“Go, investigate that messenger.”
“We can't, Bishop,” the ascetic sitting opposite him answered bluntly.
Raymond Sage raised his eyes.
“What do you mean, we can't?”
“That's exactly where the messenger is strange.”
“After collecting the commission fee on Constantine's behalf, it withdrew directly into a spirit world rift.”
“We checked all the observable spirit world paths near the Society of Freemen. There were no traces of a return trip, and no contract landing points.”
“And?”
“It's untrackable.”
The carriage rolled over a loose stone brick, causing the cabin to sway.
Raymond did not speak, only slowly stroking the edge of his seat with his finger.
The gaze behind his gold-rimmed monocle gradually darkened.
A messenger that was unregistered, unbound by any spirit world station, and had no contract signed with the recipient.
Yet it was willing to run errands.
Quite interesting.
However, the strange occurrences that had appeared before his eyes lately were indeed not few.
Over half a month ago, the Landon Archdiocese had received an oracle from the Moon Lord.
To be precise, there were two.
The beginnings of both oracles were completely identical, both demanding that the Ascetic Society search for an abnormal Moon Lord believer, and strictly forbidding the use of aggressive means such as soul-searching, forced dream-prayer, and spiritual restraint.
Yet by the end, their meanings twisted completely in two opposite directions.
The first demanded that the Ascetic Society strictly protect the target, and if necessary, imprison them while awaiting the next oracle.
The second, however, demanded that they cooperate with all of the target's actions, providing necessary protection only in times of danger, and never interfering with the target's choices.
The most troublesome part was that no issues could be found with either oracle.
The moon phase holy seal, the divine resonance left behind when the oracle descended, and even the memories of the dream-prayerer responsible for receiving the oracle—all were genuine and flawless.
The archdiocese had even sealed and stored the two original documents separately and had three separate groups of clergy who were unaware of each other verify them, only to get the exact same result.
Neither of them was forged.
Nor could either of them be directly discarded.
Protect them to the point of being able to lock them up.
Cooperate to the point of not being allowed to stop them.
Those old fogeys in the Landon Archdiocese, who usually could debate over a single passage of prayer for three days, immediately split into two arguing factions.
One side believed that imprisonment was also a form of protection.
The other side argued that if the protected party did not consent, it was kidnapping.
The archdiocese subsequently held three dream-prayer rituals.
Yet the imagery in the dreams was as chaotic as if it had been shredded and randomly pieced back together; they could find absolutely nothing that could be used for locating the target.
In the end, the Archbishop had no choice but to settle on a somewhat helpless plan.
Find the person first.
As for whether to protect, cooperate, or cooperate while looking for an opportunity to lock them up once found, that would be decided after confirming their identity.
When the news reached Hastings Port, Raymond immediately thought of the young man he had once seen in the church.
Though he was only Scale One, his body was wrapped in several traces of aura left behind by high-level existences.
More importantly, he had drawn Ms. Stoneheart.
Raymond had not pressed for his name that day.
Given the style of Ms. Stoneheart and her group, he naturally had no need to invite trouble just to satisfy a bit of curiosity.
At the time, it seemed like a safe and prudent move.
Now, it seemed that this prudence was rather expensive.
Because by the time he wanted to find the person again, they had already vanished.
Since the oracle did not allow forced divination, soul-searching, or tracing through causality, the ascetics of Hastings Port could only use the most primitive methods to search everywhere.
During this period, they had indeed uncovered quite a few talents.
A young man who had mastered five spells right after awakening.
A young girl naturally blessed by moonlight, who would automatically absorb spirituality even while sleeping.
And several free transcendents with rare spiritual circuit structures, who would be worth grooming with focus even if placed in the main archdiocese.
To prevent these people from feeling like the church had given them a runaround for nothing, Raymond ultimately had to personally grant each of them blessings and subsidies.
They hadn't found the person, but the Hastings Port Ascetic Society had unexpectedly completed a round of talent census.
Yet when these people were brought before the statue of the Moon Lord, nothing happened.
The statue remained perfectly quiet.
The oracle did not respond either.
It got to the point where the ascetics in charge of the screening couldn't help but ask Raymond just how “special” this so-called “special” person had to be.
Raymond could not answer.
Being able to awaken five spells at once was called a genius.
Being sought after by an oracle personally descended by the Moon Lord was what made someone special.
The problem was, the latter wouldn't have the answer written on their face.
Just as the search was gradually grinding to a halt, news came back from Hope County.
A Moon Lord believer had resolved a trouble for the Seventh Agency and left behind a name.
Batman.
The moment Raymond saw this name, he was certain it was fake.
What normal person would name themselves Batman?
But by the time his people arrived in Hope County, the person had long since disappeared, leaving only a few eyewitness reports with varying accounts.
Immediately after, an explosion occurred at the Wayland Shipping office.
A few ascetics took advantage of the Seventh Agency investigators' conversation to overstep the rules, using 【Detect Thoughts】 to scan their surface thoughts. They also went to the scene to inspect the residues, finally recording a spiritual frequency of the Moon Lord pathway.
This matter was, of course, unsuitable to be written into an official report.
But the clue was real.
Yet on that very night, sea beasts landed at Hastings Port on a massive scale.
The person who had left behind the spiritual trace had also vanished without a trace from then on.
Raymond became truly anxious for the first time.
Not being able to find the person and the person being dead were two entirely different matters.
If the believer the Moon Lord had descended two oracles to find ended up dying right under their noses, then what the Landon Archdiocese would have to discuss next would no longer be which oracle was more correct.
It would be who was going to bear the consequences.
Since he couldn't directly use aggressive means on the target, Raymond changed his approach.
On the night of the sea beast invasion, so many survivors had seen the stranger in the port.
He had Elliot enter the victims' shallow dreams to search their recent memories for the same Moon Lord spiritual trace.
The order was very clear.
Only look, do not take.
Find the trace, confirm the person was still alive, and then exit immediately.
Who would have thought that as Elliot searched, he not only extracted the memories of the deceased from one hundred and thirty-six people, but also brought out the old Moon-Returning Boat, nearly using those memories to build a city of the dead in the dream.
Raymond still couldn't figure it out even now.
He had only asked him to find a person.
How on earth did Elliot manage to execute the mission into a sea burial accident?
Under normal procedures, the Seventh Agency should have stepped in to investigate long ago and held the Ascetic Society accountable for those one hundred and thirty-six victims.
Fortunately, they were busy dealing with the sea beast invasion, Wayland, and other troubles in the port, and simply could not spare enough manpower.
Raymond seized the opportunity to take the initiative to lead the investigation, sending Theolan Vesper to clean up the mess.
Yet, on the first night Theolan arrived at the relief shelter, he discovered the man named John Constantine.
The other party's spiritual frequency was extremely similar to the one recorded at the Wayland office.
The basic feedback of the circuits was almost identical, but there were obvious differences in the outer fluctuations.
He could be someone closely related to the target.
Or he could be the target himself, using a spiritual disguise.
Theolan alone could not tell the difference.
That very day, Raymond recalled the real Theolan to the church under the pretext of reviewing orders, then borrowed his face, clothes, and identity to personally go to the Third Relief Shelter.
He originally thought that with just a few probing words, he would be able to see something from the other party's reaction.
But Constantine was more difficult to deal with than he had anticipated.
Hearing that the Landon Archdiocese was searching for free Moon Lord believers, the other party only showed a normal level of curiosity.
Hearing Theolan suspect that he was that person, the other party was even able to redirect the topic back to the Moon-Returning Boat.
That revolver capable of absorbing curses, a total spiritual reserve far exceeding a normal Scale Two, and a reaction to Moon Lord spells that was both familiar and foreign—all of these were suspicious.
But being suspicious did not equate to being guilty, and certainly did not equate to being the person in the oracle.
Raymond could have used 【Detect Thoughts】.
With just a single glance, many questions would have been answered immediately.
Yet, of those two contradictory oracles, only one requirement was completely identical.
Do not use aggressive means.
So he did nothing, only sending people to follow from a distance after Constantine left.
And then, they lost him.
The other party had first changed his face among the crowd listening to the speech, then boarded a public carriage to check for tracking marks, temporarily changing his destination.
In the end, he didn't even collect the commission fee in person.
The carriage remained silent for a long time.
The ascetic opposite him asked in a low voice, “Bishop, do we still need to keep searching for Constantine?”
“Of course.”
Raymond raised his hand to adjust his monocle.
“But do not alert him.”
“I thought he was special before.”
“Now it seems that, at the very least, his caution is special.”
The ascetic hesitated for a moment.
“Perhaps he is just used to being guarded against others?”
“Then why did he change his face, check for marks, take a detour, and specifically have a messenger collect his reward on his behalf immediately after I probed him?”
Raymond leaned back in his seat, replaying every word and action of his since entering the relief shelter.
His face had no issues.
His voice had no issues.
Even that tone of Theolan's, capable of burying a joke alive, had been mimicked perfectly.
He had only smiled once when Elliot had just woken up.
But was Theolan incapable of smiling?
His spiritual aura, holy emblem, and investigation documents had no flaws either.
Yet, the last look Constantine gave him before leaving had clearly been filled with suspicion.
Raymond's brow furrowed tighter and tighter.
Where exactly did he slip up?
Rate on N.U.
