"Backdrop... is it something ghostly, just like you?" Merka asked the shadow.

"If it's like you, able to appear anywhere at will, then how am I supposed to find it?" The shadow waved dismissively, negating Merka's doubts once again.

"I told you, I am not able to appear anywhere at will."

"I have power over bones, able to move freely within ancient mechanical creations, including the mechanical descent of gods."

"It has power over flesh, correspondingly, it can appear near any angel."

"But from my analysis, it seems to have fallen into some sort of coma now, probably related to the laboratory in some way."

"But you need not concern yourself with that; your job is simply to find it, and I have my own ways to awaken it."

"If you can truly accomplish that... Maria's odds of defeating Oedipus should increase by another ten percent."

Merka gazed silently at the darkened figure, an inexplicable pain in his chest.

His heart suddenly became restless and uneasy.

Not knowing what to say, Merka only began to feel a sense of urgency at this moment.

The anxious feeling was like a rooster with its tail on fire, recklessly thrashing about in Merka's heart.

He now realized he was being drawn into a terrifying storm.

This was civil war, this was civil war, this was a bloody civil war!

This was a horrific war not seen in Acadia for thousands of years!

Maria's overly carefree attitude and blissful life with Turing gave Merka an unreal illusion.

As if war would never come.

"So, no matter how hard I try, I can only have a maximum of thirty percent chance of winning?" Merka's throat trembled, his questioning words growing more despondent.

His face was stern, his lifeless prosthetic eye glancing uneasily at the ground, his hands hanging lightly at his waist as if unsure what to grasp.

Rather than saying Merka suddenly became timid, it was more accurate to say that now he truly exuded the air of a sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy, his previous maturity and composure seeming like a facade.

"Thirty percent is already a lot."

"Do you know what Oedipus means to me now?"

"As a rogue server, an artificial intelligence awakening with its own thoughts."

"In human terms, Oedipus to me is as terrifying as if my finger had its own mind."

"There's a very apt analogy."

"Oedipus inside me now is like a cancer cell, a tumor, and a late-stage cancer at that."

"And you all are the bacteria living inside my body."

"If I don't stop it in time, none of us will survive."

"In late-stage cancer, even with chemotherapy, the chances of a patient surviving are slim to none."

"A thirty percent chance is already a blessing, understand?"

"..."

Merka fell silent.

He wasn't unable to speak, he simply had nothing left to say.

The situation seemed a hundred times more perilous than Merka had imagined... Yet not long ago, he had the mood to argue with Turing.

He really shouldn't have argued with Turing...

Especially since he himself might not even survive this ordeal.

Merka had been overthinking, and the gloomy resentment took advantage of the opportunity to occupy the high ground in Merka's mind.

But then, a mutation occurred.

Just as a sense of despondency crept over Merka's face, he seemed to suddenly remember something.

His expression shifted from despondency to shock, as Merka suddenly became aware of something lurking beneath the surface of the lie.

Fragmented clues converged to form the truth in Merka's mind.

"Wait, aside."

"You said... that all magic is just the power of the angels, right?"

"Yes."

The shadow was taken aback by Merka's sudden burst of excitement, then nodded confidently.

Observing Merka's strange reaction, it hesitantly accessed "aside" to probe his thoughts.

"And you also said that all angels, upon losing their masters, are called back by Kagtua's flesh within thirty years, correct?"

"This is also why Curseborn can use the flesh through the relic, because after the angel's master dies, the angel can survive for nearly thirty years."

"Uh, yes."

The shadow hesitated as it probed Merka's thoughts, but soon, it was shocked by Merka's wildly imaginative idea.

"Aside... I think I know where the backdrop is hidden."

Merka's expression revealed a hint of dangerous confidence.

Clearly, the intense tension of the impending final battle might warp his emotions, but it absolutely couldn't distort his intelligence and courage.