I Have Something to Tell You

"You're saying Gaud's internal organs vanished without a trace?"

Browning seemed to be thinking. He asked the question, but without waiting for Lu Ban and Xiya to answer, he muttered to himself.

"My remains possess the characteristics of the Mud Monster. It can absorb other people's souls and mimic them. After being attacked by me, it split off its own internal organs and became someone else?"

"But you must have already met everyone at Rainstorm Villa. No matter who it wanted to become, it would have been noticed—unless it became someone who didn't originally belong here."

Browning looked at Lu Ban and Xiya.

"Did you encounter anyone who wasn't here from the beginning?"

Thunder exploded at that moment. In the distance, another tree seemed to have been struck by lightning, bursting into blazing flames that shone brilliantly in the pitch-black night. Illuminated by the dark-purple lightning, it looked like the apocalypse.

"Yes. His name was Byron, a con man. He obtained several pages of your treatise and gained extraordinary powers. Gaud invited him here, but he was locked inside a wine barrel in the underground cellar."

Xiya briefly explained what they had encountered.

"Byron is with our companions now, under proper guard."

Upon hearing this, the expression on Browning's face became solemn and gloomy.

"Oh no."

Browning sighed, then continued.

"That Byron is probably a mimic formed from my remains. Gaud and he are different manifestations of the same soul. After I killed him, he hid himself under the identity of Byron, waiting for an opportunity to act. Your companion has probably already come into contact with him. He may very well try to deceive your companion with honeyed words, attempting to find my existence and complete the Soul Summoning ritual."

Hearing Browning's words, Xiya raised an eyebrow.

So far,