Yun Ni nodded and extended her finger, touching the spot Cheng Shi had indicated.
Then...
Whoosh! Before anyone could react, she had already straightened up.
And nothing happened to Wei Guan.
"?"
Was that it?
Had she pierced him?
Wasn't that a little too fast?
Several players were stunned by Yun Ni's speed. They were still trying to determine whether she had actually penetrated him, since Wei Guan's corpse hadn't reacted at all.
Only Cheng Shi smiled, having guessed what Yun Ni had done.
In an extremely short span of time, she had turned her finger into a thin line and pierced Wei Guan's heart.
Miss Assassin's ability to turn her body two-dimensional was even stronger than he had imagined.
By the looks of it, the dagger might merely be her disguise.
When it came to actually killing someone, no weapon could be more convenient than having one's entire body be a weapon.
But the corpse's complete lack of reaction was somewhat abnormal.
A dead man's heart had stopped beating, so there indeed wouldn't be any blood spraying out. But the lack of spray didn't mean there would be no bleeding. Once external force broke through the heart wall, dark-red blood should inevitably ooze out.
Fang Jue seemed to have noticed this problem as well. He asked uncertainly:
"Is there something wrong with the heart?"
Smart!
Cheng Shi nodded and pulled a scalpel from his personal space, skillfully beginning the autopsy.
Within seconds, Wei Guan's chest cavity had been completely opened by Cheng Shi's nimble hands, which moved up and down in a blur.
Everyone gathered around to look and discovered that his chest cavity was full of flesh and blood—except for one missing thing.
"The heart... disappeared???"
Du Xiguang stared in astonishment at the place where the corpse's heart had vanished, his brows tightly furrowed as if he had thought of something.
Cheng Shi nodded and explained:
"Through the sense of touch on the skin, one can perceive the direction of the muscles and fascia inside the human body, as well as its pressure gradients. When I felt around his chest, I discovered that the pressure around Wei Guan's heart was far lower than that of an ordinary corpse.
"Now you can see it too. His heart was stolen."
"Stolen? This doesn't look like theft. If it can make a person's body part disappear directly, doesn't that sound more like a means of annihilation?"
As soon as Fang Jue finished speaking, everyone looked at Yun Ni.
Yun Ni froze for a moment, then shrugged indifferently.
Her attitude was obvious: it had nothing to do with her.
Everyone naturally knew she hadn't done it. They were merely asking whether Annihilation had a similar method.
Even Cheng Shi was silently wondering whether he had overlooked another Annihilation killer.
But just then, as Yun Ni frowned in thought, Du Xiguang suddenly stood up and solemnly drew a circle in front of himself.
Golden radiance twisted into a ring. Looking through it, the scene opposite was no longer the current street, but a...library!
The ring seemed to connect space and time, making one side the present and the other the past.
The visual effect was astonishing.
"Borrowing a book from that time.
"Let me look through it. I seem to remember a divine object that resembles this."
Du Xiguang reached through the ring and quickly searched the bookshelves. Before long, he found a book and pulled its shadow into reality.
The pages, seeming both light and shadow, flipped rapidly beneath his fingers. After a few breaths, he had an answer.
"Found it!
"I knew this method of death seemed familiar: a terrified expression, and the heart missing.
"When Fear Arrives, SSS, a divine dagger from the Garuda Kingdom beneath the earth, is a Demigod Artifact tainted with the divine authorities of Filth and Decay and Death.
"This dagger doesn't need to pierce the body. It only needs to select a target and wait. When the unfortunate victim feels fear, his heart will be torn out and offered to Death.
"Death comes without a sound.
"You were right. This is indeed very similar to a curse, but it is even harder to guard against."
As soon as he finished speaking, everyone's faces darkened.
A Demigod Artifact!
Another Demigod Artifact.
Before a dagger of this level, there was no difference between 2,400 and 1,400. They were all merely lambs waiting to be slaughtered.
"With a method of death this similar, you never thought of it? And you're supposed to be His believer."
Yun Ni looked at Du Xiguang with disdain, seemingly doubting whether he was truly a believer of Memory.
Du Xiguang's expression did not change. He adjusted his glasses and said:
"Precisely because I am His believer, I don't need memory."
As he spoke, he tossed the book of memory, transformed from light and shadow, back into the opened Memory. The golden ring then vanished into the air.
After hearing this, Cheng Shi looked at him with a meaningful expression.
Du Xiguang had lied.
It wasn't that he didn't need memory.
Perhaps he had already lost the right to possess memories of his own.
It was said that His believers could trade their memories to Him for additional powers.
What talent had Du Xiguang obtained by sacrificing his ability to retain his own memories?
Fang Jue was a man who focused on practical matters. He didn't join the idle chatter. With a grim expression, he stated his deduction.
"The killer is in the inn."
Exactly! The killer was in the inn.
This dagger was bizarre, but it still had one prerequisite: a lucky victim had to be selected beforehand.
Given Wei Guan's skills—or rather, his vigilance as a Hunter—he shouldn't have failed to notice someone in the night, nor should he have failed to detect anyone secretly following him after he went outside.
So there was only one possibility: he had already been marked before leaving the inn!
The good news was that the two men's provocation had indeed worked.
The bad news was that they had pushed too far, and one actor had died.
Still, having a direction was better than searching blindly like headless flies. At least the killer could now be confined to the inn.
"There is one more problem..."
Cheng Shi frowned and added:
"Have you ever considered what could make someone like Wei Guan feel fear?"
There was no doubt that the moment the murder weapon was discovered, the method of killing had been established.
The killer only needed to hide in the darkness and mark the target. As for everything else...
That could be left to the victim himself.
This was precisely what it meant to be spooked by the slightest sound or shadow.
Once the fear of death silently spread through an area, a lone traveler in the night would become suspicious of everything.
At that point, the killer didn't need to do anything else. A sound in the silent street, a gust of wind beneath the moon hidden by dark clouds—anything could become the final straw that broke the camel's back and claimed the victim's life.
But Wei Guan was different.
He was a believer of Folly, the sworn enemy of all ignorance!
Such petty tricks were probably beneath his notice.
The closer a person came to Truth, the more they would shed their human emotions.
Would he really feel fear?
The answer was yes.
His death was the best proof.
But what exactly was the thing that had killed a believer of Folly through fear?
Could everyone be certain they wouldn't feel fear before such terror?
Cheng Shi had no confidence.
Nor did anyone else.
Of course, there was another problem before them now, one more urgent than this.
That was:
Should they return to the inn tonight?
Before you continue