Aberrant Beast

After leaving the church's underground world, Ning Xiuyuan habitually stopped by the chapel. Only after checking all the candles did he take the coins he had saved up and head for the market.

He decided to buy a small gift before paying Lynn a visit.

Francis was a large city.

At least, it was large in a world measured by footsteps.

Though automobiles had already appeared on its bluestone-paved streets, they were exceedingly rare. Carriages, bicycles, and even hand-pulled rickshaws were far more common.

To make prayer more convenient for the public, Francis had three tram lines, all of which passed by the church.

Ning Xiuyuan did not choose to take the tram.

He did not particularly like crowded places;

and he liked being watched warily by locals even less.

Yet when he entered a nearby commercial street, silence spread like a plague, radiating outward from him in every direction.

The vast street fell so quiet that a needle could have been heard dropping.

Vegetable sellers, shop owners, street drivers, hawkers calling out their wares, running children... countless people instinctively turned to look at him.

Then the street became lively again.

Only, the noise had diminished somewhat, and everyone kept stealing glances at wherever Ning Xiuyuan went.

One curious child tried to approach for a closer look, only to be immediately yanked to the roadside by his mother, whose face had changed drastically. She looked at Ning Xiuyuan as though he were a man-eating beast.

Among a populace generally possessed of blond, flaxen-brown, or reddish-brown hair, fairer skin, mostly blue or green irises, and more pronounced features, a foreigner with black hair, black eyes, and gentle features stood out far too much.

It always made people think of the demons from myths and legends.

Ning Xiuyuan had grown much more accustomed to such scenes.

He could only pretend not to care and head straight for his destination—a general store.

The general store was small and crammed with merchandise, leaving barely any room to stand.

When Ning Xiuyuan approached, two women picking through goods inside turned and left with looks of disgust, making the shopkeeper's expression turn unpleasant.

"I want a pipe," Ning Xiuyuan hurriedly said in his halting command of the language.

"A pipe?"

The shopkeeper hesitated. Perhaps he felt that driving Ning Xiuyuan away would not recover his losses, or perhaps he feared the black-eyed foreigner's status as a churchman. In the end, he turned and brought over a wooden box, saying expressionlessly:

"They're all here. Twenty-five Asi, thirty-two Asi, one hundred and ten Asi." The shopkeeper casually pointed to the three pipes and coldly quoted their prices, too lazy to explain the differences in material.

"This one. One hundred and ten Asi. Wrap it up." Ning Xiuyuan spat out the three words.

The shopkeeper raised his brows in surprise.

There was a trick to these three pipes. The one worth one hundred and ten Asi and the one worth twenty-five Asi were basically props, intended mainly to make the thirty-two-Asi pipe seem neither too good nor too bad.

He had even left a two-Asi margin for customers to haggle.

He had not expected this black-eyed foreigner to be so generous.

Seeing Ning Xiuyuan start to take out money, temptation won out, and the shopkeeper wrapped up the pipe. He even thoughtfully threw in a box of tobacco.

As Ning Xiuyuan left, the shopkeeper even said, "Welcome again."

Other than at the church, this was the first time Ning Xiuyuan had been treated so courteously in this world. It left him somewhat unaccustomed to it.

Is this the power of money?

Ning Xiuyuan laughed self-mockingly. Tucking the pipe and tobacco wrapped in kraft paper into his pocket, he headed toward the church stables in high spirits.

By the time he returned to the stables, it was noon.

The weather was somewhat hot, and the fine horses in the stable were restless, pacing back and forth inside.

When they saw Ning Xiuyuan return, they snorted one after another, as if begging for water.

"Who knew you could tattle, too? Not bad! Want water? Beg me! Hahaha, wait here. I'll ask Lynn whether you can have some water."

As Ning Xiuyuan approached, he could no longer treat these horses with his usual calm.

He teased them a little before turning toward Groom Lynn's quarters.

Lynn's quarters were at a corner of the first floor, mainly so he could conveniently care for the horses.

As Ning Xiuyuan drew near, his heart suddenly began pounding violently!

This is...

Ning Xiuyuan's heart jolted. He could clearly smell pain, illness, and death—the special spiritual perception granted by the Disease Remover.

"Could something have happened to Lynn?" Ning Xiuyuan was startled and hurried over to knock.

Unexpectedly, just as his curled fingers touched the door, the old door quietly swung open.

"This—"

The sight that entered his vision made Ning Xiuyuan's face drain of color.

A mottled tiger as large as an ox was crouched in the sitting room with its back to Ning Xiuyuan, gnawing on a corpse. Blood was everywhere in the cramped room, even staining the ceiling red.

Hearing movement outside, the beast abruptly turned its head toward him.

"This—"

Ning Xiuyuan staggered backward in terror.

A horse head?

This monster, whose body resembled that of a tiger, actually had a horse's head!!!

No, it was not entirely a horse's head.

It had horns growing from its head, sharp teeth, and mottled fur. At first glance, it resembled a horse's head, but upon closer inspection, it was clearly an aberration that profaned all things!

"Roar, roar—"

A low growl came from the Horse-Head Tiger's mouth. Its face covered in blood, it suddenly abandoned the meal before it, slowly turned around, and fixed its gaze on Ning Xiuyuan.

"Thump, thump, thump..."

Every hair on Ning Xiuyuan's body stood on end. He could even hear his heart pounding like a drum. The fear of beasts buried deep in his blood made his entire body stiffen.

Yet a strange feeling arose in the depths of his heart.

The Disease Remover trait fused into his soul told him that this aberrant beast before him was ill.

This spiritual intuition born of his supernatural trait was meaningless in his current situation, yet it swiftly calmed him down.

He slowly reached toward the holster at his lower back, his fingers closing around the revolver Bishop Byron had given him.

When his fingertips felt the cold touch of metal, the wildly pounding spiritual intuition eased.

—When he had received the revolver, he had examined it. The thing had no safety and was always ready to fire, so it had to be kept in its holster, or it could easily go off accidentally.

"Roar—"

Perhaps sensing Ning Xiuyuan's momentary relaxation, the Horse-Head Tiger suddenly roared, leaped high into the air, and pounced.

Ning Xiuyuan was horrified. Having received no training at all, he instinctively drew his gun and fired.

Bang!

After the shot rang out, Ning Xiuyuan was hurled high into the air before crashing brutally to the ground.

"Urgh—"

A mouthful of blood spilled from Ning Xiuyuan's lips.

He felt as though a train had struck him head-on. A thousand-pound boulder seemed to press against his chest. He could not feel pain, yet he could not breathe. The veins in his forehead throbbed violently, and he felt as though he were about to die.

"Roar, roar..."

The Horse-Head Tiger climbed up from the ground, an angry growl issuing from its throat. A crimson stain was spreading across its abdomen, blood dripping down in drops.

Ning Xiuyuan watched in terror as the beast shook its head and prepared to pounce again. Gritting his teeth, he forced out the last of his strength, gripped the revolver with both hands, and fired wildly—bang, bang, bang, bang—emptying the cylinder.

Boom!

The second shot struck the Horse-Head Tiger in the chest and exploded a huge mass of flesh like a cannonball, exposing pale ribs.

Before the Horse-Head Tiger could resist, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth shots followed in rapid succession!

One bullet pierced through its hide of bronze and bones of iron, blasting a section of spine out of its body and splattering its organs everywhere;

one bullet was like aqua regia, directly corroding a large mass of black blood from its abdomen. When the black blood fell to the ground, it corroded a huge pit into the floor.

The remaining two were ordinary bullets, rendered utterly unremarkable beside the devastating power of the three Supernatural Bullets.

"Pant... pant..."

Having emptied the cylinder, Ning Xiuyuan panted as he stared at the Horse-Head Tiger collapsed on the ground, still not dead as it whimpered and growled. Rage and shock surged through him.

"It's still not dead? What kind of monster is this?"

"Tap, tap, tap..."

A rush of hurried footsteps approached. Ning Xiuyuan barely managed to turn his head and saw a priest clutching a thick stack of medical books, rushing into the courtyard with a face full of shock.