The Shepherds Are Dense – Chapter 754

Chapter 753
Anna Sprenger

Originally, Piloty Manor was a mansion even in the land-scarce city of Leipzig.
Perhaps it was due to his status and his close relationship with Count Leipzig that he was allocated more land.
Its luxury was no less than that of Count Dawn’s manor.
And now… it had completely turned into a pile of ruins.
The power of the explosion far exceeded the limit that a Fourth Tier Extraordinary could reach—its sound was enough to shake the heavens and earth, and even caused the entire city of Leipzig to physically “tremble.”
The explosion that occurred in the city center instantly woke up the residents on the outskirts of Leipzig. Peering out the window, they could see the dark red mushroom cloud slowly rising from the city center. If they had woken up a little earlier, they would have also seen the rapidly diminishing torrent of blood rain and the gradually brightening dawn sky.

“What’s happening, what’s happening? Did the Avalonians attack?”
“Holy crap, which alchemist’s workshop exploded?”
Those who didn’t know the truth, startled from their sleep, had already lost their drowsiness. Their hearts pounded with a mixture of unease and fear. To vent their inner terror, they cursed and guessed.
But those who knew a part of the truth frowned even more tightly.
Within Leipzig, members of the Rose Cross speculated, “Count Dawn just died, and then an explosion of this magnitude occurred. Was this to kill the Winter Demon inside him?”
Those who knew more were even more terrified, “That’s the direction of Piloty Manor… How is it that just as Count Dawn died, the son of the Red Phase is in trouble again?!”
On top of this, those who knew even more—for example, the Children of the Moon who knew of the Red Phase’s intense hostility towards Count Dawn, and the high-level Demon Scholars who knew that this anomaly was the descent of a Night Demon—were now extremely restless and sweating profusely, “What’s going on, was it the Academy and the Red Phase finally fighting?”
—Has a civil war begun?

It’s not that they were wrong to think so.
Count Dawn, who harbored the Winter Demon within him, was an extremely deadly time bomb for the Children of the Moon. Although he had always maintained a relatively peaceful attitude towards the Children of the Moon… that peace was not weakness.
It was a somewhat oppressive forced “equality”—maintaining a peace he controlled with the Children of the Moon, without abandoning his own interests or changing his stance.
Extraordinaries on the Path of Love were inherently emotional and extreme. Count Dawn believed he had given them enough face, but with the constant pressure, such close proximity became a provocation and oppression, continuously agitating the sensitive nerves of the Children of the Moon.
And not long ago, the Red Phase finally emphasized the “non-ally neutral attitude” towards Count Dawn in an internal meeting of the Children of the Moon. In simple terms, if anyone attacked, assassinated, or framed Count Dawn, the Children of the Moon should not interfere.
Compared to the ally relationship that had been stable for decades, this change in relationship was enough to prove that the attitude of the upper echelon Children of the Moon towards Count Dawn had completely deteriorated—after all, for the sake of maintaining appearances, it was inconvenient for the Children of the Moon to directly reverse their attitude by 180 degrees.
In that case, one would be less presentable… and the other would be that some overtures already made could not be withdrawn in time. If they were forced to withdraw, it would easily escalate the situation and leak information outside the circle of the Children of the Moon.
And tonight, Count Dawn died silently—the Winter Demon, which could have wiped out an entire city of Children of the Moon, made no sound at all.
This meant that the person who killed Count Dawn had to be able to quickly kill a Fifth Tier Demon Avatar and then quickly deal with the Winter Demon, preventing it from leaking outside.
Across the entire Star Antinomy… there was actually only one person who had the motive and happened to have the ability to do this.
—That would be the Red Phase himself!
There was no one else!
But Count Dawn just died, and in less than a night… the Red Phase’s son suddenly exploded!
Everyone knew that Lady Piloty was granted her title by the Red Phase. She was once his Blood Slave, and one of his more favored ones. After she became pregnant, the Red Phase had Valentine VII grant her a title so that her future child would not be an illegitimate child.
For the Red and Black Phases, who controlled everything and were the de facto supreme guardians of Star Antinomy, such a trivial matter didn’t even require asking the King’s permission.
The Red Phase had many children among the Children of the Moon… but not many with a blood connection.
Because the act of “giving birth” itself belonged to the Path of Love, which meant that childbirth took away a considerable amount of Path impulse, and was a significant weakening of power for the Red Phase, who always aspired to break through to the Sixth Tier. Therefore, he had always strictly controlled the number of his offspring… over centuries, he only had five children, and only one inherited his surname.
The youngest and most recently favored by the Red Phase was his youngest son, Alphonse von Piloty.
As the characteristic of those at the higher level of the Path of Love, their emotions were all mixed together. Therefore, Alphonse was also considered his father’s lover.
—Killing him with an explosion of this magnitude was undoubtedly a form of provocation. Because the person who could kill him didn’t need to make such a big deal out of it…
He was merely a Fourth Tier Extraordinary. While he was a strong person elsewhere, he was nothing in Leipzig. Moreover, Alphonse had only been transformed for less than five years, and even including his human lifespan, he was only in his early twenties.
Such a young Child of the Moon, without any combat experience… not considering life-saving equipment, even a Third Tier Extraordinary could kill him by overstepping their rank.
And Demon Scholars with more profound knowledge of demons were even more convinced of this.
Because they knew—the blood rain in the sky at this moment was a characteristic of the Night Demon.
And coincidentally…
There was a powerful individual in the Rose Cross Society whose Demon Avatar was none other than a Night Demon!

“…Did Miss Sprenger make a move? How nostalgic…”
At this moment, a stern, white-haired old man in the Leipzig Police Department murmured, “Is this… revenge from the Society against the Red Phase?”
“…Miss Sprenger?”
Across from him, Inspector Vena, yawning and tidying documents, asked with some confusion, “This person you’re talking about, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you mention her… Who is she?”
Inspector Vena, who had been up all night dealing with the White Dove Opera House incident, looked exhausted.
Because of this, his old superior kept him close by.
While other colleagues went to Piloty Manor, only the two of them remained in the office.
On the nameplate on the old man’s desk was written his name:
Frank Schumacher, First Class Inspector. The old man was the highest-ranking police officer in Leipzig.
He and Vena were both Inspectors… Although he was only two ranks higher than Vena’s Third Class Inspector, he was actually a veteran police officer with forty years of experience. If he hadn’t offended a high-ranking noble, he would have been promoted to Superintendent long ago with his qualifications.
And Inspector Vena knew that Old Frank had another identity—he was a secret society member, just like himself.
They had both joined the Rose Cross Society… Old Frank had been his introducer.
It was precisely because of this connection that these two police officers, separated by more than forty years, almost like two generations of grandfather and grandson, were so close.
In Star Antinomy, there were all sorts of secret societies. Each society had its own taboos and its own areas of expertise. Relying on the internal connections of the society, they would enthusiastically share various social resources with each other. This was how exclusive cliques were formed.
They were theoretically illegal, but there was a saying: “If you’re not caught, it’s not illegal.”
And if a secret society could be discovered, could it still be called “secret”?
Broadly speaking, both the gatherings often held by the Red Phase in the “Red Fortress” and the “closed academic conferences” of the Royal Alchemical Association could be considered societies. Although they were all Extraordinary in Star Antinomy, before belonging to Star Antinomy, they belonged to their respective societies.
And among the many societies, the Rose Cross Society was one of the most prestigious and high-level societies.

“Miss Anna Sprenger… she is one of the strongest in Star Antinomy.”
Inspector Frank leaned back, slowly saying, “But strictly speaking, she is not a Star Antimony person. She is a genuine Imperial person.”
“…What?”
Inspector Vena was startled, “Is she an Elf?”
“Something like that… she is a half-elf with three-quarters Elven blood. But what allows her to live so long is not her bloodline, but her power.”
The white-haired old man, with his spirit still vigorous, stood up with a nostalgic expression and opened the window, “I had the honor of seeing her once when I was a child. In terms of seniority, she is one of the founders of the Rose Cross. It is said that she is a descendant of Fontanelle, and she harbors a Night Demon within her—
“As you know, one of the characteristics of a Night Demon’s appearance is the sudden descent of night and blood rain, and the water sources will briefly turn into blood. Although the sky outside has cleared up now, as if the torrent of rain just now was an illusion, but…”
He sniffed the air lightly and let out a hum, “The smell of blood is too obvious.”
“This means the Night Demon only appeared for a brief moment.”
Inspector Vena immediately said, “Or rather, her power was only revealed for a brief moment… Hey, wait? The Imperial era…”
Just then, Inspector Vena suddenly recalled a crucial piece of knowledge.
He looked surprised, “But… isn’t the system of suppressing demons within the body by Demon Scholars something that we Star Antimony people researched?”
He remembered that the world’s first Demon Scholar, Jean de Fontanelle, although he developed this profession, he had no ability to suppress a Demon Avatar.
His ultimate fate was also to become a demon.
Just like the question of whether “Transformed Children of the Moon have any relation to their former selves,” the question of whether “Demon Avatars have any relation to the Demon Scholars themselves” is also a philosophical question.
It’s just that the various theories of the former were generally accepted by the philosophical community as being related, with the strong sponsorship and assassinations of the Children of the Moon; while Demon Scholars believed that the Demon Avatar was a completely separate soul unrelated to themselves, a true “demon.”
It was under this ideology that Star Antimony people developed the new era technology of suppressing internal demons by borrowing the necromancy and Preservation Technique of the Twilight Path.
“Who knows? I don’t know how Miss Sprenger survived either… but she did live to this era, and still looks as young, beautiful, and amorous as a maiden.”
Inspector Frank watched the gradually dissipating mushroom cloud with a complicated expression, “I had the honor of seeing her make a move once. Back then, she summoned this kind of ‘cloud of fire-like darkness’ through some method.
“—From the enemy’s corpses.”

And at this moment.
In the dilapidated Piloty Manor, Alistair slowly opened her eyes.
The Night Demon was tightly embracing her, gradually retracting its dark gray wings, like shadows. Then, a statue-like maiden, with lips like flowing blood tears, leaned in and gently kissed Alistair’s cheek with her lips as cold as jade.
Afterward, the Night Demon transformed back into its crow form amidst a burst of dark red lightning.
Alistair was not panicked at all—because Alistair could sense the Night Demon’s state at any time.
But the Night Demon’s condition at this moment was excellent, meaning… this spectacular explosion did not break through her shield at all.
Holding the little crow, she praised, “You’re amazing, Viness… an explosion of this magnitude couldn’t harm you at all.”
“…No.”
On the contrary, Viness herself refused Alistair’s praise with a complicated mood, “It has nothing to do with me… or rather, it was inevitable that I could block this attack, there was no room for any accident.”
“Hm?”
Alistair was a little surprised, “Why?”
“—Because this is a skill of the Night Demon lineage.”
Viness replied, “Theoretically, I can also use this move.
“It’s just that this move requires planting power in the target’s soul in advance… and having them wear a corresponding ‘curse catalyst’ to trigger it. In other words…”
“This is a ‘Ritual Spell’ that is only effective against allies, right.”
She only said half of it, and Alistair understood.
Such a complex ability was obviously not suitable for use in combat. It could basically only be used during betrayal.
And because its damage composition was entirely based on curses, it was impossible to break the Night Demon’s defense…
Hearing this, the Night Demon became a little anxious, “I would absolutely never use this kind of power against you—”
“—Of course, of course, I know.”
Alistair quickly interrupted, quickly patting the crow to soothe it.
Fortunately, the Mirror Demon seemed to have been scared away by the sudden explosion, otherwise it might have suddenly popped out to mock them at this moment…
That would be bad.
Alistair was very worried that it would be directly killed by the enraged Night Demon.
—This was a Night Demon that once possessed the Wrath Mark!
(End of Chapter)