Vincent settled his mind and began taking stock of the changes that had come with advancing to Sequence 4.
First, and most immediately obvious: the "Overseer" couldn't be harmed by any attack lacking divinity — exactly as he'd felt during the advancement itself.
Not only that — any living being who attacked the "Overseer" would inevitably face a corresponding punishment. Any non-divine attack aimed at the Overseer would automatically rebound onto the attacker.
Which meant that, in a certain sense, Beyonders below demigod level didn't even qualify to fight him at all — barring access to a demigod-level sealed item, they couldn't hurt him even standing perfectly still, let alone kill him.
Second, against demigods and above who carried genuine "divinity," the "Overseer" could invoke "Protection," forming an invisible barrier capable of effectively blocking multiple attacks and inflicting a measure of punishment on the attacker.
This gave him a real edge, even against opponents of demigod rank or higher.
Third, an enhancement to his "Prosecution" ability: once a prosecution was formally raised, unless the verdict was fully carried out, the punishment would continue indefinitely.
This confirmed something Vincent had already suspected back when he first advanced to Prosecutor — that the enhanced "Prosecution" ability, absent some kind of "stand-in" ability on the target's part, would keep punishing a target sentenced to "death" continuously, until either the target escaped the prosecution's range entirely, or accepted death.
Genuinely powerful, when you thought about it.
The Overseer could also designate a certain area as his own "jurisdiction," gaining a degree of authority over everyone and everything within it — the ability to see through hidden targets directly, sense anomalies, and so on.
At the same time, within this area, he gained a "Word of Power" effect — the ability to harm, restrict, or protect a target through speech alone, somewhat similar to the Arbitrator Pathway's "Decree," though with certain differences.
This served as a real reinforcement to Vincent's own active offensive and defensive toolkit as a "Broker," meaning he wouldn't have to rely purely on "Prosecution" for punishment anymore.
Finally, the "Overseer" could oversee the conduct of his own subordinates, punishing — even killing — anyone who broke the rules remotely, with the Overseer himself serving as the one who set those rules in the first place.
Beyond all this, his existing Broker Pathway abilities had also been strengthened across the board — better control over shadow abilities, faster Black Box transactions, and so on.
That covered everything the "Overseer" brought with it.
Overall — genuinely powerful, no question. But also, genuinely disappointing.
For Vincent, the Broker Pathway's core weakness remained unresolved — a real lack of any genuinely strong offensive ability.
Whether newly gained or newly strengthened, the abilities still leaned heavily toward support. Even the reinforced "Prosecution" ability came with the same weakness of being countered by "stand-in" abilities — and even the "Word of Power" leaned more toward utility than raw offense.
"Hah—"
Vincent let out a breath. "People really are never satisfied, huh. Always trying to gobble down more than you can chew."
Though, thinking about it seriously, this current state of the Broker Pathway wasn't actually bad for him, specifically — after all, he wasn't fighting alone. He had Bernadette's Mystery Pryer abilities, and the Black Emperor's abilities within the Nation of Disorder besides.
If he could just get his hands on the "Arbitrator" card too, that would truly complete the puzzle, making him a genuine, fully-realized Lord of Chaos, master of order and rules alike.
Just no telling who actually had that card right now — the original Lord of the Mysteries story never seemed to mention it at all.
Greedy again.
He shook his head and channeled spirituality into the ancient scale.
Golden mist immediately began pouring out from the scale like a thick liquid, bathing the surroundings in gold, and a moment later, a flood of information surged into his mind:
First, still about the granted "positions" — after advancing to Sequence 4, the number of positions he could grant had jumped: 2 Black Box, 4 Ambitionist, 8 Prosecutor, 16 Shadow Trader, and 32 Broker.
Another massive jump in numbers!
By the time he advanced to Sequence 3, these numbers would double again — and double once more at Sequence 2.
Though he'd originally only wanted a handful of "interns" to help him stack up gray crystal, at this rate, before he knew it, he'd end up building something close to a genuine faction of his own.
Reading further, regarding the "Overseer," the Nation of Disorder had granted him a special privilege: when facing a Beyonder with divinity, he could draw on the Nation of Disorder's own power to reinforce his "Protection," subjecting demigods and above who attacked him to the exact same treatment as a "non-divine" attacker — guaranteed punishment, guaranteed rebound.
Each use came with a "cooldown" period, and the stronger the attack it absorbed, the longer that cooldown would be. Against an Angel-level opponent, he'd basically get one use, then be locked out of a second for a good while.
"Well, that's another layer of insurance for my life, at least."
Thinking it over, Vincent currently had at his disposal: mirror stand-in, wand stand-in, Emperor's New Clothes, and now the Overseer's "Protection"... oh, and once Bernadette advanced to Sequence 2, she'd be able to turn into an information stream at will, dodging most physical damage on demand.
Good — staying alive was the whole point, after all. Can't deal damage if you're dead.
"Huh."
Just then, Vincent noticed something odd — the "Overseer" digestion progress wasn't sitting at zero, as expected, but had already reached roughly a third complete.
That wasn't a small amount.
Vincent rubbed his chin, muttering. "Weird... when did I ever get a head start playing 'Overseer'?"
Once he'd confirmed nothing had slipped past him, he stood up and walked briskly toward the palace's entrance, crossing the long white-marble path, stepping through the ornately carved doorway, out onto the platform beyond.
Looking out, he saw that the chaotic sprawl of buildings that made up the distant Thirty-Three Heavens — the small outer ring closest to him had, indeed, returned to normal. And between the platform and the Thirty-Three Heavens, a new stone path had appeared, exactly the one that had surfaced during his advancement.
The path was made of slabs of stone, suspended in midair, each gap between them roughly a fist's width wide, through which the bottomless abyss below was faintly visible.
Vincent tested it, extending one leg carefully onto the first slab — he hadn't forgotten what had happened during his earlier experiments here.
Thankfully, the slabs held firm, as if fixed permanently in the void — even jumping and stomping on it produced not the slightest wobble.
Once he'd confirmed it wouldn't collapse beneath him, he carefully brought his other leg forward. After steadying himself for a dozen or so seconds, he began advancing, stepping stone by stone, drawing closer to the Thirty-Three Heavens.
There's an old saying: a mountain in the distance can run a horse to death chasing it.
Vincent found himself living that saying firsthand.
He walked for nearly an hour straight, and yet the distance to the Thirty-Three Heavens seemed to have barely changed at all — it almost felt like the buildings themselves were retreating as he advanced.
"Could this be the Black Emperor Pathway's 'Chaos' and 'Distortion' messing with me?"
At the thought, Vincent immediately returned to the palace, picked up the Black Emperor card, and stepped back onto the suspended stone path.
This time, as he walked, he layered several Black Emperor abilities onto himself along the way — "Exploit," to draw on the air's own momentum; "Chaos," to scramble the distance between himself and the Thirty-Three Heavens; and "Distortion," to counter whatever distortion effect might already be at play here.
The effect was immediate. Within three minutes, he could tell he'd closed a substantial amount of distance.
Encouraged, Vincent picked up the pace, no longer stepping slab by slab, but "borrowing" the air itself, gliding long distances through the empty space between them.
Closer, and closer still...
The building cluster that had once been nothing more than a distant, indistinct outline gradually resolved into clarity before his eyes.
To be continued…
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