"Splash—"
Icy water splashed against Angel's face, then ran down the smooth curves of her cheeks, carrying away the last traces of fear and tension within her.
In the mirror was a bewildered young girl, around eighteen years old, perhaps even younger. She had long, straight pale-golden hair, soft and smooth, and exquisitely proportioned features set into a delicate face as though sculpted. Her deep-purple eyes resembled a pair of vortexes, drawing Angel's gaze toward them. Even the oversized, bloodstained shirt she wore could not conceal her tall, slender figure.
"This is me... No, this isn't me..."
Staring at that perfect female face, she fell into confusion.
Before waking up in this building's basement, she had been a member of the church's Templar Order. More importantly, she had been male at the time...
The knights were all battle-hardened warriors, each capable of facing ten enemies alone. From the day the order had been established, they had fought on the front lines against heretics and evil forces. After the global situation changed and the armies and religious organizations of various nations united against the suddenly emerging evil powers, they became the backbone of each force, erecting the final barrier against evil invading the real world.
Unfortunately, all that was in the past. During the battle to eliminate a High-Level Devil, Angel had been protecting a close friend when a Flame Spear thrown by the dying devil pierced her heart. Her final memory was of her teammates surrounding her with grief-stricken faces before she lost consciousness.
She slowly raised a hand and touched the delicate face of the girl in the mirror. The girl in the mirror raised her hand as well, their fingers meeting. The girl seemed to possess a strange allure, those violet eyes almost drawing Angel's soul into them.
"Assassin Pathway..."
After the initial panic subsided, the "memories" of this body gradually surfaced in her mind, giving her some understanding of her current situation.
First of all, one thing was obvious: she was no longer in her original world.
Steam engines, Potions, gods, curses... This was a world whose technology lay roughly between the two Industrial Revolutions, yet it also possessed extraordinary powers. Ordinary people could gain all kinds of special abilities through "Potions," but they also had to face the erosion of madness and the risk of losing control at any moment.
This was Tingen City, a Spirit Medium-sized city in the Loen Kingdom on the North Continent. And "she," Cole Granger, had been an unofficial Beyonder in Tingen City.
Not long after their mother gave birth to Cole's younger sister, Lily Granger, she died of an epidemic. Their father, a sailor in an ocean-going merchant fleet, had raised the two Granger siblings alone. Three years ago, he died in a pirate attack while sailing to the Balam Empire on the Southern Continent...
Wait, siblings?
Angel continued digging through the memories, then revealed a bitter smile.
If only she had "transmigrated" even a day earlier. At least she would still have been male...
Just a few hours ago, Cole Granger had consumed a Potion he had brewed himself, attempting to advance from Sequence 8, "Instigator," of the Assassin Pathway to Sequence 7, "Witch." At the final moment, he lost control. The ritual failed, and he died on the spot.
In this world, failing an advancement often meant losing control or death. Comparatively speaking, death might actually have been the luckier outcome.
The characteristics of the "Witch" Potion forcibly transformed its consumer's body into that of a woman. Although Cole Granger's advancement had failed, his body had completed the transformation before his death. That was why Angel, who had "replaced him," now possessed this frail female form.
She raised her hand and looked at its flawless skin and slender fingers, finding it hard to imagine that this perfect female body had once belonged to a man.
"You really got what you deserved, but it's a pity you left me with this mess..."
Angel felt no regret over Cole's death, because in every sense of the word, he had not been a good person.
At first, Cole Granger had pursued Beyonder powers solely so that he and his sister could live better lives. But after consuming the "Assassin" Potion a year ago, he began constantly acting out the role of an assassin in order to meet his "mentor's" requirements and master the Potion as quickly as possible. His hands gradually became stained with blood.
Then came the assassin's next Sequence: "Instigator."
Unlike assassins, who needed to act personally and kill their targets, Instigators hid behind the scenes, using words to draw out the evil within others, provoke conflict, and create bloody tragedies. For Cole to reach the point of advancing to "Witch," the number of murders tied to him was no fewer than during his Assassin stage. In her hazy memories, Cole had been involved in at least several large-scale student incidents at Tingen University, causing multiple deaths, injuries, and disappearances.
By this point, Cole Granger had completely lost himself and forgotten why he had pursued Beyonder powers in the first place.
Being able to advance from Sequence 9 to Sequence 7 within a year showed that he had been extremely talented. If someone like him had taken the right path and received proper guidance in an Orthodox Church, he could certainly have increased his strength safely and gone further, rather than rushing into advancement without adequate preparation and dying in his own basement.
After composing herself, Angel Gray walked out of the washroom.
The crimson moon unique to this world still hung high in the sky. The strange sight kept her from rashly leaving the house, and she instead carefully inspected the building.
It was a three-story structure with two floors above ground and one basement level. Judging by the buildings across the street, it was likely a terraced house facing the road. There were two entrances, one at the front and one at the rear. The front door opened into the living room, with no porch; outside lay the currently deserted street. The study and dining room stood at either end of the street-facing living room. Near the back door were the kitchen, washroom, and storage room. The back door opened from the kitchen into a narrow, filthy alley. The second floor contained another washroom and four bedrooms. Two smaller rooms had apparently been used as storage spaces, piled with unused tools and damaged furniture. The two rooms facing the street were in normal use, and the master bedroom even had a small balcony. The basement entrance where she had awakened was in the study on the first floor. The gas lamp on the wall was unlit, yet she found that she could clearly see in the darkness.
"This body has night vision... It should be the Dark Vision Cole Granger gained after taking the Assassin Potion. It seems I—or rather, this body—has retained the Beyonder Ability granted by the Potion."
Using Dark Vision, she returned to the basement.
The radially spread pool of blood on the floor had long since dried. It was ironclad proof of Cole's failed advancement. Its vast extent and sheer volume made Angel suspect that Cole had exploded into a cloud of blood mist at the time, and that she was actually an entirely different person who had merely appeared in the same place.
"This will be troublesome to clean up. Even if I rinse it with a huge amount of water, the smell of blood won't fade for at least a week."
Just as she was worrying about how to clean the basement, she noticed a black, gelatinous object amid the bloodstains.
She had not noticed it at all when leaving the basement earlier, mistaking it for organ fragments or clotted blood. Now, under Dark Vision, she could clearly distinguish it from the surrounding blood.
The gelatinous object was about the size of an egg. Flattened halfway against the floor by gravity, it was close to purplish-red in color. Light seemed to flow across its surface, yet darkness that appeared to absorb the surrounding light enveloped it, making the object's own color stand out sharply.
As she approached it, Angel heard whispers in her ears, and her mood became irritated. A desire to destroy and slaughter seemed to rise in her heart, while the smell of blood in the basement also grew much stronger.
This was a Beyonder Characteristic!
According to Cole Granger's memories, when Beyonders died, the powers within their bodies would condense into Beyonder Characteristics suited to their abilities and be released from their corpses.
This gelatinous object had clearly been left behind by Cole's death. Considering that he had only consumed the "Assassin," "Instigator," and "Witch" Potions, Angel guessed that it was a "Witch" Beyonder Characteristic.
But according to Cole's memories, the Characteristics released by dead Beyonders should contain the full extent of their Beyonder powers from life. In other words, this body should no longer possess Beyonder powers. Yet its unique Dark Vision was definitely not something an ordinary person could possess.
Perhaps it was because she... No, because Cole Granger had not completely died?
Judging from the abilities she possessed, this body should currently be an "Assassin"?
Angel Gray, a former Templar Knight, could only smile bitterly.
She did not rush to put away the valuable and dangerous Beyonder Characteristic. Instead, she first left the basement and went to the study above.
Beneath one of the floorboards in the study was a small hidden compartment. Inside it was a small metal box Cole had prepared when buying Potion ingredients, one that had cost twenty pounds. According to the seller, it could isolate extraordinary power and prevent the spirituality of the materials inside from dissipating.
Unfortunately, Cole had no extra Beyonder Ingredients, so the box had become a container for his weapons. It now held only a damaged revolver.
Whether it truly worked or was merely a merchant's boast, the little box was the most suitable container Angel could find for storing the Beyonder Characteristic. Treating a dead horse as if it were alive, she carefully picked up the Beyonder Characteristic through her clothing and placed it inside the box alongside the revolver with its damaged hammer.
Fortunately, the moment she closed the box, the whispers in her ears and the bloody smell in her nose immediately diminished by more than half.
Though they had not been completely cut off, the side effects were at least within an acceptable range.
Angel placed the box back into the hidden compartment, covered it with several books, and closed the trapdoor. Only then did the whispers vanish completely.
After dealing with the Beyonder Characteristic Cole had left behind, she went upstairs. The second bedroom near the staircase belonged to Cole's younger sister, Lily Granger. Its bright decor suited a young girl's style. It had a dressing table, a full-length mirror, and lace-trimmed bedding, but everything was covered in dust cloths with a thin layer of dust on top. It seemed no one had lived there for some time. A few novels and a face-down picture frame rested on the bedside table. Angel lifted the frame and, by the crimson moonlight outside the window, barely made out a black-and-white photograph of two people.
Several height marks labeled with ages had been drawn beside the bedroom door. Beside the highest mark were the words, "18 years old, 156 cm."
Clearly, clothes for a girl who was 156 centimeters tall would not fit this body...
Angel stood by the door and compared her height. She was more than a head taller than the 156-centimeter mark, which meant she was around 175 centimeters tall. It seemed she could only take a set of Cole's clothes for now. The fit would not be ideal, but at least she could put them on. That was better than wearing a little girl's clothes.
The master bedroom belonged to Cole Granger. Its decor was simple and clean, with cool colors and no unnecessary ornaments. The wardrobe was filled with men's clothes: two suits in the same color and several casual outfits. Angel casually took a shirt and held it against herself. It was the same size as the one she was wearing.
Taking out the shirt and a pair of casual trousers, she removed her bloodstained, stiffened clothes and changed into clean garments beside the bed. Holding the photograph, she went downstairs and returned to the relatively familiar study. She turned on the gas lamp on the wall, and its dim, soft glow dispelled the eerie chill brought by the red moonlight.
Under the light, Angel carefully examined the picture frame in her hand. As expected, it showed a completely unfamiliar man and woman. The man was in his early twenties, with short blond hair, a short-sleeved shirt, and casual trousers. He was thin and tall, with delicate, gentle features. The corners of his eyes and the bridge of his nose looked very similar to Angel's current appearance. He wore black-framed glasses and had grown a slightly deliberate beard, trying to make his androgynous face appear more masculine. The girl was around sixteen, dressed in a skirt. She had a round face, long blond hair braided into a single plait, and held a novel in both hands as she leaned against the man's side.
Based on the girl's height and the novel in her hands, which Angel had seen in the upstairs bedroom, Angel concluded that she was Lily Granger, the "younger sister" who had left Tingen a year ago to study in Backlund.
The "older brother" beside her, whose face bore some resemblance to Angel's current one, was naturally Cole Granger in his male form.
The photograph had likely been taken not long after their father's death. Both siblings looked melancholy, in stark contrast to their bright clothing.
Just as Angel was carefully studying the details in the photograph, a knock at the door interrupted her thoughts.
"Knock, knock, knock—"
Who was it?
Before you continue