Chapter 1 The Pile of Charcoal

Outside the watchman's cabin, on the path leading to the mortuary, the charred remains that barely maintained a human shape were still there. Several church guards were preparing to transfer the remains to a wooden crate but stopped when they saw the Gatekeeper and the cemetery watchman arrive.

Gatekeeper Agatha pointed to the charred remains: "What you saw yesterday should have been him—of course, all that's left here now is a shell. The 'visitor' who once occupied this shell has indeed departed."

The old watchman came to the remains, lowered his head to observe for a moment, and frowned slightly: "He is..."

"If I'm not mistaken, one of the four cultists who disguised themselves as priests last night," Agatha said calmly. "This body died from the backlash of a Dark Abyss demon symbiosis."

The old watchman was silent with a serious expression. He seemed to be pondering something, and after two minutes, he suddenly looked up and said, "That corpse you sent over last night..."

Agatha nodded and pointed in another direction: "Over here, but its condition...is a bit more bizarre."

Led by the Gatekeeper, the old watchman came to an open space at the edge of the mortuary, where processed "samples" and other key evidence to be sent back to the cathedral were stored.

The old watchman stared in astonishment at what Agatha was pointing to.

It was a pile of large and small...glass jars.

"My meaning is...this is the corpse you sent over yesterday? The 'Restless One' who chatted with me in the coffin half the night?" The old man stared at the pile of jars for a long time, finally turning to Vanessa with a suspicious look. "In just one night, he was even energetic enough to knock on the coffin!"

Knowing that the Gatekeeper wouldn't deceive him, he couldn't connect those things with the talkative "Restless One" from yesterday.

The atmosphere seemed quite pleasant.

He paused, pointing to one of the largest jars.

Agatha had just entered when she saw Morris correcting Nina's homework, while Nina was supervising Shirley, Ah Gou, and Alice spelling words at another table not far away.

"We're not that vile," Vanessa said calmly.

"I feel...something is watching our city. The days ahead may not be too peaceful."

"Two blocks away, in broad daylight, this pile of remains suddenly fell onto an intersection," Agatha said. "Accompanying it was a Harbinger demon that was clearly still out of control—this demon only lasted a few seconds in the real world before collapsing and disappearing. Passersby at the scene reported it to the magistrate."

Agatha went around to Morris and casually handed him a letter: "A letter from your wife."

Agatha arrived at the restaurant before evening.

"My opinion is that this heretic probably also saw the 'visitor' you saw last night—the eyes of Dark Abyss demons can see 'reality' more easily, so her Harbinger went mad and fled into the depths of the Abyss with its master in its madness," Vanessa analyzed calmly. "Judging from the remains, this heretic was torn apart by other Dark Abyss demons before being backlashed by the symbiotic contract. This is a typical sign of falling into the depths of the Abyss without protection."

"Ah? You went to Frost to investigate the situation?" Morris was immediately taken aback and couldn't help but exclaim, "When did you go?"

On the cement ground somewhere, lay a pile of remains that could only vaguely be identified as a human outline, with obvious signs of burning—just like the pile of charcoal at the entrance of the watchman's cabin.

"...Brown Scott's fifth letter has arrived, only three days after the first letter was sent," Li Shiying didn't hide anything, but her tone was a little strange. "Her mental state in the letter is clearly not right. Mary was worried that the letter carried unclean things, so she burned the original but relayed the contents of the letter—Brown anxiously dissuaded him, telling me not to approach Frost."

"...In the name of the God of Death, what exactly did you send over yesterday?"

The old watchman blinked and suddenly became serious: "You fabricated the remains to deceive the deceased's family?"

"Remember that four heretics entered your cemetery yesterday?" Vanessa looked up, handing the piece of paper directly to the old man. "You killed two, one turned into charcoal inside your cabin, and now, we've found the whereabouts of the last Annihilation cultist."

The Inquisitor's expression was somewhat odd.

The old watchman thought for a moment and shook his head gently: "I'm not an expert in this area. Just tell me your opinion."

"...It seems his friend sensed a bit of the truth," Agatha said thoughtfully after hearing this. "Unfortunately, my investigation in Frost didn't go smoothly, and I couldn't find out about your friend's situation."

"What does the letter say?" Agatha asked curiously upon seeing this, but then added, "Private matters don't need to be said."

A church guard whispered something to Vanessa and then handed her a piece of thick paper.

Then she looked back at the pile of glass jars in the sample storage area, which looked horrifying.

The Gatekeeper finished speaking intensely and took a light breath.

Morris nodded, took out the letter, and slowly read it. As expected, he subconsciously frowned.

"Sent by Mary?" Morris stopped correcting homework, looked at the letter the captain handed over with some surprise, then took out his letter opener and muttered as he opened the envelope, "She said in the letter that there was no need to rush to reply."

"Well, the dead turned into sludge. Evil things always happen together," the old watchman finally sighed. "Now that things have come to this, how am I supposed to explain everything to the deceased's family? They'll come to the cemetery to say goodbye to their loved ones, and then I'll tell them that a few Annihilation cultists broke in yesterday, and some kind of subspace shadow came along, so your family members somehow turned into a few jars of liquid?"

"Anyway, the 'stamp' only needs a few French fries," Agatha said with a smile. "See what's written inside, maybe it's urgent."

These things that had no outline of biological tissue, mixed with dark red and blackish-gray, looked like underwater sludge.

Obviously, it was the backlash after a Dark Abyss demon symbiosis was severed.

The old watchman frowned, staring intently at the strange substances in the glass jars. Just as he finished speaking, he suddenly heard a thud nearby.

She stared into the old watchman's eyes.

The old watchman didn't speak for a while, but seemed a bit preoccupied. At this moment, a church guard in white suddenly walked up from another path and went around to Vanessa.

"There were a few bones here originally, but now only this strange, viscous substance is left."

Morris was a little worried: "...Is Duncan alright?"

Although it was unknown when it started, the restaurant seemed to have become a gathering place for the crew during their leisure time.

"They found another body—at noon today, a worker who fell to his death was found in this well, and it's identical to the corpse we sent here last night..."

"I'm fine," Agatha waved her hand, answering for Li Shiying. "I have some PTSD."

Duncan was sitting near the window of the restaurant, looking earnestly at a church book.

"Just last night," Agatha didn't hide anything, since everyone here was family. "She borrowed a body—it's a pity she couldn't find out much information. It wasn't so troublesome last time in Prand."

After a long while, he suddenly came back to his senses and subconsciously turned his head to look at the platform not far away—the luxurious coffin that was sent to the cemetery last night was still on the platform.

"That's right, but when the guards found this pile of things, they could only collect it with shovels and try to put it in jars as much as possible—only its remaining outline and location at the time could prove that it was indeed the deceased we sent to the cemetery last night," Vanessa shook her head. "As he saw, a pile of semi-solid...mud, barely retaining some traces of biological tissue, and even these remaining biological traces are rapidly transforming into something similar to mud over time."

Li Shiying and Morris looked over at the same time, seeing Duncan drop the book in his hand.

"Is this the man..." The old watchman frowned and looked up at Vanessa. "He's dead? How did he die? Where?"

"Oh, you don't need to worry about that. Their family won't come looking for trouble," Vanessa simply shook her head expressionlessly. "They completed the farewell ceremony in the adjacent Cemetery Number Five. This miner who fell to his death will be sent to the furnace as scheduled."

"What happened?" The old watchman asked casually.

"We will investigate," Vanessa said. Her face rarely showed any change in expression, but now it was more or less serious. "The only thing we can be sure of now is that the body sent to Cemetery Number Five should be 'real'. It didn't show any signs of restlessness, nor did it collapse, while the body we sent here yesterday...was tampered with by supernatural forces."

The old watchman took the piece of paper and found that it was a photograph.

The old watchman stared with wide eyes, his expression slightly stiff.

Vanessa glanced at the contents of the paper, her expression unchanged, and simply nodded slightly: "Understood."

"Then..."