Priest Andrew

"Ah... Lu Yuan... are you still human?"

Mo Shui spoke dazedly, the runes on his body flickering on and off.

It took Mo Shui a long while to recover.

"Your Sanity is absurd! I've never seen a low-level Transcendence possess this much Sanity!"

"You aren't some Eerie creature in disguise, are you?"

Mo Shui looked wary, but after twitching his little nose a few times, he indeed failed to smell any Eerie aura.

"Talent."

Lu Yuan quietly uttered a single word.

"Hm?" Looking at Lu Yuan's solemn face, Mo Shui suddenly felt an inexplicable urge to punch him.

"Do you know I nearly died just now? I almost got drained dry trying to guide you in constructing a mental barrier!"

"Never do that again!"

"Is the gap between your Sanity and mine that large?" Lu Yuan caught the implication in Mo Shui's words.

"Of course not! Even though you have a lot of Sanity, you're still far inferior to this Book Spirit!"

"It's just that your Sanity is a little strange. It was hard for me to mobilize, and you seem to have already mastered part of the technique. Otherwise, even if I were drained dry, I couldn't have done it."

Mo Shui said with a frown.

"I see." Lu Yuan said nothing more.

It seemed Mo Shui's technique had quite a few limitations. This time had been a coincidence as well, and it even required mobilizing his own Sanity...

Lu Yuan had no intention of letting this little thing discover his secret.

That evening, Mary brought Mina back.

By the time she returned, Mina had taken a bath and changed into new clothes. Her little face looked rosy and soft.

"Remember to come play with Sister Mary later."

Mary left only after giving her instructions.

At that moment, Brent returned from outside with steaming bread and vegetable soup.

Under the dim yellow lamplight,

Mina sat on a little stool, nibbling at softened bread in small bites, her face full of contentment.

After wolfing down his meal, Brent began bustling around the room again, tidying up.

Mo Shui sat beside the table, occasionally taking out a clump of black light and swallowing it.

After eating, Lu Yuan took out Deep Sea Creature Guide: From Egg to Adult and leaned against the sofa to read.

That brief warmth seemed to shut the cold, damp Grim Port outside the window away until the following morning.

[Sanity III: 2/74 (See that III up front? It indicates experience points.)]

As promised, the Strange Dream once again took away a bit of Lu Yuan's maximum Sanity, and his dream returned to its state of facing the sea directly.

By then, the fog over Grim Port had dispersed.

The jingling of passing carriages occasionally drifted in from outside.

Then a series of unusually rhythmic knocks broke the Clinic's calm.

Lu Yuan stood up, set down the newspaper Brent had brought back, and opened the door.

There were no customers outside.

Instead, a group of people stood there in white robes trimmed with gold.

At their head stood a middle-aged Priest holding a faintly glowing Scripture, with two burly, solemn-faced men behind him.

They were from the Church.

"Good morning, lost lamb. I am Priest Andrew. Please forgive my uninvited visit. These two are the Deacons who follow me."

Priest Andrew inclined his head slightly, though his tone carried a trace of arrogance.

"Angel has sensed that there is a child here. To keep her from being tempted by evil, we must bring her back to the Church."

"There is no child here for you." Lu Yuan gripped the doorknob, his expression calm.

"If Angel says there is, then there is."

Priest Andrew smiled and gently opened the Scripture in his hand.

"Bzzz—"

At that instant, Lu Yuan's pupils abruptly constricted.

Everything vanished.

The sounds of carriages on the street, cicadas, wind... every sound disappeared in an instant.

The entire Clinic seemed to have been abandoned by the world.

[Warning: The environment around you has changed. Silence Barrier has enveloped you.]

Lu Yuan looked at the gray-white notification and instantly understood everything.

Everything here had been isolated. Even the nearby Hidden Sentries would have no idea what was happening.

And by the time the Hidden Sentries noticed something was wrong, these Church people would probably have already fled.

"The Authority Angel bestowed upon me. I hope Doctor Lu can sense the power within it."

The smile on Priest Andrew's face remained unchanged as he lightly drew a finger across the Scripture.

"Angel Grants Us Armor."

Golden light instantly enveloped the Deacons behind him.

A layer of golden radiance spread across their skin. Their muscles swelled, and beneath their seemingly ordinary robes, explosive strength instantly filled their bodies.

"Angel Grants Us Speed."

Another streak of azure radiance descended.

At the same time, the two Deacons moved. Empowered by the azure glow, they were as fast as two Afterimages, charging Lu Yuan from both sides in a pincer attack with howling wind in their wake.

"The Church's methods really are revolting..."

Lu Yuan watched them rush at him, his gaze icy.

"Then let me experience Angel's blessing..."

The next moment, Lu Yuan lightly pressed the dark-gold Pocket Watch with his thumb.

Click.

[Accelerate (Activated)]

[Sanity... -1... -1]

The world instantly slowed in Lu Yuan's eyes.

The two Deacons' fierce charge now looked like laughable slow motion.

Lu Yuan reached into his coat with his right hand and drew Flame, the Enchanted Revolver.

Faced with the Church's shameless conduct, Lu Yuan intended to teach them a profound lesson this time.

Was his Clinic a garbage dump? Could anyone come and go whenever they pleased?

"Bang! Bang!"

Two clusters of orange-red flame blossomed from the muzzle.

The silver-plated Alchemical Bullets spun as they shrieked through the air, blasting precisely toward the two Deacons' joints.

"Clang—crack!"

The first sound was the ringing clash of bullets striking golden light.

It was immediately followed by the shattering of the Blessed Shields and the sound of bones breaking.

The Church's blessings at this level truly had decent defensive power. Ordinary blades and swords would likely have struggled to break through them.

Unfortunately, they were facing an enchanted large-caliber Revolver, a weapon born to kill Eerie creatures.

"Aah!!"

The Deacons charging forward with such force had blood mist explode from their knees. The massive impact made them lose their balance outright, and they crashed heavily to the ground like wild dogs with broken legs, sliding several meters forward.

Priest Andrew was clearly shocked by the sight before him.

"Damn it! Get up! For Angel's glory!"

Andrew's brows drew together as he shouted harshly.

The two Deacons on the ground endured the agonizing pain and actually tried to push themselves up to lunge again.

"Bang! Bang!"

Two more shots rang out.

Lu Yuan remained expressionless.

This time, the bullets struck precisely into the two Deacons' wrists.

All four limbs were crippled.

This time, the two Deacons completely lost the ability to move. They could only groan in pain as their blood stained the floor red.

Lu Yuan lowered the muzzle of his gun as wisps of smoke rose from it.