Having narrowly escaped death, Bruce drained the bathtub.
He examined the bathroom floor carefully and found some shallow, deliberately carved marks. They were fresh, clearly made not long ago.
Someone wanted to kill him, right here in Wayne Manor.
Aside from him, the only people in Wayne Manor were Danvers and Jessica.
He had spent some time with Danvers, and judging by her behavior, she would never be foolish enough to kill him. If he died, there would be no one to inherit Wayne Manor and the other assets, and they would become state property. That would be a disastrous outcome, one she certainly would not accept.
Besides, Danvers had been so intimate with him just now. There was no way she would then try to kill him.
That left only one person: Jessica.
She had prepared the bathroom, too. No wonder she had been so helpful-she had wanted to kill him all along. He had never imagined that the harmless-looking little blonde girl, who looked like a porcelain doll, could be so vicious, let alone wield such mysterious power.
Luckily, I had Breakthrough, which kept me alive. It looks like Jessica's mysterious power isn't that strong. Can I force my way through it as long as I struggle?
Could Uncle Flaikent's death have something to do with Jessica, too? Were they also killed outright by this mysterious power?
Bruce ventured a bold guess, but it was only a guess. He could not be certain.
Only someone utterly deranged could murder their own parents.
Perhaps Jessica was not responsible. Perhaps she had merely been led astray.
Jessica lit a white candle and quietly entered a storeroom in Wayne Manor. It was her own private little space, where she hid the treasures she had collected: a mermaid's nails, the hair of condemned prisoners, and so on.
She had already realized that the Vengeful Spirit she had used before was no longer strong enough. It had even wanted to borrow her body. Whether the Vengeful Spirit Doll had been joking or not, Jessica needed a replacement. She needed a stronger, mysterious Spirit Body, one capable of effortlessly eliminating her enemies.
She had spent a long time gathering the materials for this summoning. She hoped it would not disappoint her.
Jessica laid out her collection piece by piece, arranging it in circles around the white candle. Her expression was solemn, almost devout.
"Great Silver Serpent Mother, please hear my call..."
Meanwhile, Bruce had left the bathroom and changed into the clothes Danvers had prepared for him. As he passed Jessica's room, he stopped.
He felt an urge to knock.
He wanted to confront Jessica directly and probe her intentions.
But Bruce seriously doubted whether he could withstand Jessica's mysterious power.
Bruce took a step...
He passed Jessica's room and went straight to the study.
He only suspected Jessica; he had no evidence pointing directly to her. He knew nothing about mysterious powers, either. Perhaps there was a fourth person in Wayne Manor, or some mysterious Vengeful Spirit.
Even if Jessica really was the person who had almost killed him, what could he do?
Kill Jessica?
That would be murder, and the victim would be a child. He could not do something like that.
Hand Jessica over to the church?
The church itself concealed untold secrets and harbored people with extraordinary powers. He was hardly normal himself. Going to the church might only land him in trouble.
Jessica was still just a child. Perhaps she had been deceived and could still be saved.
That was what Bruce thought.
He still held a measure of compassion in his heart, utterly unaware that Jessica was searching for a new way to deal with him.
Jessica wanted nothing more than to kill him as soon as possible.
Bruce searched through the books on the shelves. He wanted to find more books about mysterious powers, though he knew that beyond the accounts in a few travelogues and novels, the true workings of those powers were probably known only to those who possessed extraordinary abilities,
and kept strictly secret. The churches, for instance.
The Goddess of the Night seemed to favor this body's original owner?
Bruce suddenly remembered that the original owner seemed to have heard the Goddess of the Night whispering to him. Could he pray to her and ask her to grant him something to get started with? An extraordinary ability, for instance-something with a little offensive or defensive power.
Of course, this was pure wishful thinking on Bruce's part. Would a deity bother with him?
His current identity was rather unusual, too. His soul did not belong to this world. He had better keep as low a profile as possible and hide himself whenever he could. If he contacted a deity now and the deity noticed something wrong with him, wouldn't he be done for?
He could not approach the church, either. Since deities existed, along with all sorts of terrifying legends, there were bound to be people with mysterious powers among the church's many members. Ascetics, Missionaries, Bishops-there might well be someone extraordinarily powerful among them.
If they discovered his abnormality and interrogated him with something like the Truth-Binding Shackles, making him reveal his true identity, he would be just as doomed.
The churches had the greatest number of people with extraordinary abilities.
Many books about mysterious powers stated that the fastest way to encounter those powers and become someone with extraordinary abilities was to join a church.
Yet only thirty percent of a church's members might possess extraordinary abilities. That was not a large proportion; the other seventy percent were merely ordinary people.
Why?
Because they did not meet the requirements.
To join a church, first, you had to believe in the deity it worshipped. You had to be devout.
With a deity watching from above, deception was useless. Sooner or later, it would be exposed.
Only then would they determine whether you met the requirements for gaining extraordinary abilities. What those requirements were, outsiders had no way of knowing. That had always been a church secret, never publicly disclosed.
The churches might know something about one another's secrets, but they would not reveal them to the outside world, either.
The requirements were probably quite demanding. Otherwise, everyone could gain extraordinary abilities.
Even in the best-case scenario, where the Goddess of the Night's church in Lane Village had no one with extraordinary abilities and failed to notice anything unusual about Bruce, once the local church reported the matter to its superiors, someone with those abilities would inevitably come to investigate. He would be exposed then.
Seeking help from the church was not a viable option, either.
His current predicament was not all that difficult yet. He could not send himself down a road to certain death.
He would be better off finding a way to strengthen himself. He had a cheat of his own, after all.
Bruce opened his Character Status Panel.
His identity information was essentially unchanged, and the Grand Trend still showed the same three messages.
Only the Spirituality field had changed, rising from seven points to nine.
His Spirituality had increased.
Such a sudden increase could not have happened without a reason. Spirituality was linked to talents, and talents were extraordinary abilities, which meant they were linked to mysterious powers. Clearly, this had something to do with what he had just experienced.
Could contact with mysterious powers grant Spirituality?
That seemed highly likely.
If that was how he gained it, then it seemed he would have to deal with mysterious powers for the rest of his life, continually encountering strange and uncanny incidents.
Unless he did not want those talents.
Bruce rubbed his chin. How could he safely come into contact with those mysterious incidents?
Lane Village had a rather small church. It was so small that it consisted of little more than a hall, a huge mural of the Goddess of the Night, a lectern, and rows of chairs where worshippers could sit and listen to sermons.
Lane Village was, after all, merely a fairly large village. Its facilities could not be as comprehensive as those of a town, and it was remote. Having a church at all was already fortunate.
Beside the church's pulpit was a small side door, tightly closed. Beyond it lay a separate room, where an oil lamp burned with a faint, flickering light.
There was a bed in the room, and a man lay on it with his arms crossed behind his head. His hair was neatly groomed, with matching touches of gray at his temples. He wore his black, white-collared Missionary's clothes immaculately, without even taking them off to sleep.
He seemed to be asleep, lying perfectly still. Then, all of a sudden, he sat up and opened his eyes. A glimmer flashed in them, unusually bright even in the darkness.
"Prayers, a response... it's happened again. The response is stronger this time."