"Hey! You're serious about this? Weren't you just trying to strike a deal with me a second ago, and now you're just flipping on me like that?"
The woman in black said nothing, simply raising a hand and "hiding" every one of Amon's various concealed avatars around them all at once. Almost simultaneously, a massive, fanged mouth materialized out of thin air behind Amon and lunged, swallowing him whole in a single bite.
Amon grasped at empty air, using "steal distance" to dodge the bite — but before he could get his footing back, the Sword of Damocles, already hovering above his head, came crashing down: the higher one's standing, the more punishing the fall when it's undeserved.
Amon frowned and reached out again, and the Sword of Damocles vanished, nearly grazing his scalp — but right then, the Spear of Longinus came streaking toward him.
He clearly meant to pull the same trick, stealing the blood-red spear for himself — but the woman in black waved a hand, "hiding" his "Steal" ability outright, forcing Amon to steal distance instead, reappearing directly behind Klein, snatching him up and using him as a human shield, hurling him aside.
Crack!
The Spear of Longinus turned suddenly illusory, dissolving into scattered points of light.
A pea vine shot up rapidly, catching Klein's falling body and carrying him over to Vincent, who raised a hand, condensing another blood-colored spear, and hurled it with brutal force.
But Amon had already prepared for this — a jewel-encrusted sword dropped out of nowhere, colliding directly with the blood-colored spear, both shattering into fragments — the very Sword of Damocles he'd stolen moments earlier.
"Got you now."
A faint light flashed across the monocle over Amon's right eye.
In an instant, Vincent's body froze solid. He felt himself lose control entirely, his mind and consciousness assaulted at once, his sense of self rapidly slipping away.
He'd just been successfully parasitized by Amon.
Watching the woman in black about to press her attack further, Amon, now controlling Vincent's body, said, "Better think this through carefully. Once I've fully completed the parasitism, I'll tell you everything you want to know."
The woman in black lowered her hand.
"Ha. Now that's more like it..."
Crack!
Vincent's body abruptly shattered, reappearing several meters away, the time-worm Amon had used to parasitize him dropping to the ground, curling up rapidly, withering, and dying.
Free again, Vincent felt a wave of shock — because that last mirror stand-in hadn't been his own doing at all.
"It's that mirror person!"
Bernadette's voice suddenly sounded in his mind.
Vincent turned and saw a mirror, its surface like rippling water, and within it, a tall figure wearing a crown — the same "mirror person" who'd interfered with their plans several times before.
But this time, he — or it — had actually stepped in to save them?
Vincent and Bernadette both landed on the same thought almost instantly: going by their earlier speculation, this "Your Majesty" mirror person might well be Roselle's own mirror avatar.
Which meant that theory might actually be true?
But shouldn't the mirror person be especially hostile toward their real-world counterparts? So why step in to save that counterpart's own daughter?
Just then, the "water mirror" rippled, and a figure stepped out from within it — Melissa, the very woman the mirror person had taken away not long ago.
"Teacher..."
"Little Raven!!!"
Melissa's and Medici's voices rang out at the same time.
"Ooh, it's you, Medici!"
Amon, seemingly unfazed by Medici's fury, gave a leisurely wave. "Been a while. Ascended to Red Priest by now, I'd imagine?"
"F*** you, ***"
Medici's greeting was blunt, and to the point.
Amon narrowed his eyes, smiling. "Oh, sounds like it didn't quite work out for you. Care to explain why?"
"Oh, right, I remember now. It was because of me, wasn't it."
Medici, furious, swept a hand out, hurling a spear of flame straight at him — only to have it stolen away by Amon without a second thought.
Before Medici could follow up, Amon raised both hands. "I surrender! One-on-two, sure, I could manage. One-on-four, though — that's a bit much to ask of a mere Sequence 3 avatar of mine."
He looked at the woman in black with a sigh. "I am your own uncle, you know. How could you turn on me this easily?"
"???"
Amon's words left Vincent stunned, staring at the woman in black in astonishment: Amon's her uncle? Her real uncle?
What is happening?
Amon's known "brother" is Adam, right?
Which would mean... this woman isn't the Goddess of the Evernight — she's Adam's daughter?
This is nonsense. Total nonsense!
Adam was practically pure divinity, nothing human about him — how could he possibly have a daughter?
Er, well — thinking about it, having a child in the Lord of Mysteries world apparently didn't require all that much fuss to begin with. Amon himself had been "born" directly from the Ancient Sun God.
Adam was, at his core, the Ancient Sun God too. So there was no reason he couldn't have "given birth" to a child on his own, in some sense.
But if that were the case, this woman should logically be Amon's sister...
Except she was so clearly a Dark Pathway Beyonder. Adam, as an Angel of the Visionary Pathway, had no business fathering a daughter of the Dark Pathway.
If she really was the daughter of some high-Sequence Dark Pathway figure, combine that with the way she was dressed...
In an instant, Vincent's mind flashed back to that statue of the Goddess of the Evernight he'd seen in the underground tomb — and the infant she'd been cradling in her arms.
A "well, damn" rose straight up his throat.
The Goddess of the Evernight having a child was one thing, understandable enough. But the Evernight Goddess having a child with Amon's own "brother" — that was somehow beyond what he'd ever thought to imagine.
Amon clicked his tongue. "Turns out you really are just like your mother, Amenisis."
Confirmed. She really is the Goddess of the Evernight's daughter.
Amon's mouth curled up at the corner as he looked at Vincent. "Roselle's daughter — care to guess whether he'd let you live, knowing a secret this terrifying? And what about the Goddess of the Evernight, once she finds out you know?"
"..."
Amon extended a hand. "Want to team up with me instead, take her down together? Don't worry, she's only Sequence 2. Between the two of us, our odds aren't bad at all."
He paused, then lightly slapped his forehead. "Oh, and almost forgot about Medici — but in the state she's in right now, she's about as threatening as a stray cat on the side of the road. Just pretend she's not even there."
Medici, having calmed down somewhat by now, simply raised a cold, silent middle finger in response.
Vincent said nothing, instead condensing another Spear of Longinus in his palm — his answer, spoken through the weapon itself.
"Well, all right."
Amon shrugged, taking two steps back. "Guess I'll head out for now. But next time, once our roles are reversed, I'll show you exactly what cruelty really means."
With that, he reached out and grabbed again, and his figure vanished.
Crack!
The next instant, Vincent's body turned illusory once more, and a dozen or so translucent time-worms dropped from his "nonexistent" body, wriggling helplessly on the ground.
Damn it.
Not a single word out of Amon's mouth could be trusted — good thing Vincent hadn't let his guard down for a second the whole time.
"He's gone."
The woman in black said, flat.
Splash.
The water mirror hovering in midair suddenly collapsed, dissolving into a puddle scattered across the floor, the figure within it vanishing along with it — without giving Vincent (Bernadette) any chance to ask a single question.
Bernadette said quietly, "Let's deal with what's in front of us first. There'll be a chance to sort the rest out eventually."
"Right."
In a sense, this woman standing in front of them might well be even more of a problem than Amon. What Amon had said earlier wasn't wrong, either — if the Goddess of the Evernight having a daughter had stayed hidden for a thousand years, that meant she absolutely did not want anyone to know.
Which meant this mother and daughter had plenty of reason to want them dead, just to keep that secret buried.
"Was Amon deliberately just now—"
Before he could finish, the woman in black said, "I know."
"I also know that Amon's real goal was to use me to help him look into that 'Lord of Chaos' you worship."
The implication was clear enough: even knowing all that, she'd have gone along with the fight anyway.
"Huh?"
Beside them, Melissa, staring at Klein, suddenly went wide-eyed. "She... "
Why does this woman look so much like Klein?!
To be continued…
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