Chapter 26 | Jormungandr in the Labyrinth River

Li Yue lowered her eyelids slightly as she cautiously entered the room. The metallic scent of blood was very faint; no bloodstains remained, but the smell indicated that someone covered in blood had once been here.

Something was definitely wrong. She thought of Caesar and felt as if she had been assigned a task without even realizing it. She snapped a blood crystal from her fingertip and tucked it into her pocket, treating it as the key she had just fashioned.

She surveyed the office. It was filled with various study supplies, and the bookshelves and cabinets were packed with books about religion and the salvation of saints.

It seemed normal enough, but based on Li Yue’s experience and her keen intuition regarding that inexplicable scent of blood, she felt a faint sense of unease.

Her hand reached into the inner side of a cabinet. With a soft click, she gave a gentle tug, and the inner compartment of the cabinet slid out.

A diary? No way...

Li Yue’s heart sank, feeling like a heavy stone crashing to the ground. Her heart skipped a beat, and after hesitating for a few seconds, her stiff fingers flipped open the diary.

March 3rd: The experiments are progressing slowly. Preliminary tests have been completed on blood demons and ordinary blood mages. The blood demons showed a moderate rejection reaction, while the ordinary blood mages showed very weak rejection.

Li Yue examined it closely; it appeared to be a research report from six years ago.

Maybe these children are just a cover, and they haven't actually been harmed... right?

Li Yue continued to flip through the pages. The subsequent pages seemed to have a few bloodstains on them, making them feel slightly sticky.

March 12th: Regrettably, the sacred object brought by Lord (scratched out) still has an extremely strong rejection effect on living organisms. These objects possess incredibly powerful destructive effects, causing devastating damage to the human body. The blood demon from the preliminary success now has only a head remaining, and the newly trained mages have been reduced to nothing but scrap.

April 21st: After countless failures, there are almost no experimental materials left to find; even blood demons can no longer be located. Fortunately, however, we have found a new magic. With a slight modification to that destructive effect, we can significantly increase a person’s growth rate. The children experimented on half a month ago now have bodies aged to nearly thirty years old.

Li Yue felt her scalp tingle. If she understood correctly, this aging magic—even without side effects—was irreversible for most ordinary people and magic apprentices who were just idling away in their positions.

Doing this was equivalent to forcibly ripening a person’s body, leaving behind a hollow soul.

June 15th: Moon-Epoch Grass, an ancient plant that grows in the Royal Court, can actually produce a slight inhibitory effect on the side effects of the sacred object. I will write a letter to Lord (scratched out) tonight; the vessel he wants may finally be found.

The name was scratched out, and Li Yue puffed out her cheeks. However, she could still vaguely make out the name "William." It had originally been written firmly and clearly, but it was later crossed out with horizontal and vertical lines.

Why cross it out? Full of doubt, she continued to flip forward.

September 29th: All three months of cultivation have failed. Even children forced to consume Moon-Epoch Grass for long periods still exhibit strong rejection reactions. Perhaps we should change direction.

Several pages had been torn out in the middle. By the time she reached a date again, it was already November. As for which year’s November, she had no way of knowing.

November 21st: Lord (scratched out) has found several magic users who escaped from the Royal Court. Although they are not nobles of the Royal Court, it does not hinder them from proceeding with the next stage of experiments.

January 28th: Such powerful willpower! Although the process was not successful, it did not lead to a bloody result; they are merely slightly mentally unstable.

A few more pages were torn out in the middle.

August 11th: All participants have been declared failures. We followed the suggestion of Lord (scratched out) and successfully cultivated several children using his flesh and blood. Subsequent results await further cultivation.

September 30th: Those demon hunters actually managed to investigate some clues on their own. We clearly only took some vagrants and orphans to provide flesh and samples. Fortunately, Lord (scratched out) established an orphanage around us; under the guise of adopting orphans, our movements have become much freer.

December 6th: My life has unexpectedly reached its end. It doesn't matter; at least I have produced a few results. I hope they will be of help to the research on "Him."

This seemed to be the end of the diary. The person who took over the task from the diary’s author did not seem to have a habit of keeping a journal.

Why stop writing? Perhaps another, more important diary is hidden in some secret room, or it has already been handed over to that William.

The back contained some memos, recording various processes and precautions of the experiments in detail. Even just reading the text would likely make an ordinary person vomit uncontrollably.

After doing such things, can they even be considered human?

As for whether the mastermind was William, that was still open to debate. After all, the security work here was far too poor. If they had intended to keep it a secret, why not just burn the entire book?

She put the book into her ring. For some reason, she felt a sense of repulsion. Such an evil thing shouldn't be stored in her ring; it would soil the ring Clo had given her.

She exited the room cautiously and blew out the oil lamp in her hand. After confirming that the outside was silent, she carefully locked the door and headed straight for the building hidden among the thorns, filled with blood and sin.

She looked at the divine statues in the corridors holding candles and felt a wave of irony. She hadn't believed that her original world had a Lord who could rule over all things and punish evil while rewarding good, but here, she sadly discovered that this world didn't have one either—or rather, the gods here might not love the people of the world.

God, why do You allow evil to grow and spread right under Your eyes?

She felt an inexplicable surge of anger, perhaps because her lingering sense of justice was acting up. But there was actually very little she could do. Perhaps she should leave now and then submit the evidence and a report.

But she wasn't that naive anymore. It was useless. This city was prosperous, but seemingly not enough; the laws here still had no effect on the high nobility. Perhaps giving it to Caesar would have some effect, but she simply didn't trust him.

I’ll consult the captain after I finish my investigation and then decide whether to give it to Caesar.

Compared to Caesar, Li Yue trusted Roland more. For some reason, Caesar always gave her an uncomfortable feeling, a strange repulsion. Li Yue didn't think she had any prejudices against others, but Caesar alone disgusted her.

Thinking, she tried pushing the large door in front of her. It wasn't locked as the diary’s postscript had suggested, nor did it require any complicated unlocking methods; it opened with a gentle push.

She opened the door just enough for her slender waist to pass through and slipped into the building.

Somewhat to her surprise, this place looked more like a prayer hall. Her gaze was drawn to the tall divine statue in the distance. His expression was compassionate, and a faint smile hung at the corners of His mouth. If it weren't for the sharp fangs exposed in His mouth and the chilling vertical pupils, this statue might truly have been called sacred.

“You’ve come?”

Li Yue trembled all over in fright. Her gaze quickly dropped to a nun who was kneeling in prayer. The woman turned half her face; she looked eighty percent similar to the nun Li Yue had seen earlier today, only she looked quite a bit younger.

“The clothes prepared for you seem to fit well. They bring out the lines of your waist; they look good.” She stood up with a smile, appearing vastly different from her daytime self.

“After seeing you today, I knew you must have developed a huge misunderstanding about our place.” The nun smiled faintly.

“You’re not the person from this morning.” Li Yue frowned.

“I am, but not entirely.” The nun smiled faintly, a huge contrast to her solemn and grave demeanor from the daytime. “Come with me, and I shall resolve the doubts in your heart.”

“Why should I follow you?”

“If you don't follow me, where will you go?” The nun smiled faintly, staring at Li Yue’s blood-red eyes. She seemed to grow more delighted the more she looked, and her tone carried a hint of joy, making it impossible for Li Yue to sense any threat.

This person has no killing intent?

Li Yue openly drew the short blade hidden in her sleeve. She unsheathed it right in front of the nun, the bright white blade catching a sliver of moonlight filtering through the thorns, taking on a cold, pure gleam.

“You go first.” Li Yue pointed the blade at the nun, her tone brook no argument.

“Come with me.” The nun smiled slightly. The floor beneath her feet began to turn pitch black, and then the material seemed to no longer be marble, becoming something between a liquid and a solid. She waved her hands to the left and right, and a staircase appeared before the two of them.

The nun walked ahead, but Li Yue’s hand holding the sword was trembling slightly. She clearly felt a sense of discomfort, a slight urge to vomit, and some dizziness. However, these were all mental abnormalities; compared to these, the hunger that constantly plagued her was far more difficult to endure.

They reached the bottom of the stairs. It was another long corridor, decorated just like the upper building. The divine statues holding candles made Li Yue feel increasingly ironic and uncomfortable.

There seemed to be many rooms on both sides, but the nun didn't seem to intend to go into them, simply leading the curious Li Yue to the end of the corridor.

“We’ve arrived.” The nun bowed slightly, making a gesture of invitation.

Li Yue gave her a cool glance. The moment she stepped into the room, torches on the walls flared up one by one. This was a massive room, nearly two thousand square meters in size. At the end of the room, there seemed to be doors and passages leading to other chambers.