So this is the living hell mentioned in the game.

  Roel’s heart felt grew heavy as he recalled the description used for the wine cellar in Eyes of the Chronicler. It explained the bizarre situation in Louise Manor, be it the crying members of the Enforcement Division or all the retching going on.

  Most likely, they had all been to the wine cellar and saw what was there.

  The disgust toward the vile deeds committed by the evil cultists, the sympathy they felt toward their seniors who had fallen prey to the evildoers, and many other feelings swirled in their minds, leaving them distraught.

  Roel clenched his fists tightly as he further affirmed his will to not let those evil cultists get away scot-free. He headed toward Paul’s side and patted his back so as to alleviate his discomfort. Paul continued to heave every now and then, but he still managed to report the chain of events properly.

  After Roel activated the Twin Stones, the group camping in the forest near Fulte’s Stop immediately sprung into action. They divided themselves into two teams and assaulted the two possible hideouts simultaneously.

  The team which Paul and the others were in was dispatched to Louise Manor. Right after they entered the manor, they bumped into the members of the Bloodtribute Cult, who were in the midst of making their escape.

  Roel’s wariness paid off. The Bloodtribute Cult did have long-range communication devices that allowed them to tip one another off right away if something happened. It was fortunate that they had planned everything out carefully, or else some of the evil cultists would have surely gotten away.

  With the two parties stumbling upon one another, a fight was bound to ensue.

  Remembering Roel’s command, Paul and Geralt took the initiative to engage the evil cultists, launching a powerful spell right from the start to commence the battle.

  But unlike usual transcendent battles, which focused on ending the fight as soon as possible, the members of the Special Ops Team turned out to be far more disciplined. Instead of engaging the enemies in close quarters, they chose to suppress them with arrows and spells, giving the enemies no room to breathe at all.

  At the same time, they set off flares to inform the comrades that had headed to the other location that the enemy was here so as to converge their forces and stomp down the enemy with an overwhelming advantage.

  This strategy worked out amazingly.

  Over the course of the battle, the evil cultists of the Bloodtribute Cult cast spells that transformed some of their comrades into powerful meat giants that posed a huge threat to the raid team. Nevertheless, through their relentless suppression tactics and numerical advantage, they managed to hold on until Lilian’s team arrived.

  Everything after that was a breeze.

  Under Lilian’s lead, the raid team was able to take down the enemies with ease. There were 28 evil cultists in total, and the raid team killed all of them except for three.

  “Big brother Roel, you didn’t see how disgusting that Tribute Spell was! Those evil cultists would cut open their abdomen with a knife, and all of their blood vessels would suddenly rush out like tentacles!”


  “.……”


  You don’t need to tell me; I personally saw the enhanced version of that just a moment ago. I can tell you with certainty that those ‘tentacles’ look far more disgusting when there are mouths on them.

  Roel’s eyebrows twitched a little upon hearing Paul’s words, but he chose to keep his comments to himself. He took a look around the area, only to be surprised to notice that Lilian was nowhere to be seen. So, he turned over and asked Paul about it.

  A furrow formed on Paul’s forehead. He shot a glance at the blood-red wine cellar and spoke with an awful look on his face.

  “My imperial sister is in there…… She has been inside for a while now, and she ordered everyone to steer clear of the area.”


  Roel took a quick look around and noticed the worried expressions on the Enforcement Division’s members. It suddenly dawned on him what was going on, and his pupils dilated a little.

  I should have known. The one who is most affected by the wine cellar is none other than Lilian.

  Roel suddenly recalled some of the events in the game. He turned to look at Paul, but the latter didn’t seem to have any intention to make a move despite appearing worried. After a moment of contemplation, he began making his way toward the wine cellar.

  “Big brother Roel? You are……”


  “Senior Lilian forbade the rest of you from entering, but her command doesn’t apply to me.”


  Roel endured the suffocating blood stench and stepped into the wine cellar.

  “I’ll bring her out.”
……

  Roel had always thought that his tolerance level toward gore was high even amongst transcendents due to the experiences he had been through.

  For one, he had encountered a perverted murderer in this life when he was only 10 years old. That deranged painter used human flesh and blood to create paintings that were just utterly abominable. In terms of sheer repulsiveness, there was probably no horror movie he had seen in his previous life that came close to competing with that.

  Other than that, he had also encountered mountains of corpses and armies of Scalemen in the Witness State too. With all the experiences he had been through, his willpower was definitely far stronger than that of his peers.

  “Uweh!”


  But that didn’t stop him from heaving moments after entering the wine cellar.

  The passageway he was walking in was made out of a mixture of dirt and blood. The surface felt slimy, as if it was coated with human oil. This wasn’t enough to shatter Roel’s willpower, but it did take down his olfactory system. His stomach began to churn in repulse.

  So, he cast two spells on himself to control his own disgust before proceeding deeper into the wine cellar. At the same time, he thought about the events that had occurred here in the game.

  Based on what he remembered from Eyes of the Chronicler, this living hell dealt a huge blow to Lilian’s mental state.

  What Roel and the others saw in the wine cellar were anonymous victims who had been disfigured and dissected, but Lilian happened to recognize one of the victims. This tragic incident struck too close to home for her.

  She ended having nightmares over this for an entire week, and it was only after Paul’s visit that she finally managed to overcome this trauma.

  However, things were different in this world.

  Paul and Lilian weren’t as close as they were in the game, and Lilian was currently witnessing the horror in person. The feelings that were crushing her right now were definitely far heavier and more intense than any nightmare.

  Walking down the disgustingly moist passageway, Roel walked past the empty experimental ground with a heavy heart. He took heed not to pay attention to his surroundings and headed straight toward the end of the wine cellar, where Lilian stood before an enclosed room that looked like a prison……

  How did things end up like this?

  Lilian thought as she stared at a wooden pole before her in utter horror.

  A completely disfigured female corpse was shackled tightly to the wooden pole. Its flesh had started decomposing, and its blood had already run dry. The only thing that allowed her to recognize the corpse was the pendant hanging in front of its chest.

  It was a crescent moon pendant originating from an ethnic minority tribe called Moen in the Austine Empire. The tribe members believed that they were blessed by the moon, so they often wore accessories related to the moon.

  As for how Lilian came to know about this, it was because she was acquainted with the owner of this crescent moon pendant.

  Lilian was still a First Grade Ringbearer when she met her, a Fourth Grade senior. She was in the midst of taking over the Enforcement Division back then, and this senior helped her greatly in accustoming to her new role as the chief of the Enforcement Division despite not joining the Purplerose Faction.

  The senior did abruptly vanish after graduation, but Lilian didn’t think much of it since the Moen were a nomadic tribe. In the unglobalized Sia Continent, it was already hard to get in touch with individuals who lived outside of the big cities, let alone with nomads.

  Who could have thought that they would end up reuniting under such circumstances?

  Looking at the corpse, Lilian felt the world spinning around her. Her head had never been so heavy before, and it felt like someone had pumped heavy lead into her body. Slowly, the silhouette of the senior she knew began to overlap with the corpse before her.

  In her daze, Lilian seemed to see her familiar face smiling at her, prompting her to reach for the corpse with her trembling hands. But before she could come into contact, she was held back by another pair of hands.

  “What are you doing, Senior Lilian?”


  Roel held Lilian’s trembling hands tightly as he asked with a composed voice.