Chapter 39: Winter Gifts Day

Chapter 39: Winter Gifts Day

The cloud hanging in midair scattered as abruptly as it had gathered, and everything inside Saint Wind Cathedral returned to normal.

In a nearby corner, Klein raised a hand and rubbed his forehead, the corner of his mouth twitching as he muttered, “Fine, if You’re not giving it to me, then You’re not giving it to me… But why did You have to strike my marionette dead…”

He immediately breathed out, and his figure swiftly faded and vanished. The image from the gaps of history was close to reaching its limit anyway. After all, there was a clear difference between a Scribe’s reproduction of high-level abilities and the original. For a Sequence 6 to summon a Sequence 3 placed an extremely heavy burden upon Forsi, even if an Ancient Scholar could transfer his consciousness over and reduce the consumption.

…

In the outskirts of Backlund, downstream along the Tasok River.

Leonard had hidden away his Red Gloves and was walking slowly toward a certain place.

Suddenly, inside his mind, Pallez Zoroast’s slightly aged voice sounded.

“How has that former colleague of yours been recently?”

Remembering the exchange at the previous Tarot Gathering, Leonard lowered his voice.

“He just avoided another trap set by Amon’s avatars. He is currently pursuing certain truths in the Forsaken Land of the Gods.”

After hearing this, Pallez Zoroast did not speak again and simply let Leonard continue onward.

…

After setting up the special coordinates, Forsi was thrown back into the real world by Gehrman Sparrow’s messenger.

“I feel so tired, but I only woke up a short while ago… It must be that high-Sequence Beyonder abilities consume too much spirituality…” Forsi covered her mouth with one hand and yawned, her face haggard as she looked at Xio.

“That is possible,” Xio agreed with her friend’s judgment.

Her intuition told her that the Gehrman Sparrow projection that had been summoned was definitely not simple. It might even have been equivalent to a saint.

After hesitating briefly, Xio said, “Sleep a while longer. Don’t attempt advancement in this state.

“In one of the cases I judged before, the murderer had a perverted mind. He deliberately made his friends, his students, and the homeless people he took in consume potions while under all kinds of negative conditions, watching them lose control and mutate into every kind of monster—disgusting, terrifying monsters.”

“…What was that guy’s goal?” Forsi listened blankly for a second.

“Two goals. First, to observe whether the loss of control caused by the same potion was identical in different people. Second, to record the corresponding scenes in oil paintings. He believed that kind of madness, pain, and distortion possessed unmatched beauty and could stimulate his strongest creative passion.” Xio recalled the trial from back then, feeling both hatred and a strange lingering fear. “He was an utter lunatic.”

“A person like that deserves humane destruction!” Forsi shivered merely from imagining it, then bared her teeth and asked, “Was he a cultist?”

“Perhaps, but there were no clues… On the surface, he was an outstanding painter with an international reputation. If more than five of his students and friends hadn’t disappeared over the past few years and drawn our attention, the matter might not have been discovered until he went completely mad and lost control as a monster.” At that point, Xio suddenly paused. Then she continued, “When the law-enforcement team arresting him opened his hidden basement, all of them vomited. There were terrifying mutated corpses placed one after another, and oil paintings hanging one after another—horrifying, yet possessing an uncanny charm…”

“A hateful fellow, but also a very compelling story.” Forsi thought about it and pressed, “Was he a Demon?”

“No. He was a Psychiatrist,” Xio denied her friend’s guess.

“…You sentenced him to death?” Forsi asked expectantly.

Xio shook her head.

“His defense lawyer convinced me that he was…