"I have a bold idea."
Theus blinked. Chloe's words interrupted his thoughts.
She had already sat up and stopped moving, looking over at him somewhat hesitantly.
A trace of blood still lingered at the corner of the girl's mouth, slowly sliding downward before falling with a patter onto her black nun's habit.
"Ah, I stained it."
She lowered her head in mild annoyance. Her orange-red hair was slightly disheveled, like a ball of fire.
"How did drinking the blood work just now?"
"Not very well." Chloe tried rubbing at the bloodstain, only smearing it wider. "Fine, I don't want to discourage you, but actually, it had no effect at all."
"That really is a pity. It seems my blood can't dispel Pollution." Theus lowered his head to look at his fingers.
The wound the girl had bitten open had not been large to begin with, and it would soon heal.
"No, not necessarily. I just thought about it—drinking blood doesn't really count as entering the body."
"How so?"
"For instance, when Pollution appears [inside] my body, it can basically show up anywhere, but never in my stomach. Pollution's definition of inside and outside seems different from our common understanding."
That... did seem to make some sense. Theus had experienced Pollution continuously appearing inside his body before, and it had indeed never appeared in his stomach.
Come to think of it, Pollution's targeting was remarkably precise. Even when he kept moving, it could appear within his flesh and blood without the slightest deviation, as though that Pollution did not come from the outside world, but from his own heart.
"So drinking blood won't work. It's not that your blood can't purify it, but that [drinking] is the wrong method. It's like performing a ritual—the materials can all be correct, but if