Chapter 468: The Professional

“Over.”

Watching Muen and Emily swallowed up together by the swarming insects, Marvin’s lips curved into a rapturous smile.

So what about speed? So what about strength? So what about reflexes? What can a noble duke’s son do?

Before him, all that was nothing more than a bit of extra seasoning—an after-show diversion.

Utterly useless.

No matter how strong Muen Campbell was, in the end he would only become the most delicious bait for Marvin’s darlings.

“Behold, my beloved moon.”

Marvin plucked the harp again and raised his neck to sing:

“I offer you this passion, this devotion, this perfect drama, O my beautiful moon—can you feel, feel this burning...”

“I’ll say this.”

Suddenly, from within the hill-like heap of insects, a low, cold voice sounded again:

“Pop your champagne too early, and it’s easy to crash.”

“Hm?”

Marvin’s hands paused. He looked down in puzzlement.

“Not dead yet? Sigh... why struggle, Muen Campbell? The Harp of the Fool is still in effect. You still have a chance to forget everything and become the happiest of performers.”

“No need. Clarity and pain are both sweets I savor.”

The voice sighed:

“And besides... precisely because I’m clear-headed, I can make the second half of this performance proceed the way I like it to—can’t I?”

Whoosh.

There was the sound of flames wavering.

Marvin’s vision blurred; a mass of black fire floated not far from him.

That flame was so eerie and beautiful. Its rich blackness was as deep as all the shadows in the world piled together, yet along its edge ran a pure, holy white outline.

Two completely opposite colors joined in perfect harmony, without the slightest dissonance—like some bright, poisonous flower that draws praise for its beauty even as it plants bone-deep fear and dread.

“Wh-what... is that?”

Marvin nearly jumped. Every hair on his body stood screaming, warning him of the danger of that black flame.

He didn’t dare slacken. He hurried to drive the swarm to gnaw Muen completely to nothing.

But...

The black flame flickered once.

Plop.

A single insect suddenly fell to the floor.

Plop, plop.

Then two.

Plop plop plop plop plop plop plop plop plop plop plop plop...

As if rolling up from the depths of the soul, one insect after another tumbled down from the piled mountain of the swarm.

Like a landslide—stone after stone dropping and shattering to dust.

In Marvin’s widening, horrified gaze, those insects seemed affected by some unknown force; in an instant they fell into soundless stillness, then utterly lost all life, and finally were... devoured to nothing by something unseen.

By the time they hit the ground, only dry husks remained—turning to ash in a blink.

“No... no...”

Marvin played the harp madly, eyes bloodshot as he roared:

“No! You shouldn’t be able to attack me! All your attack cognition has been interfered with by me!”

“I didn’t attack.”

Muen gently covered the little girl’s eyes in his arms and spoke softly:

“Close your eyes, cover your ears—don’t listen to anything, don’t look at anything, okay?”

“Mm.”

Emily obediently shut her eyes and clamped her hands over her ears.

“Good girl.”

Muen smiled, patted her head, then turned. The performer’s poise and grace were gone from Marvin’s face.

“I didn’t attack. From beginning to end, it’s only because you...【saw】it, isn’t that so?”

“‘Saw’?”

Before Marvin could grasp his meaning, the mass of pitch-black flame flickered again.

In an instant, savage pain engulfed his body—as if he were inside the fire—twisting his expression.

Instinctively he turned his senses inward, and found an identical pitch-black flame had somehow appeared... in the depths of his soul.

“What... is that?”

Marvin’s eyes bulged in terror. He snapped the strings faster and poured vast magic deep into himself, trying to drive the flame out.

But nothing he did worked. The magic he poured in vanished like a stone in the sea; the ancient relic that altered cognition could not affect a dead, unconscious thing.

The black flame didn’t look dangerous; Marvin couldn’t even sense heat from it.

Yet with each flicker, he felt something missing from himself.

Blood, bone, viscera—and then... the soul.

“An Evil God? Is this some Evil God’s power? Muen Campbell, you actually—”

Marvin roared, face contorted. He could tell this uncanny force came from some Evil God, but no matter how he wracked his brains, he couldn’t tell which lord it belonged to.

“I told you already.”

Muen casually dug out a worm that had burrowed into his flesh, crushed it, and watched his wound knit closed in an instant. Satisfied, he set one hand lightly on Marvin’s shoulder and looked into his eyes:

“I said I’d make your performance... reach the soul.”

Bang.

Marvin’s body before Muen burst apart, becoming countless small black worms—yet before they could scatter, they collapsed into a carpet of ash.

“Ah!”

The giant insect atop the woman’s head let out a cry of agony. The black flame clung like maggots to bone—still devouring the soul.

Muen waited a moment. The scene didn’t change. It seemed this time his cognition had not been tampered with.

But even if it had, it didn’t matter. None of this was his subjective attack. As he’d said—it only happened because it was【seen】.

“No! I haven’t lost! I haven’t lost!”

Now forced to act solely through a worm’s body, Marvin bellowed in fury:

“Muen Campbell, you think I prepared this long with only this little trick? You think I killed this town’s people... for what?”

“For a sacrifice... I suppose.”

Muen answered softly, unsurprised.

He counted as an experienced industry insider by now. How could he not guess what such a bizarre method of mass killing was for?

“Yes, a sacrifice! And you... failed to stop it! Hah! Just watch them all die before your eyes!”

Marvin’s pained voice rose higher and higher. After sneering a few lines at Muen, he quickly turned to pray to the being he devoutly served.

“Ah, great moon, supreme god who rules the night! I offer you everything—my soul and all the souls here—I offer them to you. Please, please...”

“So you were planning to pray to the moon? Huh—hold on.”

Muen suddenly cut him off, eyeing the chattering worm with a strange look:

“I’ve been meaning to ask... do you really not know that the ‘moon’ you keep invoking... is actually already dead? No matter how you pray, you won’t get any response.”

“Ah...”

The prayer cut off.

“R-right.”

As if remembering only now, Marvin muttered in a jumbled whisper:

“The great moon is dead. It is dead. No matter how I praise It, pray to It, beg Its pity—it’s meaningless.

The moon is already dead. The great Silent Moon is dead... I can even call It by Its true name. It’s dead now!

So...

So...

The one I serve now... should be the stars.”

“Yes. The great stars.”

“【Prayer】”

A solemn prayer issued from the maw of the grotesque giant worm. The whole world seemed to fall silent; all things stood still.

“【With five hundred thirty-one pure souls, with five hundred thirty-one fresh meats, with all that is mine, I pray to You.】”

“【O supreme, most exalted Ancient Sovereign—unchanging God of the high heavens, Lord of the stars who gazes down on all...】”

“【I beseech You: here, now—descend a miracle.】”

In an instant, above the roof Muen had shredded—within that empty night—the sky suddenly grew profound.

Muen looked up. Reflected in his grave eyes, diamond-like stars hung upon the deep canopy—one after another, ceaselessly flickering.

More brilliant than ever, more dazzling than ever. Endless starlight linked into a Milky Way spanning the sky, like a boundless net lowering itself.

Beneath the starry vault, all things were as dust.

“Is it truly another Evil God?”

Muen sighed.

“What kind of Evil-God-magnet physique do I have, exactly?”

“Ha—hahahaha...”

As his prayer ended, Marvin—made feeble by the constant loss of his soul—let out the most delighted laugh of his life.

“Muen Campbell, just you wait! Just you wait! The great One is about to descend. When It does, I’ll make you my puppet—I’ll make you forever the finest, and the most agonized, actor upon my stage!”

“...”

But faced with Marvin’s gloating, ❀ Nоvеlігht ❀ (Don’t copy, read here) Muen’s expression only grew stranger. He looked at the worm in silence.

“Did the one giving you instructions forget to tell you something?”

“Wh-what?”

“That is... I didn’t come alone this time.”

“You didn’t come alone? Does that matter?”

Muen actually saw confusion on the worm’s face. Chuckling, he sighed:

“Though I do call myself an industry insider... if we’re being strict, my lady is the real professional.”

Above the heavens, that brilliant starry sky deepened. Both Muen and Marvin could clearly feel a terrifying presence, from an unfathomable distance, turning Its gaze toward this place.

It had sensed the sincere sacrifice and prayer—and so would respond to Its ecstatic believer.

【Perm...】

“Denied.”

A voice as sweet as a nightingale echoed through the desolate sky—cutting the response off hard.

A lithe, breathtaking silhouette stood upon the vast night before anyone knew when she’d arrived.

A fitted trench coat snapped in the early-spring wind; the black-stockinged legs beneath her skirt lost none of their edge even in the dark.

She tilted her head to the heavens, a just-right smile upon a face both delicate and alluring. The long hair swept across her chest lent her the softness of a sweet, next-door big sister.

She gazed at the stars as if chiding a mischievous child.

“Not allowed.”

But—

Behind her, a true, bright full moon rose from an endless, pitch-black sea, shedding a biting, unyielding chill.

“May I ask you to... go back?”