Nothing to hide

Max groaned as he returned to his body after sacrificing the door back to the amalgamation of All.

The constant bulging black veins all over his body were gradually receding. This was, what he could only assume to be, the side effect of pulling in and using up so much Unity energy in such a short period of time.

'So, using unity energy is like sending electricity through a wire. If the wire is not conductive enough, the wire itself will act as a resistor and heat up, to the point it might even melt and break the circuit. Well, I don't intend on being melted anytime soon. I should avoid actual contact with Klein unless I really need to.'

After a while of groaning in pain, the black veins completely vanished, leaving Max with nothing but large amounts of sweat all over his body.

'Haha, but just fooling Her gaze for a few seconds was enough to halfway digest my potion! That is actually insane...'

Max laughed internally, but also in relief and laid on the rather course bed, as the pain went away, leaving him with only a sense of euphoria. He was currently in the single-room cottage built by the villagers for him. It was nothing extravagant, but it was a house, with a working door, four walls, and a roof. He did not need light because he generally did not stay here during night times.

'Now which Sequence 5 Beyonder was advancing to Sequence 4 in this period of time?' Max thought to himself as he began to wonder about how he would complete his advancement ritual.

The potion ingredients were mostly there, with just a few supplementary ingredients missing. He had also got a grasp on the acting method for this potion. Though just [Fooling] Beyonder abilitities was a bit crude for an acting method, and would likely involve something more intricate.

But the most important thing was finding the perfect location and time to complete his ritual. Of course, he would also need a month at the minimum to plan everything, as well as some time to fully digest the [Fool's End] potion. At the moment, he was not sure how much digestion fooling normal Beyonders at low sequences would give him, and he would much rather not interact with Mid and High-sequence Beyonders.

As such, the ritual needed to happen at least 2 months later.

The first thought that came to his mind was the Apotheosis ritual of King George August III; the king of the Loen kingdom. He was also the reason for the Backlund Smog that would arrive in some months' time, as a cover for all the missing cases that were people being used as labour for building his underground mausoleums.

Though, his actual ritual would not take place during the Backlund smog, much later. And by that time, Klein would have overtaken him by a long shot.

If he remained at Sequence 8 for such a long time, he would most likely die long before he could actually advance.

Perhaps, if he did not get involved with any Beyonder, and lived in a remote outskirt cottage in some corner of the world, he might actually survive till that point in time.

But his acting method relied on Beyonders and his interactions with them. He could not just use normal words for the acting method, but he would actually have to use his own Beyonder abilities on them for him to digest his potion.

As such, he could likely come into contact with countless official and unofficial Beyonders. Hiding away was not an option. Especially if one of the other Unity souls like Samuel were to be brought into the world before he became powerful enough.

'I need another advancement ritual…'

After a long time of pondering, Max came to the sad realisation that the original story did not have a lot of stuff about other Beyonders other than those directly around Klein, or those who had some impact on Klein.

As such, he was considerably out of options from Samuel's information. Max himself had distinctly stayed away from the Beyonder world while he was in Backlund, and Unity did not actually have any memories as such, other than the one where he was pushed away from the world by the True Creator.

'I should go and check up on Cedric Negan.'

Cedric Negan was the illegitimate older brother of Duke Pallas Negan and Prime Minister Aguesid Negan. He was also more secretly the master of the Knowledge Magister who had all been basically whipped out by the Aurora Order… or so Max had concluded after seeing the scene of their dismembered and butchered bodies.

More importantly, he was also a close friend of Old Man Uxas, and based on what Klein had told him in the divination, was the last to see him alive, as well as the one who killed the old man.

And so, his next destination was decided as Max got out of bed, having recovered from the fatigue and pain, and cleansed at the pot of water near the bed, for washing-up proposes.

However, Max saw the silver hair, and more importantly, the bright red eyes and immediately recalled something. As he had been remembering the story of the original text, Max had finally recalled a minor detail from it.

'These red eyes clearly belonged to the Sanguine family, but I don't have any of their characteristics. I'm clearly not from the Moon pathway, nor am I a Sanguine. Perhaps I may be related to them somehow.'

'I suppose I should go and talk with Emile at the Church of the Earth Mother in Backlund later on.'

…

Meanwhile, on a Train to Backlund…

Tom smiled as he had just completed the secret mission given to him by the mister, and was now returning to Backlund to meet up with Ademisaul and continue to build their Beyonder organisation.

The steam train chugged along the steel tracks and Tom observed the scenery flying by. Train was by far the fastest mode of travel on land, and the most efficient as well, connecting towns and cities in almost straight lines with nothing coming in the way. Compared to horse carriages, trains were too superior to even begin to compare.

The only problem was the pollution, noise, and costs of running it within a city were just too high, which resulted in there still being a market for horse-drawn carriages.

*Knock**Knock*

Suddenly, he heard somebody knock twice on the 1st class ticket Max had booked for his own safety. Without waiting for him to respond, the door was opened and two middle-aged men and a younger woman entered, all wearing black windbreakers.

The woman lifted up a mirror and turned around, looking at Tom through its reflection. Oddly enough, she kept on clicking her tongue in a repetitive pattern.

"You were right, boss." She said as she put away the mirror, but did not stop clicking her tongue.

"Can I help you?" Tom asked, but the grip around the dagger under his right sleeve became tighter. This was something Max had taught both Ademisaul and Tom, to keep them safe from random thugs, and to possibly help out in situations like these.

"Mr. Tom, we are here to ask you a few questions. We are from the police, you don't have to worry," the woman said with a faintly terrifying smile on her face that unnerved Tom greatly.

In his mind, he silently began to pray to the Primordial Unity while trying to stall for time.

"Well, you don't seem like any law enforcement that I know of," Tom countered as he remained vigilant, though he had calmed down from the original state of panic.

If somebody was here to harm him, they would not have given him so much time to think and would have likely directly attacked him. He suddenly recalled a description that Max had given them, about a certain group of Official Beyonders.

"Wait, are you three, by any chance, related to the Nighthawks?"

The three people looked at each other before turning their gazes to the man in the middle, who simply nodded in confirmation.

Immediately, a lot of the tension on Tom's body vanished as he relaxed and gestured to the three nighthawks.

"Please sit. Ask away. I have nothing to hide."

…

In a place filled with darkness, hidden from most of reality, a faint voice was heard.

"Hmm? What was that? I'm sure I had been keeping an eye on him since he arrived but for a brief moment… I actually could not see him perfectly. Was it the little Angel? No, he cannot hide things from me."

"I should pay more attention to him. Let's get the Nighthawks to increase surveillance of Backlund, just to be sure," the voice mused before falling back into silence.

[AN: This is the end of the mass release. Happy mother's day! I know this is a bit late, but I hope all children reading this have wished their mothers a happy mother's day. Be it in grief or joy, be it in life or death, be they good mothers or not, they were still those who brought you into the world, and I think they deserve some appreciation for that. All in all, thank you all for reading the chapter. Next mass release will be at 558k views. Depending on how long it will take to reach that figure, the number of chapters for the mass release will vary. But overall, it still takes me time to write. Sorry about that.]

[Update: I received a comment stating that mc should have received a lot of digestion from just fooling Evernight's gaze that was not even on him per say, but on Klein, and I have to say that I agree and it was an error on my part. I have fixed it and added that bit near the beginning of this chapter. Hope everyone likes it!]