Book 9: Chapter 66: Ideals and Belief

“The Greybeard Tavern… this should be the place!” Staring at the short, rough-styled tavern ahead, Qin Lun cautiously scanned his surroundings. Hands tucked into his pockets, he walked slowly forward.

The tavern wasn’t large. It sat tucked away in a forgotten corner of the Devil’s Horn entertainment district. Two stories tall, built of wood, its shape was like a wooden bowl fixed upside down on the ground. The door frame held butterfly-wing wooden doors reaching about chest height, reminding Qin Lun of the distinctively local Dwarf taverns in the Toril World.

Indeed, this tavern belonged to the Gnome race, close relatives to the Dwarves. Gnomes were no less skilled than Dwarves in weapon forging; Grandmaster Francis, who forged Qin Lun’s Burial of Light and Darkness and Ayala Weapon Casket, was a Gnome. But when it came to brewing techniques? The Gnome race lagged far behind the Dwarves, missing not just one street, but more.

As property of one of the five management races, the tavern shouldn’t have been relegated to such an obscure spot. However, when first built, the proud Gnomes insisted on selling only their own clan’s liquor. They also employed no beauties from other races as servers. As a result, business steadily declined, forcing its relocation to the quietest corner of the entertainment district.

Yet, precisely because it was quiet, Kelly sent Qin Lun here to discuss important matters.

Pushing open the butterfly doors, Qin Lun swept a quick glance through the hall but found no Kelly. To accommodate the Apostles’ disregard for day or night, all businesses in the Devil’s Horn entertainment district operated around the clock.

Even during dusk, typically a gold time for business, this tavern remained sluggish. Only a few scattered tables were occupied. Judging by their expressions and attire, these were likely down-on-their-luck Apostles drowning their sorrows.

“Honored sir, what’ll be your drink?” The Gnome Bartender behind the counter saw Qin Lun enter. His large green eyes lit up faintly; he could tell from Qin Lun’s appearance and state of mind that he was a well-off customer.

“Get him a Dragon’s Blood Wheat!” Qin Lun was about to speak when a slightly hoarse voice cut in beside him.

Qin Lun turned his head. A small man with a thin mustache, leaning against the bar, had sidled up next to him.

The man wore eccentric hippie-style clothes, but his overly delicate facial features and particularly those bright peach blossom eyes – obviously not fit for a man – made Qin Lun stifle a chuckle. No wonder he hadn’t spotted Kelly earlier. This sinister disguise, without a closer look, was hard to recognize.

“Why the laugh?” Kelly shot him a glare. She grabbed Qin Lun’s wrist, pulling him to a shadowed wooden table across the hall. Before settling in, she reminded him not to forget the Dragon’s Blood Wheat.

“If your heart flutters with spring desires and you want a rendezvous,” Qin Lun teased, having learned quite a few lines for charming ladies under the tutelage of several experienced women, “you didn’t need to pick such a hidden spot?”

“Hah! Like anyone would find interest in a heartless rogue like you,” Kelly retorted with a snort. “I heard from little Lace you hooked up with a Superhuman noblewoman last world, then dumped her afterwards… utterly beastly!” She gave him a look filled with contempt. “I need to speak to you about something real!”

“Lace… that bug-spirit is way too gossipy!” The corner of Qin Lun’s mouth twitched in a forced smile. “What’s so important it has to be here? Couldn’t it have been said in the Projector?”

“Can’t. The Devil’s Horn isn’t like before. Talking isn’t safe over the Projector or in your Villa,” Kelly insisted, her voice lowered. “My profile is too high, and I couldn’t even take you into the Lost Demiplane headquarters. This place was the safest option.” She glanced around the tavern hall. “Add me to your Team Channel.”

Qin Lun’s eyebrow arched almost imperceptibly. Silently, he extended the team invitation to Kelly. For new members to join an Apostle team required an in-person invitation unless possessing the individual’s Apostle ID. This was the reason Kelly needed this meeting.

“Did Lost run into trouble?” Qin Lun asked almost instantly after Kelly joined the channel.

“It’s not Lost that’s in trouble,” Kelly said, her expression darkening, a trace of bitterness appearing.”But the entire Devil’s Horn is about to face a storm!” She pointed at the Dragon’s Blood Wheat on the table. “Aren’t you drinking? That’s actually good stuff. I like this tavern precisely for this drink.”

Qin Lun glanced at the mug. He took a small sip but immediately set it down with a frown. The liquor was furious. Even that tiny sip burned his entire throat raw. It wasn’t to his taste.

He did drink on occasion, usually faintly sweet, low-alcohol fruit wines — a habit carried over from his time in the Moonlight Forest. The Elves hadn’t just taught him fundamental survival skills; they’d left him with Elven manners and certain tastes. He wasn’t unique. Every Apostle who first encountered Sapient Races carried deep impressions from their origins.

“Not drinking? What a waste!” Kelly muttered with a displeased grunt, snatching the cup from him. She tipped her head back and took a large gulp, setting the mug down with a slight hiccup, her cheeks flushing with the pleasant haze of alcohol.”High-grade Dwarf liquor! Non-existent anywhere else in the Devil’s Horn,” she explained with a touch of pride, licking her lips. “The Gnome clan maintains friendly ties with the Dwarves, so this place gets a scarce supply each month. Most discovered drunks hoard it secretly, telling no one! You keep this secret too, got it?”

“Got it, sister! Hurry up and tell me!” Qin Lun was caught between amusement and exasperation. The longer he knew Kelly, the more he discovered the Female Tyrannosaurus occasionally had bizarrely random moments.

“Oh, where was I?” Kelly pouted, her mind snapping back. Her expression grew heavy once more as she began explaining in the Team Channel.

The storm Kelly spoke of ultimately traced back to the current invasion launched by the Superstring Space against the Shattered Starry Sky. According to the Female Martial Artist’s intelligence, the Superstring Space’s current aggression had essentially passed through two major waves. The peak had subsided, and both sides would slowly disengage, consolidate resources, and tally the respective gains and losses arising from the conflict.

Thus far, it appeared the Shattered Starry Sky had suffered heavily in this war, especially regarding human resources. Cases like Qin Lun’s recent Divine Comedy World, where the Apostles achieved a resounding success, were rare. In most other Quest Worlds, particularly those Mid-Magic Worlds and High-Magic Worlds, the Shattered Starry Sky endured serious high-level losses. Numerous large Apostle teams suffered devastating blows.

Hearing this, Qin Lun’s pupils constricted slightly. He began to grasp what Kelly was implying regarding the approaching “storm.”

Entering the Divine Comedy World, he had speculated: if even massive teams like Lost had been drawn into the war, and suffered severe harm, the delicate balance within the Devil’s Horn could shatter. The entire Apostle pyramid might enter a phase of restructuring. A purge became unavoidable.

Apostle teams lacked ambition for power over the Shattered Starry Sky’s indigenous worlds. However, they contested fiercely over resource allocation within the Devil’s Horn itself. These resources encompassed Demiplanes and Apostle items, as well as the Apostles themselves.

Centered on High-Rank Apostles, large Apostle teams possessed an infinite demand for manpower. A larger Apostle base fostered greater chances of High-Rank Apostles emerging, stabilizing the team. Other high-ranking members received more support, reducing their likelihood of falling.

This was precisely why Qin Lun had drawn attention simultaneously from both Chaos and Lost after his appearance. Even their upper echelons hadn’t minded extending personal invitations.

“If Lost remains unharmed, which large team suffered devastating losses?” Qin Lun probed, his gaze sharpening beneath a composed demeanour.

“You should ask which team hasn’t endured sacrifices!” Kelly shook her head solemnly. “In truth, saying Lost is ‘unharmed’ only means they avoided annihilation, compared to the other large teams in the Devil’s Horn.”

Kelly’s detailed explanation unveiled intelligence inaccessible to someone at Qin Lun’s current rank, laying bare the true state of affairs within the Devil’s Horn.

The Devil’s Horn housed three Major Apostle Coalitions. To the average Apostle, they appeared similarly scaled, each alliance roughly comprising over two thousand Professional Apostles distributed across hundreds of teams of varying sizes. Kelly’s inside story, however, revealed marked disparity.

The Chaos Alliance adhered to the law of survival of the fittest, possessing a lower moral baseline. Yet, this unconcerned style attracted the majority of Apostles. Precisely because it followed the law of the jungle, the Professional Apostles capable of joining the Chaos Alliance surpassed those in the other two alliances, resulting in a higher concentration of formidable members.

From an outside view, the Chaos Alliance consisted of one large team: the Chaos Team. Internally, however, Chaos was a combined team formed by five core subunits. Its High-Rank Apostles accounted for over forty percent of the Devil’s Horn’s total. Yet, its focus on sheer strength and the jungle doctrine meant internal unity was shaky; the five Chaos branches frequently clashed over interests.

The neutral Apostle Monument Alliance had a comparably loose structure but held together better than the Chaos Alliance. It was composed of three large teams, one being the Tianfu Team Qin Lun had previously encountered.

Then came the Order Front, Qin Lun’s current alignment. This coalition held only two large teams: Lost and another named the Light Team. Perhaps conscious of their relatively weaker positions, both teams were exceptionally close-knit, not only internally but mutually protective. High-level figures coordinated regularly and collaborated often.

The key reasons preventing the numerically superior and individually mightier Chaos Alliance from swallowing the other houses were twofold: Firstly, the Shattered Starry Sky strictly prohibited large-scale infighting among Apostles. Secondly, High-Rank Apostles operating freely within the Star Void possessed too many potent tools allowing escape. Killing one was nearly impossible unless trapped.

Consequently, confrontations between High-Rank Apostles could only decisively conclude within Mid-Magic Worlds or High-Magic Worlds, pinned by World Quest penalties restricting their ability to flee.

Crucially, every large team contained at minimum five High-Rank Apostles. Two such large teams operating together could amass a ten-strong squad at this tier. Such a unit wielded terrifying potency. Even the Shattered Starry Sky itself could deploy only two such squads into a Quest World simultaneously, and only into a High-Magic World or the extreme upper tier of a Mid-Magic World, possessing sufficient ‘law density’ to bear their concentrated power.

Therefore, for Chaos to defeat the other houses, it needed battlefield victories through mutually destructive attrition against forces of comparable stature. However, attaining High-Rank embodied immense survival capabilities. Who would willingly throw those precious lives away like cannon fodder? Thus, despite numerical prominence, Chaos remained hindered against the other alliances to date.

However, the cataclysmic aggression launched by the Superstring Space fundamentally reshaped the Apostle pyramid within the Devil’s Horn.

First, all three coalitions witnessed devastating High-Rank Apostle losses committed to external warfare. Many had fallen during the second wave of Superstring Space attacks. While details from other coalitions remained obscure post-invasion to Kelly, the situation within Order Front’s camps was starkly clear… and tragically unequal.

Lost had experienced unexpected fortune. Their High-Rank Apostles suffered zero casualties, only sustaining moderate losses among strategic supplies reserved as cards kept hidden. Their long-standing League partner, however—the Light Team—had met outright annihilation. Not even one core member managed to escape alive returning, signaling they had faced opponents ferocious beyond simple scale.

The news froze Kelly and other Lost members returning to headquarters speechless upon departure. Such scenarios mirrored a sudden decapitation. Even with its formidable structure intact, a large team faced inevitable destruction without its leadership core.

Truthfully, Lost might well have preferred bearing significant losses personally than witnessing their major ally completely obliterated. The sheer disappearance of Light’s strategic-level leadership and core powerhouses meant Light completely lost operational control over subordinate cadres. Worse, the entire Order Front immediately incurred a critical point of structural failure, teetering precariously towards fragmentation.

The annihilating death of Light’s entire command stratum remained impossible to conceal forever. Once detected by the other two Apostle Coalitions? Ravenous celebration instantly commenced. This urgency was amplified by the fact both competing alliances bore significant wounds during the external invasion, starving for replacement elite blood.

Without its League partner, Lost possessed zero plausible justification physically hampering attempts by rivals to raid Light’s remnants, including possibly absorbing Light’s shattered units. Why? Chaos Alliance and Apostle Monument would possibly target Lost directly without reservation, knowing that solo… Lost now lacked the necessary High-Rank strength to assemble a full Team-of-Ten for defence.

More critically… Lost couldn’t possibly uphold the Order Front solely upon themselves. Only two choices remained: Joining one of the existing Major Coalitions… or else departing permanently from the Devil’s Horn fortress reality.

“Exiting Devil’s Horn? Impossible,” Kelly confessed with a bitter chuckle. “Any other Apostle City welcomes individual Apostles. They absolutely wouldn’t assimilate a complete large team wholesale, replete with managerial layers! Yet, disband the Order Front through surrender into the Apostle Monument? Equally unpalatable. We simply resist capitulation!”

Kelly didn’t even mention joining Chaos Alliance; its predatory culture conflicted savagely with Lost’s fundamental mission. Apostles Monument offered what they deemed the lesser ideological evil.

“Then… exactly what path do you aim to pursue?” Qin Lun frowned slightly, demanding strict clarity.

Someone possessing his analytical instinct grasped irrevocable tides. Yes, Qin Lun repeatedly orchestrated intricate power plays within Quest Worlds. Yet each exploit pivoted on dominating invisible favourable currents, ensuring the ‘current flowed toward planned victory’. A true strategist knows confronting a collapsing flood inevitably invites drowning. Fighting said rush usually signals flawed initial positioning.

“The news concerning Light’s utter doom… remains barely contained,” Kelly admitted grimly. “Within several critical days, the other Great Coalitions inevitably grasp what transpired. Consequently… we pursue the sole final recourse left.” Abruptly, Kelly shed her seriousness like worn-out skin. She beamed towards Qin Lun radiantly. “Since you exhibit astonishing foresight? Dare to guess?”

“How could any ambiguity obscure it?” Qin Lun paused in contemplation almost upon speaking, sounding weary. “We perceive an overwhelming tide? Only based upon the Devil’s Horn. Expand beyond this miniature chessboard? That horrendous incoming “inevitability” ceases commanding momentum.”

Sighing deeply despite himself, Qin Lun finished his sobering declaration. “Utilizing that avenue… constitutes gambling Lost in its entirety. As an associate member serving beneath Lost… I warn against adopting such a plan.”

Kelly offered no immediate reply, simply letting her captivatingly beautiful eyes radiate piercing brilliance. “Precisely as anticipated. Exactly echoing Morning Star’s verdict.” Her tone softened slightly. “Only… As outsiders, you fundamentally cannot understand the value behind the dream always motivating our stance!”

Qin Lun settled into silence. Reflexively, he reached for the Dragon’s Blood Wheat mug. The potent spirit fumes scalded his nostrils harshly, snapping his consciousness back. Setting down the mug with a noticeable frown took prolonged moments amidst glum contemplation. His eventual words carried chilling detachment. “Then tell me, Kelly. Is it… genuinely worth life itself?”

“Once becoming Apostles, mortality is imposed regardless,” Kelly replied with stoic calmness. A faint smile touched her lips as she summarized her worldview. “Therefore… compromising principles purely concerning transient survival? We refuse.”

She added quietly, wistfully,”Honestly? Within my deepest soul… my original request involved pulling you in alongside us. However… seeing… clear reluctance? Eliminated persuading you.”

“Grant me… contemplation phase,” Qin Lun intended utter refusal instantly. Yet witnessing Kelly’s stubborn, flower-like aura manifesting pure resolve… inexplicably… parching dryness seized his throat. Finding himself adopting compromise phraseology felt… exceedingly abnormal.

Exiting the Greybeard Tavern encountered near-midnight. Sudden chilly gusts instinctively made Qin Lun tighten his coat collar. The warmth fostered by the liquor faded equally rapidly amid mournful gusts. Discharging one long vaporous breath, Qin Lun vanished into the awaiting gloom.

Inside… he understood Lost’s impending choice. He rediscovered comprehending exactly why they’d embraced such despairing odds. Yet… disturbingly… he failed recognizing ultimate purpose residing within their resolve. Essentially… aiming to preserve Order Front from irreversible collapse, Lost prioritized sourcing external reinforcement outside Devil’s Horn’s boundaries. They sought introducing an entirely fresh High-Rank Team originating from a distinct Apostle City metropolis!

Certainly… after the brutal Apostle-versus-Reincarnators warfare? Numerous major teams were forced abandoning former home bases. Should matching factions uphold congruent ideologies, Lost possessed legitimate chances identifying viable candidates.

If outsiders reliably could replace Light Team functionalities? Then Order Front circumvented total dissolution. Numerous lower/mid-tier Apostle associates would resist migrating hostile coalitions immediately, provided their familiar shelter merely received substitute supports.

However… pursuing such drastic tactics inevitably mandated branding Lost and receiving newcomers as collective “traitors” against Chaos Alliance and Apostle Monument—thus guaranteeing conflict.

Suppose… Lost and the foreign joint force secured initial victory? Crucially… succeeding within first pivotal engagement? Perhaps that would anchor their footing sufficiently shifting local dynamics.

Conversely… losing implied complete catastrophe. Light Team tragedy redux loomed inexorably: death… exile… annihilation forever surpassing routes towards joining former rivals.

Thus Qin Lun grasped Lost’s honourable motive: preserving the Devil’s Horn’s solitary beacon embodying lawful ideals for their over two thousand affiliated Professional Apostles. Simultaneously… perpetual confusion haunted him—their personal willingness sacrificing everything for this communal sanctuary felt bewilderingly excessive and inefficient.

Through Qin Lun’s psychological lens possessing sheer might rendered maintaining universal order redundant. Apostles intrinsically embodied forces disrupting equilibrium simply through existing.

Perhaps every Apostle upheld personal principles plus small circles deserving protection… Yet obstinately insisting on constructing societal scales balancing justice? Offering safe havens like domestic warmth? Such dedication seemed pessimistic… fundamentally misplaced… perhaps… deeply noble yet self-destructive foolishness.

…

“Qin Lun… encountering mental turbulence?”

Shepherd Hill frowned slightly, observing Qin Lun with distinct perplexity. Following the secret pact meeting coordinated by Kelly that day… Qin Lun existed perpetually within partial unreality over ensuing days. Old phantoms warred inside bruised consciousness repeatedly.

Myriad intricate concepts battled within frenzied contemplation. Yet resolving his internal tumult yielded nothing concrete recovered consciously. Even now amidst essential transactions gathering involving himself, plus Hill plus other prominent Skilled Parties attendees… Qin Lun maintained partially distracted posture.

“Oh… various complex thoughts surfaced unexpectedly,” Qin Lun admitted aloud through fluctuating expression patterns. Finally determined revealing relevant details demanded prior consultation.”Specifically… critically concerning… seeking your shared input involves certain evaluations.”