In the pitch-black night, on the flowing river, atop the frigid ice, Silas gasped for breath as he stared at Madam Sharon's corpse with its skull cap blown off.
Steam still rose from her brain matter, but the blood that had flowed out had already frozen to the ice surface.
I feel like I've seen a scene similar to this before.
Silas thought with bitter amusement.
After catching his breath and closing his eyes to meditate and recover some spirituality, he drew his dagger and shakily got to his feet.
The gunshots had gone off a while ago.
Though the waterway was fairly secluded, curious people might still come to investigate. He had to dispose of the body quickly.
Silas walked to Madam Sharon's corpse, calculating the best way to cut.
At that moment, a thought suddenly surfaced in his mind.
Maybe I should perform a séance first and extract more intelligence from her.
Whether it's insider information about the Demoness Sect or details about the human trafficking, even if I can't tell the Captain, at least I won't be so passive.
Séance was an ability that spiritualists like Daly excelled at.
However, "Secrets Suppliants" and "Seers" like Silas or Klein could barely manage it using rituals.
But it had to be done quickly. If the target's spirituality dissipated completely, it would become impossible.
With this in mind, Silas didn't hesitate. He used his dagger to create a spiritual wall around himself and the corpse.
Then he sprinkled essential oils and herbal powders, softly chanting the honorific name of the Evernight Goddess in Hermes.
"She is the Evernight Goddess, more sublime than the starry sky, more eternal than eternity..."
During the chanting, Silas couldn't help feeling a bit guilty.
I'm bypassing the organization, acting on my own, and still borrowing the Goddess's power.
She won't punish me, will she? Probably not. She's already provided help, so she must tacitly permit me a certain degree of freedom.
Silas comforted himself this way and continued the ritual, chanting the incantation:
"I pray for the power of the night;"
"I pray for the power of concealment;"
"I pray that You allow me to communicate with the spirit of this evil witch."
The Hermes incantation echoed through the enclosed space, and terrifying yet hidden power descended, flowing into Silas's body.
His azure eyes rapidly turned pitch black, the darkness spreading quickly to consume even the whites of his eyes, making him appear both fearsome and mysterious.
Through these pure black eyes, Silas saw the spirit that had not yet dissipated from Madam Sharon's body.
She floated there in confusion, only showing a reaction of venomous hatred when her gaze met Silas's.
Silas naturally paid no mind to a dead person's resentment. He reached out to touch Madam Sharon, and the Goddess's power connected him with her spirit.
The scene before him changed abruptly.
In the corner of a chaotic neighborhood, a clean-cut man whose appearance bore some resemblance to Madam Sharon carefully examined a note. Written on it in Loen script were several lines:
"Sequence 9: Assassin."
"Main ingredients: Four claws of an adult Nighthowl Cat, all feathers of a Concealment Nighthawk."
"Supplementary ingredients: 80 milliliters of pure water, 5 drops of white mandala juice, 5 grams of night vanilla powder, 10 grams of powdered adult Nighthowl Cat whiskers."
The scene shifted and changed.
The man appeared in a dark alley. His appearance looked much more mature and sinister, cold and vicious.
Standing opposite him was an extremely alluring woman. He concealed his lust for the woman, bowing his head respectfully as he accepted a note she handed him. Written on it was:
"Sequence 8: Instigator.
Main ingredients: Heart of a Siren, poison sac of a Shadow Lurker.
Supplementary ingredients: 100 milliliters of pure water, Siren's syrinx, 5 drops of blue mandala juice, 10 grams of water fern powder, one unpeeled walnut."
The scene continued to change. Finally, Madam Sharon appeared before Silas.
She reclined lazily in a chair, her curves graceful and captivating. He saw her say to Trissy below, "I've almost got that councilman under control.
Once he's on our side, too, our transportation routes will become even faster."
On the vanity behind her sat a statue made of white bone.
It depicted a woman with a bizarre yet beautiful form, her hair extending all the way to her ankles.
Each strand was as thick as a snake, with eyes at the ends.
The moment Silas looked at the statue, it reacted. Under the gaslight, luminescence rippled across the statue's surface, all the snake-hair seeming to come alive, writhing.
And at that moment, the head of the bone woman actually began to slowly turn.
She looked at Silas, her hard-boned face seemingly smiling.
"Boom!"
The illusory world collapsed abruptly, and Silas's consciousness returned to the ice surface.
"Ah!"
He clutched his head, letting out a pained scream, as if a blade had split his skull open, exposing his brain directly to the cold air.
It took him a long time before he could struggle to his feet.
In that instant of meeting the statue's gaze, some forbidden knowledge had been forcibly crammed into his mind.
Thinking back on it now, it seemed to be an honorific name.
"The Primordial Demoness's honorific name?"
Silas muttered in disbelief.
The Primordial Demoness, the evil god worshipped by the Demoness Sect.
He had read about Her in the Nighthawk materials. This was an extremely dangerous and terrifying deity who had once brought horrific catastrophe to the world.
Yet this supposed supreme being of the Demoness Sect, upon encountering Silas, the enemy who had just killed Her follower, had, as Her first action, forcibly stuffed Her honorific name into his mind?
As if begging Silas to invoke Her name!
Silas was speechless, just feeling his head throb a bit.
First, the True Creator, then the Hidden Sage and the Primordial Demoness.
Are all these evil gods a little too fond of me?
Speaking of honorific names, when the Secrets Suppliant potion had imparted its knowledge, besides the True Creator, there had been another mysterious existence called Ouroboros.
But that honorific name contained the description "vassal of the True Creator," clearly placing him in the same camp as the True Creator.
Therefore, Silas had never prayed to Him.
If I did pray, who knows, I might gain yet another mysterious existence coveting me.
Forget it, no time to think about this now.
Silas shook his head. Time was pressing. He should extract Madam Sharon's heart first.
So he raised his dagger and approached the corpse with its skull cap blown off.
Anyone who regularly dissects corpses knows that the heart is protected by the rib cage, and extracting it is no easy task.
Coroners often have to use saws to cut through several ribs before they can remove the heart.
Silas expended great effort but couldn't break the ribs. In the end, he simply resorted to ritual, using flesh magic to obtain an intact witch's heart.
But Silas couldn't just take the heart alone, because Miss M, who was constantly monitoring him, would notice something amiss.
Therefore, he made a show of also removing Sharon's other organs, along with her hair and eyes.
To be fair, certain forbidden rituals of the Secrets Suppliants did genuinely require such materials, but Silas wasn't particularly interested in using them, as they seemed too insane.
After finishing all this, Silas didn't rush to leave.
Instead, he collected all of Madam Sharon's possessions, along with the Beyonder characteristic she had precipitated.
Then he used a ritual to interfere with her corpse, preventing anyone from divining or performing a séance to trace clues back to him later.
Only after this did he toss the witch's body into the Tussock River, cross the gradually thawing ice surface, and merge into the shadows of the street.