In Mengfeila, inside Berdette Manor, the dressing room of the second-floor left suite held a row of white ghost masks and black robes. The white ghost masks had only three hollow sockets, resembling skulls, while the black robes were vast and deep. Even unoccupied, their sheer presence was spine-chilling.
Suddenly, limbs sprouted from one of the black robes, and a figure walked out as if an evil spirit had returned to life.
Yet he could barely stay upright. After taking just two steps, he collapsed flat onto the carpet. Tearing off the white ghost mask, he revealed a haggard, pale face. Sweat dotted the tip of his nose, a flush of hypoxia stained his cheeks, and his shallow, rapid breaths came in ragged wheezes. His entire body ached so severely that he did not even want to lift a finger.
Impaired lung function, faulty connections throughout his whole nervous system... That damn brat! Rot in hell! If you're sick, go see a vet! Don't you ever let me cross paths with you again!
In all these years, this was the first time the Swindler had been so infuriated that he could not stop himself from swearing.
The more Igola thought about it, the angrier he grew. The very first time he had encountered another sorcerer on the Time Continent, he had run straight into Harvey, an acquaintance. Naturally, the two of them teamed up to explore, only to discover both a Heroic Spirit Legion and an Arena of Mortal Combat at the very same time.
With so much fortune and opportunity piled together, Lady Luck had practically been shoving milk right into his mouth. Igola had genuinely begun to wonder if he had exhausted all his luck for the rest of his life, fearing he might slip in the bathtub the next morning and crack his skull open.
Though neither of them had received an orthodox education as sorcerers, no sorcerer was foolish enough to skip researching intelligence on the Void Realm. In that realm where one could only travel alone, a sorcerer could rely solely on themselves. Moreover, neither the Arena of Mortal Combat nor the Heroic Spirit Legion was some deep secret, so both men naturally understood the basics.
After turning it over in his mind, the Swindler had realized they could use the Arena of Mortal Combat to trap and kill the Heroic Spirit Legion. After Harvey listened to his bizarre yet meticulously reasoned scheme, the necromancer's only comment had been: "When on earth are you going to find Yaxiu and start over, rebuild the Four Pillar Cult, kill the Empress, and take the throne? I'd be content just serving as your grand superintendent of the morgue."
A necromancer who had long erased the words "cherish life" from his dictionary naturally had no objection to the gamble. Things had proceeded with astonishing smoothness—Igola hid inside a coffin Harvey hastily crafted, so the arena recognized the two of them as a single team, teleporting the Heroic Spirit Commander and a thousand-feather bird-dragon inside together.
Though severed from her legion, the female commander had shown not a trace of panic. She glanced at Igola and Harvey, dropped into a sword stance, and the thousand-feather bird-dragon was clad in black armor, visibly reinforced.
Yet this was precisely what Igola had planned for.
Since he had teamed up with Harvey, the arena would naturally pit them against a two-unit opponent. Igola had known from the start that an unstable variable would exist. The combination of "Heroic Spirit Commander + knowledge creature" was practically the best possible scenario he could have envisioned.
Miracle: Mind Domination!
This miracle was essentially the outside world's most rigid stereotype of the mind faction, its most classic signature—directly dominating other creatures and seizing control of their minds! The higher one's realm in the mind faction, the greater the chance of success!
However, this miracle actually performed poorly against intelligent beings. Even if a sorcerer had never deliberately studied the mind faction, simply rolling through society, managing interpersonal relationships, and tasting the warmth and chill of human sentiment counted as cultivation in the mind faction; the quantitative change simply had not crossed the threshold into a silver qualitative breakthrough.
Yet against knowledge creatures devoid of social experience and entirely lacking civilization, the miracle was devastatingly effective. The reason Igola had thrived so well on the Time Continent was that every night, he dominated a massive knowledge creature to serve as his mount.
Even when encountering packs or tribes of creatures, Igola had nothing to fear. He could temporarily dominate one or two members to spark internal strife, then rely on his art of command to wipe out the pack while heavily outnumbered!
Just like in that arena!
After stripping away control of the thousand-feather bird-dragon, even though the commander cast armor onto herself as well, she stood no chance against the onslaught from Igola and the others.
One could not forget that Harvey had also brought along a zombie great jackal-dragon he had fabricated that evening. With four whole commanding units at his disposal, Igola had never fought a battle with such an overwhelming advantage since entering the Void Realm. He toyed with the commander relentlessly, whittling away at her armor miracle bit by bit.
As time slipped by, the commander grew weaker and weaker. The dawn of victory spread its arms toward them. Yet Igola did not slacken in the slightest; instead, he grew increasingly cautious!
He knew very well that this might be the only opportunity in his entire life. Never again would he encounter a chance to slay a Heroic Spirit Commander like this. According to the Void Realm's principle of "the greater the risk, the greater the reward," the spoils of killing a commander would undoubtedly bring a massive surge in his strength.
And strength was precisely what Igola lacked most.
Annan, the Weaving Ceremony, Evalline Berdette... Though their physical safety was temporarily guaranteed, such security was nothing more than living on borrowed time, charity from others, and existing only because they still had value to exploit.
Igola did not harbor delusions of gaining absolute power to solve every problem just because of their dire reality. He still loved the rules of the game and respected its order. The trouble was that they remained pawns even now—pawns Annan used to cheat. Their safety was not protected by the game; their deaths would amount to nothing more than patching an exploit.
Igola simply wanted a little more say, a few more chips, and a little more room to maneuver around women like Annan and Evalline.
Yet among their group, Harvey had promise for the future but was useless right now; relying on Yaxiu was less realistic than hoping the Four Pillar Gods would sprout a conscience; and Lisi was utterly useless aside from dragging them down and stirring up trouble. Igola could only rely on himself.
He had to depend on himself.
Slaying a Heroic Spirit Commander might have been his best possible turning point!
"Damn and blast them!" The Swindler gritted his teeth, slamming his fist into the carpet, and braced himself against the desk to struggle to his feet.
Those two goddamned trashy women!
Why did they have to enter the arena as a team at that exact moment?!
Igola had watched helplessly as the Heroic Spirit Commander they were on the verge of slaughtering dusted off her backside and walked right out of the arena, replaced by two fully armed female sorcerers!
At that instant, Igola had wanted nothing more than to climb into Harvey's coffin and give up on life entirely!
He had orchestrated countless social engineering schemes back in the Blood Moon, weathering betrayal and dog-eat-dog chaos beyond reckoning, yet not a single mishap had ever been as absurd as this one—for the first time in his life, everything had been ruined by an impossible event with less than a one-percent chance of happening!
What infuriated him even more was that they couldn't beat them!
While neither a mind sorcerer nor a necromancer excelled at sudden skirmishes, they had possessed two combat units at the time: the thousand-feather bird-dragon and the great jackal-dragon. Backed by the two of them providing support, victory had seemed overwhelmingly likely by any measure.
Yet when Igola tried to recoup some of their losses from those two female sorcerers, they were battered into utter stupor.
The red-haired female sword sorcerer possessed terrifying explosive power. Combined with their bizarre armor miracles, the zombie great jackal-dragon was instantly torn to shreds, leaving Harvey able to do little more than reassemble the bones to barely stall for time. Igola had it even worse: the black-and-white female sorcerer he faced wielded a Time sorcery spirit. Whenever the Swindler tried to move, he would overshoot his displacement, practically throwing himself into her attack range, where she bound his joints with silk threads and beat him senseless.
Even though he had surrendered and withdrawn in time, Igola's joints, chest, and lungs were still battered. Injuries to the soul translated faithfully onto the physical body. Compounded by his nearly exhausted sorcery power, Igola felt as if he had been reduced to a battered toy tossed into a trash heap.
Heart Like Boulder!
Iron Will!
Squeezing out his final dregs of sorcery power to apply mind buffs to himself, Igola felt as though he could finally, barely manage to operate this machine whose screws had come loose.
"No, it's almost seven..." Igola staggered into the bathroom. "I have to shower quickly and get to work... Can't let Evalline dock my pay..."
He ran a tub of warm water, struggled out of his clothes, turned on the showerhead to wash off, and closed his eyes to shampoo his hair—
His heel bumped against the bath stool. That ordinary, routine motion felt as though it had completely unscrewed a vital bolt in his body. Igola suddenly felt his knees vanish. Losing all balance, he crashed hard onto the bathroom tiles with a loud clatter.
Smack!
A tremendous splash went up, the sound itself crying out in pain.
The Swindler lay flat on the cold tile floor, water rushing over him in torrents. Shampoo foam still clung to his hair. Even when he had been arrested by the Bloodmad Hunters in the past, he had never been in such a wretched state.
Only after a long while did he slowly push himself upright. He stared down at the splashing ripples on the floor, the cascade of water beating against his hair and running down his features and wet strands.
"Why did there have to be an accident..."
"Why did we lose..."
"Why did I have to miss that chance... How could I miss that chance..." Igola bit his lower lip, watching the ripples expanding across the floor, his shoulders trembling faintly. "There might have been a sorcery spirit that could sever our Contract with Annan..."
"Why did it have to be this time..."
Creak.
Igola suddenly heard the door outside open and close, followed by the familiar tap-tap of approaching footsteps. He hastily rubbed his eyes, forcing himself to look less disheveled—
Knock, knock.
No one barged in.
"You all right? Need a hand?"
Igola looked with surprise at the silhouette knocking outside the bathroom door. "Why did you come over?"
"When someone slips in the bathroom, it notifies everyone else. Wealthy households always use their money to show humanitarian care in places like this. Ah, it really is great being rich."
Igola glanced at the green indicator light beside the bathtub. The moment he had fallen, it had detected it and broadcast an alert telling everyone there was an unlucky Swindler here, so come laugh at him.
"I'm fine!"
"Doesn't sound like you're fine. Why do you sound like you're about to cry? Come on, how old are you, crying over a slip?"
The Swindler reflexively rubbed the corners of his eyes, hastily steadying his tone to reply, "I'm not. I just... ran into a bit of trouble in the Void Realm last night, so my voice is a little off." In any case, his physical condition would be exposed during work soon enough; there was no point hiding it.
"What kind of trouble?"
"Can you go away? I'm trying to take a bath!"
"It's not like I'm coming in. You take your bath, I'll do my talking."
Looking at the silhouette beyond the frosted glass door, Igola suddenly realized something. His expression turned complex. He gingerly lowered himself into the bathtub, the water level rising inch by inch until it submerged his chest and leveled with his collarbones.
The warm current seemed to temporarily tighten the loose screws of his machinery, and his rapid breathing gradually calmed.
"...I just missed a crucial opportunity. One I might never encounter again."
"Ouch, that's rough. Though my exploration went pretty smoothly last night."
"Are you here just to pick a fight?"
"No, but even if you missed an opportunity, there's no need to wail your eyes out, is there?"
"How does your slander keep escalating? Next are you going to say I'm sobbing with snot running down my face?" Igola snapped irritably. "I just... don't see any hope."
"What hope?"
"Hope of turning the tables." Igola's voice dropped low. "Annan, Berdette, Sennheiser, the Yisu royal family, the Red Hats, and so many more... Right now, there are only two kinds of people in the Gospel: those who want to kill us, and those who want to use us. Aside from that illusory divine wish, I can't find a single way out.
"Can we really survive the Weaving Ceremony? Is there anyone in the Gospel who can actually help us?" Igola looked down at his hazy reflection in the water. A droplet fell from the tip of his hair, stirring faint ripples. "Harvey only cares about his Alice, and you're never serious. Every single day I rack my brain wondering what to do, what to do... I'm really at my..."
Ever since arriving in the Gospel Country, the pressure Igola bore had grown heavier by the day.
The Art Board and the Family Board had instantly turned them into the most talked-about doomsday stars in the Gospel. Igola spent every day agonizing over how to manage their deteriorating reputation, all while Annan and Banjie kept close watch from above. A situation so disadvantaged it offered virtually no way out had already left the Swindler mentally and physically exhausted. Recently falling into Berdette hands had only added misfortune to an already disaster-ridden household.
Their defeat in the Void Realm's arena had nearly become the final straw that broke his mental defenses. Igola felt as if Lady Luck had lifted her skirt for him, only to draw a handgun from her thigh holster and shoot him dead.
He knew complaining solved nothing, yet he couldn't help feeling wronged. In the past, he would never have shown weakness like this. The most vital rule for a Swindler was to maintain his persona of "never making a miscalculation" at all times; once that persona shattered, no one would ever fall for his deceit again.
Perhaps it was because his soul had been wounded by that black-and-white female sorcerer, or perhaps he had dazed himself in the fall, or maybe it was simply that a frosted glass door separated him from Yaxiu—for whatever reason, Igola had begun dumping the garbage accumulated in his heart.
"Why not listen to the Gospel?" Yaxiu said suddenly.
"Huh?"
"Look, we appeared on the Future Board. That means the Gospel believes we're definitely going to survive into the future. At times like this, you have to trust in the power of the Omniscient Weaver. Don't overthink it; the Gospel will help us."
Igola laughed out of sheer fury. "Setting aside the fact that we only made the board because of a scam... the real problem is that I wasn't on the board!"
"That's why you have to trust the Gospel, and trust us," Yaxiu said. "Given our friendship, if we're all suffering in the future, how could we possibly leave you behind in the past to enjoy life?"
"...You really have a unique way of comforting people."
"I wouldn't dare try to comfort a mind sorcerer. Still, if you really need us to do something, Harvey and I probably won't say no. We might not keep up with your train of thought, but sharing your worries shouldn't be a problem. As long as everyone stresses out together, you won't feel quite so anxious yourself."
"Hmph, at least you have the self-awareness of an artiodactyl."
"A Swindler who bawled his eyes out over slipping in the bathroom shouldn't act so arrogant... Lisi?"
The bathroom door was suddenly thrown open, and Lisi, dressed in a white-stocking maid outfit, came rushing into the room. But slipping on the wet floor, she crashed flat onto the tiles with an extraordinarily loud smack, sliding right up to the bathtub and bumping her head lightly against the rim with a dull thud.
Yaxiu: "..."
Igola: "..."
Yet Lisi scrambled up immediately, dusting off her backside, and rushed to the edge of the tub to ask anxiously, "Aunt Bogin, are you all right? Did you hurt yourself anywhere? Hurry and let a healer treat you!"
Igola froze for a moment, then looked up to catch Yaxiu's half-smiling expression, as if saying, *You're not even as tough as a kid.* His face flushed slightly. Reaching out, he tidied Lisi's hair. "I'm fine."
Seeing the unreserved concern on Lisi's face, Igola felt his heart melt like ice cream. Though remembering the ordeal still infuriated him, the irritability and frantic distress in the Swindler's chest seemed to wash away with the bath.
He let out a sigh. "Yaxiu, it's not convenient for me to go to the dining hall later. Bring me some breakfast."
"No problem." Yaxiu opened the Book of Gospel and sent a voice message: "Harvey, bring a portion of breakfast to Igola's room."
*Speaking of which, can Harvey even move? I seem to remember that red-haired female sorcerer slicing him in half at the waist...*
Right then, Igola noticed something. Cupping Lisi's face, he furrowed his brows.
"Why do I feel, Lisi, like there's something familiar about you..."
The slightly guilty Little Witch and the nervous sisters: "Σ(っ°Д°;)っ!"
Chapter 384