Vanna raised her head and looked at the lady in the black dress who was checking the mental state of some cultists. The lady noticed her gaze and also raised her head and saluted slightly.
The other person looked to be in his early twenties, but had a calm temperament that was far more mature than his age. His long black hair was tied up behind his head, and the light blue crystal earrings on his earlobes were swaying, reflecting the light from the gas lamp not far away.
"... Heidi is here too... Was she sent by the City Hall?" Vanna asked the young guard beside her.
"No, Ms. Heidi happened to be nearby when it happened, and she came straight here when she heard the news - is there anything wrong with that?"
"No, it's nothing. Although Heidi is an employee of the City Hall, she has also had a long-term cooperative relationship with the church. She can just complete the on-site registration after returning." Vanna shook her head and quickly turned her attention back to the matter at hand. She examined the cult priest who died of insanity and casually asked, "What else did those cult members who were still able to communicate say? What was the situation at that time?"
"Their language was confusing. Two of them mentioned that the normal sacrificial ceremony had already ended, but suddenly someone caught a sacrificial victim who had escaped near the gathering place, so the messenger decided to sacrifice this victim to the Sun God..." The guard recalled, "The two cultists were standing far away from the altar at the time and did not see the specific scene on the altar. They only said that the victim was pierced through the heart but not dead, and instead shouted the name of the Sun God, and directly designated the messenger as the sacrifice... As a result, the messenger was sacrificed."
"... A person who was chosen as a sacrifice, shouted the name of the evil god on the spot, and directly sacrificed the person presiding over the ceremony?" Vanna seemed to have heard something out of the ordinary, and felt it was extremely absurd. However, these words came from the mouth of a strictly trained, loyal and reliable church guardian, so she had to face it seriously, which made her expression strange, "How could such an outrageous thing be possible? If this is possible, then wouldn't many victims at the cult sacrifice site be able to kill those heretical priests just by talking faster?"
"Who says it's not true? Even the most incompetent priests are in an absolutely dominant position when presiding over a ceremony. How could a weak ordinary person cause the ceremony to go out of control to such an extent with just a few words? Moreover, we have checked this priest and found that he did have traces of being eroded by projections from the 'deep layer' of the world. He is a real 'baptized person'. According to the description of the cultists at the scene, he was holding a ritual dagger with a blessing in his hand..."
The young guardian said as he shook his head and then came to another corpse nearby.
"But... take a look at this. This is the 'sacrifice' that 'killed' the priest."
Vanna glanced at the guardian before her eyes fell on the lifeless body. The next second, her sight became sharp.
He was a thin young man, so thin that his body shape was closer to that of a teenager. The most obvious abnormality on his body was the big empty hole in his chest.
"… He has been sacrificed…"
"Yes, this is a sacrifice that has already been offered. Judging from the traces at the scene and the confessions of the cultists, this 'sacrifice' may have lost its heart before it was pushed onto the stage," the guard said in a serious tone, "So... the real situation at that time was that a walking corpse walked onto the stage in full view of the public and killed the priest presiding over the ceremony as a sacrifice."
"... a trick of the Necromancer?" Vanna muttered to herself as she pondered, "No, the power of the Black Sun has a great restraint on the Necromancer. The zombies they control can't just walk up to the Black Sun's totem... Is it a resurrected person who is abnormally controlled?"
"Have you checked the lights around here?" She suddenly raised her head and looked at the guard beside her. "Is there any completely dark underground space within 500 meters?"
"We checked and found no lightless crypts. Even the cultists knew the dangers of lightless crypts. They left torches and oil lamps in the caves where the bodies were discarded. They were very careful in this regard."
Fanna did not speak for a moment, but bent down in front of the young man's body with deep doubts. She carefully examined this "sacrifice" who had sacrificed a transcendent in public and caused the ceremony to completely get out of control. She reached out to turn over the other's stiff eyelids, trying to find clues of some heretical power on his body.
Suddenly, there seemed to be a glimmer of light in the corner of her eyes - she seemed to see the young man's corpse slightly open his eyes, and a faint green flame jumped in the empty eyeballs. A tiny spark burst out at the tip of her outstretched right index finger, and then quickly dissipated in the wind.
Fanna's eyes flashed, and she instantly took out the dagger from her waist with her left hand. Without hesitation, she cut off her right index finger, then nailed the dagger into the forehead of the corpse with her backhand. The priest's dagger engraved with runes suddenly burst into flames and completely devoured the corpse.
It took her less than a second to do all this. At the moment the corpse was engulfed by flames, she had already stood up and stepped back two steps. Then she took out the blessed holy oil from her waist, bit off the cork with her teeth, and poured the oil inside on her right hand, which was bleeding madly. As soon as the holy oil touched the flesh and blood, large amounts of white smoke hissed out.
A piercing pain surged up, but the expression on Fanna's face did not change at all. She saw that the guard who had been following her had quickly drawn the steel sword at his waist and cut off the head of the burning "sacrifice" with one sword, and then threw a potion mixed with seaweed extract and silver powder into the flames.
Accompanied by continuous explosions and flames that suddenly rushed up into the sky and almost licked the ceiling, the alienated corpse turned into ashes in the blink of an eye.
However, the fierce fire did not spread to the other corpses nearby.
The guards around had already reacted. Half of them instantly drew out their rune steel swords and surrounded Vanna, while the other half drew out their large-caliber revolvers and quickly formed a guard on the periphery. The two priests on the scene also drew out their revolvers hidden under their robes, blessed the muzzles of their guns with incense burners while chanting the name of the storm goddess Gemona, and kept pointing their guns at the crazy cultists who were agitated by the changes in the surrounding environment.
"Your Excellency the Judge!" The young guard holding a steel sword came to Vanna at this time, "How are you? Just now..."
"There is some kind of power remaining in the body of that 'sacrifice', and this power has bypassed all the protections given to me by the goddess, even bypassing my psychic alerts." Vanna waved her hand and looked at her right hand - the goddess's gift took effect, and the index finger that was cut off by the dagger was wriggling and recovering little by little, but even though she felt the severe pain gradually dissipating, her heart did not calm down at all.
"Something is wrong. There is not only the Black Sun here, but there may be another powerful force that visited this sacrificial ceremony... And this force has not completely left, it still has its own agenda," the inquisitor made a quick judgment, "Transfer all witnesses and evidence to the church and keep them under strict supervision. All inspections and interrogations will be conducted in the church. The scene here must be thoroughly purified... Is there anyone else somewhere else?"
A guard nearby immediately replied, "Yes, we have previously rescued a group of imprisoned 'predetermined sacrifices' in another cave nearby. They are now temporarily placed in the pipeline room next to it."
"Take them away as well, take them to the church. Even though they are victims, they must undergo strict inspection before they can be released home," Vanna said quickly, and then she seemed to suddenly remember something, "Where is Ms. Heidi? Is she okay?"
"I'm here," a calm female voice sounded nearby. The "psychiatrist" in a black dress employed by the city hall walked over slowly and nodded to Vanna. "Don't worry, I didn't react at all just now - so what happened?"
"... Like many classic stories, the cultists provoked something more evil than themselves," Vanna glanced at the "psychiatrist", "I strongly suggest that you take an extra layer of protection when examining these cultists and hypnotizing them in the future... There have been forces here that shouldn't have appeared, and there are remnants."