat forces into the fray for a desperate gamble."

After saying that, he looked up at Alger Wilson, the "Hanged Man" beside him, seemingly wanting to get some information from the captain of the "Blue Avenger".

This information also attracted the attention of others. "The Moon" Emlyn asked with some confusion:
"'Iron Knight'? What kind of sequence name is that?"

"It's the 'Hunter' route."

"Justice," Audrey said with a smile, feeling quite proud.

This was information she received from Mr. Wheel of Fortune at an early gathering of the "Tarot Club," where she was one of the founding members.

Audrey not only knew that "Iron Knight" was Sequence 4 of the "Hunter" pathway, but also that this sequence would turn all women into men.

Thinking of this, Miss Justice couldn't help but recall what Mr. Wheel of Fortune had mentioned: that when an Extraordinary reaches a high sequence in the Pharmacist pathway, they will transform into a woman. She glanced cautiously at Emlyn and didn't say anything more.

"Iron-Blooded Knight..."

Just as Emlyn was muttering to himself, he heard Mr. "The Hanged Man" speak:
“‘Wheel of Fortune’, I do know a little about this matter.”

“In the past two days, a cardinal from the Church of Storms has arrived at Sunia Island from Pasu Island. The demigod you mentioned who made the move should be him.”

Mr. Wheel of Fortune nodded slightly upon hearing this, while also noticing that Alger the Hanged Man had not finished speaking.

"Please continue, say whatever you can, I'm all ears."

He spoke again.

(End of this chapter)