Leonard mumbled, seemingly to ease the atmosphere, and tightened the collar of his trench coat, then casually glanced at the two people not far away, whistling uncontrollably.
Dunn glared at Leonard, whose face was full of schadenfreude, and rubbed his temples with a headache, looking helplessly at Daly who was leaning on him. Just as he was about to say something, his lips were covered by a warm touch.
Looking at Dunn, who was a little flustered but didn't shrink back, Daly casually licked the lingering warmth from the corner of her mouth, directly ignoring "the real third wheel" Leonard, and smiled, "You're not as conservative as before, but you still don't know how to take the initiative with women."
"Hmm, if you could also learn to create a romantic atmosphere, then perhaps we might even have children soon."
Even after experiencing so many ups and downs and going through so much, Dunn was still a little overwhelmed by such direct and suggestive words. He cleared his throat and changed the subject:
"I've already received the telegram from the Holy Cathedral. His Holiness the Pope has approved my application for advancement to Senior Deacon of the Nighthawks at the Sacred Meeting."
"The war between the Sea of Id and the Amand Mountains has ended. For the next period, we will remain in Desi County to cooperate with the Church of the God of Steam and Machinery in preventing the Feynapotter Kingdom."
Daly raised an eyebrow, and seeing that they were discussing serious matters, she stopped teasing Dunn. Although she was a little surprised by the Church's arrangement, she had no intention of delving deeper.
The death of Ince Zangwill buried many secrets, but for her, Dunn's return was enough.
Leonard, on the other hand, had put away his teasing smile, his eyes somewhat dim, with a question in his heart that he didn't voice.
Dunn glanced at the contemplative Leonard out of the corner of his eye, but had no intention of offering an explanation. Bronze light surged from his brow, and the illusory Underworld Gate opened, from which the body of "Admiral Hell" Ludwell fell out.
Pushing this Beyonder puppet, which had lost the manipulation of its Spirit Body Threads, to Leonard, Dunn thought for a moment and added, "My true identity is still confidential, known only to you, the members of the Sacred Meeting, and it's not convenient to be too ostentatious."
"You take Ludwell to the Governor's Mansion and claim the 55,000 pounds reward."
Although materials or Beyonder items above the Demigod level are already difficult to measure in terms of money, an ordinary Sequence 5 Beyonder characteristic is only about 8,000 pounds.
Even if the Gatekeeper Beyonder characteristic had been extracted, Ludwell's remaining shell could still be exchanged for the equivalent of seven Sequence 5 Beyonder characteristics.
Of course, it's not that easy to fully claim the bounty from the military.
Either like "King of Dawn" who killed "King of Immortality" Agalito, intimidating Bayam and making Jahn Kottman take a step back, or having a strong backer, such as the Church of Evernight...
The previous Klein had neither sufficient strength nor a visible backer. Even though he coveted those bounties, he didn't risk trying to claim them, so for such a long time, no one knew that this "Admiral Hell" had fallen and been refined into a Beyonder puppet.
After waiting for Klein for a long time, Dunn finally decided that instead of leaving it to that air-headed Frank, it would be better to convert it directly into pounds and transfer the bounty to Klein when they met next time.
Taking the once infamous Pirate Admiral, Leonard nodded, took out his iconic red gloves from his storage, put them on, picked up Ludwell's corpse, and walked towards the Governor's Mansion outside the port area.
Ignoring the surprised or curious gazes of the surrounding pedestrians, Leonard tilted his head slightly, habitually calling out "Old Man" in his mind.
To his surprise, Pallez, who had been playing dead ever since he saw the Demoness avatar of that blasphemer in the Fog Sea, actually responded.
"Old Man, where have you been these past two days?"
He breathed a sigh of relief in his heart, his steps unchanged, Leonard subconsciously pressed for an answer.
Pallez chuckled, already accustomed to Leonard's tsundere temper, and explained unhurriedly, "I value my life very much, so naturally I thought of some ways, at least to divert that fellow's attention."
Seeing that Pallez had no intention of explaining in detail, Leonard wisely did not press further. After a moment of silence, he changed the subject and said, "In Tingen, you said that Captain was already dead…"
As if guessing that Leonard would ask this question, Pallez chuckled lowly and interrupted, "He just came back from the dead, otherwise he wouldn't have advanced to Undying so quickly…"
Leonard's steps paused slightly, stopping in front of the Governor's Mansion. While taking out the identification for the red gloves and handing it to the guard, he asked in his heart with a hint of hope, "If Captain can come back from the dead, what about Klein?"
He didn't get the answer he wanted; what responded to Leonard was a prolonged silence.
After trying to call out a few times with no response, confirming that the Old Man had inexplicably gone missing again, Leonard frowned and temporarily put aside the question. After the routine inquiry, he began to count the bounty exchanged at the Governor's Mansion.
-----------------
At the peak of the Hornacis mountain range, in a space that doesn't exist in reality, illusory stars illuminated the profound Darkness.
Deep within the grand, dilapidated palace, Aaron leveraged the power of the Nation of Disorder, writing mercury-colored words onto the true body of the Trunsoest Brass Book.
In his hand, the illusory brass book, whose essence was merely a projection of power, turned to a blank page, and new articles appeared:
"All actions must and can only be performed by the Trunsoest Brass Book or those authorized by it. All order and rules here cannot override formal decrees."
"….."
"….When rationality drops below 50%, the Attendant of Mysteries' ability to summon Historical Projections will have a significantly higher failure rate, and complete loss of rationality will prevent the summoning of any historical projections…."
"..."
By means of a series of highly targeted decrees and the unique nature of this space, Aaron almost instantly sealed several of the Attendant of Mysteries' most intractable authorities.
As the price for forcibly modifying the decrees, the Trunsoest Brass Book, once again nearing its activation limit, would be unusable for a considerable period until the backlash of order dissipated.
This dark world then swayed, and the mass of distorted, transparent worms on the throne, from which countless slimy tentacles spread, gradually converged into a human form.
His face was quite young, but his hair was already half-white, half-hidden and half-obvious, and his cheeks had tufts of coarse, black short hair like wolf bristles, giving him a contradictory feeling of both old age and youth, both rationality and madness. This was precisely the ancestor of the Antigonus family.
But the next second, his figure suddenly distorted, transforming into a mysterious person draped in a deep black cloak, whose face was obscured, and from whom slimy tentacles continuously extended sideways.