Chapter 215 - Secret Society

The western outskirts of Noga City. On the day of the opening ceremony for the Five King’s Festival.

The amber rays of the morning sun bathed the white walls of a mansion in a peaceful orange glow. Songbirds chirped peacefully, flittering among the cherry blossoms that were in full bloom around the estate. The gentle whinny of a horse broke the morning peace as a carriage began rumbling away from the mansion, heading down the hill toward the gate.

The curtains of one of the second floor windows shifted subtly as a pair of eyes peeked out from within a darkened room. In the unlit office, with only a sliver of morning light shining through, the portly figure of Earl Shum watched the carriage depart with a pensive frown.

“How was the meeting?”

The soft voice from behind him caused the Earl to jump as he quickly stepped back from the window.

“Yes, yes- the meeting with the Abbott.” He stuttered, fiddling with his cufflinks. His eyes darted back to the window, “He just left.”

The shadows in the darkened room swirled with strange illusory multi-legged critters and fractal shapes as a silhouette emerged from the darkness. He was a young man with a slim body and medium length black hair that fell over his eyes. He wore a long black officer’s coat and black leather gloves.

This was Zwei Xing, a member of the secret organization called the Pearl Lotus Society, though the Earl did not know his name. Zwei’s frightening and fantastical appearance caused the Earl to shrink back into the corner of the room.

The young officer observed the Earl with a neutral expression. His grey eyes were relaxed, yet penetrating all the same. He reached into his inner breast pocket and pulled out a velvety flower petal. He stepped forward, his boots heavy on the hardwood flooring.

“Hold out your hand.” Zwei said softly.

Earl Shum obliged, extending his trembling hand. Zwei reached out and dropped the flower petal on the Earl’s open palm. The petal glimmered with an opalescent shine as it passed through the slim ray of sunlight.

“A-am I safe?” Earl Shum asked nervously.

“Your mind is still your own.” Zwei replied softly as he retrieved the petal and replaced it in his pocket. He motioned to the Earl’s desk, inviting the older man to sit. He then took a seat opposite, leaning back into the chair and crossing one leg over the other.

His casual and somewhat polite nature did nothing to alleviate the Earl’s incredible discomfort.

“Go on.” Zwei prompted after an awkward period of silence.

“T-the monk’s performance will take place at six in the evening, right before sunset. It actually sounds very entertaining!” Earl Shum chuckled nervously, though his forced grin faded as he saw that Zwei was not amused, “Lots of acrobatics and elaborate set props, they’ve even got a fake dragon skull, staying true to the legend of Fuha’s warlord’s mount-”

“Real dragon skull.” Zwei interrupted.

“Real dragon- ah…?” Earl Shum repeated, not quite processing the words.

Zwei tugged at the glove on his hand casually, ignoring Earl Shum’s flustered babbling, “When are they lighting the bonfires?”

“At the climax of the show.” Earl Shum said, “They plan to time it to happen right at sunset.”

“As predicted.” Zwei replied, “The onset of twilight is the height of spiritual energy, the optimal time to enact the ritual.”

“…What ritual?” Earl Shum asked after a moment’s hesitation.

“The reincarnation of the God of Life.” Zwei said with a low tone.

“B-but didn’t we already stop that?” The Earl asked, “That evil, giant hand in the forest that rose up during the solar eclipse… The police report said the Zhao girl sliced that Demonic God in half…”

“She only destroyed a vessel. It wounded the God of Life but did not kill Him.” Zwei said, “This ritual is the last ditch effort of Prince Deka’s followers to bring Him back. With your intel on the warehouses, my teammates were able to investigate the monks’ preparations. The ritual they are preparing is a mass sacrifice ritual, one that will claim the lives of thousands of citizens. They were careful to set it up in a way that no one would notice. Fortunately, we were already on to the Cloud Monastery’s schemes. No matter what, we cannot let that ritual be completed.”

“You’re right. We must stop them.” Earl Shum clenched his fists as a look of determination crossed his face. For a moment the trembling in his body stopped, “I’ll notify the police to set up a raid on the warehouses and confiscate or destroy the ritual items.”

“That won’t do.” Zwei said softly with a frown.

“Why not?”

“The police are compromised, as are numerous members of the ministry.” Zwei replied, “We can’t even assume that they aren’t aware of our plans to stop them. A single careless move would result in disaster.”

“If they were aware of our plans…” Earl Shum swallowed nervously, his momentary display of courage lapsing as quick as it came, “Wouldn’t they have… compromised me too?”

“If they were going to do so, they would have done it already.” Zwei shook his head, “Perhaps they assumed you’d be too spineless to put up a fight, even if you did find out about them.”

“Ah, yes. I suppose I put on a good act.” Earl Shum laughed weakly.

His chuckles died out upon seeing Zwei shoot him a subtle doubting look.

“Ahem. Regardless, like you said we can’t stand by and do nothing.” Earl Shum straightened up a bit, “That is- Um, you and your society have a plan to do something, right?”

“Leave it to us.” Zwei replied, interlocking his fingers confidently.

“And, er- is there anything I need to do?”

“Act normal, pretend everything is fine.” Zwei said, “I believe you’re good at that.”

“Yes, certainly!” Earl Shum smiled weakly. A thought came to his mind as he opened his desk drawer, “In fact, I have had my opening speech prepared for weeks, see here.”

He pulled out several sheafs of paper, “Since I wrote it ahead of time, there’s no chance for it to give away…”

He trailed off as he looked up from his desk, only to see that the chair across from him was empty. A few twisting shapes in the shadows at the back of the room slowly spiraled into the darkness as a silence fell over the room.

Earl Shum swallowed heavily as he let the papers drop to the desk. He placed his quivering palm over his heart, muttering softly, “Lord Noga help me…”

~

In the midst of a dream, inside a castle on an island floating in the sky, an old doctor with a thick white goatee was sitting at a table, enjoying a small feast.

The circular room was built at the top of one of the castle’s towers and was decorated as an observatory, with a large telescope suspended in the center of the room. Since this was a dream, this large telescope was largely decorative, as was all the other bobbles and gizmos that occupied the room.

Still, the view out of the windows was impressive.

Dr. Baolan casually watched the land drift by far below as he munched on an endless supply of chicken wings.

His spiritual intuition triggered and he looked over to the wall at the far end of the room. There was a squirming motion in the stone wall as a large closed eye grew out of the rock, turning into a flesh. Dozens of long, thick eyebrows extruded out of the giant eyelids as they eye expanded to a height of six feet before opening.

Out stepped Zwei Xing, followed by a grey cat floating on a red cushion.

This woman, currently in cat form was Quill, the owner of the dream, and this castle was the sanctuary of the Pearl Lotus Society.

“How was the mission?” Dr. Baolan asked, setting down the food.

“Success, on both fronts.” Quill replied with a yawn as she stretched out on the cushion. “We know the locations of all the basins, and the main components that will be used in the ritual.”

“Earl Shum has provided us organizer badges and officials uniforms.” Zwei said, “We should be able to get into position without any trouble.”

“It’ll be just the three of us, huh.” Dr. Baolan frowned as he looked at Zwei and Quill in turn, before scanning the otherwise empty room, “I remember the last time we were in this room, there were eight of us. That was six years ago now… The last time we faced against Markus Gantt.”

The old doctor shook his head sadly, “At the time we thought we thought the trap we laid for him was foolproof. How he proved us wrong… Now he seems only a few moves away from having the final laugh.”

“Are you done killing the mood?” Quill’s ears twitched with annoyance, “Was the food I dreamed up not good enough, so you’re taking it out on us?”

The old doctor’s brows furrowed at the snippy remark. He was about to come up with a rebuttal when Zwei interrupted him.

“It’s fine.” Zwei said calmly, “We’re not finished yet. This time we have the advantage.”

“We thought that the last time, too.” Dr. Baolan muttered, “And he has us completely outnumbered. How many monks were on the performer’s list again? At least fifty?”

“Gantt might know that we’re out there, and he might have us outnumbered.” Zwei admitted, “But he doesn’t know where we’re coming from.”

“Rituals are delicate things.” Quill purred, “All we need to do is to cause one or two disruptions at the exact wrong time, and it all crumbles. If the timing is perfect, the backlash might kill the God of Life for good.”

A solemn silence filled the room as the weight of their plan settled over their minds.

“Gantt will be ready. We need to be careful.” Dr. Baolan muttered, “The identities and passes are nice, but that only helps us up to the point that we break the ritual. We also need to think about our escape. I don’t know about the two of you, but I’m too old for suicide missions.”

“The disruption of the ritual should cause a lot of chaos.” Quill said, “But you’re right, preparing a proper distraction would buy us time to escape.”

“Finn.” Zwei said after a moment’s thought, “The police force is compromised, but he’s resourceful and trustworthy. I’m sure he could arrange something.”

“Trustworthy? Mackenzie’s boy?” Dr. Baolan chuckled, “That boy has been manipulating others since he learned how to speak.”

“I inspected his dreams.” Quill said, adding after a moment, “He has a good heart.”

“Okay. See what you can arrange.” Dr. Baolan nodded, “Do you know where to find him?”

“Actually, I believe he’s already looking for me.” Zwei’s eyes flashed with a mysterious glint, “There’s something I owe him an explanation for.”