LotM: Surviving as a Marionette

Looking at the golden coins scattered on the ground from that old scoundrel's explosion, Don picked up the gem brooch that flickered with deep blue and light gray radiance from the floor.

The moment the gem brooch touched his hand, Don felt an irrepressible urge to burst into song. Fortunately, he already knew about this effect and forcibly suppressed it using the Beyonder abilities of Faceless and Clown.

Without injecting spirituality and merely carrying it, this mystical item's negative effects wouldn't be too severe.

"This level of negative effects won't cause much harm, it just makes one involuntarily want to go live on another planet."

If someone were to howl like this in the dead of night, that would be quite entertaining.

Don held the Sun Scepter in his hand, and the twisted sun symbol at the head of the scepter reflected the image of the gem brooch.

He could sense certain characteristics of this mystical item—the Sun Scepter was yearning for completeness, yearning for this Sequence 5 level mystical item.

The Omniscient and Omnipotent pathway, excluding the Tyrant and Reader pathways, had Beyonder Characteristics from the other three pathways mixed together, all reaching demigod level. Completing itself was a manifestation of the Law of Beyonder Characteristic Convergence.

When Don sensed something was wrong with the Sun Scepter, he didn't immediately stuff it back into the system warehouse.

He held the deep blue and light gray gem brooch in his right hand, lifting his head to look at the Sun Scepter held in his left hand.

"You want this thing?"

As the time node for the sun's ascension gradually approached, Don could vaguely sense that this thing was beginning to exhibit 'living' characteristics.

Normally it didn't show this, and could even be said to be quite obedient and handy. This was perhaps because the Sun Scepter frequently traveled between the system space and Euclidean space—the former being a smaller version of the Knowledge Moor, the latter being a higher level force possibly approaching that of True Gods and Great Old Ones.

This 'living' characteristic naturally had both good and bad aspects. With its 'living' characteristics, it feared both the system and Euclidean space, not daring to casually cause harm to Don due to its activity. After all, whether it was the system or Euclidean space, a mere demigod-level Beyonder item like itself couldn't afford to provoke either.

The situation was leaning toward the favorable side, so Don hadn't bothered to manage it.

"As for completing its Beyonder Characteristics..."

Don used his Clown abilities to play with the sapphire brooch. The Sun Scepter faintly emanated black sunlight, and it slightly moved its staff body. Just as the twisted sun symbol filled with sunlight was about to overflow, the blue gem in Don's hand suddenly disappeared.

Sun Scepter: ?

Then the blue gem suddenly appeared, then disappeared again.

Sun Scepter: ??

The frequency of the blue gem's blinking in Don's hand was very fast, while the Sun Scepter remained stupidly motionless, as if completely dumbfounded.

What was that thing blinking there?

Finally, with limited time, Don stuffed both the Sun Scepter and the mystical item created by the Ocean Songster into the system warehouse, planning to research them later.

"System."

[Host, you go about your business.] The system rubbed its hands together eagerly.

Normally, aside from assisting its host, it had no entertainment. The Theater Core hadn't been as fun since it started slacking off, and now another one had arrived... In any case, as long as the sun hadn't ascended, it was invincible within its own storage space.

The Sun Scepter could only watch the Beyonder Characteristics so close at hand, staring helplessly at the system.

If it could curse, it probably would have cursed out loud by now.

Are you even human? Are you still human?

System: [How did you know I'm not human?]

It really wasn't human.

[Hehe, big glutton, just keep drooling over it. You can see it but can't eat it, hehe.]

Sun Scepter: ...Hehe your ass.

Knowledge Moor: ??

Don directed his newly acquired marionette to clean up the mystical items on the ground. Before the Beyonder power that the Sun Scepter had cast on the other people in the manor was lifted, Don and his new marionette had already finished cleaning up the aftermath and restored the battle scene.

At the same time, Don prayed to the Theater Core far away in Tingen through the Ring of the Curator, requesting a miracle, using the power of a Sequence 2 Miracle Invoker to interfere on the divination level.

"This is still a border area guarded by Sequence 4 demigods. Although the position of Colonel isn't particularly high or low in the entire Loen military system, Hewesley Bernstein himself is also a Sequence 6 Beyonder, so there might be other Beyonders paying attention to him."

Necessary interference measures couldn't be omitted. At the same time, Don needed to quickly familiarize himself with this Colonel's style, otherwise even if he made him into a marionette, his puppet show would be exposed.

Returning to the study that seemed unchanged, Don stood in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, looking at the books on the shelves. While setting up his marionette's persona through the 'life resume' he had seen in Euclidean space, he examined his potion's digestion progress and the gains from this battle.

"The digestion progress increased by three percent, which is acceptable."

The only painful thing was that he had consumed a Yesterday Once More charm in Euclidean space.

A battle lasting mere minutes had completely drained a Sequence 5 Beyonder's spirituality—the spiritual consumption for Euclidean space's 'Dimensional Descent' was ridiculously high.

"However, with this layer of space in between, my safety is similarly highly guaranteed. Mm, this also aligns with the acting requirements of a Bizarro Sorcerer."

An unfindable Marionettist is far more frightening than one who can be found.

If he reached Sequence 4 and could master the method of precisely deploying marionettes, using the ability to exchange positions with marionettes to shuttle back and forth between the real world and Euclidean space, then the Beyonder power of a Bizarro Sorcerer would be infinitely amplified.

On the surface, you discover one marionette. When the enemy happily resolves it, in reality, Euclidean space is stuffed full of marionettes, ready to crawl out and slap someone in the face at any moment.

[What tempting gives~] The system passionately opened its mic.

Don: "System, how many Ocean Songsters did you eat?"

Having basically grasped his new marionette's persona, Don turned his gaze back to the books on the shelf.

"However, having solved this scum through somewhat impulsive puppetization, there are things I must consider next."

For instance, whether to install a 'Bionic Marionette' module for this marionette.

His current 'Bionic Marionette' modules could only be loaded onto three marionettes—one was a mission reward from the previous Theater With Curtains That Never Draw task, and two were obtained from mysterious gift box.

He had already used two of them. He couldn't stay here for long, and if he wanted to plant a seed within the Loen military, with Owen around, this didn't seem like a necessary choice.

Therefore, this marionette seemed unnecessary to him.

"I'll consider it when I leave. Perhaps this Colonel will 'disappear and die' during this mission targeting the Dark Side of the Universe."

The third 'Biotic Marionettes' module still had other uses. Keeping it would be much more cost-effective than wasting it on a Sequence 6.

(End of Chapter)