When Fu Qian said someone was uncomfortable, he obviously wasn't talking about Simon's injuries.
Though the suspected "discarded pawn" after its Shapeshift had been a spectacular sight, it was far less difficult to deal with than before.
Simon looked battered, but he hadn't suffered many serious injuries. His own reactions made it clear they were the sort of injuries one picked up on the job.
Fu Qian had asked because Simon seemed to be "sick."
The eyes that looked back at him were still cold, but now they held a murky, blood-red tinge.
As though something had tainted him.
Honestly, that was a little strange.
From their earlier time working together, Fu Qian knew that nightmares were full of unclean things. But under normal circumstances, this man shouldn't have been the first to be affected.
He was clearly stronger than the other two, both in strength and in will.
Why?
Fu Qian had always made a habit of asking questions when he already knew the answers. At that moment, he seemed to have an inkling of the price paid for the hunters' legendary taboo edict.
Their excessive sensitivity to filth probably came from being test strips themselves.
Some special astral law not only failed to make the blessed immune to harm; it turned the hunters into the most susceptible people imaginable.
That was probably one reason they'd appeared outside his building so early. They had to be close by for the infection to take hold effectively.
It really was taboo. He'd wondered before: even if the Gun of Death was merely an exceptionally brutal means of slaughter, surely that alone wouldn't be enough to keep someone from joining the church.
And if this was the truth, then it might also explain why both hunters he'd encountered had been cut