Ramd Town, rather than a town, felt more like a market.
In the town stood a modest church, usually attended by a single clergyman who served as the priest, presiding over Sunday services and Mass.
But at this moment, the clergyman belonging to the Lady of the Night was not in the church listening to the prayers of the Lady's followers. He was in a corner of the market, surrounded by foul water and various rubbish, his face grim as he bent over to examine a corpse with its internal organs ripped out.
In the Kingdom of Loen, which was not stable and lacked a police force, cases of robbery and murder in noble territories were mostly handled privately by the nobles themselves. If there was a church and a clergyman in the area, sometimes nobles who disliked trouble would occasionally donate a considerable sum of pounds to the local church to handle such cases on their behalf.
The Kingdom of Loen was a newly established nation, and the lords focused more on the key cities like Backlund and Conston, paying little attention to places like Ramd Town.
"Another one dead."
"How many is this now?"
In a dark alleyway at the corner of the market, ending in a wall, the captain of the knights, belonging to the nobility and stationed in Ramd Town, held a torch to illuminate the scene. His expression was also grim. He looked at the body on the ground and couldn't help but ask in a low voice, "Father Fidele, what's the situation?"
"Same as the corpses found in the past few days. The internal organs have been removed. It looks like the victim of a serial killer," Father Fidele sighed. The white-haired old man closed the woman's eyes and murmured a prayer, "May her soul return to the embrace of the Lady after death."
This was the third murder in the market.
The first occurred ten days ago. The victim was a nightclub girl who was found in a cheap rented room, covered in blood, her organs almost completely removed.
The innkeeper only noticed something was wrong the next day and reported it to the knight guards stationed in the town. The knight guards quickly sealed off the scene, but they did not bother the lord, instead asking the priest of the Lady of the Night's church to conduct a preliminary examination.
Evidently, the girl with her organs removed was long dead, and the killer was likely one of the other guests who had stayed that night.
The cheap rented inn did not require identity registration, and apart from those who had not checked out the next day, it was impossible to find other suspects from that day.
The second occurred five days ago. Mrs. Giovanna Speen, the baker's wife, was murdered. She died in her bed at home, her bloodied corpse displayed in the same manner, with her internal organs removed. Mr. Haisent Speen, the baker's husband, was almost in a state of collapse, as were their two children.
But the result... the whereabouts of the perpetrator were still unknown.
Now, this was the third case, again with the internal organs removed.
The captain of the knights hesitated, unsure whether he should report this matter to the lord.
Frankly, the death of a few commoners or slaves in a noble's territory was not a significant matter, provided it didn't cause too much of a stir. But now three people had died, and they hadn't even found a trace of the killer. If the deaths continued, he couldn't guarantee that the lord wouldn't be angered, especially with a serial killer in his territory... and they had taken no measures to catch this guy.
They didn't even have any leads!
Tang, using the Faceless's extraordinary ability to change his appearance into that of an ordinary person, roughly pieced together what he wanted to know from the chatter of the surrounding merchants and customers in the market.
"Serial killings, and each corpse ends up with missing internal organs."
He mused, "The promotion ritual for an Apostle of Desire?"
If so, then the Sequence Six Demon should be here.
Just as he thought this, Tang suddenly turned his head.
Spiritual intuition warned him that someone had suddenly left and was trying to flee!
"That demon?!"
Coming back to take a look at the crime scene and admire their masterpiece?
'New task issued.'
The system's voice also corroborated Tang's thoughts.
'Every Demon is a terrifying extraordinary being proficient in anti-divination and capable of foreseeing danger.'
'Kill/Control the Demon.'
He just sensed my malice and immediately prepared to leave? That's a fast reaction.
Dealing with extraordinary beings who can foresee malice like this seems to rely solely on chance encounters.
After all, this was his territory. Tang couldn't let an extraordinary being whose previous sequence was a serial killer escape.
He lightly tapped his teeth twice, activating the vision of spirit threads, discerned the direction the demon was fleeing, confirmed that the other party had not yet escaped his control range, and reached out to grab into the void.
At the same time, he created a large number of illusions, shielding the perception of the surrounding people, while using Flame Jump to quickly flash through the surrounding flames.
The demon sensed danger.
In this era, extraordinary beings were not uncommon, and these wild extraordinary beings never made any efforts to conceal the fact that they were extraordinary. At most, they would disguise the series of rituals required for promotion as the actions of a mad killer to deceive others.
Demons didn't care how many people their actions killed. If possible, they would gladly use these ordinary people as shields.
The sudden flight of the demon caused the surrounding people to exclaim in alarm and scatter immediately.
He quickly left the market area. The captain of the knights behind him realized something was wrong and had led his men to rush out, but their speed was clearly no match for the demon.
The demon's speed was not slow, but his speed slowed and stagnated in the next second.
Through the spirit threads, Tang had initially grasped control of the demon's body.
This process required twenty seconds, and the demon could run a considerable distance in those twenty seconds.
There weren't many people around here, and due to their instinctive desire to avoid danger, people had dodged the frantically fleeing demon, inadvertently saving their own lives.
There were no more flames around for Tang to jump through. He flicked out the iron chain wrapped around his left wrist, the end inlaid with a ruby. The chain flew towards the demon at an extremely fast speed. The demon, slowed by the manipulation of the spirit threads, was half a beat late in his reaction and was struck directly by the chain.
The chain, which was clearly not thick, caused the thick-skinned and powerful demon to stagger, almost falling to the ground.
He transformed rapidly. A huge, three-meter-tall monster, its body erupting with lava like molten rock, suddenly turned around and charged towards Tang's direction.
Tang stood his ground, neither dodging nor evading.
"Die—!"
The word in the language of demons, filled with madness, rushed towards Tang's body at a terrifying speed. His body suddenly became covered in rust, but then gradually turned into a white paper figure, and his real form vanished from the spot.
'Warehouse item consumed: Paper Doll remaining (11)'
(End of this chapter)