Chapter 343: Curios and Gods

"Me? I'm not sure... let me try."

The Lady of the Night gestured toward herself, admitting she had no idea whether she could use a curio in the conventional sense. After all, handing such an object directly to a god was likely an unprecedented event—and with curios being what they were, one couldn't simply sacrifice them to a deity.

Her form dissolved into darkness. When she reappeared, she was standing by Wang Yu's bedside. He handed her the Crimson Mark and rose from the bed himself. Now that he could move freely, there was no point lying there like an invalid.

The Lady of Night tilted her head as she cradled the curio he had relinquished ownership of. A moment later, the Crimson Mark vanished from her hands.

"If it's like this... I believe I can use it."

Her expression turned pensive: the curio must have been whispering its nature to her. For the first time, a deity had acquired a curio for her own use.

"So, where can you activate it from? For instance... here, let me give you a drop of my blood first."

Summoning a crimson bead from his bloodpool, Wang Yu let it fall onto the curio now manifested in her hands.

The curio stirred. In her vision, a crimson thread appeared, pointing unwaveringly toward Wang Yu. No matter where her true self resided, no matter which incarnation was present, the line would appear in her awareness whenever she wished, stubbornly marking his position.

"From anywhere at all," she replied. "This incarnation, my other avatars, even my true body—all my selves can see the thread pointing to you. The curio's range encompasses the whole of ‘me'."

There was a hint of astonishment in her tone. For a deity, a being whose powers mortals could scarcely comprehend, to be genuinely surprised spoke volumes about the peculiar nature of curios.

"Remember how it works? This curio can trace and locate a person through their belongings. For you, those strands of faith and thoughts directed toward you should be easy enough to sense. You might try using that with the curio."

Now that he knew she could wield the Crimson Mark, Wang Yu shared an idea he had been nursing. Faith, though intangible to mortals, was perceptible to beings like her.

And a curio's judgment was always rooted in the user's perception. If she could sense the faith aimed at her, there was no reason she couldn't feed that into the curio for guidance.

"You're right... I can indeed use it to find the position of each of my followers."

At once, as she acted on instinct, a thousand threads of crimson flared in her mind, each leading to a believer scattered to the edges of the world. Every soul devoted to her was now unmistakably marked.

"What a strange sensation. Normally, my awareness of each follower's location is hazy, but it's grown vastly clearer. For example, right now, here in Skyborne City, I can sense dozens of my followers."

She spoke her thoughts aloud, revealing something she had previously overlooked.

"You have followers in Skyborne City? Dozens of them? How did your faith spread so fast?"

Wang Yu was genuinely curious. The Lady's faith had been growing steadily from its origin in Aleisterre, but this was far quicker than he had expected.

"They are nightfolk, a group including werewolves, vampires, and moon lizards. Two of them are very powerful: one is a vampire, the other a werewolf."

When she focused on a specific follower, their details became clear, mirroring Wang Yu's own experience with the Tree of the Night.

"Ah, that makes sense. For them, you'd be the ideal object of worship. Once they learn you exist, it's only natural they'd believe in you."

Nightfolk lived under the shadow of the sun; their reverence for the Lady of the Night was both logical and inevitable.

"Alright. Shall we do more testing? Can you take the curio elsewhere and continue using it? For example, could you borrow the healing potion made from my blood from Charles and see if you can use that to locate me?"

"Let me try..."

She nodded, and her incarnation dissolved from view.

"I know you've explained it before... but seeing it in action is still astonishing."

Astartes' voice came from nearby. When they had visited the Central Assembly, he had learned of the Lady's existence, along with the power she had inherited from the late God of Eternal Night—the Sword of Darkness.

But as he watched Wang Yu chat with a deity as though with an old friend, even his Machine Spirit-tier processing core was starting to overheat.

"The Lady of Night is... rather special. It's best not to treat her as an ordinary god."

Wang Yu shrugged. She was technically a god, yes, but was just as eccentric as he was.

Other deities had their own quirks: the God of Light, the late God of Eternal Night, the mercenary Goddess of Wealth... they were all unique in their own way. By comparison, the Lady of Night was unusually personable.

After about a minute, her avatar returned. She nodded to him.

"I startled Charles, but yes, it works. I can sense you through the curio from his location."

The Lady of the Night's reply came as no surprise to Wang Yu. As for Charles' feelings on the matter... well, those were of no consequence.

Because of Wang Yu's unusual nature, once Roland's key had been shattered, the Lady could no longer sense his location on her own.

If he wished to borrow her power, there were only two options: either go through the laborious process of crafting one of those troublesome little statuettes, or wait until a follower of the Lady happened to be nearby. That follower could be used as a conduit for her to perceive him.

But with this new curio in her possession, she could locate him with ease. As long as he was within range of her manifested avatars, she could find him at will.

Of course, this was only the surface of the matter. Her ability to pinpoint his position at any time lay in the particular way she used the curio.

The Lady of the Night could be in many places at once—one moment in Skyborne City, the next in any shrine or hidden enclave of the Church of Nightfall.

And wherever she existed, she could use any curio she owned. This meant her followers now had access to a curious boon—one entirely unrelated to the concept of the night. By offering a prayer, they could call upon her to employ the curio's power.

A hunter tracking some elusive beast could, for example, present a tuft of its fur to the Lady in prayer, and she could use the Crimson Mark to identify the creature's position.

The Nightblades would also be able to conduct hunts and track down dangerous foes equipped with only a remnant of their target. A lock of hair or a scrap of clothing would allow them to identify their location instantly.

Wang Yu's eyes widened as he realized just how incredibly the Lady could wield any curio.

The Silent Forest, that strategic-class relic Aleisterre had once used to unleash a cataclysmic meteor, and which had subsequently fallen through a rift into the elemental plane—what if it were to end up in her hands?

A single prayer, and a vast anti-magic field would descend from the heavens.

Any magician foolish enough to defy the Church of Nightfall would be crushed instantly.

Of course, such a scenario was pure speculation. Strategic-class curios were vanishingly rare. Most were firmly in the grasp of the mighty and would be almost impossible to acquire.

Even then, few would synergise with her as well as the Crimson Mark or the Silent Forest. The Mirror of the Stars, for example, would be nearly useless to her. Its twenty-year cooldown meant that she could only employ it once every few decades.

Wang Yu's own Endless Pages and Banner of Triumph were even worse, and would be utterly worthless in her hands.

"Edward's father owns a curio called the Phantasmal Knights' Banner, doesn't he? If I could borrow that, it might lead to remarkable results."

Edward's father—the Grand Duke Lionheart of the North, Leon Leonardo—

Did indeed possess a strategic-class curio whose effects Wang Yu considered frighteningly potent.

Given his rapport with Edward, and with a few well-chosen words to the Duke, it might not be impossible to borrow it for a time.

𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖

"This is incredible."

Wang Yu gave the Lady of the Night a thumbs-up. Her ability to wield relics remotely was simply absurd. It was a pity that he'd only thought of it after being reminded that Astartes had one of his own.

He had just retrieved his newly acquired curio, the Hammer of Fusion, and was about to test it out when a message from Sieg, newly returned from the elemental plane of fire, arrived.

Avia glanced at her identity card and told Wang Yu, "Sieg and Mr. Icarus have finished preparing their research manuscript. If nothing goes awry, their work should easily get past the review process."

After over a century of stagnation, Skyborne City would finally have a new Central Assembly.