13 Mink Street

“Promise me, Karon, once you advance to become an Inquisitor, the very first Art you learn must be that one! Turn into black mist to go in, then turn into black mist to leave again. It’s truly aesthetic.”

“Can it already be learned at the Inquisitor level?”

“It should be an Art for Adjudicators, but judging by your track record, you should be able to learn before you reach that rank.”

“Tiz never demonstrated that Art in front of you before?”

“He was always just an ordinary Inquisitor.”

“Heh.”

“More importantly, even if he had cast a forbidden spell, it would still feel perfunctory and dull. Life, Arts, faith, all of them need a sense of ritual and refinement. That is the true path!” As she spoke, Pu’er lifted a paw and pulled down the brim of her hat, covering half of her face.

They arrived at the gas station, and Karon parked the car. He reached into the glove compartment, took out the handgun, and slipped it into the inner pocket of his coat.

“You actually brought it with you, Karon? Believe me, I will never worry that you’ll die because of carelessness, because I’ve really never seen anyone more cautious than you.”

“A long time ago, I already wanted to experience what it felt like to carry a gun.” Karon pushed open the car door and walked toward a diner. Just as he was about to push the door open, he saw a tall man and a short man come out together.

Both wore plain clothes, but Karon noticed that each of them wore a black-and-white ring on one finger. Ever since he had snapped the plastic ring the captain given to him, Karon had found himself unconsciously paying extra attention to rings that appeared in his daily life.

Black and white were the Church of Abyss’s favorite paired colors, symbolizing their god’s great feat of connecting hell and heaven.

So, are people from the Church of Abyss here? Or is this just a small group from the Church of Abyss who happened to be here?

Just as Karon was about to pretend not recognize the two and slip around them into the diner, the tall man suddenly lifted an arm to stop him and asked, “Did you come from that direction?”

Karon frowned and angrily brushed the man’s hand aside. “Yes.”

The tall man seemed amused by Karon’s reaction and attitude, and he also smiled as he asked, “How was the road over there?”

“Heh. A truck overturned on the road. My car got scraped just trying to get around it. Now get out of my way!”

The tall man withdrew his hand and said to the short man, “Did you hear that? That’s the spot. We’ve already fallen behind. We need to hurry over, or Elder Merckley really will punish us.”

“If you hadn’t delayed us, would we be in such a panic now? It’s all your fault. If Elder Merckley blames us later, I’m definitely saying it was because of you.”

“Alright, alright, let’s go, let’s go.”

The two of them walked outside, while Karon entered the diner and stood at the counter.

“Sir, what would you like to eat?”

Karon looked up at the meals listed above. The most expensive one was thirty-eight rels per serving, and that included drinks.

“That meal, fourteen portions, thank you.”

“Certainly, sir. That comes to five hundred and thirty-two rels.”

The captain had not given him enough money. Karon said, “Five hundred rels.”

The cashier smiled and nodded. “Certainly, sir.”

Karon handed over the five hundred rels.

The cashier said apologetically, “Sir, because the quantity you ordered is rather large, we need some time to restock ingredients from the storeroom.”

“No problem. Get the ingredients ready first. My friends haven’t arrived yet. You can start cooking once they get here.”

“Of course, sir. Please let us know in advance. Here is your order slip.”

Karon accepted the order slip, then looked outside the diner, only to discover that the tall man and the short man had walked toward his secondhand Pons sedan. Karon immediately shoved the door open and ran over.

***

“You can’t even tell the difference between being out of gas and having a dead engine? Damn it, you’re as stupid as a telegraph pole!” the short man cursed. “And I even helped you push the car for so long!”

“Alright, alright. I don’t know how to fix cars, and not knowing is perfectly normal. We’ll just borrow one. Look, this one isn’t bad. A Pons. Heh, I like this model.

“Oh, look, there’s a cute little kitty inside. Hahaha, I like black cats. Oh ho! And there’s a golden retriever too. I like golden retrievers as well. You know, at cafés, I always make the waitresses change into sexy outfits in these two colors.”

“I have no interest in hearing about your kind of fetish!”

Click!

“Hey, look; The door isn’t locked, and the car key is still in here. Let’s use this car first.”

Pu’er jumped into the back seat. The golden retriever leaned forward, shielding her behind him. He bared his teeth, a warning rumbling in his throat.

“Heh, this dog is pretty fierce, and its fur is beautiful. The meat must be delicious too. You know, every time I eat dog meat, I feel like I can drink three more cups of coffee afterward.”

“Idiot! Get in the car already and stop wasting time!” The short man was already in the driver’s seat.

“Hey, that’s my car!”

“Of course. We’re only borrowing it and will return it right away, including the cat and dog in your car.” The tall man smiled as he sat down in the passenger seat. He did not take the owner of the car seriously in the slightest.

The short man, however, immediately shouted, “Watch out!”

Bang!

Yes, Karon fired.

When two strangers suddenly try to steal your car while two weak members of your family are still inside, what choice would you make?

Karon’s aim was not particularly good, but he was also too close. The bullet pierced the passenger-side window and struck the tall man in the shoulder. “Bloody hell! He hit me!”

The tall man clutched his shoulder and immediately ducked down in the car.

The short man instantly twisted his body and took cover below the dashboard, his mouth already beginning to rapidly chant an Art.

Gun in hand, Karon advanced. When he heard the chanting from inside the car, not only did he not panic, he instead felt a certain sort of solid reassurance.

That was because this was the sort of situation he had faced many times before. If they still needed to chant long incantations and could not cast Arts instantly, it meant that they were weak. In this respect, Karon was an old hand.

A gray curtain of light appeared over the car window. The short man immediately straightened up, shooting an angry glare at Karon as he began chanting his next Art.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Karon fired off three shots at the man in quick succession, but all the bullets were deflected by the gray curtain of light.

It seemed to be a defensive Art similar to the Church of Order’s Protective Wall.

Just as Karon shifted his body to fire at the tall man, the short man flung both hands outward, and the road beneath Karon’s feet bulged upward. A giant python made of earth burst out of the ground.

Karon fired wildly at it with the gun, but it did nothing.

“Damn it, what the hell!” Karon was clearly frightened by this absurd sight. He threw the emptied gun away at once, then turned around and ran for the woods in the opposite side, glancing back nervously as he fled.

The earthen python chased him for some distance, but then dissipated. It was clearly due to the fact that the short man lacked the ability to sustain the Art over too great a range.

The short man immediately went to check on the tall man’s condition. The tall man pulled out a small bottle and poured its contents onto his gunshot wound. A layer of frost instantly formed, stopping the bleeding.

“I’m going to kill him!” The tall man smashed the bottle to the ground, stood up, and ran straight in the direction Karon had fled.

The short man looked as though he wanted to say something, but seeing that the tall man had already recklessly rushed off, he could only get out of the car and follow after his partner.

In the back seat, Pu’er poked her head out from behind the golden retriever and said, “I bet Karon is absolutely delighted right now.”

The golden retriever nodded. “Woof.”

***

After running into the woods, Karon did not head any deeper, because he was worried the men might fail to catch up to him. He stopped and waited for a while before finally seeing the tall man’s figure. The tall man saw Karon as well. “I’ll make you understand that you picked the wrong people to provoke!”

The tall man began chanting. Two clusters of gray flames condensed in front of him, and they shot straight at Karon. There were obviously many trees between them, yet the two gray fireballs were able to weave around obstacles on their own.

If an ordinary person were hit, the flames would cling to them and quickly incinerate them. Their body would end up charred black like coal, though their clothes would show no burn marks at all.

Karon stood in place, not moving at all. As the two gray fireballs closed in on him, perhaps in order to prevent him from escaping, they swiftly split apart from each other before closing in on him from both sides.

“Order—Protective Wall!” At Karon’s current level, he could already instant-cast low-tier Arts.

Two black walls appeared, and they blocked the fireballs. The flames splashed and burned, while the walls, continuously sustained by Karon, reformed after every instance of damage.

“The Church of Order!” The short man, who had just arrived from behind, was immediately stunned at the sight. He truly could not understand why a priest of the Church of Order would first aim a handgun at them and start firing, only to then run away in fright the moment he saw them summoning an Art.

One only had to say, “Praise Order,” and the side could answer, “Praise the Abyss.” That would have settled things nicely, no?

“No, why would someone from the Church of Order appear here!” The short man immediately grasped the key point. “Quick! Find a way to notify Elder Merckley!”

The tall man had also been stunned by the sight of Karon’s Art. When he had assumed he was facing just an ordinary person, the man had dared to act arrogantly and teach Karon a lesson, but after learning that he was facing another priest, the tall man’s confidence immediately wilted. Hearing the short man shout, he instinctively began to retreat.

Karon saw the soil beneath the short man’s feet form a yellow earthen bird. He was clearly trying to send a message.

The short man continued pouring spirituality into the “bird” while staring at Karon, who walked down towards the two men.

When the short man saw a suit of blue armor appear on Karon’s body, he froze. When he saw two blood-red curved blades appear in Karon’s hands, disbelief overwrote his features.

He truly wanted to cry out in grievance, ”Why did you use a handgun?!”

Karon started running.

“Stop him! Hurry!” the short man shouted.

The tall man immediately started chanting. Three layers of earth walls rose from the ground in front of him.

Bang!

Bang!

Bang!

Wearing the Sea God’s Armor, Karon smashed through all three barriers in a completely unreasonable fashion. The sight of it outright terrified the tall man.

In truth, Karon had not intended to charge straight through everything. It was just that the doubled agility effect of Sea God’s Armor and Darkmoon Blade, combined with the downhill slope, caused him to move much too fast. He was unable to stop, nor even change direction. He could only grit his teeth and ram through the obstacles with his shoulder.

Fortunately, the Sea God’s Armor completely negated the shock of the impacts. After breaking through the third earth wall, Karon saw the tall man appear right in front of him. At that point, Karon no longer cared about swordsmanship or blade technique and simply hacked wildly straight ahead.

Several red lines appeared across the tall man’s body. He looked down at himself in shock. Then, his body slid apart into a number of pieces that fell to the ground.

Even Karon felt a little physical discomfort at the sight. He was long accustomed to the dead, but this new manner of death had a far greater visual impact than the guests he had seen at the funeral homes.

The short man collapsed to the ground in despair as the yellow earthen bird flew up.

Karon looked at the bird as it prepared to soar higher. Acting on instinct, he lifted his hand, and the curved blade in his right hand instantly transformed into a red whip.

Crack! The bird was struck down in midair, exploding into a spray of dirt.

Karon was very satisfied with his move, though also a bit shaken afterward. He did not know whether things on the captain’s side had gone smoothly, but if the message had gotten through and ruined the trap because of Karon’s meal-ordering errand, he would really have been wronged.

The short man had already fallen into complete despair. He dropped to his knees before Karon and begged, “Please, sir, please spare me! Spare me!”

Karon walked up to him, turned his eyes to the side, and then brought down the curved blade in his left hand.

Pfft!

The short man’s upper body was split apart, and blood spraying out. However, the blood that splashed onto Karon was immediately purified and washed away by the Sea God’s Armor, never staining Karon himself.

He liked this property of the armor a great deal. After all, he was someone who liked taking baths.

The Sea God’s Armor faded away, as did the Darkmoon Blade. Since he had not used them for very long this time, Karon was not especially tired.

Looking at the two pools of butchered remains on the ground, he frowned slightly. So does this mean that, among the orthodox churches’ people, I can casually kill their members beneath the rank of Inquisitor?

That was because people at those ranks cast Arts slowly, and they are basically only used low-tier Arts. They were also unable to stack multiple Arts at once the way Karon had before. With Sea God’s Armor and Darkmoon Blade, he was able to completely reverse that characteristic.

As for the next rank, Karon subconsciously compared people to Mr. Pavaro. That man had not been good at fighting, but the flames he had released from his hands had possessed great power. Could Karon’s Sea God’s Armor withstand such flames?

No, he could absolutely use other defensive Arts to block such an attack. Still, with the Sea God’s Armor serving as the final defensive expenditure while closing the range, there was a chance Karon would be able to land a blow on someone like Mr. Pavaro.

So, does this mean I already have a chance to hack an Inquisitor to death? Karon was not sure, but he was not in a hurry to find out. After returning to Allen Manor, he could try sparring with someone like Mr. Mike, who was a Tier-3 member of the family faith system.

In the end, Karon could only sigh in admiration. The two Arts that Pu’er and Kevin had carefully selected for him really were incredibly practical. After hesitating for a moment, he ultimately bent down and searched through the clothes in the two piles of mangled corpses.

In total, he found three small bottles, though he had no idea what they contained. Several other bottles had been shattered by his curved blades, and he also found more than four hundred Abyss credits.

Next, Karon spread his hands and chanted, “Order—Purification!”

The light of Purification enveloped the two piles of flesh, erasing all spirituality from the corpses. Even though they had been chopped to bits and definitely could not be Awakened anymore, Karon did not want to leave behind any traces.

Killing them placed no burden on Karon’s conscience. According to the laws of Veyn, when someone tried to steal a person’s private property in front of them, the owner had the right to legitimate self-defense. Besides, the two fireballs that the tall man had thrown at Karon earlier would have burned him to death if he were just an ordinary person. Karon had no intention of wasting guilt on this kind of thing.

“Should I bury them?” He tested the ground with his foot. Although it was already spring, the temperature had not yet warmed much, and the soil underfoot was still hard.

After thinking for a moment, Karon stood upright. Gradually, white light appeared on his body: “Light—Blaze!”

A fireball dropped into the middle of the corpses. They immediately caught fire, yet only the bodies burned. Nothing else at all was affected.

Very quickly, both corpses were burned down to blackened charcoal.

“If I had known it would be this easy, why did I even bother with that Purification just now?”

Karon recalled the efficiency of the Nio’s Whip of Order squad members in the funeral home the other night. They had destroyed the bodies and erased all traces. That was what true professionalism looked like, and he was still far from that.

When Karon returned to where he had parked, he found two police officers standing in front of his car.

“Officer, that’s my car,” Karon said as he looked inside the car. Upon seeing that Pu’er and Kevin were still sitting inside, he inwardly relaxed and continued speaking to the officers, “Officer, two men just tried to seize my car. Left with no choice, I fired in self-defense. After I ran out of bullets, they tried to kill me, and I fled into those woods to shake them off. There should be quite a few witnesses around here. You can ask them.”

The police officer looked at Karon and asked, “Finished?”

“Finished.”

“If you’re finished, then go inside and eat.”

“Hmm?”

Karon turned his head and saw that Nio was sitting by the window inside of the diner.

The officer said, “The captain ordered fourteen meals. I was wondering why there was an extra. Turns out that it’s for you. I had no idea that right after our squad was transferred to York City, we would already gain an attached member. Let me introduce myself. I’m Marlow. He’s Zema.”

Zema, who stood beside Marlow in the same police uniform, quietly asked Karon, “Is the ring the captain gave you made of plastic too?”

Karon nodded.

Zema let out a long breath. “Now I feel better.”

So the rings the captain gives out... are all made of plastic?

“You can go on in. The captain is waiting for you. The others have already finished eating and took the Church of Abyss people back with them. We noticed these traces here.” Marlow pointed to the marks on the road left from when the Earth Serpent had appeared, and then pointed to Karon’s shattered car window. “We’ll help get you compensation for your car too.”

“Thank you.”

Karon walked into the diner and found that many of the tables still had finished plates on them that the staff had not yet had time to clear away. In front of Nio was one untouched meal set.

“Captain.” Karon walked over to Nio and sat down.

“Eat.”

“Yes, Captain.” Karon picked up the knife and fork and began cutting the chicken filet.

Nio took out three ten-rel notes and two coins, placed them on the table, and pushed them toward Karon. “By the rules, the first meal after a job is always on me.”

Karon shook his head and said, “The shop gave us a discount, so it only cost five hundred.”

“Oh, alright.” Nio took back the thirty-two rels and asked, “Where are those two Church of Abyss people who chased you now?”

Karon put a piece of chicken steak into his mouth, chewed, swallowed, and in the end still answered, “Both dead.”

“Ah.” Nio sighed. “You shouldn’t have killed them.”

Karon set down the knife and fork. “Captain, I was impulsive.”

Nio leaned back slightly, and then smiled. “Dead is dead. Next time, do your best to capture them alive. When you capture them alive, they can pay with credits to ransom themselves.”