Rocky McCarthy Reunites with an Old Friend

"Pardon me for asking... isn't he your teacher?" Observing Abigail's mood, Lanqi asked in a low voice. If he ever dared to speak to Talia in that tone, he would probably... He didn't dare imagine. "You really have steady nerves, daring to make small talk with me at a time like this." Putting away her communication magic, Abigail brushed aside the tips of her hair and spoke to Lanqi. Talking to the man on the other end seemed to have infuriated her; now that the call was over, her temper was noticeably worse than before. "As you know, I'm just a comedy actor. What ill intentions could I possibly have?" Lanqi raised both hands in response, his gaze still fixed on the pink card in her hand. "Earlier, you asked which number I was. Hmph, you've already used Landry's card, haven't you? Then we've spoken before." Noticing Lanqi's gaze, Abigail casually raised the sacred communication card in her hand. [Ultra-Long-Range Communication Program - 2] [Type: Spell Card] [Rarity: Pink Sacred] [Attribute: Link] [Tier: 6] [Effect: Compared to standard ultra-long-range communication magic, both communication range and interference resistance are significantly enhanced.] [Remark: The truth of the Empire; the one who reveals the Empire's secrets.] "I am Number 2, the one who spoke to you at the very beginning—the administrator of the Silver Moon Restoration Society with the codename [Truth]," Abigail revealed. On the night Landry first arrived in Brierda, she had sent him a private message. At this point, she didn't mind letting him know these things. "The Silver Moon Restoration Society? You're all members of the Silver Moon Restoration Society?" Lanqi looked at her in bewilderment. He had caught onto the true key point. After arriving in Brierda, he had vaguely heard the name of this secret society mentioned a few times, but had never detected the slightest trace of them. Like the Blood Clan, they were phantom-like entities—even Nicholas the Kestrel hadn't managed to track down the faintest scrap of intel on their Venerables. "..." Abigail found it hard to believe that someone who premeditated Landry's murder and usurped his identity would not know they were both Venerables of the Silver Moon Restoration Society. This guy truly didn't look like he was acting. His stellar performance on stage earlier hadn't looked like acting either. Yet he had indeed flawlessly enacted the script, making it almost impossible to tell whether he was putting on an act or not, and equally hard to believe a single word out of his mouth. "Can we please sit down and have a proper talk first?" Lanqi said to Abigail once more. Ever since he arrived in the Creti Empire, the sequence of events had been exceedingly complicated. He needed them both to calm down and talk through everything from the beginning. He couldn't fathom how Landry had turned out to be Abigail's junior fellow apprentice, nor did he understand why they were both members of the Silver Moon Restoration Society, an anti-Empire organization. Right now, Abigail was just like Unity on the train back then—she had completely lost all trust in him. Yet Lanqi couldn't sell out the Allied spy Unity either; he needed to use the art of conversation to reframe the narrative. Otherwise, if the Silver Moon Restoration Society clashed with Allied Intelligence, he would become an eternal sinner! "It doesn't matter. There's no need to try and stall for time; he'll be here soon. And don't count on that gray-haired lady saving you either." Abigail glanced at the clock's hand. Perhaps in a little while, the woman would break free. After all, the spatial trap she had set with the Bishop's help had an upper load limit, even on her home turf. Abigail was certain that although that gray-haired woman was extraordinarily strong, she was still far below a Cardinal—or rather, they weren't beings on the same plane at all. It would take at least two, no, probably three of that gray-haired woman to defeat a Cardinal. "...When you say 'he,' could it be a Cardinal?" Lanqi deduced. He felt that compared to negotiations, what Abigail had just let slip was far more significant. Anyone who could easily overpower Talia had to be a powerhouse of the Cardinal rank. Abigail belonged to the Silver Moon Restoration Society, so her teacher was unlikely to be an Imperial God of War. Furthermore, during his earlier private chat with Number 1 via the sacred communication magic, the person had also seemed linked to the Resurrection Church. The only powerhouses at Level 87 or above Lanqi could imagine being present in the Creti Empire were the Cardinals of the Resurrection Church. Talia was sealed off in this space. This trap could forcibly separate him and Talia for a short while. Spatial magic was unreasonably potent like that; just like divination magic, only a select few specialized spells could counter it. Factoring in Abigail's communication just now, there was only one Bishop who could have taught Abigail spatial magic and performed this level of spatial teleportation magic: The Cardinal of Dimensions, Toliado. "And are you the Saintess of Dimensions?" Lanqi added. Regarding this guess, he was actually less certain than the previous one. Previously, Lanqi had inexplicably been able to sense members beneath the rank of Bishop in the Destruction Branch and Domination Branch, yet he felt no such perception toward Abigail. "You could say that, though our Dimension Branch doesn't need troublesome things like the [Proof of Resurrection]." Abigail did not deny it; after all, she already referred to the Cardinal of Dimensions as her teacher. She was capable of crafting more advanced tokens, allowing the Dimension Branch to operate independently from the other branches and achieve far more efficient coordination. Moreover, its high-ranking members and allied associates could use an encrypted version of sacred communication magic. In any case, neither she nor Landry had any chance of killing a Cardinal right now, so to her and Landry, the [Proof of the Sage - Dimension] was nothing more than junk with purely negative side effects. Just moments after she finished speaking, before Lanqi could say another word, the space directly in front of the magical apparatus began to distort. The color grew darker and darker until a vortex gradually materialized into a seemingly illusory gate, its mirror-like surface swirling with what appeared to be countless twisted souls. Incomparable mana blossomed in this space once more, seizing their attention. It was Lanqi's first time witnessing ultra-long-distance teleportation magic. Had it not been for the comprehensive barrier, the terminal interface of such Tier 8 peak mana fluctuations would have certainly alerted the Creti Empire. The vortex of the dimensional gate gradually solidified, its perimeter glowing with an eerie, frigid light that emitted a teeth-grating hum. "The Cardinal of Dimensions," Lanqi murmured, staring at the dimensional gate. He had already encountered several Cardinals of the Resurrection Church. Every single one was a near-invincible being. Just as Loren had demonstrated to him back then, once you entered the line of sight of a Cardinal, there was zero chance of dealing with them through force. As for the Cardinal of Dimensions, troublesome though the man was, he was still better than the other Cardinals of the Resurrection Church. Perhaps if he told Toliado that he was Lanqi, Toliado might be willing to talk with him, given the affinity forged when Toliado donated to Ikerite Academy. "You wear out iron shoes searching far and wide, only to find it without any effort at all. I happened to uncover a lead tonight, and who would have thought that the fellow impersonating Landry would deliver himself right to my doorstep?" A steady, brisk sequence of footsteps echoed from within the spatial gate. The vortex parted slowly, and a silhouette emerged into the second-floor chamber of the opera house, outlined by the ambient light. Outside the terrace, twilight deepened as heavy, dark clouds obscured the moonlight. An ominous shadow was cast across the entire sky, dimming the room by several shades. It was a young man around 185 centimeters tall. Medium-length black hair occasionally obscured his deep eyes, which resembled the starry sky; touched with a hint of melancholy, they seemed to harbor the mysteries of the cosmos. He wore a black-and-white checkered shirt under a loose, untamed black coat. His face was handsome yet slightly haggard, and he was even in the middle of a yawn. "Abigail, splendid job. I happened to be looking into this very matter." Toliado's voice was not deep in the slightest; instead, it leaned toward clear, breezy, and casual. "That is no excuse for ignoring my stage actors. If I had trusted you, today's public performance would have been utterly ruined," Abigail said coldly, arms crossed over her chest. Just thinking about it made her blood boil. In the past, this Bishop of hers was always doing unreliable things—like itching for a beating and picking a fight with the Bishop of Destruction, only to scurry away with his head in his hands and vanish without a trace for nearly half a year. Back then, terrified of guilt by association, she had severed ties with the Cardinal of Dimensions at lightspeed and thrown away her Proof of the Sage. "Huh?" Watching the Cardinal of Dimensions converse with Abigail, Lanqi found the man inexplicably familiar. The appearance was different. Yet the temperament, the tone of voice... It felt as if there had been a period of time when they chatted every single day... Lanqi suddenly recalled tonight's play at the Brierda Opera House, as well as the person who would have countless ties to Abigail. He also remembered back in the Northern Continent, at the Protos Imperial Royal Magic Academy, the associate professor of history who had introduced him to Lady Cloris Bernhard—the original author of Holy War Romance. "...Are you Sido? Sido Arendelle?" Lanqi asked tentatively. "Oh? And what if I am? Are you a fan of mine?" Toliado smiled, looking at Lanqi with curiosity. For the other person, deducing one of his identities in the Creti Empire wasn't difficult. That was merely an unimportant persona he used while traveling the Northern Continent. Of course, his public identity as a foreign scholar in Creti was exceedingly useful as well. "Why are you even chatting with him?" Abigail dashed over and kicked Toliado in the shin. "Ahem, cough, no more fooling around, no more fooling around," Toliado placated with an awkward smile, coughing twice. "Now then, it's time to have a word with you, 'Mr. Landry.'" When Toliado looked at Lanqi again, his voice was nothing like before. It had turned bone-chilling and heavy, reminiscent of an avalanche rumbling down a polar mountain in the dead of winter. "Although I am among the more easygoing types of Cardinal, regardless of who you are, I cannot simply let Landry's demise slide." At that moment, he seemed no longer to be maintaining a human form, but had transformed into an ancient, supremely evil entity; his monstrous mana flared like roaring flames, nearly scorching the entire space. This time, the killing intent was genuine. "A young apprentice I, Toliado, nurtured for years, gone just like that. If this has nothing to do with the Blood Clan, I don't believe it for a second," Toliado said slowly. Unless the enemy had divined some information regarding Landry, there was no possibility of him being exposed. Of course, based on the intel he had just received tonight, Toliado had also come to understand that the truth behind Landry's murder was likely tied to the karmic entanglement of his sister. Because the Blood Clan had already planned to kill Landry's younger sister, Elsa—the little girl who had recently awakened her Wolf Clan bloodline—regardless of who Landry really was. To the Blood Clan, Landry was simply an obstacle that had to be removed. "Do you know? Landry was a good kid, yet he always thought of himself as a bad person. Relying on the power of the Resurrection Church, he eliminated many powerful nobles around his family and did plenty of things that could only be described as shady... All to protect his sister from being harmed by those nobles. And he was always praying to the Goddess of Fate for forgiveness and punishment. I knew all of this, and I tacitly permitted him to cross the Resurrection Church's red lines like that." Toliado sighed with emotion. Perhaps in the unseen depths of fate, retribution truly had arrived; it genuinely seemed as though Landry had died from a stroke of bad luck. That was precisely why members of the Resurrection Church could not lightly make oaths to the Goddess of Fate. Swearing an oath to a deity was a solemn affair; people believed the gods would hear. There was a legend that the divine nature of the Goddess of Fate lay in this: as long as you prayed to her, she gained the power to subtly intervene in your destiny. The more devout and prolonged your prayers, the more your inner voice would reach her. Oaths sworn to any deity—regardless of whether those gods still existed or whether they could still intervene in the mortal realm—could forge karmic bonds. There had been several instances in the Resurrection Church where high-ranking members sought redemption from the Goddess of Fate and subsequently defected, leaving it unclear whether they had been enemies of the Church from the very start. No one could say for certain whether it was coincidence or destiny. "So, do you understand now? We cannot let Landry die without answers. To us, what matters most isn't revenge, nor is it justice—it's the truth." Abigail also turned sideways to look at Lanqi. "This is our respect for Landry. I must know the sequence of events. Any concealment on your part will only make you pay a heavier price." His ambiguous attitude would not fly with her, let alone his audacity to demand that she sit down calmly for peaceful talks first. "All right. First things first: let me see the face beneath that mask of yours. There's no need to keep wearing Landry's disguise." Toliado leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest, speaking in an airy tone. Interrogation wasn't really his strong suit—he lacked a sense of restraint when dealing blows—so if the other party was willing to cooperate nicely, it would save him a great deal of trouble. "..." Resigned, Lanqi took out a [Metamorphosis: Human] card. Perhaps he dispelled the concealment magic upon himself, or perhaps he layered a new disguise over it. In an instant, his figure was no longer that of the black-haired, blue-eyed young Imperial professor, but transformed into a brown-haired, green-eyed man. "Are you playing with me?" Abigail scrutinized the actor's new appearance, suspecting this was yet another fake identity. He had simply swapped one false visage for another. Abigail had never seen this man before, nor was he any renowned figure from the Southern Continent. It only left her utterly disappointed. It seemed she would indeed have to let Toliado employ some harsher methods. However... The moment Toliado, standing to the side, saw the brown-haired, green-eyed man, his hand had already shot up to point at him. "Holy shit, McCarthy!" Toliado yelled.