Bernadette was looking up, eyes meeting Vincent's across the divide. "I've finished studying the Wishing Lamp. Might as well send it in at the same time and see if anything unexpected turns up."
Her reasoning was clear enough — the "Son of Chaos," the genie, and the "Lord of Chaos" title that Vincent had named himself: was there a connection?
"Good."
The howling wind surged out through the Offering Gate. The Black Emperor Card and the Magic Wishing Lamp vanished from Bernadette's hands and appeared in Vincent's.
"Tell me what you find. Right away."
"I will."
Vincent let out a slow breath and closed the connection to Bernadette. The golden ethereal door slammed shut and shrank to nothing.
He looked down at the two items. He could see nothing unusual with the naked eye. He set the Wishing Lamp aside and picked up the Card, feeding a small amount of spirituality in as a test.
The moment he did — he felt something: a faint, tenuous link forming between his own spirituality and some mysterious force that existed within the Nation of Disorder itself.
The connection threaded its way through the Black Emperor Card and up through his skin where it touched his fingers, spreading incrementally, becoming clearer and clearer as it went.
Boom.
A tremor hit the ancient hall — larger than the one from opening the Offering Gate. Vincent's vision swam, and then cut through the palace's walls entirely: he could see the thirty-three storeys of chaotic, inverted, disarrayed architecture that made up the Disaster of Disorder in the distance, wrapped in pale azure light.
And woven through that azure light — a thin, fine webbing of darkness. Everywhere, and yet seemingly not there at all. But through the Black Emperor Card, Vincent could feel them with perfect clarity.
A flash of intuitive understanding: he could operate those dark forces and restore the thirty-three storeys to their correct arrangement.
Could, but couldn't actually do it. The spirituality required was astronomical — many times beyond what he could bear.
Beyond that discovery, the Black Emperor Card also allowed him to call on the Nation of Disorder's power to deploy all Black Emperor Pathway abilities — up to and including Sequence 0.
But with two constraints. First: still spirituality. He could channel the Nation of Disorder's power, but not without limit — at his current level he'd struggle to sustain anything above Angel-tier, meaning Sequence 2 and above were effectively out of reach. Second: he had to be inside the Nation of Disorder to do it. Just as Klein, to leverage the Grey Fog's guardian-angel power, had to be situated there himself.
What this meant in practice: when Bernadette was in control of the body and fighting, Vincent could simultaneously enter the Nation of Disorder and use Black Emperor abilities to strike at her enemies from within.
And those strikes would come essentially from nowhere — invisible, traceless, continuous as long as his spirituality held. In effect, facing Bernadette would be facing two Sequence 3 Beyonders at once.
Very few things could survive that.
"This is considerably better than Klein's Paper Angel."
Though — it only really worked because of the particular "symbiosis" he shared with Bernadette. Using it in the field normally would mean leaving his own body completely unattended, which wouldn't end well.
Still. For supporting his Boon recipients remotely — playing god from a distance — this was an extraordinary tool.
He set the Card down, pushed back on the burst of satisfaction, and picked up the Magic Wishing Lamp.
He rubbed it lightly a few times. In a complete Wishing Lamp, gentle rubbing would summon the genie, who would offer up to ten wishes — though in reality the limit was effectively two, since the third wish always brought catastrophic misfortune.
Nothing.
Expected. The genie was gone. Changing locations to the Nation of Disorder wasn't going to conjure it from thin air.
He tried pushing spirituality into the lamp. The metal rejected it — the spirituality simply dispersed across the surface and scattered outward.
"So this legendary artifact from the original novel is truly just a very expensive kettle now."
In the original Lord of the Mysteries, Bernadette had relied on the Wishing Lamp to obtain enough power to hold off a Sequence 1 Angel of the royal family when blocking George III's ascension. Without it, when that moment came, what then?
He rubbed his temples. "Worrying about it doesn't help. The situation is what it is. All we can do is advance as fast as possible and pull in more allies."
Allies like — say — the True Creator.
"Back to reality."
He set the Wishing Lamp down and let his consciousness return. The vast hall went still.
A few minutes later —
The ancient Scale gave the faintest tremor. A thin thread of golden mist eased out from between its pans, coiled in the air around it, thinned to a single filament of gold light, and drifted slowly toward the Wishing Lamp. It found the spout and flowed in.
The wick inside the lamp kindled into a gentle golden glow.
...
The moment Vincent was back in reality, he announced: "Two pieces of news — one bad, one good. Which do you want first?"
Bernadette pressed her lips together. "The bad."
"Before we get into it — why does everyone always ask for the bad news first?"
She frowned. "Hear the bad news first, and at least the good news afterward gives you something to hold onto. Hear the good news first, and whatever good mood it creates gets demolished by the bad news right after."
"That's actually very logical."
"Stop stalling."
"Right, right."
Vincent got back on track. "Bad news: the Wishing Lamp had no reaction in the Nation of Disorder. The genie is definitively gone."
Bernadette nodded calmly. "That's not really a surprise. The good news?"
"The good news: I can leverage the Nation of Disorder's power through the Black Emperor Card to use every ability in the Black Emperor Pathway!"
Bernadette blinked. "Every ability?"
"Theoretically, yes. In practice, though—"
He walked her through the current capability ceiling and the constraints, then said: "That's roughly the situation. From now on, when you're holding the body, I'm no longer just watching. I can go into the Nation of Disorder and fight alongside you."
"That really is very good news."
Bernadette gave a quiet nod — but then said: "The problem is that when you're holding the body, I still can't do anything."
"Once we get that Marionettist Beyonder item made — can't you use it to 'deceive' your own spirituality, while I coordinate from the Nation of Disorder, letting you fully deploy your Sequence 3 abilities?"
He immediately asked: "Speaking of which — is that item finished? It's been a while."
"Let me check."
Bernadette quickly wrote a note, handed it to the Invisible Servant, and sent it off.
A few minutes later, the Invisible Servant came back with a reply — written in a sprawling, windswept hand across the page: "My dearest Queen, nagging me won't help, I'm just as frustrated as you are — it's not like I can make Beyonder items myself. If I'd known it would come to this, I'd never have mentioned knowing a demigod-level Artisan in the first place."
Vincent read it. "Who is this? Their tone is even more uninhibited than Stephen's."
"My third mate. Angel."
"Angel? The one the Church planted on your ship?"
"Yes."
Bernadette nodded. "She has a good relationship with a demigod-level Artisan from the Church, and can commission Beyonder items on our behalf."
"You seem to trust her quite a bit. You handed her a Sequence 4 characteristic just like that."
"Reasonably enough. The only reason she currently enjoys her freedom — not being under the Church's thumb — is that she's nominally undercover on the Dawn. I can do without her as a third mate. She can't do without me as her captain."
"That's… an interesting relationship."
Bernadette held up Angel's reply. "The item will have to wait. There's a middleman involved."
"If you ask me — why not just hand it straight to your brother Boneva?"
"Shut up."
"Will do."
To be continued…
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