He is the leader of the Tantric sect in Chagdu.

Chapter 80 Pure Deer Man

boom.

As Najib was passing the corner of the bar, he bumped into a man who was completely drunk.

"Feel sorry."

The almost stench of alcohol wafted towards him, and Naji frowned, smoothing his coat—only to find a smear of vomit on his chest. His face darkened instantly, but when he looked up and saw the man a full head taller than him, he moved his lips slightly, then composed himself and stepped aside.

"Watch where you're walking next time!"

Naji stood expressionlessly to the side, watching the man whose entire left arm had been replaced with a cheap mechanical body, spit at him, and then walk away cursing. He couldn't help but clench his fists.

—Damn it, damn it, damn it, damn it———

Just because I am too weak now, I am being bullied by these mortals.

As the man passed by, Naji, with a smile on his face, made exaggerated gestures of apology. While the man wasn't looking, he smeared a strange liquid on the man's clothes, then silently plucked a tuft of hair from his body and put it in the pocket at his waist, a hint of resentment flashing in his eyes.

"The raw materials for the next tin man have come knocking on our door—"

He sneered, walked past the bar's sign, and strode inside.

Najib is a relatively rare humanoid, and his sexual characteristics are "fish-man".

It's not the beautiful and elegant fantasy species "mermaid," nor "mermaid," but rather the kind of "inferior species" used in novels to represent monsters, often depicted as a fish-headed, human-bodied monster.

Naji is not a monster. His physical characteristics have always been below 10%, which is considered a relatively healthy value. Specifically, he has thick, sticky lips that look like they're filled with water, constantly wet skin, and while he is considered "handsome" among fishmen, his looks are still slightly below the average of the Nest City.

Although they don't belong to "Inchu," the fish-man's sexual characteristics are still at the very end of the "discrimination chain." No one likes a group that's always wet and smells fishy, ​​especially during this period of economic downturn, when malice between people is becoming more and more blatant. Sometimes, "species discrimination," which is strictly prohibited by law, has already been brought to the surface.

For example, job assignments, and benefits/compensation.

Najib was unhappy with all of this.

The red and purple neon lights shone directly into his eyes, and loud rock music blared from an old stereo—the fish-man squinted and scanned his surroundings.

The bars in downtown are much more orderly and less thrilling than those in the suburbs. At least no one dares to openly pour strange powders into people's glasses at the counter, and very few people perform reproductive acts in public.

If there is such a need, a bartender will usually take you upstairs. Of course, Najib is not prepared to waste his precious time on such a thing today.

He's been very busy lately.

Najib is currently involved in a great undertaking.

He skillfully bypassed the main hall and squeezed into the innermost bar. He spoke softly to the air, reciting strange words in a strange tone.

"A snake coils around the knuckles, clinging to the spirit."

The spine can also bend inward.

Then it swallows the bird whole, driving its venomous fangs into the bone—

That is the posture we will take.

The holiness of disembowelment is the serpent's hatching.

He made a complex pattern with his fingers, his finger bones seemingly nonexistent, bending softly, his index and ring fingers overlapping and interlocking in a ring, curled inward.

A few seconds later, a person dressed in a black robe walked up to him and handed him a scarlet cocktail on the bar, inside which was a bloody, mangled snake body.

Seeing the long worm floating at the bottom of the cup, Najib drank it all in one gulp without hesitation.

"welcome."

A smile peeked from beneath the hood. "I remember you, disciple of the serpent—the same old tune?"

Naji nodded silently, and after saying "Just a moment," the bartender turned and went backstage, leaving the fishman slightly regretful—he shouldn't have finished that drink in one gulp, otherwise he wouldn't be waiting here now.

Bored, he continued to survey his surroundings. Najib had been wanting to complain for a long time: why would those foolish, secretive factions set up such a "mini trading point" in a bar?

However, after observing a bunch of sugar figurines who were high on sugar nearby, and a drunkard lying unconscious on the ground, he felt somewhat relieved.

This place is indeed not so easy to report.

but----

He frowned and saw a young man and woman sitting at the opposite table not far away. They looked very young, or rather, too young. They looked like they had just come of age. They had no implanted mechanical devices on their bodies and did not seem to be the kind of people who frequented this place.

-antlers----

His observation seemed to attract attention, as the two men glanced in his direction, so Najib quickly looked away to avoid trouble.

He was somewhat emotional.

Most of the merfolk, the same age as those two young men, are like this too. They start going to bars and eating candy at a young age because even if they graduate smoothly from the education system in the lower city, they can't get a normal job. Although the company doesn't write that it refuses to accept merfolk, it has evolved into an unspoken rule.

—After ascending to heaven with the Holy See—

Naji thought to himself.

This unfairness needs to change.

As a regular customer, the mysterious materials requested by the fishman were quickly prepared. Najib picked up the unremarkable leather bag in his hand, turned around and left without stopping—it contained enough materials to make dozens of tin men, so he wouldn't need to come here for the next half month.

On his way back to the church headquarters from the bar, Naji encountered some strange trouble. He saw the two dead souls he had created some time ago. As if driven by something, they began to follow him expressionlessly.

On the streets of the lower town, unable to deal with them immediately, Najib could only regard this phenomenon as the obsession of dead souls seeking "revenge." Realizing that they posed no threat to him, he let them follow him.

Beihe District, location unknown.

The Church of St. Naraccan.

Najib went into the basement as usual; it was the Holy See's regular meeting day.

The figure standing far away on the prayer platform was the leader of the church he followed.

"Please sit down."

The Holy See spoke, a voice that was both youthful and mature, carrying an eerie yet dangerous undertone. One by one, the blood-red candlesticks around the hall were lit, filling the oppressive space with dim, gloomy light.

The light source projected onto his face, revealing a face so beautiful it was almost unreal. His pale complexion gave him an inexplicable air of nobility, and his blurred features resembled a painting with a misty surface, mysterious yet ethereal.

His sharp Adam's apple revealed his male nature, while his ambiguous beauty obscured his gender.

"Holy See Yami." A subordinate dressed as a priest hurriedly came forward and handed over a glass of wine that shimmered with a scarlet hue.

Yami was wearing a long, pure white robe with a strange design. It didn't leave any room for his legs from the bottom up, but instead wrapped around his lower body and dragged straight to the ground, making his body look like a boneless, twisted snake.

"Womikoch, I remember Kane Street was the area you were in charge of."

He gestured to his side, raised his glass to his lips, and said softly, "The raw materials you've collected recently have been substandard for two weeks in a row—"

Give me a reason.

Womikochi watched as the androgynous youth drank it all in one gulp before daring to return to his original position, constantly observing the expression on his face. Then, he cautiously spoke, "Holy See Yami, I've encountered some trouble and may need more time."

"trouble?"

He slowly turned his head, and the subordinate who had just reported to him suddenly knelt down, his body trembling like a leaf, sweat seeping from his soaked collar and dripping onto the ground.

"What's the trouble?"

Yami gently patted Womikochi on the shoulder and smiled, "About you sending people into the outskirts without permission to try and contact the heretics?"

""

"Holy Throne—"

The priest suddenly knelt down on the ground.

When people are in a state of extreme fear, they gradually distance themselves from the world.

Blindness, muteness, deafness—after kneeling on the ground for only a few short seconds, a sticky sensation welled up from every joint. Numbness began to spread through my entire right arm and the shoulder blade where it connected, followed by increasing weakness in my limbs and joints.

Finally, most of his body gradually disappeared from his senses. The priest kept swallowing, unable to suppress the metallic taste of blood rising from deep in his throat. His lips trembled, turning white and purple, but he couldn't utter a complete sentence: "Holy See—I—"

A bone-white arm wrapped in bandages gently stroked his hair, and Yami's sweet, gentle voice rang in his ear.

"If you don't want to talk about it, then forget it."

His facial features began to collapse, his vision obscured by the shrinking eye sockets. His remaining left arm could not reach out to touch the numb half of his body, only to feel a smooth, waxy texture. When he removed his hand, the melted, silky skin clung together softly, and was then gently torn off completely.

"No—Holy See." He squeezed out a strange, leaky sound from his collapsed mouth. Just a minute ago, his full flesh and blood hadn't even rippled, but it was being sucked dry and chewed into a pile of dregs by the bandages that were writhing like living things.

The shriveled corpse lay scattered on the ground like a skeleton. "Holy See Yami, please calm your anger." The substitute quickly emerged from the rear of the group, directing the remaining dazed subordinates to tidy up the scene. Then, with a humble expression, he stood before Yami and took over the report that had not been completed.

This is Najib.

He considered himself a smart man, and the experiences of his predecessors served as a warning to him—Saint James would only be more agreeable when he was "just full," otherwise he would not be safe anywhere.

As he observed Yami's expression, he cautiously continued, "The difficulties encountered in the operation on Kann Street were due to Womikochi's negligence. That area is on the edge of the North River District—close to the suburbs, so it is easily susceptible to—the seduction of that heretic."

Najib felt a chill run down his spine and his legs went weak.

He fought off a wave of nausea, took a deep breath, and said, "I'm willing to take over his job."

"No need."

Yami stopped Naji's movements. In that instant, his cloudy eyes transformed into vertical snake eyes, and his body twisted backward as if boneless, looking at the prayer altar behind him.

"We don't need him; we're almost there!"

An unnatural flush rose to Yami's sickly pale cheeks, and his breathing became increasingly heavy.

High up, there is a statue of a deity being worshipped.

Illuminated by the flickering candlelight, the statue depicts a young girl dressed in a magnificent robe woven from olive leaves. Her lower body is adorned with an elegant and beautiful serpent tail, and a circle of light, ethereal gauze wraps around her entire body like silk, leaving no part of her skin exposed, making her appear pure and innocent.

If you ignore the bloody, mangled horns on her head and her noticeably protruding belly, she does indeed resemble a beautiful, sacred young maiden.

"My lord—

—

Yami crawled to the statue as if he were wriggling. His eyes were unfocused, and his outer robe peeled off layer by layer like a molting process, revealing the bone-white bandages wrapped around his entire body.

Inside some of the bandages that had come loose, the yellowed, ulcerated skin seemed to be covered with a layer of rotting scales, and the lower body, coiled like a snake, was faintly visible.

He lowered his head, and the bandage on his hand slipped off naturally as he approached the statue. His pale, almost transparent fingertips gently touched the girl goddess's swollen belly. This would be considered blasphemous in any sect, but Yami had clearly done it more than once.

His eyes gleamed with devotion—

"My Lord, your vessel in this world is about to manifest—"

A steady stream of warmth emanated from the point where the fingertips touched the statue, as if the inorganic matter forming the deity possessed a body temperature, rippling rhythmically like a pulse. The veil was peeled away, revealing a heart seemingly made of flesh and blood beating beneath the girl goddess's rotting, fleshy abdomen—

Just as this incredibly eerie scene reached its climax, and the entire space fell into complete silence—

Suddenly, a crystal-clear voice rang out: "It went very smoothly—we found their hideout on the very first night—thanks to that uncle who led the way. To use some mysterious power in a bar like that—they really don't take Muggles seriously, don't you think, Ronan?"

"Who?!"

Yami turned around abruptly, her narrow, dark pupils, like those of a viper, focused on the darkness, and then she heard a chuckle in response.

"Pure deer people, oh pure deer people—"

The two dead souls who had been standing in the corner as decorations from beginning to end suddenly started to speak. One of them, a man with a face full of scars, made a "V" sign next to his face with one hand, a gesture full of girlish charm that was hard to describe.

"Shut up."

Ronan interrupted her helplessly, and then they began to talk to each other as if no one else was around.

"These guys—I did so much preparation beforehand, but they're just a bunch of amateur apprentices. I don't know where they learned the techniques for creating dead souls, but they don't even know how to distinguish between artifact blood and red liquid. They let us in so easily by hitchhiking—what do they think souls are?"

Mia chimed in, "It's probably—a cream cake that can be shared?"

Ronan shook his head, and an unprecedentedly vivid expression appeared on the stiff face of the dead soul, revealing a mix of emotion, contempt, and helplessness at not being able to use his "backup plan."

"Now that we've found their headquarters, there's not much more to say—"

He instinctively reached for his identification tag on his chest, only to find it wasn't his own body. Embarrassed, he released it and said solemnly, "The Foundation's gaze has fallen upon this place. You pathetic madmen, your so-called great achievements are in our eyes—"

"Kill them!"

Before the two could continue their antics, Yami's shrill voice, like a broken organ, pierced through the cramped space.

Before the onrushing enemy, the two incapable undead souls were instantly torn apart by a flurry of blades.

But their eyes still held only mockery. The older man, controlled by Mia, chuckled and continued, "Your great achievements are as flawed and laughable as a honeycomb cake in our eyes!"

"Why do you always use cake as a metaphor?" Ronan said.

"Because they like cake—"

'

,

The dead souls had already turned into shards of tin on the ground, yet two voices, in a condescending and arrogant tone, still left their final pronouncement: "The Foundation's liquidation, stay tuned."

After the uninvited guest left.

The scene was deathly silent.

Naji's heart stopped beating, and he forgot to breathe—this is a common trait in merfolk, where a certain animalistic instinct is triggered in tense moments, attempting to replace the lungs with the trembling of the gills.

His face was deathly pale, almost paler than Yami's, and his whole body trembled like fine wheat straw in a hurricane.

"Holy See—" He moved his thick, sticky lips, struggling to squeeze out these two words from his drowning-like consciousness, even though Naji knew that for his leader, all words of pleading were so powerless.

Yami remained silent for a long time.

And so the deathly silence here lasted even longer.

Until a faint sigh was heard, Naji watched as the cult leader silently turned around and slithered to him like a snake, placing his bandaged hand on his head.

"Very good," he said.

Najib dared not utter a word.

Yami didn't kill anyone; he simply smiled and said softly, "We'll make those arrogant scum pay the price, won't we?"

"Praise be to the Holy See!" Without hesitation, Najib knelt down, kissing the hem of Yami's trailing robe, carefully sucking away the filth clinging to it, before his voice was hoarse, "Your most faithful disciple awaits to offer everything."

"Very good—very good—"

Yami chuckled and looked up at the statue behind her once more.

Those snake eyes, filled with hysterical madness, resembled flowing, stagnant blood, their rotten colors reflecting a crimson hue like a glass smeared with venom.

The snake awaits its revenge.

On the other side, the bar from before.

A man and a woman, who were sitting quietly at the far end of the hall, opened their eyes at the same time.

Mia stretched: "How about we just call them directly? Let's get this over with quickly?"

"It's not that easy—although I'm a wild mystical apprentice, that Holy Throne makes me feel a bit dangerous."

Ronan carefully checked his belongings to make sure no petty thieves had stolen anything while they were remotely controlling the undead. He took a deep breath and then looked at the cocktails he had ordered to reserve a seat.

"Tsk."

He swirled his glass and, sure enough, found some powder at the bottom that hadn't completely dissolved. He shook his head and said, "Those candy sellers are getting more and more arrogant. I'll write a few more complaint letters to the higher-ups when I get back. The security department in the lower city is really just sitting around doing nothing."

When he looked up, he was shocked to find that Mia had already drunk the wine in front of her in one gulp. "You bastard!"

I was also a little wary.

The antler-wearing girl blinked.

"Actually, I woke up briefly while I was remotely controlling it just now—someone triggered my warning system. That guy only put the drug in my cup, and then I switched with you."

Mia pointed to the wine in front of Ronan, grinning mischievously like a little devil, "Vigilance test, Ronan, you pass!"

'

""

The two pure deer-like people teased each other as they walked out of the bar side by side, only to find that it was almost dawn.

As expected of the two of us, we locked onto the enemy in just one night!

"It's ours!"

And just a few meters behind them.

In the hazy night, two birds, one black and one white, perched on the bar sign, tilted their necks and rubbed their beaks together, communicating with each other by "coo-coo-coo-coo".

Then, facing the neon light pillars between the giant buildings, they flew away silently.

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