The first floor of the lighthouse.
As the tower lamp at the top blazed with light, Sarah, frozen inside the ice, suddenly convulsed.
The negative spirituality inside her, which originated from the Divine Scion, was purified by the higher-order alignment, severing her connection to the outside world.
Sarah's eyes rolled back, and she lost consciousness completely.
In that moment, the sailors in the hall couldn't help but let out a long sigh of relief.
“Damn, that crazy woman is finally quiet.”
One sailor slumped ungracefully onto the floor, panting heavily, his hand trembling so much he could barely hold his blade.
The woman had been like a tireless chatterbox.
She had relentlessly cast those malicious spells laced with deep-sea mental pollution, nearly draining everyone's sanity dry.
Eventually, everyone figured out a pattern.
As long as they stayed out of her line of sight, they wouldn't be affected.
Because of this, Malcolm had been on edge for quite some time.
Today's battle had been nothing short of brutal.
They couldn't afford to lose any more men just to guard a cultist.
He looked around. Out of the fully staffed supply fleet, only a handful of survivors remained.
Recruiting replacements seemed to be a done deal now.
Malcolm rubbed his throbbing temples, his heart heavy.
In truth, on their regular routes, these sailors never had to deal with supernatural battles of this scale.
The armed personnel that Wayland Shipping assigned to supply ships were usually just novice Scale One transcendents.
Only when it came to route management, asset protection, or handling specific crises would the higher-ups assign transcendents of higher Scales.
As for the company's most confidential core operations, they had to be personally handled by high-Scale personnel like themselves.
For example...
Whether the lighthouse keepers along the coast of Moon Bay were alive, whether they needed to recover their bodies, and the replacement of new "consumables."
Such highly classified information, tainted with high-level pollution, was absolutely forbidden from passing through the hands of ordinary Scale One crew members.
According to the company's confidentiality regulations, this was a red line that meant instant death if crossed.
“We broke the rules today...”
Malcolm looked at the surviving sailors around him, most of whom were only at Scale One, and silently calculated his next steps.
Once they returned to port, he would likely have to cooperate with the company's HR department to conduct a large-scale memory wipe.
Just then,
Elias and Bloodsong walked down from the top of the tower lamp.
The moment Elias's feet touched the ground, his gaze landed on the massive ice sculpture in the center of the hall.
“Is this guy dead?”
Elias pointed at Sarah, whose eyes were rolled back inside the block of ice, and asked.
However, the old man in his head, who could never keep quiet, beat him to the punch.
“She should only be unconscious.”
“With the physical constitution she received from the Divine Scion's blessing, that layer of polluted flesh has long since been rewritten. It shouldn't be that easy for her to die.”
“A cultist's life is sometimes tougher than a sea turtle's.”
In reality, Malcolm also sighed and gave the same answer:
“She's probably not dead.”
“The tower lamp only severed her blessing, but her physical vitality remains.”
Hearing this, Elias curled his lip in disgust.
“Then what do we do with her?”
“Just leave her like this?”
“Wait for the old man to come in and cremate her?”
He had no desire to board a ship with a ticking time bomb that could wake up and spew pollution at any moment.
“No.”
Just then, the heavy wooden door of the lighthouse was pushed open from the outside.
Crowley walked in.
At this moment, he looked like an executioner fresh out of a slaughterhouse.
The old man's face was covered in dark red blood, some of which had already dried and scabbed over.
His originally grizzled beard was also clumped together in sticky strands from being covered in too much sea-folk flesh and blood, looking filthy and disheveled.
Yet, the aura he exuded was so heavy that one dared not look him in the eye.
“Keep her. I have a use for her.”
Crowley sheathed his still-dripping pirate cutlass, his voice raspy.
“We will take custody of her.”
Crowley pulled his pipe from his coat pocket, tapped it against the sole of his shoe, and took a deep drag.
The pungent aroma of the tobacco rejuvenated his spirits a bit.
He pointed at the woman inside the ice block and ordered the surrounding survivors:
“You lot, carry this jellyfish back to the ship for me.”
“Lock her down tight. Don't let her cause any trouble on the way.”
“Yes! Yes, Captain!”
“We'll get right on it!”
The sailors sprang into action, rushing back to the ship to fetch the specific containment tools.
Meanwhile, Crowley slowly walked forward.
Standing before the massive block of ice, he raised his right hand, and a strange, deep-blue light suddenly flickered in his palm.
His spirituality flowed.
Elias saw it with absolute clarity on the spiritual plane through his special perception.
A series of marks flew from the old man's hand, penetrated the ice, and struck Sarah's spiritual forehead with pinpoint precision.
“What kind of move is that?”
Elias silently nudged Old Ed in his mind.
“【Mark of Sin】.”
Old Ed explained.
“One of the signature spells of the Storm Inquisition.”
“No matter where a criminal marked with this flees, as long as they are still in this world, their spiritual fluctuations will be clearly sensed by the caster.”
“Just like the tracking mark on the pendulum.”
“And...”
Old Ed paused.
“This mark will destroy her spiritual resistance, causing any lightning damage she takes to be multiplied.”
Hearing this, Elias nodded in sudden realization.
“Right, a jellyfish-type mobile lightning rod.”
“No need to worry about her trying to escape now.”
Having dealt with the hidden dangers at the scene, the group finally began organizing their retreat back to Hastings Port.
The schooner sailed across the calm sea.
In a relatively quiet lounge inside the cabin.
Once Bloodsong made sure there was no one else around, she cast her devil polymorph spell once again.
Accompanied by a brief flash of infernal fire,
her tall, curvaceous female devil body rapidly restructured itself.
Moments later, she transformed back into the delicate, fair-skinned male bartender from before.
Witnessing the entire magical transformation, Elias slumped on the opposite bench and couldn't help but click his tongue in wonder.
“So, what is your name anyway?”
“Is Bloodsong a first name or a last name?”
Bloodsong adjusted her collar and cast a calm glance at him.
“A surname.”
“My name is Matilda.”
“Matilda Bloodsong.”
Bloodsong added in an unhurried tone.
Then, as if remembering something, she frowned slightly.
“Have you never met a Dvorin before?”
“In Velen, although our race is scarce, we are by no means extinct.”
Elias shook his head and said very honestly,
“Never.”
Where would a supernatural newbie like him even run into a devil?
Usually, his most frequent interactions were with Lovecraftian local products covered in tentacles and compound eyes.
While they were talking,
the wooden door of the lounge was pushed open.
Crowley walked in.
The old man had changed into a clean set of clothes, and his large white beard had been washed thoroughly, returning to its smooth, silver-white state.
With a serious expression, he whispered to Elias:
“We set sail for our return tomorrow morning.”
“I've already had Malcolm handle the handovers at the port.”
Elias dropped his playful expression, looked straight into the old man's eyes, and asked in return:
“So, when are you going to use... that thing?”
Crowley's state was somewhat peculiar.
At this moment, the old man had completely cast aside his usual rogue-like attitude, appearing excessively quiet.
He fell silent for a moment before slowly speaking:
“Wait until I seek you out.”
“Keep yourself in peak condition. There will be plenty of places where I'll need your help when the time comes.”
With that, he turned to leave.
But a second before crossing the threshold, the old man paused, looked back, and gave a mischievous grin.
“Tomorrow, bring your little girlfriend and meet me at the port early.”
Having said his piece,
he turned and left the corridor, his beard swaying.
...
Elias sat on his chair, his face as black as the bottom of a pot.
He raised his middle finger at Crowley's disappearing back.
“What does that mean?”
Behind him, Bloodsong asked curiously, watching Elias's strange gesture.
She stared at the middle finger, completely unable to find any corresponding runic metaphor in her mysticism texts.
Elias withdrew his hand expressionlessly.
“You can understand it as me calling him an old bastard.”
“It's an elegant etiquette from my hometown, specifically used to greet elders who don't act their age.”
“Oh!”
Hearing this, Bloodsong's eyes lit up, a look of sudden realization washing over her handsome face.
Mimicking Elias, she tentatively raised her own middle finger and gestured with it in the air a couple of times.
“I've learned it.”
“Quite a practical skill.”
Having successfully corrupted the devil lady, Elias closed his eyes to rest without the slightest burden on his conscience.
Bloodsong withdrew her hand, her gossiping gaze lingering on Elias for a moment.
“By the way... is that foolish woman named Ophelia really your girlfriend?”
“Pfft!”
Elias instantly spat out.
He opened his eyes and said to Bloodsong, emphasizing every single word:
“Bloodsong, you should know that women only slow down the speed at which I cast my fishing rod.”
With that,
he swept his gaze up and down Bloodsong's current pretty-boy appearance,
and hastily added:
“And of course, I'm not gay either.”
Rate on N.U.
