Regarding this unlucky bastard who had turned into a pile of rotten meat, Elias's feelings were actually quite complex.
Although this guy ultimately died from the mutated siren's strike, in all fairness, that previous shot had already hit; it was only a matter of time before he went to see his Goddess of Magic.
However, as a modern soul, he quickly adjusted this slightly pretentious mindset.
The difference lay in the fact that he did it for survival; it was a counterattack born of desperation.
If he hadn't killed him, he would have become a corpse on the beach himself.
But that mutated siren was a purely maddened monster; it was slaughter.
Presumably, if this fellow knew anything in the afterlife, he would probably be more willing to be taken away cleanly by an enchanted bullet than to be swatted to death like a volleyball by a merman.
At least that way, he'd have an intact corpse.
But now...
By the moonlight, Elias saw the scene before him clearly.
The mystic's corpse was simply too gruesome to look at now.
No, Elias felt that the phrase "gruesome to look at" was a bit too conservative, even a beautification of this pile of things.
The entire corpse—or rather, a pile of humanoid wreckage.
It was like a piece of modeling clay that had been willfully kneaded by a naughty child.
The entire wreck lay twisted on the blood-soaked sand, the joints of the limbs twisted into braids at anti-human angles.
An arm was currently draped limply over the back, white bone fragments piercing through the clothing fabric and exposed to the air.
What made Elias feel most nauseous was the head.
That head had now become a half-flattened persimmon.
A lusterless left eye had fallen lifelessly out of its socket.
Elias suppressed the waves of rising bile and the sharp pain from his broken ribs, limping over.
He plopped down next to that pile of fresh, rotten meat, gasping for breath.
Although 【Moonlight Blessing】 was continuously repairing his body, this wasn't some health potion, after all; the pain was real.
Enduring the disgust, Elias reached his hand into that bloody, mangled pocket.
This was also to distract himself, to keep from looking closely at that terrifying face.
After some fumbling.
He found a key with a brass tag engraved with the number "302," which should be this guy's room number at a hotel in Hastings Port.
There was also an exquisitely crafted cowhide wallet.
Other than that, there was nothing else.
"Poor wretch, doesn't even have a single transcendent item," Edmond said disappointedly in his mind.
Elias struggled a bit to open the wallet.
Inside, besides a few banknotes of various denominations totaling about 20 Shillings, there was also a black-and-white photo in the compartment.
By the moonlight, Elias saw the contents of the photo clearly.
It was a woman who looked very gentle, holding a two or three-year-old child in her arms.
The background was a garden; the sun was bright, and the mother and son were smiling happily, exuding a sense of peaceful times.
"Seems he was a family man?" Elias raised an eyebrow, the sense of guilt in his heart suddenly intensifying.
One moment a cold-blooded assassin, the next suddenly becoming a father figure carrying the burden of a family—this contrast made his heart feel a bit stifled.
Humans are always accustomed to filling in the blanks, trying to wrap guilt in a layer of warmth.
To confirm his guess and to see if he could read more information about the mastermind from this relic, Elias took a deep breath and subconsciously channeled his spirituality.
【Interpretive Insight】.
He lightly pressed his finger onto the photo, closed his eyes, and sensed the strongest residual emotional fluctuations on it.
Generally speaking, photos carried like this often held the holder's deepest emotions.
Buzz—
The spiritual tentacles extended, instantly connecting with the residual aura on the photo.
A flood of emotions instantly rushed into his mind.
That was... longing. Warmth.
"As expected..." Elias's heart softened, and he was just about to withdraw his spirituality and lament the fickleness of the world.
However, in the next second, his expression suddenly changed.
It was a wave of horror and disgust rising from the depths of his heart, as if he had thought he was drinking warm milk, only to find it was thick, rust-tasting blood upon entry!
"Wrong! This wasn't normal longing at all!"
"Behind that emotion of longing was not a lingering attachment to family, but a hair-raising, twisted excitement!"
"What was he longing for? He was longing for the sensation of that knife piercing the woman's chest!"
"He was longing for the final twitch of that child when it stopped breathing in his hands!"
"That wasn't his family at all!"
"That was his work! His most proud trophy!"
"And that so-called 'warmth'..."
"It wasn't the warmth of a family at all, but the morbid physiological pleasure when hot blood sprayed onto his face!"
"The woman and child in the photo were long dead!"
"They were killed by this man's own hands!"
"He kept their photo with him not to remember them, but to savor that thrill of slaughter anytime, anywhere!"
"Fuck!"
Elias jerked his hand away as if bitten by a venomous snake, throwing the wallet away fiercely.
The wallet traced an arc in the air and landed with a splat in a pool of blood.
"What kind of animal is this?!"
Elias felt his stomach begin to cramp; the disgust he had just suppressed now rebounded several times over.
Reality is never a set plot in a book; it never turns out as poignantly as he imagines.
In this world, the true colors of some people are blacker and smellier than that mutated siren.
A siren kills for food, a beast's instinct. But this person... he kills to satisfy those twisted desires!
This guy wasn't some innocent person being controlled like he imagined!
Having felt that perverted emotion, Elias only felt a deep soul-level disgust, as if his own spirituality had been tainted by this filth.
Then, anger. Rage.
That rage instantly swallowed him, making him even forget the pain of his broken ribs.
"Scum like you... dying like this is still too easy for you!"
Elias growled, bracing his hands on the ground and pushing himself up violently.
The bones in his body made cracking sounds of protest due to the violent movement, and 【Moonlight Blessing】 was doing its best to maintain his physical stability.
But he couldn't care about any of that right now.
His eyes bloodshot, he raised his foot and stomped down hard!
"Thud!"
"I'll give you longing!"
"Thud!"
"I'll give you warmth!"
"Thud!"
"I'll give you perversion!"
Elias cursed while frantically stomping on the already unrecognizable corpse.
Every stomp was with all his strength, every stomp carrying his venting of this extreme malice.
The already shattered chest cavity completely collapsed under his stomping, making tooth-aching sounds of bone cracking and flesh squeezing.
But he couldn't stop.
If he didn't do this, he felt he would be driven mad by that disgusting emotion.
"Elias?" In his mind, Edmond's voice sounded, carrying a hint of confusion and concern.
He could only feel the violent fluctuations in Elias's emotions.
"Elias! What's wrong with you? Calm down!"
Edmond raised his volume, trying to wake this young man who seemed to be in a frenzy.
"Huff... huff..."
After stomping dozens of times, until the corpse had completely turned into an indistinguishable pile of pulp, Elias finally stopped.
He braced his hands on his knees, gasping for breath, sweat mixed with the blood spots that had just splashed onto his face dripping from his chin.
After that intense rage receded, what followed was extreme physical exhaustion and severe pain.
The injuries that had been suppressed by adrenaline just now began to backfire even more intensely.
"Hiss..." Elias sucked in a breath of cold air, grimacing in pain.
Even for someone as talkative as him, he fell silent now.
He looked at the rotten meat at his feet, his gaze cold and loathing.
"This guy... is a bastard even worse than a siren."
Elias replied coldly in his mind, briefly telling Edmond about the emotions he had just read.
This time, it was Edmond's turn to be silent.
After a long time, old Edmond let out a long sigh.
"This world has been mad for a long time."
"Elias, this is the dark side hidden beneath the false prosperity of this country."
"Welcome to the world of transcendents."
This is a world without fairy tales, only monsters and human hearts more terrifying than monsters.
Elias didn't speak, only nodding wordlessly.
He straightened his back, preparing to leave this place that made him sick.
However, the moment he turned around, his peripheral vision suddenly caught the mystic.
Wait, no, the human-beast pulp.
Because of Elias's frantic stomping earlier, the opponent's originally tightly covered cuff had been torn, revealing a section of a pale wrist.
On the inside of that wrist was a strange black pattern.
It was a twisted spiral, like a tentacle devouring itself.
The lines of the pattern didn't end at the wrist but extended all the way inside the sleeve.
Not only that.
Elias subconsciously looked at the other's nape.
That place had also been stomped into a mess by him, but in the gaps of the mangled flesh, a part of that black pattern could still be seen.
Of course, it wasn't just him.
Edmond, who had been maintaining spiritual perception, also noticed this detail.
"That pattern..." Edmond's voice became somewhat solemn.
"You recognize it?" Elias asked, enduring the pain to squat down, wanting to see a bit more clearly.
"I have an impression, but not much."
Edmond searched through his memory bank.
"It doesn't belong to the orthodox seven god churches, nor is it a common arcane pattern."
"The pattern on this person gives off an extremely evil and chaotic feeling."
"From experience, it should be related to some kind of evil god cult."
"Evil god?"
"Is the Goddess of Magic being two-timed?"
"An incompetent goddess?" Elias frowned.
How did this involve an evil god again? I just wanted to remove a curse!
"Dammit, shut your mouth!"
If Edmond had a physical body right now, he really would have wanted to give this brat who didn't know the heights of heaven and depths of earth a good thrashing.
Were these words something that could be said casually?
"Some orthodox god believers also change their faith midway."
"That's a bit too casual!"
"Don't the gods care?" Elias felt a bit of cognitive dissonance.
"The gods don't care," Edmond said.
"Believing in a god is a human matter; it has nothing to do with the god."
"Then why do ordinary people still need rituals to advance?"
"Doesn't that contradict the ritual?"
"Didn't I already say?"
"The main purpose of the ritual is to allow you to easily establish a connection with the god you believe in through the Origin Web."
"Normal believers don't need rituals at all if they are pious enough."
"And those who change their faith midway will no longer be able to easily connect with the god during their next advancement."
"Even if they set up a ritual, it won't work."
"Then people who change their faith can't advance?" Elias inquired.
"Not necessarily; they can try to have an Audience with the god corresponding to their faith to achieve advancement."
"Oh, switching classes."
"Very apt," old Edmond commented.
"So this guy is a believer of which evil god?" Elias casually pointed at the pile of pulp.
"I'll need to look up some materials to be sure," old Edmond analyzed, his tone becoming serious.
"But one thing is certain."
"Looking at it this way, I'm afraid today's incident wasn't a coincidence."
"A Scale Two mystic with an evil god tattoo appearing here and being controlled by a mutated siren..."
"It's very strange."
"Just record it and leave first," Edmond interrupted the reasoning.
"Such a big commotion has been made here; the gunshots have already spread."
"If you don't leave now, the people from the Seventh Agency will arrive."
"Although this place is quite remote, let's not have any more complications."
"Go!"
Elias didn't hesitate at all, donning the 【Moonlight Veil】 once again.
He took one last look at that pile of rotten meat, without the slightest mercy.
"Which way is the hotel?"
He raised his head, looking at the distant city lights, his mind still a mess.
The previous memory gap still hadn't recovered.
"Your memory still hasn't recovered?" Edmond asked in surprise.
"Yeah." Elias nodded honestly.
Edmond was silent for a second.
"I'll guide you; just go."
"To the front-left, go up along that small path; don't take the main road."
"I suspect it's because the effects of the dream lotus haven't completely worn off yet."
"That old geezer really gave you quite a lot of medicine."
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