The Sorting Ceremony Arc starts from this chapter.
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Chapter Begins:
With Kai taking care of almost all the Contestants in the current timeline, there was no way for his heinous deeds to go out of the Harry Potter Random World.
Or so he had believed.
Two things worked against him right off the bat.
First, because of his Cosmic Authority—Outer One—gaining a new Lore, the made-up identity of Yellow Warlock got linked to the Contestant Red, regardless of Kai's wishes.
Second, it was true that that no Contestant was watching The Yellow Warlock orchestrating the beginning of doom in the Harry Potter timeline.
However, there were forces keeping an eye on the ongoing events that went beyond the timeline's scale — The Order of the Immortal Lotus.
And, unknown to Kai, the Six Imperishable Artifacts' reaches went beyond the Random World of Harry Potter.
…
To King Purple Mist, it felt like only yesterday a yellow star had fallen to the 18th floor as the skies had split apart.
Then the yellow star had shattered the skies of the 17th, 16th, 15th… floors, reaching the very bottom — the 1st floor!
When it all had ended, the Kings had seen an image of a vast fist peeking out from the split sky… a fist that belonged to a Contestant of the 19th floor.
All Kings, by now, had developed their contacts in the Primordial Tower; and had connections in the 7th Set as well.
Among the Kings of the 18th floor, he was probably the only one who had no connection with the two Empires.
And yet, King Purple Mist had secured a position among the top five Kings of the City of Colors.
His strength, of course, was a big factor behind this. However, there was one more, and perhaps even bigger, factor involved.
That factor was called — The Banished!
Sighing to himself, King Purple Mist left the balcony and entered the King's Chamber.
Slowly, the ever-present purple mist surrounding him began thinning out.
No one had seen King Purple Mist's true appearance before. No one remembered what he looked like. And if someone had seen the face, perchance, then he hadn't lived to tell the tale.
And that's how… this immense mystery survived for so long.
As the purple mist vanished, long, purple hair fell to her waist. They were so plain, yet enchanting, that it felt like a purple mistfall had come into existence.
Her eyes were purple as well; almost like crystals.
Her face held a terrifying beauty, and a thin smile, donning purple lipstick, as well.
Even the likes of Meg, who held a Charisma of over 50 right after resurrecting, couldn't hold a candle against her.
She was wearing a long, purple doublet over purple trousers, all holding a mysterious, runic embroidery.
She clasped her hands behind her back, her nails shining demonically purple.
King Purple Mist was a woman.
…
Seating herself on a high-back sofa on one side of the King's Chamber, Purple Mist looked at the Wanted Poster in her hands.
The poster showed a man in a yellow robe, smiling vilely, his eyes shining under the hood's darkness.
Under it, RED was written in bold, red letters.
Bounty — 700,000,000 Berries!
…
Only a year ago, Purple Mist had held the five hundred million Berries Wanted Poster of the same man.
If someone had told her then that in just one year the bounty would go up by another two hundred million by the next year, then she would have killed that person for being too presumptuous.
The stronger you became, rising one's bounty became difficult by equal proportion; perhaps, a touch more.
Yes, Contestant Red possessed Observation Haki.
Yes, Contestant Red has assimilated the 2nd and 3rd Sets.
Yes, Contestant Red might be walking on the path of the Conqueror.
Nevertheless, even for Kings, when they were on the same Sets, such a drastic increase in bounty was a pipe dream at best.
Now, though, Purple Mist didn't doubt that Contestant Red deserved every single berry of his bounty. It was especially so after what had happened on the 19th floor.
As one of the strongest Contestants on the 18th floor, Purple Mist was privy to one of the greatest secrets of the Primordial Tower.
Almost everyone in the Primordial Tower, especially below the 18th floor, thought that the Emperors of the two Empires, R'lyeh and Stormborn, were 21st floor Contestants and, as such, lived on the 21st floor itself; named — The City of Eternal Thrones.
That was a grave misconception, though.
Contrary to the knowledge of all, the Emperors weren't 21st floor Contestants.
Along with their Empire, the Emperors, who also acted as the Set Lords, lived on the 19th floor, The City of Celestials, because —
— they were 19th floor Contestants!!!
This all, to some extent, was still known to many Kings of the 18th floor.
However, some things were unknown to even most of them.
Purple Mist knew a touch more.
Only the sizes of the Cities shrunk as one moved up the Tower, not the sizes of the floors.
So, like all the floors of the Primordial Tower, the Cities of both sides on the 19th floor were also separated by a vast field the size of planets.
Unlike from the 1st to the 18th floor, though, the three Temples of the Old Ones weren't stationed in the Chaos' Valley and the Order's Peak anymore.
Surprisingly, but not so surprisingly, all the Priests of a Temple, whether they were Chaos' Contestants or Order's Contestants, lived on the Sacred Land occupied by the Temple in the vast empty field outside the Cities' boundaries.
Named the Temple of Hastur, the Temple of Byagoona, and the Temple of Amon-Gorloth, the three Old Ones had divided the empty Sacred Land among themselves.
Leaving one region for the War between the two Empires, the entire land outside the Cities' boundaries should have four regions only.
No.
There was a fifth region, too.
And in this fifth region lived The Banished.
…
Last time, after confirming that Contestant Red possessed Twin-Saber Style Ability, Purple Mist had sent a letter to The Banished, informing about Red with footage of him using the Twin-Saber Style during the 1st Stage of the Tournament of Worth.
With the gap of an entire Set between them, it took time for such things to reach the destination.
However, Purple Mist had never thought that the reaction would be so… devastating.
Only later did she learn that not only her, but the Faceless Men, those many-faced roaches, also had sent a letter to The Banished.
Those two letters resulted in The Banished confronting the Supreme Overseer of the Temple of Hastur, ubiquitously known as… The Existence.
And only later did she guess that the yellow star had been smashed through the entire Primordial Tower, splitting the skies, might be the Supreme Overseer himself for… the fist definitely belonged to The Banished — her master.
Purple Mist brought her gaze down and looked at the Wanted Poster again.
With the yellow cloak, it felt like both The Banished and his descendant had chosen to mock the entire Temple of Hastur together.
The thin smile on Purple Mist's face widened, her purple eyes letting out an evil glow.
"Those who aim to be Conquerors shouldn't dwell in the search of peace… I hope you are ready, for the entire Tower might be coming after you…
"… my dear brother."
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