Chapter 165: 55: The Evil Under the Tower

December.

A snowstorm with the first signs of coming was spreading across Europe along with the westerly winds from the Arctic.

In London, Augustus' research hit a bottleneck from the very beginning.

The reason was simple. The "spiritual detection technique" he had painstakingly constructed could not detect souls.

But because he knew about the Soul Crow and the Soul Lamp from Jeremy, he was sure that the soul must exist.

Then there is something wrong with his research direction.

It may be that the animals in the experiment do not have souls, or their souls are too weak, and his soul-detecting technique is not precise enough, so it cannot be detected.

So afterwards he skipped the small animals and turned to detection in places like hospitals and many ordinary people, but found no trace of souls.

Either there is something wrong with the spirit-testing technique, or the technique is locked.

Combining the matters of the Soul Crow and the Soul Lamp, he guessed that the things related to the soul were too advanced and were not something he could study.

After all, the soul has a home, and what he did is equivalent to stealing business from the soul's home.

However, if the soul is not good enough, what about the brain?

Looking at the pink brains among the remains of the little white mouse on the laboratory table, he came up with an idea.

It was a cold and lonely night with howling west wind and dotted snowflakes.

An abandoned warehouse somewhere.

A drunkard was tied to an iron chair.

In the darkness, Augustus' gloved hand slowly covered the other's bald head.

A piece of knowledge about "burning technique" was wrapped in divine energy and transmitted to the other party's brain.

“Uh, ahh—”

Snapped--

The scream stopped abruptly the moment it started.

The drunkard's head was like a watermelon stuffed with firecrackers. It exploded and red and white things splattered all over the ground.

Augustus remained silent. He opened his palm towards the corpse which was still twitching slightly. A stream of fire gushed out, reflected in his cold pupils, and instantly devoured the corpse.

He casually threw the blood-stained black robe into the fire and slowly walked out of the abandoned warehouse, thinking about how to further improve the technical structure of the "Soul Infusion Technique".

"It's a bit risky to look for experimental targets nearby. Is there any way to reduce the risk? In other words, expand my scope of activities."

London is one of the cities with the highest surveillance density in the world, so he did not expect that his actions could be concealed. All he relied on was a crude transformation technique.

Looking at the thin layer of snow on the ground, he stepped on it nonchalantly, leaving behind a series of footprints in the wind and snow that led to an unknown destination.

Paradise Node.

Augustus returned to Jeremy's side as if nothing had happened and continued his research.

"I just went back outside to test Transfiguration, and I didn't seem to see you?" Jeremy asked casually.

"It was snowing on the street, so I went out for a walk to see if I could get some insights, like those scientists who are blessed by inspiration by chance." Augustus' tone was slightly self-deprecating, "But obviously, I am not one of them."

"Inspiration is something you can only encounter by chance. Pursuing inspiration is putting the cart before the horse. The most important thing in scientific research is to keep trying and repeating. Haha, I'm sorry, my old teaching habit has come back again. I still have confidence in your patience. Let's put aside the spirit-testing technique for now. The soul must exist, but it's not so easy to detect. We must start from the most basic structure."

Augustus did not refute, but nodded following Jeremy's words to show that he understood.

"By the way, there's a new person here, and Heathcliff is here too. Do you want to go say hello to them?"

"Hmm? Okay, I'll be back soon."

"Don't worry. Talk more with them about their different research directions. Maybe they can inspire you to have new ideas."

Augustus floated out of the laboratory. At this time, the hall of the Heaven Node had been expanded by them and divided into a communication area, a public experimental area, and a landscape area.

Sitting in the communication area were two charismatic ministers whom he had never seen before.

One was completely black, with only his eyes bright, and the other was a muscular brown minotaur.

"Hello, hello, I'm Mr. Li. I'm honored to join the big family of Divine Grace." Mr. Li's enthusiasm and politeness were not in line with the image of a minotaur.

After introducing each other, Mr. Li continued to talk about the topic he had just discussed with Heath.

Augustus listened in for a while and had a general understanding of Mr. Li's ideas. His point of view was that there should be an overall program for the study of divine grace. For example, different research directions could be divided into "realms", and realms could be divided into "factions", and factions could be divided into "systems". In this way, later comers could see clearly and choose the direction they are interested in to study.

According to what he said, he was planning to explore all of them, which made Augustus stand in awe.

Just studying the soul and transformation, coupled with the unskilled burning, made him feel like his head was going to explode.

Mr. Li had almost finished his talk, and seeing that the two seemed to have something to discuss, he took the initiative to end his topic, said goodbye and went back to his research room, which Jeremy had helped him build not long ago.

"I heard from Owl that you have researched transformation techniques?"

"Slightly involved."

"How about a deal?"

"You want to exchange the structure of the technique?"

"Correct."

"Transformation is very complicated, you may not be able to learn it."

"After the deal is done, I won't bother you if you can't learn it. I can exchange two spells, one is a destructive spell, and the other is a speed-assisting spell."

Augustus thought about it and agreed to the deal. He really needed some destructive means.

"I'd like to state in advance that this transformation technique is not perfect at the moment. It can only last for about an hour, and it can only transform certain parts of the body. It absolutely cannot involve the brain or internal organs."

"That's enough."

The two men put their palms together and passed on their own technique structures to each other one by one.

The two spells that Heath traded were both related to wind. One was to use wind to speed up walking, destroy footprints, and accumulate power to assist jumping. The other was to compress the wind into sheets and sprinkle a handful of sand and iron sand into it, which could easily cut human bodies and metals.

Not fancy, but very practical.

At least, the conditions that Augustus originally wanted to expand the scope of his crime were met, but looking at the "Avenger" in front of him, he had a new idea.

"Perhaps, we have something else in common."

Augustus made a proposal.

Heath, who was about to leave, slowly turned around, sat down, and listened quietly.

Augustus is not a bloodthirsty devil, but there is always a shortage of scum in any city.

In order to achieve eternal life, he didn't mind using these people's lives as a prelude.

William was still in the capital of Gaul.

Some time ago, he had met Abdul twice, but the entire communication process was monitored. He mainly left an impression on the other party and tested the source of his ability.

Perhaps considering that he had to reveal some intelligence to the Japanese and American sides as a sign of sincerity for subsequent intelligence transactions, William reaped some small rewards.

For example, we learned that the person who gave Abdul the ability was an old Asian man with white hair, clean clothes, and was very kind.

This information is very familiar to William, the intelligence chief.

Supreme.

The Supreme who has never appeared again since giving the so-called "cherry tomatoes" to Miki Inagaki.

Because of Miki Inagaki's low threat level, she has always been on the fringe of research.

But at least he is a transcendent being who clearly exists, and William has come across no less than a hundred analysis reports on him.

In addition, Abdul revealed that the fruit was red, which confirmed it to be 90%.

Unless someone is deliberately disguising himself as the Supreme, but at present, there is very little information about the Supreme, and there is also no information about his relationship with other supernatural forces. There are only some unfounded speculations.

So assuming that the source of Abdul's power is the Supreme Being, what about Gabriel? Is it the same?

The Supreme gave each of them abilities, allowing them to clash and fight to the death, but what is the benefit?
Or there is another more convincing hypothesis that Gabriel was given power by a force that was at odds with the Supreme, so the Supreme found Abdul and made him his pawn to fight against the other side.

The two truly extraordinary people are like chess players, standing behind the scenes and not making any extra moves.

Why was the showdown chosen to take place in Gaul?

Anyway, they can't be here for tourism, so could it be that there is something they want here?

Combined with the information learned from previous communication with the Holy Infant, "what you want is in the future", it is very likely that Abdul is a chess piece deployed in advance by the Supreme Being.

As a dual representative of the United States and Japan, William sorted out the report and then received instructions to further exchange intelligence. He began to negotiate with Olivier who was personally in charge of the negotiations.

Everyone wants to use the least amount of information possible to gain information that is more valuable to them.

But Olivier has few intelligence cards in his hand, and even fewer strategic chips.

However, because he controlled Abdul, the extraordinary person, he had a ticket to understand the extraordinary world. In the end, he reached an information exchange agreement on terms acceptable to both parties.

Then during this period of time, William was conducting investigations and analyses in Gaul based on this intelligence.

The overall gain was not great.

In the morning, just as he got up, looked at the white snow, made a cup of coffee, and thought it would be another peaceful day, his subordinates came to him.

"Yesterday morning, a strange murder occurred under the Giant Hand Tower."

"How weird is that?"

"The astonishing speed with which the killer disappeared, as well as the fact that he seemingly blew the victim's entire head apart with his bare hands."

William was silent for a few seconds: "Is the victim an immigrant?"

The other party was surprised: "Yes, you are worthy of being the section chief. You guessed it right away."

"It's not difficult. There are so many hidden places to choose from, but I chose this one on purpose. It seems that Olivier is in trouble. Oh, and me, and you too, get ready to work overtime."

William immediately got into work mode, changed his clothes, and walked out of the guest room.

Not long after, he arrived at the scene of the incident in the wind and snow.

"The deceased was a West African immigrant who had been in Gaul for three years and had a number of criminal records. According to surveillance, he was forced to come here and may not have known what he was about to face."

The subordinate reported the information he got from the Gallic police.

William glanced at it, memorized it in his mind, then observed the scene of the incident and roughly simulated the situation at that time.

The criminals first coerced the deceased to come to the bottom of the square, and then forced him to sit on a plastic chair he brought with him. He looked around and saw newly built street lights and cameras. Great, he could just be a freeloader.

"Section Chief, the surveillance video has been sent."

Perhaps as a signal to strengthen cooperation, Olivier did not stop William's intervention, but instead strengthened his cooperation.

Turn on the video, and the video screens of several cameras will appear split.

It can be seen that in the falling snow, a suspected physical male, about 1.9 to 2 meters tall, dressed in black and wearing a clown mask, pointed a gun at the victim, placed a plastic chair on the ground, and asked him to sit down.

The victim sat down trembling, saying something in a supplicant posture.

The man looked up at one of the surveillance cameras and gently placed his hand on the top of the victim's head. Then, the screen seemed to shake and the man's head exploded, with some of the sticky material even sticking to the surveillance camera.

There is no doubt that such means must be related to the extraordinary.

Otherwise, the murderer couldn't have stood there so calmly in the face of an explosion that could break a head at such a close distance.

William narrowed his eyes and zoomed in on the video.

Although it was night, he could indeed see that the murderer did not have a single trace of blood on his body.

(End of this chapter)