1189 Winter Gifts Day (1/2)
As soon as the dark clouds in the sky dispersed, everything in the Holy Wind Cathedral returned to normal.
In a nearby corner, Klein raised his hand to rub his forehead. The corners of his mouth twitched as he mumbled, ”If you don't want to give it to me, so be it… But why did you kill my marionette…”
He then took a deep breath before his figure rapidly faded away and disappeared. The time limit for maintaining the Historical Void projection was almost over. After all, a Scribe's imitation of a high-level power had significant differences from the original version. The burden of a Sequence 6 summoning a Sequence 3 was rather heavy. Even if a Scholar of Yore could transfer his consciousness over and reduce the spirituality expenditure, it was impossible for Fors to keep it up for too long.
…
In the outskirts of Backlund, downstream of the Tussock River.
Leonard hid his red gloves and slowly walked towards a certain spot.
Suddenly, the slightly-aged voice of Pallez Zoroast rang out in his mind:
”How's your former colleague been doing recently?”
Thinking back to the conversation at the Tarot Club, Leonard suppressed his voice and said, ”He just avoided a trap set up by Amon's avatar. He's searching for the truth in the Forsaken Land of the Gods.”
After listening to what he had to say, Pallez Zoroast didn't say another word and allowed Leonard to proceed forward.
…
After setting up the special coordinates, Fors was thrown back into the real world by Gehrman Sparrow's messenger.
”I feel exhausted, but I just woke up not too long ago… It must be that High-Sequence Beyonder powers are too draining on my spirituality…” Fors covered her mouth and yawned. She looked at Xio with a haggard expression.
”That's possible.” Xio agreed with her friend's judgment.
Her intuition told her that the Gehrman Sparrow projection that had been summoned definitely wasn't simple. It could even be equivalent to a saint.
After some hesitation, Xio said, ”Sleep a little longer. Don't attempt to advance in such a state.
”In one of my previous trials, the murderer was mentally psychotic. He would deliberately make his friends, his students, and the tramps he took in, consume potions in all sorts of negative states, watch them lose control, and mutate into all kinds of monsters—disgusting and terrifying ones.”
”…What was this fellow's goal?” Fors was stunned for a second.
”Two goals. One was to observe whether the same potion caused the same loss of control on different people. The other was to use oil paintings to record the corresponding scenes. He believed that the madness, the pain, and the distortion had an unparalleled beauty, one that can stimulate his greatest creative passion.” Xio recalled the trial from back then. She felt a sense of hatred and lingering fear. ”He was a complete lunatic.”
”That fellow should be executed!” Fors couldn't help but shudder when she imagined it. She bared her teeth and said, ”Was he a cultist?”
”Perhaps, but there were no clues… On the surface, he appeared to be an outstanding artist, and he is very famous internationally. If it wasn't for more than five of his students and friends who had disappeared over the past few years, attracting our attention, then he might've had to wait until he completely went mad and lost control, becoming a monster, before this matter would be discovered.” Xio suddenly paused for a moment before saying, ”Back then, everyone in the law-enforcement team that opened his hidden basement vomited. There were all kinds of mutated and terrifying corpses, and hanging overhead were all kinds of harrowing yet charming oil paintings…”
”A hateful fellow, but it's also a very attractive story.” Fors thought for a moment and pressed, ”Was he a Devil?”
”No, he's a Psychiatrist.” Xio rejected her friend's guess.
”…You sentenced him to death?” Fors asked in anticipation.
Xio shook her head.
”His defense lawyer convinced me that he's more suited to be a Sealed Artifact researcher.”
”There's a lawyer? You have lawyers at the Paranormal Court? Isn't it all a direct trial?” Fors asked in surprise.
Xio straightened her blonde hair and said, ”There are some Beyonders from the Lawyer pathway among us who also need to act. Of course, they don't know that they're acting.”
”Alright.” Fors yawned again and pointed to the reclining chair beside the fireplace. ”I'll sleep for a while. Eh, don't you have work?”
”We can take days off,” Xio replied succinctly.
Fors didn't ask further as she walked to the fireplace and collapsed into it.
About two to three hours later, she woke up and Cogitated for fifteen minutes.
Following that, she found the Traveler Beyonder characteristic and the supplementary ingredients given to her by her teacher, Dorian Gray Abraham, and concocted a potion bottle.
The potion's color was white but transparent. It was like half-melted snow water, occasionally producing light-green bubbles.
Fors held the potion and glanced at her friend who was on guard by the side. She smiled and said, ”If I lose control, don't hesitate. Just chop off my head.