Forget It, Let's Just Kill Her...

“That should be a human, right?”

Elias turned his head and asked softly, his tone uncertain.

His clothes were still sticky, drenched in the blood of the tide fish-man.

Beside him, the Dvorin bartender stood frozen, staring at the shadow overhead.

“I don't know either...”

Bloodsong replied hesitantly, a hint of unconcealed wariness in his voice.

In this godforsaken place where someone could grow four arms at any moment, humanoids were often far less trustworthy than monsters.

Without any hesitation, the human and the Dvorin simultaneously activated their respective vision spells.

With a thought from Elias, his Rational Circuit instantly lit up.

Cold, clear spirituality flooded into his eyes like liquid silver.

【Moonlight Vision】, activate.

In an instant, his vision inverted into grayscale, and the surrounding darkness was forcibly stripped away, replaced by a cold, silver hue carrying a chilly halo.

Beside him, Bloodsong closed his eyes and opened them again. The eyes belonging to a devil worshiper instantly transformed into vertical pupils burning with a faint dark-red glow.

His infernal vision overlaid onto his sight.

Aided by 【Moonlight Vision】 and infernal vision, the two of them finally got a clear look at the creature inside the dim tower lit only by moonlight.

Elias silently let out a long string of modern Chinese swear words in his head.

It was a woman whose entire body was covered in transparent, thread-like tentacles.

These tentacles were roughly as thick as thumbs, resembling countless translucent, plump flesh-worms densely sprouting from her scalp, neck, and shoulders.

They wriggled slowly and aimlessly in the air, their tips glistening with shiny mucus. What was most striking, however, were her legs.

The skin of those two legs, which originally belonged to a human, had undergone a disgusting pathological change.

The skin on both legs had extended outward to the sides, thinning out until it ultimately became a transparent membrane.

With the sea breeze blowing in from the doorway, that layer of transparent skin membrane billowed gently in midair.

“This look...”

Elias muttered to himself in a low voice.

From the look of it, she seemed to be wearing trousers decorated with complex, ruffled frills.

If one ignored the clearly visible blood vessels beneath that transparent membrane, this could even be considered a form of avant-garde fashion.

But under the magical vision of the two men, this translucent, ruffled membrane appeared incredibly eerie.

It was as if this woman had turned into a giant jellyfish pretending to be a chandelier on the ceiling.

Aside from this appearance, the woman was also surrounded by a faint gray aura of negative spirituality.

By the time the two of them entered the lighthouse, the woman's eyes were already watching them from the dark.

Those translucent, worm-like tentacles adjusted their directions one after another, like countless hidden compound eyes.

Now was no exception.

That pair of pupil-less eyes glowed with a hair-raising white light, staring unblinkingly at the foot of the stairs.

Sensing that they were observing her, she simply decided not to stay up there anymore.

The thread-like tentacles hanging onto the railing began to contract and release rhythmically.

Instead, she slowly lowered herself down using her thread-like tentacles.

Her legs hit the cold, sticky floor with a wet, dull thud.

She took steps with her bizarre legs, walking toward the two of them.

Due to that layer of transparent, ruffled skin, she swayed as she walked, looking like an invertebrate walking upright on land.

“Hello, handsome gentlemen.”

The woman finally spoke, her voice surprisingly soft.

The countless tentacles, as thick as thumbs, restlessly probed the air around her, making rustling, scraping sounds.

“I am the keeper of this lighthouse.”

“Sarah Ford.”

Elias looked at the translucent threads that were nearly poking his nose, raising his left hand expressionlessly.

Like a modern courier in an office building rushing to deliver an urgent document, he interrupted the bizarre lady's self-introduction in a businesslike tone.

“Excuse me, ma'am.”

Elias nudged his bloody Thorn Cutlass slightly to the side and said politely:

“We are here to relight the tower lamp.”

“If you don't mind, could you step aside and let us through?”

His attitude was extremely casual, even carrying a hint of pure-minded politeness, as if the creature standing before him weren't a humanoid monster, but a cleaning lady who had accidentally blocked the hallway while mopping.

Beside him, Bloodsong was utterly dumbfounded.

The young bartender turned his head, his dark-red vertical pupils widening as his face filled with the shock of having seen a ghost.

Bloodsong stared at the man beside him, completely speechless. What on earth was this guy doing?

This woman clearly wasn't normal. Did he really think she would just step aside?

However, what happened next made Bloodsong question reality even more.

The humanoid jellyfish who called herself Sarah Ford actually tilted her tentacle-covered head slightly after hearing Elias's request.

“Sure!”

The woman actually smiled and agreed.

Bloodsong's vertical pupils widened to their limits.

His brain completely crashed at that moment, leaving him frozen in place like a cheap wax figure.

Could it be that this strange-looking lady was actually quite nice?

So one really shouldn't judge a book by its cover?

“However...”

Sarah's tone suddenly shifted, and the dozens of thumb-thick tentacles on her head abruptly intertwined in midair, forming a dense web.

She leaned her face closer, sticking out her tongue to greedily lick her lips.

Then she said to Elias:

“Leave this little man beside you with me, and I'll let you go up. What do you say?”

Her tone was like that of someone picking out a plump, tender lamb at a free market.

Upon hearing this, Elias's eyes instantly lit up.

“Are you sure?”

He stared at Sarah with a serious expression.

“Once we agree, no backing out!”

On the side, Bloodsong's fists instantly clenched in anger, the veins on his forehead bulging.

“Selling out your teammate so righteously—did you spend all your spirituality on thickening your face?!”

“Of course.”

Sarah let out a shrill, cackling laugh, all the tentacles on her body trembling with excitement.

“When this little man beside you dies of poison, he will surely look very beautiful.”

“I wonder, is your flesh tasty?”

She stared at Bloodsong with her pupil-less eyes, which had only white irises left.

This made Bloodsong feel rather uncomfortable.

Anyone being stared at by a giant piece of seafood as if they were a reserve supply of sashimi would feel a bit sick to their stomach.

Elias's behavior also made him secretly frown.

Valuing his own life over friendship to this extent was simply outrageous.

Was this guy really planning to leave him here just to gain passage to relight the lamp upstairs?

To be honest, Bloodsong didn't have much confidence in defeating the woman before him.

The Dvorin youth gripped his repeating crossbow tightly.

Although the negative spirituality on her seemed light, due to some unknown deep resonance, its actual total volume was greater than Elias's Scale Three spirituality.

If they fought, their chances of winning were too low.

“This woman is very strange.”

In reality, Bloodsong was overthinking things entirely.

While Elias appeared to be negotiating a cross-species human trafficking deal with the humanoid monster woman on the surface, his mind was actually busier than anyone's.

He was currently conversing with Old Ed in his mind.

The old man analyzed with a serious voice:

“Based on the Mist Veil Society cultists we encountered before, the negative spiritual pollution on them is usually deep in their bones, so black it's glaring.”

“But this woman, the gray mist on her seems to only linger on the outermost layer.”

“It isn't that deep.”

The old man paused, then continued:

“Yet this woman clearly exudes the spiritual aura of the Mother Goddess of Destiny.”

“That is a negative mutation belonging to the aspect of Life, and its purity is very high.”

“This indicates that she might not have been blessed by that 'Lord' for very long.”

“Perhaps just in the past few days, or even tonight.”

“I'm a bit unsure right now...”

Old Ed sighed.

Hearing this, Elias could only continue his plan of acting foolish to catch her off guard.

At the very least, he had to trick this humanoid jellyfish first, and then find an opportunity to stab her.

To improve the efficiency of their communication, he directly channeled the spirituality within his body.

He connected a 【Mental Message】 to Bloodsong.

“Stop staring like an idiot, listen to me.”

Elias's conscious voice echoed in Bloodsong's mind, calming him down significantly.

“If she willingly betrayed humanity and actively joined the cult to become seafood, then in my opinion, she deserves to die. No negotiation, just straight to physical transcendence.”

“But if she was forced into it, we should spare her life. Maybe we can squeeze some useful information about the Mist Veil Society out of her.”

Only then did Bloodsong realize that Elias's outrageous display of 'selling out his friend for personal gain' was purely a test.

The Dvorin bartender pursed his lips, remaining somewhat silent in the mental link.

He glanced out of the corner of his eye at the translucent threads that were nearly brushing against his face.

“Uh...”

Bloodsong seemed somewhat hesitant.

“If there's no other way, we can only kill her.”

In this world full of danger, mercy was often the fastest way to seek one's own death.

However, Sarah Ford opposite them clearly had no intention of giving them time to discuss privately.

She had no idea these two men were currently having a meeting in their heads; she only saw these two uninvited guests staring at her with blank expressions.

“Since you're not speaking, I'll take that as a yes?”

Sarah's patience was finally completely exhausted, a look of excitement appearing on her face.

Then, the countless translucent tentacles on her body suddenly flared open.

Her two bizarre, ruffled transparent legs kicked off the ground violently, pouncing toward Bloodsong with a gust of foul-smelling wind.

“Little man, come let big sister have a look at you!”

Looking at that face of hers.

The two of them exchanged a glance.

“Forget it, let's just kill her...”