Mystery: A Spark

Soon after, they heard a series of hurried footsteps approaching from the tunnel.

Without prior arrangement, they all pointed their guns at the tunnel entrance.

"Captain, don't shoot, it's me!" The team member knew exactly what his own people were doing, so he shouted out when he was still some distance from the tunnel entrance.

"What did you see down there?" The team leader couldn't help but ask as he watched his teammates rush out.

"I...I can't describe it." The team member looked utterly bewildered.

"Indescribable?" The captain frowned.

What does this mean?

"Uh... to put it simply, there's a corpse down there, but the appearance of this corpse is a bit... hard to describe." The team member struggled to organize his thoughts, only to find that his vocabulary was too limited to express what he had seen.

"Is there only one body?" the captain asked seriously.

"Yes, I can confirm that," the team member replied confidently.

"Let's go down and take a look. Hills, you stay up here and keep watch," the captain said to another team member.

“Yes,” Hills replied solemnly.

"Can I go and take a look too?" the girl Camille asked at this moment.

“Of course,” the captain said, glancing at her.

Under these circumstances, he could not leave the girl outside, at the entrance of the tunnel.

After all, this is their only way out, and they absolutely cannot allow outsiders to stay here.

The group came down together, and at first glance, they were stunned by the "paintings" on the wall.

That's a man.

A man whose limbs are nailed to the wall with iron spikes, forming a cross shape.

But that's not the main point. The main point is that the man's chest and abdomen had been cut open.

The white ribs open to both sides and spread diagonally upwards with the collarbone as the axis, like a pair of strangely shaped bone wings.

Behind the man, blood formed a scene of people kneeling and praying before him.

The whole scene looked both sacred and eerie, with a strange sense of depravity, leaving those who saw it with varying expressions and a profound shock.

“How beautiful…” Camille suddenly exclaimed.

"???" Several members of the Mechanical Heart turned to look at her, their foreheads filled with question marks.

They knew the girl was a painter, but they never expected her to find the scene beautiful.

Are all artists this crazy?

Chapter 255 Arthur's Mental Problems

Just as the girl and the "Mechanical Heart" team were stunned and shocked by the "wall painting,"

The person who started this has already quietly left the vicinity.

In an ordinary hotel, a flame suddenly appeared in an empty room, followed by the figure of a young man.

"Phew~ Tonight's game was really high-stakes." Arthur lay down on the bed, looking at the ceiling and sighing softly.

His experiences over the past few days have been quite strange.

On Monday, he obtained Lemanor's Travel Notes from Fowles and left Backlund by using "travel" as a means of communication.

As for the landing point, he just randomly picked it with his eyes closed.

He wanted to prevent his whereabouts from being discovered in this way.

After all, even he himself didn't know where the first stop would be, let alone anyone else.

It emphasizes freedom and the ability to go wherever you want.

In any case, given the nature of the mysterious world, there's bound to be all sorts of cultists, criminals, monsters, ghosts, and so on; there's no shortage of good prey to be found.

Then, in this situation, something strange happened.

As soon as Arthur landed using the Lymanor Travel Notes, he found himself in a dark corner of a city.

Before him lay a bloodied corpse, its skin peeled off.

Since he had encountered a bloody incident, Arthur naturally wouldn't ignore it and immediately began an investigation.

Unfortunately, because the body had been treated extremely roughly before its death, it was now practically indistinguishable from a lump of rotten flesh.

Even a master detective like Sherlock Holmes would be so worried he'd lose his hair, let alone an amateur detective enthusiast like Arthur.

Fortunately, before leaving Backlund, Arthur had the foresight to use Inzangwill's gatekeeper trait to create a magical item.

The crown of dominion (?).

The collar of control ( ).

This is a magical item that allows the wearer to summon a bronze gate to the underworld and to utter "the words of the dead" to pull out and enslave spirits. It is quite effective.

Of course, enabling the wearer to communicate with spirits is also a given.

Its negative effect is that it will cause the wearer to gradually move closer to the spirit world, eventually becoming a completely spirit-like being.

Arthur created the "Domination Collar" simply because he thought it would be fun and wanted to try it out.

After all, now that we have Arthas, how can we not complete the Lich King set?

But once this magical item was created, Arthur knew that his puppy would definitely be its only owner.

Because Arthas was a spirit being, yet he was able to remain in the mortal realm for a long time.

Its peculiar existence makes it the most suitable owner of this necklace.

After the "Dominion Collar" was created, Arthur had another way to find clues when he encountered bloodshed and found that criminal investigation methods were ineffective.

Thus, with the help of Arthas, who was unable to use the gate to seal the artifact and could only travel through the spirit world, thus arriving at this place a step behind Arthur, Arthur successfully found some clues.

After several days of pursuit, and after killing three "criminals" and a "fallen angel" encountered along the way, Arthur finally caught the skinning killer.

A serial killer who tortured and murdered six girls.

The body Arthur encountered was the sixth victim, and tonight's was the seventh; fortunately, he caught him.

Successfully taking down that guy is certainly something to be happy about, but the problem is, things are just too strange.

And, his mental state tonight is very problematic.

Arthur was mentally prepared for the possibility of encountering extraordinary beings from the Abyss before he set off.

After all, he had encountered that apostle of desire more than once without warning when he was in Backlund.

Moreover, the demon hunter insignia in his hand clearly has some inextricable connection with demons.

Therefore, Arthur didn't pay too much attention to this "special fate." On the contrary, because the demon's life force and soul quality were quite high, he was able to plunder it thoroughly.

But here lies the problem.

As Arthur relentlessly hunted down the extraordinary beings of the Abyss Path and reaped their lives and souls, he experienced a strange sense of pleasure and exhilaration.

The fel energy he gained from killing the first three bosses of the Dark Temple became active within him, as if urging him to continue this hunt.

This feeling wasn't too obvious when he killed the first criminal, but his mental state began to change after killing the third criminal, and even the fallen angel.

They became more agitated, more belligerent, and more aggressive.

And this change reached its peak tonight.

If it were Arthur's usual character, although he would punish the serial killer for his previous atrocities, he wouldn't have gone to such extremes.

After all, "white bone angels" and "wall paintings" are a bit too extreme.

At most, he would use mercury to give that serial killer a proper skinning torture, and then stuff him into a bucket of salt water so that he could experience a little shock from the cruelty of the Celestial Empire.

But just as he was drugging the killer and lifting him up by the neck, a thought suddenly popped into his head.

That is, this way of playing is not fun and cannot fully showcase his artistic talent; a different approach is needed.

Thus, a true "human body artist," the Virtuoso Khadajin, came into being.

"So, is this due to the influence of fel energy, or is it a mental problem I'm experiencing because of my advancement?" Arthur frowned and pinched his temples.

To be honest, this problem isn't too serious yet, because it only makes him more hostile towards the Extraordinary Ones of the Abyss Path.

Like a cat spotting a mouse, it has an intense hunting urge.

For ordinary people, Arthur didn't have any special feelings.

"Arthur, what are you doing?" Arthas appeared from mid-air and landed precisely on Arthur's chest.

"Are you going to crush me, you little thing? You seem to have gained weight again recently." Arthur patted the puppy's head in annoyance.

"No way, I'm just growing and developing normally," Arthas said confidently.

"Alright, alright, it's normal development. By the way, I have a question for you." Arthur stroked Arthas's head and asked, "Have you noticed any changes in me lately?"

"Change? What do you mean?" Arthas asked, puzzled.

"It's about personality. Do you think I'm any different from before?" Arthur asked.

"Personality? It seems like nothing's changed. What happened, Arthur? Do you think you have mental problems?" Alsassin immediately became nervous.

"No, it's just that I feel like I've been a bit too excited lately, and the methods I used tonight seem a bit too cruel."

Arthur then recounted to Arthas what he had originally planned to do to the murderer.

However, after hearing his words, the puppy's expression immediately turned strange.

It hesitated for a moment before asking:

"Arthur, don't you think that what you originally planned to do was far more bloody and cruel than what you did tonight?"

"To be honest, your work tonight is at least more aesthetically pleasing, and in the eyes of some people with advanced aesthetic tastes, it might even be considered a work of art."

"If you really follow the original plan, it will probably be a horror story, the kind that can stop a child from crying at night."

Arthur scratched his face, somewhat embarrassed, and said:

"is that so?"