Chapter 2036: Chapter 2036

The cost of five bubbles was steep for anyone. An ordinary Enchanter gained one bubble for each odd-numbered level and two for each even-numbered level. Five bubbles were equivalent to the gains of three, or even four, levels. And while Jenkins received double that when he leveled up, he only had two bubbles left, one of which had to be reserved for "Uncrowned King."

Even if he wanted to go to the Church of Death and End to ask for the River Styx Water and wash away his current abilities, the water couldn't be used multiple times in a short span. Otherwise, even someone like Jenkins risked memory loss.

He was disappointed, though he had suspected it wouldn't be so simple. After bidding farewell to the Keeper of Secrets, he returned to the surface. It was only then that he realized he hadn't seen the girl with the fish-shaped hairpin among the negotiators—the one who had saved him and Papa Oliver from the monster in the Shadow Realm yesterday morning.

Not every pseudo-god cult had a demigod. Hathaway's Music Cult, for instance, did not, though they had four or five level-seven Enchanters. So, among the more than one hundred pseudo-god cults, Jenkins hadn't bothered checking the registration records. He had simply used his eyes to scan the crowd and had only identified a little over a dozen demigods. It was clear the girl wasn't one of them.

"Was she lying after all?"

The thought soured his already foul mood. Just then, Chocolate, "sound asleep" in his pocket, squirmed restlessly.

"Or maybe she ran into trouble on her way here and never made it to the church... But she's so powerful, who could possibly stop her?"

Mulling this over, he went to ask Mr. Gilbert about the day's clashes between the Church and the cultists. This had been the objective of the bait plan all along. Although on a strategic level, the Church had failed to stop the Difference Engine from using the chaos as ritual fodder for weaving its great dream, on a tactical level, the number of cultists eliminated and arrested in a single day was equivalent to three years' worth of work in peacetime.

The captured cultists provided a great deal of valuable testimony, confirming that the day's plan had been orchestrated by the Tree House. This time, the Tree House had contacted far too many organizations, and the cultists, naturally distrustful of others, hadn't fully trusted them. As a result, the cultists had managed to glean some intelligence about the Tree House, the most important piece of which was—

This was the information Jenkins received. The Church didn't disclose which cultist had provided it, only that its reliability was very high.

Jenkins was surprised, but not that they had so few. He was surprised they still had four demigods at all. In the past year, the number of Tree House demigods who had fallen at his hand, both directly and indirectly, or had been dealt with by the Church, was already approaching double digits. He hadn't expected them to have any left.

After all, even among the Twelve Orthodox Churches, the average number of combat-ready demigods each could maintain in this era was only around thirty. For a clandestine, illegal organization like the Tree House to have had more than a dozen was astonishing, regardless of the extreme measures they took to acquire power. Thıs content belongs to novelꞁire.net

"As expected of an ancient organization with such deep roots... The Tree House's goal is to have one of their own become a Savior, save the world, and ascend to godhood. So their helping the Difference Engine must be for their own purposes; they don't actually want to bring about the end of the world... I wonder what kind of plan this group has. If they could backstab the Difference Engine before the final battle, leaving one side critically wounded and the other completely wiped out, and maybe take the Gear Artisans' Association down with them for good measure, that would be just perfect."

He knew it was just wishful thinking, but everyone was allowed to dream, and Jenkins was no exception.

For the moment, Jenkins wasn't concerned about the cultists. This time, the Gear Artisans' Association and the Tree House had merely provided the methods for summoning A and B-class numbered items and incited these people to charge into the fray. What he cared about was whether the lady with the fish-shaped hairpin had appeared. He had a premonition that this question was incredibly important for him.

But the Church's reports made no mention of any pseudo-god demigods taking action within the city, and Jenkins was absolutely certain that the lady was not a member of an Orthodox Church.

"So familiar, so incredibly familiar, as if she's right under my nose..."

He lowered his head and happened to see Chocolate poke its little head out of his pocket. Jenkins and the cat stared at each other. For a long moment, neither of them moved. Chocolate's amber eyes were beautiful; due to a cat's natural traits, its eyes took up a much larger proportion of its face than a human's.

Jenkins could see his own reflection in those innocent eyes. Likewise, Chocolate could see itself in Jenkins's.

But it couldn't read Jenkins's emotions at that moment. A suspicion crept into its mind: what if Jenkins had known all along, but had simply been unwilling to believe it, to face it, to... It had once heard Alexia mention that Jenkins likely had serious mental issues. His reliance on it was merely an outward expression, the action of a lonely, drowning man desperately clinging to the only raft he could trust.

But what if the raft wasn't a raft at all, but the back of an alligator? Even if the alligator were exceptionally friendly, the lonely, drowning man probably couldn't accept it. So, even if he noticed something odd about his raft, he wouldn't think about it, wouldn't ponder it. Because he was afraid to think, afraid to ponder.

Chocolate suspected that Jenkins had already figured everything out, yet it could no longer read the young writer's thoughts as easily as it could a year ago. It met Jenkins's gaze with trepidation, but in the end, Jenkins simply shifted his eyes away with a casual air.

"Where could she have gone?"

He muttered to himself and walked back into the corridor. Chocolate climbed out of his pocket and nimbly scaled his shoulder. It truly didn't know if Jenkins knew everything.

Miss Bevanna returned to the church a little after four in the morning. As for the Children of the Mist that had appeared in the dense fog, they had, of course, been eliminated. This was far from the Church's first encounter with such monsters. They had thoroughly studied their characteristics and could now formulate targeted strategies, unlike the first time when they nearly lost control.

There was still some time before breakfast. Hearing that Jenkins had been up all night, Miss Bevanna suggested he get some rest. Jenkins agreed on the surface, but as soon as he entered his assigned room, he used a projection to appear outside the church.

He had no particular destination in mind; he just wanted to walk through the city and see the current situation for himself.