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.

or even a minor miscalculation, the whole plan could crumble

had a plan B, it wouldn't hurt to come up with a plan

the middle of my brow, I spoke up after a

I'll figure something out while

"...Okay."

"Good."

attention back towards the panel, I double-checked the values to make sure

'Everything looks correct.'

of the values seemed out of

the

sure that there were no errors, I pressed onto the

Di. Ding-

"Haa…. Done."

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

damage will the

first beacon's deactivation weakened the

have a similar effect,

proceeded to tap on

front of me and I took a look

***

same time, in

beacon

of despair in the

one of the lights in the sky started to

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

"It's the second beacon!"

the

Crack! Crack! Crack-

like things couldn't get any worse, enormous cracks started to appear on the surface of

started expanding all over the

BANG-! BANG-!

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

BANG-！

looked as though the attacks were working as the earth shook and the blasts were

"Over here."

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

crack forming over here!

"Got it."

and took out a communication device from her dimensional

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

turning her head right, towards Newton, she

*Twiit*

flapped its wings

seconds, it was already high up in the air, searching for any

"Good boy."

Newton flow off her shoulder, Ava quickly sent a message to

a crack in the location that I'm currently in. So far, the crack looks small. but it appears as though it is increasing in size, although very slowly. I've sent you the coordinates already. Check it out when you

Click-

everything, turning off the

with this site. Let's go look for

"Okay."

the

***

much damage with

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

plan had to be

had expected this type of weakening from

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

much, but I now needed to operate at

"This is fucking annoying."

the development.

"What happened?"

from

to glance at her, I scratched the back of my head

have less time than I

do you mean by

asked, narrowing

replied in an exasperated tone, "I mean that we

say that you needed

right, but things

like Angelica said, the plan was originally going to span a month's period, just the right

back

dampener removed, I could now freely text whomever I