The Survey Corps was the law enforcement branch under the Imperial Knights responsible for the outer city, specializing in dealing with criminals.
The organization had always been mysterious. Its members all had double identities, like hunters lurking in the shadows, baring their fangs the moment they found their prey.
"Keen, a Sequence 9 Barrier Master active around the Peru district. Using your identity as an adventurer, you lured in 129 innocent civilians and murdered 36 women and children. After the Survey Corps discovered you, you fled through the outer city's nine districts. I've had my eye on you for a long time."
Everyone exchanged bewildered looks. None of them had expected Keen to have so much blood on his hands.
"A Mechanic? Heh."
Rather than growing angry at having his identity exposed, Keen gave a mocking sneer, his eyes full of contempt as he stared at Katrin.
"Major, you thought you'd hidden yourself well? Please. You can't play the whore and pretend you're a saint. If you're going to act like a slut, at least make it convincing."
As Keen spoke, he raised his hand slightly. A gravitational magnetic field even stronger than before sprang into existence. Thud, thud, thud! Everyone was slammed flat against the ground, unable to move.
Katrin, who had been certain of victory all along, suddenly looked unsettled, her expression shifting. "You were deliberately baiting me into revealing myself."
"What else? If you know I'm a Barrier Master, you should understand that a prepared Barrier Master can easily deal with a Sequence 8, or even a Sequence 7."
As he spoke, he walked unhurriedly over to Katrin and reached out to stroke her face.
"You're just a Sequence 9 Mechanic. Where did you get the nerve? Did the Evernight Goddess give you courage? Sorry, but I worship the Lord of Chaos. All of you are destined to die here today!"
At the sudden mention of that honorific name, everyone present except Joey blanched. After all, he was not native to this world, and there was much he did not understand.
The Lord of Chaos? Was that some kind of deity?
Judging by everyone's expressions, it was probably an evil god!
At that thought, Joey's brows knitted tightly. If orthodox deities still possessed a shred of humanity, then evil gods were synonymous with madness and insanity.
An offering to an orthodox deity might receive no response, but it would cost you nothing. An evil god, however, would always answer a plea-and demand a far greater price.
The invisible gravitational magnetic field pressed down on everyone, tormenting their entire bodies. Those closer to Keen had already been driven into the ground, their limbs struggling feebly. Before long, they died of suffocation.
Joey lay quietly on the ground, looking just like a corpse.
A closer look would have revealed that he was barely affected. He even sneaked a glance up now and then to check his surroundings.
Katrin lay faceup, her ample breasts heaving as she gasped for breath. Her face was flushed, and she was still struggling desperately to pull the trigger of her revolver.
As Keen murmured his prayers, the others began bursting apart one after another, exploding into clouds of blood that dispersed into writhing threads and drifted into the darkness deep inside the cave.
Joey inched along, hoping to see whether he could escape the barrier's range. With his previous experience dealing with the Dust Veil Master, and the pressure on his body feeling relatively weak, he had a good chance of getting away.
"Mmm!"
A soft, clear moan rang out. Turning his head, Joey saw Katrin looking at him pleadingly, signaling for help. He was furious.
Lady, we barely know each other. Do you really have to get me killed?
Joey blinked frantically, signaling for her not to move.
Perhaps driven by her instinct to survive, Katrin briefly broke free of the magnetic field's suppression. She abruptly rolled over and landed on top of Joey.
"I..."
Joey grunted. Katrin's maneuver nearly made him throw up his breakfast.
Keen let out a strange, cackling laugh.
"Joey, you're pretty lucky. You even get a beauty in your arms before you die."
Whoever wants to hold her can have her. Who could stand having an eight-hundred-pound fatty crushing them?
"Squeak, squeak, squeak!"
Strange noises came from the darkness deep inside the cave, followed by vibrations as something scraped across the ground.
An enormous Agate Worm wriggled out.
The Silver Laurel tucked inside Joey's clothes began trembling violently, reacting to the convergence of extraordinary characteristics.
"Hm?" Keen turned his head suspiciously, his brows furrowing.
"Why did you come out?"
"Is it because there are Transcendents among this batch of sacrifices?"
Unable to figure it out, he could only attribute it to that.
Keen did not understand, but Joey's expression changed drastically. His intuition told him that the Agate Worm was coming straight for him.
The worm was as large as a small hill, its body covered in tentacles. It had no head, only a gaping maw where its head should have been, filled with countless neatly arranged, backward-hooked teeth. One bite from that thing would tear him apart, even if it did not kill him.
Better to explode into a mist of blood than be eaten bite by bite.
For the first time, Joey panicked. He had only stayed calm before because he believed he had a chance to escape.
He had barely been able to move before. Now, with Katrin weighing him down, even shifting an inch was difficult.
"You all want me dead, don't you!"
A mad idea filled his mind.
The Agate Worm drew closer to Joey. Before it, a human body was as insignificant as a crawling bug. Disgusting, viscous saliva dripped from its open mouth, and a pungent, nauseating stench of blood immediately filled the air.
"How rare. You actually wish to taste them yourself."
Keen pressed his palms together, watching events unfold with a peculiar expression.
The Agate Worm was the vessel he had selected for the great being. He had been raising it in his own way, until it could accommodate that great being's descent.
An ordinary Agate Worm was only the size of a finger. It was easy to imagine how many people this hill-sized monster must have eaten.
Katrin passed out. In her final moment of consciousness, she saw a gaping maw filled with fangs.
At that critical moment, Joey used every ounce of his strength to shove Katrin off him. Then, moving as fast as he could, he reached inside his clothes, pulled out the Silver Laurel, and swallowed it without hesitation.
He swallowed both main ingredients directly, without any supplementary ingredients. A fierce, stabbing burn immediately traveled down from his throat.
"Aaah!"
The stabbing pain sent Joey rolling across the ground. It pierced him to the marrow, as though someone were slowly smashing his bones with a hammer, letting them heal, then smashing them again, over and over.
At that moment, Joey finally understood why Potion formulas required supplementary ingredients. Without them to neutralize the mixture, the two main ingredients were deadly poison.
He could even feel the Potion he had swallowed frantically gnawing at his internal organs.
"Taking a Potion at a time like this? Kid, I have to admire your courage."
Keen recognized what Joey had done at a glance, then shook his head with a mocking laugh.
Did he really think becoming an extraordinary individual was that easy? What Sequence 9 hadn't become one only after surviving near-certain death?
"You are the sovereign Above the Gray Fog."
"You are the traveler who passes through the past and future."
Joey began reciting the honorific name!