Lord of Mysteries: Return of the Stars!

"Perhaps in the near future, I can return to the starry sky."

Thinking of returning to the starry sky and regaining its complete form in the near future, the Son of Chaos felt rare joy.

---------------------------------

"Phew, I really am a bit tired."

In the Hall of Stars, Hastur withdrew his gaze from the star where the Son of Chaos resided, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes to contemplate the gains of just now.

After whipping the Son of Chaos twice at the very beginning, he discovered that half of his spirituality still remained, so he thought to experiment and see whether he could directly affect the Magic Wishing Lamp.

That resulted in the scene Bernadette saw when she opened the door.

He didn't want to have a conflict with Bernadette for the time being, and with his spiritual power rapidly depleting, he simply left when she enhanced the seal, returning to the Hall of Stars.

Through tonight's probing, he had already confirmed that the current Son of Chaos posed no threat to him.

For more than a month now, he had spent some time every night whipping the Son of Chaos, not only to test whether the Son of Chaos still had the ability to counterattack, but also for another attempt.

There are only about 19 years left before the prophesied apocalypse in 1368.

In those 19 years, he wanted to advance to Sequence 1 and establish a kingdom to become the new Black Emperor, time was truly too short.

Especially since the Black Emperor's ascension ritual would absolutely take more than ten years at the very least!

He remembered that the Black Emperor's godhood ritual required:

Possess your own country, linking your name to the title of Emperor and making it common knowledge among the populace.

Establish a set of strict and complicated rules that defy normality, including architectural styles, customs, and so on.

Then he needed his citizens to build nine mausoleums, secretly enter one and drink the Sequence 0 potion while a large majority of the citizens are scattered across different cities in the corresponding sacrificial rituals involved.

Only by resisting madness and maintaining reason could he possibly succeed in advancing to Sequence 0 as the Black Emperor.

Becoming the Black Emperor was extremely difficult, especially so soon after the previous Black Emperor's failure.

Thus, switching to the adjacent Justiciar Pathway was a very good choice.

He speculated that the godhood ritual for the Sequence 0 of the Justiciar Pathway would take less time than the Black Emperor's.

His speculation was mainly based on known godhood rituals of several paths:

Error Pathway: to become Sequence 0 Error, one must replace someone in their apotheosis ritual and ascend instead.

Storm Pathway: to become Sequence 0 Tyrant, one must have hundreds of thousands of followers who submit out of fear, then challenge a god and survive.

Red Priest Pathway: to become a god one must launch a war sweeping across the continent and win.

Fool Pathway: Fool time, history, or fate once.

Visionary Pathway: make the development of the times align with one's expectations. Then, consume the potion for advancement when it's at a certain time node in that trend.

Other reference-worthy godhood rituals include those of the Eternal Blazing Sun and the God of Knowledge and Wisdom.

Those three, Sun, White Tower, and Tyrant, became gods after the same event, suggesting their rituals also involved god-level powers.

From these godhood rituals, one can draw a relatively reliable conclusion: rituals generally relate to the name of their respective Sequence 0.

On this basis, Hastur repeatedly tried to deduce the godhood ritual of the Sequence 0 of the Justiciar Pathway.

The Justiciar's ritual was most likely something along the lines of: judging the sins of other gods and making them obey the verdict!

Aside from judging divine-level existences, Hastur could not think of what else a Sequence 0 Justiciar could judge.

Judging a true god while still at Sequence 1 and forcing that god to obey the verdict, this level of difficulty and status was enough to support a new true god.

After all, judging a god's sins was equivalent to shaking the anchor of that god's faith.

In such a case, if someone succeeded in ascending, then certainly one god would go mad or even fall because its faith anchor was destabilized.

Hastur had reasonable doubts that the reason no Sequence 0 of the Justiciar Pathway had appeared might be because the seven orthodox gods would not allow it.

Their past was definitely full of sinful deeds, as good and evil were never moral concerns for gods.

Especially the Lord of Storms, the God of Knowledge and Wisdom, and the Eternal Blazing Sun, who divided up the ancient Sun God.

If not for the Tarot deck having both Justiciar and Justice, he would have believed the Justice card belonged to the Justiciar Pathway rather than the Audience Pathway.

A Justice Audience… that sounded strange.

A Justice Arbiter(Justiciar)… now that sounded smooth and reasonable.

Of course, all this was just Hastur's personal speculation, and he only dared think of such things in the Hall of Stars; in reality, he wouldn't dare offend true gods like this.

If his speculation proved true, then in the future he would have a very good chance to ascend.

When Amon and the Fool began vying for the position of Lord of Mysteries, Adam would ascend as a Visionary, imagining half-step Old One power, sealing the Lord of Storms, God of Knowledge and Wisdom, and Eternal Blazing Sun within their divine kingdoms so they couldn't leave for a time.

At that moment, if he could become the Sequence 1, gather three Sequence 1 extraordinary characteristics of the Justiciar Pathway and its uniqueness, then he could take the opportunity to judge true gods!

In judging those three true gods, both Amon and Adam would gladly see it done, and if he also befriended the Evernight Goddess, his godhood ritual would basically be half-completed.

If that still failed, the Hall of Stars could bring in Great Old Ones and Outer Deities for a meeting, choose one of them, and judge it, surely the seven current orthodox gods wouldn't interfere.

The Son of Chaos was a very suitable choice.

Sealed inside a wishing lamp with limited remaining power, and being an Outer God involved in both the Justiciar and Black Emperor paths, there was no better candidate.

Moreover, another possibility was that the godhood ritual of the Sequence 0 Justiciar might be related to indoctrination, rules, and order.

Anyway, whipping the Son of Chaos, judging and educating it, might in the long run help him begin role-playing early.

Just like how Klein sped up in his later stages.

In the short term, testing the Son of Chaos was necessary; only by first measuring the authority of the Hall of Stars could he bring others there for meetings.

And since the Son of Chaos was at the top of both the Justiciar and Black Emperor paths, it would be an enemy sooner or later; whipping it was perfectly reasonable and could even cheer him up, why not?

There was certainly risk, but in this world of mysteries, when had any choice ever been risk-free?

Hastur quietly pondered these questions as the starlight above sprinkled down, adding a sacred air to him.

After much thought, he decided to wait.

He would bring the Son of Chaos into the Hall of Stars after establishing a new rule with the second Chain of Order, this was double insurance.

But as for the second rule, he still had no ideas yet.

He thought long and hard, until his head throbbed painfully, before finally leaving the Hall of Stars.

When he fell asleep groggy and dizzy, it seemed as if he saw a starlight-glimmering Chain of Order merging into his right arm.

In his confusion, that Chain of Order could even transform into different weapons, at his command.

…

"Truly too tired, even my dreams are so blurry."

In the morning Hastur woke up, patted his still-aching head, and lay on the bed for another ten minutes before getting up.

He got out of bed, moved his limbs a bit, and could indeed feel the powerful strength coursing through every muscle.

He squatted into a horse stance and threw a straight punch, even producing a bit of a sonic boom.

Jumping lightly inside the room, he easily leapt over two meters, almost hitting the ceiling, luckily he braced his hands on it in time, avoiding an accident.

"Tsk, with this kind of body, if I went to the Olympics, I'd at least win one or two gold medals, right?"

Hastur gradually adapted to his strength boost from becoming a Barbarian.

He picked up his usually heavy cane and swung it twice, it now felt much lighter, like a plastic rod.

"A weapon fit for a Barbarian should be something like a spiked mace or a big hammer, right?"

Hastur imagined that scene, him wielding a huge hammer, smashing everything, people and houses alike!

On an ancient battlefield, he would definitely be a fearsome general!

But thinking further, he felt that was a bit too much bullying.

Only now did he truly feel like a true Beyonder, surpassing ordinary people and having something out of the ordinary.

After staying in the room for another twenty minutes, Hastur finally left, washed up, and ate breakfast.

His appetite was much larger than usual, perhaps even his digestive system evolved along with his Barbarian advancement.

"…"

Butler Neil silently watched Hastur wolfing down food while trying to maintain elegant table manners.

After breakfast, Hastur didn't go to Backlund University; he had already requested several days off to use as an adaptation period because of his legal aid.

He went to the study, sat at his desk, and took out a blank sheet of paper, preparing to sort out the rules for role-playing a Barbarian.

The challenge of role-playing a Lawyer was memorizing and recalling complex statutes, while twisting laws, exploiting them for personal gain, and aligning them with the tide of the times was easy for him.

After all, the legal knowledge he knew exceeded that of this era, even though he wasn't a law major, immersion in it made him familiar with much modern law.

Especially after that outlaw who loved using as an example appeared to popularize legal knowledge, Hastur had listened to quite a few lectures.

But role-playing a Barbarian stumped him somewhat.

His current identity was that of a nobleman, and nobles were symbols of etiquette and elegance, completely opposite to Barbarians.

What was a Barbarian?

When in doubt, use a big stick, rather than patiently stopping to reason with you.

They were the opposite of rules and order, constantly colliding with, ignoring, and smashing them.

Their great strength meant they had no need to be bound by rules; they acted as they pleased, ignoring external rules.

They also represented lack of intelligence and low IQ.

Moreover, when they were rejected and disliked by mainstream society, they would naturally be called Barbarians.

Hastur patiently summarized the key points of role-playing a Barbarian, even if not entirely correct, it was roughly in that direction.