Brali could feel herself dying.
She might appear to be in her 30s, but she was actually a granny who was over 80.
During her youth, Brali used to be a prostitute at the red light district. She had even experienced the horrible fate of being imprisoned in someone's basement for over a month before being thrown away like trash. She almost succumbed to her mortality and died during that occasion, but as her will refused to give up and die as a Sediment, she managed to endure it all and eventually became a Mystic.
Rising from a disposable prostitute to a Mystic that no one could offend, she had given up a lot of things.
After she joined the House of Mages, she became a member of the Management faction and held authority over the city enforcers.
For the past several dozen years, she had been able to develop her status to a considerable degree. Due to her lowborn origins, she sometimes didn't play by the rules, thus causing many to be wary of her and call her the mad hag.
However, she had now discovered someone even more insane than she was.
To maintain the House of Mages' strength, they all agreed upon a rule for those among them to be devoured and consumed by only themselves, ensuring that no mana ever flowed outside their circle.
At the same time, afraid of too much internal fighting, the House of Mages also established a tacit rule for a mage to never kill another mage unless they had been confirmed to be insane, or did something that harmed the benefit of the House of Mages as a whole.
This was the rule and pride of Uppers, while Brali was born a Sediment, having survived in this circle for so many years, she had already become essentially no different from a real Upper. Her so-called disregard of the rules was nothing but an occasional purposeful foul, nothing but a part of her many measures, if she truly disregarded the rules, she would never have made it to her current position.
In layman's terms, 'an insane woman who disregards the rules' was only the setting for Brali's character, but the one she ran into this time was a real insane person.
"'Negary', do you really think the House of Mages would not know about you stirring him up to kill me?" Brali madly shouted: "They will find you, you will be judged, you will be cursed, each and every bit of your flesh will be hunted down and consumed!"
She had sent Brewer out to beg 'Negary' for forgiveness, and as long as this enforcer captain died over there, she would have an excuse. She fully believed that Brewer would understand her hard-thought preparations and act accordingly.
After all, most of the people within the so-called city enforcers weren't even members of the House of Mages, they were nothing but a derivative organization. For those from the House of Mages, doing something off the records to non-members, especially people directly under them, was very easy.
To her disappointment, Brewer had actually returned without being forgiven. Right as she was about to spell things out exactly for Brewer, he reported that he had found Field's tracks.
Brali didn't think too much of it. She was confident that Brewer wouldn't dare lie to her, and even if he did, the difference in their power wasn't something easy to overcome; not to mention the existence of Brewer's family members that gave him no choice.
They had actually managed to find Field's traces and followed it the entire way. By the time everyone had all been separated, they reached the vicinity of Marche's magic ritual.
And then, Brewer stabbed Brali.
An excellent mage wouldn't necessarily be a powerful mage, because it was very simple for any mage to become powerful: all they had to do was completely give up their rationality and be assimilated by an Evil God.
Under normal circumstances, Brewer still had his family members and his own views of the world. Even if Brali had forced him into a wall, he would still not choose to axle himself with an Evil God. In fact, Brali had specifically made sure to drill this knowledge into the minds of every enforcer from the very moment they first joined her side.
No one was stupid. Performing an axle ritual towards an Evil God would rapidly grant anyone a massive amount of mana and become powerful, which was why all evil cultists were public enemy number one.
The House of Mages had naturally thought about what would happen in case they oppressed their subordinates too much and carelessly drove them crazy.
They had made sure to restrict this knowledge; exaggerate the consequences of performing axle rituals towards Evil Gods; consistently conducted suggestive brainwashing on their subordinates; as well as creating weaknesses for them, like Brewer's family for example.
Furthermore, there were even unique measures put in place to assess each person's mental stability. If any of these assessments gave abnormal results, then the outcome was obvious.
During the latest assessment, Brewer's mental state had been pronounced to be stable, so Brali currently wanted nothing more than to skin that assessment personnel alive.
Unfortunately, the one Brewer had met prior to this was 'Negary'. As a master psychologist who had a perfect grasp over human psychology, he easily stimulated Brewer's weak psyche that had been under constant oppression.
Under 'Negary's' guidance, Brewer chose a completely different option.
"Death is only another stop on the journey of life, and now, you're going to come with me to take a look at that stop" Brewer madly laughed.
At this point, he no longer cared about his wife and children, or even his own survival. His entire body was bleeding all over, which was the price for him borrowing the power of an Evil God.
Brali was much stronger compared to Brewer, so during his very first time borrowing the power of an Evil God, Brewer chose to sacrifice his entire being. This granted him enough power to plunge the dagger containing the Evil God's power through Brali's heart.
Part of this was due to Brali's thought process being too systematic, another part due to Brewer ambushing Brali; of course, the biggest part was thanks to Field drawing away the majority of Brali's forces, leaving most of their attention on him.
"Come out and look, Marche. 'Negary' has already gone mad, Brewer has also gone mad, they're both influenced by an Evil God, kill them, KILL THEM!" Brali screamed at the top of her lungs.
She had already begun to hallucinate, the power of the Evil God swiftly squishing her life away; in fact, if she didn't do something about it quick enough, even in death, her soul would not escape from being an Evil God's harvest.
…
However, both Marche and his disciple-but-is-actually-son Kalanci had both fallen into danger as well.
Field was feeling extremely irritated right now, the last bit of Roger's mind was so tough that he still hadn't been able to digest it, which made him realize something: Roger's mind wasn't actually that sturdy, but there was something wrong with his soul.
The root of this must be traced back to the bottle of corpse oil. The content of that bottle originated from a total of 4 people, who were respectively an evil cultist, a member of the city enforcers, a wild Mystic, and a member of the radical faction.
The mana inheritance ritual had allowed the four spirits to enter Roger's soul, and it was also because of this ritual that they formed the final barrier protecting his soul.
When Field was trying to come up with a way to resolve this issue, he was somehow discovered by the city enforcers. While he had been blatantly creating mass panic incidents in the city to spread his name, not enough time had passed, the fear of his name hadn't been given enough time to spread and ferment, so the power it brought wasn't that great.
For that reason, when Brali brought a bunch of people to chase after him, Field had no choice but to flee.
While fleeing, Field immediately noticed something amiss. The small remaining bit of Roger's soul suddenly transmitted an immense sense of hatred, Roger's innately powerful spirit sense automatically activated to show Field a certain scene.
It showed that the radical faction member had once knelt in front of a middle-aged man in a certain room, making his pledge to join the radical faction.
That was the source of this immense hatred, the foundation of this spirit's existence, as well as the easiest method of resolving this issue: by helping him vent his hatred.
