The eccentric doctor never makes a misdiagnosis!

Page 352

She had heard about the collection of contestants' souls and the entry into the Hollow Tower from the Lady of the Mist before; it was a standard procedure of the Endtimes Sacrifice. But this was the first time she had heard about the so-called God of Machines.

Furthermore, Sigrid prefers a less cruel choice rather than becoming the last survivor who slaughters everyone else.

"Um……"

Fran found an undamaged wooden square chair in the restaurant, slowly leaned back in it, and then began to speak.

"When you were collecting the mayor's soul just now, he mentioned 'the experimental subjects of the army madmen.' But in reality, he himself didn't know what that meant... And as far as I know, the mechanical god 'Logic' is a product of this research project."

"This project did not originate from the Bremen military or Caesar. Rather, his reason for invading Preschville was to steal the ultimate fruit of the Machine God. However, for some reason, he is now dedicated to bringing about its birth."

"The prerequisite for activating Him is to activate the telemetry monitoring system located in tunnels one, four, and seven respectively."

"However, that's not really important."

“Sigrid, what you need to know is… if you activate 'Logic,' it will try to incorporate your consciousness into its collective network of thought. If it succeeds, it means that you, as an individual, will die.”

Many situations require firsthand experience to gain a truly profound understanding, and Fran has no intention of giving lengthy explanations of the background and worldview.

All she could do was give Sigrid a clearer framework of events, thus clarifying the main plot.

"The time that bottle of vodka can provide to wake you up is almost up."

She half-closed her eyes, and her tone became almost soft and languid.

"Given my current physical condition, one more drink would be my limit... So, I hope you will wake me up only when you encounter a situation that you consider important enough."

After speaking, Fran finally closed his eyes, his long eyelashes intertwining and tangling.

She fell asleep.

Sigrid helped Fran, whose cheeks were still flushed, to her feet. Her gaze became serious as she carefully considered what Fran had just said.

Although she mentioned many points to note, it can be summarized as a multiple-choice question.

First, find all the contestants in Presville, collect the unique souls within them, and ascend the hollow tower to complete the final step of the End Ritual.

Secondly, disregard the contestants and try to activate the mechanical god "Logic" to end the festival with His power.

The former process is more complicated, since she doesn't know how many participants there are or where they are... but it seems safer and more reliable.

The latter appears to be simple and efficient.

However, the deity they summon may become a new source of danger, thus causing unforeseen changes.

"Is Dr. Fran going to let me make the decision?"

Sigrid gently stroked the forehead of little Flamel in her arms, letting out a soft sigh, a hint of distress appearing in her eyes.

She hadn't forgotten that this was a "house call," so Dr. Fran must have come here to cure someone or some kind of plague. But now the goal had changed to completing the festival… What could be the reason for all this?

Daydreaming ultimately couldn't bring any real progress to what she was doing, so she quickly patted her cheeks, cheered herself up, and stopped dwelling on her doubts.

Perhaps considering that the overly complex situation would leave Sigrid at a loss, Fran provided particularly clear phased goals.

Head to downtown Preshville to find the Raven's carcass and the new Divine Ring.

-

Preschville, the inner city.

Compared to the surrounding villages and towns, the level of development and architectural style here fully deserve the word "prosperous".

Wide streets, vintage cars everywhere, paving stones with local style and patterns, and magnificent steeple churches...

The only drawback is that the inner city is just as desolate as the outside world.

But don't feel disappointed if you don't see the locals here. Believe me, no one wants to face their warm and friendly greetings.

Sigrid had encountered the city's inhabitants more than once on her way into the inner city after melting down the old town's gates. A few of them huddled in the shadows, trembling, fearing any light source like cave-dwelling creatures.

In most cases, they would simply pull out their weapons and charge forward recklessly, launching an attack while laughing wildly.

...and then Sigrid killed him with her homemade steel spear.

In addition, there is one more point that needs special attention.

moonlight.

As night fell, the pale, cold moonlight descended from the clouds in the sky. It was hazy and mesmerizing. Although I felt nothing unusual, that wisp of light seemed to penetrate my skin, bones, and internal organs, shining directly into the depths of my soul and burning away the last vestiges of reason.

The once stable mindset gradually became distorted and disordered, and evil thoughts began to stir restlessly. Only blood and death could calm them for a moment.

However, once one gets used to it, indulges in and revels in this sadistic desire, it becomes impossible to avoid falling into depravity.

However... Moonburn had almost no effect on Sigrid.

As one of the fragments of the primordial sun, her body, mind, and even soul had already been endowed with the qualities of that supreme celestial being through the alchemical process. Therefore, mental interference using moonlight as a means of transmission was hardly effective against her.

However, Flamel was purely human and clearly could not escape the scorching heat of the moon.

Therefore, Sigrid needs to summon daylight around herself, sacrificing her own spirituality to counteract the effects of the moon's scorching heat. This consumes her minimally, but has a drawback… in the darkness, the blinding light of day is far too conspicuous.

This forced Sigrid to clear away the attracted Moonburners as she moved forward, slowing her progress. Initially, she attempted to communicate, but later, her actions were reduced to a single principle: "efficiency."

Communication with a mentally ill person suffering from madness has proven to be futile.

They were a group of tormented souls whose souls had decayed and weakened; for them, destroying the body was the only mercy, and obliterating the spirit was the only remaining compassion. Sigrid felt neither the slightest joy nor sorrow in the killing.

She was simply mechanically taking their lives, knowing full well that it was the only thing she could do for them.

"Is it really possible to find crow carcasses here?"

Sigrid raised her hand to wipe away the blood and ash stains on her sleeve, a hint of distress showing in her molten gold eyes.

In the inner city, the one thing that is never lacking is corpses. They can be seen everywhere, sacrificed in various bloody primitive rituals, most of them mutilated, with their ears and noses cut off, their limbs severed, or their internal organs ripped out.

But these are human remains.

Logically, such a horrifying number of rotting corpses should have attracted flocks of harbinger birds to feast on them, yet not a single crow or even a mosquito could be seen in the city.

She had found the new divine ring during her earlier exploration; it was located in the basement of an orphanage in the commercial district, but she couldn't find the offering. Therefore, she could only continue her aimless search… watching helplessly as time slipped away, and the gray night grew increasingly somber.

However, fate seems to have always been on her side.

Sigrid, with Flamel in her arms, walked into the intersection in the city center, when she suddenly smelled a strong stench, which made her frown slightly.

This isn't just the smell of a decaying corpse. There's also the stench of spoiled food, stagnant silt, and fermenting excrement. These odors mingle and blend together, then flood the nasal cavity… delivering an unprecedented shock to the olfactory nerves.

“There must be an open sewer inlet nearby, and it hasn’t been cleaned or repaired in a long time.”

"This smell is at least twice as strong as Norlington's drainage system..."

Following the direction of the smell, Sigrid first spotted a lifted manhole cover. Then, something next to the cover immediately caught her eye.

It was a crow that had been dead for a long time, with maggots still faintly visible beneath its skin.

-

-

soup!

Chapter 55 Long Shanbala [The Last Sacrifice]

Walking north along the messy and deserted streets of the commercial district, Sigrid soon entered the Saint-Domec orphanage.

This is one of the neighborhood's iconic buildings, with its grand and striking Gothic décor that makes it hard to miss.

Under normal circumstances, the density of those burned by the moon within the facility will be relatively sparse, and if a sufficiently powerful individual occupies the area, it is even possible to find that not a single enemy can be seen.

Clearly, after the existing common sense and social rules of Presville were destroyed by the final sacrifice, these beast-like madmen began to follow the most primitive law of the jungle, namely "territoriality".

Those who are empowered by the moon's scorching influence often purposefully clean up their dwellings.

Woodcutter, town mayor, nothing more.

Even though most people are afflicted with madness, they are not necessarily unafraid of death, so they try to avoid high-risk areas... This also makes it a little quieter when they are inside buildings.

However, the situation at the Saint-Domec orphanage was different from the above.

The enemies here are numerous and ubiquitous, like cockroaches swarming and breeding in damp crevices... Each individual is quite fragile, but you can find them almost anywhere.

Under desks, at stairwell corners, and even in the shadows of cramped bookshelves.

Moreover, the image of these guys is rather unsettling.

"There weren't this many of these guys when we first came in. Were they attracted by the noise?"

Sigrid pierced an oncoming monster with her steel spear, then casually pinned it to the wall beside her. She forced herself not to look at their horrifying appearance, but her gaze couldn't help but linger on them.

The Moonburners in the orphanage are called "Fallen Angels." They are small in size, unclothed, and hairless.

Judging from the degree of skeletal development, they should have evolved from human children. Furthermore, their skin has a pale reddish-white color, as if they were hairless livestock that had been roasted or boiled... Even just one glance would evoke a sense of physiological disgust.

As it happens, this is an orphanage, so the origins of the fallen children are not hard to guess.

It's hard to imagine what kind of torment the children who originally lived here endured during the Moonburn of the End Festival, which ultimately led to their horrifying appearance.

This is bound to be a painful, disorienting, agonizing, and mentally chaotic process.

After dealing with the last fallen child in the orphanage's basement, Sigrid discarded the spear that had been remelted several times and then used the steel bookshelf next to her as material to recast a spear.

For the craftswoman, weapons are not important; she herself is one of the most perfect weapons.

Even without transforming herself into the pseudo-sword of the sun, Sigrid can still use alchemical programs and forging rituals at any time during combat to turn all inorganic materials and even the surrounding terrain into weapons for immediate use.

"Hopefully this ceremony will bring some positive changes to the outpatient visits... I've had enough of this oppressive feeling."

Sigrid found a safe corner to put Flamel down as she was sobering up, then looked toward the Imperfect Ring, also known as the New Ring, located deep in the basement.

The types of ritual rings vary, and their uses also differ.

The asymmetrical ring is composed of asymmetrical and unbalanced hexagonal rings, representing the conceptualized power of the ancient gods transcending the world.

The Perfect Ring represents the perfect ascendant who has transcended the limits of human existence, and represents the apex of the new God Spiral's cycle.

...As for the imperfect ring, it is a sign of the new god.

The new gods have ascended to godhood, yet they possess indelible flaws. They may transcend the constraints of mortal bodies and lifespans, perhaps becoming kings and rulers of an era, or possessing and controlling powerful nations spanning multiple continents…

But the "imperfections" of the new gods will cause them to weaken over time.

When the power fades, the rule ends, the faith is eroded, and the kingdom perishes, even if the new god does not die from the decline, he will eventually turn into a harmless clay sculpture in a dark banquet hall.

Sigrid prepared the ritual materials and the offerings as a sacrifice for the raven's remains, then nurtured spiritual energy at her fingertips and channeled it into the array circuitry.

A stream of light, the color of molten gold, surged rapidly within the ritual array, and a scorching heat suddenly rose. Almost at the very moment the hidden link was fully formed, a foul, bloody stench quietly permeated the ritual chamber.

Like corpses lying long on a battlefield, like survivors whose wounds have festered and decayed in the Iron Maiden torture chamber, on the verge of death...

The sticky, viscous blood gushed from the blocky array of the imperfect ring, instantly forming a pool from which the figure of a man slowly emerged.

The new god, Ronn Chambara, who was summoned through the medium of raven carcasses, is the "tortured one".

His body was robust and muscular, yet covered by no skin, so the outlines of his muscles and bones were clearly visible, like walking red flesh. However, unlike most of the madmen in Preshville, he did not expose his primary sexual characteristics…

The flesh around this guy's waist and abdomen hangs down in sheets, like a skirt armor covering his thighs, reaching down to his ankles.

The tormented man's appearance was bizarre and horrifying, yet he was not insane; instead, he exuded a unique majesty.

The majesty of "god".

The secret room was silent, yet a restless drumbeat seemed to be constantly striking in Sigrid's heart.

Even those adversaries encountered before, mutated by the Moonburn Frenzy and transformed into aberrant beings detached from the human body, were still bound by their inherent fragility and mortal nature. But the person before them had already stepped into a higher dimension.

But... it's only one foot.

Sigrid pursed her lips slightly, fragmented memories suddenly flashing through her mind. She remembered the New Gods' Banquet Hall she had visited when she encountered Little Flamel, and the skinless, red-fleshed person before her had a seat there.

In the words of the Mysterious Hunter, the current situation is undoubtedly a dangerous encounter.

It's time to prepare for battle.

Sigrid could not sense any hostility from the victim, but she could vaguely perceive a kind of "resoluteness." He had no intention of communicating, nor would he be swayed by persuasion or any temptation; he had only one goal in coming here.

That is, "to inflict the ultimate pain on those who dare to summon themselves."

Facing a deity directly put immense psychological pressure on Sigrid, even though the other party was merely a new god whose power had waned and who did not seem invincible... However, the secret knowledge she had learned in the Sunforge Order constantly reminded her that being tainted by divinity meant danger.

However, the victim did not launch an attack directly, but instead turned to look at the pool of blood where he had appeared.

One could see a hint of apprehension in his dark eyes that shouldn't have been there.

"..."