Wavering songs drifted through the darkness—a sharp, twisting sound with a timbre and range far removed from anything human. It was a demonic melody, sounding like a monster’s clumsy attempt to mimic human speech.
Firelight cast a flickering path through the woods as a group of figures emerged from the trees, approaching the carriage.
Leading them was the Faceless Priest.
Standing at least two meters tall, he swung his arms rhythmically as he walked, exuding a sense of eerie vigor. His spine was unnaturally rigid, and not a single patch of human skin remained on his body; he looked like a frog that had been skinned alive.
Beyond his shaved face and the crystals embedded in his skull, an oval incision had been carved into his abdomen. It was similarly held open by a large crystal, showcasing a glistening, slippery pile of intestines within.
The cultists following him were all shaven clean of hair. Their facial skin had been sliced open from behind the ears, lifted, and stretched into grotesque shapes using iron hoops and long screws, turning their faces into flat, taut surfaces. Their lips and eye sockets were pulled and distorted until their visages resembled nothing more than smooth, featureless masks.
Large patches of skin across their bodies were propped up and fixed in place, making them look as if they were wearing high-fashion garments made of human flesh.
Holy nails and pillars of pure crystal were driven into their meat, creating transparent voids through which one could clearly see internal organs and tissues. Crystal rings were pierced through noses, ears, and navels.
These “deconstructivist” cultists, composed of iron, flesh, and crystal, were the pinnacle of eldritch pathology. As they reached the carriage, they drew knives with handles carved from bone. With repetitive, hacking motions, they reduced the man and woman to a pile of butchered meat.
Helen lay in the Faceless Priest’s arms, her small legs dangling and swaying with the jolts of the journey.
Her tears had long since run dry. Her pupils were dilated, gray, and lifeless, making her look like a broken doll.
It was a long journey—long enough for her to sink into a state of catatonic stupor.
The moment she tried to gather her thoughts, the scene of the massacre would flood her mind, plunging her into a bottomless pit of agony. She deliberately avoided those memories, keeping her mind a hollow void, allowing a wordless sorrow to wash over her in waves.
Torches burned, sending black cinders drifting toward the edge of the light.
The bizarre singing spiraled through the air, passing through the murky night, over stagnant waters of unknown origin, across pebbled shores, through fog-shrouded jungles, down narrow valleys, and past colossal skeletons covered in fungi. Finally, they arrived at a clearing in the forest.
A Great Dark Grail, carved from a single slab of black mica, burned with pitch-black flames.
Inside the grail sat a mass of eldritch tissue resembling a lizard embryo—cloudy, lifeless eyes, a rhythmic spinal column, and a long, thin curled tail. It was not yet fully developed, its parts fused together. The foot-high black flames rose directly from this mass.
The Great Dark Grail sat before the Relief of Biheze’s Suffering, a square block of granite overgrown with moss. The deity’s image was carved into its face.
To either side stood a Saintess. They were long dead, displayed like ceremonial flower stands to welcome guests, their bodies adorned with various blossoms.
Their flesh had been saturated with mineral oil until it became translucent. Their pale, slender limbs were twisted into religious spirals—contorted yet straight. Their delicate hands and snow-white feet bloomed like petals at the ends of their limbs. Their chins were tilted slightly upward, lips parted to reveal straight, white teeth, and their hollow eyes stared blankly at the sky.
As the firelight passed through their transparent bodies, it refracted into wondrous, beautiful patterns, forming shimmering veils of illusory light.
The Faceless Priest, leading the procession, suddenly stopped. He stared in dazed confusion at a strange figure standing before the statue of Biheze—a person wearing a heavy wrap-around coat and a soft felt hat, currently peering through a magnifying glass to inspect the relief.
The spatial arrangement of this ritual site gave Ed-Bear the sensation of infinite vision.
He could not only see further than usual, but the clarity had increased by an entire magnitude. The protrusions and pores of the rocks, the loose grain of the soil, the patterns and colors of insect carapaces… it was a dream come true for any telescope enthusiast.
Ed-Bear was fascinated by the ritual site’s geometry. The shape of patterns and the arrangement of space could generate mystical power.
The props used in his “Card Cultivation Method” featured patterns that induced Mental Pollution upon being viewed.
To put it simply: wicked, eerie patterns could cause fear and unease, while the illustrations of “waifus” could soothe a person’s heart and bring a sense of happiness. These seemingly bizarre geometric cuts actually followed natural principles that the human mind could not normally comprehend.
Ed-Bear nodded repeatedly, clutching a pencil as he accurately sketched the layout of the ritual grounds in his notebook. He flipped to a new page to detail the specific shapes of the objects.
The Great Dark Grail, the Saintesses, the granite, the four twisted pillars, the slope of the ground, the patterns drawn in white ash…
There were many elements. Some were vital to the effect, while others were merely trivial details. He would have to study them slowly to be sure. Ed-Bear wanted to replicate this spatial arrangement to achieve its long-distance vision effect.
As an Investigator, his job was to investigate, decrypt, satisfy his curiosity, and come into contact with the mystical and the transcendent. Eventually, he would die in madness, leaving behind cryptic notes for another Investigator to find while looking into the cause of his death—a never-ending cycle.
Since this was high ground and the altar itself amplified his vision, Ed-Bear could see signs of human life and treehouses scattered throughout the forest. Furthermore, his low-light vision was exceptionally effective under the glow of the moon and stars.
The nearby treehouses likely served as long-term residences for the cultists; he might find written records regarding their religion there.
Not far from the altar stood an ancient stone tablet carved with blurred, alien script that looked like crawling demons.
Ed-Bear had no memory of this script. It was likely an ancient language. He had already used his sharing function to transmit the data to his main body. The original Wang Yue at Balor Academy would check the library for references or seek help from a teacher.
Aside from this one-way transmission, the two would meet periodically. Wang Yue would copy her school memories to him, which he would then edit or forge before transmitting them back to the Church.
Ed-Bear was very satisfied with this harvest. Obtaining information made him feel fulfilled, discovering clues filled him with anticipation, and his interaction (specifically, the whipping) with the cultists made him feel quite joyful.
Ed-Bear couldn’t understand why these cultists would charge at a real monster.
He had to admire their stupidity and madness. They didn’t seem to understand that propping up their skin didn’t actually make them transcend their humanity. It was like trying to fly by pulling on your own hair; there was no fundamental change.
With just a light lash of his whip, the poisonous stingers on his tentacles would leave them rolling on the ground in agony.
Ed-Bear strongly suspected their doctrine involved asceticism—using flagellation to suppress desire and achieve self-redemption. Obtaining a “crown of life” through the searing pain of torn flesh—what a joyful thing that must be!
As his tentacles flailed, the cultists had shed tears of deep “emotion.”
Several cultists had died on the spot, and the rest had scattered in all directions, leaving behind a delicate, doll-like little girl.
Strange. Why would they leave something like this behind?
However, Ed-Bear didn’t care about lifeforms that posed no threat to him. He turned back to continue his investigation of the statue.
To his disappointment, the transcendent power lingering on it was incredibly faint. Staring at the statue gave him the sensation of his secrets being watched, but it was just a sensation—no actual secrets were being compromised.
This relief was a symbol, a signifier, a communication channel between the believers and the Evil God. It looked quite new; perhaps the Evil God had granted a revelation in a dream, and the believers had carved it upon waking.
“The Flounder-Gecko God. Its malice stems primarily from the sensation of voyeurism. Its followers possess an extreme worship of eyeballs and advocate for devotion, sacrifice, and self-torture. Sacrifices are young girls, prepared in a way that makes them inedible (crossed out)… From a human aesthetic perspective, they possess a slightly distorted beauty,” Ed-Bear wrote in his notebook.
Finally, he walked up to the Great Dark Grail and stared at the embryo within the flames.
“Is it cooked yet?”
