Same reason as yours."
"You're lying to me."
"Deceive?"
"No, Yasin, setting aside the bloodline I inherited from my father and the surname Aegis, I am just an ordinary Byron."
Yassin Mohat lowered his eyes, his anger reaching its peak, leaving only a mocking laugh.
"Ordinary Bayronians?"
"Your Highness, please don't joke. Even if you say that, will the blood flowing in your veins and your surname leave you?"
"You were born noble, you were born to be above all the Byrons, you are the 'Death Consul' appointed by our God to inspect the mortal world in His stead, the second leader of the entire Aegis royal family…"
"Do you really expect me to believe that you, like ordinary people, can empathize with us and understand our difficulties?"
"In fact, I do understand you."
Azik Eggers' voice was filled with nostalgia for the past.
"In that war, my father lost; he lost his life, and I almost lost everything."
"I lost my past memories and wandered the world like a walking corpse for more than a thousand years, playing many different identities and having one different family after another."
"I was once a beggar, and I was once a lord; I was once a winner with a happy family, and I was once a loser who couldn't even protect his wife and children…"
"Every 'undead' goes through similar suffering, and only ascension can help them be freed. But I am different. I became an angel early on, and there is almost no possibility of continuing to ascend. So the torment has continued to this day."
As he spoke, Azik lowered his head, his fingers tracing the still-wet ink on the letter.
"My life is coming to an end again, but I don't have many chances to start over."
"Just as you said, hatred fueled your decision to go against your conscience, and so did I."
"During my many moments of confusion, I gradually discovered the truth behind what caused me to lose my memory and identified the culprit. One of my students inadvertently helped me expose His evil intentions, and the resentment I felt after being betrayed drove me toward revenge."
Azik suddenly paused. He reached out, and a tall, pale shadow, composed entirely of bones, half-human and half-snake, appeared in the dark, damp underground, his posture humble and respectful.
The lord-like messenger bowed at a ninety-degree angle, accepted the letter from his master with both hands, and then vanished as quietly as he had come, leaving no trace.
If it weren't for the lingering chill on Yasin's body and the restless commotion from the snakes and insects in the corner, it wouldn't even be possible to prove that it had ever appeared.
"Perhaps you don't want to believe what I'm saying, but that doesn't matter."
Finally, Yassin found in Azik Eggers the disdain that often appeared in the descendants of royalty.
"I have shirked my responsibilities for too long. Fortunately, my revenge and my responsibilities are not in conflict. Moreover, I feel guilty towards most of the Byron people."
"Your desire to pledge allegiance to the true Creator is a very rational choice, and I am also willing to make contact with the monarch behind the shadow of corruption."
"In this matter, I am no different from you."
"You hope to lead your people out of suffering, and I hope to end the misfortune my father imposed on me. Our goals are the same."
Azik casually shifted his gaze, and a python suddenly left the pipe it had been coiling in, gliding across the ground and swimming up the "Death Archon's" ankles and thighs, wrapping its body around the Son of God's waist and resting its head on His shoulder.
The enormous python flicked its tongue and hissed, while its owner, with its silent eyes, spoke words of great power that were hard to resist.
"For our purposes, I don't mind destroying the Church of Death that you hate and breaking the special status held by the Eggers family."
"I only want what I deserve; the rest are yours to take as you please."
The ambition of the "Death Archon" was obvious, and His greed was plain to see. Yet it was this naked desire that persuaded Yassin.
He struggled against the throbbing in his soul and the ingrained humility in his bones; his lame leg refused to bend, and he stood there upright.
Yassin nodded slightly, then spoke again, his speech extremely slow.
"Your Highness, as of today, we no longer have the possibility of creating a god."
"However, Your Highness, if you were a reasonable and solitary 'emperor,' I think many Bairans would support you."
He thought for a moment and said.
"We need an 'emperor'."
...
"Speaking of which, I used to like a girl too. It's a pity that I was too young back then. I wasn't sure of what I was doing, and I had just embarked on the path to extraordinary things. Unlike now, I'm just an ordinary, inconspicuous person in the family, with no say in anything..."
"Intis people?"
"She was an Intis, but a dark-haired, blue-eyed, tall but not seductive, quiet and gentle girl, not a typical Intis."
Jerry Zarathustra spoke eloquently, making Klein suspicious that this guy might have copied a plot from some novel and was trying to trick him.
He couldn't believe that Jerry Zarathustra would like this kind of girl.
"And then what happened?"
Did you reject them, or did they simply not like you at all?
"And then?" Jerry Zarathustra raised an eyebrow and said indifferently, as if discussing what to have for dinner. "We met in the university library, Trier Free College, which was originally built by the Sauron family as a gift to the Church of the Eternal Sun. I studied there for two years."
"When I first saw her, I thought she was like many of the beautiful young ladies in the academy, a child of some noble family, studying at this school."
"You know I'm skilled, right? Not many girls can resist my methods..."
Jerry Zarathustra glanced at Klein, clearly annoyed by the young demigod's disdainful look.
"Back then, I hadn't started playing 'Faceless Man' yet; I was just a newly promoted magician, and there was still a difference between how I do things and how you know me now."
He offered a brief explanation before continuing his recollection.
"In short, through a series of coincidences I deliberately created and some subtle little surprises, I finally became friends with her. It was only a couple of days later that I discovered her true identity."
"She is indeed a young lady from a marquisate family in Trier, but it is a family of devout believers in the Eternal Sun. She has already obtained her graduation certificate from the academy and is still staying at the academy, just to study the theology taught by the priests of the Church of the Eternal Sun, and incidentally digest the potions."
"She is a 'light-seeker'," Jerry Zarathustra sighed silently.
That's pretty melodramatic... After thinking for a moment, Klein patted Jerry's shoulder sympathetically.
The unserious Jerry Zarathustra chuckled, shaking his head to indicate to Klein not to worry about it, and then spoke again.
"In short, after learning her true identity, I knew that it was impossible for us. Even if I wanted to continue, one day my family would step in and make me give up."
"So this relationship ended here. If it weren't for a coincidence, it probably would never have had a future."
The result? What result?
I remember you're still single... Klein narrowed his eyes slightly. His intuition told him that, barring any unforeseen circumstances, he could once again call Jerry Zarathustra a "beast" with a clear conscience.
"I met her during a temporary mission."
"That day I was holding a specially made rifled gun, a sealed artifact equivalent to the 'Reaper'. That gun was more expensive than all the money in my pocket combined with myself."
"I took one last look at her beautiful face through the scope, then pulled the trigger, firing three shots in quick succession, until her skull shattered into countless pieces right before my eyes, her brains and skull splattered all over the ground."
Klein fell silent, but Jerry Zarathustra was not about to let it go and continued.
"To be honest, I regretted it later."
"You know, faith and loyalty are important to me, but they don't take up my whole life."
"After that incident, I seriously considered whether, if I were to go back to that time now, I could make room for her in my crowded life, or find a better way to make us miss each other, go our separate ways, and live our own lives."
"After agonizing for two nights, I finally realized that I am a very selfish person."
"Even if I went back to that time, I would still kill her, but instead of the wasteful act of shooting her head, I would be much gentler. For example, I would hold her spirit thread and patiently turn her into a doll, making her my collection."
"Phew, thankfully our ancestors from the Quaternary period left us enough records for reference. I must say, the wisdom of the ancients was quite remarkable..."
Suddenly, Jerry Zarathustra fell silent.
He stared at "German Sparrow's" gloomy, almost dripping black face, and at "wriggling hunger" baring its teeth and twitching along with its master.
Did I do anything to you?
When asked the question, Klein simply gave a cold laugh.
"No, but like you said, demigods in the empire always have some privileges, right?"
"I suddenly felt a little itchy in my hands."
In the end, Klein did not do anything to the "beast" in front of him.
After all, it was just casual chatting to pass the time. If he really took it too seriously, then he would be too unforgiving.
The moment the plan to hunt down Gostars was approved by the "Red Angels," Mr. A and Sharon left the base to prepare supplies that might be needed for the follow-up operation. As the only two "idle" people in the team with nothing to do, Klein was able to chat with Jerry Zarathustra.
He actually understands Jerry Zarathustra's thinking quite well.
It wasn't that he endorsed the values of turning that girl into a Mystic Doll, but rather that he discovered that whether it was Friedrich Zarathustra, who collected a large number of Mystic Dolls, or Tristan, who kept his deceased wife by his side, the "diviners" who had come all the way from the Fourth Epoch and the descendants of the extraordinary families who were deeply influenced by them all seemed to regard this behavior as normal.
Indeed, the definition of loss is quite broad. Sometimes, turning the dead into puppets and creating the illusion that they are still living around us can be a way to soothe our emotions. However, Klein, who still holds onto the mindset of a "modern person," finds it hard to accept.
While Klein was pondering this, Jerry Zarathustra was also speculating about the reason for Klein's sudden outburst.
He maliciously wondered if Sharon was like a delicate doll, always making people overlook her living side, which was why Klein reacted this way when he mentioned turning a woman he once had feelings for into a puppet to keep by his side.
Mr. V is terrified of losing one of his few close friends.
Although it might seem narcissistic, Jerry Zarathustra's intuition inexplicably told him that he and Mr. A might also be on V's list of people he didn't want to lose, though of course not as much as Sharon.
"By the way, have you thought this through? We don't have any 'apprentices' among us. Tracking Gostars sounds easy, but the ability of a 'devil' who can cross pathways is something only you among us can match. If we really try to do it, we might end up getting separated from each other first."
Jerry Zarathustra is right; Klein had also worried about this possibility.
At the "devil" level, the perception of malice increases exponentially. It's very likely that as soon as Klein and his group arrive in the town where Gostars is located, this cunning "devil" will quietly leave because it foresees the danger.
If the scenario we envisioned actually occurs, only Klein in the squad will be able to barely keep up with the long-range "Flame Leap," while Mr. A and the others will easily fall behind and risk being outmaneuvered and picked off one by one by Gostars.
"You mean, apply for a seal through the 'Apprentice' pathway?"
Jerry Zarathustra shook his head slightly.
"The Empire doesn't have many sealed artifacts for the 'Apprentice' path. Now it's wartime, and the army needs high mobility more than we do to raise the lower limit and make up for the margin of error."
"Besides, this thing is highly sought after in any country and by any secret organization, and it's not easy to obtain."
Of course, there are some things Jerry Zarathustra didn't say.
For example, given Klein's special status, it wouldn't be too difficult for him to apply for a "traveler" level item. Apart from "War Red," there are plenty of people willing to curry favor with him.
"What we need are items that can somewhat confuse the 'devil's' ability to sense malice. These are easier to apply for, and we might even be able to get them without going through the military."
"Confuse the perception of malice..." Klein pondered.
That requires the ability to "predict" and also a certain degree of anti-divination ability.
Prediction is easy to say; many methods have that capability. As for reverse divination...
Klein possesses several items that allow him to passively reverse divination, such as Azik's bronze whistle, the "Black Emperor" card, and... Will Onsett's origami cranes.
By the way, Will Onsetin, with His help, let alone a chase, it's possible that Gostars will come knocking on our door the next moment... Klein blinked.
He knew very well that, besides Will Uncrestin, there was someone even more powerful and mysterious who could do the same.
After meeting the "Red Angel," Klein didn't really want to trouble or owe a favor to such a great being, even though the "Red Angel" Medici told him that Pope Regent Urolius was a very nice and generous person who wouldn't mind small things.
Actually, this could also be an opportunity to test Will Unsett's true attitude. He had previously reached out to me and didn't seem very resistant to cooperating with me...
He must know that the "Angel of Fate" is always watching me. Since He's actively coming closer, it means He's not too worried about being discovered by that person...
Having made up his mind, Klein asked Jerry Zarathustra.
"Who are you contacting about that way of obtaining precognitive sealed artifacts without going through the military?"