“What the hell?!”
“You're actually targeting my physical body now?!”
“That's a fucking mummified corpse that's been falling apart in a basement for fifty years!”
“What kind of bizarre fetish do you have?!”
Elias lay face down on the somewhat damp mattress and rolled his eyes weakly.
“Forget it, old man.”
“Your skeleton is too tough to even braise. What kind of fetish could I possibly have?”
“None of your business. Just watch me work when the time comes!”
He finished speaking.
Elias rolled over, pulling the blanket over his head.
Time to sleep.
He unilaterally cut off the mental channel, and his mind was finally at peace.
...
Who knew how much time had passed.
When Elias opened his eyes again, the pale morning sunlight was already piercing through the gaps in the curtains.
After a whole night of chaos, Hastings Port was only just beginning to recover from yesterday's sea-folk invasion.
However, this "recovery" looked exceptionally dilapidated.
Elias pushed open the window of the Bay Hotel and looked down.
On the coastal streets that were usually bustling, there was a noticeable lack of the usual street vendors.
Dried bloodstains still stained the cobblestone streets, which were littered with fragments of carapace shattered by bullets.
Most of the unfortunate shops on the street corners that had been caught in the crossfire of last night's battle were now tightly shut.
Unsurprisingly, notes reading "Closed for Internal Reorganization" were pasted on their doors.
The entire port resembled a vagrant who had just been severely beaten, wheezing in the sunlight with a bruised and battered face.
Elias quickly washed his face.
He went downstairs and checked out.
The duty manager at the front desk, sporting massive dark circles under his eyes, took back the room key with trembling hands, looking at everyone as if they were fish-men with legs.
At the hotel entrance, Elias and Ophelia hailed a public carriage.
Ophelia sat across from Elias.
She stared at the devastated buildings outside the window, her eyes filled with a complex mixture of emotions.
She remembered that when they had first arrived last night, the place had still been bustling with life.
And yet, after just a single night.
The shadow of the supernatural had swept through, turning it into a ruin on the verge of collapse.
This stark contrast ruthlessly shattered and reshaped the female journalist's worldview once again.
Throughout the journey, the atmosphere inside the carriage was as stifling as a moving coffin.
Ophelia was desperately clutching a thick book titled 《An Investigation into the Distribution of Religions in Velen》, flipping through it.
The pages rustled loudly as she turned them.
For several blocks, neither she nor Elias had any desire to speak.
In Miss Moore's eyes, the "Mr. Wayne" sitting before her would certainly not help her truly contact the hidden side of this world.
She could not rely on her bodyguard.
Therefore, she could only depend on herself to find clues within these massive theological volumes.
Elias was happy to have some peace and quiet.
Leaning against the bumpy backrest, he quietly re-established his connection with Old Ed in his mind.
“So, in this world, how do rogue transcendents come to be, other than unlucky bastards like me who get accidentally dragged into supernatural incidents?”
“They leave the churches, of course,” Old Ed answered as if it were obvious.
“Where else do you think those free transcendents come from?”
“Most of them were clergy members of the various orthodox god churches who later defected for one reason or another, or changed their beliefs midway.”
The old man paused, his tone carrying a hint of lamentation.
“A pure rogue like you is, in terms of mysticism, the kind of case where your luck is so good it invites divine wrath.”
Assuming a rare patient stance, the old man began to explain:
“Under the premise of not having such good luck, if most ordinary people are accidentally dragged into high-level supernatural events, ninety-nine percent of them end up going mad on the spot or becoming sacrifices to pollution. It is impossible for them to survive.”
“Not to mention being like you, successfully constructing a Rational Circuit all at once without any inheritance and becoming a Scale One transcendent.”
“That kind of probability is just like what you said before... what was it called again?”
“The child of destiny!”
Elias supplied.
“Yes, the child of destiny.”
Old Ed agreed with the term.
But soon enough.
The old man added testily:
“But don't think I'm praising you in disguise, you little brat.”
“Uh-huh?”
“You were just lucky.”
“And the total amount and purity of spirituality in your body is indeed excellent—unusually high, like a monster.”
Old Ed sighed and spoke softly.
“Perhaps the great Moon Lord took a liking to you much earlier.”
“That's why It let you survive in this mad world.”
Hearing this, Elias smugly raised an eyebrow in his mind.
“Oh, you flatter me!”
“Old man, I know I'm a bit handsome and have an outstanding temperament.”
“But look at you, praising me so indirectly first thing in the morning. It's actually quite embarrassing.”
“...”
His mind fell into a dead silence instantly.
Old Ed was clearly completely choked up by Elias's shameless, rogue logic.
A long while passed.
Only then did the old man's frustrated voice respond softly:
“You narcissistic scoundrel!”
“I said the Moon Lord might value your high talent in spirituality! Not your face!”
“Teasing an orthodox god in your mind—aren't you afraid of actually inviting a god's curse and punishment? Your courage is truly something else!”
Elias curled his lips upon hearing this.
“Old Ed, think about it carefully. Was I the one who said those words?”
“The words 'the Moon Lord took a liking to you' clearly came out of your old mouth.”
Elias sneered in his mind, his logic flawless.
“So, if a curse is to be cast or a divine punishment executed, shouldn't it first punish you, the nonsensical traitor of the Ascetic Society?”
“Hiss—”
Old Ed sucked in a cold breath—if he, as a spiritual body, could even breathe.
The old man was stunned in the independent space of the bracelet for a long time.
“What the fuck you said... actually makes sense...”
“Wait, no! How could I possibly betray the Moon Lord!”
Elias glanced at Ophelia beside him.
“Let me summarize then,”
he said, asking despite already knowing the answer.
“So, this silly journalist can read all she wants here, but there's absolutely no way she can become a transcendent, right?”
“Nonsense...”
Old Ed snorted.
But soon, the old man's tone suddenly hesitated.
“Uh, actually, maybe it's not absolute.”
“Oh? There's a variable?”
Elias grew interested.
“There is another extremely rare circumstance.”
Old Ed said slowly.
“This situation usually only occurs in folk alchemists or herbalists.”
“Because as you know, many ordinary people are also obsessed with mysticism and alchemy.”
“They will search through underground black markets or certain ancient ruins, buying all sorts of messy antiques and materials.”
“So, they might hit the jackpot one day and actually buy genuine supernatural biological materials recorded in ancient books.”
Old Ed's voice sounded somewhat strange.
“Then, by some twist of fate, they might brew some prototype of a spirit vision potion in their own kitchen or cellar.”
“As long as they don't die after drinking it, there's a one-in-ten-million chance they might forcibly open up a path in their consciousness, making themselves free transcendents without any foundation.”
Hearing this, Elias couldn't help but complain in his mind.
“Come on, old man.”
“This sounds like an even lower probability than mine, okay?”
Right at that moment.
the carriage came to a steady halt by the roadside.
Outside the window was already the pier.
Hearing the movement, Ophelia tiredly closed the thick book and stuffed it back into her luggage.
“We're here, Mr. Wayne.”
“Yeah.”
The two pushed open the carriage door and stepped down, walking familiarly toward the Nightgull's berth under the somewhat glaring sunlight.
On the deck, the surviving sailors were busy cleaning up.
“Hey!”
“Good morning, my friends!”
Just as they stepped onto the deck, Old Crowley's voice echoed from above the gangway.
Judging by his complexion, last night's high-intensity battle didn't seem to have affected his old bones much.
“Oh, Captain Whitebeard, morning.”
Elias twitched his lips perfunctorily.
“Excellent. It looks like you both rested well.”
“We are about to set sail. The waves will be quite rough on the next leg of the journey. Would you two like to rest in my captain's cabin for a bit?”
“No!”
Elias and Ophelia shouted in unison at the exact same second.
Their voices were sharp, and their attitudes absolute.
Crowley was stunned for a moment by their overreaction, but he wasn't embarrassed and simply shrugged.
“Alright, suit yourselves.”
The old man clapped his hands and gave up insisting. He turned and walked onto the bridge to command the sailors to untie the mooring ropes, leaving the two of them on the relatively empty deck.
As the large sails of the schooner unfurled, the Nightgull slowly drifted away from the pier of Hastings Port, heading into the turbulent depths of Moon Bay.
Elias stood by the bulwark, slightly turning his head to look at Ophelia, who was still looking somewhat distracted.
“Miss Moore.”
he asked softly, lowering his voice.
“Do you want to see Wayland suffer?”
Rate on N.U.
