Pirate Kingship-Chapter 648 - 455 Death Stranding Incident
This tactic of "checking the surveillance" at the slightest disagreement was even more formidable than the Otherworld’s "Skynet Intelligent Monitoring System."
Just as surgeries also offered tickets for spectators, in this era, even adjudicating cases didn’t bar outsiders from observing.
Soon, the vivid image of the victim, Royalist Party Viscount Owen, appeared before everyone.
"PANT... PANT..."
The noble, drenched in blood, was desperately fleeing ahead but was dragged back by his pursuers just as he had opened a door.
"AHH—!"
The brief scream hadn’t left his throat before his head was bitten off.
The entity dragging him was moving too fast to see clearly, revealing only a vaguely discernible slender pink figure.
Sherlock waved his hand, and the replayed scene immediately continued.
It went back to when the victim had just arrived, to his conversation with the woman.
"The Demon Monster party, the Spore Mantis... hurry away after the deed, as they have a peculiar habit of devouring the male after the wedding night..."
A series of words reached everyone’s ears.
"OOH~"
A group of onlookers suddenly understood and instinctively took a step back as if the building housed something filthy.
It didn’t take much guessing; the viscount clearly hadn’t run fast enough and was devoured by the female mantis.
Even if the mantis was pink, it was still a mantis.
Most people, being normal human beings, could not accept these peculiar predilections of the nobility.
However, Saranthe touched a certain rib on his chest, the part where the Zero-Level Sacred Relic, the "Sea King’s Trident," had merged with his body, and suddenly felt a little guilty. He was almost certain that this Spore Mantis, which should have been properly domesticated, had suddenly malfunctioned, most likely due to the influence of his Sacred Relic. Within the range of the Trident’s influence, Demon Monsters in heat would become exceptionally aggressive. They might not wait until after the act to start hunting their new grooms, as was typical. Instead, they would mate and eat, eat and mate, all at the same time. Anyway, mantises as creatures are accustomed to eating from the head down, which doesn’t hinder the functioning of other body parts at all. Even a Transcendent, if caught off guard by a sneak attack, could have half their skull devoured on the spot.
The young man’s face showed a tinge of self-reproach:
"I thought this was the Capital City of the Kingdom on the Old Continent, supposedly without dangerous Demon Monsters. I never imagined such a bizarre entertainment venue existed just a street away. I thought the side effects of ’Sea King’ were peculiar enough, until I met you all here and realized... humans as a species have no limits!"
Yet, Byron, who was beside him, felt that things weren’t so simple. He had been sitting in the café the whole time. Although he had deliberately avoided looking in that direction, fearing he’d get styes in his eyes, any intense struggle would not have escaped his notice. Therefore, besides the Demon Monster’s rampage, something else must have occurred.
At the same time, Sherlock, the Nemesis of Sin, raised his hand to quiet the onlookers, signaling that it wasn’t time to completely close the case yet:
"Those who frequently kill know that murder is easy, but disposing of the corpse is difficult. Especially in a big city like Kingston, how to handle a corpse is a significant challenge. Because any detail on the corpse can reveal a part of the truth of the murder; it’s the deceased... speaking."
His friend and partner, "Doctor" John Watson, had already donned a beak-shaped mask and a pair of deerskin gloves and entered the building to inspect the corpse lying on the ground. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺
But the moment he saw the full state of "Viscount Owen," he couldn’t help exclaiming, "This isn’t right, Sherlock! There’s something wrong with the state of this corpse."
Byron didn’t need to step inside. His Divine Sight easily revealed everything to him.
The corpse at John Watson’s feet was indeed not right. Having half its head bitten off was to be expected, consistent with the preliminary deduction that death was caused by the Spore Mantis’s feeding. However, only a few short minutes had passed since the incident, yet the fresh corpse, which should have still retained some warmth, had already decayed beyond recognition. One might believe it was an ancient skeleton exhumed from the earth. Moreover, the corpse was soaking wet, saturated with water as if it had just been hauled out of the Deep Sea, which made it seem even more abnormal.
Then they heard John Watson, a Raven Doctor of the Hospital Sequence, explain as he examined:
"Normally, as a corpse’s skeleton ages, the various organic substances that constitute its structure are gradually lost. When it reaches a certain point, the color becomes unusually pale, and the texture is dry and chalk-like, becoming exceedingly brittle. If one tries to press on a very old bone with a fingernail, it is easy to cut into it and cause mild fracturing, leaving a dent or a scratch."
CRACK!
He didn’t consider Viscount Owen, from the same department, an outsider and nonchalantly broke a finger bone.
"Only fresh bones fracture with tender twig-like cracks, while dry bones fracture straight along the long axis, and the fractured edges crumble into fragments, leaving some powder. Unless it’s in an extremely dry desert, bones take at least fifty years to become so brittle."
Sherlock had already approached his assistant, observed the corpse’s condition, and made a similar judgment:
"Judging by the brittleness of this skeleton, Viscount Owen’s corpse has been dead for at least fifty years! But this is clearly not the case. I saw him with my own eyes at the Tribunal three days ago, and just minutes ago, he was happily hosting a Demon Monster party. Now, he looks like something sucked the life force out of his body in an extremely short period. This is not an ability ordinary Demon Monsters possess. It’s more akin to the handiwork of Undead Creatures, Evil Spirits, or some kind of Curse Spirit. And..."
He lifted his nose, activated "Crime Scent," and sniffed around.
"There’s no longer any living person in this building, nor any living Demon Monsters, and the smell of blood isn’t strong. Instead, there’s a kind of strange, foul odor I’ve never encountered before. It’s odd. If it were merely an incident of Demon Monsters going out of control, then who was behind the subsequent events?"
Byron did nothing but listen quietly to their analysis, and the Decryption Rate of "Hidden: Death Stranding Incident Under the Dispute Between the Two Parties, Historical Influence 28" swiftly soared to 26% on its own.
Decrypting had never been this simple and pleasant before. But at this point in the analysis, they seemed to have hit a snag. A culprit who transcended conventional understanding was outside their area of expertise.
However, after seeing the state of the skeletal remains, Saranthe’s heart skipped a beat:
This is a ’Death Stranding Incident’... and it’s happening on the Old Continent too? That shouldn’t be. Even if the Material World has entered the Intertidal Zone, how could a chain reaction occur so quickly?
Saranthe obviously recognized the signs at the crime scene.
Byron immediately noticed the change in his expression and inquired within their Golden Law internal network, "Mr. Saranthe, do you know what’s going on here?"
The latter, too preoccupied to acknowledge any potential connections, weighed the risks of sharing this information in his mind before replying to Byron:
"For the entire Material World, it is certain that the Spiral Annals are drawing ever closer. It may take decades, or even hundreds of years, but that day will eventually come. Everything that the Southern Continent’s Hundred Beasts Paradise and the Old Continent’s Dragon Court are currently experiencing is what our Eastern Continent went through tens or even hundreds of years ago. The ’Death Stranding Incident’ is one of them.
"We all know that when a human dies, unless their soul transforms into Undead Creatures, Evil Spirits, Nature Spirits, Totem Gods, or some Bizarre fusion with other creatures, its destination should be the collective subconscious sea. If they die at sea, there’s a risk of being snatched by the Sea of Origin Matter, and they must be transported by Ghost Ships; if they die on land, they will be attracted by their respective group’s Netherworld, involuntarily leaving the Material World."
As he said this, a trace of fear appeared in his eyes:
"But as we enter the Intertidal Zone and the tide rises to a certain level, this distinction between sea and land will be completely obliterated because the Intertidal Zone is half water, half land. The deceased Undead will be in a state of limbo, causing them to be stranded in the Material World, unable to reach the Edge of the World, nor can they be considered truly alive. They become a special kind of ’Evil Spirit・Lost Ones.’
"Their Anchoring to the entire world is completely severed. Even Spirit Vision cannot perceive these Bizarre existences lurking in the interstice between life and death. Only special Transcendents and treasures that can also touch this intermediate state can see and interact with them. And the pull of the Netherworld still exists; it might even drag ancient Dead Souls, made buoyant by rising waters at the Edge of the World, back into the Material World. This causes immense chaos and destruction in a short time, ending only when the Source Tide recedes. This phenomenon is called ’Death Stranding.’
"I once witnessed, with the aid of a certain treasure, the aftermath of a massive death event. Not only were countless ’Lost Ones’ stranded in the Material World, wailing incessantly, but even Ghost Ships were dragged back from the Edge of the World. Together, they rampaged, slaughtering all the living, seizing their life force to sustain their existence or enhance their power, leaving behind a field of damp, desiccated corpses after their frenzy."
Upon hearing Saranthe’s explanation, Byron couldn’t help but feel that this was rather troublesome. His mother, "The Little Mermaid" Heather, was currently sleeping soundly in the Bayfolk’s Valhalla, the Hall of Heroic Spirits. It would be a huge problem if, one day, she accidentally encountered such a Death Stranding incident, returned to the Material World, and was then mistakenly killed.
He immediately questioned further, "Is this a common supernatural phenomenon after entering the Intertidal Zone? Is it completely unavoidable?"
But Saranthe shook his head forcefully.
"No, it shouldn’t be entirely so. Because this anomaly has come far too quickly. Even the Southern Continent has only just entered the Intertidal Zone; the Old Continent, being the highest landmass, shouldn’t be experiencing Death Stranding phenomena so soon. The Demon Monster rampage here, leading to numerous casualties, might be an accident no one wished to see. But a ’Death Stranding’ triggered by such a large number of fatalities at once... that doesn’t seem like a natural occurrence. I’m more inclined to believe that someone deliberately arranged a certain forbidden ritual, planning something big, only to be exposed prematurely by this accidental mass death..."
Just then, Saranthe suddenly saw Sherlock, the Nemesis of Sin, about to head deeper into the building to conduct further checks as part of his duties, and quickly called out to stop him, "Don’t go in! The real culprit is still here!"
No sooner had his words fallen than SPLAT! A bloody handprint appeared on the ground not far in front of Sherlock.
If one were to compare it with Viscount Owen’s hand, one would find that the fingerprints matched perfectly.
The next moment, SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT! SPLAT!...
The sounds of countless bloody handprints slapping against the building’s floor, walls, and glass merged into a continuous barrage, as if innumerable creatures with human hands, yet invisible and intangible, were rapidly crawling inside the building.
The cacophony even forcibly suppressed the surrounding sound of rain.
"AHH—!"
A bone-chilling wind blew across the spines of everyone present, and the onlookers who were there for the spectacle immediately began screaming and scattered in all directions.
