Elias’s world came crashing down.
He had actually wanted to get a good night's rest!
Damn it!
Who was the one who stripped him of his rest?!
Why was it that performing a mystical ritual now required a mandatory deduction of his statutory sleep hours?
Was there no justice left in this world?!
“Despicable!”
No wonder the soul-piercing pain felt so much better.
No wonder the bone-deep exhaustion he’d felt earlier had lessened significantly.
“Look at you. Aren’t you quite energetic now?”
Old Ed’s voice echoed lazily in his mind, carrying a hint of detached indifference.
“Being energetic doesn’t mean I’m not angry!”
Elias retorted mercilessly in his head.
“My consciousness is working under duress; my soul still yearns for a soft bed!”
Complaints aside, the facts were right in front of him. Time no longer allowed him to continue playing dead in the hotel.
Although the dream demon curse was temporarily dormant due to the distance, the thing was like a ticking time bomb.
It could go off at any moment.
Since things had come to this, he might as well eat first.
In the grand scheme of things, a meal was the top priority.
Elias quickly dressed and went downstairs to eat in the hotel’s restaurant.
After finishing breakfast, he strode out of the hotel gates.
Destination: the train station.
He had to buy a train ticket back to Hastings Port immediately.
...
While Elias was rushing to the station due to these unexpected circumstances, a different scene was unfolding.
Hope County, Central District.
Deep underground, beneath the Seventh Agency branch.
At the end of a heavily guarded stone corridor.
Inside a massive room cast entirely from an unknown metal.
The four walls were covered in intricate arcane runes, which flickered with a faint blue fluorescence, maintaining a powerful seal.
Several people stood quietly within this suffocating space.
Their gazes were collectively fixed on the center of the room.
There sat a massive stone sarcophagus.
The lid had already been pushed halfway open.
Inside lay a woman, perfectly still.
Her hands were folded across her chest, her expression peaceful.
She looked like an ordinary noble girl in a deep sleep.
The atmosphere in the room was terrifyingly oppressive.
Standing at the front was a man who appeared to be in his early thirties. He was tall and powerfully built, with broad shoulders.
Among the Seventh Agency members, who generally wore dark uniforms, his well-tailored white suit was particularly eye-catching.
The man had side-parted brown hair.
Though his beard was neatly trimmed, it was still a thick, full beard.
A hand-rolled cigarette dangled from the corner of his mouth.
“These Slayers have some skill.”
The man was the first to break the silence.
His voice was deep and carried an air of composure.
As he spoke, a playful expression crossed his face, as if he felt no excessive reverence for this body that would shock the entire supernatural world.
“I really didn’t expect this.”
The man exhaled a ring of smoke.
“That such a small city could hide a god's husk in its underground.”
“An artificial god, even.”
His words were incredibly arrogant.
Yet, no one present spoke up to contradict him.
Standing beside him, other than Ms. Cecil, were Branch Manager Guardian of the Hastings Port Branch and Deputy Manager Rogge.
These two influential figures, who wielded immense power in Hope County, maintained a significant level of restraint and respect before the man in the white suit.
“Mr. Iseryon is right.”
Guardian took a step forward.
A sharp light flashed in his single eye.
He shifted his gaze from the stone sarcophagus to the man called Iseryon.
“But what puzzles us now isn’t the husk itself.”
“What was that Mist Veil Society deacon’s purpose in leading us to the North District sewers?”
This was the most discordant part of the entire event.
It was the blind spot that the Seventh Agency could not figure out.
“According to Cecil’s report,” Guardian began, raising a finger to analyze the situation methodically.
“He killed all the remaining Slayers in the Temple of Slaughter with clean, efficient methods. This shows he came well-prepared.”
“Yet, he didn’t take the god's husk.”
“He only opened the lid.”
“What’s even more absurd...”
Guardian’s brow furrowed.
“...is that he actually encouraged the surviving Slayers to go to Moon Bay to find the Fifth Element.”
“This completely defies common sense.”
Beside him, Deputy Manager Rogge nodded in agreement.
He habitually rubbed the stubble on his chin, his brow tightly knit.
“Yes, it’s extremely contradictory,” Rogge analyzed.
“A cultist goes to great lengths to infiltrate the sewers and wipe out a group of his peers.”
“Faced with a priceless trophy, he chooses to ignore it.”
“Furthermore,” Rogge paused, his tone growing heavier, “by making such a scene, his fundamental goal was to draw our attention here.”
“But no matter how you look at it, wouldn’t attracting the attention of official agencies only ruin their plans?”
“This person’s behavior is entirely nonsensical!”
Rogge threw up his hands.
“Unless...”
Ms. Cecil, who had been silent, finally spoke.
“Unless this god's husk is inconsequential to him.”
As soon as she said this, the room fell silent.
Guardian and Rogge both turned to look at her in disbelief.
It was as if they had heard a fairy tale.
A god's husk was inconsequential?
How could that be!
What kind of organization, or what kind of person, could view such a thing as 'useless junk'?
One had to realize that in the supernatural world, even the smallest remnant left by a god was enough to trigger a bloodbath.
Take the simplest example.
The phosphor whales that currently roamed the seas and were seen as vital resources by major shipping companies.
Where did they come from?
Their ancient ancestors had simply been lucky enough to touch a single drop of divine blood spilled by the Dawn Lady in the ocean.
Just one drop of blood!
From that, their entire supernatural species was born!
It had spawned a massive supernatural ecological chain!
And what was this body before them?
This was the husk of the Goddess of Slaughter!
Even though, in ancient history, this goddess was merely one of the subordinate gods under the Mother Goddess of Destiny.
She might not even have ranked among the chief deities.
But that didn’t change the fact that she was a genuine, bona fide deity with divinity!
If this thing were put up for auction on the black market, the entire national treasury of the Kingdom of Velen might not be enough to buy it!
And you call this inconsequential?
“If we return to the essence of a god's husk...”
Deputy Manager Rogge keenly caught the clue in Cecil’s words, and his train of thought opened up instantly.
“In reality, the greatest use of this husk for those Slayers was to allow their ‘god’ to be resurrected.”
“This is a resurrection tool.”
Rogge’s eyes gradually brightened.
“Think of it another way.”
“Since this husk is useless to that Mist Veil Society deacon...”
“Could it be that they want to resurrect their own ‘god’ instead?”
Following this terrifying logic, everything seemed to become rational.
That man in black simply looked down on a subordinate god of the Goddess of Slaughter’s level.
What he wanted to resurrect was an existence of a much higher order!
“And if...”
Guardian’s single eye flashed with a dangerous light, his voice dropping to a low, ominous tone.
“...according to the information he revealed, his identity as a Mist Veil Society deacon is just a side gig.”
“Then shouldn’t we look for his true background among those ancient powers whose gods have fallen?”
The air pressure in the room suddenly dropped to freezing.
The two managers and Cecil looked at each other, their eyes reflecting a name that was on the tip of their tongues.
That organization was large enough, with a background deep enough.
Most importantly, only that organization could casually dispatch a powerhouse like the man in black!
“Heh.”
Just as the three were sinking into that suffocating speculation, a contemptuous cold laugh interrupted their thoughts.
The man in the white suit—Iseryon—expressionlessly removed the nearly finished cigarette from his mouth.
He casually dropped it onto the polished metal floor.
He lifted his foot and nonchalantly crushed the cigarette butt.
“A man-made god?”
Iseryon’s voice carried a hint of mockery, as if he didn't care for their theories.
“Mr. Iseryon.”
Guardian frowned, looking up at the man.
He said quite seriously, “We don’t allow littering here.”
Iseryon glanced down at the pile of ash on the floor.
He curled his lip indifferently.
He didn’t even bend over; he just gave a casual wave in the air.
A flicker of invisible arcane energy passed by.
The ash on the ground was instantly enveloped by an unseen heat, and without even a puff of smoke, it was quickly burned into nothingness in the air.
After finishing this small action, Iseryon looked up again. His gaze bypassed the others and landed on the massive stone sarcophagus.
His eyes were deep, as if he could see through to some underlying truth behind this god's husk.
“He doesn’t care about this husk. Is there a possibility...”
“...that they have something better?”
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