Chapter 49: Negative Effect

Chapter 49: Negative Effect

After gazing at Mr. X’s corpse for a while, Klein suppressed the impulse to personally loot the spoils of battle. He had the Wraith Senor, standing nearby, take two steps forward and remove the gold ring inlaid with ruby.

This way, even if the items Mr. X carried possessed unimaginable negative effects, they would be borne by the marionette and would not affect Klein himself.

After a careful inspection, Senor returned with the ruby ring, forty-eight pounds in cash, and an ordinary pipe stuffed full of tobacco.

Only this much? A divine envoy of the Aurora Order has only this much on him? Klein looked at the scene in considerable surprise, nearly cursing him as a “pauper.”

Soon, he recovered his calm and used reason to convince himself that such a situation was extremely logical.

Mr. X was a Traveler. He could Record other people’s Beyonder powers and belonged to a very comprehensive type. For a powerhouse like this, even if he had other mystical items, he would definitely tend to record their abilities in advance and not carry them around. That way, he could enjoy the benefits of diverse abilities complementing one another while avoiding the corresponding negative effects and preventing himself from being sabotaged by his own possessions.

Following that line of thought, this ring most likely has some passive or triggered effect.

At that thought, Klein nodded lightly. He had the Wraith Senor pick up Mr. X’s shattered and reassembled head, attach himself to Klein, and follow him back above the gray fog.

After sitting in the Fool’s seat, he no longer feared anything. He directly picked up the gold ring inlaid with ruby and used divination to confirm the actual effects of this mystical item.

“Its name is Blood Flower…

“It lets the wearer control their own flesh and blood on a deeper level. So long as they do not die directly, are not completely purified, and therefore do not lose the ability to control themselves, they can wriggle and recover…

“This is equivalent to granting an instinct. It is a passive effect…

“It seems my previous decision to use Death Knell for the fatal blow was correct. If I hadn’t gone all out, Mr. X might not have truly died. He could have used the extreme pain to awaken himself and break free from a Marionettist’s control… He also considered the weakness of being closer to a spellcaster, with an insufficiently strong body…

“This ring also has some corresponding flesh-and-blood magic. It can be considered quite practical…” Holding the ruby ring in one hand and lightly tapping the edge of the mottled long table with the other, Klein muttered soundlessly to himself.

He then began investigating the negative effect of the Blood Flower ring.

Several dozen seconds later, Klein abruptly opened his eyes and escaped the dream.

“Isn’t this a bit too much of a trap?” he whispered, his expression faintly twisted.

Through the dream divination just now, he had interpreted the Blood Flower ring’s negative influence: at random times, without any pattern, it would cause the wearer to give up thinking and lose their intellect.

Very good. Very “True Creator”… Klein could not help gritting his teeth inwardly.

The negative effect appeared randomly, with no rules and no predictable timing. That meant the Blood Flower ring had absolutely no way to be used safely!

Remembering the earlier scene, Klein felt both angry and amused as he muttered, “Mr. X actually dared to wear a ring like this?

“Well, that makes sense. After converting to the True Creator, he would often lose the ability to think anyway. Since that’s the case, wearing one more ring won’t make things any worse.

“Mm. Losing intellect is not the same as losing rationality. It won’t cause someone to suddenly erupt and attack people, but it will make them appear very rigid and foolish, acting only on instinct.”

Whew… Klein exhaled and decided to toss the Blood Flower ring into the pile of miscellaneous items, so it would no longer irritate him. In his view, this worthless thing was not only impossible for him to use, but impossible to sell. Unless he found someone from the Aurora Order to recycle it—though that would make the True Creator very happy.

Just then, from the corner of his eye, he swept across Admiral of Blood Senor standing nearby.

Klein’s heart stirred. He clapped his hands together.

“How did I not think of that just now? I can’t use it, but I can let my marionette use it. He’s already dead anyway. He obeys everything I command and doesn’t need to think!

“Admiral of Blood and Blood Flower—what a destined pair! Although Senor lost control over his own body because he died, I can provide that control…

“That way, even if he doesn’t have time to Wraithify, and even if his zombie body isn’t strong enough and gets beaten until arms and legs are missing, he can reattach them.

“Of course, for a marionette, that isn’t especially important and doesn’t affect the essence. The main point is to obtain some extra flesh-and-blood magic…”

A few seconds later, in high spirits, Klein made Senor, wearing his old tricorn hat and dark-red coat, pick up the ruby ring from the table and put it on the index finger of his left hand.

After finishing this, Klein had the Wraith return into the gold coin. Then he raised his left palm and spread his fingers.

He was going to release the Interrogator from Creeping Hunger.

This was a promise from long ago.

And when he had obtained Creeping Hunger, this Interrogator had been the final grazed spirit remaining within the glove who had not yet gained release.

Within a faint, chilly wind, a blurry, transparent soul appeared beside the long bronze table.

He was a man in a navy lieutenant commander’s uniform, around thirty years old, with a brown full beard and a face filled with pain and confusion.

“What is your name? Why did you die at Qilangos’s hands?” Klein asked in a low voice.

The man was dazed for a moment before saying, “My name is Andy Haydn, second mate of the Enmat. I died in a sea battle—no, I did not die on the spot. I was captured by a Feysacian, and then I entered that glove of yours…

“I do not know Qilangos. I have not even heard of him.”

When Qilangos obtained Creeping Hunger, this Interrogator was already inside the glove? Because Psychic Piercing was too useful, he never replaced him? I wonder who the owner before Creeping Hunger’s previous owner was…

Rather interested, Klein asked, “Who was the Feysacian who captured you? What did he look like?”

Andy Haydn thought carefully and said, “I do not know his name. I only remember that his epaulettes marked him as a colonel. I remember he had an impressive large nose. His eyes were blue, his hair was a golden-yellow shade, and he was close to two meters tall…”

People like that are very common in Feysac… apart from the colonel part…

After pondering briefly, Klein asked, “Which year did you die?”

Andy Haydn’s figure gradually failed to maintain itself and began dissipating. In the end, he left behind only a single sentence:

“1338…”

“Twelve years ago. Mm. Hurricane Lieutenant Qilangos has been famous for less than ten years… That colonel may have already become a general of the Feysac Empire…” Klein nodded slightly, then discovered that he had not had the time to ask Andy Haydn what his final wish was.

Forget it. Letting him obtain release is already a good deed…

Klein quickly threw the matter to the back of his mind and manifested the World, Gehrman Sparrow.

…

“…Please inform Miss Magician that Mr. X, Louis Wayne, is dead. Have her receive the token and that magic book… When I need them, I will ask her for them again.”

Before Fors’s eyes lay boundless gray fog, and by her ears sounded the World Gehrman Sparrow’s utterly emotionless voice. Although she had already prepared herself somewhat for this news, she still found it unimaginable, almost impossible to accept.

He really succeeded? Was that thunderstorm in the East Borough created by him?

Suppressing the fluctuations in her heart, Fors took advantage of the depth of night and set up the ritual for praying for bestowal in her bedroom.

Not long after, an illusory door formed from candlelight and spiritual materials opened. Two objects flew out and landed lightly upon the table.

Fors looked carefully and nearly screamed. She hurriedly covered her mouth and took two steps back, pressing close to the wall of spirituality.

One of the two objects was Leymano’s Travels. The other was a savage-looking head covered in cracks and seams. It was stained with blood, as if pieced together from fragment after fragment, and faintly flashed with a glass-like reflection.

As someone who had graduated from medical school, and as a doctor who had once worked at a well-known clinic, Fors had seen no small number of corpses. But none had been as nauseating, bizarre, and terrifying as the head before her.

After calming herself, Fors looked at the head again and recognized that it was indeed Louis Wayne.

She first cautiously used astrology to make a final confirmation. Then, with her face twitching slightly, she muttered soundlessly, “Mr. World shattered the target’s head, then pieced it back together bit by bit?”

At that moment, an image involuntarily appeared in Fors’s mind:

The cold Gehrman Sparrow sat before a table, taking up bloodstained fragments of a head one piece at a time, seriously completing a puzzle.

This made Fors shiver involuntarily. For no reason, she felt that the World was a mad killer with severe mental problems.

Shifting her gaze and taking two steps forward, she picked up Leymano’s Travels and casually flipped through it.

Her gaze gradually froze, because the magic book now contained many new pages that seemed related to wind and lightning.

This once again made her think of the fleeting thunderstorm in the East Borough, confirming that it had indeed been caused by Mr. World.

Fors hurriedly turned Leymano’s Travels to the three scorched-yellow pages and discovered that they were blank.

She immediately formed a guess, believing that the World, Gehrman Sparrow, must have used Mr. Fool’s help to record demigod-level Beyonder powers.

Only today did I discover that if I had enough money and resources, I could ask the members of the Tarot Club to help me record different Beyonder abilities. Then Leymano’s Travels would become extremely powerful… But I have no money and no resources… Uh, this time, I can ask Teacher for a reward and say that in order to help him take revenge, I paid quite a price…

After thinking for a while, Fors first thanked Mr. Fool, then asked Him to relay a message to the World:

“…I feel very ashamed. My payment is not equivalent to the difficulty of the mission. Once I receive the reward, I will provide a certain amount of additional compensation.”

After finishing her prayer, Fors ended the ritual and busied herself hiding the head.

“If Xio discovers it, she will definitely imagine a horror story…” Fors, having completed everything, clapped her hands and thought leisurely.

…

When Fors responded, Klein had already returned to the real world and could only hear a blurry female voice.

Even so, he could not suppress the terror and dread rising inside him, because the weakness Death Knell had brought him this time was:

Fear of women!