Chapter 46: Mysterious Aura
The door was opened once again, and Loruze walked in with a puzzled expression.
"Your Grace, is there something you need?"
Sylvia had her hands crossed beneath her chin, her two purple eyes—though differing slightly in shade—reflecting the everlasting light on the wall:
"Anwendeika Rilk, does that name ring a bell?"
"Anwendeika Rilk..."
Loruze repeated the name, his brows furrowing gradually:
"I seem to recall something... I think he was a wild extraordinary individual we apprehended about a week ago, involved in a case of extraordinary crime. We initially suspected him to be a follower of the 'True Moon'."
"Hmm..."
At that point, he paused, his frown deepening, and after a few seconds, he continued:
"But from what we’ve gathered during the interrogation and investigation of those Full Moon Sect members, it seems he might have been falsely accused."
"…"
Sylvia fell silent instantly. It was a long while before she asked, with a strange tone:
"Then why is he still being held?"
At that moment, the Radiant Bishop standing before her showed a slightly embarrassed smile:
"Things have been a little hectic lately, and we... forgot."
Hey, as someone who counts as a regional leader, your memory is kind of subpar!
And what have you been so busy with that you just forgot...
Sylvia was mentally complaining to this point when she suddenly paused.
At that moment, she thought of her own arrival, of the second conversion of St. Ruls Cathedral, of a group arrest within the Full Moon Sect...
She then forcibly suppressed the twitch at the corner of her lips, refrained from continuing that self-embarrassing inner rant, and voiced her doubt:
"Didn’t you pass by his cell while interrogating the Full Moon Sect members?"
"And across from him, there should be a Full Moon Sect member being held, right?"
At that moment, Loruze’s smile turned even more awkward:
"Considering their extraordinary rank and uniqueness, we didn’t detain them on the second level of the Court of Radiance. Instead, we used a Forbidden Object to confine them on the third level."
"Also, I had already instructed my subordinates to transfer that Full Moon Sect member as well."
"It’s just that she..."
At this point, he hesitated.
"What happened?"
Sylvia lowered her clasped hands, and her fingers began to tap the table unconsciously.
The embarrassment vanished from Loruze’s face, replaced by a gradually serious expression:
"She’s dead."
"Last night, she was found dead from sudden cardiac arrest on the third basement level of the Court of Radiance."
"After examination, her soul had completely dissipated. There were no wounds on her body, and similarly, no signs of any sudden illness."
"She just died without any warning, without any reason."
Sylvia raised an eyebrow, her questioning tone filled with surprise as well:
"Sudden death without any reason inside the Court of Radiance?"
"What about the other Full Moon cultists?"
Loruze shook his head:
"Aside from her, everyone else is perfectly fine. We also found this matter quite strange."
"Logically speaking, an extraordinary individual couldn’t possibly die so abruptly, but it did indeed happen just like that."
At that moment, Lakdevo, who was crouching on the backrest of a chair, suddenly let out a squawk:
"Kaaw!"
"Could it have been a curse?"
Loruze shook his head again:
"We didn’t find any trace of one."
Immediately, Lakdevo’s harsh voice rang out again:
"What about the body?"
"It’s still in the Court of Radiance."
Hearing that, Sylvia nodded:
"Alright, let’s go take a look together, and let that unlucky guy out while we’re at it."
...
The two of them, along with the crow, descended the spiral staircase to the third basement level and proceeded down a long corridor toward its depths.
The rooms on either side of the corridor were noticeably large, and the doors separating them from the hallway were engraved with dense white symbolic sigils.
A few seconds later, the two of them stopped in front of a door, and then Loruze pushed it open—
The space behind the door was also filled with pure white light, but it appeared extremely empty. Apart from a raised white cloth in the corner, there was nothing else.
Loruze quickly strode forward to reach the corpse ahead of them, then bent down and lifted the white cloth, revealing a corpse underneath with pale skin and rigid muscles.
"Kaaw!"
"Hmm... nothing unusual."
Lakdevo examined it closely for a while before finally reaching this conclusion.
But Sylvia's brow furrowed at that moment:
"Something feels off. This corpse gives me an extremely discordant feeling."
"I sense a very faint aura."
"However, I’ve never seen this aura before, nor do I know what it represents."
With that, the puppet girl raised her right hand, letting a strand of starlight bloom at her fingertip.
The next second, the strand of starlight began to flicker and twist, its color and form changing rapidly.
In the end, it turned into a strand of pitch-black light, radiating an aura of extreme unease.
"What is this?"
Loruze asked in astonishment, while Lakdevo shook his head:
"Sorry, I don’t know what it is either. But I believe I’ve seen it before—"
"At that time, I was heading to the deepest part of the River of the Dead to seek an audience with the God of Death, and I sensed the same aura behind the opened gate of the Divinity Realm."
"The gate of the Divinity Realm?"
Sylvia repeated the term she was familiar with.
"Yes, though I never truly entered it."
Sylvia nodded thoughtfully, then casually tried to extinguish the strand of pitch-black light between her fingers...
Hmm?
At that moment, she let out a surprised thought, then realized the strand of black light hadn’t dissipated as she had expected. Instead, it continued to bloom at her fingertip.
It had a strong adhesiveness and even some corrosiveness.
Hmm… It was also very stable, with a certain exclusivity—just now, it had repelled the spirituality she tried to use to snuff it out.
With starlight flashing in her eyes, Sylvia’s gaze penetrated her skin and saw the black light burning steadily on the metal framework of her fingertip.
Hmm?
Suddenly, another surprised thought surfaced in her mind.
But this time, it held a different tone from before—one of pleasant surprise.
This particular trait... could it possibly help her refine the "Sinner" extraordinary path, which was primarily parasitic in nature?
If she could fully study and understand its principles and structure, it might significantly aid her in resolving some of the difficulties and challenges she encountered while constructing the "Sinner" path.
At the very least, it could serve as a kind of "adhesive", allowing the power of sin to "stick" to the Spiritual Star in a new way.
Moreover, given its stability, it might also help optimize the method she used to separate the power of sin from the extraordinary power of the basic path?
"Excellent."
A trace of a smile flickered in her eyes as she shifted her gaze back to the corpse on the floor:
"Loruze, since her death seems connected to this mysterious aura, then for the sake of your safety and to avoid wasting unnecessary time, suspend any further investigation into her for now. Wait until I’ve figured out the nature of this aura before proceeding."
"Hmm… Lakdevo, I’ll leave this corpse to you to handle, to prevent any unintended accidents arising from her strange cause of death."
"Understood, Your Grace."
"Yes, Master!"
As the two of them busied themselves, Sylvia turned her eyes to the strand of pitch-black light still lingering at her fingertip. Starlight once again glinted in her gaze.
A few minutes later, after hearing Lakdevo’s report, she finally extinguished it completely and followed Loruze, who was leading the way upstairs.
Hmm, first finish the business at hand, then return to research!
With all the details of that aura firmly memorized, Sylvia thought this to herself.