While brutally stomping on Hanass beneath his feet, Silas Londor racked his brain for a solution.
Simply injuring Hanass's physical body wouldn't work, since the man would keep regenerating.
He needed to approach this from a mysticism angle. But the so-called demon-hunting bullets from earlier hadn't been effective enough. He needed something more powerful.
Come to think of it, Hanass had turned into this grotesque form after gaining abilities from the True Creator.
I'm a Secrets Supplicant, so maybe the potion's knowledge includes something about this.
Silas rapidly searched through the mystical knowledge he'd absorbed during the carriage ride, and sure enough, he found something!
In the section on rituals, he discovered one that perfectly matched Hanass's current condition.
The ritual was called "Descent of the Sanctuary."
Descent of the Sanctuary, an evil ritual used to enhance oneself. It required the caster to sacrifice the lives of two close relatives to receive the True Creator's blessing.
If successful, the True Creator would send down a corrupting aura into the caster's body, helping fuse the heads of those two relatives onto him.
These heads would gain various strange effects like "Words of Filth," "Amplified Chanting," and "Physical Enhancement," greatly increasing the caster's abilities.
Using close relatives as sacrifices? What a twisted ritual. Even among the many dark rituals known to Secrets Supplicants, this ranked among the most extreme.
But the ritual had already succeeded. How could he stop it?
After a moment's thought, Silas suddenly had a bold idea.
The only reason these two heads could remain fused was because of the corrupting aura the True Creator had left inside Hanass's body.
That being the case, if he could extract that aura, Hanass would naturally be finished!
With this realization, he stopped his attack. Reaching up to his ear, he dabbed at the fresh blood trickling out, using it as paint to draw a pattern on his right palm.
It was a wildly blooming blood-red rose.
At the center of its layered petals stood an inverted cross. The design was simple, yet gave off a sense of prosperity, corruption, and twisted evil.
This was the True Creator's holy emblem.
With obvious revulsion, Silas finished drawing the distorted symbol, then opened his palm and aimed it at Hanass. He would use himself as a vessel to extract the True Creator's aura.
Based on everything that had happened so far, he guessed that the aura would be more drawn to his own body.
Moreover, he had that illusory tidal surge protecting him from within. The corrupting aura wouldn't be able to take effect!
"You blasphemer!" Hanass cursed.
Silas paid him no mind. Instead, using a language he himself didn't quite understand, he whispered:
"Praise the Lord's rebirth. Corruption is the salvation of all."
With that, he acted decisively, pressing his bloodied palm against Hanass's forehead.
"Ahhhhhhh!"
The moment their skin made contact, Hanass let out a piercing wail. His body's surface instantly turned crimson red, like a cooked shrimp arching its back and struggling desperately.
The two human faces shrieked in unison. After just a few convulsions, he stopped moving entirely.
His body became like a heated candle, melting into a pool of putrid sludge.
Silas didn't fare much better.
An evil, filthy aura rushed through his palm and into his body, surging straight toward his head.
Everywhere it passed brought excruciating pain, as if countless tiny mouths were gnawing at his flesh and blood.
He watched helplessly as the skin on the back of his hand split open with a "crack," exposing the bright red muscle and pale yellow fat beneath.
The tear extended up his arm, and vaguely, those tissues seemed to begin writhing and mutating.
Fortunately, at that moment, the corrupting aura collided with the illusory tide in his mind.
The tidal surge wrapped around the aura, consuming it while simultaneously dissipating itself. In just a few seconds, they canceled each other out and vanished into nothingness.
With the True Creator's aura gone, the exposed flesh on Silas's arm stopped writhing and mutating.
Instead, it slowly began to heal and knit back together.
Just as I thought.
Silas felt a wave of weakness wash over him. He simply sat down on the floor, breathing heavily.
That illusory tide really could block the True Creator's corruption, just like when he'd first drunk the potion and nearly gone mad.
He didn't know what it represented, but instinctively felt it must be something very important.
Maybe it's my transmigrator benefit, like a fixed SAN value or something.
Silas thought with self-deprecating humor.
The hall was in complete shambles. He sat there miserably, and a few meters away across the corpse, Klein lay heavily injured and unable to rise, looking at him with some surprise.
Their eyes met, creating an awkward moment between them.
Should I say something?
Fortunately, the sound of a hurried carriage outside broke the tension. Several chaotic footsteps rang out before the carriage even stopped, continuing until their owners burst through the door.
Silas looked back to see it was Dunn Smith's group, who had left earlier.
"What... what is this?"
Leonard stared in shock at the devastation in the hall and Hanass's horrifying corpse, momentarily speechless.
Silas gave a bitter laugh. Meeting Dunn's deep, astonished gaze, he said with a tone of helplessness and complaint:
"Captain Dunn... what took you so long?"
---
"So you're saying you used your knowledge as a Secrets Supplicant to take down the enhanced Hanass?"
Stepping across the corroded floorboards, Dunn asked slowly.
Shattered fine china, overturned solid wood furniture, partitions burned through with large holes.
The once tastefully decorated Black Thorn Security Company hall now looked utterly dilapidated, as if it had been ransacked by a gang of thugs.
The injured Klein and unconscious Royale had been taken to the back for treatment, leaving only Hanass's supine corpse on the floor, or perhaps it should be called a liquid now.
"Well, it was mainly thanks to the two Nighthawks," Silas said with a smile.
For some reason, being stared at by Dunn's deep eyes made him feel slightly uncomfortable. "I just found an opening to ambush him, and happened to know how to resolve the ritual."
He recounted the events in detail.
Dunn listened calmly, occasionally interjecting to ask about specific battle details.
When Silas finished, Dunn picked up the cane Silas had used to beat Hanass and walked over to the pool of flesh that was Hanass.
Hanass had completely melted, leaving only his tattered, corroded black robe spread across the flesh.
In this flat expanse of gore, two head-sized bulges pressed up under the robe, looking extremely conspicuous.
Dunn gripped the cane and extended it toward the flesh, stirring it. Using the cane's tip, he cautiously lifted a corner of the black robe and looked inside.
After seeing what the two bulges actually were, his eyes flickered with what seemed like an almost inaudible sigh.
"Leonard," he called out.
"What is it, Captain?"
Leonard had picked up a broom and was leisurely sweeping up ceramic shards from the floor. Hearing Dunn's call, he looked up.
"Go to the police station and find Inspector Tolle. Tell him we have a third crime scene and need him to come handle it."
"Yes, sir."
After Leonard put down the broom and donned his coat, he couldn't help but laugh.
"I can already imagine Inspector Tolle's face when he hears the news. Heh, three crime scenes in one night. He's going to lose his mind."
Hearing this, Silas also recalled the grim-faced police officers cleaning up the previous scenes.
Wait, three scenes? He paused, then quickly realized. "Captain Dunn, did you go to Hanass's house but not find him, only discovering a blood sacrifice scene?"
"That's right."
Dunn stared down at Hanass's remains.
"It's truly strange. Why would Hanass wake up in the middle of the night, perform a blood sacrifice on his family, and then precisely locate the Black Thorn Security Company here? I can't figure it out at all."
What should have been a simple arrest had nearly led to disastrous consequences.
They'd missed each other by sheer coincidence, leaving headquarters vulnerable. If not for Silas's unexpected contribution, the outcome would have been unthinkable.
It was almost like... a coincidence filled with malice.
---
[Sirius and Hanass are both characters from the original work; everyone should still remember them]
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~ Push the story forward with your Power Stones