Chapter 138: Slaughter

Chapter 138 Slaughter

Inside the hotel private room, Rayson was eating steak when the old butler approached his side and reported:

"Young Master, the scouts have returned."

"Speak."

"Number 3-07 Apple Street is a property of the Adams family, and the neighboring 3-06 is as well. Mr. Adams is the Minister of Rueland's Ministry of Energy and Industrial Development. Currently, his son, Piaget, resides in 3-06, while 3-07 should be vacant. This point was confirmed by our men right in front of Piaget.

However, someone is indeed living in the neighboring 3-07. That person stood on the second-floor balcony the entire afternoon, visible to anyone driving past. He should be a sentinel."

"I remember my brother Gerson and his men's cars were found at the end of Apple Street, correct?"

"Yes, Young Master. After Master Gerson and his companions vanished, we searched vigorously and ultimately discovered the two cars they had driven out at the end of Apple Street."

"Wasn't Tadel going to the psychological clinic?" Rayson inquired.

"Young Master, Piaget happens to be the owner of that psychological clinic. We now know that the traitor Tadel was influenced by the remnants of the God of Light Cult, but Master Gerson and the others did not know it at the time.

Therefore, I surmise that Master Gerson and his men must have gone to investigate Piaget’s house back then, and then they alarmed the Light remnants living next door to Piaget. Master Gerson and his companions were, in all likelihood, harmed by that gang of Light remnants."

"Coincidence, alarm, harmed?" Rayson frowned slightly. "A bit too much of a coincidence."

"Young Master, what do you mean?"

The butler was the personal attendant of the former head of the family. After the former head mysteriously turned to ash in his study, the Raphael family fell into internal strife;

The butler chose to assist the eldest son of the former head, helping him against the factions of those uncles, because he had always believed this young master possessed the capability to lead the Raphael family toward continued development and glory.

Therefore, regarding the young master's opinions, he never dared to be negligent.

"Tadel booked an appointment at the psychological clinic, and on his way to defect, he headed toward the clinic. My brother went to investigate the clinic and check the clinic owner’s home, only to happen to alarm the neighbors living next door to the owner. Nay, not neighbors, but the Light remnants living in the vacant house next door to the owner. The Light remnants even took action and killed my brother and all his men, leaving not a single soul alive.

Can this man named Piaget truly be completely uninvolved?"

"This... but the result brought back by the scouts was..."

Rayson dismissed it indifferently: "Even if I went to investigate personally, I wouldn't dare believe my own eyes, let alone someone else's."

"What about me, then?"

A cloud of black mist drifted into the private room, revealing the figure of Thiers.

Rayson immediately left his seat and knelt on one knee before Thiers:

"My Lord."

"I have seen it with my own eyes. That Piaget is merely an ordinary person. He, as well as the two people beside him, are all ordinary people, and moreover..." Thiers frowned, "three very disgusting ordinary people."

The butler, who was likewise kneeling prostrate before Thiers, seemed to catch the implicit meaning at this moment and immediately said:

"Yes, yes, replying to My Lord, replying to the Young Master, Tadel did have inclinations in that regard. Many of his subordinates knew about this matter."

Rayson spoke up: "So, Tadel took a liking to that Piaget? He and that Piaget were in a purely romantic relationship? And this romantic relationship might have already lasted for some time?

Tadel was a believer of the God of Light, so he helped arrange the residence for that group of Light remnants. Since it was inconvenient to settle them in his own properties and residence, he settled them in the property of his lover Piaget’s family?

The Light remnants even specially sent someone to fetch his son, proving that in the eyes of the Light remnants, Tadel's status was not that of a mere peripheral believer.

With this, everything makes sense.

However..."

"That is my view."

Rayson originally wanted to add: However, the very notion that someone at the center of the vortex has various pieces of evidence proving he is just a clean person is, in itself, highly problematic.

Yet, since Thiers had already given a conclusion, he dared not contradict him further.

"Have the men been brought?"

"In accordance with your orders, My Lord, all the people I can mobilize from the Raphael family have been brought here. They are currently arranged in the hotel lobby, ready to deploy at any moment."

"Then let us move."

"Yes, My Lord!"

Thiers's form once again transformed into black mist and drifted out the window.

The old butler stepped forward and inquired in a low voice: "Young Master, those you brought out this time are all believers of the family's faith system who support you. If the subsequent losses are too heavy, it will affect your future plans to vie for the position of family head against the First, Third, and Fourth Uncles."

Rayson climbed up from the ground, brushed the dust from his hands, and said: "Before that lord just now, do I have any room for choice?"

"Young Master..."

"No need to worry. Even if the men are severely depleted, there is no need to worry. As long as that lord publicly declares his support for me to become the next head of the family, those uncles of mine will not dare to have any other objections.

In the eyes of the Church folk, people of our family faith system are just a pack of bedbugs, but if one can truly win their favor, that makes one the most extraordinary bedbug of all."

"Yes, Young Master, you see far ahead. However, Young Master, I am very puzzled. Since it is an operation to eradicate the remnants of Light, why have us assemble so many people to participate?"

"First, because a certain number of cannon fodder is needed to test the mettle of that group of Light remnants;

Second, because that group of Light remnants holds the secret of the Blood Spirit Powder;

This secret is something that lord dares not make public either. He is unwilling and somewhat afraid to request more personnel from the Order of Orthodoxy, but his own subordinates might be insufficient in number."

"So that is how it is."

"Once this matter is handled well, the position of family head will be mine. Very well, give the order, we set out."

"Yes, Young Master!"

Rayson put his hand on his own head and scratched it gently:

"It truly makes no sense. Leaving intact corpses behind after killing people just to wait for an 'awakening'?

Is this a silencing of witnesses, or is it intentionally letting dead men help deliver a message?

Yet, My Lord Thiers is in such a frantic state, almost losing the rationality he ought to have. What exactly is the reason that made him suddenly become so urgent?"

Rayson's gaze froze slightly:

"Could it be that the purpose of running the pig farm was not merely for the Blood Spirit Powder... perhaps even the Blood Spirit Powder was just a layer of camouflage over its true purpose."

...

"Do you need anything else?"

Piaget walked down the stairs carrying a medicine chest.

Karen smiled and said: "Everything is already amply prepared."

The small wine cellar in the Adams family's basement was empty. On the other side, in the spacious area near the skylight, stood only a pool table. At this moment, water and food were placed upon the pool table, and Piaget had also set the medicine chest on top of it.

"By the way, do you have a gun?" Karen asked.

"No," Piaget replied.

"After this matter passes, go get yourself a set of firearms, and prepare a set for me as well."

"Alright, I understand." Piaget also realized just how poor his self-defense capability was.

Mr. Bedd looked at Karen and said: "The family can send some over. The kind of guns that can fire special bullets."

The prospective father-in-law's meaning was that the family had them all and could prepare them, so there was no need to ask others.

"Do you remember what I told you?"

"Karen, there is no need to be so thorough," Mr. Bede advised.

"I have achieved God-pastor status."

Mr. Bede took a deep breath. How long had he been away from the manor, only to have reached God-pastor status already?

"I understand." Mr. Bede nodded. "Your path and your choice are indeed correct. Once this matter is resolved and things at home are arranged further, I also intend to go out for a period of time to be an artist earning a living by selling paintings."

"Mr. Bede, can I come with you?" Piaget asked.

Karen looked at Piaget, asking in confusion, "Are you not running your clinic anymore?"

Piaget spread his hands, shrugged,

and said:

"Once this group from the Church of Light leaves, my clinic will probably fall apart completely."

It seemed that there were certain things Piaget had understood in his heart all along.

"How about I give the clinic to you, and you keep it running?" Piaget suggested.

Karen shook his head and said, "I likely won't have the energy for that going forward."

Just then, a sequence of footsteps echoed from above.

Standing on the billiard table, one could see the situation in the garden outside through the basement skylight.

Karen stood there, and Piaget stood up alongside him, while Mr. Bede sat on a nearby chair in a very mature manner, seemingly having no interest in watching the commotion.

"Piaget, did you lock the basement door?" Karen asked.

"Locked, I'm certain of it."

Fearing they might be caught in the crossfire, the trio of Karen chose to enter the villa's basement. Although they lost the best vantage point upstairs, the basement was the safest.

Through the skylight, quite a few men and women dressed in black suits could be seen appearing in the courtyard, and in the rooms directly above Karen and the others, the sound of smashing windows rang out. To surround the villa next door, they would definitely pass through the villa where the group was currently located.

However, they likely had no interest in running down to the basement to break down the door and check.

"They're about to start fighting," Piaget said with some anticipation.

Karen could not help but remind him, "If you take the path of the Church of the Wall, you will probably never be able to fight again. You had better think it through."

Hearing these words, Mr. Bede's expression remained unchanged.

"Sometimes, the more you lose, the more it proves you will make up for it elsewhere, isn't that right?"

"That makes a lot of sense."

A sharp shriek pierced out from above like an offensive bugle call. Within Karen's line of sight, many people in the courtyard began to display the abilities of their family's belief system.

"It really is quite diverse," Karen noted.

Although Mr. Bede did not stand on the billiard table with them to watch, upon hearing the commotion outside, he spoke up:

"The Raphael family has really spared no expense this time, but they are being used as cannon fodder."

Mr. Bede had personally witnessed how easily that remnant group of Light had slaughtered the people of the Raphael family last time. Although there were many of them this time, it was still difficult to erase the true gap in quality.

"If things progress smoothly and everything can be resolved, then the Raphael family is finished as well, without even needing the Allen family to strike," Karen said.

The premise of the matter being resolved was that Tyres and the others would be exposed and receive punishment from the Church of Order. Under collateral liability, the Raphael family, having helped Tyres' group do their work, would also be dragged into the sequence of punishment, though in the eyes of the great church, they might not even qualify to be on the list.

"Boom!"

The tremor occurred directly.

Piaget was shaken so badly he nearly fell off the billiard table, fortunately held steady by Karen in advance.

"Boom!"

A second tremor occurred, and the skylight shattered instantly, sending glass fragments raining down.

Falling in along with them were two arms and a head.

"Boom!"

Yet another tremor, this time occurring above, sounding as if the second or third floor had been struck.

Karen and Piaget stopped watching the commotion and immediately walked into the vacant wine cellar, the two of them crouching down in a corner. Mr. Bede, who had been sitting there all composed and serene, also bent his waist and followed them over.

"Will the basement collapse?" Piaget asked with some concern, looking at the dust constantly falling from overhead.

Karen comforted him, "It's fine even if it collapses. The wine racks here can block it a bit; it shouldn't crush us to death directly."

"Karen, I really didn't expect to have such an exciting experience after coming to Wien. What about you?"

"Me? I came to Wien specifically looking for excitement."

"Karen, aren't you afraid at all?"

"In comparison, I feel more lingering fear that the one on the second floor didn't leave from disgust, but instead planned to stay and enjoy the show."

"Oh, that one is indeed scarier."

"Boom!"

Another violent tremor echoed from above.

"They are looking for us," Bede said.

Even though the people of the Raphael family were besieging the villa next door, the battlefield had opened up directly here. It was certain that someone in the villa next door had deliberately fought their way over, and the purpose of coming was to find Piaget... and Bede.

However, not only was this nothing to be touched by, but another reason the three of them had hidden in the basement, apart from fearing being caught in the battle, was that they did not want to be found by the remnants of Light.

Although Miss Bertha had always been very polite, from the very beginning, she had infiltrated Piaget's life, virtually keeping Piaget under "supervision."

Perhaps, looking at her appearance that closely resembled Linda every day, Piaget felt no "affection" or "fascination" at all, but rather found it highly uncomfortable, or even... infuriating.

The same went for Mr. Bede. He was required to stay here and paint with Piaget. What artists loved most was freedom, yet now he was locked away.

Even though the two of them had been rescued by Elder Doak and others after being ambushed by the Raphael family just as they arrived at Piaget's doorstep that day, the one who had deliberately given them the address in the first place was Bertha.

The dust overhead kept falling continuously, and cracks had already appeared across the basement ceiling. The wine cellar racks had begun to bend to varying degrees, with many wine bottles rolling down and shattering all over the floor.

However, no wine flowed out, because the empty wine cellar only contained a few empty bottles used for decoration.

"Karen, I feel like whether I locked the door or not doesn't seem to matter, because coming in doesn't necessarily require using the door."

"Boom!"

Under this tremor, the basement ceiling bulged downward, and fresh blood dripped through the cracks into the basement like a downpour of bloody rain.

At the same time, bursts of the aura belonging to Order began to splutter above. It should be the people of the Church of Order joining the fray.

Karen's lips began to move rapidly, murmuring:

"O great and supreme God of Order, O Order that judges all..."

Karen kept reciting this passage, like a long-distance runner who had already braced himself for the race, either to provide a protective spell for the three of them together, or the Spear of Punishment.

The people of the Church of Order are fighting up there too. If I secretly use a spell of the Church of Order when the time comes, no one should notice it, right?

Above,

Vernon struck a man dead with a single sword blow. The force of this strike was immense, additionally infused with the power of Light, squeezing the blood out of that person's body almost as if compressing a sponge.

His body was covered in a layer of armor shimmering with white light; this was the "Armor of Light."

Shielded by the Armor of Light, he could unleash greater combat freedom, eliminating these attached practitioners of the family belief system in a far more efficient manner.

"Buzz!"

Another petrified foe was swatted away by Vernon's sword, crashing into the wall and smashing open a hole; upon hitting the ground, the petrified skin and internal organs of the petrified foe began to crack apart.

Outside, a burst of dazzling fire flared up, as a row of men and women dressed in Western suits let out incomparably shrill screams within the envelopment of these flames that were terrible enough to incinerate the soul.

Wielding her wand, Helen descended, immediately shouting in panic:

"Ah, I was wrong, what if they were burned to death by me too!"

Right then, a pitch-black figure appeared behind Helen, a leather whip lashing straight down toward the back of her head.

Helen seemed to sense something, but at this moment she forgot how to react properly, merely letting out a pure cry:

"Ah!!!"

Behind Helen, a protective barrier of light manifested, and the leather whip struck against the shield.

"Bang!"

The barrier shattered, and the leather whip rebounded.

"How shameless, you actually launched a sneak attack!"

Vernon held his sword, preparing to come to Helen's aid, but a burst of chanting belonging to Order echoed out:

"In the name of the great Order, summon the Web of Order, bind all offenses against Order, and cause them to perish!"

"In the name of the great Order, summon the Web of Order, bind all offenses against Order, and cause them to perish!"

Eight members of the Whip of Order squad clad in black robes joined the battlefield; the moment they appeared, they condensed a terrifying black grid, pressing straight down toward Vernon at the center.

Vernon did not choose to clash head-on with this grid; instead, he held his longsword horizontally, and after the holy light upon his body was further blessed, he charged toward one of the squad members.

"Boom!"

The black Web of Order struck Vernon, rapidly melting away the radiant splendor on his body, leaving a massive gash even upon that Armor of Light.

Yet Vernon's sword still pierced clean through the chest of one squad member; after pulling the sword out, he slashed horizontally toward another squad member beside him, upon whose body a black defense appeared, and since the momentum of this strike was already mostly spent, it merely batted the squad member over without managing to cut into his body.

The remaining Order squad members continued to chant; under these circumstances, they had no other choice but to maintain their formation to contend against him.

A second Web of Order weighed down once more,

Vernon could only thrust his sword upward to resist, but at the same time, he stomped down violently with one foot upon the squad member before him who had just been knocked over!

"Bang!"

The ground caved in, and this squad member was smashed down into the basement; after falling, he was covered in blood, curling up there in excruciating pain, but he caught sight of the three people hiding inside the empty wine cellar of the basement, freezing in astonishment for a moment.

Karen immediately stood up:

"Please allow me to borrow your power to punish acts that violate Order..."

The first batch of Order Cult clergymen who entered were definitely the ones who murdered Mr. Pavaro; executing them carried not a single shred of psychological burden.

But before Karen's incantation for the Spear of Punishment could finish,

Mr. Bede picked up a shard of a wine bottle from the ground, walked straight up to the heavily injured Order squad member who had fallen, knelt down, and stabbed it directly into the squad member's chest.

"Puff!"

With just that one strike, the squad member's body stiffened, then went limp, presumably dead.

"Puff!"

To be safe, Mr. Bede delivered a second strike, and the corpse showed no reaction whatsoever.

Immediately following that,

Mr. Bede reached out to pry open the corpse's mouth, pulled out the tongue, severed it with the wine bottle shard, tossed it aside, then raised the shard to stab violently into both of the corpse's eyes respectively, adding a little outward gouging motion with each plunge.

After finishing the business, the father-in-law tossed the wine bottle shard aside as well, clapped his hands,

and said:

"All set."

Happy New Year's Day, everyone!

Do you all have this kind of feeling, that once you become an adult and start working, the days feel like they pass by faster and faster.

These years pass by just like Zhu Bajie eating the Ginseng Fruit; before you can even savor the taste, it has already gone down.

When calculating age again, subtracting from 2021 has to turn into subtracting from 2022, which really brings a bit of melancholy.

Thinking back on how the past year went, it seems I can't recall too much of anything; the political news and entertainment news all felt fresh at the time, but afterward left no real impression.

Looking closely, however, the kind of happiness found each night after publishing a chapter and scrolling through the paragraph comments is real and substantial;

The daily updates are just like when the time comes, everyone brings a small stool to gather in a circle under the old locust tree at the village entrance to chat.

Look at us, just like that, chattering away and unknowingly chatting through a year, which is quite nice too.

The New Year arrives,

Xiao Long wishes everyone a New Year accompanied by good health for yourselves and your families;

I hope Xi'an lifts its lockdown soon.

I hope the motherland prospers and flourishes.

Originally, I felt that this single notice chapter should be followed by an update chapter to be most appropriate,

It's just a pity that while writing this notice, my eyelids were already fighting each other, and my physical condition no longer allowed me to keep being willful.

So,

Let me first ask for the baseline monthly tickets currently in your hands; if you have any, please cast them for us.

After I wake up, I will write the updates for the new year properly.

Good night and sweet dreams to everyone!