Crowded Washroom

In the lounge, Owen, his eyes blinded once again, lay on the sofa in a completely undignified posture. The gibberish emanating from the out-of-control old man just now had dealt a massive blow to his fragile psyche.

He rubbed his forehead and looked at Cyril with a complex expression. Although he didn't speak, the meaning in his eyes was obvious:

"You tortured a Beyonder until they lost control?"

Cyril shook his head decisively: "No, I didn't. It was the influence of the idol inside the safe."

"He was likely a Seer of Secrets pathway Beyonder to begin with, and his mental state was unstable. Combined with my provocation and the presence of the True Creator idol, that's why he suddenly lost control."

As he spoke, he looked up at the ceiling, letting out a slight sigh of relief after confirming that the out-of-control fellow had no intention of smashing through the floor to hunt them down.

An out-of-control Beyonder was far more dangerous than a normal one, especially since the person clearly carried corruption from the True Creator.

At the same time, he heard a series of panicked footsteps echoing in the hallway outside, rushing toward the upper floors. Clearly, the Loud Noise and Flash he had just created had alarmed quite a few people.

"Monster!"

"Help..."

Bang! Bang!

Soon, shouts of alarm from the crowd and the sound of gunfire erupted from upstairs.

Cyril took out Jacob's Wallet again. There were plenty of pounds and gold bars in that safe upstairs; as long as his luck wasn't too terrible, he could always "retrieve" some after a few tries.

The next second, he fished a brass-colored bullet out of the wallet.

At the same time, the gun in the hand of some unlucky soul upstairs misfired.

He glanced at it; there were no runes engraved on the bullet. It was just an ordinary pistol round. He tossed it aside and started rummaging again.

He then pulled out a stack of crisp 5-pound notes. A rough estimate suggested there were about 100 of them, meaning this casual grab had netted him 500 pounds.

After putting the money away, he reached into the wallet again, full of enthusiasm.

Then he obtained two crumpled 10-sol notes;

A fruit knife stained with bits of flesh;

3 gold bars;

A stack of 1-pound notes;

A pair of red underwear with a hole in the back, still feeling slightly warm to the touch;

Half a minute later, the screams and gunfire upstairs suddenly vanished, leaving only a faint, dripping sound, like a leaky faucet, echoing in the distance.

Cyril stopped rummaging through Jacob's Wallet, tossed a gold denture stained with vegetable bits that he had just pulled out into the corner, and looked at Owen.

The latter had recovered after a brief rest and was silently packing up the items Cyril had pulled from the bizarre wallet. Two of them belonged to him: a yellow crystal pendant and a white shirt.

After a second of silence, he simply spread out his shirt, threw the useful gold bars and pounds onto it, and rolled it into a bundle.

Bang!

Crash!

The sound of shattering glass suddenly rang out as a mass of black-red, flowing flesh monster smashed through the window and leaped in from outside.

Cyril reached out and tugged at the air, conjuring a lightless curtain out of thin air to cover the flesh monster.

The next second, the Black Curtain lost control, instead transforming into a writhing shadow that lashed out at him.

"Damn it!" Cyril cursed, but his hands didn't stop. Using his Object Manipulation ability, he stood the tea table beside him upright to block the path in front of him.

Boom~

The solid wood tea table shattered upon impact, but by then, Cyril and Owen were already gone from behind it, and the bundle wrapped in the shirt on the nearby sofa had vanished along with them.

The black-red flesh monster paused for a moment, then surged toward the window it had just smashed through.

On the first floor of the casino, in the same restroom as before, Cyril and Owen phased through the wall and collided head-on with a middle-aged man who was washing his pants.

Cyril looked at the man's face, then at the pants in his hands, and inexplicably understood the man's train of thought: as long as he soaked the pants completely and then wrung them out, no one would be able to tell he had wet himself earlier.

Both parties stared at each other in awkward silence for a second, then Cyril apologized sincerely:

"Excuse me."

"You..." the middle-aged man washing his pants opened his mouth.

Just then, the restroom door was pushed open from the outside, and a burly, hairy man roared angrily into the room:

"Which son of a bitch locked the restroom? Don't you know this is a public space? You... you guys..."

Seeing three people crammed into the narrow space, one of whom had his pants off, the previously furious man suffered a sudden linguistic breakdown.

After a long while, he backed out and closed the door, muttering weakly: "Isn't it a bit crowded with so many people? Uh, no, wait, excuse me."

The moment the restroom door closed, it was opened again by him the next second. He looked at the three people inside with a conflicted expression and said:

"You—you guys hurry up, I can't hold it much longer."

After saying that, he hurriedly closed the restroom door again.

Once the restroom door was completely shut, the middle-aged man at the sink finally snapped out of his daze. He hurriedly pulled on his wet pants, backed away, and looked warily at Cyril and Owen, who had suddenly appeared behind him.

"What... are you trying to do..."

Looking at the empty washroom behind him, he scanned his surroundings, questioning his life choices. His face shifted from red to pale, and not even caring that his trousers were still dripping wet, he hurried out of the washroom, moving with such speed as if a ghost were chasing him.

At the same time, he silently made a resolution in his heart: he would never come to this casino again—no, he wouldn't go to any casino ever again.

On the other side, Cyril and Owen, completely unaware that they had just successfully persuaded a gambling addict to turn over a new leaf, had already left the casino and arrived on the empty street outside.

Owen looked at the casino building, which had suddenly become rowdy, and asked with concern, "What about that out-of-control Beyonder?"

"Although most of the people there are gang members, there are also some ordinary people, and an out-of-control individual is capable of moving."

Cyril replied, "Naturally, we let the professionals handle it."

Recalling what happened earlier, Owen hurriedly asked, "Reporting to the Church again?"

"Not this time." Cyril shook his head slightly. Under Owen's puzzled gaze, he took a step forward, raised his right hand high, and snapped his fingers.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

A series of *Loud Noise*s rang out like thunder, accompanied by frequent, blinding *Flash*es, as if a powerful Beyonder from the Church of Storms were creating a thunderstorm right there.

The high-frequency Loud Noise and Flash continued for about ten seconds. Sensing that his remaining spirituality was running low, Cyril lowered his raised hand and turned to look at Owen.

"Let's go. Back to the South Bridge District, to the Harvest Cathedral. Having faced someone out of control under the corruption of the True Creator, it's best to have the clergy perform a purification."

Just as Owen was about to nod, a soft whisper that seemed to echo right beside his ear suddenly resounded:

"The True Creator?"

As the voice echoed, green vines as thick as a baby's arm descended from all around, covering the surrounding area like a torrential downpour.

They intertwined and wove together, rapidly forming a forest that layered upward, its top completely invisible.

In the blink of an eye, a swing woven from green vines suddenly appeared before the two of them, with a chestnut-haired lady sitting on it, legs crossed.

She was tall and strikingly beautiful, wearing an Intis-style blouse under a brown, patterned captain's coat, paired with off-white trousers and knee-high boots, dressed just like the leader of a pirate ship.

Cyril looked at the mysterious space woven from green vines and the lady before him who was dressed like a pirate captain, and a name suddenly popped into his mind: Bernadette.

The moment that name surfaced, the lady on the swing suddenly tilted her head to look at him, her tone carrying a hint of playfulness and seriousness:

"You seem to know me?"

"Uh..." Cyril was stunned. He even began to suspect if the other party was a Spectator... This was just too sharp, wasn't it?

Only after spending a long time with a Spectator would one realize that a Clown's control over facial expressions was the number one survival skill in this world.

Restraining his wandering thoughts, he looked at the lady sitting high up across from him and shook his head slightly:

"I don't know you, but I have a guess."