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 at any time.

wouldn't hurt to

brow, I spoke up after

for now. I'll figure something out while I'm

"...Okay."

"Good."

double-checked the values to make sure

'Everything looks correct.'

values

goes the second

made sure that there were no errors, I pressed onto

Di. Ding-

"Haa…. Done."

keyboard and initiated the deactivation of the second beacon, leaning back on my chair, I closed my

much damage will the second beacon's loss

deactivation

beacon would have a similar

proceeded to tap on

appeared in front of me and I took

***

time, in

second beacon is

of despair in the hearts of all

as those words faded, one of the lights in

were standing below and witnessed the scene firsthand had horrified looks on their faces as they

"It's the second beacon!"

in the world

Crack! Crack! Crack-

any worse, enormous cracks started to appear on the surface

slowly started

BANG-! BANG-!

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

BANG-！

and the blasts were no longer getting dispersed like they used

"Over here."

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

crack forming over here! Quickly report

"Got it."

replied and took out a communication device from

and Ryan taking care of the logistics, they had asked her and the others to report to them whenever they saw a crack form on the

right, towards Newton, she ordered, "Newton, go check if there are any more

*Twiit*

flapped its wings and flew in the

was already high up in the air, searching for any

"Good boy."

shoulder, Ava quickly sent a message to Smallsnake and

it appears as though it is increasing in size, although very slowly. I've sent you the coordinates already.

Click-

she reported everything, turning off the communication device, Ava looked at

with this site. Let's go look for

"Okay."

Hein left the area

***

damage with just the second

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

plan had

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

damaged this much by just losing two beacons, something had gone terribly wrong with my plans and they

I now needed to operate

"This is fucking annoying."

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

"What happened?"

asked from

her, I scratched the back of

looks like we have less time than I had

you mean

narrowing her

in an exasperated tone, "I mean that we are

didn't you say that you

but things have

the plan was originally going to span a month's period, just the right time to

out a small communication device, I sat back on my

the dampener removed, I could now freely text