From the Ship of Fools to Earl of Wugang

Old Gerard sat alone in the darkness amidst the chaos, looking down at the blood on his fingers before looking up at the spare computer screen that still glowed with a faint green light.

On the screen, the last transaction record is frozen there, but the destination accounts are all anonymous, disappearing into the fog of the banking system after passing through multiple layers of intermediaries.

Old Gerard stared at the screen for a long time, then shook his head.

"Jacob, you should have listened to me. You should have withdrawn this money a month ago, exchanged it for cash and gold, stuffed it into a sack, and hidden it in the cellar."

He sat alone in the darkness of the basement, slowly scrolling through the pages with his webbed fingers, a growing premonition rising in his mind: this was not the work of some unknown hacker.

Many of the methods seemed familiar to him, as if they came from an accountant forty years his junior who had been thrown off a cliff by Jacob.

After a long while, Old Gerard reached out and turned off the computer. A strange sense of being stranded made his gills twitch rapidly in the green light.

"Lockman, you damned brat."

-----------------

Jacob didn't go far; in fact, he just needed a few minutes alone.

After wandering aimlessly, he stopped in a room on the first floor of the castle.

This used to be the lord's drawing room. Above the fireplace hangs a blackened oil painting, the faces of the figures in the painting long since eroded by time and dampness and are no longer recognizable.

A deep-seated emptiness and confusion welled up inside me.

The money is gone, all of it. More than four million Divine Eagle Gold Coins, equivalent to tens of millions of Veridian Yuan—the wealth accumulated by the Order over decades, built up little by little through smuggling, underground transactions, donations from believers, and illegal business activities—were all transferred away in a matter of minutes by someone who appeared out of nowhere.

Jacob stood in front of the fireplace, recalling everything that had happened during this time.

Lockman, it all started with Lockman. That harmless young man who even resisted supernatural powers and immortality, the accountant he personally selected, the traitor he threw off a cliff.

Jacob closed his eyes, recalling the man's last cry: "Where will you find someone to manage the money when I'm dead!"

What if Lockman had prepared all of this before he died? What if the seemingly hasty "absconding" plan was just a smokescreen, and the codes and backdoors had been laid out from the very first day Lockman joined the cult?

His desire to save those two Misner royal brats suggests he's colluding with the royal family, doesn't it? No, that would likely lead someone to directly confront the cult.

Did he leave a contingency plan before he died, passing the information to others? But why did he wait until they were about to take the money before activating this plan?

As he was lost in thought, slow footsteps echoed down the corridor.

Old Gerard came up from the basement: "Jacob, I—"

"I said I'd stay down there."

"Three dead men won't run away on their own; there's nothing left to defend down there."

Old Gerard walked to the fireplace and sat down in a dusty armchair, his webbed fingers resting on the armrests.

"I'm just here to remind you of one thing: the matter of the Divine Messenger cannot be delayed, and we are no longer able to afford to extend any more credit for supplies."

Jacob's body stiffened for a moment.

"The divine messenger is pleased with those two royal bloodlines, but He won't lower His requirements for offerings—you know His temper. If the quantity and quality of the next offering aren't sufficient…"

Jacob knew, of course, that the messenger of God was an extension of the Father's will, or rather, a fragment of some will that was even more ancient than the Father's.

It needs no reason, only satisfaction. If the offerings are insufficient, its dissatisfaction will fall on Jacob, and will be directly reflected in the Father's attitude towards the church.

That would mean the order would lose the protection of God the Father.

"I'll handle it," Jacob said in a low, tense voice.

"What should we do?"

"If we can't get the money back, we'll look for other sources." Jacob turned around. "The arms buyers in Orichalcos owe us money for goods, and we also have a connection in the underground arms market of Ironwall Free City within the Moral Union. If those guys at the Hastu Club are willing to pay their promised funds ahead of schedule—"

Old Gerard interrupted, "This is all small change, a drop in the ocean compared to what we need."

"Then I'll rob them!" Jacob's voice suddenly rose, echoing in the empty stone chamber. "The Orichalcos's arms ships, the treasuries of the Misnellian aristocratic families, the treasuries of those small principalities within the Moral Union—whatever it takes, by any means necessary!"

Old Gerard looked at him silently, then slowly spoke: "Jacob, have you considered one possibility?"

Jacob seemed to be nearing his limit, but he still gritted his teeth and asked, "What's possible?"

"Lockman is not dead."

The room was silent for a few seconds.

“Impossible,” Jacob said. “Cliffs, reefs, bonds, seawater—even a first-tier superhuman would have a hard time dealing with that, let alone Lockman, who is just a mortal accountant.”

"Did you see him hit the rocks, did you see his blood or his body?"

Jacob did not answer, but old Gerard continued, "You should go and check the deep sea, see if there are any remains at the bottom of the cliff, and whether his soul was captured by the Song of Pearls."

Jacob's face was obscured by the shadow of his hood, but his silence spoke volumes.

"But it's no use talking about this now, the money's gone." Old Gerard finally stood up and walked down the corridor. "Whether you go out and recruit new technicians or find new sources of funding, it's up to you."

He stopped at the door and turned his head to the side.

"As soon as possible, Jacob, we don't have much time."

Old Gerard dragged his feet back to the basement, leaving Jacob alone in the empty stone chamber.

The oil painting above the fireplace appeared even more sinister under the fluorescent light. The faces of the figures in the painting were no longer recognizable, but Jacob suddenly felt that the blurry mass of color was smiling at him.

An unnamed fire rose from the depths of his chest, and the deep-sea bloodline within him began to surge wildly.

The power of the Father God surged in his veins, demanding release, demanding destruction, demanding to prove his existence through annihilation.

Jacob, completely naked, instantly disintegrated. Tentacles gushed out from under his skin, splattering against the walls, the ceiling, the fireplace, and the paintings.

Stones shattered and flew everywhere upon impact, the fireplace collapsed, and the oil painting was torn to pieces and mixed into the gravel and dust.

The tentacles continued to expand, destroying everything in the stone chamber.

A flying pebble shattered the window at the end of the corridor, and the sea breeze rushed in through the hole, carrying the salty, damp scent of the night.

When the rage finally subsided, the entire stone chamber was in ruins and unrecognizable.

Jacob stood in the middle of the ruins, panting heavily, and looked up through the broken window into the distance.

On the horizon, the moon peeks out from behind the clouds, its greyish-white light spilling onto the surging waves of the Heartbreak Sea.