Mystery: The Ultimate Tarot

Chapter 417 The Fool: Guns Pointed Outwards

Once everyone else had arrived, Klein led the team out.

He still used the face of Gehrman Sparrow, and the team he brought was composed of extraordinary individuals from the Church of the Fools, primarily from Silver City and secondarily from Moon City.

There were three saints, including Derrick, as well as many battle-hardened "middle-sequence" extraordinary individuals.

The key point is that they didn't come from the spirit world, nor from the "mirror world" or the underworld. It seems that they crossed space and suddenly appeared here.

This is a miracle!

This caused quite a stir among other factions.

Raphael thought to himself: You're not good enough for me.

The "devilish personality" smiled and said, "Alright, everyone's here. Let's begin."

The crowd turned their attention away from "German" and the others and looked at Raphael.

Especially for Chaleja and others, if they had any doubts about their faith in the "Lord of Lust" before, they now have absolutely none.

The followers of the "Lord of Evil Desires" are themselves very powerful, and their allies are just as strong.

With these inside agents on board, the "Rose School" is truly in danger this time.

Raphael's "devilish personality" said, "We have been preparing for this operation for a long time."

"We have already learned about several important strongholds of the Rose School through our inside contacts, and we also have a basic understanding of the organization's overall strength."

"No one is confident that they can eliminate the targets at the angel level, so the battle at this level is mainly about checks and balances."

"The plan is for Gehrman from the Fool's Church and the Mysterious Sound Demon Lord from the Dark Lodge to deal with the two Sequence 2 Ancient Evils of the Rose School, respectively, while the Lord of Evil Desire will deal with the Divine Evil, Seara."

"The primary objective of this operation is to inflict heavy casualties on the Saints and Intermediate-Rank Extraordinary Beings of the Rose School, thereby dealing a severe blow to the Rose School."

The members of the other organizations nodded slowly, all agreeing with Raphael's statement.

While high-end combat power is essential for any organization, what truly determines whether an organization can continue and whether it has a future is whether it has enough "mid-rank" extraordinary individuals.

If a saint is injured or killed, the reserve should be used immediately to find a suitable person from the "middle sequence" to be promoted and take on the burden of the injured or killed saint.

Members of the "Middle Sequence" are basically the actual persons in charge of various affairs within the organization, especially those in Sequences 6 and 5. No matter which organization they are in, they are always the ones who hold real power.

If a large number of "mid-sequence" Beyonders suddenly suffer casualties within an organization, one can refer to the current predicament of the "Temperance Faction": despite having three Saints, making it a mid-level Beyonder organization, it dares to take almost no action due to a lack of sufficient "mid-sequence" Beyonders.

Because the number of saints and "middle-order" members who die is one less, there is no effective replacement.

Things had only gotten slightly better after they traded a batch of "low-sequence" and "medium-sequence" extraordinary traits with Raphael.

Seeing that everyone agreed with his plan, "Devil Personality" went on to say, "The specific plan for this operation is to first send three saints to lead a team to attack the three strongholds of the Rose School."

"For the Rose School, the enemy at this point only consists of three Saints, so they will definitely send Saints to provide support. Therefore, we will also send Saint-level support, gradually increasing our manpower to lure out all the Rose School members hiding in the shadows!"

Although Leleja and others provided a great deal of inside information, as a secret organization that has existed for thousands of years, it naturally has a sophisticated system of secrecy. Even the saints in the "Rose School" do not know all the information.

Raphael now fears that if all forces attack those three key strongholds, the "Rose School," seeing the enemy's overwhelming power, will simply go into hiding.

If we only manage to eliminate three strongholds after gathering so many people, it can be considered a failure to some extent.

When asked about the specific plans, Klein, sporting a Gehrman-like face, inquired, "Where are those three strongholds located? What are their specific forces involved?"

The "Demon Personality" clarified the situation of the three targets and suggested, "It would be best if, when you kill their saints, you could use divination to determine the situation of some new strongholds, and then carry out further attacks."

Klein nodded, indicating that there was no problem.

Other factions also inquired about some details, and the operation was basically finalized.

"The Devil Personality" added, "Once we've determined the specific actions, we can then discuss the distribution of the spoils."

"Based on the current strength of all parties—"

Sharon, who had been silent until now, suddenly said, "We have another Saint who will join the battle."

Emlyn added, "Vampires too."

In this operation, the "Lord of Lust" has a good chance of winning. For them, it's natural to do their best to strike at the "Rose School" and, ideally, also get a larger share of the spoils. After all, the characteristics of the "Rose School" members are exactly what they need.

The "spirit medium" also said, "I believe that Ms. Ilya will also pay close attention to this operation after hearing our report."

The lady he mentioned, Ilya, was the head of the Church of the Night in the Southern Continent, and she was known as the "Eye of the Goddess."

The "devilish personality" knew they would definitely "invest more," so he pretended to be a little unhappy and said, "Alright then, even if each of you has one more saint, if your saints don't come later, we'll have to readjust the way we divide the spoils."

After discussing how to divide the spoils after the war, the last thing to do was to agree on the time for the operation. With so many people and so many forces involved, the sooner the better, otherwise the news could easily leak out.

So they finally decided on 8 p.m. the next day to carry out the operation.

Before the operation, no one was allowed to leave the hotel except for Sharon and two others who were to go to meet reinforcements.

Raphael told everyone directly that he would be stationed on the hotel rooftop and would attack anyone who went out without permission or contacted anyone without warning.

Everyone understood that this matter was of great importance, and no one had any objections.

That night, it started to drizzle.

Raphael showed no intention of leaving the rooftop to avoid the rain. His spirit erected a small shield above his head to protect him from the raindrops. Even after half a day of rain, his clothes were not wet.

For Raphael at this point, this spiritual drain was no longer a concern.

Raphael watched quietly as the street quieted down and the lights gradually disappeared.

The "devilish personality" suddenly asked, "Tell me, why are there homeless people in every city of this world?"

Suddenly, Gehrman's voice came from beside Raphael. He said, "I haven't figured this out either."

Why are the world's resources limited? Theoretically, with extraordinary assistance, the world's resources should be much richer than they are now.

"But those who create wealth are basically people without extraordinary abilities."

"That's really strange."

The "devilish personality" laughed and said, "I actually prefer this kind of world, because people have too many desires and too much suffering."

Gehrman gave Raphael a serious look.

The "devilish personality" chuckled, "What? When did you leave such a bad impression that you thought I was a good person?"

Klein looked down at the slippery street: "It's nothing, I just think you seem to have a bit of a split personality."

He just thought about it and realized that Raphael wasn't exactly a good person, but he wasn't a bad one either. Overall, Raphael wasn't repulsive, nor had he done anything particularly repulsive.

On the contrary, he did some very satisfying things, such as swindling so much money from nobles and the wealthy.

The "devilish personality" calmly replied, "You know, sometimes I can't help but go a little crazy."

Klein, seeing that the atmosphere was sufficiently built, finally asked, "Is the 'Lord of Evil Desire' truly a bound god?"

He had some acquaintance with Raphael, but they weren't very close, so he felt it was necessary to set the stage when discussing such private topics.

The "devilish personality" stopped smiling: "No."

He paused for a moment, then continued, "The 'Bound God' has essentially been controlled by the 'Mother Tree of Desire.'"

Klein also became serious. This answer was even more unfavorable than he had guessed. He had originally thought that the situation of the "Bound God" might be similar to that of the "Demon King," where, although not in a favorable position, they were still resisting the invasion of the Outer Gods.

But now it seems that the situation of the "bound god" is far worse than that of the "demon king".

Klein then asked, "What are the Lord of Lust's plans for the future?"

The "devil personality" replied: "Crush the Rose School, destroy the Mother Tree of Desire's arrangements in the real world as much as possible."

"As for the bound gods," they are probably beyond saving.

He then looked at Klein and said, "At some point in the future, we will need Mr. 'The Fool's' help."

Klein nodded slowly: "According to Mr. Fool's instructions, the Outer Gods are the common enemy of all of us."

Raphael hummed in agreement.

Klein disappeared from the rooftop; he had finished what he wanted to say.

There were no pleasantries or farewells between the two.

Raphael gazed silently at the gloomy sky, pondering when would be the right time to "recognize" himself to Klein.

If they both knew that the other was a time traveler, they would have a higher level of mutual trust than they do now.

The following night, the operation against the "Rose School" proceeded as planned.

The three key strongholds of the "Rose School" were suddenly attacked by the "Lord of Evil Desire" alliance.

The reaction of the "Rose School" leadership was roughly as Raphael had predicted; they immediately dispatched three saints to the three strongholds to provide support.

At this point, the "Rose School" was completely unaware that there was a traitor within the organization, or rather, this was something that would never have happened before.

If it were a battle with other clandestine organizations, there would be no prisoners; the members of the "Rose School" would either win or die.

-

As for the official extraordinary individuals, it is unlikely that they would accept members from the "Rose School," since they are a group of madmen and cruel butchers.

They are aware of this, and once they begin to indulge their desires, they will suffer greatly if they do not continue to indulge, or even if they do not indulge more than before. They will often fall into a state of madness and harm those around them.

They were even well aware that they were a group of ticking time bombs, and that it was impossible for there to be widespread betrayal or for key members to voluntarily betray them.

But now there is a different situation than before. If the "Lord of Evil Desires" impersonates the "Bound God", he can fool many members of the "Rose School".

The key point is that the "Lord of Evil Desires" doesn't care—at least not for now—whether his followers and kin advocate indulgence.

The higher-ups of the "Rose School" had not yet realized this, and naturally, they would not have imagined that a defection would occur among the middle and upper echelons of the organization.

Therefore, their response was flawless, even though they didn't yet know which organization the enemy belonged to. However, as a local organization from the Southern Continent, they certainly had to put up a fight.

After all, only the "Spirit Cult" could inflict significant damage on them in the Southern Continent, but the "Spirit Cult" is still in a state of division.

Therefore, in their view, unless the conflicts among the righteous churches in the Northern Continent disappear, allowing them to send a large number of people to the Southern Continent, they really have no rivals in the Southern Continent.

After the first wave of reinforcements was sent out, the enemy seemed to have reinforcements as well, and the three battles became intense and stalemates for a time.

The higher-ups of the "Rose School" only then realized something was amiss. Unsure whether to retreat or send reinforcements, they immediately prayed to the angels within the organization, hoping for their guidance.

Generally speaking, angels within an organization are not responsible for specific tasks.

They only take over command from the saints and lead special operations when needed.

Normally, angels may have important tasks, but these tasks are directly handled by the gods or the leaders of the organization. If manpower is needed, they will be drawn directly from the organization.

This is now a special case. The few saints from the "Rose School" who did not go into battle are at a loss as to how to deal with the current situation.

So they reported the matter to the "god-evil" Shea in prayer, and also to the angel Baranca.

After waiting for a few minutes, to the saints' surprise, the "Mother Tree of Desire" gave them a divine decree, instructing them to concentrate all their power and prepare for the upcoming battle, and to inflict huge losses on the forces of the "Lord of Evil Desire"!

Raphael had previously used the "Dark Lodge" to conceal his plans, but his level was not very high after all, and with so many extraordinary beings coming to the coalition this time, the "Mother Tree of Desire" had also become aware of it.