Secrets: Priestess

Chapter 194 Aftermath
The gentle night breeze caressed her. Claire used her witchcraft to get some clean water and washed the blood off Tessa's hair and face.

Tessa lifted her wet black hair and stared at Claire. She had many emotions in her heart that she wanted to express, but when she opened her mouth, it was just a simple greeting:
"Didn't you travel far away with Galadilla? Why are you here?"

Claire saw through Tessa's anxious mood while pretending to be calm.

In the gentle flow of water, a small splash splashed on Tessa's cheek.

Claire stared at Tessa calmly and said, "How dare you ask? I was receiving treatment in the sanctuary when I saw you and Daly in distress... I used a magical item to travel through the spirit world and get here."

"Did you see the scene where Daly and I were in danger?" Tessa asked in surprise.

Daly, who was listening in, had even more doubts in her eyes.

Claire just stared at Tessa, her expression suspicious. "Did you create another ritual array, like last time?"

Daly didn't understand what Claire said, but Tessa knew that Claire was hinting at the last time she used a ritual to synchronize their senses.

"Don't blame me." Tessa showed an aggrieved expression and said, "At that time, I swallowed the Beyonder characteristics, how could I dare to do such a dangerous thing? Besides..."

"Even if I don't take my own life too seriously, I'm still worried that losing control might affect you..."

"Besides, I can no longer use the ritual to influence you."

After examining Tessa, Claire tentatively believed what Tessa said, but this also showed that there was a mysterious connection between her and Tessa that they did not understand.

While Claire was thinking, a bloody skull-like object condensed from Alicia's remains.

Seeing this, Tessa, who had washed her face, waved the spider silk and picked up the thing from the flesh and blood.

After the promotion, the spider silk became extremely flexible, and it wrapped around the bloody skull and appeared in front of Claire.

This bloody skull is obviously the extraordinary characteristic of the "Gatekeeper"!
After taking the Beyonder characteristic from Tessa's spider silk, Claire pushed it to Daly.

Daly declined, "Go back and hand it over to the church... Whether it's the Beyonder's special properties or Alicia's matter, leave it to the church to handle."

Claire asked, "Aren't you going to take this opportunity to get promoted directly?"

Daly suppressed the urge to be promoted and said rationally, "Wait a little longer. The potion in my body hasn't been completely digested yet... Besides, if Alicia really has a problem, then with the merit of digging out a traitor of this level, the church will not refuse me a chance to be promoted."

While Claire and Daly were communicating, Tessa squatted beside Alicia's remains and blood foam, and threw a blood crystal into it.

Immediately afterwards, Alicia's remains and those scattered pieces of flesh began to condense at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Claire, who had been keeping an eye on Tessa, saw this strange scene and asked in confusion, "What are you doing? What is that blood-red object?"

Tessa, squatting, looked up and smiled. "It's a little gadget I got in exchange from the Rose Bishop. You've seen its use... It's used to repair corpses."

Repairing the corpse...

Daly also vaguely knew some of Tessa's disguise methods, and quickly stopped her, saying, "Ty! You can't touch Alicia's body!"

But after all, they had just fought side by side. After the anxiety subsided, Daly's tone softened and she explained, "Alicia is the head of Backlund's Nighthawks. Her body...Claire and I must take it back to the church. We can't give it to you."

Alicia's body was gradually taking shape. Tessa was not annoyed by Daly's obstruction, but just said:

"But... didn't you, the 'Necromancer', notice anything unusual?"

abnormal……

Claire was stunned.

After Tessa's reminder, Daly blurted out, "Strange! Where is Alicia's spirit after her death?!"

Then Daly sprinkled some powder, but no matter how hard she, the "Necromancer", tried to communicate and search, she couldn't find even a trace of the fragment.

Alicia's spirit seemed to have completely dissipated.

Daly, still squatting, said, "I didn't use any methods to dispel spirits when I killed her."

Noticing the strangeness of this matter, Claire added, "It has nothing to do with the Holy Coffin."

Daly's frown deepened.

The female body on the ground was gradually taking shape. Seeing Alicia's face gradually recovering from its bloody state, Tessa spoke again:
"No matter who this person is, she's coming for me. I need to find out why she's causing trouble for me."

"Even if her spirit disappeared for no reason, her memories don't just exist in her spirit... I'm confident I can find some fragmented memories from her body."

Daly still didn't want to hand Alicia's body over to Tessa. What if, Daly thought, Tessa, this crazy woman, did something outside with Alicia's body, the church would go crazy.

Then, Daly said, "The reason Alicia came to kill you... is obviously because of the 'Life Painting' on your body. She admitted it herself before."

Tessa didn't completely agree with this statement and shook her head. "But I still need to confirm whether there are other people behind Alicia who are coveting the 'Life Oil Painting'."

"Life oil painting? What is that?" Claire asked when the two of them had a conflict of opinion.

Daly then explained to Claire in detail what had happened since she'd been tracking Baroness Sorge. "...In the end, what I didn't expect was that the person behind the pursuit was actually Alicia."

After listening to Daly's story, Claire looked at Tessa again: "Tessa, can you find any clues from the body?"

Tessa stood up and stepped aside to pick up Christina's body. After hearing Claire's words, she said, "I have a high probability of success. But there's something strange about this person, so I can't give you an absolute guarantee."

Claire paused for a moment and decided, "Then you do it."

Claire also wanted to find out the secret that Alicia was hiding. Since Alicia was looking for the "oil painting of life", it was impossible for her not to know about the existence of Beth Lioness!
But the "Life Oil Painting" was in the hands of Beth Lyonesse before!

There must be some connection between Alicia and Beth Lyonness...

Seeing that Daly hesitated to speak, Claire added to Tessa, "But after that, you have to hand over Alicia's body to us first."

"That won't do." Tessa shook her head and said, "To be honest, if I want to merge into Alicia's body, I need to use a very precious magical item, and this magical item will also merge into Alicia's body, so I can't return Alicia's body to you."

Claire said, "This process isn't irreversible, right?"

As far as Claire knew, Tessa had played Sharon, Beth Lyonnes, Christina and others.

"Yes." Tessa said to Claire in a voice that Daly couldn't hear, "After destroying Alicia's body, I can retrieve this magical item. This means I can only disguise one person at a time. If I want to retrieve this magical item, this body will be useless."

After a moment's thought, Claire decided, "Go ahead and do it, but you have to leave the body with us. I'll guarantee that I'll return it to you later."

Seeing that Claire had made a decision, Daly just stared at Claire and said nothing more.

Tessa was surprised by Daly's attitude and wondered why he listened so much to Claire. Logically, Daly was Claire's senior.

But this doubt only flashed through her mind. Tessa silently waved her hand and sprinkled a handful of fluorescent powder on the bodies of Christina and Alicia.

Amidst the muffled and indistinct chanting, Tessa's figure and the two bodies began to vanish inch by inch, their outlines like pencil strokes erased by an eraser. This was the witch's invisibility ability.

Not long after, a living Alicia appeared in front of Claire and Daly.

Claire and Daly carefully examined this "Alicia". No matter what method they used to judge, they almost thought that Alicia was really resurrected!

"What did you gain?" Claire asked, feeling impressed by Tessa's approach.

Tessa nodded, recalling the information she had obtained from Alicia's memory fragments, and sighed:
"Remember I told you there was someone hiding behind Beth Lyonness? I don't remember much, only three things are certain."

"First and foremost, we can confirm that the person hiding behind Beth Lyonness is Alicia! They are biological sisters from the same father and mother. Moreover, Alicia is the culprit who caused Beth Lyonness's twisted and perverted mind."

Tessa's tone was calm, yet it also revealed an incomprehensible coldness. "They were born into a demonic family named Andrellad. Their parents were both 'demons,' or Beyonders of the 'criminal' path."

"However, this 'devil' couple never imagined that their child, Alicia, was a natural-born demon. This 'natural' not only refers to the 'devil' Beyonder traits that this demonic couple deliberately passed on to her, but also refers to Alicia's innate demonic nature."

"Not only did she induce Beth to abuse animals and then humans since she was young, she eventually even induced Beth to kill all of their servants and... their parents with her own hands."

"And also had Beth devour the remains of their parents so she could be promoted."

Tessa's description made Claire's neck tingle.

Although there are too many crazy and desperate things in this world, Alicia's experience of causing her sister to become perverted and kill her parents and eat them is too far-reaching to the bottom line of human ethics...

He can no longer be called a human being.

Claire suddenly thought that Tessa, who had accepted this memory, might not be feeling well at the moment.

She couldn't help but ask, "Are you... okay?"

Tessa smiled at Claire.
"Actually... I'm used to it... All the people I killed were this type of people. Not to mention those witches, take Christina for example. You can check under that woman's house later. There's a pool of blood filled with the blood of virgin boys."

After saying this, Tessa pursed her lips and softened her tone. "The second thing that is certain is that Alicia is indeed the 'Gatekeeper.' This is proven by both her memories and the Beyonder characteristics left behind by her remains. She committed a tragedy and absorbed the Beyonder characteristics of the 'Corpse Collector,' using them to infiltrate the Church of Evernight."

Daly interrupted and asked, "Then how do you explain why Alicia's body didn't contain any demonic Beyonder characteristics?"

Tessa replied, "Let me correct you. She's not a 'devil' anymore, but a Sequence 5 'Apostle of Desire'."

Tessa continued, "I'm not quite sure why the 'Apostle of Desire' series of Beyonder characteristics weren't extracted, but based on those fragmented memories, I suspect Alicia possesses some means of expelling Beyonder characteristics."

"Furthermore, the hidden locations of those extraordinary characteristics she revealed are likely related to the 'Life Painting'."

Claire pondered, "It's related to the 'Life Painting'... It's very possible. She's so obsessed with it that she's even willing to expose her identity and use the Holy Coffin to kill you and Daly."

Before using the holy coffin, neither Daly nor Tessa could determine the identity of the man in black robe.

When things are hopeless, Alicia can retreat temporarily and find another opportunity to obtain the "Life Painting" from Tessa.

But Alicia, who couldn't help herself and wanted to take back her extraordinary characteristics, used the Holy Coffin, which would reveal her identity!
Of course, this was also because Alicia firmly believed that with the Holy Coffin, she could kill the two Sequence 6 Beyonders here in a very covert manner!

Tessa added, "There's probably more than just the 'Life Painting.' When you search this woman's belongings, you can focus on looking for similar items."

"Also, I can give you the 'Life Painting', but the church must compensate me accordingly."

Dai Li asked in surprise: "What kind of compensation do you want?"

"Well, I'll have to think about it." Tessa glanced at Claire and smiled cunningly like a fox. "Otherwise, let me replace Alicia."

Obviously, Tessa not only coveted Alicia's status in the Church of Evernight, but more importantly, she coveted Claire who was hiding in the Church of Evernight!

Daly saw through Tessa's undisguised intentions. This time, she remained silent, but instead observed Claire's attitude.

Claire's expression remained unchanged, as if she hadn't noticed Tessa's covetous attitude towards her. She continued to ask, "What about the third point?"

Tessa sighed regretfully and continued:

"The third point is that Beth Lyonness colluded with the powerful in Loen. It seems that she was following Alicia's instigation."

"Alicia hid in the Church of Evernight and was remotely controlled. Beth Lyonness, who arrived in Backlund with a large fortune, pretended to be the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Unfortunately, the memories of this part were very limited, and no valuable information was obtained..."

After hearing this, Claire nodded and said to Tessa, "After we return to the church, we will investigate Alicia. Now, you will hand over Alicia's body to us."

Tessa made a zippering motion at the back of her neck, removing Alicia's disguise and emerging from it in the black bodysuit.

Claire placed the body that Tessa handed her into the holy coffin beside her.

I don’t know if it was something the church did, or if it was developed by Alicia, the “gatekeeper”, but the power of the holy coffin has been greatly enhanced.

In addition to being able to play a huge role in combat, the storage space has also been expanded a lot.

Then, Claire returned to her businesslike demeanor and said to Tessa, "You should go back first. I'll find you after I talk to the church and give you an answer."

Tessa didn't care.

She saw the guilty conscience that Claire was hiding—

The process of completely digesting the 'joy' potion just now made Tessa certain that Claire had desire for her at that moment!

I'm not that honest at heart...

Tessa was in a cheerful mood, but she knew that if she talked about this kind of thing to her face again, Claire would be really angry.

So, Tessa simply responded:

"Okay, I'll go home and wait for you."

The home here is obviously not Christina's mansion, but the underground exchange of the Oak Leaf Bar.

After confirming Tessa's departure, Daly, who had been silent nearby, suddenly asked Claire, "Are you Claire Meazza or Galadilla?"

Sure enough...Daly still found it.

Claire sighed in her heart. The reason she gave Daly that she could pretend to be Claire was a bit forced. And today, the strange connection between her and Tessa, and her attitude in talking to Tessa, made it even more difficult to conceal the truth.

"Sister Daly, I'm Claire."

After Claire answered in a low voice, she looked at Daly with some shame.

On Daly's face, there was no trace of the expected anger at being deceived.

Daly, whose police uniform was a bit torn, had a slightly moist look around her eyes, though she didn't wear heavy makeup. She smiled at Claire, a very innocent and happy smile.
"I'm so glad you're okay."

(End of this chapter)