Karl. Von. Dietrich put his cigarette into the crystal glass ashtray and crushed it out, then looked out the window while his fingers tapped out a clattering sound on the newspaper on his desk.
"The Emperor, this idiot, is a real mess when it comes to his country's diplomatic skills." Karl thought this with a vague anger in his heart.
His eyes crossed some distance and he was able to see the Ernst Hotel, which showed a corner diagonally opposite the café, and Karl remembered that twenty years ago, when he was a young man of twenty, he had stood in that very hotel with his own father, Count Dietrich, not far from the old Emperor, and together they had watched the inauguration of the Cologne Cathedral in 1880.
"It is but twelve years since the old Emperor died, and already everything in the Empire is running away like a wild horse out of control, and there is no telling where it may go." Karl thought to himself, "The Emperor's peculiar feelings of love and hate mixed with love and hate for England have caused him to be emotional in diplomatic matters."
"An arms race with Britain to build dreadnoughts?" Karl shook his head at the thought, "People have lost the fear of God and think science is all-powerful. All indications are that I have chosen the right path."
With that thought, the forty year old Baron Dietrich reached up and ran his hand through the thick and carefully trimmed beard on his lips and took a sip of the black tea served in a Meissen porcelain cup in front of him.
At that moment a man wearing a black Frak jacket with a bowler hat in his hand approached Karl, walked up to him and leaned down to whisper in Karl's ear, "Your Lordship, the man has been brought to the place." On the collar of the man's black jacket was a small silver shield, the symbol of the Dawn Shield, the Imperial Intelligence agency.
Karl nodded, wiped his mouth with a napkin and stood up, the waiter had already taken Karl's cane, coat and hat, and when Karl got up, he helped him to put on his coat and handed him his hat and cane.
Karl and the subordinate who came to report out of the café, riding in the carriage waiting at the door and walked for five minutes to the door of a tavern.
The two of them got off the carriage and walked into the tavern, it was not yet noon and there were very few customers in the tavern. The tavern waiter and the bartender looked at them, and then did what they were supposed to do as if nothing happened, completely ignoring them.
Carl and his subordinate also ignored anyone and walked straight to the kitchen. After going through the kitchen there was a small door leading down to the basement, and the two of them walked down to the basement through this small door.
The basement was fitted with carbon filament incandescent lamps which were very bright, and two men dressed similarly stood in the basement, both of them with silver insignia on their collars.
In addition to the two men standing, there was another man sitting in a chair in the middle of the basement, his hands tied tightly behind the chair.
Carl took off his bowler hat and handed it to his men, then signalled for his men to pull over a chair and place it across from the tied man.
Carl sat down and examined the bound man across from him for a moment.
The man across from him was a middle-aged dark-haired man with glasses, no beard, slightly pale, with a slightly dishevelled waistcoat and shirt, and the image of a teacher in a university posting.
"We finally meet, Mr Dreyfus." Karl said with a gentle smile.
The man whom Karl called Mr Dreyfus now showed a terrified look: "This gentleman, my name is Franz. Bernhardt, you guys, you must have the wrong person!"
Karl smiled slightly: "Francois Dreyfus, born in 1863 in Strasbourg, graduated from St Cyr's military school in 1886, joined the French army general staff after graduation, and as Franz Benhardt. Bernhardt in 1893 and moved to Cologne, where he has been an assistant professor at the University of Cologne since then. During your tenure as assistant professor, you sent back to France as intelligence the results of several investigations concerning the population and economy of Germany."
As the man known as Dreyfus listened to these words, the expression of trepidation on his face immediately disappeared and was converted into a calm, serene expression: "Baron Dietrich, now that you know all this, you should also know that a detected spy has outlived his usefulness, and you needn't presume to get anything of value out of me, the moment I was captured all of the line of my of people and information had been eliminated."
Karl smiled gently: "If it's about the French spy, there's no need for me to step in yet. I came to see you to ask you about the Dark Order."
Hearing the words "Dark Order", Dreyfus' face truly changed: "What are you talking about, I don't understand."
Karl slowly took off his jacket: "A week ago you killed a French spy who had been exposed, you did it carefully but our autopsy technology is also improving rapidly, unfortunately this is something you won't have the chance to tell the French military and the Dark Order. We found the remnants of the second stage of the Dark Ripple in the body of the person you killed."
"Being able to master the second stage of the Dark Ripple means that you are already in the cadre class in the Dark Order. Is there anything you want to say to me?" Karl rolled up his shirt sleeves as he spoke.
Dreyfus's face clouded over, obviously spinning his mind fast to find a way out.
"You don't want to try to break the ropes with Dark Ripple and take us out. Firstly you've had a glass of water since you've been here, there's a forbidden potion there that the Church has concocted against the Dark Ripple. Secondly that man," here Carl pointed to a henchman next to him, "is a third level 'Bugmaster' and you are no match for him."
Karl smiled very kindly : "So you better tell me what I want to know or else," here Karl reached down and gently removed Dreyfus's glasses before snapping one of Dreyfus's eyes out with his hand.
"You will lose your other eye before you are handed over to the Church." Karl finished and stood up, walking out of the basement as Dreyfus screamed in agony, and went upstairs to the bathroom to wash the blood off his hands. Then to the henchman who followed him, he said, "Take detailed notes of what he says and send him to the military prison. If nothing is said turn him over to the church."
After the explanation Carl redressed his coat and put on his bowler hat and walked out of the tavern with his cane.
Taking out his pocket watch and checking the time, Karl got into the carriage and instructed, "Go to Count Kopin's estate."
The four-wheeled carriage drove smoothly on the streets of Cologne.
Karl sat in the closed carriage and looked at the streetscape of Cologne city through the window glass.
"It's completely different from the city of my early childhood. Too many tall buildings, tram tracks, and power lines divide the city in strange ways." Karl mused.
A Mercedes car belching black smoke jutted out and crossed paths with Karl's carriage. With Karl's wealth and position, he could have bought the latest model of Mercedes car, but he was used to sitting in the carriage carriage, listening to the sound of the horses' hooves while he thought.
"I hear Berlin and Hamburg already have underground trams. Science is eroding people's minds a little, making them forget all that supernatural greatness."
"I heard that Count Zeppelin is going to test-fly the airship he designed in July. That is somewhat interesting. I'm sure Count Zeppelin used some supernatural power in the powering of the airship."
Karl thought about things while listening to the sound of the horses' hooves as the carriage drove out of the borders of Cologne and headed towards Count Kopin's manor, which was located on the outskirts of Cologne.
An hour later, the carriage drove into the gates of the manor.
Count Kopin was a Junker nobleman, the nobleman who owned the most land in Cologne. His manor covered a huge area, and the building inside the manor itself did not use the most popular palace baroque style decoration, but rather used a more retro decorative gothic style.
Seeing Karl's carriage pulling into the manor's gates from afar, Earl Kopin stepped out of the gothic mansion and greeted Karl at the door.
"Ha, Karl, I thought you would have arrived in the morning." The fifty-something year old Earl Kopin, who had a florid white beard and was wearing a loose shirt and back trousers, smiled at Karl as he held his pipe.
Karl bowed slightly in greeting then said, "Sorry, Alfred. There was some delay due to the capture and interrogation of a French spy." Karl followed Kopin into the vaulted hall with its gothic columns and handed his hat, coat and cane to the servants.
Count Kopin signalled for the servants to retire and then said to Karl: "Everything is ready. After nightfall, all the servants will leave the main building to go back to their quarters."
A hint of excitement appeared on Karl's face as he looked into Count Kopin's eyes and said, "It's today!" At the same time he curled up the middle and ring fingers of his right hand and clasped them with his thumb, and put up his index and little fingers with the back of his hand facing outwards and placed them on his chest.
Count Kopin made the same gesture and said in a deep voice: "This is the day!"
Then Earl Kopin said: "Some people have already arrived, but it's still early, you must not have eaten your lunch yet, so you should eat something first and then go there to take a look. We will pray together when all have arrived."
At half-past eleven that night all the lights in the Coppin Manor mansion went out. The servants had long since returned to their dormitories wrapped in their blankets and did not dare to move a muscle.
In the large ballroom built after the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles in the Count of Kopin's mansion, hundreds of candles were burning, and the walls of huge mirrors around them reflected the candlelight, making the space visually endless.
About two hundred people wearing black hooded robes and hoods stood in a circle, chanting softly under their breath, in the middle of the circle they formed there was a huge magic array painted with the blood of goats, in the magic array there was a regular placement of candles laced with special spices of spirituality, and several kinds of spirituality on the body of the strongest animal most likely to condense the spirituality of the organs, and there was also a live black horned goat standing quietly in the centre of the magic array.
As the time got closer and closer to midnight zero, air currents began to disturb the magic formation, forming a spiritual whirlwind.
The people surrounding the area chanted louder and louder, continuously injecting chanting power into the magic array.
Zero midnight.
Hundreds of candles in the large ballroom went out at the same time, and the magic array let out a deep red light. The light formed a pillar of red light connecting to the void. The black goat was enveloped by the red pillar of light and its figure gradually disappeared.
The surrounding people were mesmerised as the chants converged into a huge summoning force.
A huge ovoid object slowly coalesced and took shape in the red pillar of light, it was a huge flesh-coloured egg that pulsed like a heart and had raised veins all over its surface!
"Devil's Egg!" Someone in the crowd shouted out maniacally.
The people surrounding the magic formation involuntarily knelt down, all of their faces streaked with tears of joy.
"With a click, the surface of the Devil's Egg cracked open. The cracks on the surface of the Devil's Egg grew bigger and bigger with the sound of "ka ka ka ka".
"With a poof, the Demon Egg cracked open completely, and a perfect man's body slowly stood up from the Demon Egg.
"I am the son of a demon, and I will come down to you and purify the world."
Finishing the declaration in Old German, a blonde-haired Sean watched his naked body as the fervent believers crawled towards him on their knees, kissing the pieces of the demon's egg with a face full of infatuation.
"Maintaining this persona is a bit difficult!" Shaun thought to himself.