Ke-style law enforcement officers

Chapter 497 Destined Death
"This is... an immortal."

Milo flipped over the tombstone that was superimposed in the middle. This one was half weathered, and the text carved on it was already blurred.

The history of the Church is at most a few hundred years, which refers to the moment the Sumerian site was excavated, that is, the moment the first covenant scholars were founded.

However, this does not mean that Tutis Crow, one of the first scholars of the Contracts, was also a person from that era.

What do you mean?
This means that he is older than the church.

Because, at the very bottom, the oldest piece of stone "collected" by the Shugobu tribe is not a tombstone, but a wall stone that was cut from what appears to be an old building.

This is because a type of mass grave was prevalent in that era. It was an underground cave with at least three or four levels, a large system of exhibition halls, and many narrow passages and staircases. The walls would be carved out with a hearth large enough to hold a corpse. This was how religious believers were buried at that time.

The oldest stone tablet was dug out from the wall of one of those underground tombs.

This type of burial can be traced back a full thousand years.

...

It appears that Milo recently witnessed a resurrection ritual that has been replicated more than a dozen times.

Furthermore, this does not prove that the Crow who was eventually buried in the hearth was the original Crow; it only means that it was from that time that he began to sign this "ghost contract" with the ghoul tribe.

Perhaps it's something inherent in the ghoul race—a twisted longing for such beings.

It's not that they want to achieve immortality, but rather that they discover someone can provide them with an unlimited amount of food... that is, the same soul can provide ghouls with many corpses over a long enough period of time.

In the ghoul tribe culture, there is an untraceable belief that the total number of human souls is finite and is a constantly decreasing consumable. In their traditions, there is also a kind of doomsday prophecy similar to that of humanity: when the total number of souls is exhausted, no new life will come, and no old life will die and leave behind its shell. In that era, the ghouls will be wiped out due to the scarcity of food.

This is an apocalyptic prophecy from ghoul culture.

In their understanding, souls and corpses are in a one-to-one relationship, and someone like Crow, who can "produce" an unlimited number of corpses from a single soul, can even be considered the savior of ghouls.

Of course, having only one "immortal" is far from enough for the massive ghoul population; its religious significance far outweighs its physical function of providing food.

……

Milo isn't in a hurry to trace Crow's past right now.

On the contrary, he was more interested in:

"What did that person say? That scholar who called himself Raven."

He asked Shugobu.

The latter tilted his head back seriously, thought for a moment, and then replied:

“We were not very welcoming to this person because he said some things that I found very unfriendly. He said, ‘One day I will find the owners of these tombstones and offer them my destined death.’”

"That sounds like something a raven would say."

Milo never actually spoke to this person face-to-face; their few exchanges were all conducted from the perspective of the deceased's spirit. However, he clearly remembered every detail of the man's words and actions.

It's easy to see that four years ago, Raven was still following his teacher's teachings with utmost devotion, adhering to the research path that the Monsis school had always followed. Milo still remembers what he saw on the mine tower by the Ickham Mountains late at night: Raven calling for help from his missing teacher in his moment of confusion.

To be precise, it was the scene that Karl saw in his memory.

But that was four years ago, when the raven was born.

After that time-traveling dialogue, visions were confirmed to exist, and Raven's will changed at that moment, including his long-held principles and academic theories.

The Raven has clearly deviated from the original path of the Monsieur school, or rather, from his teacher's "expectations" of him.

In those few short years, he must have discovered something.

such as……

“He discovered that these tombstones, in a way, also belonged to him,” Shugobu revealed the truth.

Yes, people like Crow who defy the laws of time and life, basically only one Crow appears in each generation. Just as Shugobu said, he is an indelible soul, unique.

But now there are two such souls in the world. Although Raven has never revealed his real name anywhere, he does have an appearance that is exactly the same as Crow's.

And he has already proven all of this through his actions.

The hunters who serve him are now hunting down Crow all over the world.

This is completely different from the raven who, four years ago, tearfully begged its teacher for guidance in the dead of night.

……

"Two such similar souls appearing in the same era... How did they manage to do that? Coincidence? Or a mistake...?"

Milo rested his chin on his hand, counting the dozen or so tombstones placed on the floor in front of him.

The tombstones vaguely record the birth and death years of the deceased, Crow, as well as his life story, but for Milo, the texts from different periods are like a series of intertwined puzzles.

He could sense the struggle and confusion that had settled into the years from these words.

...

"Perhaps I need to delve deeper into the origins and evolution of the Monsieur school."

Milo seemed to be deep in thought.

He always had a feeling that something in the dark was guiding all of this.

He and Raven, two people who had never met, had already engaged in dialogue and competition in the minds and memories of different people at different times.

With this liberation of the psychic vision, more and more mysteries began to emerge from the ground and be exposed to the sunlight.

And then there were the things that the Mother Goddess incarnate and Klaus said on this land not long ago, things that Milo couldn't understand. Milo had clearly never met them before, but they acted as if they were old acquaintances.

"Is there anything I don't know?"

Milo turned his head and glanced at Wendigo, who was sitting to the side staring blankly at his feet.

...

"This is really too much of a brain drain."

The only thing that can be confirmed at the moment is that Raven wants to kill Klaue, and Klaue most likely wants to kill Raven as well. But as for the specific and deeper reasons, Milo can't figure them out just by guessing. It's something that even the Eye of Thinking can't see through.

It's less than half an hour until dawn, and in fact, a faint, bright halo has already appeared on the distant horizon.

The ghouls had already started moving the "calendar" made up of a dozen or so tombstones back; they didn't like the glaring sunlight.

At this point in the conversation, both sides had run out of things to say.

Shugobu was trembling with fear the whole time. He knew what Milo had done. Fortunately, he and his tribe were already "insignificant" to Milo. Knowing the dark history, he understood that this indifference from the superiors was a rare "luck" for the entire tribe.

Just when Shugobu thought he could escape unscathed today, leave alive from this god of death in front of him, and return to his lair smoothly.

Suddenly, some piercing and noisy sounds came from the edge of the cemetery ahead.

That was the sound of its kin, that short, sharp sound unique to ghouls, like a sob.

The sound originated from the area where Yan had fought with the black goat cubs. The ghouls seemed to have discovered something; they surrounded "that thing," baring their teeth and claws, hissing and breathing at it, making threatening gestures, but daring not to get too close.

The scene looked somewhat similar to a pack of hyenas discovering a lone old lion gnawing on prey found by its own pack.

Moreover, the "thing" that was surrounded was indeed lying on the ground, frantically stuffing bits of meat from the black goat cub into its mouth, swallowing them quickly and greedily. Even from a distance, Milo could hear the sound of the unchewed food churning through its esophagus.

...

However, Milo soon realized that the "thing" surrounded by ghouls looked somewhat familiar.

He frowned.

(End of this chapter)