Ten minutes after Elias left.
A group of figures dressed in black uniforms, with various brass instruments hanging from their waists, quickly took over the area.
Each of them performed their duties with efficient, practiced movements.
The man in the lead was exceptionally tall, appearing to be nearly one hundred and ninety centimeters.
He wore a black fedora, the brim pulled down low.
Seventh Agency, Hastings Port Branch, Investigative Action Group—Sir Vere.
"Seal the scene."
His voice was deep, carrying an inherent authority.
"Don't let those police officers who only know how to blow whistles and swing batons come anywhere near here; the spiritual pollution index in this place is high enough to make them go back and drink a gallon of holy water."
At his command, several team members quickly dispersed, their handheld instruments flickering with a faint fluorescence in the night.
"Sir Vere, over here."
Among the group, a young girl with a lilac hairband nimbly leapt over a jagged rock.
She had rare, pale yellow hair tied back in a bun.
At this moment, the patterns of the Origin Web surfaced in her eyes, as if she were analyzing the residual information in the air.
"The spiritual fluctuations dissipated at the scene are very chaotic."
As the girl spoke, she traced a certain flowing trajectory in the void with her slender fingers.
"The spiritual residue here is mainly divided into three strands, tightly intertwined."
"The first strand has a spiritual intensity of around Scale Two, with a nature leaning toward arcane energy."
She paused, pointing her finger at the pile of human paste on the ground that was too gruesome to look at.
"There, that's it."
Her tone was as casual as if she were introducing a roadside wildflower.
"The second strand has an intensity of around Scale One, which is very strange... it's mixed with some Scale Two characteristics, and its nature is very pure."
The girl turned around and looked in the direction Elias had fled, a hint of confusion flashing in her eyes.
"According to the spiritual measurement, this belongs to the Three-Phase Moon."
"It's speculated that this person has already fled the scene; the spiritual trail vanished quickly after leaving the beach, likely due to some kind of spell."
"I suspect we'll need to find an ascetic to track them down."
"As for the third strand..."
The girl knit her fine brows, looking at the drag marks that stretched all the way into the sea.
"I've analyzed the flow of the Origin Web here; this unlucky bastard was controlled by an enchantment school spell before he died."
"It wasn't a person who controlled him, but that thing in the sea."
"And..."
The girl stood up, pointing at the scorched rocks and the pits corroded into the ground.
"Based on the degree of spiritual dissipation, it seems he was the one who struck first."
"A puppet controlled by a monster launched a lethal attack on that believer of the Three-Phase Moon first."
After listening to his subordinate's report, Sir Vere's tense face didn't show much expression, though his brow furrowed slightly.
"At least we arrived before those police this time."
He let out a cold snort, clearly harboring no goodwill toward the police from Old Palace Yard.
If those idiots had been allowed to ruin the scene first, this case would likely have become another unsolved mystery.
Having said that, he turned to look at another young man who was examining the corpse.
That young man was tall and thin, moving with agility; he carried a heavy toolbox and was crouching beside that pile of rotten meat.
"Dabu, what's the situation with the corpse?"
The youth called Dabu was wearing a pair of thick, specialized gloves, holding a pair of long-handled tweezers as he struggled to stir through a mass of blurred flesh.
With a soft click, he extracted a severely deformed bullet from the pile of crushed bone and rotten meat.
He held the bullet up to his eyes, observing it carefully by the moonlight.
"Hit by the latest model of revolver; large caliber, extreme stopping power."
"Even though the bullet is deformed, the residual spirituality attached to it can still be detected."
Dabu placed the bullet into a specialized isolation bag and stood up to report:
"The spiritual measurement traces on the bullet belong to the Three-Phase Moon; it's a classic 【Moonlight Enchantment】."
"Except the spiritual injection is very full—even a bit... overflowing?"
"Fatal wound?" Sir Vere asked.
"Fatal. This bullet pierced his lung; even without what happened afterward, he wouldn't have lived more than ten minutes."
Dabu pointed to the corpse's torso, which had been turned into something resembling a thin pancake.
"However, what truly killed him instantly was the massive physical impact that followed."
"He was sent flying by a creature with monstrous strength and slammed into this reef, causing the bones in his entire body to shatter."
"Yet, the strangest thing is..."
Dabu used the tweezers to point at the corpse's chest cavity.
"The bones in the chest are shattered particularly thoroughly, even more so than the impact side."
"It looks like it was subjected to a secondary impact."
"Secondary impact?" Sir Vere raised an eyebrow.
"Does this mean Speak with Dead is useless?"
There was a hint of regret in Sir Vere's tone.
"Useless."
Dabu shrugged, pointing at the head that had turned into a rotten tomato.
"The corpse is too severely damaged; the vocal cords are ruined, the jaw is shattered, and the brain matter has all leaked out."
"Tch."
Sir Vere was somewhat frustrated.
The lead was cold.
"Go contact the Hastings Port Ascetic Society and ask if this has anything to do with them,"
Sir Vere instructed the communicator on the other side.
Then, his gaze fell back onto the corpse once more.
A sharp intuition made him notice the exposed wrist of the corpse.
There seemed to be a smudge of black on the skin that looked out of place.
"Cut open his clothes,"
Sir Vere ordered.
Dabu immediately complied, his medical scissors neatly slicing through the corpse's sleeve.
As the fabric was torn away, the true form of the corpse was finally revealed to everyone.
On that pale skin, a black, twisted spiral tattoo was clearly visible.
It looked like a living parasite, emitting an unsettling aura of evil.
The moment they saw this pattern, the surrounding air seemed to freeze.
Sir Vere couldn't help but feel a headache coming on, reaching up to rub his temples.
"The Mist Veil Society?!"
The girl with pale yellow hair widened her eyes, unable to suppress a low cry of surprise and disgust.
Dabu asked in confusion from the side, "Oh? So this is a member of that cult that worships the 'Lord of Mists'?"
"Exactly."
Sir Vere nodded with a grim expression.
"He was a mystic,"
Sir Vere reminded them, his tone carrying a hint of warning.
"Which means he was once like us."
"But clearly, he was seduced by that evil power."
He let out another troubled sigh, pulling a silver cigarette case from his pocket, but after a moment's thought, he shoved it back in.
"Things really haven't been peaceful lately."
"First, half a month ago, the carriage transporting classified documents for the agency was stolen near Galloway City."
"And now, members of the Mist Veil Society have actually reached Hastings Port."
"Is there some kind of connection between the two?"
The girl was dismissive.
She wasn't interested in politics or conspiracy theories; she was more concerned with the "non-human" traces at the scene.
She walked to the edge of the beach, crouching down along the trail that stretched into the sea, and reached out to touch a bit of blue blood in a water-logged sand pit.
"Whatever could beat a person into this state probably isn't any ordinary creature."
She rubbed her fingers together, feeling the cold, slimy sensation on her fingertips.
"But logically speaking, anything capable of using Enchantment spells should be a siren."
"But sirens..."
"Do sirens have such immense physical strength?"
Sir Vere pondered for a moment, looking at the pitch-black sea with a flash of concern in his eyes.
"Monsters of this physical grade are rarely sighted in the waters around Hastings Port."
"This is highly abnormal."
"We'll need to step up patrols recently."
Just as the two were providing their expert analysis.
Dabu, who had been crouching by the corpse the whole time, suddenly spoke up.
He stood up, took off his gloves, and looked at the two of them with a strange expression.
"Um..."
"Don't you think the third person is the most ridiculous one here?"
Sir Vere and the girl both turned to look at him simultaneously.
"What do you mean?"
"Think about it."
Dabu pointed at the corpse on the ground, then at the sea, and finally in the direction Elias had fled.
"A mutated monster capable of swatting a Scale Two mystic to death."
"A cruel Scale Two mystic."
"And this person..."
Dabu paused, his tone becoming somewhat incredulous.
"This person is only a Scale One."
"Not only did he survive being caught between these two guys."
"He even managed to escape."
Dabu spread his hands, offering his final summary:
"He's the real monster, isn't he?!"
"..."
Dabu had a point.
A very good point.
Sir Vere felt his headache intensifying; he rubbed his brow hard, feeling like tonight's report was simply impossible to write.
"So, what is our conclusion now?"
He asked helplessly, as if asking himself, and also asking this absurd world.
"A mutated deep-sea monster controlled a Scale Two cultist who worships an evil god, went to great lengths to set an ambush, all just to kill a Scale One Three-Phase Moon believer?"
"And in the end, they even failed?"
As soon as Sir Vere said this.
The three of them fell into silence.
When they were making their individual deductions just now, they didn't think there was any problem, since every link was supported by evidence.
But now that it was summarized like this...
How did it sound so ridiculous?!
Rate on N.U.
