Seal of the Four-Colored Horse (II)

Ye Yan's fingers clenched the newspaper so tightly that his knuckles whitened slightly from the force.

A large black-and-white shadowed photograph was printed in the Banner Gazette. Upon what had once been a solemn, sacred sculpture appeared an eye-catching, provocative message:

"God is dead!"

The crooked letters on the wall looked as though they had been carelessly brushed on. The final stroke trailed off in a long streak, as if the killer had fallen into a frenzied state while writing it.

For the first time, he felt death was so close.

If he had not followed Holmes and left, if he had chosen to remain in London, would he have gone out one ordinary day and never returned home, becoming a cold corpse that made the Tomorrow Gazette's front-page headlines?

[March 11, 1881—Jersey Island]

[Because we were tracking down the mysterious Corpse Mover, the detective, his coachman Jack, and I came to Jersey Island.

On the first day, we found nothing.

On the second day, the detective seemed to have discovered some clue.

On the third day, he gave me a gun, then hurried away.

Today is the fourth day. The serial murder case I was previously drawn into has claimed its sixth victim...]

The long-absent Diary appeared once more, but Ye Yan was not happy, because it had brought bad news.

Someone had died again today.

Ye Yan took a deep breath and set down the newspaper in his hand.

Old Jack had gone downstairs to fetch dinner. The two of them had been staying at the Inn for three whole days.

Because of Holmes's instructions, he did not dare go out rashly and could only follow the progress of the London case through the newspapers.

However, this indirect method of obtaining information clearly came with delays.

The sixth victim had already appeared.

Yet he had only learned of it through the Diary.

"Sunset Church..."

One had the Sun Wheel as its symbol, while the other was called Sunset. Clearly, this was a cult organization hostile to the Church of England Sanctuary.

This cult preached all sorts of twisted, heretical doctrines. Its most extreme slogan was: God is dead.

Normal people hid corpses inside horses' bellies to conceal evidence and make it easier to dispose of the bodies, but these cultists clearly did not possess normal logic.

They even dared to blaspheme God. Openly provoking the church was hardly surprising.

But this also showed that Sunset Church wielded considerable power.

If they had not possessed some special ability to conceal their movements, they could not have silently hung a corpse atop a church sculpture.

Ye Yan silently watched the motionless Compass within his mind, feeling somewhat indecisive.

He did not want to sit and wait for death. If he wanted to catch the real killer as soon as possible, the best approach now was to find that mysterious Corpse Mover.

And all the clues currently indicated that the mysterious Corpse Mover was very likely his uncle, Jules.

Should he use the Compass's ability to find him?

Ye Yan frowned.

As the saying went, hesitation led to defeat.

The reason he could not make up his mind was that he feared acting on his own would push him into an even more dangerous situation.

Ye Yan could not help turning his attention inward.

[Crimson Fire Ash]

[Category: Tier One Material (Craftable)]

[Bred among flowers, born amid fire; fire burns away life, and fire also guides new life.]

[Aspects: Casting, Guidance]

The revolver Holmes had given him was merely an ordinary gun, but the bullets in that box were not so simple.

The gunpowder inside had been mixed with a special material.

More importantly, Ye Yan saw a new Principle in its description.

The Principle of Casting involved fire, destruction, shaping, transformation, skill, and strength. Even without the explanatory prompt, its name alone made it clear that it was related to forging.

Ye Yan was studying the descriptions within his mental space.

Suddenly.

A bone-piercing chill shot from his spine to the back of his neck.

Ye Yan's pupils contracted.

The next second, his body reacted faster than his thoughts. Instinctively, he threw his entire upper body to the left.

The movement came so abruptly.

So abruptly that his mind was still stuck in confusion: Why the left? Why not the right?

He did not know why he had to fall in that direction.

He merely trusted his instincts.

The dull agony of his forehead slamming into the corner of the table made his vision go black, but that pain was immediately replaced by relief.

A claw woven from shattered bones grazed past his right shoulder, tearing a huge gash through his linen shirt.

Blood gushed from his shoulder and spread into a dark-red stain across the fabric. Only then did Ye Yan belatedly feel the bone claw's bone-chilling cold as it sliced through his skin.

Yet strangely, he felt no pain at all, as though his entire right arm had been submerged in icy water.

With a thought.

A revolver immediately appeared in his hand.

Amid a crackling sound like shattering glass, the stitched-up walking corpse monster continued closing in.

"Hiss—"

A bizarre sound came from the monster's chest cavity.

It abruptly opened its hideous mouth, split all the way to its ears, while its single pale, pupil-less eye rolled ceaselessly.

An icy chill poured from its throat.

"Bang! Bang! Bang—"

At the same time, three gunshots suddenly thundered.

The bullets sank precisely through the monster's eye socket. Like red-hot iron skewers piercing butter, they burst into three vivid-red sparks, carrying shattered bone and brain matter out through the back of its skull.

The monster's rigid body swayed.

Ye Yan kept pulling the trigger until the cylinder was empty.

It felt as though huge patches of gunpowder-scented light had exploded across his vision.

The shell casings rolled to the floor, melting into six-petaled iron flowers.

The monster was dead.

Its corpse was like a shattered glass vessel, cold air radiating from the chunks of flesh scattered across the floor.

Standing closest to it, Ye Yan shivered violently from the cold.

He was grateful that the monster had moved slowly. Otherwise, he might not have been able to strike its fatal point so accurately.

And he had been lucky enough.

Just as when he had practiced shooting with Old Jack before.

Perhaps it was an innate talent, or perhaps it was the influence of the Principle of Guidance. His grasp of the timing for firing could simply be called heaven-sent.

Still shaken, Ye Yan stared at the monster's remains on the floor. "Was that monster trying to capture me alive?"

He could sense that the claw had not been aimed at a vital spot. Instead, it had targeted the area below the back of his neck with precision, where the spinal nerves were at their most vulnerable.

The other side had clearly intended to paralyze him completely rather than simply take his life.

"The one who attacked me was a Sunset Church cultist, wasn't it? Those lunatics actually chased me all the way here..."

This was no place to linger.

Just as Ye Yan prepared to leave, he realized something was wrong with his body.

The revolver slipped from between his stiff fingers.

His limbs were rapidly going numb, as though he had been injected with a muscle relaxant.

"This..."

Ye Yan raised his eyes and looked around the room.

Without realizing it.

The chill released by the monster had already permeated the entire space.

His mind began to loosen.

A drowsy sensation filled his thoughts.

His reason screamed warnings that he could not fall asleep, but his body craved that release-like relaxation.

Why had Old Jack still not returned after going out?

Was he still alive?

And what about the other people in the Inn? With such a huge commotion, how had no one heard a thing?

[Recordable coordinates discovered. Store them?]

"Yes."

A thread of cold silently established a connection with Ye Yan.

The Compass's needle trembled incessantly before finally pointing toward a black shadow curled up in the sewers.

It seemed the one pulling the strings was not in the Inn.

That counted as good news, perhaps.

As he thought, Ye Yan gradually lowered his head.

His heavy eyelids slowly drooped. At last, he could no longer hold on, and his vision began to blur.

In the final instant before his consciousness faded.

He seemed to see an ash-white moth, its wings mottled with phosphorescent dust, fluttering toward him.