Two groups of people slowly advanced toward the main city of Senegal with a tacit understanding.
The hazy mist now completely masked the entirety of Senegal, and everything was shrouded in the fog as a massive conspiracy quietly descended.
Joey slept very soundly, and in a daze, he felt as though something was binding his body, making it difficult for him to move.
He wanted to open his eyes, but he only felt weak all over, lacking even the physical strength to lift his eyelids.
Something was wrong? Very wrong?
His hazy consciousness gradually cleared, and one thing Joey could be certain of was that his current state was definitely not a dream; it felt much more like being poisoned.
The discomfort coming from his body, along with his groggy head, made him extremely alert.
He had been careless. Could someone have tampered with him last night?
He began to wonder if his own mistake had caused him to be targeted.
Even though he was a Low Sequence, he still possessed a fraction of divine characteristics, and compared to ordinary people, his physical fitness would still be slightly stronger.
He tried using Transcendent power, attempting to snap himself awake.
Today's fortune, accompany me by my side.
Joey silently chanted in his heart, consuming the Fortune Teller's daily allotment of spirituality.
Finally, that long-lost sense of control gradually revived.
He gently shifted his arm; his joints were stiff, and he could only move within a very small range.
Just as he prepared to make a second attempt, a gentle yet low-murmuring voice sounded beside his ear:
"Are you awake?"
The voice was very familiar, and after pondering for two seconds, he quickly found the corresponding person in his mind.
His landlady, Naomi Jeff.
As long as she was not an enemy, that was fine. Naomi should have come to deliver breakfast in the morning.
Joey inwardly breathed a sigh of relief, thinking to himself whether he had touched something while at Udir Manor that led to this current situation.
After using his spirituality to push through a few times, the dizziness in his head finally vanished, and he wearily opened his eyes. The moment they took in the view, Joey's face filled with astonishment.
He looked around his surroundings; this was not his residence at all. The floor was covered with candles, and aided by the dim candlelight, he discovered this was a narrow basement.
It was only about ten square meters, and he could touch the ceiling just by reaching out. The floor and walls were painted with all sorts of bizarre runes, crimson like blood, though whether they were drawn with paint or actual blood, he could not tell.
Naomi wore a yellow dress, the hem of which was embroidered with sunflower patterns. Her curly hair was loose and disheveled, and her complexion was listless, completely devoid of color.
Her gaze looked very indifferent, and a lingering, inexpressible sorrow seemed to permeate the corners of her brows.
This expression was one Joey had never seen before.
In his impression, Naomi was a fiery woman; she loved and hated deeply, and was unrestrained and optimistic.
The current Naomi was more like a shell without a soul. Within her gaze, one could find no focus, nor the slightest emotional fluctuation.
"Good morning, Mrs. Jeff!" Joey automatically filtered out his current environment, greeting her just like an old friend.
Naomi's lifeless gaze turned toward him, and the expression on her face suddenly turned ferocious. At some point, she had acquired a small knife in her hand.
Just as her left hand was about to raise the knife to stab Joey, her other hand reached out to stop it, and she began talking to herself:
"I'm going to peel off this face."
"No, you can't do that. That's Jeff's face."
It was as if two souls were fighting for control of Naomi's body.
Ah... Joey was completely stunned. If his body hadn't been immobilized, he would have run away long ago, and now he could only watch helplessly as that gleaming little knife slid back and forth before his face.
"Naomi, what kind of game are you playing?" he shouted nervously.
And what about that phrase, Jeff's face? Joey pondered the meaning behind those words.
Naomi's self-debating argument lasted for two minutes before it finally stopped.
By this time, her face presented a bizarre state; the left and right sides of her face held completely different expressions, like two different faces stitched together to make a single person.
"Joey, you know what? From the very first time I saw you, I fell in love." Naomi approached with a sweet smile.
The corners of Joey's mouth twitched: Landlady, it's hard for me not to know about your feelings.
She reached out, stroked Joey's face, and murmured softly:
"I love this face of yours so much. I want to peel it off."
Joey's face filled with bewilderment:
Big sister, your love is too heavy; you'd better not love me.
Move, damn it! On the surface, he acted as if nothing was wrong, but inwardly he was already extremely anxious-yet his body seemed to have been struck by some kind of paralytic poison, completely unable to move.
Naomi pinched his cheek and clicked her tongue:
"Don't waste your effort. I know you're a Transcendent; ordinary poison is completely useless against you, so I can only use a slow poison to erode you bit by bit."
"What on earth do you want to do?"
No matter how foolish Joey was, he now knew that the other party had targeted him from the very beginning.
It was laughable how he had previously been quite pleased with himself over the low rent; looking back now, it was completely a trap.
He just couldn't figure out why Naomi would have targeted him from the start.
The basement had no windows, making air circulation very difficult, and the burning candles filled the entire space with an unpleasant odor.
Faintly, the scent of blood was also mixed within.
While Joey was still dazed, a bowl of steaming-hot food suddenly appeared before him.
Naomi switched back to that deeply affectionate expression, holding the bowl as she said gently:
"Jeff, I made the potatoes you like best."
Jeff? Is she mistaking me for someone else?
Joey looked in surprise at Naomi's current state, yet he slightly sidestepped to avoid it-he wouldn't dare eat anything casually now.
He had been poisoned precisely because of his appetite, and he could not afford to repeat that mistake.
"Bang!"
Naomi angrily threw the bowl in her hand to the ground, pulling at her own hair and roaring:
"Tell me, do you despise me? Do you? You said you wouldn't despise me!"
Large handfuls of hair were yanked out by her, and soon blood seeped from her scalp down to her cheeks, making her look rather horrifying.
Judging from the scene and Naomi's state, Joey determined that something must have gone wrong with her mental state, though he did not know which evil god she had been contaminated by.
Joey watched for a long time and discovered that Naomi seemed to care deeply about her deceased husband.
By the time Naomi calmed down, the numbness in Joey's body had faded by more than half, but he did not act rashly, still maintaining a calm appearance on the surface.
One should not attempt to provoke a woman whose mental state was abnormal.
Joey cleared his throat and asked seriously: "Naomi, can you tell me the story about Jeff?"
Naomi seemed quite willing to share her love story with her husband.
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When she was young, Naomi worked as a servant in Jeff's manor. He was handsome, wealthy, and full of gentlemanly grace. Such a person quickly stirred up her youthful, innocent heart, but she only dared to watch him from afar.
Finally, one day, Jeff and the young Naomi met unexpectedly. Their encounter was like a quiet morning, a fragrant wildflower swaying gently in the breeze.
Jeff wore a dark, luxurious robe, his waist adorned with a golden belt glittering with a rare gem. His face was handsome and elegant, like the warm sun in spring-dazzling yet not scorching. In his eyes shone a noble and wisdom that seemed innate, brilliant as the stars.
Naomi wore plain cloth garments, but they could not conceal her refined and ethereal beauty. Her eyes were like deep lakes, filled with endless gentleness and innocence.
Their gazes met in the crowd, like two stars crossing paths in the deep night sky. At that moment, their souls resonated wondrously.
The vast gap in their social status made Naomi not even dare to raise her head.
"Hello." His voice was filled with elegance and warmth.
Naomi was somewhat nervous but tried to remain calm as she responded, "Hello, my name is Naomi." Though her voice was faint, it was filled with a unique beauty and gentleness.
From that moment on, their fates were like two intertwined vines, impossible to separate.
"Are you new? How is it I haven't seen you before?" Jeff asked softly.
Naomi answered with her head lowered, "I'm just an ordinary person working here." A sense of steadfastness and composure was revealed in her gaze, making her impossible to ignore.
Jeff took a deep breath, his gaze growing even firmer. "I... I want to know more about you." His words carried a genuine longing and determination.
Naomi smiled faintly, that smile brushing past Jeff's world like a morning breeze. "Then try to understand." Her reply was filled with courage.
On the surface, Joey acted as a qualified listener, occasionally offering a word of praise.
In the damp basement, bound by ropes, Naomi narrated her love story with her husband with a nostalgic expression, her hands continuously carving strange symbols on the ground.
She tightly clutched a ring in her hand, kissing it as though kissing her departed husband, her gaze flickering with tenderness.
Naomi placed the ring on Joey's finger and said in a deeply affectionate tone:
"Soon, you will be able to return to my side."
Joey's brows furrowed tightly. Although he did not know what Naomi was preparing to do, his intuition told him this was no good thing for him.
He attempted to divert Naomi's attention; the emotions of a mentally unstable person were very easily provoked.
The only drawback to doing this was a lack of proper proportion-if he wasn't careful, Naomi might pull out a knife and hack him to pieces.
Naomi's story was too perfect, and that wasn't realistic.
The affair between Vade Wisker and Leila Aaron was a very good example.
With class prejudices, a perfect love could not possibly exist. Perhaps it was possible outside, but here in Senegal, such a possibility did not exist.
In closed and oppressive Senegal, minds were already solidified. To the nobles, commoners were merely mobile blood banks; expecting them to fall in love with a low-class person was unrealistic.
Moreover, by Joey's aesthetic standards, Naomi could not be considered a beauty; the only thing she had going for her was her hot figure.
In her depiction, a noble young master falling in love with a commoner woman sounded more like her own delusion.
Joey even suspected whether this person named Jeff truly existed.
"Naomi, I think your husband would surely be very disappointed to see you now. As a wife of the nobility, you've actually betrayed my lord and chosen to worship an evil god."
The words betrayal and evil god quickly stirred up changes in Naomi's emotions.
She roared in a tone bordering on paranoid madness: "I didn't! I didn't betray anyone! Everything I'm doing is to resurrect Jeff!"
Joey lifted his eyelids slightly and sneered:
"Look at what you look like right now, and look at the things in your hand."
Naomi's fingers were soaked with fresh blood, and she was using that blood to draw the patterns.
Resurrect?
Joey keenly captured the key information. Dealing with death was a domain that only True Gods could touch.
Such a thing was simply impossible to appear in the Forsaken Land of the Gods.
How could Naomi be so stubbornly certain that she could resurrect Jeff?
From her unshakeable gaze, Joey saw only madness; as for affection, there was not a trace of it.
Resurrecting the dead with a ritual?
Then why kidnap me?
To make me a vessel for the evil god's descent?
And who will be resurrected-Jeff, or the evil god?
Various thoughts and ideas wandered through Joey's mind. It seemed the method of provoking Naomi was a dead end; she now firmly believed in her own notions.
Even if he told her that evil gods were untrustworthy, she would mostly likely refuse to listen.
All he could do now was find a breakthrough on his own.
First, he had to figure out which evil god was bewitching Naomi in order to know that entity's domain.
Naomi suddenly stood up, her head tilting to the side at a bizarre angle, the eye on the right half of her face staring straight at Joey.
"Do not make futile struggles."
Her voice was deep, sounding much more like a man's voice.
Multiple personality disorder?
Or contaminated by some existence?
Joey carefully gazed at Naomi, remaining constantly on guard.
Should the other party make any bizarre movements, he would chant the honorific name without hesitation and hide inside Round Table Hall.
Perhaps due to excessive blood loss, Naomi not only lacked color in her face, but her body had even begun to turn deathly pale.
According to a normal person's blood storage capacity, if Naomi continued to draw symbols with blood, there would only be one outcome: death.
Sacrificing with blood-even veteran Transcendents would not dare to easily attempt it.
For an ordinary person like Naomi, whose body lacked spirituality, using this method made her extremely susceptible to corrosion.
The best response right now would be to enter Round Table Hall directly-not just sending his spirituality in, but his physical body as well.
The reason he dared not take the risk was precisely because he did not yet know which deity Naomi was sacrificing to.
He feared entering Round Table Hall only to find someone waiting to ambush him upon his return.
A physical body could only exist in that place for a limited time; he could not hide inside forever.
"Naomi, look, I have no way to escape right now anyway. Can you tell me who taught you all this?"
Analyzing her through past information, Naomi's social class shouldn't be very high-roughly a petty bourgeoisie.
Nobles also came in various ranks and tiers, and her husband was said to be nothing more than a lowest-tier peerage whose livelihood depended mainly on some business.
With such an identity, Naomi could not possibly come into contact with Transcendent events-let alone in the main city, right under the noses of the Knights Templar, where pulling petty tricks was even harder.
On second thought, though, that didn't seem quite right either; the Necromancer Sect had directly invaded Earl Aaron's home, after all.
There was no telling how many other monsters and demons were hidden in the shadows.
It was just that this riot had brought everything out into the open.
Naomi smiled sinisterly, spitting out two simple words from her mouth: "Guess!"
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