At 8:20 PM, Xia De's joke about cats and rabbits made Princess Angelina cover her mouth and chuckle lightly. The salon atmosphere was lively, and Xia De, using the excuse of going to the washroom, temporarily bid farewell to the people around him and left the room for the corridor.
The door shut out the noisy sounds, and Xia De feigned a finally calm demeanor as he walked past the Royal Guard. Avoiding the gaze of others, he waited for a while at the turn of the corridor, and Luvia quietly came down from the third floor. The purple-eyed girl avoided the areas illuminated by gas lamps, standing in the shadows at the stairwell and waving at Xia De. Xia De followed her from a distance, and after Luvia opened the second divination room on the left side of the second floor, he slipped in after her.
The room was not lit, and the Moonlight from outside the window could only illuminate a small area near the window.
Suddenly moving from a noisy environment to a dark room, Xia De even felt a bit unaccustomed. But he still quickly went to the window, looking in the direction of Yodel Palace; everything outside was very normal at this time:
"How are things now?"
"No problems yet. Xia De, things have changed a bit; it's best if we don't get involved in anything tonight."
Luvia leaned against the wall next to the door, watching Xia De, who was looking out the window in the Moonlight from the Darkness. Whenever Xia De bathed in Moonlight, she always felt as if Xia De himself was glowing.
"What happened?"
Xia De turned his head and asked.
"The President is upstairs. Although the Five Gods Church did not send a High-Ring Sorcerer here, I received a letter from Iluna this afternoon. She said that all eyes are on this place tonight. Too many people are paying attention here tonight, not just the High-Ring Professors of the Truth Society; there will be no shortage of forces paying attention here tonight. The Church wants to use 【God Thief Jack】 as bait, at least to find out who dares to reach out."
Luvia said in a low voice:
"Moreover, this time it's different from Middlesburg. During the Middlesburg incident, the Truth Society only sent a very small number of members to probe. This time, in addition to Miss Pa Wo, the Vice President, there are at least five High-Ring Professors and the Cultists they hired. There is reason to believe that the Truth Society's actions in the Mountain City in the autumn were for probing; now is when they are officially intervening in the Chosen One matter.
Iluna told me that His Excellency Steel Right Hand, a Thirteen Ring Sorcerer of the Creation Church, and His Excellency Sunlight Greatsword of the Sun Church, are both ready to depart. This is not Lakeview Manor; this is the city center of Tobesk. As long as they receive notification, they can appear in at most three minutes."
"Although the Truth Society is crazy, they are definitely not pure madmen; sometimes they are terrifyingly rational. Even if the Church is prepared, I think they also have corresponding methods."
Xia De continued to turn his head and look out the window:
"I originally thought that Miss Pa Wo would still come to Leia's book salon as 'Miss Vitter,' but I didn't see her at all."
"Do you think she will appear tonight?"
Luvia asked.
"Of course she will appear. The fragments of the poem that Miss Pa Wo possesses are definitely more than we think. Since a Ring術士 who believes so strongly in numbers dares to act personally, it means she has her own confidence."
Xia De frowned and looked down at Silver Cross Avenue. Several people got off a carriage and entered Yodel Palace, which did not look suspicious:
"Luvia, divine now. Just a normal divination method. The content of the divination is: what kind of relic will appear tonight."
"I can divine, but you know, divinations about relics are usually not particularly accurate, especially since your description is very broad. If a second sage-level relic appears tonight besides 【God Thief Jack】, then there's basically no possibility of accuracy."
She took out the divination cards, shuffled them, and softly chanted a spell to make the cards float before her eyes. As Xia De turned and walked towards Luvia, he saw Luvia's hands manipulating the cards, rapidly shifting their positions in the air. When she looked up at Xia De, her eyes showed an extremely beautiful, glowing, transparent purple that made Xia De's heart tremble.
"Choose one."
Luvia indicated, and Xia De chose the card in the middle vertical row, on Luvia's side. His finger trembled slightly, and the divination card flipped in the air to reveal its face.
"Divination Card: Game?"
Xia De looked at the card face with suspicion; this card did not appear often:
"What does this mean? I thought I would choose a card representing numbers."
"This either means my divination has a problem, or it means that an extremely powerful relic related to games will appear tonight."
Luvia collected the other divination cards, and Xia De handed her the "Game" card in his hand:
"I hope it's not the worst-case scenario, but since it's related to the materials for the Chosen One Ritual, the possibility of no accidents... Luvia, will you stay in the Association all night?"
"Yes, if 【God Thief Jack】 hasn't appeared after the salon ends, I'll go to your place and sit for a while; I have an uneasy feeling."
"Me too."
Xia De nodded, preparing to return to the book salon. Leia planned for him to tell a Detective story as a special guest in a later segment, so he needed to go back in time:
"I hope everything is safe tonight."
He said softly, and Luvia actively hugged Xia De and then kissed him.
The Moonlight from outside the window shone on Xia De's back; the purple-eyed girl stood in the shadows, she was truly very uneasy.
(Mia is running...)
Iluna Bayas was preparing.
The seventeen-year-old girl, wrapped in a black trench coat, stood at the corner of Silver Cross Avenue, leaning against the wall and watching both sides of the street. Because tonight's events involved the Chosen One, she, who was originally on compensatory leave and didn't need to participate in this operation, was also required to join. Iluna's squad was not fully mobilized; besides her, a PentaCircle, only two low-ring members participated in the operation. Iluna was assigned to monitor the surroundings at an important intersection so that she could know immediately if anything happened, while the other two members of the squad temporarily joined the patrol team. Iluna could see them once every thirty minutes.
"It's getting colder and colder these days."
Although she was on a tense mission, the seventeen-year-old girl still complained about the weather in her heart. In her leisure time, she secretly sized up her outfit, thinking that she looked like a "Detective" from a novel. Thinking of a Detective, she naturally thought of Xia De, and her gaze went towards Saint Delan Square, then she remembered that Luvia had said Xia De would be at the Prophet Association tonight:
"What is Xia De doing now? This time, will Xia De run into 【God Thief Jack】 again?"
She wondered in her heart, then quietly mumbled to herself again:
"Honestly, Luvia always says that I am the true Chosen One, but no matter how I look at it, Xia De seems more like it..."
The passively effective Miracle - 【Sunlight】 could maintain body temperature at night and enhance dark vision, so Iluna didn't feel very cold. But standing still was always boring, so in her leisure time, she would pace back and forth along the wall, but still pay attention to the surroundings. Occasionally, she looked up further and suddenly noticed several terrifying green light sources flickering on the street. Iluna was startled and prepared for battle. But as those "light sources" came under the streetlights, she realized they were two wild cats walking together. Both cats were black, meowing as they walked away along Silver Cross Avenue. Iluna looked at them sideways:
"Even cats appear in pairs, and I can only be like Xia De's Mia... Oh, comparing myself to a cat is too pathetic."
She scolded herself in her heart, but then thought of what Xia De had once said, that the Moon and the Sun are twins, and the Moon and the Sun always appear in pairs.
"Yes, the Moon and the Sun have a fated connection!"
Thinking of this, a smile unconsciously appeared at the corner of her mouth. But luckily, Iluna was standing in the shadow of a low wall at this time. If her colleagues had seen a strange smile suddenly appear on her face, they would have certainly thought she had mental problems.
She leaned back slightly against the wall—she had checked beforehand that the wall was very clean; this was Silver Cross Avenue after all. Her body being completely hidden in the Darkness was not a metaphor; after defeating Darkness, Iluna gained the "Darkness Vortex" talent. But "Darkness Vortex" was just a notable gain; things like dark vision and being almost undetectable when standing still in the dark were gains not worth mentioning specifically.
She quietly stood with her arms crossed, leaning against the wall by the street, imagining herself as a Detective's assistant helping Xia De stake out. Her eyes monitored the street, and she recalled the plot from the "hamilton detective story collection" that she kept under her pillow, and a smile appeared on her lips again.
Although the life of a Ring術士 was more exciting than that of an ordinary Detective, thanks to Dorothy's writing, which was even praised by the academy, the thrilling Detective stories still deeply attracted the seventeen-year-old girl.
After being transferred from the Holy See to the Tobesk Diocese, every night in her rented apartment, Iluna would read books like "Storm Eye Adventure Guide" and "Silver Knight" by the bedside gas lamp before going to sleep, sitting on the bed covered with a quilt and holding a teacup. This was the best way for her to end her day. And ever since she read Detective stories in the Steam Bird Daily, her nightly reading time became a bit longer.
Dorothy's serialization in the newspaper was not fast, so Iluna had almost "savored" each story several times. After the first book was published, she even directly received a new book signed by the author from Xia De.
She liked those stories not just because of the protagonist of the stories—that was only one reason—but more because she was truly drawn to the stories themselves.
"I hope the mission finishes soon, so I'll still have time to read when I get home. The chapter I last read was..."
Iluna thought of the book under her pillow in her residence, standing in the Darkness, her eyes still watching everything on the street illuminated by streetlights. 7017k
