And this death was one he could never have anticipated.
Who could have imagined that an ordinary tree could turn into a man-eating monster like this?
He could not have imagined it, nor had he ever heard of such a thing, so he had not been prepared at all.
"What kind of monster is this? Could it be... one of those strange things?"
The divine retainer he had encountered before—Death Bird—had been called one of those strange things by this man. But from his perspective, it was a divine retainer, vastly different from either those strange things or this monster.
When he looked at Death Bird, he did not feel the dizziness he felt when staring at this monster, nor the intense repulsion and terror that made him afraid to approach.
Because it was a divine retainer.
It was a messenger of the gods, as well as their agent upon the earth.
They respected the gods' messengers as they respected the gods themselves.
The gods' messengers were another pair of eyes for the gods, watching this world in their stead.
As long as one was a believer of the gods, their attitude toward these retainers would probably be fanatical and devout.
Only Chen Fan was different. He did not have many thoughts about the gods, nor was he like the others, fanatically believing without regard for anything else.
Perhaps it was precisely because of this attitude that his awakening ritual had failed, leaving him unable to awaken any abilities at all.
He was faithless, and abandoned by the gods.
"No."
Chen Ke was somewhat impatient. The type of anomaly a Contract Anomalist made a contract with would basically affect their emotions.
After all, if one contracted a fire-element anomaly, that Contract Anomalist's temper would gradually become more explosive.
The anomaly