### Chapter 962
**The Mad Supervisor Cornelius**
Looking back now, old James likely went to the Church after leaving the Fairy Kingdom.
Because at that time, the loyal old butler Oswald was always by old James’s side.
Even around the time of the Loki incident, Eivass’s sister Freya had contact with Oswald — Oswald gave Freya some hints from James, indicating that Oswald could already contact James at that time. So after James left the Fairy Kingdom, he should have met up with Oswald first.
Originally, Eivass always felt that his adoptive father was unfathomable and that he always held him in awe. One of the reasons was that Eivass knew he would become a World Tier BOSS in the future, and Eivass lacked understanding of him.
Fear is born from the unknown.
But now Eivass knows why his adoptive father embarked on the path of a BOSS in the first place — he originally thought he could see the future, but when the Ouroboros Ring ritual landed, he suddenly realized… the direction of this World’s development was completely different from what he knew!
It was probably from that time that James lost his always composed and unhurried demeanor, as if he had everything under control. It was also from that time that James realized he had to change — so he began to frantically set up conspiracies and seize power by any means necessary.
Old James’s initial perception of the World did not include the possibility of Sixth Tier or above!
Therefore, he was definitely not strong enough during this period! Because in his understanding, there was never the possibility of “resisting a Heavenly Envoy”!
This also made Eivass admire his adoptive father a bit more:
Eivass is now fully aware of what “knowledge is poisonous” means… Once some incorrect, outdated information is known, its harm is even greater than not knowing anything at all. Not only must one search for the correct path, but one must also keenly identify the unreliable sources among the vast amount of information, common sense, intelligence, and secrets that one knows.
For Eivass, who doesn’t know as many secrets, this is already incredibly difficult.
Not to mention old James, who has memories of his past life and has mastered the Stellar Secrecy.
— Under the interference of a pile of incorrect information, James, relying on his own abilities, managed to find a way to overtake others and, at the time of the version update, his strength leaped forward by leaps and bounds, becoming a World Boss!
… But even such a powerful old James was still under the control of the Ring Heavenly Envoy.
Unlike his grandfather Jacob, who was a Disciple of the Ring Heavenly Envoy. Old James was not a subordinate or follower of the Ring Heavenly Envoy, but like Eivass, he was an important pawn of the Ring Heavenly Envoy. From this perspective, he could also be considered one of the victims of the Ring Heavenly Envoy.
When young James, as a human, mastered the Stellar Secrecy, Anna, the loyal Disciple of the Ring Heavenly Envoy, found him. For a pure young boy, Anna’s charm was irresistible… and so Freya was born as a matter of course.
And the soul “survivor from the end of the World” was also summoned by Anna and implanted into James’s body. However, as a Night Demon, she should not have had such an ability… This kind of power involving reincarnation must be related to the Ring Heavenly Envoy. Therefore, James’s birth was a plan laid out by the Ring Heavenly Envoy at least a week ago, and his soul should have been brought back by the power of reincarnation!
Eivass did not know the specific arrangements the Ring Heavenly Envoy made for old James, but he could clearly realize one thing:
— This is the time to break the deadlock!
Now that the Heavenly Envoy has just descended and has not yet opened the World Tier limit, and old James has not begun to rapidly strengthen himself… at most, he is only a Fifth Tier astrologer.
And Eivass has already grown to a peak; ordinary Fifth Tier individuals cannot last more than a few rounds in front of him.
The power dynamic between them, at least at this moment, has silently shifted.
Who would have thought Eivass would suddenly go find old James on the eve of the confrontation with the Fallen Heavenly Envoy?
— At least the Ring Heavenly Envoy would never have guessed! Because even Eivass himself two days ago had no such thought!
Now Anna is dead, and her soul was not sent to the divine kingdom of the Ring Heavenly Envoy, but who knows when the Ring Heavenly Envoy will react. The window period for Eivass is very short — so this expedition must yield results no matter what!
But when Eivass prayed to the Lord of Scales and Feathers for a High-Tier Divine Art, he received good news.
Eivass did not need to go to the Church to find him… because old James was currently in Star Antinomy, and not far from him.
He had indeed heard that old James seemed to be going to Star Antinomy for some gathering or event. But Eivass did not expect that after the Fallen Heavenly Envoy had controlled Star Antinomy for half a month, old James would still remain in Star Antinomy.
Eivass asked the Lord of Scales and Feathers for a spell to obscure the celestial phenomena, donned his cloak, and moved at high speed while invisible, quietly speeding towards the location he had locked onto in his mind!
But the farther he walked, the more he felt a sense of inexplicable familiarity.
— This was not a residential area, but a sealed ruin.
Due to Star Antinomy’s special archaeological system, they would cordon off areas of archaeological value and prohibit development by anyone at ordinary times, waiting for archaeologists from other countries to enter at their own expense and help them retrieve items — if the army directly went in to “archaeology,” too many things would be easily damaged or embezzled, so it was better to leave them there to attract talent.
After all valuable items were dug up, they could be converted into tourist attractions on the spot.
Now that the Star Antinomy army was paralyzed, the cordon lines here had also become dilapidated. One could still see road barriers and iron walls, as well as wires entwined on the iron walls, and barbed wire above the iron walls that was coated with poison. Not only was entry forbidden, but even looking from afar was forbidden — looking was also a matter of money.
But because of this, the ruins could still preserve the appearance of the Hrasal Empire era as much as possible.
This gradually gave Eivass a sense of familiarity.
— He seemed to have been here before.
Thinking of this, Eivass’s footsteps gradually slowed.
He looked around, feeling increasingly familiar.
As Eivass continued to advance following the定位 [dingwei – positioning], he suddenly froze.
Everything before his eyes overlapped with the scenes from Selene’s memories.
“Teresa Monastery…”
Eivass murmured softly, his brows furrowed slightly.
Why… did his adoptive father come here?
The only valuable thing here seemed to be the hands of Sister Sasha… who is now the Envoy of Mist.
Did he want to obtain heavenly envoy fragments through this?
Thinking of this, Eivass invoked the power of the Lord of Scales and Feathers for invisibility.
Because faintly, he could hear the sounds of battle ahead.
Eivass maintained his invisibility and approached the monastery.
In the courtyard within the monastery, a near-mad roar suddenly echoed.
“Waaahhhhhh—hiss ha… flesh… wu wu oh oh oh, flesh—”
It was a beast as frenzied as a werewolf.
His disheveled, dry blood-red hair hung down to his thighs, and he had a dark red beard. The beard extended to his temples, connecting with the hair at his temples, and the beard on his chin hung down to his chest.
The guy’s body was as emaciated as a long-term patient, yet some muscles could be seen — those dark brown muscles were directly over his bones, covered by skin, making one think of dehydrated beef jerky.
His expression was extremely ferocious, saliva dripping, his eyes wide open, with whites dominating. Those whites had turned dark brown, and only cat-like slender crimson vertical pupils could be seen.
— Eivass recognized it.
This frenzied beast was the BOSS of this dungeon. A Fifth Tier Child of the Moon, the “Bloodmane Beast,” who had lost his mind due to a long lack of blood.
Hundreds of years ago, he had another respectable name.
Supervisor Cornelius, the external responsible person for Crescent Moon Manor. When Eivass played “Number 14” during a promotion ritual, he was not polite to Eivass. Now, seeing that he had completely lost the rationality of a Child of the Moon, Eivass felt a touch of schadenfreude, but also a hint of melancholy.
He and some other Children of the Moon from Crescent Moon Manor were fixed near Teresa Monastery by a blood pact, so they couldn’t leave. And because Star Antinomy restricted archaeology — the ghosts and maddened Children of the Moon here occasionally let out frenzied howls, scaring people away from entering.
Except for some “adventurers” who thought they were quite capable and would sneak in by tunneling or jumping to bypass Star Antinomy’s cordon, no one had dared to enter for hundreds of years. And the maddened Children of the Moon inside, who had been hungry for too long, would tear apart and devour anyone they saw.
As long as they drank enough blood, they could recover from this state of madness.
However, there were too many hungry Children of the Moon, and a single unlucky victim was not enough to share. This led to them wandering more and more madly, their aggressiveness gradually increasing, yet no one was ever able to regain their sanity.
— But even if they regained their sanity, what would be the point?
In the past, when they had their sanity, they didn’t seem to be able to escape the bonds of the blood pact.
Even though Crescent Moon Manor had been destroyed, these Children of the Moon who had served Crescent Moon Manor but did not perish with it, instead escaping in advance, could not escape their fate — they were all locked here by the blood pact signed by the founder of Crescent Moon Manor. They were like guard dogs chained to the front door of an empty house when the owner left.
Except these dogs would not starve to death; they would only starve into madness.
Now, fighting this rabid dog was another person Eivass found familiar—
— Oswald, the guardian spirit of the Moriarty family.
Around him were Children of the Moon who had turned into white stone statues.
This was “paleness” that occurred when, lacking purification abilities, one could only kill Children of the Moon again and again until the blood within the Child of the Moon was completely drained and their life force was entirely depleted.
Without his companions, and without wearing the armor of the Pope’s Guard, Oswald’s resistance to Supervisor Cornelius, now known as the “Bloodmane Beast,” was indeed a bit strained.
Oswald wielded a sword in his right hand and pulled a transparent thin thread with his left.
The mere aftershocks of his right-hand short sword were enough to shatter stone walls dozens of meters away, but when the sword struck Supervisor Cornelius, it only produced a crisp clanging sound of metal colliding.
— Eivass had seen the power of that thin thread.
When wielded, it could instantly cleave through the palace walls of the Silver and Tin Hall, reinforced by the Preservation Technique!
Even the war machines that Star Antinomy prided itself on, those war fortresses much heavier than tanks, could be cleaved with a mere wave of the hand.
But they could only cut shallow bloodstains on Supervisor Cornelius’s body—not even reaching the bone.
And when the thin thread was withdrawn, and fine blood splattered like willow leaves, the ferocious wounds seemed to intertwine like living things and heal themselves. However, due to insufficient life force, Supervisor Cornelius could only crudely heal them into scars, unable to completely erase them.
The more he was injured, the more frenzied he became.
A single step could easily crush stone slabs, and he could leap more than twenty meters high. He could even traverse and jump freely on surrounding buildings as if walking on level ground.
He was like a scarlet shadow, moving back and forth at extreme speed. Just from his repeated jumps, one could see clouds of dust erupting from the surrounding buildings, emitting unpleasant creaking sounds.
— Even the buildings could not withstand the recoil force of his jumps!
“Wuwuwu wu… flesh! Either… kill me…!”
Supervisor Cornelius roared incoherently.
Although it was completely unintelligible, the meaning was clearly understood.
— Either give me flesh, or kill me.
And when Eivass heard its roar and rushed over, Oswald had already sustained some external injuries. The blood flowing out only made Supervisor Cornelius more frenzied…
… to the extent that he completely failed to notice another person.
Old James stood about fifty to sixty meters away, his expression solemn.
He pointed towards the center of the battlefield and recited softly.
Star charts flowed around him like shields, and with each rotation, new stars appeared, gradually forming new constellations.
His left eye burned with azure flames, while his right eye was greenish-blue.
He held his staff in his left hand and pointed forward with his right.
And as he chanted, an inexplicable gravitational force suddenly pressed down on Supervisor Cornelius.
— Spatial-Temporal Binding · Fivefold Gravity!
A stagger caused him to plunge his hands directly into the ground — the solid stone slab was like tofu in front of his withered, claw-like hands, easily creating two stone flowers.
Oswald seized the opportunity to launch a surprise attack.
With the High-Tier Divine Art descending upon his body, his speed suddenly tripled.
The long sword in his hand slashed towards the red-haired beast’s neck like a guillotine—
— *Clang!*
With a crisp shattering sound, the scarred sword in his hand broke out of thin air!
And at this moment, old James raised his staff in his left hand.
A beam of light as scorching as the midday sun suddenly shot out!
Eivass was all too familiar with this attack.
This was the Fourth Tier divine art Scorching Ray, the same shot fired by the Cruel Preacher!
— Simulated · Scorching Ray!
The difficulty of simulating spells from other Paths using the abilities of a Mage is one level higher. Therefore, old James’s true level should be at least Fifth Tier in both the Path of Wisdom and Path Adaptation!
Suddenly suppressed by fivefold gravity, and without time to adapt, he was swallowed by the scorching light — this attack was bound to hit.
This was a rather advanced spellcasting technique, double casting spells!
Simultaneously chanting two spells of different Tiers, different professions, or even different Paths, and synchronizing them to be triggered “simultaneously.”
This attack immediately inflicted an almost fatal blow to the red-haired beast — a mere Fourth Tier spell had an effect greater than all the previous spells combined. Supervisor Cornelius let out a pained scream, as if in agony or perhaps relief, and gradually turned into a pale stone statue, its facial features gradually blurring…
However…
This was something Oswald could have easily achieved with a divine art, there was no need for a Mage to simulate it…
“…Mr. Oswald.”
Suddenly, Eivass’s voice rang out from the void. He hadn’t attacked sneakily but had openly revealed himself, appearing before the two.
He gazed at the panting Oswald and asked softly:
“What is your… Path of Devotion Level?”
(End of Chapter)
