At night, hazy black clouds covered the bright moon in the sky. In the West Tivian suburbs, a winding river flowing from afar passed over a barren beach and flowed towards the distant City.
On the riverbank far from the Tivian City, a villa stood here. In the dark night surrounded by the sound of tides, Light shone from the villa's windows.
At this moment, inside this villa, in an elegantly decorated room, the injured Davik was lying on the bed. The bandage on his chest was undone, revealing a large scar. Beside Davik, Vanya, dressed in a white Sister's habit, stood with her hand on his chest, concentrating on treating his wounds. Under the warm orange-yellow Light in Vanya's hand, Davik's injuries were slowly healing, and his previously rapid breathing was gradually calming.
On the other side of the room, two men in different clothes were standing. They stood aside indifferently, monitoring Vanya's healing to prevent her from doing anything unusual.
After a period of continuous healing, Vanya breathed a sigh of relief, stood up, and turned to speak to the two men who were monitoring her.
"Mr. Davik's condition is now stable. For the time being, there is no life-threatening danger, but he will still need good rest afterwards."
Vanya said to the two men in the room. After hearing this, the two men exchanged glances, and then one of them spoke to Davik.
"Jones, how do you feel now?"
"Huff... huff... I feel much better than before... Thank you, Sister Vanya... you saved my life again." Davik said, panting, and Vanya replied politely.
"No need to thank me, I am just fulfilling the righteousness of the Holy Mother..."
Vanya replied like this. After seeing her actions, which were like the Holy Mother reborn, the two men who were monitoring her couldn't help but look sideways, thinking that there really were Holy Mother believers like this in the world, who could heal enemies regardless of their side. They must be Holy Mother dependents.
"Mr. Smith has a command. Jones, after your injury is stable, go see him immediately. He is waiting for you in the secret transmission room. Also... after this Sister heals the person, immediately lock her in the dungeon. Miss Sister, you go with him first."
One of the monitoring men said so. Then the other man stepped forward, looked at Vanya twice, and then took her away. Vanya was led out of the room after glancing at Davik on the sickbed with a hint of hurriedness.
Afterwards, it was time for Davik to see Smith. Dorothy, who didn't know the location of the secret transmission room at this time, rolled her eyes and made Davik, who was sitting on the sickbed, slowly put on his clothes, then slowly walk down from the bed. After that, he stood unsteadily and stumbled towards the monitoring man, falling. The man immediately reacted and helped Davik up.
"What's wrong? Jones? Aren't your injuries healed yet?"
"Huff... huff... No, the injuries are fine, it's just that my body is still very weak, uh... it might be difficult for me to walk by myself like this. How about you help me to the secret transmission room to see Mr. Smith?"
Under Dorothy's control, Davik said so. Hearing Davik's words, the monitoring man paused. After looking at Davik's weak appearance, he agreed to help him out all the way.
Supported by the man, Davik began to walk through the villa. After turning countless corners, they arrived at the end of a corridor. Here, the man activated a candlestick mechanism. Then, a painting hanging on the wall depicting a banquet opened up, and Davik was helped inside.
Behind the painting was a spacious secret transmission room. The floor of the secret transmission room was paved with red. On the arched ceiling of the secret transmission room was the Wolf Blood Society symbol painted with blood, a wolf head within an inverted triangle. In the depth of the secret transmission room, there was a cup-shaped altar made of human skeletons stained with fresh blood. Inside the altar was wriggling flesh and blood. Dorothy had seen similar altars before, in the homes of Igwinte's Holy Communion Society members. These blood-colored altars were their tools for remote communication with each other.
At this time, in the secret transmission room, on a sofa by the fireplace, sat a middle-aged man. He wore a dark red suit, had brown hair, a serious face, and animal claw marks on his thin face. Dorothy knew at a glance that this was the form of the Werewolf who had brought them here after he had reverted. His name was Smith.
"It seems you are still very weak. Sit down."
After seeing Davik arrive, Smith spoke, then pointed to a seat in front of him. Davik, controlled by Dorothy, also nodded in response and was helped to sit down.
"Mr. Smith, I'll take my leave now."
After escorting Davik, the man who had been monitoring quickly left the secret transmission room. For a moment, only Davik and Smith remained in the room. After Smith took out a pipe, lit it, took a couple of puffs, and exhaled the smoke, he spoke.
"Davik, you were captured by those Black Dogs for so long... Tell me honestly, did you confess anything?" Smith said to Davik with a stern look. After hearing this, Davik paused slightly, then replied.
"No, don't worry, Mr. Smith. Those Black Dogs didn't get anything out of me. After I was ambushed by the Black Dog in the Basket District, I fainted, and as soon as I woke up, I pretended to have amnesia."
"Pretending to have amnesia? Your mind is quite agile... Did they really believe it?" Smith took another puff of smoke and continued speaking, while Davik nodded and continued to respond.
"Yes... To be honest, I had some research on amnesia before, so I acted very convincingly. They all believed it. To get information, they tried every means to make me recover my memory, even fancifully thinking of making me look at old things to see if it could stimulate me to remember something. So they took me to their Main Bureau, but I didn't expect to be rescued on the way back. Captain, where did you get the news about me?"
Davik, controlled by Dorothy, asked curiously, and the other party answered directly.
"Of course, it was bought from the Eight-Pointed Nest at a high price. They don't know what means they used to plant a very deep informant on the Black Dog side, and the intelligence came from there."
"Inside the An-Yin Main Bureau... a very deep informant? Mr. Smith, does this mean... you knew I was in the hospital from the beginning and planned the rescue?"
Davik continued to ask, and Smith immediately replied.
"No, we only learned about your whereabouts this afternoon. At first, we commissioned them to investigate information about you. Their reply was that it might not be possible to find it and that we might have to wait a long time. Originally, we waited for several days without any news, but suddenly today, we got very accurate intelligence. It feels like their informant seems a bit unstable."
Smith said this. Hearing his words, Dorothy couldn't help but be startled, thinking that before, the Eight Point Nest had even dispatched intelligence personnel like Grego, who hadn't fully infiltrated the Main Bureau yet, to find Davik's whereabouts. This showed that the intelligence capability of their very deep informant seemed indeed unstable. If he could provide information steadily, he wouldn't have needed Grego to carry out intelligence gathering work.
"How did they manage to infiltrate the An Yin Bureau so deeply?" Dorothy continued to make Davik mutter thoughtfully, and Smith took another puff of smoke before continuing to speak.
"I don't know, the branch paths of the Eight-Pointed Nest are inherently very good at infiltration, they might have some unique skills in this area... Rather than how the Black Dog Bureau was infiltrated by those spiders, I am more concerned about how your whereabouts were exposed. Maybe we have been infiltrated now too."
"While I was pretending to have amnesia, they made me identify Alex's photo... I think they might have found me from clues there."
"Alex..." Hearing Davik's words, Smith's face darkened, and then he spoke with disgust.
"Hmph, that idiot. He thought he could toy with the Black Dog and Adele after getting the Butcher's toy. Not only did he fall, but he also implicated others..."
Smith said angrily, seemingly very dissatisfied with Alex's unauthorized actions against Adele, which ultimately led to the failure. After taking a few more puffs of his cigarette in anger, he thought for a moment and continued.
"Oh right, where is the Sister we brought back?"
"After healing my injuries, she has been locked up in the dungeon," Davik replied to Smith. Upon hearing this, Smith immediately spoke again.
"Now that your injuries are stable, just in case, quickly get rid of that Sister. After all, she's from the Church."
Smith said this. After hearing his words, Dorothy was startled and immediately controlled Davik to speak.
"Mr. Smith, we can actually keep that Sister. She has important value for us."
"Important value? You said that before... Now explain it more clearly, what value does she have exactly?"
Pointing his pipe at Davik, Smith spoke quite seriously, and Dorothy also had Davik answer solemnly after slightly adjusting his tone.
"Mr. Smith, you might not know this, but the Holy Mother faith that the Sister named Vanya follows is not orthodox Church teaching..."
"Not orthodox Church teaching? You mean..."
Listening to Davik's words, Smith's eyes darted, and he looked at him with interest as he spoke, while Davik continued to answer.
"When I was in the hospital, I was mainly cared for by Sister Vanya. Occasionally, when Black Dog was not around, I would communicate with her. I found that her faith in the Holy Mother is actually problematic... For example, she often sees the Holy Mother as her true mother..."
With suggestive words, Davik spoke to Smith. Smith was slightly stunned after hearing this, and then said as if remembering something.
"Seeing the Holy Mother as a birth mother... For people of the Church, this is otherworld. Could this Sister have been affected by the Spirit Sight of 'true crimson mother'? Is she related to Kirk?"
Smith said this, and Davik immediately affirmed.
"Yes! That's right, Mr. Smith! I asked that Sister. She used to work in the Historical Scripture Department of the Church and was Kirk's former subordinate. However, she was later promoted to work in the hospital, but she still kept in touch with Kirk after being transferred out.
"According to her, the last time Kirk attempted to corrupt his subordinates with the secret transmission, she saw some of it when she returned to the Historical Scripture Department to reminisce. Therefore, she was also successfully corrupted. However, because she was not working in the Historical Scripture Department at the time, when Kirk finished, the Church's collective cleanup of Spirit Sight among Historical Scripture Department personnel did not reach her. So, she has always secretly been an otherworld, someone we can develop..."
Davik spoke to Smith like this. Listening to Davik's words, Smith paused, then his eyes lit up as he spoke.
"Really? When I was pretending to be asleep, that Sister prayed next to me. I could tell her prayer was problematic, so I thought about whether she was related to Kirk. For a while after that, I tried to communicate with her when Black Dog wasn't around, and as expected, I discovered her secret..."
Under Dorothy's control, Davik spoke to Smith, trying to mislead him like this. Seeing Smith's reaction, Dorothy knew she had misled him correctly this time.
Deacon Kirk, who was Vanya's former superior, attempted to corrupt his subordinates using Spirit Sight more than a month ago, in order to obtain a joint letter and steal a secret transmission from the Church's library. Under Dorothy's control at the time, this Kirk was reported by Vanya. Kirk himself fled and was intercepted by Dorothy, while Vanya was promoted to Black Rank based on the merit of her report.
In this incident, Kirk had a supporting society outside the Church. After obtaining the stolen secret transmission, Kirk's plan was to send the secret transmission to the supporting society outside for research and then retrieve it later. After the matter was exposed, his first action was to flee the Church with the secret transmission and seek refuge with that society. The secret transmission Kirk used to corrupt the members of the Historical Scripture Department was very likely also provided by this society.
At that time, Dorothy began to suspect what this society was. The secret transmission provided by this society was suspected of twisting the Holy Mother towards the direction of the cup mother, thus possibly related to the Placenta lineage. When Kirk fled the Church, the place he was going was Sitivian. According to Adele's intelligence, Wolf Blood Society's main sphere of influence in Tivian is in West Tivian. Alex's previous stronghold was in Sitivian, and this stronghold of Smith in the suburbs is also on the outskirts of Sitivian. Coupled with many reasons such as the Church's Holy Mother faction secretly supporting Adele's Crimson Heart against Wolf Blood Society...
Therefore, Dorothy had ample reason to believe that the society that cooperated with Kirk, that supported Kirk... and even corrupted Kirk, was most likely Wolf Blood Society. The words just spoken were exactly Dorothy testing Smith, and the result was that her guess was correct.
Wolf Blood Society was also attempting to infiltrate the Church and wanted to obtain a certain secret transmission from the Church's library. After obtaining this information, Dorothy had a way to persuade Smith.
"I didn't expect... that guy Kirk... still has influence left in the Church."
Listening to Davik's words, Smith murmured and nodded. Seeing his reaction, Dorothy immediately controlled Davik to speak with renewed effort.
"Mr. Smith, losing Kirk is a great loss for us, but now there is an opportunity to make up for that loss right before us. I heard that Sister say that the Church is currently worried about who will manage the Historical Scripture Department afterwards. Since that Sister used to work in the Historical Scripture Department and is now Black Rank, it is very likely that she will take over Kirk's position and become the new head once the Historical Scripture Department returns to normal. If we can control that Sister just like we controlled Kirk, then we may still be able to get things out of the Church's library!"
Davik spoke to Smith like this. After hearing Davik's imaginative words, Smith remained silent for a long time. After taking several puffs of his cigarette, he nodded slightly and said.
"Hmm... what you said does make some sense. If that Sister can really replace Kirk, then it would be ideal for us...
"However, the prerequisite is that Sister must be reliable. I need to personally check the degree to which she has been corrupted by Spirit Sight. If she is indeed affected by the Spirit Sight of 'true crimson mother' as you said, then I will report to the higher-ups and continue the infiltration work on the Tivian Church, letting her try to get out the original document of 'true crimson mother'."
...
Just as Smith and Davik, controlled by Dorothy, were plotting and talking in the villa, at this moment, in the night sky of the distant City, gusts of strong wind were howling.
Carried by the storm, countless figures were rapidly flying towards the western sky. Among them, Hunters wearing black Hunter uniforms were the main force, but there were also some martial artists dressed in armor and white robes, resembling knights. On their white robes, the sun symbol of Shining Light Church was printed.
In the sky far above them, a crow was soaring, looking into the distance at the figures flying, supported by the storm.
Below the crow, on a certain path, a carriage was also heading west at a brisk pace. Dorothy sat inside, remotely observing the flying figures in the distance through the vision of the crow Corpse Puppet in the sky.
"This time... not only An Yin Bureau, but even people from the Church have been called? It seems this stronghold of Wolf Blood Society is also doomed. But before they arrive, I'll have to stall for time."
Inside the carriage, Dorothy, who was observing the overall situation, also murmured.