Lu Ze mercilessly beat Haynes with his foot while his mind raced for a solution.
Simply harming Haynes's body wouldn't work, as he would continuously resurrect. They had to approach it from a mystical perspective. However, the so-called demon-hunting bullets didn't have a significant effect, so a more effective method was needed.
Speaking of which, Haynes's monstrous transformation must have come from abilities he obtained from the True Creator. I'm a Secrets Supplicant; I wonder if there's any knowledge about this in the potion.
Lu Ze quickly searched through the mystical knowledge he had acquired while riding in the carriage, and he actually found something! In the section on rituals, he discovered a ritual that perfectly matched Haynes's current state.
This ritual was called "Sanctuary Descent."
Sanctuary Descent is an evil ritual that can strengthen oneself. It requires the caster to sacrifice the lives of two closest relatives to obtain the True Creator's grace. If the ritual succeeds, the True Creator will bestow a corrupted aura into the caster's body, helping him merge the heads of his two closest relatives onto his body. These two heads will gain various peculiar effects such as "Filthy Utterance/Foul Language," "Amplified Chanting," and "Physical Enhancement," greatly boosting the caster's abilities.
Using closest relatives as sacrifices? What a mad ritual. Lu Ze thought, even among the many Dark rituals of the Secrets Supplicant, this was an extremely extreme one.
But this ritual had already succeeded, so how could it be stopped?
Lu Ze pondered for a moment, then suddenly had a bold idea.
The reason these two heads remained fused was because of the wisp of corrupted aura left by the True Creator in Haynes's body. Therefore, as long as that wisp of aura was extracted, Haynes would naturally be finished!
Thinking this, he stopped his attack, reached to his ear, and dabbed some fresh blood that flowed out. Using this blood as pigment, he drew a pattern on the palm of his right hand.
It was a blood-red rose in full bloom, with a reversed cross at the center of its layered petals. The simple pattern exuded a sense of opulence, corruption, and evil—this was precisely the True Creator's holy emblem.
Lu Ze finished drawing the twisted symbol with obvious disgust, then spread his palm, aiming it at Haynes. He intended to use himself as a vessel to extract the True Creator's aura. Based on everything that had happened before, he guessed that the aura would likely be more drawn to his own body.
Moreover, the illusory tide within his body would protect him, rendering the corrupted aura ineffective!
"You blasphemer!"
Haynes cursed.
Lu Ze ignored him, instead chanting in a language he himself had never mastered:
"Praise the rebirth of the Lord, for corruption is all salvation."
After speaking, he acted decisively, pressing his bloodied palm onto Haynes's forehead.
"Ah ah ah ah ah!"
As soon as their skin touched, Haynes let out a piercing shriek. His body instantly turned crimson, like a cooked shrimp arching its back and struggling desperately. Both faces wailed in unison. He twitched a few times, then stopped moving, his body turning into a puddle of sludge, like a candle melted by heat.
Lu Ze was not well either; an evil and foul aura surged into his body through his palm, rushing straight to his head. Intense pain radiated from everywhere it passed, as if countless tiny mouths were gnawing at his flesh. He watched with wide eyes as the skin on the back of his hand burst open with a "pop," revealing the bright red muscle and pale yellow fat beneath. The 裂縫 spread up his arm, and faintly, the flesh seemed to begin wriggling and deforming.
Fortunately, at this moment, the corrupted aura collided with the illusory tide in his mind. The tide enveloped the aura, digesting it while simultaneously diminishing itself. In just a few short seconds, they canceled each other out, turning into nothingness.
As the True Creator's aura dissipated, the exposed flesh on Lu Ze's arm stopped wriggling and deforming, instead slowly healing and rejoining.
My guess was indeed correct.
Lu Ze felt a wave of weakness, simply sitting on the ground and panting softly. The illusory tide could indeed block the True Creator's erosion, just as it had when he drank the potion and nearly went mad.
He didn't know what that represented, but he instinctively felt it must be something very important.
It might be my transmigrator's benefit, a fixed SAN value or something.
Lu Ze thought with self-deprecating humor.
The hall was a mess. He sat miserably, a few meters away from the corpse, Klein, still seriously injured, had not yet gotten up, looking at him with some surprise. Their eyes met, and there was a bit of awkwardness between them.
Should I say something?
Fortunately, the hurried sound of a carriage from outside broke the awkward silence. Several hurried footsteps sounded quickly before the carriage had even stopped, until the owners of the footsteps pushed open the door and rushed in. Lu Ze looked back; they were Dunn Smith and his party who had just left.
"This... this is..."
Leonard stared in shock at the tragic scene in the hall and Haynes's horrifying corpse, speechless for a moment.
Lu Ze, however, gave a bitter smile, meeting Dunn's deep and surprised gaze, and said with a hint of helplessness and complaint:
"Mr. Dunn. What took you so long?"
— — — —
"So, you solved the enhanced Haynes using the knowledge of a Secrets Supplicant?"
Dunn slowly asked, treading on the corroded floor.
Shattered high-end tea sets, overturned solid wood tables and chairs, and partitions with large holes burned through—the once well-decorated Blackthorn Security Company lobby had become dilapidated. It looked as if it had been ransacked by a group of hooligans and bandits. The injured Klein and the unconscious Luo Yao had both been sent to the back for treatment, leaving only Haynes's supine corpse—or should it be called liquid?—on the floor.
"Uh, it was mainly the credit of the two Nighthawks."
Lu Ze chuckled. For some reason, he always felt a little uncomfortable when being stared at by Dunn's deep eyes. "I just found an opportunity to ambush him, and coincidentally knew the solution to the ritual."
He recounted the events in detail, while Dunn listened calmly, occasionally interjecting with questions about the specifics of the battle. After Lu Ze finished speaking, he picked up the cane Lu Ze had used to strike Haynes from the ground and walked to the pool of flesh where Haynes lay.
Haynes had completely melted, leaving only his badly corroded black robe spread in the flesh. In this flat expanse of flesh, two head-sized protrusions pushed up beneath the black robe, looking very conspicuous.
Dunn gripped the cane, stirred it into the flesh, and carefully lifted a corner of the black robe with the end of the cane, peering inside.
When he saw what the two protrusions inside were, his eyes flickered, and he seemed to let out an inaudible sigh.
"Leonard."
He called out.
"What is it, Captain?"
Leonard, who was leisurely sweeping up broken porcelain shards with a broom, looked up when he heard Dunn's call.
"Go to the police station and find Police Inspector Toler. Tell him we have a third murder scene that needs his attention."
"Yes."
Leonard said. As he put down the broom and put on his coat, he couldn't help but laugh again. "I can already imagine Police Inspector Toler's face when he hears the news, haha. Three murder scenes in one night, he'll go crazy."
Hearing him say that, Lu Ze also recalled the police officers with bitter faces cleaning up the scene.
Wait a minute, three scenes? He paused, then quickly reacted, "Mr. Dunn, did you go to Haynes's house but didn't find him, only discovering a blood sacrifice scene?"
"That's right."
Dunn looked down at Haynes's flesh and said, "It's really strange. Why would Haynes wake up in the middle of the night, perform a blood sacrifice on his family, and then precisely find his way to the Blackthorn Security Company here? I really don't understand."
What should have been a simple arrest nearly led to extremely dangerous consequences. They very coincidentally missed the target, leaving the headquarters vulnerable. If not for Lu Ze's unexpected contribution, the consequences would have been unimaginable.
It was almost like a... coincidence filled with malice.
Siris and Haynes are both characters from the original novel, so everyone should still remember them.
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