Chapter 1914: Chapter 1914

"Could it be? Is Mr. Bernoulli's secret related to the Difference Engine? But what does a seal revealed beneath an ancient temple in the central continental desert have to do with the Difference Engine, whose base of operations is Nolan?"

Though he couldn't make sense of it for the time being, with no clues left in the mansion, Jenkins decided to return to Bekov Town after dealing with the underground smithy. Whether the Difference Engine had appeared there or not, it was still a good idea to confirm how the Church was handling the news.

So, he summoned his unicorn in the courtyard. The creature bent its four legs, lowering itself to the ground so Jenkins could mount it with ease.

Just as he was about to take to the sky with his cat, he spotted Mr. Hood, Mr. Black Cat, and Hathaway, Miss Bailing, walking together up a path overgrown with wild grass.

The three of them chatted as they ascended the slope, the mansion slowly coming into full view. When they saw the man with the white cat standing beside the unicorn, they all stopped in their tracks before quickening their pace to approach him.

"Oh, it's Mr. Candle! I didn't expect you to find the treasure before us."

"Good afternoon, everyone. It's... huh? What treasure?"

He asked, a bit bewildered. Then he suddenly turned to look at the mansion behind him, an expression of surprise on his face.

"Are you saying the treasure is here? What a coincidence!"

Hathaway asked, her suspicion piqued.

"Yes, the treasure is most likely here. We found a crucial clue and we're quite confident. We'd been searching for a while this afternoon before we ran into you, but we had no idea there was a mansion here.

Mr. Candle, you haven't been inside yet?"

Mr. Black Cat asked, about to invite Mr. Candle to join them. Treasure was valuable, but their friendship was even more so—not to mention, Mr. Candle had indeed arrived first.

"No, I just came out. I was here for something else."

He explained, swinging himself onto the unicorn. The creature let out a soft whinny and pawed at the ground, preparing for takeoff.

"I won't be going back in. I have something extremely urgent to deal with right now. I didn't find any treasure, but you don't need to check the basement—I've already looked, and there's nothing there. The two clues I got indicated that the treasure isn't out in the wilderness, but inside a small statue. You should search upstairs. And don't forget to check the statues on the staircase banister; that's a very deceptive location."

As he spoke, the unicorn lifted off the ground. His three friends tilted their heads back, watching Mr. Candle ascend.

"Are you sure you won't join us? It's such a shame, you've already reached the 'finish line'."

Mr. Hood called out again, his voice loud to ensure Jenkins could hear him.

"I appreciate the offer, but I really have something I must do! Until we meet again! And once you find the treasure, leave quickly. This place isn't safe."

With that, the unicorn carried the man and his cat high into the air, leaving the three friends in front of the mansion to watch them shrink into a white speck and vanish into the distant, gloomy sky.

For ease of movement, Jenkins removed his black robe mid-flight, reverting to his usual appearance. The white cat, Vanilla, also returned to Chocolate's familiar black-and-white coat.

On the outskirts of Bekov Town, Jenkins sensed no signs of a large-scale battle. He dismounted from the unicorn just outside the town and walked quickly inside.

As he approached the Church of the Sage, he saw that, just as he'd expected, the Enchanter squad from Nolan had arrived and cordoned off the building. The Scribe guarding the entrance recognized Jenkins and let him pass without question.

On the three steps leading up to the church entrance, Jenkins ran into Mr. Gilbert, Ms. Lawrence, and Mr. Kafka, who were walking out while engrossed in conversation. All three were demigods of the Church, but Jenkins wasn't very familiar with the latter two, as they typically operated in the Evergreen Forest.

"Oh, Jenkins. You're here."

Mr. Gilbert greeted him, and the three of them paused to update Jenkins on the situation.

"Bevanna received the message you sent to the church. After confirming with the southern diocese and the Holy See, she realized we might have a serious problem on our hands. According to reports from the diocese where Bernoulli was originally stationed, he underwent a drastic personality change before leaving the desert town and would often disappear for long periods.

Coincidentally, a group from the Church of Destiny was on their way to Nolan by steam train and stopped to rest at a station about 2.5 miles from here. Among them was the level-nine demigod, Miss Broniaons. They assisted with a divination. Although they couldn't get a very specific reading, the results still showed that there was indeed something inside the obsidian seal beneath the ancient church."

"Did Mr. Bernoulli take it?"

"Or, it's possible the thing forcibly latched onto Olvi Bernoulli."

"Where is Mr. Bernoulli now?"

"He was already gone by the time we arrived."

Mr. Gilbert shook his head as the four of them walked away from the church. The Nolan diocese had anticipated a major incident, so they had forwarded Jenkins's message, along with the results of the divination from the desert town, to the other churches.

A joint investigation team composed of the Twelve Churches had already arrived on the eastern outskirts of Nolan. Mr. Gilbert and his two companions were the demigods sent by the Church of the Sage, and the other churches had dispatched forces of comparable strength. Dıscover more novels at novelꞁire.net

They had expected a long search to follow, but just as they stepped onto the main street to rendezvous with the other members of the investigation team and plan their next move, Jenkins felt a raindrop fall from the sky.

He tucked the cat from his shoulder into a pocket—making sure it wasn't the one containing the blue-glowing metal sphere. He wouldn't make the same mistake he'd made in Black Town. A moment later, all four of them simultaneously spotted the massive silhouette of a four-legged monster flash behind the dark clouds just outside of town.

At the same time, a sound like the call of a great whale from the abyss echoed in their ears. Jenkins glanced down at the back of his exposed hand. Where the rainwater touched his skin, faint, almost imperceptible wisps of black smoke instantly began to rise.

"Does that shadow look a bit like a cat to you? Could it be the legendary Moon-Devouring Spirit Cat, the one that devoured the primordial moon?"

The three demigods shot into the air, flying toward the place where the shadow had appeared. Mr. Gilbert pulled Jenkins along, forcing him to shout to be heard over the roaring wind.

A pair of small ears poked out from the pocket on his chest. Chocolate's furry ears twitched; it thought it had just heard Jenkins call its name.

"It can't be that bad! Don't jump to the worst conclusion."

Mr. Gilbert yelled back, his own voice strained.

But just then, the shadow behind the clouds flashed past again, like some strange creature passing in front of a searchlight in the dead of night. This time, everyone who saw it realized Jenkins was right—it was unmistakably a colossal, cat-shaped creature.

Chocolate's two front paws gripped the edge of the pocket, its little face peeking out just enough for its eyes to clear the rim, staring curiously at the distant shadow behind the dark clouds.

Things always have a way of unexpectedly becoming worse than anyone anticipates. Before the four of them could even land, the whale-like call sounded again. From the solid fields below, countless chain-like tentacles burst from the earth, whipping wildly toward the sky.

Scalding white steam geysered from the holes the chains had torn in the ground. Hundreds of chains shot upward through the steam, piercing the clouds and ensnaring the enormous shadow within.

They pulled downward with immense force. As the whale call sounded for a third time, the creature was finally dragged from behind the clouds. It was a bizarre, cat-like being with three eyes on its face, four legs with inverted joints, and nine tails trailing behind it.

Chocolate let out a meow, seemingly concluding that this ugly, chain-bound creature had nothing to do with it, and promptly retracted its head back into the pocket.

Mr. Gilbert, however, recognized what it was, and Jenkins heard his realization:

"By the Sage... so the ancient legends were true."

The four of them were descending as the joint investigation team rushed to the scene.

"The ancient evil beast buried beneath the desert by a nameless god of old, held down by the black stone... the Cloud Whale Beast. It's a terrifying monster that can freely manipulate clouds and mist."

In truth, there were probably thousands of rumors in the material world about an evil beast sealed in the desert, most of which sounded more plausible than Jenkins's "Stranger's Story Collection." The central continental desert had existed since at least the 14th Epoch, and rumors and legends from every era had been endless.

The Church had been unable to sift through the thousands of rumors and legends to definitively connect one to the obsidian seal they had found. But now that the monster had finally appeared, they recognized it in an instant.

The good news was that the Cloud Whale Beast was not a Beast of Calamity. The bad news was that it was far from an ordinary evil creature.

Although it looked like a bizarre cat, the earliest records from the Church of Nature indicated that the monster was originally a whale that lived in the oceans of an ancient epoch.

In an epoch so distant that no written records of it survived, indescribable monsters battled in the oceans. In that age, the seas covered over ninety percent of the material world, and while oceanic races held dominance, the unseen darkness below the surface gave birth to countless massive, indescribable creatures.

The battles of these monsters left behind numerous corpses. A common whale, by drawing power from these carcasses again and again, gradually grew stronger.

First, it mastered the ability to leave the water, then to fly with the aid of clouds and mist. Eventually, its very form shed its whale-like appearance, transforming from fish to bird, from bird to bat, from bat to rat, and from rat to cat.