The Eastern District, deep into the night.
"Aaaaaahhh!"
A shrill howl suddenly erupted from the depths of the street.
The agony of the person crying out felt almost tangible, as if it could pierce through eardrums and seep directly into one's mind.
The surrounding area was deathly quiet.
The nearby residents must have heard the noise, yet no one came out to see what had happened.
Even the homeless people who had been sheltering from the wind in the vicinity quietly got up and fled into the distance.
In the Eastern District, the curious tended to die quickly.
The crimson moonlight fell gently, illuminating the Beyonder who had collapsed on the ground.
A terrifying curse had descended upon him. Invisible blades pierced his chest, creating horrific wounds deep enough to expose ribs and internal organs.
Even now, the wound continued to corrode and expand!
It wasn't just physical damage.
His spirit had also suffered tremendous shock. Mad ravings filled his mind, tormenting his consciousness.
The whispers echoed through his brain, distorted and obsessive, as if they would never cease. The originally twisted and chaotic sounds were gradually becoming clearer.
He was about to understand the ravings!
The Beyonder howled and struggled.
His survival instinct forced him to prop up his chaotic consciousness. He pressed his fingers against the wound and smeared them across his arm.
Swish!
The injury that had been at his chest was somehow transferred by his fingers to his arm!
Although his arm immediately broke as a result, still bearing the corroding curse, his overall condition improved significantly. He struggled to his feet, his eyes filled with terror.
Too dangerous!
This filthy, maddening sensation... there was no mistake. This was a Divine Envoy of the Aurora Order!
Why would an ordinary gang have connections to the Aurora Order?
"May the Lord's grace always accompany me, may the Lord's glory bathe me in anointed blood..."
The ravings in his mind echoed endlessly, finally becoming clearly audible.
Each syllable hammered heavily against his will. He struggled to drag his heavy body toward the alley entrance.
He had to inform His Excellency the Ambassador about this...
"He restores my soul, and guides me to redemption in His name..."
The ravings were amplifying, overlapping, profoundly affecting his spirit. No, wait, something's wrong!
It wasn't that the ravings were getting louder. Outside his head, someone was reciting the prayer in sync!
He looked up in despair to see Silas's handsome yet demonic figure had somehow appeared at the alley entrance.
As the soft hymns left his lips, those filthy, corrupting sounds penetrated the body and acted directly on the mind.
"Praise the Lord's glory. You shall become His lamb."
Silas spoke.
As he recited these words of prayer, his face bore no expression of devotion whatsoever.
On the contrary, he appeared extremely disgusted. His fingers moved contemptuously across his chest, tapping four times to form an inverted cross.
Before him, the unknown Beyonder's body had already collapsed.
With curses and Profane Words acting on him both internally and externally, his spirit and flesh reached their limits simultaneously.
With a splash, his flesh and blood shattered, spilling onto the ground to form a puddle of gore. Under the crimson moonlight, it resembled a magnificently blooming red rose.
"Praise the Lord, praise the Lord!"
Countless mouths sprouted from the rose of flesh and blood, singing praises and worship.
Silas walked forward slowly.
Ignoring the annoying sounds of praise, he extended his palm toward the corpse (if that thing could still be called a corpse).
"Graze!"
His originally azure eyes turned crimson, as if soaked in fresh blood.
"Woooo..."
A bone-chilling cold wind generated from his hand and blew toward the bloody rose.
The wind, cold enough to freeze marrow, carried an extreme hunger as it swirled over the corpse, creating powerful suction.
Something transparent slowly extracted from the corpse.
It was a transparent figure.
From its outline, one could barely recognize it as resembling the corpse's original form.
The transparent figure's expression was twisted, its mouth wide open, as if experiencing unbearably intense pain.
It struggled desperately against Silas's pull, yet still could not resist being drawn out.
Specks of black-green light precipitated from the flesh and blood, spiraling upward and merging into the transparent figure.
"Aaaaaahhh!"
Finally, the unknown Beyonder's soul was completely pulled from his body. Carrying his own Beyonder characteristics, it plunged into Silas's palm.
Lamb acquired, successfully!
Silas looked at the soul in his palm. The nearly transparent soul writhed, occasionally revealing a face full of suffering.
If he wanted, he could absorb it into his body at any moment and complete the grazing.
But before that, he wanted to extract some intelligence from this guy.
He slightly tightened his grip on the soul. Invisible force transformed into a whip to lash the lamb, striking down hard.
"Aaaaaahhh!"
The soul immediately screamed in pain.
"Who's behind you?"
Silas asked.
"Bakerland Jean Madan!"
A pained expression appeared on the face within the soul. "The Intis Ambassador to Backlund! We're intelligence operatives under his command!"
The soul-level connection with the lamb allowed Silas to confirm the other party wasn't lying.
"What is the manuscript you were tracking?"
"It's a manuscript by Hermes Mosin, containing the design plans for a third-generation difference engine!"
The other party cooperated readily.
"And who were you fighting against?"
"Military Intelligence Nine, Loen's official intelligence organization... Spare me! Stop!"
"Thank you for your cooperation."
Silas nodded, then suddenly clenched his hand. Amid the other's screams, he devoured him into his body.
It was a rather peculiar experience. Silas could feel the other's soul flowing through his arm into his body, finally settling into a vacant position within.
A Shepherd could graze a total of seven souls. Including the already-grazed Pyromaniac and that unusable soul, he still had four vacant positions left to choose from.
After the unknown soul was placed in a vacant position, the soul-based connection between them grew increasingly solid.
Silas could sense his characteristics and the abilities brought by those characteristics.
As it turned out, this Beyonder was a Sequence 6 Faceless of the Seer pathway.
A Faceless's strongest ability was the capacity to change appearance at will, easily mimicking people he had seen, even their voices.
Although a Rose Bishop could also alter appearance, it was mainly through controlling flesh and blood.
To completely mimic facial features like a Faceless would be extremely difficult.
Besides that, a Faceless also possessed multiple abilities like "Divination," "Air Bullets," "Flame Control," "Paper Figurine Substitute," and "Damage Transfer." However, not all these abilities could be used.
He could only select three. Silas had to make a choice immediately, because once the soul was fixed within his body, he couldn't change it.
Which ones to choose?
Silas began to think.
"Appearance Modification" was definitely a must. What else?