After dinner, taking advantage of the rising red moon before it reached its peak, Tang pulled Olson into the 'Never-Ending Theater.'
Just as he had expected, those he 'acknowledged' would not be marionetted.
Although the hidden theater core still wanted to hang Olson up as dried meat, it ultimately took into account the 'mad ravings' it had heard when it was sealed and turned a blind eye.
"This, this is..."
Olson was clearly dumbfounded, looking at the corpses that had been sorted and packed on the ground, along with the Extraordinary characteristics placed with these corpses. Olson was in a complete state of 'who am I, where am I, what is all this stuff?' confusion.
"The remains of members of the Abraham family and their left-behind Extraordinary characteristics that were trapped in this Sealed Artifact."
Tang explained.
Seeing Olson's incredulous look, Tang shrugged. "As long as the sealing is correct, it's entirely possible to pry these things out from under the Sealed Artifact."
But... they had just encountered that terrifying Sealed Artifact a few days ago, right?
Right?
No problem, right?
It was like this, right?
It wasn't as if he had slept for a month or a year, right?
It was known that a Sealed Artifact that could easily kill Sequence Four Extraordinary individuals had definitely reached the Angel level, which was equivalent to a "0" level Sealed Artifact within the Church!
All "0" level Sealed Artifacts represented the Church's most core power. Each "0" level Sealed Artifact sealed by the Church, without the involvement of a god, represented a large number of experiments and a long cycle.
It was extremely difficult to wield a "0" level Sealed Artifact. The Angel level represented powerful power, loss of control, madness, and strangeness. Even the orthodox churches didn't have many "0" level Sealed Artifacts—
Tang had sealed a "0" level Sealed Artifact just like that?! And stripped away its marionettes?! How long had it been?!
Olson felt like he hadn't woken up yet. He looked at the Extraordinary characteristics on the ground and then at Tang, who was examining the huge black iron gate. While the shock in his heart was beyond words, he forced himself to calm down.
"Calm down, calm down. Tang's father seems to be a high-sequence Extraordinary individual, perhaps there was also help from that high-sequence Extraordinary individual."
It couldn't possibly be an evil god's doing!
He controlled his emotions, maintained his spirituality, so as not to scare himself into losing control.
After sorting out his thoughts, Olson looked at the extracted Extraordinary characteristics, his heart filled with complex emotions.
He saw a demigod-level Extraordinary characteristic among them—he only glanced at it before looking away, not letting his already somewhat out-of-control state fall into a more unpredictable direction.
"On behalf of the Abraham family, thank you, Tang, thank you very much."
He stammered.
To be honest, Tang could have completely pocketed everything. As long as he didn't say anything, no one would know what belonged to the Abraham family among the marionettes and hidden Extraordinary characteristics in that theater.
This favor was far greater than the other party pulling him out of the theater and telling him about a possible way to resist the murmurs.
Far too great, and it was a favor he couldn't decide on his own, a favor he couldn't repay.
Seeing this reaction, Tang knew that his attempt to win over the Abraham family was almost certain.
"Stay here for a while and see if the murmurs appear." Tang had just carved a few more flowers on the iron gate to pass the time. After Olson nodded and began to sort out the Extraordinary characteristics on the ground, he flashed out of the theater and, at the same time, released his Traveler marionette, traveling back to the castle again.
The red moon rose, and its eerie, huge moonlight spread across the mid-air. Looking at it for too long felt like sinking into it, unable to extricate oneself.
Tang walked to the door of his study, pushed it open, and entered.
Servants had already lit the fire in the study, making the interior very bright. Owen had been sitting inside for an unknown amount of time, now holding a book of poetry with a look of bitter hatred.
Tang glanced at it. Oh, Intis language.
"Looks like everything went smoothly?"
When Owen saw it was Tang, he unconsciously breathed a sigh of relief and threw the poetry collection, as if it were a hot potato, onto the table.
"This is simply like mental pollution," he complained somewhat.
"It's always good to read more." Tang gestured to the Traveler marionette beside him to bring over a chair. Owen glanced at the Traveler marionette. "New marionette?"
"Yeah."
Speaking of this, Tang had a smile on his face, and his tone was somewhat boastful, "A Traveler."
It should be known that Travelers were very difficult to kill even among all the low and mid sequences. Without thorough preparations in advance, trying to kill or marionette a Traveler was simply wishful thinking.
But he had two!
Owen shrugged, not asking where Tang got the Traveler marionette, just like he never asked who Tang's 'Craftsman' friend was.
Tang sat down after having the marionette stand beside him. "The source of that Sealed Artifact is roughly understood."
The marionettes captured by the 'Never-Ending Theater,' as long as they were below the Sequence Two level, were equivalent to being deeply spirit-channelled by it. Tang had called over that Sequence Four devil and asked it before returning. The other party was indeed a member of the Blasphemy Sect, believing in the evil god of the Cosmic Dark Side.
"This time it was the evil god they believe in, He descended a divine decree."
"The Cosmic Dark Side descended a divine decree?"
Owen's eyes widened, somewhat incredulous.
"A large amount of blood sacrifice... that's roughly the meaning. As for what the Cosmic Dark Side wanted to obtain through the sacrifice, or perhaps to satisfy the needs of some ritual, that devil wasn't clear either."
"But he wasn't the one who unfolded the theater and turned many people into marionettes."
Through the devil's description, Tang roughly understood that the one who cooperated with this devil was an Apostle of Desire.
Below the demigod level, the devil was very clear on this point, but what exactly was his identity, and why did he have the confidence to cooperate with a bloodthirsty devil? Wasn't he afraid of being backstabbed and having the theater stolen?
The Blasphemy Sect was, after all, a loose alliance, and the devils within it, having gone through the 'Fallen Angel' sequence, could not possibly have the concept of 'companions.'
Killing and seizing treasures was very common. "0" level Sealed Artifacts were rare everywhere!
But this point didn't specifically appear even in the deep spirit-channeling of the theater. When mentioning that Apostle of Desire, the devil's marionette even trembled somewhat. This was the most core thing simulated by the theater, and also the point that Tang suspected the most.
Was it ignorance, or was it deliberately erased? A mid-sequence Extraordinary individual who made a demigod tremble... this was a very troublesome fellow, who even turned around and tricked the devil who cooperated with him, leaving him in the theater as ritual material.
Cold-blooded, indifferent, not treating people as people, the Extraordinary individuals of the Abyss pathway and the Extraordinary individuals of the Secret Suppliant pathway deserved to die equally.
(End of this chapter)