After the soul dissipated, the corpse beneath the ground also ceased its rampage. The Priest, now free, looked at Xia De in surprise:
"I wanted to ask earlier, what exactly is this Miracle? Although power is neither righteous nor evil, this..."
"Priest, try to commune with the soul again."
Xia De waved his hand, not wanting to say more, and pointed at the corpse on the ground:
"If the corpse can regenerate after destruction, perhaps the soul can too. If it succeeds, we'll try to communicate; if the soul was truly destroyed by me, then this corpse can be safely sent to the church."
"No problem."
So the corpse received another slap from the Priest, and the soul that then appeared was in a normal state, and clearly remembered what had just happened.
As soon as it appeared, it tried to move swiftly into the distance. But Xia De, who had already prepared, manipulated the Chains to firmly bind the soul.
At the tip of the slender Chains, the runic chain symbolizing gluttony pointed at the soul's head. The soul was somewhat deranged at this moment, unsure if the experience of its soul twisting and collapsing had driven it mad, or if the influence of the Great Sin Chains had not been dispelled by its soul's rebirth.
"If you want to experience that feeling of being on the verge of losing control again, I can help you," Xia De said. This threat was sufficiently deterrent.
"No, no, I won't run," the soul hastily shook its head, its transparent head showing a distorted expression, but its eyes glanced at the black metal dagger on the ground.
Priest Augustus asked, "What exactly are you doing? What is the purpose of this resurrection ritual? Or rather, why is there no whisper element on the dagger, but there is on your corpse?"
The soul didn't want to answer the question, but Xia De tightened the Chains, forcing it to say, "Actually, it's nothing. I'm using the resurrection ritual to extract the relic's power through nine resurrections... that is, to merge myself with the relic. This is a Poet Grade relic, the 【death Curse Dagger】, which can enhance necromantic abilities and control the undead through the dagger."
"Merge with a relic?"
Her laughter came from beside his ear, and Xia De frowned, while the Priest's face turned crimson with anger: "Why are there always madmen like you? Even the Church and the Academy only dare to contain and utilize relics to a limited extent. How dare you... What organization's Ring術士 are you?"
"Let me go, otherwise the organization will definitely retaliate against you... Oh."
The tip of the Chains poked his face a few times.
"I'll talk! Quickly remove these damn Chains! The Truth Society! I'm from the Truth Society!"
He was probably truly afraid of the thing in front of him.
"The Truth Society?"
Xia De had heard the name The Society of Truth once before; Iluna had mentioned it. Like the Silver-Eyed One, the brown-haired girl also had an irreconcilable grudge against The Society of Truth.
The Priest explained to Xia De from the side, knowing Xia De certainly wouldn't know this: "The Truth Society is an illegal Ring術士 organization rooted in the primeval forests of the Old Continent's southern part, with its secret castle deep within the forest. The Truth Society is said to have originated in the chaotic era of the fourth epoch. These people claim to be an academic organization, gathered together to pursue truth, but their mad actions always cause big trouble."
"Detective, kill him. Everyone in the Truth Society deserves to die. There's no need to keep him."
Xia De nodded and raised the sword in his hand.
The soul immediately shrieked, "I've almost succeeded! Don't you want to see my research data? In extreme circumstances, it's possible for humans and relics to merge! Especially those strange and powerful relics, they have an even greater possibility!"
He looked at Xia De and the Priest in turn: "You can too! You are both very promising Ring術士. You can definitely perform the ritual I'm currently doing! Merge with relics, you all can!"
"Detective, don't listen to his nonsense. Kill him. I will report the matter to the Church, and all his remaining research data should be retrieved and destroyed."
The sword in Xia De's hand fell, and the soul screamed wildly. He seemed to want to fight the two with Sublimation Words, but the Great Sin Chains had the effect of sealing a Ring術士's power:
"To my death, I never even saw a true person who had merged with a relic!"
The soul was shattered by Xia De for the second time, then dissipated into the air.
And this time, Priest Augustus suddenly reached out and grabbed something in the air. Xia De once again saw the illusory white feathers falling behind him. The Priest's hand caught some black traces, and his aged hand tapped in the air as if strumming a stringed instrument, a series of white runes appearing and then disappearing in the air.
Following the traces captured by the Priest, the two dug up a purplish-gold locket from the dirt in front of the coffin. The resurrection ritual required true death, and to prevent the soul from truly leaving and causing the ritual to fail, the Ring術士 performing the ritual had to prepare a container to hold the soul.
All this information was told to Xia De by Priest Augustus; the Priest knew a great deal about such rituals.
After separately sealing the locket and the dagger, which temporarily had no whisper element, the two then also removed the coffin from the grave pit, to prevent anything else from being nearby.
There was indeed something else beneath the coffin, but it was the corpse of an ordinary person. Presumably, this was the true remains of the farmer's husband.
After confirming the second corpse was fine, Xia De and Priest Augustus reburied him. Xia De even picked a handful of wildflowers from beside the fence where Mia had stood and placed them in front of the tombstone, as an apology for digging up the grave tonight.
During this time, the gravekeeper's hut remained unlit. Xia De was unsure if the other party was truly sound asleep, or if they were already awake but dared not make a sound.
"Priest, what should we do with this Ring術士's corpse, soul, and dagger? Do I need to call for a carriage?"
Xia De only asked after confirming all traces had been dealt with.
"You go back first, Detective. You've worked hard tonight. I'll give you the weak angelic potion next week."
The Priest rolled down the sleeves he had rolled up while digging and waved his hand at Xia De:
"I've done similar things many times. I'll figure out how to notify the Church and have them retrieve the corpse."
"Alright then, I'll take Mia and leave first. I just feel like tonight's actions yielded no gains."
Xia De said with a yawn, while Priest Augustus looked very happy:
"We successfully stopped a fellow who would have caused trouble in the Tobesk Diocese, and we returned an unfortunate corpse that was implicated to its coffin. Isn't that a gain?"
"It was indeed a success. Alright then, Priest, I'm heading back. Oh, it's almost two o'clock. There's a doctor's study group this afternoon."
Xia De nodded, and after bidding farewell to the Priest, he walked with light steps, leading the cat towards the cemetery exit.
Priest Augustus maintained his smile, standing beside the corpse, in front of the grave, watching Xia De's figure disappear on the path in front of the cemetery.
The smile on the old man's face vanished. He returned the lantern to the gravekeeper's hut, then bent down to pick up two shovels, holding them on his left side. He put the box containing the dagger and the soul into a large pocket tied to his waist, and finally, with his right hand, pulled up the corpse's hand.
He vigilantly looked left and right, and after confirming no one was around, he turned to face the Moonlight, closed his eyes, and frowned. After a long while, with the sound of birds flapping their wings, a pair of tattered white feathered wings, revealing bone and flesh, appeared behind the Priest.
Moonlight shone on the Priest, and the light passed through the gaps in the scorched feathers, creating strange shadows on the ground. Feathers with a faint glow fell towards the ground but disappeared before touching it; these wings were translucent.
The wings flapped twice behind him, and the Priest slowly ascended. Then, under the Moonlight, under the moonlit night, holding the shovels and dragging the corpse, he flew in the direction of the city.
"This scene was the strangest part of tonight."
Silver mist appeared abruptly behind the gravekeeper's hut, and Xia De emerged from the silver mist, carrying the cat. He and Mia looked up at Priest Augustus, who was now just a small black dot under the Moonlight.
He wasn't intentionally trying to peek at someone else's secrets, but he was very curious how the Priest would get back when there were no carriages nearby.
"Vice Principal Professor Sanchez said that thirty years ago, in the third year after Ratt Augustus joined the Dawn Church, as an ordinary person, he was involved in a Grade 0 relic containment breach incident. And Priest Augustus was one of the few survivors from that year..."
Xia De squinted his eyes, looking at the Priest who had already disappeared into the deep night sky:
"What kind of creature would those strange wings belong to? Perfect, broken, holy, bloody... Interesting, everyone has their own secrets."
Thinking again of Professor Sanchez's evaluation of the five-person group, perhaps the Professor's conclusion that Xia De was the only normal one among them was truly correct.
