"They've been dead for a while now."
The man clad in armor, around thirty years old with a cold and hard temperament, chiseled features, and an aura that seemed to have emerged from mountains of corpses and seas of blood, spoke calmly.
Beside him, a lady dressed in a form-fitting robe with her long hair styled up, gentle and earth-like in nature, had appeared at some point by this riverside. Where she stood, flowers bloomed in clusters, displaying the warmth and inclusiveness of nature itself.
"It does indeed appear to be some kind of evil sacrificial ritual. Mr. Augustus, didn't you notice anything on your end?"
This lady asked softly.
The one responsible for examining the corpses was a young man wearing a top hat and an impeccable formal suit, with a high nose bridge, broad forehead, and healthy wheat-colored skin. Rather than appearing battle-hardened, he seemed more like a gentleman moving through high-society soirées.
He possessed a pair of golden eyes, and beneath those eyes that seemed to conceal lightning, he continuously surveyed the surrounding corpses.
After confirming there were no omissions, he removed the gloves from his hands that had just touched the flesh and blood, throwing them into the river completely contaminated with blood.
He said casually, "Recently, Beyonders of the Abyss pathway have been attempting to incite warfare between nations. I wonder if this counts as such."
The gloves fell into the river water, blooming with golden light, purifying the lingering unwillingness, distortion, corruption, and other emotions there, cleansing the spirits of these deceased.
The lady, gentle as the earth itself, picked up flowers from the ground. Upon hearing Augustus's words, the flowers bloomed in her hands, and petals fell into the bloody water.
"May the Mother Goddess protect them."
This lady whispered some prayer, while the two men beside her used this time to organize the intelligence they had on hand as much as possible, conducting limited exchanges with demigods from other nations.
"A Desire Apostle wanting to trigger war? Those devil-worshipping lunatics from the Rose Redemption have really been getting more and more rampant lately." The Intis demigod clad in armor, possessing a tough-guy temperament, said coldly.
"The devils of the Rose Redemption have been making quite a few small moves recently. However, as far as I know, hasn't there also been multiple cases of collective sacrificial rituals within Intis recently, causing large-scale deaths among town residents?"
"I don't know. I've never concerned myself with such matters."
The Intis demigod said, "However, this sacrificial ritual is somewhat different from previous ones."
"Indeed." Lubert Augustus spoke indifferently. "The ritual's completeness is improving. We were only late by a short while, yet these victims' spirits have already suffered irreversible damage, becoming dark, twisted, and corrupted—beyond salvation."
The lady, steady as the earth, had also completed her prayer at this point. She raised her hand, and the surrounding flowers, grass, and trees suddenly grew rapidly, completely enveloping those corpses with twisted and hollow faces that had been arranged in various shapes, pulling them into the earth to return to the Mother Goddess's domain.
At this moment, by the Aleksei River, the corpses had been buried, the contaminated blood had been purified clean, and everything had returned to tranquility once more.
"We must capture the mastermind behind this. According to reliable intelligence, all of the Rose Redemption's actions have been directed by a Desire Apostle." The lady said. "Regardless of the friction between Loen, Intis, and Feynapotter, this devil who worships the Dark Side of the Universe, this evil god, and may have even received feedback from Him, must be eliminated as soon as possible."
She dropped a bombshell, causing both demigods to be startled. The Intis demigod frowned deeply. "Received feedback from an evil god? You mean to say that all of the Rose Redemption's recent actions have been done in service of the evil god they worship?"
"Yes." The lady said in a low voice. "I can sense the flow of life. There are forces at work here that shouldn't exist. This is absolutely not the ritual effect that a Sequence 5 Demon of the Abyss pathway could create."
"Devil rituals inherently involve large amounts of flesh and blood sacrifice. The devils of the Abyss want to stir up conflicts between nations, using this to scheme for a situation favorable to them."
The Intis demigod sneered coldly. "How truly interesting."
The lady spoke again: "If we're to request assistance, it would be better to do so sooner rather than later.
"From the ritual's completeness and the feedback from the spirits remaining here and the surrounding plants, I suspect that Desire Apostle has received help from the Dark Side of the Universe and has already advanced, gaining divinity."
The several demigods' expressions similarly darkened, and they each departed from the riverside, leaving behind the completely buried corpses and the purified river water.
Just a few minutes after they left, a figure slowly emerged from the Spirit World.
Don and another Traveler marionette appeared here.
He first looked toward the not-so-distant Hornacis Mountain Range, gazing at those towering peaks that reached into the clouds. The sun in the distance dispelled some of the fog that had accumulated on the peaks for years, revealing the lush vegetation growing there—a completely ordinary and common appearance.
Yet he could feel the stirring, coming from somewhere in the Hornacis Mountain Range. This was an instinctive longing stemming from the Law of Beyonder Characteristics Convergence.
"Fortunately, I know what's on that mountain. Otherwise, if I followed my heart's desires, I might walk into the mountain range and arrive beside a certain tree, only to suddenly discover an uninhabited town and countless ceiling-hanging marionettes continuously shouting 'Hornacis, Flegrea.'"
Don exhaled. He had no plans to go up the mountain and meet face-to-face with Antigonus, that half-step Fool's King of Angels, for the time being.
"After all, it's a hidden town created by the Evernight Goddess. Without complete preparation, even if I want to advance to Sequence 1 Attendant of Mysteries, I don't plan to risk barging in there."
He couldn't gauge the Goddess of Night's attitude toward this matter. After all, his own stacked buffs exceeded even little Klein's, so who knew whether the Goddess would let things slide or give him a blow to make him completely 'quiet' down?
Withdrawing his gaze, Don surveyed his surroundings anew.
"Those few just now should have been the demigods stationed at the borders by Loen, Intis, and Feynapotter. However, I didn't expect that it wasn't the Beyonders from Loen's three major churches who discovered the problem, but rather a believer of the Earth Mother who noticed the anomaly."
But regardless of who it was, it was good that someone had noticed.
Stuffing the Traveler marionette into his system space, Don once again entered Euclidean space, searching for traces left by that Dark Side of the Universe divine descent.
"This place has obviously been cleaned up. Beyonders of the Abyss pathway are especially skilled at anti-divination and anti-prophecy, creating interference that prevents demigods of other pathways from finding him through divination. This is quite simple."
In Euclidean space, Don looked at those remnants belonging to the deceased—spirituality so weak it was nearly imperceptible, spirituality that would completely dissipate before long, spirituality that had been contaminated until only the purest fear remained. Slowly, he gazed into the distance following the direction where the spirituality extended.
"That should be where the Divine descent vessel is located."
(End of Chapter)