Azik's Payback

Smack! Smack! Smack!

He mentally added sound effects to the sight of chunks of Qilingus's flesh dropping off.

They were members of the same organization, and they had even met once before. Since Qilingus was about to die, he decided to forgive him for his reckless attack just now.

If Mr. Azik didn't mind, he also wanted to claim Qilingus's legacy.

In just two or three seconds, Qilingus's clothes rotted away and his flesh fell off, leaving only bones.

With a clatter, the remaining bones fell apart. Along with the tattered scraps of clothing, they crumbled into even smaller pieces.

Amid the rotting flesh, stark white bone fragments, and shredded cloth, a jelly-like object, deep blue inside and seemingly wrapped around a miniature whirlwind, was exposed.

The Beyonder Characteristic left behind by Qilingus seemed to be coagulating and separating from his body faster because of the abnormal way he had died.

Cyril couldn't help being drawn to the glowing object. If the broken mirror shards had been enough to let him open a "door" out, he would almost have been tempted to reach out, grab the Beyonder Characteristic, and run.

After all, Mr. Azik probably wouldn't care about such a small thing.

The thought had barely crossed his mind when he saw the figure in the suit and top hat look toward him from midair.

The polite, gentle gaze was intensely oppressive. Cyril stiffened and gave him a slight nod.

He could clearly feel that, unlike Qilingus, who had sensed someone watching through the mirror shards, Mr. Azik had seen him plainly.

The next second, vivid, rich colors stood out in the dim, illusory, unreal Mirror World. He saw the bizarre, transparent Spirit Bodies floating around him, as well as the radiance hovering above them all, seemingly containing infinite knowledge.

"The Spirit World?" Cyril murmured instinctively.

He had never seen the Spirit World, much less been there, but the seven tranquil streams of light above him, each a different color and containing countless things he could know, were simply too conspicuous and distinctive.

Azik, dressed in a black suit and wearing a half-height top hat, appeared silently in front of him.

Azik raised a hand to adjust his top hat and gave Cyril a gentle nod.

"That's right. This is the Spirit World."

"You seemed surprised when you saw me just now. It was the kind of surprise that meant you recognized me, so I brought you here to ask you about it."

"Don't worry. I only have a few questions. Your friend is still in the Mirror World, and I'll send you back once I'm done."

Cyril smiled and nodded stiffly. Even a powerful figure with amnesia was still a powerful figure. He had no thought of resisting, and his mind began to race.

Was it an accident, or had this treasure been arranged specifically so I'd come into contact with Mr. Azik today?

But... Adam doesn't need the God of Death's Uniqueness. Could this be part of his cooperation with the Evernight Goddess?

Or perhaps he wants to interfere with the Evernight Goddess's plans. If the Goddess is too preoccupied to look after herself, she'll inevitably pay less attention to Klein, giving Amon an opening.

One thought after another flashed through Cyril's mind as he considered each possibility.

There was only one thing he firmly believed: in the mysterious world, there were no accidents or coincidences.

After thinking quietly for a couple of seconds, he pushed aside the tangled thoughts and answered Mr. Azik honestly.

"You could say I know of you, but not in the way you're thinking."

"I just happen to know who you are, and I recognized you just now."

Azik nodded, unsurprised. "Could you tell me about it? I've forgotten many things from my past, and I'm trying to find out what happened to me."

"Of course." Cyril nodded. Since things had gone this far, he had nothing to object to. After all, he had come here because he was tempted by the reward Azik had revealed.

After a brief pause to gather his thoughts, he said, "All I know is that you were Azik Eggers, the Death Archon of the Balam Empire on the Southern Continent more than thirteen hundred years ago. You were the God of Death's son, and you disappeared after the God of Death fell."

"Some people suspect you were the God of Death's resurrection plan, while others say the real plan for his resurrection lies in the Berserk Sea."

"I don't know anything more, but I think your memory loss itself might have been arranged by the God of Death."

Perhaps Trickmaster had some talent for acting, too. The more Cyril said, the more smoothly he spoke, even managing to wear just the right expressions.

After hearing him out, Azik stood there in a daze, lost in distant memories.

He recalled scenes from his past. They were neither beautiful nor warm, but filled only with coldness, indifference, and death.

After a long while, he finally came back to himself. His once-gentle, weathered eyes now held a lofty chill.

The change didn't last long. He quickly reined in his emotions, though his weathered eyes still looked somewhat cold.

Then he looked at Cyril and nodded gently. "Thank you for answering me. It brought back some memories of my past. They aren't pleasant, but I feel they're important to me."

"Consider this my thanks. It also serves as an apology for accidentally affecting the Mirror World where you were and causing you to be caught up in the battle."

In Azik's outstretched right hand lay a deep-blue, jelly-like object. Air currents continually swirled inside it, as if it contained a tiny whirlwind that would never stop.

It was the Wind-blessed Beyonder Characteristic that had separated from Qilingus. Azik had picked it up.

Cyril stared at the object in Azik's hand for a moment, then his eyes lit up. He happily reached out and took it.

Mr. Azik probably wouldn't even have glanced at this Characteristic before walking away. So he picked it up especially for me?

"Don't sell it anytime soon. It would make it easy for people to connect you to Qilingus's death."

After that brief warning, Azik's figure suddenly seemed to recede into the distance, and the vivid colors around them quickly faded.

In the blink of an eye, Cyril was back in the dim, illusory Mirror World.

The next second, Owen rushed over and grabbed his arm tightly.

"Where did you go just now?"

"My Divination stopped working, too. I thought we'd run into some horror in the Mirror World. I almost started writing my will."

"First, you don't have any paper or a pen. Second, this is the Mirror World. Even if you wrote a will, no one would be able to read it."

After teasing him, he explained why he had disappeared.

"The man who killed Qilingus just now pulled me into the Spirit World to question me. The reason we suddenly fell from the Mirror World into here was that he affected it, but he gave me a reward."

As he spoke, he showed Owen the Wind-blessed Beyonder Characteristic in his hand.

"Let's get out of this area's Mirror World first. What just happened will definitely draw the attention of the official Beyonders. If we stay here, we'll become suspects."

As he spoke, he walked forward a few steps and pressed a hand against the empty air in front of him. Deep-blue light rippled outward from his palm, forming a new "door."

In reality, beside a quiet pond, a deep-blue glow flickered across several mirror shards lying motionless in the dirt, then quickly went dark again.

Not far from the shards lay a heap of rotting flesh, stark white broken bones, and decayed scraps of clothing, bearing witness to someone's presence there.

A dozen or so seconds later, the fierce sound of wind suddenly rang out. Amid the howling gales circling high above, an old man wearing a black soft cap and a black robe embroidered with Storm symbols slowly descended to the ground. His silver eyes were unusually stern.

He was Ace Snake, the Spellsinger of God and a cardinal of the Lord of Storms Church in the Backlund Diocese.

Looking at the heap of flesh, broken bones, and scraps of clothing on the ground, the Spellsinger of God's expression darkened more than the clouds overhead. Even the air around him grew heavy.

He had arrived a step too late when he tried to stop Qilingus from assassinating Duke Negan, allowing Qilingus to escape. Then, while pursuing him, he had unexpectedly lost track of his trail.

After finally locking on to Qilingus's aura again and rushing here, he found that not even an intact corpse remained.

With a soft sigh, he looked past the rotting flesh on the ground toward several mirror shards nearby. Tilting his head slightly, he listened to the information the wind carried to him.