Chapter 1 Claude

Claude, the high-ranking exorcist of the Order who had been captured by the Demon King's army on the front lines, was in a strange mental state like the other exorcists of the Order. He completely refused to communicate, so their first contact with him was fruitless, and he even tried to attack Vivian. Hao Ren originally thought it would take a long time for the guy to recover—after all, even the data terminal couldn't figure out what was going on with his weird mental state. He didn't expect him to suddenly wake up.

This sudden progress was a surprise. Izhaks came to Claude with curiosity, "Do you know what you're doing now?"

"There are some...side effects," Claude stood in the middle of a circle of soldiers. His face was still a little pale, and he hadn't changed the tattered clothes he wore during the battle. He was still in chains, looking quite embarrassed. He looked awkward. "It seems I've caused you a lot of trouble."

"It's more than just trouble," Bai Huo stood in front of Claude with her arms crossed. "I'll ask you a few questions to make sure you're really awake."

On the other side, Hao Ren came to Lanina and asked in a low voice, "Have you seen the situation on the lower levels?"

"We followed the road signs and personnel instructions you left behind, of course we saw them," Lanina's slender tail twisted in the air, and her enchanting eyes were full of interest in something. "It's a wonderful phenomenon. If I'm not mistaken, the space-time structure of this tower must have been changed, and the people in the tower seem to be imprisoned in the cracks caused by the space-time dislocation. This world is really interesting."

A succubus who doesn't like men or women, and doesn't even like her own racial talent, but only likes to lead troops and study science, Hao Ren can only sigh that this sister really deserves to be brought out by Izhaks.

Turning his attention back to Claude, Bai Huo asked him some things, all about the internal affairs of the exorcists and the details of several events before and after this "civil war." In the end, she confirmed that Claude had completely recovered his sanity and couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. "Phew...finally a guy has returned to normal. It looks like I can take these rune locks off you..."

"No, keep these things on," Claude took a half step back slightly, and the rune locks on his body jingled. "I asked for it. I don't think I'm completely stable. Those...those voices still echo in my mind from time to time. Hallucinations, visions, and other ideas...I think it's safer for me to wear these things, safer for everyone."

"Voice?" Vivian stepped forward. "You said there was a voice?"

"Yes, a voice...or maybe not, it's hard for me to describe it accurately," Claude's muscles visibly tensed when he saw Vivian, as if some kind of attack impulse that didn't belong to his own will still remained in this body, but he and the rune locks on his body jointly suppressed the impulse. As Claude himself said, wearing these shackles was indeed a wise move. "That thing echoes in my spiritual world, as if it directly covers my brain with an idea, a personality. It's not...a voice, but more direct and effective..."

"Thought imprint," Hao Ren interrupted him. "Seriously, you should prepare a few more textbooks on modern vocabulary. Adding two modern dictionaries to the pile of moldy magic medicine encyclopedias in the library will make you more flexible."

"Okay, thought imprint, that's a good way to put it," Claude glanced at Hao Ren and twitched the corner of his mouth. "I know the word, but I just didn't think of it for a moment."

"So the problem is still in the field of mental control," Vivian crossed her arms. She didn't expect the problem to finally return to this most superficial origin. "More clever, more effective, more obscure, but in the final analysis, is it still mind control? This answer is a bit disappointing to me."

Claude immediately shook his head: "No, it's different from mind control. I personally experienced this process, and I can be sure that there is no external force twisting or remotely controlling our thoughts—it just stimulates and amplifies a part of the thoughts deep in our hearts, and then allows this trend to develop. Although it's not good to admit this here, but...purifying heretics is indeed an idea in the subconscious of every exorcist, including these comrades-in-arms who are standing next to you. If they also 'hear' the thing in my mind, they will be no different from the Elder Order."

Claude's words caused a slight commotion among a small number of exorcists present. Some less stable exorcists looked at the Demon King's army soldiers beside them with awkward eyes, but none of the latter spoke. Lanina just said calmly: "Everyone has a dark side in their hearts. Extracting and amplifying specific dark sides is not a clever technique for us demons. It's just that the guys who mess with the minds of the Elder Order and the saints are more powerful."

Bai Huo muttered softly: "You guys are quite generous."

"In our hometown, every breathing creature in the world wants to kill us," Lanina shrugged. "We're used to being hostile to everyone. By a lower standard, you're simply model allies, at least you do charge into battle with us."

"Let's get back to the topic," Hao Ren waved his hand to interrupt Lanina and Bai Huo's conversation. He looked into Claude's eyes. "So it was that 'voice,' that thought-manipulating guy who influenced the Elder Order and the saints? The current state of this tower..."

He raised his hand and pointed to the remains of Saint Bedoris: "And his current end, is it also because of that 'voice'?"

Claude didn't notice Bedoris not far away until now. He couldn't help but exclaim, "The Saint!"

"We found him lying here, and his death was very strange. His body completely turned into a smoky state, and finally only this dress and some ashes were left," Tutankaim explained the situation here. "So what exactly happened here?"

A look of panic flashed in Claude's eyes, as if recalling what happened in this tower still made him shudder. He lowered his voice: "We awakened an ancient will...a powerful, incomprehensible, non-physical thing awakened in this tower, and then quickly influenced everyone through the mysterious connection between the various relics of Corpus."

"Who specifically awakened it? Why did they awaken it? What form was that thing originally in?" Hao Ren's questions came one after another.

"It was the saints," Claude's answer was not unexpected. "After Elder Hassu returned from the Ancarteau territory, the saints summoned him, and then they immediately had several secret talks. I don't know what they were specifically discussing, but every saint was obviously very nervous after that. Then the saints took a certain ancient holy artifact from the treasury and held a ceremony in the ritual hall. The situation started to go wrong after that ceremony."

Claude tried hard to recall and describe the situation after that ceremony as much as possible: "At that time, only the saints entered the ritual hall, and the others were ordered to wait outside. There was a buzzing sound from inside the door, as if countless people were arguing in the hall. Then the ceremony ended, but the saints did not leave the ritual hall. They ordered that they would continue to meditate in the hall for a while. My clearer memory ends here. After that...everyone's emotions became a little strange, but no one realized this abnormality at all. The influence was subtle, and it took effect before we realized it."

"In other words, at least in your memory, those saints have never left since they walked into the hall?" Hao Ren stared at Claude. "Except for the power of 'something' running out of the hall, no one or anything left there, right?"

Claude thought for a while and nodded vigorously: "I can be sure."

"I'm afraid they had already been destroyed after the ceremony, at least their mental state was completely wiped out," Vivian pointed to the set of clothes and a little ash left by Bedoris. "Bedoris may have barely escaped, but he only lasted to this place. The message on the wall is all the information he could leave at the time."

Lili turned her head to look at the message on the wall: "According to the message... 'that thing' should still be staying in the ritual hall."

Bai Huo was a little skeptical: "But the entire Corpus has already been 'infected' by it once, will it still stay in the hall obediently?"

"Because it hasn't completely escaped," Hao Ren blurted out. "What leaked out of the hall was only its power. The saints probably realized that something was wrong in the second half of the ceremony, so they must have used some method to imprison the main body of 'that thing' at the ceremony site!"

Vivian had an instinctive distrust of the exorcist saints: "How do you know those saints would do this?"

Hao Ren pointed to Bedoris' last words on the wall: "Because they didn't want to let that thing out at all—they didn't even know they would let that thing out!"