Embers of Embers

Chapter 276 There are many mysteries
There was a faint sound of rain outside the window. The rain had weakened a lot, but it hadn't stopped. In the cold night, the two looked at each other warily.
"You...have been eroded?" Kestrel was a little uncertain.
In fact, among these senior knights, Kestrel is the least professional one. He was originally just a gangster in the lower city. He was promoted by Shrike by chance. Joey is just the opposite. He comes from a family that hunts monsters. Qiao Shu Every generation of the Ya family has a few people who join the purification agency, and he has known about demons for a long time.
Joey knew himself and the enemy well enough to be able to judge these in such a short period of time.
Compared to monsters, humans are too fragile. Their only advantage is their reason that is not yet crazy.
"That nightmare..."
Joey thought back to those children, those ghosts that appeared continuously. This is no coincidence, and Joey can be sure that he has been eroded.
"I had a nightmare...or maybe it was a hallucination," Joey said.
"Illusions are caused by erosion, right? That's why this ghost screamed."
Kestrel looked behind him at the huge Geiger counter. This thing was extremely sensitive and could accurately determine the residue of pollution. Unfortunately, it was too big to move.
Joey didn't continue to say anything, and he didn't notice. He slowly hugged himself, his eyes gloomy, as if he had experienced something terrible.
Kestrel obviously noticed this. He hesitated for a moment, but still asked.
"You saw them again, didn't you?"
Joey nodded hard and said nothing.
"Joy, you need therapy," Kestrel said.
"You mean going back to Black Mountain Hospital? I won't go back to that damn place." Joey simply refused.
"Actually, there's nothing scary about that place, is it? You're just afraid of yourself. When you return to Heishan Hospital in the past, those unbearable things will come back to you."
Kestrel comforted him.
"Joy, although I joined in halfway, but actually fighting monsters, it feels no different from being beaten by those gangsters in the lower city... This is inevitable, we are just a cog in this huge machine, I There's really no way to decide what we can do.
You are not responsible for the death of those children, and after all, it was Gawain who killed them and it had nothing to do with you. "
Joey shook his head stubbornly, looking pained.
"This is different Kestrel, you weren't there... it was a sin to watch back then."
There was blood covering the hem of his clothes, and Joey suddenly realized that he had accidentally hurt himself when he lost control just now. His elbow was bruised, and a faint red color dyed through the white sleeves.
He tore off the piece of fabric uncontrollably and threw it away as if he were avoiding some monster.
It was obvious that Joey was in a terrible state at the moment. He didn't pull out the jackknife to cut himself, which was considered excellent self-control. Kestrel looked at him with some sadness, and he knew why Joey was like this.
Monsters are taboo monsters, and there is a price to be paid to fight against that kind of monster. Pain may be the slightest of them, and the most common price is mental torture.
No matter what kind of protection or post-war recuperation, the erosion will eventually affect the fragile will, and some mental diseases will be born over time. This is why the retirement of the knights of the purification agency is not judged by age, but by Reasons based on mental state.
The obvious influence on Joey is mysophobia, but it is not so much mysophobia as he hates blood splattered on himself. After experiencing that incident, he became like this, and there are many people like him, such as Shrike , he will carry a weapon with him at all times, his favorite is the revolver named Death Knell, and there are many such examples.
Sometimes the kestrels even felt that Lorenzo's paranoia about monsters was a corrosive influence. They found the weak points of his will and magnified those flaws infinitely.
Kestrel sighed helplessly and sat next to Joey.
After all, the Purge Agency is a large-scale psychiatric gang, and Black Mountain Hospital is a large-scale psychiatric hospital. Patients always don't want to go back to the hospital.
"Joy, you need help...at least you need to stabilize first," Kestrel said.
But Joey ignored him. He just stared straight ahead, but there was nothing in front of him. There seemed to be a vague voice, and it was Gawain's voice.
Joey was originally Gawain's subordinate, but after what happened, he requested to be transferred back to Old Dunling, where he remains today.
"I just killed their parents, and the weapons are with them...they might be hiding those monsters."
Gawain said to him at that time, holding a burning thermite rifle in his hand. The unsolidified thermite bullets penetrated the heads of children one after another. The molten iron covered the faces of those young people, casting them into steel masks. .
Their corpses were piled up with the corpses of their parents. In the dark and smelly room, they piled up into hills, and the faint crying of children seemed to be still echoing.
"You are not suitable for this job, Xuanfeng."
Gawain looked at Joey who was vomiting continuously and said.
"We are fighting monsters, and fighting monsters does not require pity, sympathy, or any complicated emotions. We don't even need humanity."
"That bastard..."
Joey growled, picked up the Florund potion on the side with his trembling hands, and injected it into his body again. As all the potion was injected, his trembling body finally calmed down and he breathed violently. , as if they had just experienced a big war.
"No...not these..."
Joey tried hard not to think about those things, the past that had long passed. He began to retrieve everything he had encountered. As an excellent superior knight, he tried his best to determine when he was eroded.
Countless pictures overlapped and scattered back and forth, and finally in the pouring rain, the pale religious order was revealed in front of us.
"James... James Moriarty."
Joey said the name, the strange name.
"Kestrel, there's something wrong with that doctor."
Joey grabbed the kestrel by the collar, his pupils were bloodshot.
"That doctor!"
"Who?"
Joey's reaction was a little too violent. He pulled the kestrel by his collar. He wanted to calm down his colleague, but he couldn't control Joey for a while. It seemed that the nightmare had returned, and Joey kept growling. .
"He! The doctor!"
That weird Whitechapel, that weird mutual aid club, when I think about it now, everything there is so weird and absurd.
"He is...he is from Black Mountain Hospital...he has a problem..."
Joey muttered this over and over again, and the severe pain tortured his mind. In the end, it was like murmuring incessantly in his sleep. Joey muttered these words, fell down without any strength, and fell unconscious.
……
"Lorenzo Holmes is missing."
In the warm room, Samuel reported the news to the man behind the desk.
The demon hunters who arrived at Old Dunling this time were not just the ones led by Anthony on the surface. There were also a group of demon hunters who had arrived at Old Dunling before them and were acting in secret.
"The dark chess we placed before searched his residence and the place where he might appear, but we couldn't find him." Samuel said.
"Are you being protected by the purification agency?"
Anthony behind the desk looked through the documents in front of him and said without raising his head.
"It's unclear. We currently don't have the ability to penetrate into the purification agency...but it's also possible that he escaped. The transportation in Old Dunling is very developed, and the railway covers the entire territory of Yin Erweg."
"You mean run away?" Anthony shook his head. "I don't think Mr. Lorenzo Holmes will run away."
As he spoke, he recalled Lorenzo's rage in the conference room. Lorenzo's rage at that time really shocked him, and even said that it shocked everyone, even if he suddenly burst out and started a war with everyone. Anthony was not surprised, but he only discovered the disguise after Lorenzo left.
That was Lorenzo's disguise, his bravado, this is a witcher with raging rage, even if he was already wounded, he had to pretend to be strong.
"As for the purge agency, we have actually played a role. That conversation must have made Mr. Holmes realize that an organization as large as the purge agency cannot be trusted. At least such a huge organization will not be affected by one person. Stop by the will.
I think he must be hiding, hiding in a corner of Old Dunling, watching us quietly, ready to jump out at any time and bite our throats out. "
Samuel was a little worried, "Do we need to use those dark chess pieces to hunt him?"
"No, they need to stay until the end. Attacking now is just to arouse the enemy."
Anthony rejected these outright.
"We need Lorenzo Holmes alive... He is worth more than what appears on the surface."
Samuel doesn't understand these things. In fact, he has never been able to figure out what Anthony wants to do...or what the new Pope wants to do. Anthony is the most trusted sword of the new Pope. It can be said that everything Anthony is doing now is new. Pope's will.
"Aren't we looking for the Book of Revelation?" Samuel asked.
"But we don't have any clues, do we? From the exchange of information with the purification agency, we can learn that Lawrence is dead, killed by Mr. Holmes, and that Dean Lawrence single-handedly triggered the coming of the Holy Spirit. That night, no one knew how long he had been planning, let alone how long he had occupied "Revelation".
There was too much forbidden knowledge in that book, knowledge that even the Evangelical Church chose to forget... But such a terrible person died, killed by Mr. Holmes. "
Anthony raised his head as he spoke, with faint concern in his eyes.
"The purification agency did not tell us the specific conditions of the battlefield at that time, but it is obvious that from the current point of view, Mr. Holmes has no chance of defeating Lawrence. But the fact is that Lawrence died, and he still lived unscathed. down.
Perhaps... this is the power of the false Holy Grail. "
Samuel was startled. He had never thought of this. No one knew the ability of the pseudo-Holy Grail, or even the appearance of the pseudo-Holy Grail.
"Lawrence is the only clue to find the Apocalypse, and now he is dead, but the inferior secret blood is still appearing... It seems that another person has joined the game instead of Lawrence."
Anthony paused.
"It's better not to talk about this for now, Samuel. The current situation is very complicated. Even I don't know what to do... At least until the Pope's order is issued, we'd better maintain the status quo."
"But...what's the situation with those dark chess pieces?"
Samuel heard Anthony's question and said quickly.
"Currently, they have successfully integrated into the old Dunling. Among them, he is the most outstanding and has even penetrated into the Black Mountain Hospital."
Anthony obviously knew who Samuel was referring to, and he wasn't surprised.
"His powers are perfect for infiltration."
As if he remembered something, Anthony couldn't help but laugh.
That powerful Anthony was so familiar that the new pope used it to bloodbath the entire Seven Hills, and those people even to their death did not understand why this happened.
"But he's... not very controllable."
Samuel voiced his concerns.
"What he did before..."
"As long as the value outweighs the risk, as The Wipeout did with Mr. Holmes."
Anthony seemed well prepared and said confidently.
Lowering his head, there was the document that he had been looking through for a long time on the table. Anthony was silent for a long time, but after a while he smiled again.
"Samuel, take those witchers for a stroll."
"Go for a walk?"
Samuel was a little confused. When he came to Old Dunling, he was ready to fight to the death. But after he arrived, there were no swords and swords, only verbal battles. It seemed that this was a game between two huge groups. If possible No one wants to see blood.
"This is Old Dunling, the home of our enemies, and the frontier of the world. There is no harm in seeing more."
"But... this feels like entertainment before death." Samuel couldn't help but said.
"Maybe, after all, we may all die next... This Lorenzo Holmes is really full of mysteries, so many that even he himself is not aware of it."
Anthony said as he picked up the document. There was no complicated writing on it, just a few lines of scrawled words and a few black-and-white photos sandwiched on top.
This document came from the Seven Hills, and was secretly delivered to Anthony a few days after he arrived in Old Dunling. The photos contained several half-burned documents, although the details were unclear from the black and white photos. details, but from the broad outline one can tell that one is a list.
The handwriting on the other photo was slightly clearer, and Anthony could see several seals on it, as well as the blurry words.
"Project: "Sword Sheath Treaty", Executor: Lorenzo Medici..."
Anthony's brows knitted together, and problems far beyond the controllability of the current situation arose.
(End of this chapter)