The Author's POV

339 Setting the pieces in motion (3]

"...That took way too long."

I muttered wearily, taking my eyes away from the panel in front of me.

It has been about a week ever since I infiltrated the place, and so far, everything was progressing smoothly.

Well, sort of.

The deactivation of the second beacon took a lot longer than my initial expectations.

Compared to the first beacon, the process was a lot different.

The whole process was coded in a completely different manner compared to the first beacon, making it almost impossible for me to complete it quickly.

Any wrong step and I would end up locking the whole system.

Furthermore, the panel I was currently using was less advanced than the one I previously used when deactivating the first beacon.

With those factors added together, the whole process took a lot longer than originally anticipated.

Fortunately, using the excuse that Jomnuk's memories were too jumbled up and that I needed to reorganize them properly, I managed to placate some of the impatient elders.

It wasn't easy, but given my previous performance, they let it slide.

It had to be noted that they were all individuals whose minds were corrupted by demonic energy, so the fact that I managed to calm them down was a miracle in itself.

"Are you done?"

A cold voice reached my ears. It was Angelica.

"Yeah, I'm pretty much done."

Before I knew it, Angelica was standing next to me, looking at the panel in confusion.

Seeing the confusion on her face as she looked at the panel, I shook my head at her.

"Don't bother trying to understand it, even I don't know what I did. I won't be able to explain even if you asked."

I only did what the instructions told me to do.

I had no real idea of what I was doing.

Had I known what I was doing, then perhaps I would've completed it at a much faster pace.

"I see..."

Relaxing her brows, Angelica proceeded to move towards where Tomnuk was.

Standing next to him, she put her hand on the helmet and asked, "What should we do with him?"

"Him?… Good question."

Turning around and staring at Karl, I frowned.

"Also, don't touch that. I don't know what that thing does."

It was a fact that I couldn't kill him.

If he died, then everyone would know that I wasn't the real Karl. After all, the demon that he was contracted with would definitely report back.

That was part of why I didn't want Angelica to touch the helmet. If something happened to Karl, then everything would come crashing down.

"Okay."

Fortunately, Angelica understood that. She removed her hand from the helmet.

"Thanks."

Thanking Angelica, I turned my attention back towards Karl.

'Could I use him to my advantage?" I pondered.

So far, the plan that I set up was perfect. At least, that's how it seemed to me.

But I knew better than anyone else that no plan was ever perfect.

Even if there were no apparent flaws in a plan, anything could ruin it at any time. There were too many unknown variables to account for, especially in my situation.

a minor miscalculation, the whole plan could crumble

plan B, it wouldn't hurt to come up

middle of my brow, I spoke up after

figure something out

"...Okay."

"Good."

attention back towards the panel, I double-checked the values to make sure that nothing was

'Everything looks correct.'

the values

goes the

that there were no

Di. Ding-

"Haa…. Done."

and initiated the deactivation of the second beacon, leaning back on my chair, I closed my eyes for a brief

much damage will the second beacon's loss do to the city

beacon's deactivation weakened the barrier

the second beacon would have a similar

I then proceeded

in front of me and I

***

time,

second beacon

scream echoed the hymn of despair in

as those words faded, one of the lights in

who were standing below and witnessed the scene firsthand had horrified looks on their

"It's the second beacon!"

almighty, what in the

Crack! Crack! Crack-

just as it looked like things couldn't get any worse, enormous cracks started

slowly started

BANG-! BANG-!

the cracks formed continuously, on the other side of the barrier, the demons attacked with greater ferocity. As

BANG-！

the attacks were working as the earth shook and the blasts were no longer getting dispersed like they used to before. Even the barrier seemed to shake in the face of

"Over here."

barrier, Hein glanced behind him and pointed towards a small

over here! Quickly report this

"Got it."

and took out a

had asked her and the others to report to them whenever they saw a crack form on the

her head right, towards Newton, she ordered, "Newton,

*Twiit*

wings and flew in

high up in the air, searching for any possible cracks on

"Good boy."

quickly sent a message to Smallsnake and told

as though it is increasing in size, although very slowly. I've

Click-

reported everything, turning off the communication device,

site. Let's

"Okay."

left the area with

***

with just the second

to weaken that much, just from two of its beacons not working, it seemed like

plan had to be

I had expected this type of weakening

just losing two beacons, something had gone terribly wrong with my plans and

but I now needed

"This is fucking annoying."

of course annoyed by the development. I couldn't

"What happened?"

from

I scratched the back of my head

have less time than I

do you mean

asked, narrowing her

an exasperated tone, "I mean that we are going

you say that you

but

said, the plan was originally going to span a month's period, just the right time to set everything up, but it looked like I

device, I sat back on my chair and texted Waylan and the

removed, I could now freely text