Elias's fingers searched once more through the compartment he had just sliced open in the travel suitcase.
What met his fingertips was not the hard texture of leather, but a coarse cloth pouch sewn into the lining.
He untied the slipknot of the pouch, and with the aid of 【Darkvision】, a stack of banknotes nearly blinded him.
Shillings and gold crowns.
Banknotes worth twenty gold crowns were neatly stacked inside.
"Quick, quick, quick! Take it and let's go!"
In his mind, Edmond's voice suddenly spiked in volume, sounding even more excited than when he had seen the transcendent weapon earlier, acting exactly like a bandit urging his accomplice to split the loot.
'What's the rush? Look at you, acting like an old miser.'
Elias ruthlessly mocked the old ghost in his mind, yet his hands moved faster than anyone's.
Like a practiced squirrel, he grabbed the entire stack of banknotes and stuffed them all into his trench coat pocket in one go.
Twenty gold crowns.
This was a fortune.
Granted, it was a bit less than the thirty-some gold crowns he already had.
But who would ever complain about having too much money?
Based on the contents of the letter from earlier, this was likely the bribe money prepared by that cultist named Firth to forge his identity and grease the palms of the personnel department at Wayland Shipping Company.
One could only imagine that if this money were delivered to Captain Crowley to bribe that greedy old man...
The orange-peel wrinkles around his triangular eyes would probably crinkle into a wide, happy arc on the spot.
Besides the banknotes, there was a piece of paper pressed at the bottom of the pouch.
Elias pulled it out to take a look.
It was a bearer check from the Royal Bank of Velen, with an incredibly exaggerated face value of 1,000 gold crowns.
A thousand gold crowns?!
Elias's breathing hitched instantly, and the fingers holding the check trembled slightly.
But he hesitated for only two seconds.
"Pah."
Elias resolutely threw the check back into the bottom of the suitcase.
He decided not to touch this massive sum.
Money was a good thing, but one needed to be alive to spend it.
Large bank checks were often the best beacons for tracking.
This sum was too conspicuous; whether it was other cultists from the Mist Veil Society or official investigators from the Seventh Agency, tracing a bank expenditure as high as a thousand gold crowns would be child's play.
If he dared to go to a bank to redeem it, he would definitely be caught within half a day.
He came here only for profit.
But he wouldn't take even a shred of that risk.
Cash worth twenty gold crowns was the perfect compensation for his mental distress.
After confirming nothing was missed.
Elias patted his bulging pocket with satisfaction, then dumped the steak knives, forks, and letter opener he had scavenged earlier back into the suitcase, before kicking it back under the bed.
He prepared to retreat.
"Ugh..."
Just as he turned to open the door, a faint sound came once again from behind the closed door of the bathroom.
It was a faint, intermittent groan, sounding very much like the wail of a dying small animal.
Now it was certain.
In this room, there was indeed another person, or some other creature, besides himself.
Elias stood up abruptly, his right hand instantly gripping the newly acquired elemental revolver in his pocket.
The fear of insufficient firepower caused by the lack of bullets was instantly soothed by the six loaded spiritual bullets.
At this moment, his resolve was firmer than ever.
Just one look.
He would take just one look. If the situation wasn't right, he'd fire and leave immediately.
Rationally, he should have just left.
The Seventh Agency could arrive at any moment; every second delayed was another second of danger.
However, the creature in the bathroom truly piqued his curiosity.
After all, if it were some monster kept by that pervert, it should have broken through the door and charged out long ago after hearing the noise outside.
Furthermore, that confidential letter didn't mention Firth having any accomplices here.
That left only one possibility:
Someone locked inside was a victim of the cult.
Or perhaps an insider.
Though whether it was a person or something else remained to be seen.
Currently, the ultimate goal of this Mist Veil Society would certainly affect his future living environment.
If he could obtain more information from behind that door, it was naturally worth a small risk.
Admittedly, Elias subjectively didn't want to be stuck on Reef Island as a keeper for the rest of his life, but objectively, the Mist Veil Society did have designs on the lighthouse.
He didn't want to lose his life mysteriously to a cult operation before he even resolved the dream demon's curse.
After these ten-odd minutes of rest.
Under the continuous recovery of 【Moonlight Blessing】, Elias felt the pains in several parts of his body significantly ease.
The fractures in his ribs had begun to feel numb and were re-knitting; as long as he didn't move too violently, his injuries shouldn't be affected.
He still had the capacity for self-preservation.
Hum.
Elias once again activated the spirituality within him, and a ripple-like layer of 【Moonlight Veil】 instantly covered his body.
His figure merged into the darkness.
His footsteps were as light as a leopard hunting in the jungle, making not a single sound.
As he approached the bathroom door, he took a deep breath, gripped the brass doorknob with his left hand, and turned it gently.
Click.
The latch retracted.
He slowly pushed open the bathroom door.
Whoosh—
The moment the door was pushed open, a stench of blood much heavier than in the outer room gushed out.
Elias's pupils shrank, and he nearly failed to suppress his physiological reaction.
With the aid of 【Darkvision】, he could clearly see that this small bathroom was like a living hell.
The originally snow-white ceramic tiles were covered everywhere with messy bloody handprints and various sprays of blood.
Looking down.
On the cold mosaic floor tiles, a woman, completely exposed, was tied with coarse hemp rope in an extremely humiliating posture, lying prone on the floor.
The rope was tied so tightly that it sank deep into her flesh, leaving behind dark purple bruises.
She didn't react to the open door, remaining silently prone.
It wasn't until Elias approached that she used her bound hands to painfully prop herself up a little.
It was also at this moment that Elias finally saw her face.
It was a face as pale as paper.
Her eyelids were shriveled and sunken into their sockets, with two trails of blood extending from the closed lids all the way to her chin.
Dried blood remained on both cheeks, having flowed from her ear canals; her eardrums had also been brutally pierced.
She seemed to sense the change in airflow and knew the door had been opened.
She lifted her head toward Elias's direction and opened her mouth, letting out a non-human "yiya" sound.
With this movement, Elias finally saw that her tongue was also reduced to a mangled half-stub.
Unable to see, unable to hear, unable to speak.
Deprived of all her senses, she had been tossed onto the cold floor tiles like an object to wait for death.
"These guys... are truly madmen."
Edmond's voice rang out heavily in his mind, carrying a trace of suppressed fury.
Even for someone like him who was used to life and death, he was disgusted by this pure malice.
Elias remained noncommittal. His gaze was terrifyingly cold.
There was no time to waste.
Since verbal communication was impossible, he would use mystical means.
Elias immediately mobilized his Rational Circuit, adjusting his spiritual fluctuations to match the frequency of this woman.
【Mental Message】.
A mental channel was established instantly.
"Hello, can you hear me?"
Elias's voice rang directly in the woman's mind.
"Who are you?"
The woman jerked violently. Upon hearing the voice in her mind, she excitedly twitched her eyeless lids, and another "yiya" sound escaped her mouth.
As her emotions fluctuated, her meaning was also transmitted back into Elias's mind through the spiritual connection.
It was very clear.
"Were you kidnapped by this man named Firth?"
Elias continued to ask in her mind.
"Don't be afraid, I've already killed Firth."
He thought the other party would be moved to tears or feel a sense of liberation upon hearing this news.
However.
"Firth?"
The emotion the woman transmitted back in his mind wasn't fear or hatred, but an extremely eerie... joy and confusion?
"Ah! That handsome guy! Is he dead? What a pity..."
Handsome... guy?
What a pity?!
Elias was stunned.
He stood frozen on the spot, looking at this woman on the ground who had been tortured beyond recognition, feeling his worldview hit by an unprecedented shock.
The man who gouged out your eyes, cut out your tongue, pierced your ears, and left you to die in a toilet.
You call him a handsome guy?
And you feel sorry for him?
Is this Stockholm syndrome?
"My name is Elias, and you?"
Elias suppressed the absurdity in his heart and continued to ask.
"Me? I'm Isha... Sorenstein."
The woman's emotions suddenly became somewhat excited as she asked back urgently in his mind:
"Are you a fellow initiate as well?"
"Fellow initiate?"
Elias frowned.
"Yes! You have the aura of the Divine Lord on you!"
Isha's voice became fanatical and shrill in his mind.
"What aura? What are you talking about?"
Elias felt an inexplicable chill crawl up his spine.
"Lord of Mists! May Your glory be reforged!"
The woman suddenly began to scream madly in his mind, her voice filled with extreme fanaticism and madness.
At the same time, Elias suddenly felt an incredibly terrifying, viscous spiritual pressure surge toward his mind like a black tide through the connected mental channel!
"Shit!"
Elias's face changed drastically, and he hurriedly and crudely severed the 【Mental Message】 connection.
The screaming in his mind stopped abruptly.
Elias stepped back two paces, looking in shock at the woman on the ground who was still making "yiya" sounds.
This woman was also a cultist!
But this seemed to make no sense at all.
She didn't have the same tattoo as Firth on her body.
And if she were a cultist, why was she bound in the bathroom by Firth?
And subjected to such cruel punishment, having her eyes gouged, her tongue cut, and her ears pierced?
What? A cult internal feud?
Moreover, what made Elias's skin crawl most was her sentence from just now.
Why did she say he had the aura of their Divine Lord on him?
He believed in the Three-Phase Moon!
Where would he get the aura of an evil god?!
Elias's mind was in a mess. He instinctively scanned the blood-scented bathroom, searching for an answer.
His gaze swept past the sink.
His vision froze.
On the blood-stained mirror of the bathroom, someone had used a finger dipped in blood to write a row of crooked letters.
Elias understood the word at a single glance.
His eyes widened suddenly, his pupils contracting violently.
Because that word was: Abysi...
"Mother—!"
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