After recognizing what the crest was, the Green Angels immediately began talking over one another in chaos.
"The Sun King died long ago! He can't possibly still have slaves!"
"But that is undeniably the Sun King's personal crest!"
"And beneath this city lies the Sun King's private army!"
"And that guy who called himself the Fool... thinking about it now, the timing was far too coincidental! We clearly prepared someone else!"
"And that Mozo fellow disappeared immediately afterward!"
As they continued speaking, every Green Angel suddenly clutched their heads in terror and cried out in horror:
"Could it be... could it be that we were the sacrifices all along?!"
Audrey also noticed that as their discussion deepened, the strange sacred beauty surrounding them gradually disappeared.
By now, although they hadn't completely devolved into lunatics, that fleeting holiness from before had utterly vanished.
All that remained was the original sense of disgust and madness.
Did something go wrong with their Sequences?
With Audrey's pitifully limited mystical knowledge, even she knew that when a Beyonder's Sequence went wrong, they would become insane... or simply die on the spot.
Meanwhile, the Green Angels had already frightened themselves half to death through their own chain of assumptions. One after another, they crouched on the floor in terror while muttering:
"We belong to neighboring Life Pathways."
(calm)
"There are many of us."
(growing fearful)
"We have no organization of our own. Everyone wants us dead."
(trembling in fear)
"If we die, nobody will avenge us!"
(almost crying)
"There couldn't possibly be better sacrifices than us! We... we were the real offerings all along!"
(shrieking in despair)
Through piecing together various clues, the Green Angels had apparently constructed an enormous conspiracy in their minds.
An ancient king, plotting His resurrection through a grand ritual spanning countless years.
And unfortunately for them, they themselves were the protagonists.
The sacrificial kind.
They even began suspecting that from the very day they joined the Faceless Court, they had already become part of this monumental ritual.
After all, if that weren't the case, then why had they joined the Faceless Court so smoothly? Why had they advanced all the way to Sequence Two Green Angel so effortlessly, only to suddenly grow greedy and attempt to completely monopolize the Beyonder characteristic by betraying the organization?
No wonder when he found that Sealed Artifact capable of resisting the Contract of Ten, his spiritual intuition had warned him that it was a path of no return.
It wasn't warning him about the consequences of betrayal.
It was warning him about the consequences of becoming a sacrifice!
Which meant that even that "coincidental" Sealed Artifact had likely been arranged by the Elves... or perhaps by that ancient king Himself.
Everything.
Every single step.
All of it had been orchestrated so he would eventually become a lone Sequence Two Green Angel and arrive at this damned Special Zone by himself.
The Green Angel had completely frightened himself into despair with his own increasingly elaborate theories.
And honestly, it wasn't entirely his fault.
After all, due to the Contract of Ten stripping away most of his Sequence, he had already fallen into a half-mad state.
Then, to make matters worse, he encountered Audrey, this massive misunderstanding incarnate.
Think about it.
Suppose you were a bank robber who had gone through unimaginable hardship to steal millions in cash. Just as you were about to enjoy your riches, you suddenly noticed your hideout address and every detail of your crime written directly on the banknotes.
Wouldn't you be terrified out of your mind?
Wouldn't you immediately assume the police had already surrounded the building?
That was essentially how the Green Angel felt right now.
Except unlike the hypothetical robber, he already had severe mental problems to begin with.
After all, a king who had supposedly died long ago shouldn't still possess personal slaves.
Unless...
He hadn't actually died.
Or at the very least, hadn't died completely.
After a brief period of terror and despair, all the Green Angels suddenly adopted savage expressions and declared in unison:
"If you refuse to let us live, then even if we lose everything, we'll make sure you suffer too!"
A Sequence Two, even a mad Sequence Two, would never willingly become a lamb awaiting slaughter.
Meanwhile, Mozo had finally finished waiting for Miss Knight and the large contingent of official Beyonders.
Quite coincidentally, aside from Miss Knight, the man leading the team was the same captain who had interrogated Mozo previously. Furthermore, there also appeared to be another trench-coat-wearing man with roughly the same status as the captain.
The reason was simple.
All the other Beyonders stood several positions behind them, yet this trench-coat man remained calmly beside the captain while everyone else acted as though this was completely normal.
Which most likely meant they were equals.
And equal status generally meant equal Sequence or combat strength.
The moment he realized that, Mozo brightened considerably.
So including Miss Knight, who served as the protector of the Duke's daughter, that meant there should be three Sequence Fives here?
Three peak-level powerhouses.
Stable. This operation was definitely stable!
Unless...
Unless the enemy happened to be hiding a demigod.
While slowly lighting a cigar, the captain looked at Mozo and said:
"This time, we practically brought out the family savings. Kid, if you're screwing with us, then I swear I'll…"
At that point, he glanced at Miss Knight beside him, smacked his lips awkwardly, sniffed once, then changed his tone.
"I'll truthfully report to Parliament that you wasted Imperial resources!"
Mozo replied with complete confidence:
"Don't worry. Any Beyonder who requires this kind of ritual and setup is at minimum a Sequence Five."
Hearing that, the trench-coat man, who had been silently acting cool the entire time, suddenly asked:
"At minimum Sequence Five? Is there a possibility it could be a demigod?"
Mozo waved dismissively.
"Impossible. Sure, the ritual is evil and difficult, but at the end of the day, the participants are just a bunch of low-sequence wild Beyonders with no resources or backing. A divination artifact made from people like them isn't something a demigod would care about."
At this point, Mozo stated decisively:
"If it really is a demigod, then the only explanation is that there's something wrong with their brain."
And what kind of major figure capable of reaching demigod status would have a broken brain?
Even if they did, how could they still arrange such a meticulous ritual?
The others all nodded in agreement.
The quality of the sacrifices determined the upper limit of the finished product. An item created from a bunch of low-sequence Beyonders truly didn't seem worthy of a major figure's attention.
And if some big shot actually did value such a thing, then there would seriously have to be something wrong with their head.
Breaking Imperial law and provoking Imperial authority over an artifact that was mediocre at best?
Besides, even if it truly were a mentally unstable major figure, the Count was still in the city.
A Sequence Three alongside numerous mid-sequence support personnel and all sorts of Sealed Artifacts.
Combined together, how could they possibly fail to suppress one enemy?