Joey could not help shivering, as if he could feel Erich's dying despair and anger. He suddenly felt that the name Naomi was like an evil spell, plunging people into an abyss from which they could not extricate themselves.
He decided to escape from this place and no longer cared about those messy matters.
Yet at this moment, the frantic expression on the face of the "Naomi" before him froze, and she gazed at Joey with a sinister look.
She told him in a chilling voice, "Joey, you can't escape. Erich, none of you think about leaving me."
Joey looked at her solemnly, a dangerous glint flashing in those black eyes. He leaned close to Naomi's ear and said softly, "Why don't you take a look in the mirror and see what you look like right now!"
The item storage in this basement was quite complete, and perhaps due to ritual magic, Joey even discovered several kinds of potions he needed.
Naomi stood before a mirror, looking at that face which did not belong to her at all, and she froze in place.
"Why is it like this?" she muttered to herself where she stood.
Joey sighed, and said with a slight sense of heaviness, "You shouldn't have trusted them. The Necromancer Sect are just a bunch of lunatics."
"Lunatics?" Naomi's expression instantly turned ferocious, her eyes widening all at once. "They lied to me?"
"That is indeed the case." Joey nodded.
Naomi seemed to have lost the mood to continue speaking. Amidst the air around them, besides the smell of candle wax, there was also her low whimpering.
A few minutes passed in this atmosphere, and that "Erich" residing within Naomi's body seemed to have regained control of this vessel once again.
He stroked every inch of skin on this body, and then drove his fingernails in deeply, wanting to tear this flesh apart.
Too lazy to deal with the crazed "Naomi", Joey began to carefully collect the potion ingredients from the basement.
Many of these items were priceless and hard to come by on the market, and he thought with full anticipation, "I wonder if there will be an Antenna Worm here."
The potion formula for the Sequence 8 Fortune Shifter had three main ingredients, two of which he had already obtained from Clyde Phoenix, leaving only the last ingredient, the Antenna Worm, which he had searched for relentlessly without success.
In the very corner sat a half-man-high jar that looked like a fine treasure.
Joey walked over, opened the seal without hesitation, and before he even had time to observe the inside, the moment the seal was opened, a human head lunged out.
That person had unkempt hair, and their features were unclear. It seemed as though they had stayed in the dark for too long, and being suddenly exposed to the light, they were unaccustomed to it and ducked back into the jar.
After a few minutes, having grown tired of waiting, Joey hardened his heart, casually picked up a hard object by his feet, and hurled it over. The jar shattered to pieces in response.
Black, viscous fluid poured out from the jar, accompanied by a woman who was soaked all over.
After making out her features, Joey wore a look of astonishment.
If he remembered correctly, he had seen this woman before; her name was Sarah, and she was the wife of a business tycoon in the Inner City.
How did she end up here, and why was she sealed inside a jar?
After a few minutes, Sarah tremblingly climbed up from the ground. She looked around with a dull gaze, her eyes filled with fear of the unknown.
When she saw Joey, it was as if she had seen a savior, and she rushed toward him in agitation.
"Save me, Mr. Keliwei!" she pleaded with a trembling voice.
Joey sighed and steadied the unstable Sarah.
It seemed I am not the only unlucky one. I really want to pry open Naomi's heart and see if it's black.
"It's fine, Mrs. Sarah. Can you tell me what happened?"
She raised her eyes and glanced not far away at Naomi, who was still talking to herself. Perhaps having found a pillar of support, the fear in her heart diminished a little, and she opened her mouth with trembling lips.
"Actually, in the very beginning, Naomi wasn't like this. She and Erich were an enviable couple."
"I don't know when she started becoming neurotic, beginning to suspect that Erich was having an affair, and even suspecting that I was having a clandestine relationship with Erich. She constantly tracked Erich and me, and tried to break into my house to look for evidence. Even when I let her search in the end and not a single shred of evidence was found, she still didn't believe it."
"Not only did she suspect me, but any woman who got close to Erich became the target of her suspicions. She went mad-she was a complete and utter lunatic. She drove Erich to death, pinned all of those things on me, and imprisoned me here."
"She even began to worship the Fallen Evil God, trying to get a method to resurrect Erich from Him."
"Fortunately, you finally discovered this place, Mr. Keliwei. Please, save me and take me out of here."
Sarah knew Joey and knew he was a police officer from the Sheriff's Office, which was why she approached Joey the moment she recovered her sanity.
"The Sun will bestow blessings upon you, Mrs. Sarah."
He made a church blessing gesture, his right hand clenched into a fist and gently pressed against his heart.
Sarah was just like someone who had found an outlet to vent, unburdening her grievances.
Actually, he could understand the other party's feelings to some extent. Being targeted by a neurotic like Naomi was sheer unprovoked disaster, and anyone it fell upon would feel aggrieved.
To use the words of his past life, she was a woman suffering from extreme insecurity, and only through psychological control could she soothe her own suspicions.
Supporting Sarah with one hand to make her stand further back, Joey cautiously approached "Naomi".
He fixed his gaze unblinkingly on "Naomi", holding a wooden stick picked up from the floor.
He prepared to launch a surprise attack and knock the other party unconscious first.
Just when he was only half a meter away from the target, Joey raised the wooden stick high, making a move to strike.
Naomi's head suddenly turned at an inconceivable angle-it was a distorted angle that a normal person could not possibly endure, and one could even see the skin on her neck being stretched and deformed.
"Erich, I knew it. I wouldn't fail. You really have returned."
The gentle and melodious female voice made Joey pause for a moment, as if everything had returned to the scene when he first met Naomi Jeff. Her voice was gentle, polite, and elegant in demeanor.
Joey took half a step back, gazing at that face of "Naomi" with a solemn expression.
Until now, he finally understood why Naomi had been obsessed with him all along. The face of Erich Jeff truly did resemble his by seventy or eighty percent.
"Erich, didn't you say you would love me for a lifetime? How could you die?" Her voice gradually transitioned from gentle to rough, finally turning into a man's voice: "How dare you die?"
Sarah, hiding in the corner, was frightened by this sudden change into shrieking repeatedly.
"Ah! Monster! Monster!"
When her scream reached the halfway point, it was as if someone had choked her throat, turning into a strange, rattling "gurgle, gurgle" sound.
Her complexion began to turn pale, and within her eyes, the focus of her pupils scattered, truly presenting the appearance of drowning and suffocating.
Sarah struggled desperately, pulling at her jaw with one hand while thrusting the other hand into her throat, as if wanting to dig something out.
Joey rushed over hurriedly, gently patting her back. Finally, Sarah vomited a pool of viscous fluid onto the ground, which even contained clotted red blood.
This stuff again?
Joey always felt that there was something deeply fishy about this, yet he could not figure out the rationale behind it.
Perhaps all the questions lay within Naomi's sacrificial ritual.
Joey's expression grew extremely solemn, his heart sinking to the bottom.
He was just about to check Sarah's body carefully when he suddenly saw a pool of water appearing beneath her legs, and it kept increasing.
This water seemed to flow out from Sarah's body; it was viscous, dark red, and accompanied by an indescribable odor.
Just then, Sarah's hoarse voice rang out: "Mr. Keliwei, my stomach really hurts. Where did you go? Why can't I see you?" She tilted her head up, her pupils pitch-black, with no whites at all.
Right at this moment, Sarah's hoarse voice rang out, "Mr. Keliwei, my stomach hurts so much. Where did you go? Why can't I see you?" She tilted her head back, her pupils pitch-black with no white of the eyes visible at all.
Joey discovered that the body of Sarah whom he was supporting was becoming lighter and lighter, as if losing the support of bones; her limp body was sliding toward the ground bit by bit.
This was probably the price of the ritual magic. When all was said and done, she was merely an innocent person implicated by Naomi's paranoia.
The displeasure and depression in his heart reached their extreme, and he spoke in a slow tone, trying his best to keep himself calm:
"It's nothing. Just that the basement candle went out."
Upon hearing these words, Sarah, who had originally been struggling, stabilized her emotions quite a bit. She tried to reach out her hand, wanting to grab something, and muttered in her mouth, "Mr. Keliwei, can you turn on the light for me..."
Without waiting for Joey to respond, her raised hand hung down limply, her pupil-less eyes wide open, as if wanting to search for that trace of light in the darkness.
Sarah slid from Joey's embrace to the ground, her body gradually becoming transparent, and finally turning into a pool of viscous liquid, resembling blood clots after refrigeration.
These blood clots wriggled on the ground, slowly crawling downward toward that door, and finally merged into it.
Watching everything unfold before his eyes, Joey felt a suffocating pressure weigh upon his chest, the melancholy hard to dispel.
His tone turned abruptly cold: "Naomi, look at what you've done!"
He had clearly promised Sarah that he would save her and take her out.
Yet the result was that he could only watch helplessly as she died.
This feeling made Joey extremely uncomfortable.
Sarah was still quite famous in the Inner City. She lacked the arrogance of nobility, and usually made donations, actively participating in some activities to help commoners. For such a kind person to die just like this, purely because of Naomi's suspicion-this was very unfair.
Naomi's body was also changing bit by bit, with large patches of bloody water beginning to ooze from beneath her feet.
She raised her volume, at times a rough male voice, and at times a coy female voice.
Male voice: "Lunatic, you are a complete and utter lunatic."
Female voice: "Erich, I can feel your presence. You are right inside my body, and we will be together forever and ever."
Female voice: "I did nothing wrong. She deserved to die! Why did everyone look at her? Why did flowers and applause surround her? She snatched away the gaze that Erich should have focused on me. She deserved it!"
Male voice: "Kill me! Quickly, kill me! I don't want to stay with this woman."
Naomi's body began to melt-her feet, then her chest, leaving only a head at the very end.
Her eyes were filled with terror; she wanted to scream, but her throat felt as though it had been sealed with cement, and she could only emit weak gasps. Watching her own body gradually disappear, an indescribable despair welled up in her heart.
Suddenly, a pulling force emerged, slowly dragging her toward that door.
Following a heart-rending scream from Naomi, the entire basement plunged into silence.
"Hm?"
Joey looked around blankly, finding the space empty and devoid of any living creatures other than himself.
He had a feeling of being lost in a fog, his head full of questions.
Did the matter just end like this?
What about me?
How am I still perfectly fine here?
It was as if all the danger had bypassed him, automatically evading him.
Whatever is unreasonable must have a cause.
Joey closed his eyes, calmed his emotions for a few seconds, and then slowly spoke:
"Sparks ignited above the ashes,"
"traversing through the torrent of history,"
"the Hermit returning from the ancient days..."
When he opened his eyes once more, a page of yellowed, ancient paper was quietly suspended before him.
"Great Master, your most loyal servant, the Book of Ebola, greets you."
Joey looked at that ajar door and asked in puzzlement:
"Do you know him? How do you open him?"
"Oh! Yes, my master. I know him. Old friend, long time no see. Hi, how are you?"
The ajar door abruptly closed, and on the closed door panels, there were two eyes on the left and right like door knockers.
The eyes opened, seeming to curiously appraise 0-013. Their eyelids drooped down, as if conveying a sentiment of disgust and repulsion.
Upon the door, those exquisitely carved runes wriggled and finally formed a line of text.
"We just met yesterday."
Looking at those words, Joey was first bewildered, and then came to a sudden realization. What it spoke of should be the main body of 0-013.
They had actually met before?
Joey began to speculate on the connection between them.
After the Necromancer Sect snatched 0-013, they actually went looking for 0-09 as well? What on earth did they want to do?
"Since you know each other, can you make him open the passageway out?"
Before 0-013 had time to write characters,
a line of text appeared on the door:
"I am very happy to serve you. Just walk in, and you can get out."
Immediately following that, the closed door opened once more. This time, the inside was no longer pitch-black and hollow, but rather a street where Joey could even see a team of patrolling Knights Templar soldiers riding past on horses.
"Hm?" Joey's brow furrowed tightly, his brows knitting as he sized up the door on the wall with a scrutinizing gaze.
Ever since the Sheriff's Office basement, he had felt that the Gate of the Abyss was problematic, and now it only further confirmed that feeling of his.
Was this reasonable?
The attitude of 0-013 toward him was likewise unreasonable?
Joey rubbed his throbbing head, not rushing to go out. He asked why 0-09 would adopt this attitude toward him? Clearly, nothing could be asked out of it; 0-013 was a very good example.
The only thing that could be suspected was that he seemed to have some unknown connection with these Sealed Artifacts. Perhaps such matters could only be pursued after reaching a high sequence.
A Grade 0 Sealed Artifact, after losing control, could even affect demigods or even angels. He was not arrogant enough to get involved in the secrets of high sequences while holding the low position of Sequence 9; that was no different from seeking death.
"Deduce the past of Naomi, Sarah, and Erich."
"Alright, my master. I love sharing stories the most."