"Success!"
The mont Pomphey finished speaking, Jenkins couldn't help but cheer silently in his mind. He quickly summoned the specks of ability light and focused his consciousness on [The Unknown Path].
A clear purple thread of fate imdiately pierced through the mist and stretched into the distance, seemingly in the direction of St. George Avenue.
"Just as I thought. The way to defeat him is to find the next qualification of a Savior."
Even now, Jenkins didn't fully understand how [The Unknown Path] was triggered, but he knew that sotis, all he needed were a few insignificant fragnts of information.
Since Pomphey had admitted that possessing the Stage mind lock could potentially defeat it, there was no point in Jenkins staying here any longer.
"Farewell. It won't be long until we et again."
Jenkins bowed his head slightly, and a black demonic shadow shot straight up as an explosion blew off the entire top of the clock tower. The violent blast and deafening roar could be heard across half the city. As Jenkins gradually faded from view, he could already see through his monocle the demigods in the distance rushing toward them.
"If the demigods can take care of Pomphey at the clock tower, things will beco much simpler."
Jenkins thought to himself as he rose to his feet from beneath the giant tree. But if things were really that simple, the situation wouldn't have deteriorated to this dreadful state.
He looked up, past the flourishing branches and leaves, toward the sky. The strange phenona from downtown Nolan City had gradually spread here. Black clouds, swirling sinister winds, and mist were attempting to seep into the dense forest.
But this forest, ford through nurous coincidences, possessed a supernatural power of its own. If one were to observe from high above, they would see the forest itself emitting a faint green radiance, like a lone lighthouse in the endless depths of the sea, protecting the lives within it.
"Alright, I've found the way to win. It's ti to end this."
He thought to himself, placating his sowhat impatient cat. Seeing that it was showing signs of wanting to pick a fight with a nearby group of rabbits, he had no choice but to project them both back to St. George Avenue.
Fate clearly guided Jenkins to his basent, pointing him toward a box in a sealed compartnt.
The box contained all the items confiscated from the [Unrecordable Gun] incident, including the materials obtained from the old assassin.
Opening the box, the first thing he saw was a book as thick as a brick, titled "A Playwright's Prir"—the very book the old assassin used to hide his occult materials. Jenkins hadn't opened it since he got it. To his surprise, when he did, he found the thod for learning [Storyteller (Golden Divine Art)] recorded inside.
"Ha! Just as I thought. Fate is guiding to learn the Stage mind lock... Hmm?"
He imdiately realized he had jumped to the wrong conclusion, because the purple thread wasn't ant to guide him to open this book; the book had simply been in the path of fate's guidance.
After he picked up the book, the thread of fate remained unmoved, still pointing inside the box.
He hesitated for a long mont, glancing from the book in his hand to the box, completely baffled.
"Could it be... the key to defeating the Skull Sword isn't the Stage mind lock?"
Until he had returned ho monts ago, Jenkins already possessed three of the five component abilities required for the Stage mind lock: [The Player (White Basic)], [Storyteller (Golden Divine Art)], [String-puller (Blue Heteromorphic)], [Perforr (Red Martial)], and [Construct Stage (Yellow Spell)].
All three abilities had co to him through various accidents, which was why Jenkins had mistakenly assud that the key to resolving the current crisis was to acquire the final two: [Storyteller] and [Perforr].
But now it seed that wasn't the case. He had misunderstood. The key to breaking the stalemate had nothing to do with the Stage mind lock.
"So, what in the world is going on?"
"ow!"
Chocolate knew, but it just lay quietly on the man's shoulder, offering no hints whatsoever.
He stroked his well-behaved cat, leaned over, and rummaged through the box, finally touching the remaining bearing from the disassembled [Unrecordable Gun].
The purple thread of fate imdiately began its next phase of guidance. In the monts that followed, Jenkins successively retrieved the "hand" left over from the disassembled C-08-2-2218 [Stopped Clock], the "wooden leg" that remained after the exploding puppet detonated, the "two wooden cores" other than the elderwood core, the B-01-3-8222 [Stone of Life], and the mature B-01-5-0718 [Fantasy Flower], which was temporarily sealed in a holy silver casket.
"A bearing, a clock hand, a wooden leg, wooden cores, a Stone of Life, a Fantasy Flower... What does it all an? Am I supposed to bludgeon Pomphey to death with this stuff?"
He didn't understand, but that was fine, because the guidance wasn't over yet. After Jenkins had gathered all the items, the purple thread suddenly changed direction and stretched into the distance.
Jenkins hesitated for a few seconds before decisively summoning a unicorn and flying into the sky with his cat. As he followed the purple thread toward his destination, he listened to the extraordinary sounds of explosions and intense fighting coming from the vicinity of the clock tower.
From above, a black tide appeared in the city, spreading from the labyrinthine alleys and streets to engulf the entire tropolis. Jenkins initially thought it was a strange variation of the fog, but he soon realized it was a terrifyingly large army of the undead.
So foolhardy wraiths even tried to attack the writer passing by in the sky, but the sacred unicorn, acting on instinct alone, could kill those monsters that represented the forces of death.
The Church's Enchanters were engaged in fierce battles with the undead throughout the city. In fact, it wasn't just the Church's Enchanters; every living person active in the city was fighting.
Even though the mist and dark clouds had turned day into night, the brilliant flashes of light and frequent explosions from all around had nearly turned the night back into day.
The resurrected low-level undead were not particularly strong, but their numbers were terrifying. In the short term, the living wouldn't suffer great losses, but the longer it dragged on, the more likely the city was to fall completely.
Jenkins had to resolve this quickly. The one thing he hadn't expected was that his destination would be the Sage's Church.
The church doors were wide open, revealing unconscious clergy and believers lying scattered about inside. However, he saw no sign of the Church's Scribes.
He thought it over and decided to revert to his appearance as Jenkins before approaching. After all, being discovered sneaking back into Nolan was a minor issue. But if a "Believer of the God of Lies" was witnessed breaking into the church to steal things while it was under duress, that would be impossible to explain.
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