Echoes of the Past

Chapter 29, the ghoul part, I'm familiar with it.

The crime scene was not far from the city of Karen, located in a wooden house in a village.

Pirion waited outside the cabin with several trusted men.

Upon seeing Suiyue arrive, Pirion merely nodded his chin almost imperceptibly as a greeting. He then stepped aside to open the door to the cabin, his face devoid of any intention of pleasantries, as if behind that door lay a hot potato waiting to be handed over.

Before even entering the house, Suiyue could smell the strong, suffocating stench of blood that permeated the surroundings, making her throat tighten.

At Pirion's instruction, the coroner took a lantern inlaid with a crystal and brought it into the room to provide illumination.

The light pierced the darkness, instantly illuminating the messy ground in the center of the stone house.

Suiyue almost stopped breathing.

In the center of the thick, dark brown filth, lay a mangled body that could hardly be called "human".

Not an inch of skin was intact.

Dense, layered bite marks covered every inch of exposed flesh that Suiyue could see.

The attacker didn't seem to find the silk clothing an eyesore; his sharp teeth gnawed right through it, embedding themselves deep into the flesh.

Suiyue clicked her tongue and said, "Its masseter muscles are quite developed; it's difficult to tear things apart, but it can bite through them."

Like a brutal and picky beast, it impatiently rips out the entrails of its unwanted prey, flings them haphazardly around, and then greedily gnaws around the waist.

The final result was that the object in front of you was as if it had been thrown into a millstone made of countless hungry, sharp teeth, repeatedly crushed, chewed, and utterly destroyed.

Nan'an's consciousness flowed silently through Suiyue's mind.

Thanks to the intensive study he did in the Cave of Kren, his understanding of the Living Eclipse and the Nightmare has deepened considerably.

The masterpiece before us undoubtedly points to a living erosion, where what is happening is the "cannibalism" of living erosion.

Pirion's voice came from outside.

"That's how it was when it was discovered. Apart from the basic autopsy, nothing was moved at the scene. Just sign the incident handover report, and this matter is now yours, Erlu."

Suiyue wanted to tease the "turtle," so she said, "You used emergency contact to call me out just for this?"

"This is nothing?" Pirion's lips twitched. "Living Eclipse and Divine Nightmare are both high-risk events that require close attention. Previously, there were no Evil Deer in Rostarek, so I, the local high-ranking mages, the Knights, and some Mist Breakers worked together to handle it. If Supervisor Suiyue does not intend to take over, I will fill out a report truthfully and deal with it according to the usual procedure."

Pirion felt very aggrieved. Since he took office as consul, there had been very few incidents related to the Living Eclipse in the entire area around Kren, and the security situation was good.

Ever since Suiyue appeared, something has gone wrong.

Nobles are attacked, black mist descends, and living erosion kills.

Trouble came one after another.

Could it be any more complicated?

Could it get any worse?

As if to answer the question in his heart, a guard stepped forward quickly and whispered, "Sir, the Twin Crowns Tearfire Magic Academy has sent someone to request permission to enter the scene."

Pirion's eyes widened suddenly: "What are they doing here? Who leaked the information?"

"They said they heard the corpse was in a terrible state and planned to observe it... They seem to be the faction within the Potions school that's particularly interested in corpses, probably thinking it's a good opportunity for practice..."

Pirion covered his forehead.

Is Takren City some kind of magical place? Why have all sorts of people gathered here for the past few dozen days as if it were a celebration, with one group taking the stage after another?

Thinking of this, Pirion suddenly laughed in anger.

Yes, why is he in such a hurry?

He shouldn't even have been there. As the governor, he no longer needed to take on so much responsibility. If the sky were to fall, Suiyue would hold it up.

As for whether she can handle it well... well, the Crow will be there to back her up.

Pirion casually straightened his collar, and as he was about to leave, a pair of hands reached out from inside the house and grabbed him.

It is Suiyue.

She had arrived at the door at some point, with a mysterious expression on her face, and was taking something out of her backpack with her other hand.

Pirion glanced over instinctively and saw two large, curved bull horns with a smooth, jade-like texture...

"Get rid of the evergreen deer's antlers, just like last time," Suiyue said directly and frankly. "I'm short of money right now that I've just taken office."

Pirion found it absurd; how could he not have money? He clearly remembered…

Hmm, what did I remember?

"Is this a test arranged by the Raven...?" he couldn't help but think. "Never mind..."

Pirion agreed to the request to "dispose of the stolen goods" and fled the place of trouble as if he were escaping.

"It's good that they've left; it'll be easier for us to talk without outsiders."

As soon as Suiyue turned around, she saw Nan'an straightening the deformed, almost bent and broken spine of the corpse with skillful and efficient technique.

Nan'an said, "Your reaction was better than I expected; you weren't actually scared out of your wits by the scene."

Suiyue ran her fingers through her hair, scratching: "Actually, my scalp is still tingling, but for some reason, the thought of you inside me makes me feel especially at ease... Did you notice anything in the details?"

"The killer's true intention was to eat."

"Red, white, all sorts of random things have been thrown onto the roof beams. Are you trying to tell me the other person was just hungry?"

"Because his goal was the 'Fragment of the Nightmare' inside the other party's body, and eating the fragment was his true intention. As for the death of the victim during the hunt, it was not within his consideration... In fact, I think at that time, he had lost himself and only knew how to act according to his instincts."

Since the arrival of the black mist, a completely new power, entirely different from magic, has emerged in this world.

Unlike magic, which requires chanting, runes, materials, or interaction with elements, it is more like a miracle.

The miracles performed by the Divine Nightmare and the Living Eclipse cannot be observed to dissipate energy through normal channels, as if the "exchange" was never completed during the process.

The power appeared out of thin air, erupted out of thin air, and then silently subsided and disappeared.

In the depths of the churning black mist, the "Eye of Aging" cast a glance without warning, and time withered in the place where its gaze fell.

In the cold underground space of the Kren Cave, cat food is just a meal, and the deadly wounds are healed as soon as they are eaten.

During the process, he could not feel any ripples of magic flow, nor could he detect any trace of energy conversion.

As if in the blink of an eye, the rules they knew were rewritten, and the result of the correction by the power of the Nightmare God was directly presented to everyone.

In Nan'an's increasingly clear understanding, calling this power "superpower" is perhaps the most appropriate term.

It doesn't follow the concept of equivalent exchange as understood by Nora the sorceress; rather, it's more like an granted, unreasonable authority.

Initially, faced with the black mist and the nightmares lurking within, the Nora people felt only the purest fear, stemming from the unknown.

That's an instinctive reaction to something incomprehensible.

However, time is the most wondrous solvent; it can settle fear, and it can also precipitate other things.

As time went on, the Fog Breakers obtained "Fragments of the Nightmare God" from the depths of the black fog, and many things began to become subtle.

To this day, no one knows which mad soul was the first to conceive the idea of ​​implanting these bizarre fragments from the mist into their own flesh and blood.

What kind of despair and greed, or the courage of curiosity, or pure ignorance would that require?

The "first person" succeeded.

He realized with a mixture of horror and elation that as the fragments of the Nightmare God fused with flesh and blood, the all-pervasive corrosive power of the black mist actually lessened.

The fragments of the Nightmare God acted like a thin film, protecting the host.

Moreover, by using the fragments of the Divine Nightmare fused within the body as a medium, the host himself can also draw upon that miraculous power.

When a will is clear and strong enough, power flows out naturally, as if it were meant to be controlled in this way.

This feeling is too easy, even unsettling.

It was as if the supreme, complete authority of a god had been shattered, and the fragments scattered across the world like meteors.

Thus, even an innocent child might unintentionally pick up a piece, hold it in their palm, and witness its awe-inspiring power that would make ordinary people tremble.

No… Nan'an felt it was more like giving each clueless child a fully loaded semi-automatic rifle.

Chaos, madness, and danger are all foreseeable.

But the original living erosioners clearly did not think so.

They were ecstatic, they were excited, they were immersed in this divinely inspired glory, and they firmly believed that they had found the way to salvation.

A path that does not require succumbing to the black mist, but instead allows one to harness its power and ultimately illuminate the entire world.

They once traveled with great enthusiasm, proclaiming that "the path to salvation lies within," hoping that everyone would move towards the light.

Until the day the cost is discovered.

The favor bestowed by the gods is never a generous blessing, but rather a cruel selection process.

Not everyone can maintain their individuality after implantation of fragments.

Each fragment, deep within the flesh, causes indescribable pain that can become a scraper, shaving away layer by layer the parts that belong to "human".

Ultimately, the host's rationality, memory, and emotions are completely erased, leaving only an empty shell driven by instinct, wandering the world.

The Spirit Erosion was born.

Even if one manages to survive the pain of fusion and successfully acquires special abilities, each use of that power is by no means without cost.

In the dusty archives of the Ellu Institute, the powerful living erosions that had fought against them for many years all ended up with strikingly similar fates.

One by one, they voluntarily ventured into the deepest part of the black fog.

It was as if the ultimate answer lay there.

They crave greater power and a more "complete" self. They obsessively believe that within the core of that all-consuming black mist lies a "solution" that can mend everything that is broken.

The records of the Elus end here; no one has ever seen them return.

"Complete" was the word that Huoshi mentioned most often when Nan'an was reviewing the documents.

Their relentless search for and struggle for fragments of the Nightmare God, and even their pursuit of crystals with higher purity, is not simply about becoming stronger, but about completing the puzzle.

Just as the Nightmare God whispers an irresistible ultimate command to its host the moment it enters the flesh.

It can even transcend "survival".

Then something subtle happened.

Under the strict control of Solitz and Onze, the fragments and crystals of the Nightmare God are kept in the hands of a small number of people and will never circulate in the market.

To obtain the fragments, the living erosions must either enter the black mist or kill their "kin" and take the fragments from their bodies.

Although I'm sorry, when Nan'an was going through the documents, I always felt that they were like the kind of people who harmed each other that I had seen in my past life.

Seeing Nan'an staring intently at the corpse, Suiyue simply squatted quietly to the side—she was well aware that she couldn't help, so she knew that not being a hindrance was the right thing to do.

Even if Nan'an's thoughts were wandering, and she squatted there all night, she... well, let her go hungry, being with him was the most important thing!

Seeing Nan'an take a deep breath, Suiyue swallowed.

"It's rare to see you stay quiet for so long."

"Wow, you finally spoke! I've been so bored... So, so, seeing you staring so intently at the corpse, you must have sensed something, right? Tell me quickly, anything is fine, I'm so bored..."

Nan'an only said a few words, but Suiyue's words were like a vast ocean that overwhelmed him.

"I can roughly picture the scene of him being murdered."

"You have this skill?"

"I'm an expert in cannibalism."

"?"

"?"

Suiyue subconsciously took two steps back, swallowed hard, and hurriedly covered...her chest?

"What kind of reaction is that? And even if I were to eat you, it wouldn't be there."

"Wow, have you seriously thought about this behavior?!" Suiyue exclaimed in surprise.

Nan'an explained irritably, "There used to be a ghoul expert in the Red Rat Adventurer Group."

"This guy can be an expert?!" Suiyue's scalp tingled. Every word Nan'an said was pushing the limits of her understanding. "What do you mean? You said everyone in the Red Rat Adventure Team has normal values!"

"There are always some strange people joining the team during personnel rotation periods," Nan'an explained. "Our combat intensity is very high, and people often get injured. To fill the gaps, we will find some powerful outside helpers, share a portion of the bounty with them, and continue to carry out the commissions."

Suiyue finally understood: "So, you hired a ghoul?"

"He's a vampire, strictly speaking, a vampire with pica," Nan'an said. "Other vampires only drink blood, but he skins and eats flesh... We only found out after he joined the team, and we spent almost half a month with him before we asked him to leave."

As an adventurer, Nan'an had seen all sorts of extraordinary people over the past six years, but this pica vampire was relatively less "divine" than him.

Moreover, he was only interested in corpses and had no interest in torturing his prey, so he could be considered chaotic neutral.

In short, Nan'an learned a great deal from this pica master, some of which he hoped he would never need to use in his life. So much so that when he was performing the autopsy, the image of the master lecturing him, explaining how this pica master, in a state of loss of self, relied on instinct to tear apart its prey and eat flesh and blood, naturally appeared in his mind.

It was so realistic and detailed that he had to work on two parallel tracks, recalling the images and texts left behind by the Bewitching Raven.

The job of hunting deer is indeed easy to lose sanity. If it weren't for Nan'an's rich experience in headhunting in his previous life... tsk tsk.