Bald Man and Betrayal

"Brat, just for you information, I am not bald." As though to prove his point, the Baldy took a Pence out of his breast pocket, why it was there would remain a mystery, and placed it on his head. Astoundingly, it began floating just about 3 mm above his head as though magic was involved.

"So, you are a Beyonder!" Max exclaimed as he thought the bald man had some sort of magnetism related powers.

Seeing the shock in Max's eyes, the bald man just sighed as he put the coin away to answer his other questions, giving up on fixing the misunderstanding. Of course, Max could actually see the hair on his head very clearly, and he was unfortunate enough to also face a similar fate in his previous life as Samuel over the years as his hairline receded to the point it had become a hair void rather than a line.

Still, he did not like the fact that the old man had been laughing at him for absolutely no actual reason other than the look he gave the old man, and this was how he was going to take revenge.

"Yes, but my powers are not related to holding coin in the air, that was just my hair. Besides, I do not work for MI9 nor do I work for any of the churches. You can consider me to be a freelancer of sorts, with my speciality being collecting information for the churches and MI9. And your old man here used to work with me. We were partners and built our organisation up from the ground."

"And what is the organisation called?"

"Twilight Hermit Order…"

Max did not show any shock at this name, despite the chaos ensuing in his mind. He was already preparing to call out to a certain entity who might be able to help him escape, but there would definitely be a cost related to using it. However, as soon as the thought crossed his mind, he put it away since he was just a normal human at the moment, and he had done nothing wrong.

Other than that, he also likely only had a single chance to use that entity's help, and he was trying to save it for his ritual for Fool's End.

Thankfully, seeing no reaction on Max's face, the bald man continued.

"…is not our name. We are called the Knowledge Magisters."

"Then what was with the Twilight Hermit Order. It sounds like a better name than Knowledge Magisters." Max said, propping for an explanation behind the fake name.

The bald man did not respond, and instead looked over at Old Man Uxas, who once again just shrugged and got back to preparing the food for morning.

"Listen here carefully little Max. Other than the Orthodox churches and MI9, there are also unofficial Beyonder organisation, and unlike the former, these unofficial ones are very dangerous. One of them is the Twilight Hermit Order. If you ever come into contact with people from it, it is best if you just try to escape without harming or angering them in any way. That is how dangerous they are."

"So, they have super strong sequence Beyonders? What Sequence is their highest?"

"You do not need to know this. What you do need to know is that there is a reason they are not called an orthodox organisation and have to live in the shadows of the orthodox organisations, who can easily kill off all the members of these unorthodox organisations. Yet, there are reasons they still exist, and thus we must always be wary of them."

'This guy seems like a dependable person.' Max thought to himself.

"So, Bald Uncle, what is your name?"

"Cedric Ne- just Cedric will do fine."

"Cool, Old Cedric, what is your pathway? And what Sequence are you at?" Max knew it was actually against some code of Beyonders to ask pathways and sequences, but he was just a kid who did not know better. Using that as an excuse would allow him to gain the pathway of this old man.

"First of all, kid, never ever ask anyone about their pathway unless they are your friend, and in the Beyonder circle, nobody is your friend. Anyways, I am of the Paragon pathway, more commonly known as the Savant pathway. As for the sequence, I cannot give you this information as it is very important for my survival, but I will tell you this, I cannot be considered a Low Sequence Beyonder. Not anymore at least."

"Alright, enough chitchat. Uxas, just think about it for a bit. There are still 2 days before the mission. You know how to contact me. Alright then, I'll be heading out. Hopefully, see you before and after the mission."

With that, Old Cedric put on his top hat and headed out of the still-closed Café Entwin. Max was just staring at Open Sign that was facing him on the class window while the closed sign face outside, with many thoughts running through his head until Old Max Uxas yelled at him to get back to cleaning and preparing the tables.

That night, Max heard a familiar opening of a cupboard and pulling out of planks, until the same thud he had heard before repeated itself. Slowly getting out of bed, Max opened his door as carefully as possible. Thankfully the old man likes to keep his door hinges well-oiled and always functioning to perfection, much like most of his life.

Through the mirror placed in the hall between their rooms, Max could see the old man standing in front of the box through the door that was kept ajar. Neither completely closing the door nor completely leaving it open was unlike the old man, showing he had something on his mind at least. And Max assumed it was most likely the mission that old Cedric was talking about.

Old Man Uxas was just staring at the box, not opening it nor putting it away. Max had never seen him being this indecisive but decided to wait and see. After a good ten minutes, the old man just sighed and opened the box. But he did not pull out the black sword with human-like veins on it, and instead pulled out a normal dagger, slashing his palm and dropping a good amount of blood into a cup near him.

After a while, he closed his eyes and began muttering something which Max could not clearly hear. However, he could make out the last few words being something like 'Belonging to Cedric Tegan' or 'Belonging to Cedric Negan.'

Well, the latter made more sense considering he was trying to hide his last name when giving Mac his name. But then that raised more questions. How was he related to Duke Negan, if he even was related? After all, he looked old enough to be Duke Negan's father, but from what Max could remember, that man had long since died.

'Is he an illegitimate older brother to the Duke? Or more interestingly, is he Duke Negan's father who just faked his death? Perhaps that is where he got his scar from?! But then again, being of the Savant pathway would likely remove the latter since I am pretty sure Duke Negan was of the Justiciar Pathway and a pretty high sequence at that.'

Only now did Max notice a green tentacle appear out of the blue and poke into the cup with the Old Man's blood? After a few seconds, it retracted from the cup, not a single drop of blood on its slimy body, before facing the old man.

Max held back the urge to charge in and cut the tentacle in half using his knife, somewhat because he trusted that the old man knew what he was doing when summoning this creature, and half because he knew that physical attacks have little effect on spiritual beings.

The old man took out a letter he had prepared and gave it to the tentacle, who just grabbed it and pulled back into the nothingness it had come from. The old man sighed as he put the dagger back where it belonged in the box, and Max noticed that the old man's hand was no longer bleeding, and was also showing signs of recovering rapidly.

'So, he was a Beyonder. But lied to me…' Upon this realisation, Max sighed as he felt something being broken within him, he closed his door silently and went to sleep. He no longer felt like asking the old man about the spirit that he had summoned, or the ritual he had used.

He just felt like going to sleep for now.