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.

whole plan could

B, it wouldn't hurt to come up

brow, I spoke

him be for now. I'll figure something out while I'm at

"...Okay."

"Good."

double-checked the values to

'Everything looks correct.'

the values seemed out of

the second

and made sure that there were no errors, I pressed

Di. Ding-

"Haa…. Done."

second beacon, leaning back on my chair, I closed my

damage will the second beacon's loss do

first beacon's deactivation

beacon would have

eyes, I then proceeded to tap

in front of me and I took a

***

the same time,

second beacon

echoed the hymn of despair in the hearts of all

in the sky started

the scene firsthand had horrified looks on their faces as they vividly watched the barrier once

"It's the second beacon!"

what in the world is happening

Crack! Crack! Crack-

couldn't get any worse, enormous cracks started to appear on

cracks slowly started expanding all over

BANG-! BANG-!

the demons attacked with greater ferocity. As they attacked, they had bloodthirsty, savage expressions on their

BANG-！

behind the barrier, it looked as though the attacks were working as the earth shook and the blasts were no longer getting dispersed like

"Over here."

bottom, right at the edge of the barrier, Hein glanced behind him and pointed towards

here! Quickly report this

"Got it."

replied and took out a communication device

had asked her and the others to report to them whenever they

she was taking out her communication device, turning her head right, towards Newton,

*Twiit*

its wings and flew

in the

"Good boy."

flow off her shoulder, Ava quickly sent a message

in the location that I'm currently in. So far, the crack looks small. but it appears as though it

Click-

she reported everything, turning off the

with this site. Let's go look

"Okay."

Hein left the area

***

with just the second

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

had to be

expected this type of weakening from the fourth beacon's deactivation, not

beacons, something had gone terribly wrong with my plans and they needed

needed to operate at a

"This is fucking annoying."

was of course annoyed by the development. I couldn't help but curse

"What happened?"

from

her, I scratched the back

we have

do you mean by

asked, narrowing

replied in an exasperated tone, "I mean that we are going to start moving

But, didn't you say that you

right, but things have

like Angelica 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 was

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

could