Liam unrolled a massive blueprint and slammed it on the table separating him from Glenn. The latter frowned and crossed his arms.

"I'm not too keen on reading blueprints, do you mind...?"

"That's the Howard Manor in Grimwalk, the XXII District," Liam said coldly, "It spans around four to six hectares, with countless guards and enchanted mechanical eyes that watch over uninvited guests. There isn't much to see in the mansion itself, as most of his..." He gritted his teeth, "...Unsavory operations are done underground. There are many tunnels, connecting Onnea-knows-where. One of the main things we'll need to watch for and need to take care of as quickly as we can is the teleportation gate."

Glenn raised an eyebrow, "Teleportation gate?"

Liam nodded and pointed at the center of the blueprint, "It's only a guess, but I'm almost certain it connects to other vampires living inside King's Rise. If the Baron discovers the assault, he will probably call reinforcements. These are certainly going to use the gate to try and come as fast as possible. And I'm not sure about you, but I'd rather not be overwhelmed by countless non-human soldiers."

Glenn nodded slowly, "...So we need to get rid of that gate first. Hmm, I'm almost certain these things need personnel to be operated."

"Correct," Liam confirmed, "The Baron made a specialized Magi into his kin and basically forced him to operate the gate at all times. Besides being a way to call up for reinforcements, it's also an excellent path to escape. Just teleport away to some unknown location and cut off the connection from the other side, and tada~ you escape your pursuers."

Janica leaned in curiously, "Why don't you try and attack him when he's out of his mansion then?"

Liam shook his head, "It'd be great, but he's never out. The few months I spent back then, he never left the underground, let alone the manor."

Glenn rubbed his chin, "What about the guards? How strong are they? Can they compare to the troops he brought to the Northern Town for his Harvest back then?"

Liam scoffed, "They're much more powerful. The Harvesters are a special troop that only follows the noble leading the Harvest, and Howard relegated that role to another noble after the one he took me away from."

"He did?" Glenn blurted out, surprised. Liam nodded and raised his hands helplessly, "I'm not exactly sure why and trust me, it's not like I did not ask."

Glenn scratched the back of his head, wondering about how he should tackle this operation, "...How many of these guards do you think would be enough to take me down?" He asked.

Liam crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling in pondering while Janica headed off to fix Sahro's mechanical arm.

"Hmm...Ten, no, maybe twelve of them would be enough? They're mostly all Aura Knights, but I know there are at least five Magi at the same rank as you. And that's only what I've seen with my own eyes, I have no idea about the strength he hid away."

Glenn glanced at Liam, his eyebrows creased, "...You know all of this and yet he hasn't chased you down? I would have thought the Baron would be a little more thoughtful about his security."

Liam scoffed dejectedly and stabbed his thump in his chest, "He saw me rip my own heart out. To him, I'm a dead and buried body, which I should have been if it wasn't for..." His eyes softened as he glanced at Janica, "...You know."

Glenn chuckled, "Yeah, yeah, I know. What else can you tell me about the Baron? Strength-wise? What can he do?"

Liam's expression darkened, "A lot of things. First, forget about anything you might have seen back in the Northern Town. We're going to attack him in his lair, so expect thralls and black magic summons. If it comes to a direct fight, you'll need all the help possible to take him down."

He turned back and grunted as he took out a long, sniper rifle-looking contraption embedded with two large Shards in its center, a red and a blue one. There were pressure gauges on the stock and near the cannon, and most of the body was of wood and brass.

"I'll support you from nearby with my latest creation," He patted the weapon proudly, "It uses the surrounding Mana and the natural reaction between a Fire and Water Shard to create highly powerful projectiles. I just need to put a little bit of blood, and—"

Janica suddenly crept up from behind him with a threatening smile, "Oh my, Liam, didn't you tell me you had no intention of using this...this blood-sucking, devilish weapon? I thought you threw it away and instead spent the time on improving your artificial heart?"

Liam looked away and slowly pushed the rifle in Glenn's direction, who took and inspected it curiously, "Interesting. I have no clue about how it works, but did you think about adding a scope on it?"

Janica and Liam froze and slowly turned toward Glenn, their curiosity aroused, "Scope? What's that?"

Glenn rubbed the back of his neck, squinting as he tried to remember how scopes worked, "Uhh, you know, a specialized magnifying glass, I think it works with lenses or something...?"

Liam gasped and slammed his fist in his hand, "Right! A magnifying glass! Why didn't I think of that before?" He hurriedly grabbed a blank blueprint and drew a design on it, Janica watching with interested eyes. "Magnifying glasses enlarge images using convex lenses, but it is limited in range and stability, hence why I didn't consider it before."

Janica nodded slowly in understanding, "...But we could probably enhance it to see much further using multiple lenses to redirect the light, which would..."

Glenn stealthily stepped out of the Workshop, leaving the two engineers to their creation process.

"You're as dumb as a brick," Diamanes commented. Glenn shook his head, disagreeing, "No, I'm just leaving the matters needing skills to, well, the skilled people. I don't have time to waste learning about engineering and filling my knowledge deficiencies."

"I guess that's a correct point of view," Diamanes admitted. Glenn took his Exan Egg out of his dimensional pouch and checked the time. It was 5 P.M.

"Hopefully Kevin will be there soon enough..." Glenn muttered as he took away the watch and instead drew out the restored Project Damocles notebook, "...I need to find out how I can go back to the Fringe or how to contact Maron quickly. His intelligence network will probably help us a lot in our enterprise."

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

He sighed and headed off to the relaxation room, finding Liara and Lina playing cards. He saluted them before collapsing into one of the sofas and opening the notebook.

'I might as well finally check what that project was about...' He thought as read the first page and instantly winced, "Right, it was Project: Sword of Damocles and not just Project Damocles. Whatever..."

Whoever wrote the notes had terrible penmanship, making it considerably harder to decrypt them. Glenn had to strain his eyes just to read a few lines.

"Project: Sword of Damocles, first iteration. Yeah, okay, I already knew that, so..." Glenn squinted and continued, "Ever since I was stranded in this world, I relentlessly searched for a way back to Earth. With the help of magic, I completed technological marvels that I could have never dreamed of making back then. Yet...The data doesn't lie. There's no path back to Earth because Earth doesn't exist anymore. It's gone."

Glenn sighed and leaned back on the sofa, closing his eyes for an instant, '...This again. I'm not that interested in finding a way back, but I certainly am curious about where a whole planet disappeared. What's even stranger is that Earth disappeared for the author and Exan, even though the author came into this world ages before Exan. How could Earth be gone and yet new Earthlings keep on popping up here and there? I and Lina are the exact proofs that Earth still exists somewhere...'

'Unless you were stuck in some sort of, heh, a limbo of time and space before landing into this world, pun unintended,' Diamanes commented, closely following Glenn's line of thought. The latter hummed for an instant before resuming his reading.

"I concluded that the readings are false. The gods are intrinsically linked to this world and the disappearance of Earth, I'm sure of it. This experiment must succeed, we do not have a choice. For Earth's fate as much as the Limbo's. If I have to keep living in this world, I might as well do what I can to maintain its existence."

Glenn suddenly perked up, alarmed. Why was the author hinting at the potential end of the world? This was a little too worrying for his taste.

"This project, Sword of Damocles, aims to create a weapon that will allow me to topple over even the strongest entities...These hypocritical gods. I'll hunt them, one by one, and discover the damned truth. Nothing will stop me, whatever it may be."

Glenn felt a shiver creep up his back. "Shit...this is insane, right? We were right in our guesses back then, with Sahro. Fuck me sideways..."

The notes then went on to describe an extremely complex process step by step to create a material strong enough to destroy what made Mana, Aura, and Divinity what they were. These notes spanned hundreds of pages, all repeated failed experiments from the words of the author. It was only at the end that Glenn understood that the material the author was trying to create was Blumar.

"No way...Does this mean Blumar is entirely artificial and not a natural material?" He muttered in awe.

"It's strange..." Nelg suddenly commented, coming out of his perpetual silence, "...How is it possible for Blumar to be an artificial material if it's been dug up everywhere in the world?"

Glenn bit on his lower lip. It was indeed not making a lot of sense. Was the author lying? Glenn got his response a few pages later, and it made his blood freeze in his veins.

"...Iteration 482. I finally made it. A material that can cancel the mystical properties of Aura, Mana, Divinity, or anything unnatural. Even Corruption can't handle this material. This is the perfect God slayer. My Sword of Damocles. Which is why it's angering me even more. I can't prolong my life any further. My entire body has already been transformed into Blumar, and my consciousness is fading away. I'll soon become the same as my golems, thoughtless and only trying to protect this Laboratory. I'll try to put my consciousness in the system as a last attempt, but I hardly believe it'll work. The world will be better without me. I only hope the Blumar propagates as planned, infecting this world and curing it of the Gods' influence. One day, the Blumar will propagate in the entire world, and force them to take action. That's when my descendants will take action.

The Limbo shall come to an end, one way or another."

Glenn frowned and shook his head, closing the notebook in frustration. Now this damned author wasn't making any sense anymore. First, his motivation is to stop the world from coming to an end, but by the last pages of the notebook, it's to push for its final moments. This was deeply illogical and frustrating.

'Maybe he went crazy at the end?' Diamanes wondered.

Nelg groaned in agreement, "It'd make sense. I don't know how long it took him to create the Blumar, but we do know it took 482 tries. And it probably wasn't a try-a day too."

Glenn rubbed his forehead and sighed in disappointment, "What about Doyle Malory? The Lightbringer? Why the hell wasn't he mentioned in the notebook? The Laboratory had a whole contraption meant to imprison him, so why? Why wasn't there a single word about him?"

Nelg and Diamanes sighed, equally clueless.

"Hey, can I give it a read?" Lina asked curiously. At some point she had been sitting in front of him, waiting patiently. Liara was sleeping, lying down on a nearby sofa. Glenn scoffed and threw the notebook at her, "Sure, maybe you'll be able to make sense of it. I sure as hell am missing something."

He groaned and leaned back on the sofa, closing his eyes to Meditate his troubles away. He needed some time to think about this whole thing, which could be resumed with: intelligent Earthling wants to stop the end of the world, creates a weapon to kill Gods, changes his opinion midway, and now wants to end the world, still by killing the gods.

"Argh! Just thinking about it confuses me!" Glenn screamed in his Mana Heart, floating around the Milky Way and the four star rings. Nelg's Black Sun was hanging in the back silently, pulsing with the same yet a different power from the Milky Way.

Glenn's other self covered in heavy armor approached him, his hands behind his back, "Maybe you should try asking someone what the readings meant in the notebook. Or..." Nelg frowned and shook his head, "Actually, never mind. That's a terrible idea, and would end up in another insane scientist creating propagating Blumar, which sounds kind of an end-of-the-world scenario."

Glenn waved his hand dismissively, "Bah! Leave it for now! This is too much for me to handle, I'll just find a way to talk with Onnea and ask her about it."

Nelg raised an eyebrow and snorted, "And why would she answer? Are there any rules for gods to always tell the truth?"

Glenn paused.

"Shit, you're right. Well, I still believe it's a good idea to ask Her or the Bloodblade, or maybe Plutus, whoever agrees to talk to me. Maybe I can try the Magi Brotherhood's God too, who knows?"

Nelg laughed wryly, "Sure, why not? As long as you don't take it at face value."

Glenn sighed deeply, only to be woken up from his Meditation by Lina shaking him awake.

"Urgh, what...?" He grumbled. Lina moistened her lips and pointed at the notebook, "Could you explain to me the situation you spoke of aloud earlier? With that...uh, Doyle Malory?"

Glenn reluctantly agreed and quickly explained to her. She rubbed her chin and nodded, "Yeah, I think I get it now. The author mentions trying to transfer his consciousness into the Laboratory. If that succeeded, that means he became the Laboratory. Now, imagine a threat such as that Doyle Malory enters the Laboratory with evil intentions."

Glenn's eyes widened and he slammed his fist in his palm, "Oh, it makes sense now! The author reshaped the Laboratory to capture Doyle and seal him. Maybe using him as a source of fuel was only a side-effect of that!"

Lina nodded with a wide, proud grin, "Yeah, I am smart aren't I?"

Glenn patted her head, "Yeah, yeah, you are. This still leaves some unknown, such as why the author changed his mind by the end of the notebook about saving the world, and why..." He frowned and rubbed his chin, "...Why did the Laboratory disappear from the Blumar Quarry? What the hell happened? Did the author's consciousness remaining in the laboratory decide to change to another location? Why?"

He shook his head and shrugged it off as he stood up from the sofa, "Bah, it's not like struggling to comprehend it would bring me closer to the truth. It's interesting to see that Blumar was meant to destroy Gods, though..."

Glenn thought back to Maron and the machine that transformed half of his body into Blumar, a little worried, '...And I certainly wonder what the notebook's author intended to do with those machines...'

He shook these thoughts out of his head and placed his hands on his waist, "For now, I have a more urgent issue to deal with." His lips curved upward wickedly, his fists clenched tightly, "...And that issue is called Baron Howard."