Vol. 4: Falling into Madness

"What are you all standing there for!"

Big B shouted to his brothers--

" --Andro! Take a hostage! Let's get out of here!"

Upon receiving the order, Andro immediately grabbed an elderly woman in the pharmacy. This member of the Tyrannosaurus Warrior Gang was surprisingly polite, whispering to the pale-faced victim, "Excuse me!"

The old woman's white hat was ripped off by the burly men and dragged towards the front porch of the clinic. At this moment, the military police and militia at the outpost had not yet received the emergency call. Schopenhauer also joined the group, intending to escape from the crime scene.

Director Maquire immediately shouted, "Let her go! She's ninety-two years old! She has Heart disease! Universal Elixir is possible! She served Saladin's clinic for thirty-six years, do you beasts have no heart?!"

As Maquire was saying this, he was about to chase after them when Jiang Xueming stopped him.

He couldn't figure out what the priest was there for at first; he just felt like he'd run into a brick wall.

Xue Ming took a deep breath, then, as if knocked away by Maquire, stumbled back into the group of robbers, almost falling backwards in a disheveled manner, and squeezed next to Andro, blocking Andro's gun barrel.

Andro's eyes went unfocused; a moment's hesitation rendered him unable to fire. The muzzle of the Rhino gun veered strangely to the other side, his wrist seemingly unresponsive. And then, the strange priest returned to his side.

The bloodthirsty Big B finally lost his patience. As he stepped across the porch, he ordered his henchman A Jie, "Take Andro's gun and shoot this blind bastard."

"No, no, no! No, no, no, no!" Xue Ming plopped down on Andro's shoes, raising her hands high. "I have a car! I have a car! I have a car!"

In the same hand that he clutched the Bible, he also carried a car key, which he had stolen from Maquire. Carefully examining the key's model and smell, he pointed to a car outside the clinic—a Tank 300, Doctor Maguire's vehicle.

"Get in my car! My heroes! Don't kill me! Don't kill me!"

"Hehehehe. Hmph hahahahahaha!" Big B quickly stopped A Jie, his white clown makeup revealing a twisted smile. The priest's cowardice and weakness satisfied him, giving him a strange pleasure—it was the first time in years that he had enjoyed the thrill of bullying the weak. "This kid knows what's good for him!"

Jiang Xueming quickly said, "Let's keep the old lady here."

Andro was moved with compassion. Initially, when he was choosing hostages, he thought that the elderly were weak and easy to control. However, after hearing Director Maquire's explanation—that the old lady had Heart disease and that the brothers only wanted to make money and had no intention of killing anyone—he realized that if someone died, they might be driven to a dead end and would have a hard time explaining it to the people of Guangling Zhixi.

"Big B"

Before Andro could speak, Big B arrogantly and fiercely shouted, "You're the boss?!"

Andro immediately shut his mouth, took the keys from the priest, handed the gun to A Jie, and went to get the car.

In those ten or so seconds, Xue Ming began to shake his head and chant scriptures anxiously and urgently.

The prophet Joel said, "Even old men dream dreams."

"--To achieve something, one must also bear fruit."

"You would rather take my heart and liver than offer this old woman's life as a burnt offering! The Yahweh will laugh at my piety."

"Leave a way out for others, leave a way out for others, Big B."

Xue Ming pleaded desperately, his brows furrowed, his glasses frame cracked, his body covered in mud, clutching Big B's trouser leg, trying to rescue the old lady from the culprit.

At this moment, time seems to slow down.

Big B tasted the sweetness, and in that instant, he once again rose above the weak Homo sapiens, wielding the power of life and death over ordinary people.

The silence lasted for several seconds.

In those ten seconds or so, Xue Ming thought about a lot of things.

He absolutely cannot suddenly launch an attack and kill someone in full view of everyone.

--If the identity is exposed, all the efforts made in [Remix·Remix] intrusion will be in vain.

He is no longer a gunsmith.

He was just an ordinary psychologist and a believer.

Big B had absorbed enough of the fear emanating from the priest and was finally satisfied.

"Okay! I promise you!"

The performance artist, whose face was painted with clown makeup, let go of the old Chinese medicine doctor from the pharmacy and sent him back to the clinic. He grabbed the black-robed priest, pulled him into the back seat of the car, and told A Jie and Schopenhauer to keep an eye on the prisoner.

A Jie kicked Jiang Xueming in the lower back. Seeing the priest stagger into the car, Ah Jie lowered his guard, convinced that he was just a weak scholar who couldn't even kill a chicken.

Maquire caught up and took the elderly Chinese medicine doctor back to the clinic. After walking a few steps further, he saw the thugs climbing into his car. Suddenly, he reached into his pocket and realized that his keys were missing.

He instinctively chased after it for a few steps, then heard a gunshot. He felt a sharp pain in his left leg and fell to his knees. Looking closely, he saw a hole in his calf the size of a Coke bottle cap; he had been shot by a rhinoceros.

A Jie grinned and cursed, "Still chasing?! You stupid idiot! You're still chasing?! Don't you want to die?!"

Maquire, on the other hand, was ashen-faced, momentarily overwhelmed by a torrent of resentment and anger.

He gritted his teeth, his face contorted in pain, driven to madness.

A voice in his head kept urging him to heal himself quickly, find something to eat, and get back to health so he could settle accounts with these cannibals.

He was just an ordinary person. Before acquiring Berloberg's spirit, he had not received any systematic training and had only occasionally heard about knightly combat techniques.

These past few months of experience have greatly improved Maquire's combat skills. Facing the guns of the bandits, he felt no fear whatsoever. He was convinced that with a gun, under equal combat conditions, these scumbags would be no match for him.

He watched his beloved car drive further and further away, his mind already controlled by his inner demons. Pages of cooking recipes flashed through his mind. He walked from the lobby back to the operating room. When others came to help him, he simply waved his hand and pushed his colleagues away.

"I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm okay, I'm alright."

The strong smell of blood made him hungrier, even though it was his own blood.

"I'm fine, let me back to the operating room, please don't block me, please don't block me. I'm a professional, I need to operate on myself, I can heal myself. I'm fine."

While saying this, Maquire was actually thinking about a feast of delicacies—a human flesh banquet made up of the severed limbs of these robbers.

He dragged his bleeding leg back to the operating room, preparing to fetch Universal Elixir to treat his injury.

The young nurse, Dannie, ran up to the head nurse to boast, "He's cured! Head nurse! He's cured! I cured Mr. Alfons!"

"Healed?" Maquire stopped what he was doing, feeling like he was hallucinating. "You alone? You healed Alfons?"

If things had gone according to plan, Dannie would have used a vial of poison that Maquire had left behind to treat the unconscious Alfons. This Universal Elixir, containing fluoride waste, would have become highly toxic, making the devil sleep even deeper and never wake up again.

Maquire's eyes widened in surprise as he looked at the medicine shelf next to the operating table. The bottle of Universal Elixir containing waste liquid had vanished, replaced by another batch of medical reagents, the batch numbers of which didn't match.

"Dannie."

Maquire didn't make a fuss; he just asked cautiously.

Have you ever used medication on the operating table?

Upon hearing the director's question, Dannie immediately looked aggrieved. "Um, Director, the medicine you left behind somehow spilled out. I didn't dare collect it and use it on the injured. If it caused an infection, it would be another large lesion, and allergic reactions and infections are very difficult to treat! So I replaced it with a new bottle."

Maquire didn't say anything, but just muttered obsessively, "It's overturned, hasn't anyone touched it?"

He worried that Alfons was still conscious, that the demon who had killed his companion still retained his mind. If Alfons heard what he said by the bedside and knew that he had eaten human flesh—his life was over.

"There's no one here! I've been keeping a close eye on Mr. Alfons the moment you left! This hunter is a great hero in the hunting party!" Dannie said confidently, "I would never dare to neglect him!"

"Oh," Maquire nodded. "Then you can go out."

Dannie looked worriedly at the director's calves. "Don't you need my help?"

Maquire casually replied, "No need, I can handle this minor injury. It will be fully healed in just a few minutes."

He looked at Alfons, who was still under anesthesia, and unconsciously licked his lips.

"Mr. Alfons needs to rest. I need to observe you for a while longer to see how your surgery went and what the results were. Please allow me to examine you myself."

Young nurse Dannie playfully stuck out her tongue and made a face as she walked out of the operating room. She then asked the head nurse to take her away to calm the patient's family, since the robbery that had just happened was truly terrifying.

Maquire has once again reached the edge of the cliff.

He gripped Berloberg's blade, slashed open his trouser leg, cut open the charred flesh, used the hot back of the blade to stop the bleeding, held his left leg tightly, gritted his teeth, and had no intention of wasting the anesthetic, wanting to keep his mind clear at all times.

This was the influence of Berloberg on him, the gunsmith's habit of forcibly administering medicine even when seriously wounded in battle.

He opened the cap of the Universal Elixir and slowly poured it onto both sides of the puncture wound on his calf. He gently spread it evenly with his fingers, not wasting a drop. He used only about fourteen milliliters of the liquid, and the wound was completely transformed. Dead skin and scabs fell off like drifting catkins, and the newly formed red granulation tissue hadn't even had time to grow thick skin, revealing the tendons and blood vessels.

The skin, devoid of body hair, stood out starkly, revealing the marks left by the gunshot wound. This topical treatment wasn't as effective as oral medication, but it saved a considerable amount of life-saving drugs.

After doing all this, Maquire kicked and stretched his waist, then came back to Alfons's bedside, passing the scalpel through the gap between his little finger and Thumb, from his left hand to his right.

He hesitated for a long time, watching the "hunting hero" gradually regain his strength and soon be discharged from the hospital.

God seemed to have given him many chances to lay down his weapons and turn back from the dead, but he didn't cherish them.

The voice in his head kept instructing him, teaching him how to save himself, and how to kill.

He could hardly resist the voice; after all, he was killing a demon, and sending it to the inquisition to be executed was pointless—wouldn't it be better to die by his own hand?

Maquire became obsessed with this power and was suddenly controlled by his inner demons.

The gunsmith is dead, Berloberg comes to his side—it's a mission, a destiny.

He's now acting on behalf of Heaven to uphold justice, which couldn't be better, right?

"Yes, yes, I know how to do it. I know."

He raised the knife and plunged it into Alfons's ventricle. The scorching blade quickly caused the wound to emit a burnt smell, and the blood vessels became blocked. He carefully cleaned away the remaining blood and scabs while observing Alfons's complexion. In just over a hundred seconds, this devil would be brain dead.

This time, Maquire truly stepped into hell.

He carefully removed a thick valve from Alfons's strong heart, trying not to damage the ribs and to keep the chest cavity intact.

After removing the piece of flesh and confirming that the fleshy heart would never beat again, Alfons was completely brain dead, with all vital signs at zero and the brainwave spectrum disappearing. He then used the Universal Elixir to seal the wound, leaving a bright red mark that looked like a leaf.

He put the sashimi in his mouth, savoring Mr. Alfons's life, his mind constantly replaying the devil's past. But suddenly he realized that this experience seemed to far exceed his expectations.

Alfons Prisla's life is very complex, or rather, everyone's life is complex, and it cannot be explained in just a few words.

In this heart, there are two families, two divorced women, a pair of half-siblings, more than 60,000 yuan in relief funds, a payslip, and endless longing for each other across different places.

Maquire stared blankly, only then realizing—

--He had just killed the husband of two wives, the parents of two children, and the pillar of two families.

But this is absolutely not a reason for the devil to abandon his companions! Absolutely not!

He was thinking this way, as if trying to find some excuse or reason to justify his act of killing and taking flesh.

Gunsmith. Gunsmith

What kind of monster are you?

This simple loss of life almost completely destroyed Maquire's mental world.

"Don't you feel any burden at all?"

Mr. Maquire's complexion changed several times, from white to red, then from red to white, before finally returning to normal.

He was absolutely certain that he had overcome this hurdle, and that a bright and promising future lay ahead.

--He will continue to eat people. If Berloberg falls into the hands of others, he will surely create a cannibalistic demon, and will go to find other "brothers and sisters" to take away the elves from them.

"It is by no means the Sword of the White God; the gunsmith has turned it into a cursed demonic sword! Only I! Only I can control this sword! I am the noble, rational, and absolutely self-controlled chosen one!"

Even now, Maquire still believes he is not ill and mistakenly believes he is in good mental health.

--In reality, the power that the spirit of Berloberg gave him was only a portion of the soul essence of the gunsmith and the General of Tears. The years that it spent with the two nameless men transformed into a very special kind of psychic energy tide.

Mr. Maquire was completely unaware that there was an ogre inside him, which he simply mistook for Berloberg.

He tidied up the medicine cabinet next to the operating table, then looked again at the spilled waste liquid on the table. There were still traces of alcohol left from wiping it. Dannie was careless and hadn't cleaned it up properly.

Maquire thought to himself--

--Alfons's death will surely attract the militia, who will try to disguise the murder as a medical malpractice. The traces of drugs are hard to explain and will only create more trouble.

He reached out to clean the table, his mind already filled with numerous explanations for the medical malpractice. With Berloberg's help, his incredibly clear logical thinking had helped him devise several risk mitigation plans.

Mr. Maquire suddenly squatted down, and then something even more incredible happened.

A ladybug flew in through the window. This ladybug is called [Sprot Art/ Spuantong Sports].

--These insects are also a large race of Chimera monsters, and they can often be found on the menus of the Mimir Hot Spring Market.

If the pungent mustard is the vaccine Vita Imprint, then the spicy insect juice is the secret medicine for warriors to fight against the cold wind. As long as they continue to consume this insect, even the weakest child can grow into a strong man with the physique of a bodybuilder.

Maquire couldn't understand why this monstrous insect had suddenly flown here.

It flapped its wings on Alfons's corpse, as if it had caught the scent of Universal Elixir. Calamity beasts always crave high-quality elemental essence, and blood-bearing units like lapis lazuli are no exception.

The Spuantong hopped around a few times before jumping onto the table, completely folding its elytra, and then gently kissing the tabletop with its axe-like mandibles, seemingly collecting the remnants of the Universal Elixir.

Maquire waved his hand, opening the palm-sized insect—

His eyes widened as he realized something was terribly wrong!

He pressed the stain on the table with his fingertip, then put it in his mouth to taste it.

This isn't poison mixed with waste liquid; it's clearly a fresh Universal Elixir!

He ran to the medical waste bin and searched through it, but he could no longer find the bottle of poison used to kill him.

"What exactly happened? What exactly happened? What's going on?"

Maquire slapped his cheeks, trying to calm himself down. There were no ghosts in this world, only spirits.

--Unless it's an area with an extremely high concentration of Spirit Calamity, such ghostly pranks rarely occur elsewhere.

Where did the poison go? Besides Dannie, did anyone else come into this operating room?

Maquire ran to the window, trying to find any trace of someone climbing through it, but found nothing.

The news of Alfons's death had already been relayed to the nurses' station via the vital signs monitoring equipment, and nurses were about to come to the operating room to check on him. Maquire didn't have much time left.

He had no time to think about it; he had to treat it all as a hallucination caused by his mental instability over the past few months.

The young nurse, Dannie, pounded on the door and, hearing the alarm that signaled Mr. Alfons's life was in danger, rushed over immediately.

Maquire calmly pushed open the door, his face full of regret, his mind brimming with procedural reports, already prepared for his acquittal.