The Moment of Devouring (15)

Of course, there was a problem with this.

Based on past experience, entities like the Goddess of Sin and the angel mirror affected everyone around them indiscriminately.

And during these two attempts, I'd done plenty of fearmongering. A lot of the time, it was clear that they really did believe me.

Yet I hadn't felt any noticeable change or response.

That was why Fu Qian hadn't thought of this at first.

But now, he could think of one explanation: degree.

The degree of distortion in one's perception varied, and that affected the strength of the response.

His earlier deceptions had merely involved putting on an act to make others misunderstand his state.

For those people, it was a matter of perception concerning "someone else."

What Cynthia had done to him was make him doubt himself, even overturn the very concept of himself.

By comparison, there might be a qualitative difference between the two.

The response to the former had ultimately been too subtle for him to notice.

If all this was true, then the reason the Warehouse had assigned him this mission seemed clear.

Goya Ulrich was doing something similar to Sir William, the First Sinner: using an active oath object to spread its influence continuously.

And that was something the Warehouse absolutely could not tolerate.

How fascinating!

He'd actually encountered such a special entity in the underground research facility of the Yasui Company!

But when he thought about it, it wasn't impossible.

An item that appeared regularly and had supernatural effects was bound to attract attention.

And it wasn't unreasonable that a behemoth like the Yasui Company had occasionally come across a few Night Watchers who'd slipped through the net.

The only question was, how much did Goya understand about the thing's true nature?

Was he simply treating