Chapter 51: “Arrogance”

Chapter 51: “Arrogance”

“What is this place?” Audrey asked without much change in expression, as though she were inquiring about the location of tonight’s ball.

Pauli Delrau, who called himself the president of the Psychology Alchemists, also turned his gaze toward the carriage window and said with a smile,

“This is the city within everyone’s heart.

“Where there are people, it exists.”

Audrey nodded thoughtfully.

“In other words, one can enter this place from any corner of human society?”

Delrau stroked the wheel of his chair.

“Correct.”

He did not explain further. Instead, he pointed to the pedestrians outside the carriage window.

“Everything here has a corresponding psychological symbol. They are called ‘Bestial Desire.’”

Bestial Desire… Audrey silently repeated the term. While maintaining her dignified sitting posture, she let her gaze travel farther.

Among those “pedestrians,” apart from werewolves, there were upright-walking bears, languid cats, strange people whose faces were colorful spiders, giant rats with crimson eyes, pythons flicking their tongues, and some kind of canine creature that examined every passerby with a gaze filled with mating desire…

They either wore top hats and trench coats, or complicated, exquisite, dark dresses. They did their utmost to imitate humans in every detail, yet could not truly make themselves human.

The carriage traveled beneath the dim night, weaving between one “pedestrian” after another and all kinds of Gothic buildings. Very soon, it arrived before a church at the very center of the city.

The church was more than eighty meters tall, supported by one black pillar after another. A certain number of skulls were embedded in each pillar. Some came from humans, while others belonged to different creatures, but all of their hollow eyes were pointed downward, as though they were watching every living being that entered the church.

Like the majority of buildings here, every detail of this church could be called exquisite. Yet the elements composing those details leaned toward nightmares, shock, horror, and mystery.

After stepping down from the carriage and passing through the main entrance, Audrey saw a magnificent yet empty hall.

Deep within the hall stood a gigantic cross. A grayish-white dragon sculpture coiled around it.

Unlike ordinary churches, there were no rows of seats for believers to pray in here, nor any place where candleholders were placed. Before the dragon sculpture, there was only a modest long table, with five chairs on each side. The seats at the head and foot of the table were empty.

Pauli Delrau maneuvered his wheelchair to the very head of the long table, then pointed to his left side.

“Please sit.”

Audrey followed behind him neither quickly nor slowly. After glancing left and right, she casually pulled out a chair and sat down.

Her position was not too near to the president of the Psychology Alchemists, nor too far away. It properly displayed her vigilance without making her appear guilty.

Pauli Delrau raised both hands, clasped them together, and rested them on the surface of the long table.

“Miss Audrey, there are some matters I wish to ask you.”

“Please go ahead.” Audrey turned her head slightly and met the other party’s gaze with her emerald-green eyes.

Delrau nodded almost imperceptibly.

“I wish to know how you advanced to Sequence 4 Manipulator. Where did your potion formula and Beyonder characteristic come from?”

Audrey answered frankly,

“They came from a transaction.

“A certain commissioner hoped to obtain help from a demigod of the Spectator pathway and paid the Manipulator potion formula and Beyonder characteristic in advance.”

Delrau immediately gave a laugh.

“Such a thing actually happened? Those terms are so generous that it sounds like a father searching for an excuse to give his daughter a gift.

“May you tell me exactly what help you provided?”

“Encircling and killing another demigod. In that matter, mental control…