69 September 9th

Just as Max had predicted, everything followed the same course as the original novel he had read a long time ago. Ms. Justice prayed to the Fool, Klein, who accepted the prayer and conjured a perfect replica of the scene of her praying to him and sent it to Alger who had been wanting to locate Qilangos, the rear admiral turned pirate for quite a while.

Qilangos himself had come to Duke Negan's party only for one reason, to assassinate him, a mission given to him by a certain Beyonder Organisation. To complete this, he had the Creeping Hunger with him, an incredibly powerful Sealed Artifact of the Shephard pathway.

Unfortunately for him, because of Audrey's timely advice to her father, who gave the same advice to Duke Negan, the latter was prepared for Qilangos and launched an ambush on him instead.

Duke Negan's plump figure stood erect on the spot and observed the incoming assassin as if he were looking down on him. He lifted his right hand and pushed forward.

He murmured in ancient Hermes, "Imprison!"

In silence, Qilangos suddenly stopped. He was suddenly surrounded by a transparent wall, something that wrapped around him like a sticky liquid. It made him seem like an insect in amber or a prisoner in prison.

The leader of the Conservative Party nobles, the hereditary Duke Pallas Negan was a Beyonder himself—a very strong Beyonder! Duke Negan spoke in a low voice again and waved his right hand.

"Flog!"

Pa! Pa!

Qilangos seemed to be whipped by a shapeless whip. His clothing was torn from the whipping and his skin was lacerated, revealing white bone. Then, Duke Negan leaned forward and held his right first.

He declared in an imposing manner, "Death!"

Pa!

His arm waved as his entire body slammed into Qilangos' head with numerous afterimages. His fist had struck his target's head in an unavoidable manner.

Kacha!

Qilangos' head shattered, but the surroundings shattered as well. Duke Negan remained standing at his original spot. It was just a dream. It was unknown when the pirate admiral had already switched his ability and entered the Nightmare state.

Unlike an ordinary Nightmare, he could still move his body after he dragged people into a dream! Qilangos stealthily appeared behind Duke Negan, and his cold gaze locked onto the Duke.

Wrapped with high-speed spiralling winds, his right fist stabbed into the target's vest like a sharp blade. Whoosh! Amidst the howling of the wind, Qilangos' right fist punched straight through Duke Negan's body and through his heart.

But Duke Negan's figure rapidly turned transparent, just like a soul that was summoned. After the nearly formless figure dissipated, Duke Negan appeared before the French door on the other side of the winding corridor. He wore a scrutinizing smile.

'Another Beyonder. Are they prepared ahead of time? To lay an ambush for me? How is that possible?!' Although Qilangos was unwilling to accept this fact, he dealt with it calmly.

The glove on his left hand squirmed and took on the form of dark golden scales. His irises grew pale and became vertical. Then, a shapeless wave swept from every direction.

Ladies and gentlemen were thrown into a state of uncontrollable fear at the same time. They left their hiding places and ran around aimlessly. The scene became chaotic.

The Beyonders didn't dare to act recklessly as they were worried they might hurt their relatives and friends. Seizing the opportunity, Qilangos ran quickly as hurricanes whirled around him. He smashed through one of the resting room doors before smashing through an oriel window.

Amidst the shattering sound, he leapt outside and flew a distance away from Duke Negan's mansion with the aid of the wind. The moment he landed, Qilangos immediately ran towards a forest ahead of him. It was a municipal garden; an escape route he had scouted out a while ago.

Once he shook off his pursuers, he could change his appearance and blend into the massive population of Backlund of more than five million people. That was also the reason why he dared to accept such a difficult mission!

After a while, there was a gale blowing towards Duke Negan's mansion. The Cardinal of the Church of the Lord of Storms, the Archbishop of Backlund, Spellsinger of God, and Ace Snake brought a few Mandated Punishers and flew towards the mansion.

He couldn't inform the other Beyonders in time. Alger was one of the members who arrived with Archbishop Ace. However, he was in a bad mood because he saw the broken windows and the other Beyonders running out of the mansion.

It meant that Rear Admiral Hurricane Qilangos had escaped.

…

The rest of the story continued just as it had happened previously, with Qilangos successfully escaping, only to run into Mr. Azik Eggars who ultimately kills him, filling out the last page in Qilangos' book.

After that, the Death Consul of the Death Pathway; Azik Eggars took the Sealed Artifact called Creeping Hunger from his hand, and left the scene before the official Beyonders arrived.

…

Max leaned back on the throne in Castle Black. His projection made from the Unity energy within the Church of the Primordial Unity' Headquarters also leaned back, following his movements.

Though he could make them move independently to his own consciousness here, it would take up a lot more mental capacity to do so, resulting in his thinking speed being greatly reduced.

Instead, Max could either make them move together, or just freeze one or both of them while not needing to communicate directly with the humans inside either structure. After all, both structures were within the Amalgamation of All.

Max closed his eyes and felt the creation of 30 connections with a faraway location in deep space. This connection was the one he had with the villagers in Independence; the people he had just saved from the monster boar.

Of the 30, 3 were from the hunters whose loved ones were not killed in the attack, effectively saved by him, one was from the hunter who had basically lost everyone dear to him and was still being consoled by Max personally, while the rest were from many of the villagers.

In total, there were barely any people in the village who were no longer a believer in Unity, at the very least one who believed in him on the surface.

Max had spread a doctrine he created among the people of the village, which was actually rather simple with very few restrictions. Unlike fully developed religions like the churches on Earth, or even the religions back on Samuel's Earth, Max's current religion was in its infancy.

In fact, it would be more apt to call it in its conceptual stage at the moment, with under 40 believers including the ones back on Earth.

His current religion only involved praying to the Primordial Unity when waking up, when sleeping, and when eating food. A simple "Thank you Lord for the food" or "Forgive me for anything wrong I have done today, Lord," was enough for him. Of course, he had shown the image of the Primordial Unity, which was also the shape that the Amalgamation of All was in.

He mentioned that compared to the words they used, the image of the Primordial Unity as well as the intent they wished to convey was a lot more important, which was actually true even for some of the Beyonder Churches on Earth.

'I should prepare now… for my advancement.' Max noted to himself as he exited the Amalgamation of All, not before leaving a note for Tom and Ademisaul and returning to his body that was 'sleeping' on the bed in his temporary house.

He got out of bed, stretched a bit and began with his preparations for the 9th of September, the day when things went from zero to a hundred in just a few moments, and also the day when he would advance to Sequence 8.

…

Sep 9th, 1349 of the Fifth Epoch…