His heart was beating fast, his breathing heavy and irregular, the air felt like it was filled with blades as he breathed in, clawing at the inside of his throat.
Closing his room's door, the young man took the golden pebble out again, a bit unsure why he felt so excited earlier.
Observing the glowing golden stone, he only felt an unprecedented sense of fatigue, as if the short run earlier had drained all of his stamina.
He then collapsed onto his bed from deliria, the golden pebble slowly melted into a pool of liquid and was absorbed into his body.
The revelry outside continued while the young man's body reacted by increasing his temperature higher and higher, but that only proved to be futile, as his body ultimately became cold.
Under his skin, large amounts of small creatures could be seen writhing intensely, Soul's Blood was consuming the young body, using his flesh as food to continuously create more Soul's Blood.
Soon enough, a monster in human skin came into this world.
Moving his viral body a bit, Negary's charismatic presence began to change, the young man's remnant soul had been taken and forged into a different form of Soul Armor – a Soul Mask.
With the same method to create a Soul Armor, using the memory information stored within the remnant soul, a superficial personality model was created.
Negary now carried the exact same presence as the young man before he died, even some of his habits and subconscious gestures were kept completely the same. Even the people closest to him, without a means to see through the soul, would not be able to discover Negary's façade.
〖 After this, I only need to be careful not to let this body's viral nature be discovered, then I'd never be exposed 〗Negary's eyes were flickering with the young man's unique sense of youthful slyness.
The young man was called Green Carole, his elder brother Reid Carole was a Red Sun Knight of the Sun Shadow church, a relative elite member among them, which was why this young man was allowed to stay in the church's residential district.
From Green's memories, Negary obtained some important knowledge.
The most important of all was that all Awakened Wicked Souls were sinners, and must be executed.
The so-called Awakened Wicked Soul were actually those who had released their [Origin].
On the other hand, only those with a Saint Soul were allowed to undergo [Origin] release.
〖 So it's because of the [Origin] huh? 〗
Negary narrowed his eyes. The so-called Saint Souls were referring to [Origins] that originated from the seven Righteous Gods, and only those who carried one of these seven kinds of [Origins] were allowed to 'awaken', otherwise they were a sinner.
Reid doesn't usually mention the seven Righteous Gods, so Green only knew about two or three of them.
The first was naturally the worshipped God of the Sun Shadow church, the Lord of the Sun– the Eternal Heat.
Another was the worshipped God of the Half Life church, the Mother of the Earth – the Life Bearer.
The last one was the name of another church, the Church of Seclusion, but it was unclear who the Righteous God they worshipped was, as Reid only mentioned the existence of this Righteous God church, not their faith.
Other than that, there were some relatively interesting rules related to the 'Owls'.
The official name of the Owls were the Night Watchers, which was also the reason why they wore those owl masks.
In name, the Night Watchers were people of the Sun Shadow church, but the power they used did not originate from their faith, but from the very sinful monsters they hunted.
Negary recalled the Night Watcher with the scythe he saw on the first night, who had monster orbs hanging at the end of his sickle.
For this reason, the knights of the church and the Night Watchers didn't exactly live in harmony with one another.
The power of both the church's priests and knights originated from their faith, the more devout they were, the more divine techniques they were bestowed with.
As a Red Sun Knight, Red Carole's main role was to subjugate sinners and cultists of Evil Gods.
While the Night Watchers were responsible for subjugating monsters who were born through the blood of evil.
Reid had more than once advised Green to be devout to his faith, only then would he get the chance to become a priest or a knight in the future. However, as a rebellious teenager, he essentially treated the words of his elder brother as whispers in the wind, and he couldn't truly devote his faith to the Eternal Heat.
[God might be great, but the men who serves him are not necessarily so]
This was Green's line of thought, as he had witnessed his fair share of dirty and corrupt priests.
Since the servants of God could be so dirty, a God who accepted such dirty believers really couldn't rouse his faith no matter how much he tried.
Of course, all of this no longer had anything to do with him. While rearranging Green's memories, Negary found that the town of Lohr was truly full of secrets.
The sabotaging Soundless Cult, the secretly spreading Cannibal Cult, as well as the Church of Dragon Worshippers.
Green only knew these three evil cults, but with the gigantic city right under Lohr that Negary saw from the visions he was shown, there were definitely a lot more hidden secrets.
Negary went outside to take a look at the citizens indulging in their revelry, he turned his eyes to the group of people gathered all around the hill of the church, wandering around the squares, enjoying their food and drinks, chatting and cheering in what could only be described as harmonious.
〖 A calm and peaceful Lohr 〗Negary lightly muttered, then started to smile himself.
Living in such conditions, almost everyone was mentality oppressed to a terrifying degree, so they would release all of their pent up emotions during this monthly gathering of Spirit Cleansing day. Various ladies either met up with their lovers or with complete strangers in various low grassy bushes, or within the shades of buildings.
There was the sound of footsteps approaching, Negary turned around to see a man clad in jet-black clothing, who seemed to be around 23 or 24 years old. His expression was blank, but his eyes stared closely at Negary.
"You bumped into me earlier" the man coldly said: "Apologize"
〖 Really, then I'm sorry 〗Negary used Green's monotonous voice that was just asking to be beaten up in response.
The man in black stared at Negary for a bit and turned to leave without saying anything else, as if he specifically came just for an apology.
〖 This presence, a Night Watcher? 〗
Negary's eyes slightly flickered as he observed the leaving man in black. These people were constantly fighting on the frontline against sinful monsters, but the power they used originated from such monsters, so it was extremely easy for their mentality to become flawed or twisted, which was shown quite clearly.
〖 While standing still, he was instinctively maintaining the best posture for combat; if he ran into any monster ambushes, he would be able to roll over to avoid them, then quickly retaliate 〗Negary analyzed.
〖 Although no visible weapons could be seen, he's hiding a lot of weapons under that black layer of clothing: throwing knives, whips, as well as various smaller objects, allowing him to explosively exert a high level of combat prowess 〗
〖 They remind me of the assassins from Sacred Valley of the Flame world 〗
Negary had such a thought, although the targets of the assassins from Sacred Valley were humans, while these Night Watchers specifically targeted monsters.
They had developed intricate tactics and means to fight against monsters, their weapons were things like scythes, bladed saws, long swords, and various weapons with a long reach, as well as their various spells that were optimized to eliminate monsters.
〖 And the requirements to become a Night Watcher aren't particularly strict either 〗
Negary recalled a scene from Green's memory, where Reid complained that the Night Watchers were too loose since they accepted every kind of people, including orphans, refugees, even convicted killers, etc. as long as they make a vow, they'd be allowed to join the Night Watchers.
And so, there were many scums of the earth within their ranks.
