Manchester, east bank of the River Irwell.
As a traditional industrial district, Manchester had excellent transport links. Fog City was only three hours away by train, and Birmingham an hour and a half. Double-decker buses were also everywhere on its roads, all of them free.
A yellow bus arrived at Piccadilly Gardens Bus Station with a load of passengers. As its doors opened, the passengers filed off, including two men in black suits.
"So this is the Fog City region. It really is thriving!" Ximen remarked, adjusting the round black hat on his head after stepping off the bus.
"Evan, I remember you came here with an inquisitor from the Inquisition to wipe out some Vortex Music members," Ximen said, turning to his burly teammate.
"Yes. We deployed six squads for that joint operation, while the Inquisition sent six of its finest inquisitors and fourteen Heretic Hunters. We worked outward from St. Peter's Square and successfully destroyed quite a few Vortex Music hideouts," Evan answered in a deep voice.
"But the people of the Fog City region don't seem particularly grateful." As Evan spoke, he glanced at several people watching them from nearby.
"They're probably from the Clock Tower. This is their turf, after all," Ximen said with a smile.
"It doesn't matter. Our mission is simply to capture or kill 09 and recover 4-331," Evan said coldly.
"True." Ximen brought up his personal interface projection and began checking the information.
"Oh, there's actually a fellow member near Fog City. He has location sharing turned on. Judging by the distance, he's not too far from us," Ximen said in surprise.
"Now isn't the time to say hello. Let's follow Eden's predictions and find 09 first. Youyang is the homeland of the Flesh, after all. If we drag this out, something could go wrong," Evan told Ximen gravely.
"All right, I'll turn on location sharing. That'll make it easier if he wants to find us." Ximen enabled it as he spoke.
"Let's go."
Three Portlands, directional portal.
[Sir, your leave request has been approved.]
Jarvis sent the notification to Xia Xiu, who stood before the portal in a black trench coat.
"Got it."
Applying for leave less than half a month into the term was hardly something an ordinary student could get approved, especially without a compelling reason.
The reason Xia Xiu had secured approval so easily was that his justification was audacious.
His leave request to Professor Laugen contained only one sentence: I guarantee that I will finish studying basic four-branch applied thaumaturgy within one month.
It was like asking for leave while promising to get full marks on that month's exam.
An ordinary teacher would never approve it, but the professors at Deer College were no ordinary teachers, so they approved Xia Xiu's request. Of course, if Xia Xiu failed to fulfill the condition in his application, he would face more than an ordinary teacher's reprimand.
"All right, the concealed teleportation array connecting to the surface is ready. You can step onto it now," the person in charge of surface teleportation told Xia Xiu.
"All right."
An azure glow appeared beneath Xia Xiu's feet. As it flared, he vanished from the array.
Fog City, Lambeth.
An azure array appeared out of thin air in the abandoned old quarter, followed immediately by Xia Xiu's figure.
In Manchester, huh... It looks like 09 has a way to mislead Eden's Wide-Area Prediction, Xia Xiu mused as he studied the shared locations on the Red Book's projected interface.
As the think tank for Heaven, Terra's largest lineage, Eden possessed staggering computational resources and access privileges, allowing it to provide members of the Heaven Lineage with all kinds of conveniences.
However, Eden also had an enormous workload. Not only did it connect every member of the Heaven Lineage and provide support through thaumaturgical resources and algorithmic resources, it also monitored every anomaly on Terra, fluctuations in the ether sea, followers of Evil Gods...
As a result, Eden could sometimes be stingy when allocating computational resources, causing slight delays in its predictions.
How did Xia Xiu know Eden's predictions had been misled? Naturally, it was because he was no longer merely one of the Heaven Lineage's own.
He was now also a "follower" of the Flesh Supremacy Lineage.
And wouldn't you know it, several shared locations had suddenly appeared on the Flesh Supremacy Lineage's interface, none of them in Manchester.
"Hmm, I'll go say hello to my dear 'brothers' first." Xia Xiu took a white mask from inside his coat, then pulled up his trench coat's hood, shrouding himself completely in darkness.
A private manor beside the River Thames, on the outskirts of Fog City.
"Everyone's here except that lunatic Kradashi, correct?" came an old man's raspy voice. He was Harry, the convener of this gathering.
"Yes. Her mansion burned down a week ago. We didn't find her body, and the hounds couldn't pick up her scent either. Looks like someone wiped her out," the ugly Dorn said with a gloating grin.
"That woman wasn't even a thaumaturge, yet she acted so outrageously. It's no surprise someone finally wiped her out," another follower of the Flesh said, laughing.
"Exactly. Who knows where she learned all those tricks? She even recorded her bedroom performances on Cloudstones. I heard they sold pretty well. A friend of mine liked buying her work. A shame there won't be any more releases. Everything she's made is a collector's item now."
"That friend wouldn't happen to be you, would it? I've seen you sucking up to Kradashi plenty of times."
"Piss off!"
"Hahaha!"
While the followers of the Church of the Flesh chatted, Harry kept his heavy eyelids half closed. He made no attempt to stop their fooling around. Like Kradashi, most of these people were wealthy industrialists and enthusiasts of the supernatural.
The Flesh-Eating Cult had two distinct factions and eight branch orders. Four of those orders maintained the customs of the Flesh Empire era. They were extremely hostile to outsiders and never operated openly unless they were in exceptionally isolated areas.
These orders displayed an intense fear of technology and resisted Terra's modernization. When confronted with advanced industrial equipment, they would even resort to sabotage.
Thus, they were known as Old Flesh.
The other four orders were different. Their followers had no aversion to technology and frequently appeared in densely populated areas. Their daily lives differed little from those of others with the same cultural and social circumstances.
These were New Flesh.
For the New Flesh sects, the proper moral goal of one's life was to pursue personal desires and acquire power.
Harry served as the public representative of [Inner Sanctum Awakening], one of Fog City's New Flesh orders.
Inner Sanctum Awakening favored recruiting members of the aristocracy and placed enormous importance on bloodlines.
However, most people could not easily connect to The Boundless Covered by It.
These New Flesh orders mostly studied fleshcraft and sacrificial rites, or were simply granted certain Divine Artifacts.
Kradashi, for example, had learned all sorts of bizarre fleshcraft techniques and sacrificial rituals. The pendant in Xia Xiu's possession was something she had purchased from within the order.
Clang!
While the laughter continued, Harry suddenly raised his wooden staff and struck the floor hard. The impact produced a deafening boom, and everyone present involuntarily covered their ears.
"Come out," Harry said, staring at the shadows by the staircase above the hall.
(End of chapter)
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