Berren City, Clock Tower Alley, inside a factory under construction.
The heavy rain, having fallen all night, showed no signs of stopping, instead growing heavier.
Large raindrops hit the temporarily erected tarpaulin roof, making crackling sounds.
Much rainwater dripped down through the gaps, falling onto the floor simply laid with wooden planks. The entire factory floor was muddy.
Dark clouds pressed down overhead. The few faint horse lanterns inside the factory beca the only illumination.
And under the illumination of these kerosene horse lanterns, a shadow was infinitely elongated, cast onto the factory wall. The black shadow flickered and distorted with the firelight.
A petite figure knelt beneath that shadow, trembling slightly. She seed to be rapidly chanting sothing in a low voice, but the sound was long drowned out by the rain.
If one moved slightly closer, they could hear the words she muttered... Seemingly reciting so prayer text, repeating it over and over.
Tap, tap, tap, tap...
Footsteps followed the shadow towards the girl kneeling on the ground. The girl with long dark green hair, looking around twelve or thirteen years old, mustered her courage and looked up, seeing the figure shrouded in a black trench coat.
It was a stunningly beautiful red-haired young woman. Her purplish-red eyes, faintly webbed, were full of weariness. Thick dark circles lay beneath her eyelids. Her lips looked as if poisoned, pale and sowhat purple.
The young woman just listlessly raised her hand, pressed the small bowler hat on her head, and said dejectedly, “Let’s go... tired...”
“La... La... Lady Ciel, then... what... what about ?” Tara’s voice stuttered. Anyone could sense the fear in her words.
“Go wherever you like...” Ciel sighed softly.
Since the potion finished digesting just now, emotions of world-weariness and pessimism had completely enveloped her.
Ciel discovered a point rarely ntioned by others.
Poor potion digestion led to hearing more whispers in the mind, and the body would mutate. The whispers made the spirit unstable. The more unstable the spirit, the easier the body collapsed, forming a negative cycle.
But digesting the potion too well also caused problems.
Just as the na “Reconstitution” ritual implied, digesting the potion too well seed to truly imrse her in the emotions within the potion, thinking its thoughts, feeling its feelings, perfectly reconstituting everything from emotions to thoughts... This made it easy for her to lose herself.
“Instigator” was like this, and “Coroner” was also like this.
Ciel fought against the urge to stab herself on the spot and end the simulated torture, while staggering towards the factory exit, passing the kneeling Tara.
Only after Ciel’s figure moved aside did Tara, who had been staring straight ahead, see the figure sitting on the table.
It was its shadow that had been enveloping Tara. The shadow’s source ca from the few horse lanterns behind it—and the bloody severed limbs and remains piled up on the floor.
“Not enough... Tara... call your confidants over...”
“Still not enough... Tara...”
“Almost there... Tara...”
“Tara...”
Piles of bones and minced at stimulated Tara. Lady Ciel’s low words seed to still linger in her ears. The whispers in her mind continuously intensified and echoed.
Plop—
An eyeball rolled off the wooden table, rolling on the mud-and-rain-stained wooden planks. The pale blue iris stared blankly towards Tara.
That was Gemma, Tara’s confidant. Strictly speaking, she was Tara’s student, soone Tara watched grow up.
And now, a part of her had also rged into the Mother Goddess’s creation.
Following the eyeball that rolled onto the floor, Tara slowly looked up towards the “person” sitting on the wooden table.
If this could even be called a “person.”
Its figure was tall, nearly 1.9 ters. Its whole body was pale like a corpse. Dry, curly white long hair hung down from the top of its head, tied in knots at intervals, falling onto the ground, looking like it was connected from countless people’s hair.
Black eyeballs rolled in its sockets, with only a single scarlet pupil in the center, sinister and terrifying.
Its belly protruded high, like a pregnant woman’s, except the huge belly writhed strangely, as if about to burst open.
Besides its humanoid appearance, no part of it could be called human anymore.
Plop—
It landed on the ground. Its huge belly split open. Six slender arms, pieced together from human arms, supported it on the ground. Its legs bent and rged together at this mont, hanging behind it, like the huge abdon of a spider.
The “human spider” raised its head high, looking towards Tara, seemingly sowhat puzzled.
It used its hands and feet, slowly crawling towards Tara.
Tara, seeing this terrifying giant creature approaching her, felt fear continuously amplifying in her heart. She retreated backward, fell sitting onto the ground, her body trembling, even forgetting to use her abilities.
The “human spider” dragged its pale, knotted long hair, crawled before Tara, stiffly revealed a terrifying smile, slowly opened its mouth, emitting layered, overlapping voices: “Tea... cher?”
“Arch... bishop?”
Tara’s eyes widened. She herself didn’t realize tears had already stread down from the corners of her eyes.
At this mont, a certain nerve deep within Tara’s mind seed to instantly fuse. Frantic whispers almost instantly crushed her. Everything before her eyes began to twist and deform.
“Ahhh!!!!” Tara scread madly. The deepest faith in the Mother Goddess in her mind beca the only pillar supporting her. She scrambled towards the factory gate on all fours, rushing directly into the pouring rain.
Soon, Tara caught up with Ciel, who had just left. She fell directly kneeling before Ciel, kowtowing madly, screaming heartbreakingly, “Lady Mother Goddess... Don’t abandon ! Lady Mother Goddess! Please don’t abandon !”
At this mont, Tara was almost completely mad. As the person with the first faith in the entire Divine Advent Church, as if triggering so brain protection chanism, she selectively forgot everything else, her mind filled only with “Mother Goddess Ciel.”
“Get up...” Ciel sighed softly.
She could sowhat sense Tara’s emotions at this mont, but under the influence of the potion and Reconstitution Ritual back then, Ciel couldn’t control her own emotions at all.
By the ti she ca back to her senses, everything had happened naturally, like water flowing into a channel. Not a single Divine Advent Church mber guarding outside remained; all were killed by her without any resistance.
No, rather than killed, it was more like voluntary sacrifice.
In the heavy rain behind her, a flesh-colored, palm-sized spider crawled out from the factory, climbed up Ciel’s trench coat, and finally burrowed into Ciel’s hat. Behind her, the terrifying human spider figure was long gone.
“Sigh...” Looking at Tara kneeling on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably, Ciel sighed.
Too troubleso...
Ciel rembered her initial explanation to Uris about the dream.
Ciel didn’t say much, just bent down, grabbed Tara’s arm, pulled her up, forcing her to look at herself.
“Tara, look at ...” Ciel took a deep breath and patiently said, “This is all just a divine oracle dream... In the real world, none of this happened. Your confidants are all still alive and well.”
Tara stared blankly at Ciel, unsure if she had taken Ciel’s words in at all.
Ciel sighed softly, then reached up, pressed the brim of her hat, and looked up at the sky.
One hour left... Did misfortune skip work... Why isn’t it here yet...
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