Chapter 82: The Authority of Omniscience
Another burst of astonishing speed, another piercing blow aimed at the chest.
Grotesque claws, imbued with a strange, intricate beauty, a cold, crazed glint in her narrowed eyes, her burning dark gold pupils blazing.
Even without technique, pure instinct and extreme speed were enough to compensate.
However, Scientist had only been caught off guard because of her miscalculation. Now, recognizing Luo Ling as a dual-path Awakened One, wielding both Myriad and Judgment, she wouldn’t give her another opening.
A few casual, brief Retrospects easily avoided Luo Ling’s fatal attacks, but it left her with no time to seal Elsa again.
Retrospecting to the train where Artist was required more preparation time.
And Luo Ling wouldn’t give her that time. Besides, Scientist couldn’t abandon the Spirit Walker and Elsa.
“Honestly,” Scientist muttered, “sending a researcher like me to the front lines…”
And inside the Spirit Walker, the cramped space restricted her ability, giving Luo Ling, a Judgment path Awakened One, an advantage.
It was all because of Elsa.
If she hadn’t known that her most prized creation was in Jiangcheng County, Scientist wouldn’t have come personally, at most sending Artist’s puppets and using Performer’s psychological suggestion to infiltrate.
But now, Performer was dead, and Artist had been Retrospected onto a passenger-filled train.
Narrowly dodging Luo Ling’s relentless attacks, Scientist knew she couldn’t waste any more time.
She believed Artist could handle Li Shaoheng and the others, but they were currently beyond the Boundary, in the Realm of Nothingness. A slight misstep, and he wouldn’t be able to return to the Spirit Walker.
In that case, Artist would be forced to follow the train to the next Boundary, directly confronting the Company branch.
Even if he could escape, it would come at a great cost.
Artist was still somewhat useful to her research, and Scientist wasn’t willing to abandon him just yet. It would be too troublesome.
After creating enough distance, Scientist quickly set an Anchor Point. When Luo Ling’s next attack came, she shifted the target of her Retrospect.
To Luo Ling herself.
Luo Ling’s claws reached out, the sensation of tearing flesh, but she instinctively sensed something was wrong.
Had she finally landed a hit?
No…
Luo Ling was horrified to see her own claws, Retrospected to a precise location, piercing her own abdomen.
“Ugh…”
A sharp pain shot through her abdomen, quickly replaced by a numbing sensation.
Crimson blood stained the carpet, but Luo Ling’s first thought was…
Was her blood… still red?
It seemed… acceptable.
“Tsk, you’re becoming more and more interesting,” Scientist said, unimpressed. “I thought I could use your hand to kill your sister, but it seems Retrospect isn’t very effective against you in this state.”
She had intended to Retrospect Luo Ling to a more distant location, turning her claws against her beloved sister.
But when she used her ability, it was disrupted by some unknown force, not even moving Luo Ling’s position.
Should she call this “ability resistance”…
She had heard of it, but never encountered it before.
It seemed her plan to use Retrospect to throw her into the Realm of Nothingness wouldn’t work.
These thoughts flashed through Scientist’s mind in an instant. Her movements faltered for a moment, but then, she saw Luo Ling’s burning dark gold eyes widening.
The normally fatal wound in her abdomen seemed to have no effect on the black-haired girl, her speed undiminished.
But what did it matter?
Scientist activated her ability, shifting herself to another Anchor Point within the Spirit Walker.
Anchor Points needed to be attached to an object, a person, or a location. They couldn’t be set in mid-air, so she couldn’t use the moving Spirit Walker to throw Luo Ling into the Realm of Nothingness.
Similarly, Scientist could only dodge and evade in this situation.
But just as her ability was about to take effect, an annoying voice echoed.
“Yan!”
The torture of burning.
An unbearable heat seared her soul, interrupting her ability.
In that brief moment of disorientation, claws pierced through her flesh.
Although Scientist had managed to use her ability at the last moment, teleporting herself to a safe location, Luo Ling’s attack had landed.
An invisible shattering sound echoed as the thermometer at Scientist’s waist exploded, the precious protective Sacred Tool finally succumbing to the attack, completely destroyed.
“Heh, you’re persistent,” Scientist said, blood trickling from her lips. Being injured in the same spot twice, she felt her internal organs tremble.
As expected, she hated Judgment path Awakened Ones the most…
Reckless and brutal, purely focused on combat, a single misstep could be fatal.
If the space were larger, she could use Retrospect to play this brute like a fiddle, but unfortunately, the Spirit Walker was too small, too restrictive.
“I’m not a lunatic like Artist and Performer,” Scientist clutched her abdomen, blood staining her trench coat. “I don’t like using or merging with Grotesqueries, and I don’t care about those so-called Authorities.”
She was just a researcher.
Quietly conducting her beloved research was enough.
That was what Scientist had always believed.
Compared to the other lunatics in the Harbingers of Calamity, she was just a harmless researcher, at most slaughtering a few cities.
“But I have no choice…”
“I’ll just have to pay a small Price and ask ‘Him’ to end you.”
Scientist casually plucked out her prosthetic eye, blood gushing from the empty socket, a grotesque smile seemingly appearing on her face.
The mechanical parts of the prosthetic eye shattered, and the living pupil burst, the viscous fluid, mixed with fragments of the eye and flesh, forming a ritualistic pattern in mid-air.
Luo Ling tried to attack again, but an irresistible force from the ritual held her back.
“Offering an ability as a Price, in exchange for ‘His’ blessing. I didn’t want to use this, after all, having a part of my body occupied by a Grotesquery isn’t a pleasant feeling,” Scientist grinned. “But if I consider this an experiment, it’s not bad.”
She had initially planned to use Elsa as a test subject, but now, she had to conduct the clinical trial earlier than expected.
The completed ritual slowly dissipated, and at the same time, everyone present, including Li Shaoheng and the others on the train, felt a powerful presence, a fleeting gaze directed towards them.
Scientist basked in the gaze, the empty socket of her eye instantly filled with a pale green mucus—not the white mycelia of the Puppet Ballad, Luo Ling could tell the difference.
The mucus churned, and a new eye emerged, its pupil completely black, with a faint, green-tinged white dot at the center.
Fine, gray hairs sprouted around the eye socket, replacing Scientist’s eyebrows and eyelashes, and thin, blood-red lines spread from her eye socket, a grotesque yet beautiful pattern.
“Praise be, this is the power of ‘Him,’ the Taboo of Sequence Eight, the Harbinger of Destruction, the other side of Order, the Abyss of Chaos, ‘Naraku.’”
The moment its true name was spoken, the gaze intensified, almost solidifying.
All Harbingers of Calamity members possessed similar abilities, sacrificing something in exchange for the power of “Him.” Performer had used this power in the subterranean cavern.
Scientist was one of the few exceptions, not out of resistance, but simply because she hadn’t encountered an opponent that required such measures before.
Or rather, she had always retreated before such a situation arose.
She wasn’t a combatant; her primary role in the Harbingers was research.
“Unexpectedly pleasant, though losing an ability is a bit of a shame,” Scientist said with a hint of regret, shaking her head. “Philosopher advised me against it many times, I didn’t expect to use it at this time… oh well.”
The gaze retracted, seemingly satisfied with the offering.
In return, Scientist gained the power to use a portion of “His” Authority.
Her back arched and cracked, and several long, grotesque limbs sprouted, covered in fine hairs similar to those around her eye, dripping with blood and viscous fluid, a sweet, almost unbearable fragrance filling the air.
“Are those… spider legs?”
Even Elsa, accustomed to Grotesqueries, felt a chill run down her spine at this sight, a mixture of disgust and terror.
Spider Woman stretched, her demonic eyes gazing playfully at everyone.
Luo Ling, restrained by the gaze, watched calmly. The moment “He” retracted his gaze, she lunged forward without hesitation.
Luo Ling wasn’t reckless. She was cautious, avoiding the mistakes she had made before.
But in Scientist’s eyes…
…She was full of flaws.
Luo Ling’s every move, every thought, every intention, was clearly displayed before her, in excruciating detail.
“Is this the power of ‘Him’? This is… the realm of Omniscience…”
For Scientist, who had dedicated her life to science, Omniscience was the ultimate temptation.
It was said that the blessings of Taboos would make their servants willingly sacrifice everything for them. Scientist had once scoffed at this notion, but now, she understood… it was true.
She would continue to perform sacrificial rituals for this power, constantly being drained, until ‘He’ had completely exhausted her worth.
Even knowing the consequences, she would still reach for this power.
But for now, she didn’t need to worry about such distant matters.
“Omniscience… is omnipotence.”
Scientist vanished, using Retrospect as always.
But this time, it was different. She only Retrospected a single step away from Luo Ling.
Such a short distance, Luo Ling had no time to react, taking another step forward, her momentum unchanged.
“Gotcha.”
This extra step gave Scientist the time she needed to dodge without using Retrospect, forcing Luo Ling to waste an attack.
An opening, enough for Scientist to unleash a fatal blow.
Spider legs pierced Luo Ling’s heart.
Deadly venom injected.
…Or rather, not venom, but the blood of “Him.”
But “His” blood, to humans, was a deadly poison, incurable by any means.
“…Dying.”
Scientist smiled, watching Luo Ling die, her eyes dimming, her life force fading.
The terrifyingly precise Omniscience had provided the simplest, most efficient solution. At this moment, Scientist was like a god, toying with Luo Ling’s life.
But the next moment, the dying flame flickered back to life. Luo Ling, struggling, lunged forward an inch, the spider legs piercing deeper into her heart.
Scientist was startled by this unexpected turn of events. This possibility hadn’t appeared in her Omniscience.
However, it was only an inch.
The dying struggle ended.
The black-haired girl collapsed.
But as she fell, Scientist cried out in pain. Looking down, she saw that one of her spider legs had been severed in Luo Ling’s final struggle.
The girl’s grotesque claws had cut through the spider leg, a significant loss for Scientist.
These Naraku spider legs were formed from her Price. If they weren’t retrieved after she deactivated her ability, even her soul would be severely injured.
Trying to take a piece of her with her even in death…
This girl, so young, yet her fighting spirit was so strong.
But now, it was just a joke.
Scientist, annoyed, casually kicked the black-haired girl’s corpse aside.
She looked up at the two huddled in the corner. Elsa had tried to use her ability against Scientist in this state, but for some reason, all her Grotesquery abilities had failed.
It seemed that under the gaze of “Him,” even the Grotesqueries sealed within her felt an instinctive fear.
Su Wan’s expression remained calm throughout, even witnessing her sister’s death, her face showed no emotion.
“Just like your sister, such an annoying face.”
Scientist’s demeanor seemed to have become more violent, and she slowly walked towards Elsa and Su Wan, a deep desire driving her to sacrifice them and exchange them with Naraku for more power.
Just then, the phone on the table in the train car rang. Artist’s voice came through.
“Scientist, are you done yet? I’m using the ordinary people on the train to hold them back, but the train will arrive at the station in half an hour. I can’t stall any longer.”
“Damn it, it’s all your fault!”
“…You actually used ‘His’ power? Good, but for you to be forced to this extent, it seems we still underestimated her.”
“What do you care? I killed her anyway!”
After a moment of silence, Artist continued,
“Come and get me.”
He had clearly experienced this stage of Scientist’s before and knew that she wouldn’t listen to reason now, so he didn’t bother arguing.
After hanging up, Scientist rubbed her hair in frustration.
The missing limb on her back was a constant reminder that her Omniscience wasn’t complete, there were still flaws. Only by offering more sacrifices to “Him” could she obtain the complete Authority.
This, to Scientist, who had experienced Omniscience, was unbearable.
But her rationality and her past experiences within the Harbingers reminded her that this temptation was “His” method of controlling his servants. Succumbing to desire would only turn her into a slave, losing herself completely.
Finally, after struggling with her inner demons, Scientist’s eyes regained their calmness.
She would spare the sister’s life for now. Whether she killed her or not didn’t matter, but the most important thing was not to be completely controlled by “Him.”
The Harbingers never worshipped Grotesqueries; they saw them as tools, even Taboos were no exception.
Their actions had a purpose, just not one understood by ordinary people.
Before leaving, Scientist glanced at the black-haired girl’s corpse in the corner, confirming that her life force was completely extinguished, then used Retrospect to return to the train.
After Scientist disappeared, Elsa wanted to check on Luo Ling, but her body felt heavy, her consciousness fading.
Was Miss Luo Ling really dead?
And…
With her last bit of consciousness, Elsa looked at Su Wan, Luo Ling’s sister, but she didn’t see any grief on the face of the sister who was so close to her.
So… she wasn’t dead?
Elsa didn’t know, and she wouldn’t have a chance to find out.
In her fading vision, she saw Su Wan stand up and walk towards her beloved sister.
She knelt down and slowly pulled out the horrifying spider leg that had pierced her sister’s heart.
Then…
…nothing.
Her vision went black, and Elsa’s consciousness faded into silence.
She only heard a faint, gentle voice, terrifying enough to make her soul tremble.
“Eat.”
“Consume.”
“Understand ‘Him.’”
“Become ‘Him.’”
“Become… Naraku.”
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