Then, with a slight wriggle, a cluster of ghastly pale tentacles resembling clown make-up grew out and propped up the nose.

His entire body was truly made of flesh only at this spot.

The nose, now sprouting a bunch of tentacles, was about to continue fleeing towards the sea when suddenly, a military boot descended from the sky and stomped on it.

"SQUEAK, SQUEAK, SQUEAK..."

It struggled desperately, emitting a series of high-pitched, strange screams, but it couldn't break free no matter what.

After receiving the alert, I didn't come back too late, barely making it in time for the cleanup. Sis is getting more and more violent, though. But what in the world is a Bone Gobble Joker?

The one who dropped from the sky was Byron, who had hurried back.

He and Catherine had both received the invasion alert from the Golden Law.

He immediately said goodbye to Bruh, who had put his mask back on, and his fiancée [Fairy] Rigel, who had donned the skin of Tilly, and rushed back to the Tayman Archipelago with Jacqueline, who was still unconscious.

The Golden Law is the mightiest Eye of Heaven; even a single nose couldn't escape its reach.

Catherine hadn't made a move simply because she had realized that Byron was already on his way back, sparing his sense of participation.

Jacqueline, this cheap cousin of mine, is learning more and more secrets. Before I rise to the Third Order and reveal my identity to the Lancaster Party, it's better not to let her out of my sight. This one has the innate potential to cause big trouble.

He casually tossed her onto the beach.

At the same time, he threw an [Echo of History] at the nose, which clearly had very little power left, in an attempt to read the information it carried.

"GA GA GA..."

At first, a few clownish, disturbing laughs reached his ears, and then the sandy beach in front of him distorted, conjuring layers upon layers of eerie scenes resembling a circus.

The colorful sights were blurry, his nostrils were filled with a thick scent of blood, and his brain felt as nauseous as if he had taken dozens of roller coaster rides.

At the same time, in the dark and shadowy surroundings, a group of oddly dressed, weird clowns were approaching him with eerie smiles, step by step.

It was only when the Storm Sigil Ring automatically activated its curse-repelling abilities that Byron suddenly came to his senses, his complexion changing.

"Curse Spirit!"

By this time, new text had already appeared in the Sailing Logbook in his right eye:

"A part of the Clown Pirate Group leader, the Bone Gobble Joker Koraskin.

"[Zero Tier Curse Spirit · Capricious Joker] contamination in progress..."

Due to the level difference between them, this was all the information Byron could gather.

However, Transcendents of the middle and high sequences, as well as the upper echelons of various countries, were no strangers to the name Capricious Joker.

The undying Curse Spirit [Capricious Joker]:

"Long before the profession of clown was born, the prototype was just a disguised murderer who used brutal methods to create a large number of child disappearance cases. Eventually, he was caught by enraged citizens who, giving him a taste of his own medicine, skinned him alive. Later, the flayed skin, paraded through the streets, became cursed under strong resentment and transformed into a Cursed Object: a wig, a red nose, and clothes—a three-piece set. It was also called the 'Clown Suit.' The image of the clown was born in the world for the first time. It would tempt humans to wear it, but once worn, the Clown Suit could never be taken off again. Instead, it would completely merge with the wearer and slowly turn them into a man-eating monster, until the next time they are killed.

"Moreover, the Clown Suit possessed the 'Fate-mocking' trait, which allowed it to toy with Fate as its power grew, making it impossible for any form of Divination to lock onto it. The power of fear was continuously released, and the clown's power also kept growing. Eventually, it contaminated an entire city on the Old Continent, transforming its homeland and birthplace into a vast and terrifying dark fairy tale playground.

"Not only that, but it also used the playground as a medium to open a rift between the real world and the Sea of Origin Matter, allowing many Dark Fairy Tales from historical legends to invade the real world, with that playground as the core. This led to a massive Transcendental Calamity. Just like Sacred Relics, being rated at Zero Tier meant that the Capricious Joker was now a threat to the entire world. The image of the clown became synonymous with terror."

Byron recalled all the clowns he had seen from childhood and shuddered subconsciously.

How could anyone in the world find such a thing funny? They absolutely stepped right into humanity's Uncanny Valley, didn't they?

Tower Sequence scholars conducted a survey on things humans fear, ranging from "least human-like" to "most human-like."

They found that when something is "like a human, but not quite," it can evoke the strongest fear in viewers.

This is known as The Uncanny Valley.

Corpses, ghosts, and clowns are all situated within The Uncanny Valley.

However, why do residents of the Old Continent think of clowns as comedic characters in mainstream consciousness?

This is because the 'Night Watch' division of the Church simply couldn't come up with a good way to seal the opponent.

They could only mobilize the Silver Law at great cost to perform a memetic modification on the entire reality level.

Starting from the deepest layer of the collective human subconscious, they made most humans no longer fear the image of the clown, even forcefully binding it to humor.

Of course, this also led to some unpredictable side effects called a "memory bias effect":

The collective memory of the public often does not align with the facts.

For example, clearly remembering a celebrity had died many years ago but then suddenly reading about their memorial service in the newspaper.

A serious discrepancy between group memory and reality emerges, and upon closer reflection, there are many, many similar instances.

At the same time, the 'Clown' profession also emerged within the Hall Sequence.

Every clown who brought joy to the audience was a dam used to seal the Capricious Joker.

Even so, scholars have conducted surveys and still more than a quarter of respondents firmly stated that they are afraid of clowns.

This is an inherent human survival instinct, which is difficult to eradicate.

It also allowed that terrifying Capricious Joker enough power to occasionally break through the mental defenses of the clown profession,

little by little turning them into Evil Spirits and monstrosities similar to itself.

Contaminated clowns would then acquire sinister variations of abilities based on the five types of Clown's Trickery: disappearance, Transformation, foresight, levitation, and x-ray vision.

Sometimes, the Capricious Joker would respond to rituals, sending part of the Cursed Object it was attached to—the Clown Suit—such as a single hair, into the real world,

creating various types of secondary Cursed Objects.

It is said that wherever there are humans, wherever there is fear, there will be the Capricious Joker.

The Fallen Ones contaminated by this Curse Spirit, like the Bone Gobble Joker, will not be the first, nor will they be the last.

And having witnessed the Touch of the Kraken, the Thousand-Faced Serpent Hydra, Mother of Creation Lillith... these beings beyond normal standards,

Byron suspected that the Capricious Joker might have already reached that level of transcendence.

And unlike those beings from before the dead Eras, it was still alive!