Chapter 839 — Why Not Make Use of It
Blade of Dawn · Page 1 of 4
Lord Beaumel sat there quietly, doing his utmost to pretend he was some piece of furnishings native to the room. The Empire's ruler sat across from him, wearing a calm smile that Beaumel could not read, and he heard the other's voice come through: "This 'Outlander Wanderer'—is that a title he gave himself, or a name you people gave him?"
"Apart from displaying formidable psychic power and revealing those 'memory fragments,' does he show any other inhuman traits?"
"Have you ever come into direct contact with him?"
Lord Beaumel licked his somewhat dry lips and answered Luo Yan Augustus's questions honestly, but what he could answer with any accuracy remained limited—as a convert drawn in by knowledge, his rank among the Sleepers was not high, and within that stern and mysterious cult, a secular title could not be fully converted into standing in the order. To put it plainly, the benefits a mere "lord" could bring were not enough to lift him into the sect's middle tier, and a believer like him knew of the "Outlander Wanderer" only through the small amount of intelligence that had been made public.
In fact, it was not until the order for the great evacuation came down that he learned the Outlander Wanderer had already infiltrated the mind network.
Only after the lord had poured out everything in his belly did Luo Yan Augustus give a slight nod: "Good, Beaumel. You made the right choice."
Beaumel hastily lowered his head. "Y-yes, Your Majesty."
"But I am still curious why you came to inform on them," Luo Yan said, looking at Beaumel as though asking casually. "You clearly knew the risks, and even setting aside the cult's reckoning with traitors, you—a Typhon noble—falling into a dark cult is in itself a grievous crime, yet you came of your own accord and confessed all of it to me. Why?"
Lord Beaumel lifted his head and with difficulty met Luo Yan Augustus's calm gaze. He opened his mouth several times before he finally had the courage to put words together: "Your Majesty, I joined the Sleepers only for hidden knowledge, but I never meant to betray you for it—I know that saying this now carries no persuasive weight, but if I must choose between an unspeakable demon god and the Empire, I would still rather die on Typhon's side..."
As he spoke, bitterness welled up in Lord Beaumel's heart despite himself. Years ago, when he first came into contact with the Sleepers' mysterious knowledge and grasped their formidable psychic power, he had never imagined he would sink so deep into this darkness. The hidden cults of this world were not limited to the Sleepers; far too many shadowy bands of supernaturals proclaimed their eerie, sinister doctrines and announced that they held dealings with unspeakable powers, but most were merely swindles to lure the ignorant. He had once assumed the Sleepers were no different, and believed himself shrewd enough to obtain the knowledge and power he wanted from a dark cult without being drawn into their fanatical, benighted "myth of horrors." But who could have known...
Who could have known they were playing for real—and that the unspeakable power would come knocking at his door in the blink of an eye!
Windsor Mapel gave Lord Beaumel a glance tinged with pity and said, shaking her head, "Too many people harbor the same notion as you, Mr. Beaumel. Such people trust too much in their luck and their 'caution,' believing that so long as they are careful, knowledge and power may be had for the taking—yet nearly all of them have paid a steep price for it."
Thinking of the believers who had tried to inform before him and died, Lord Beaumel could not suppress a shudder. "I understand all of it deeply now."
"Beaumel, I will judge everything you have done fairly—the crimes you committed after throwing in with the dark cult, and the service you have rendered at this moment," Luo Yan Augustus said. "But before that, I need you to do a great many things, and perhaps that may make amends for your errors.