Chapter 91

Viva, that respectable lady. Clayton never imagined that when he saw her again, she would be resting in a grave—and in a criminal cemetery at that. To prevent the dead from occupying living space, criminals were the first to be abandoned. It was less like a cemetery and more like a cold cellar; the Kingdom of Taunton had imitated the customs of the Milenti Republic to build these new types of tombs. There, the dead had no tombstones and no past. They were hastily wrapped in a white cloth and shoved horizontally into grooves in the walls, like dishes in a cupboard or insect pupae in a hive. Nothing covered their remains; names and dates of death were written next to their belonging niche, destined to fade with time and fall into a fate of being forgotten. As long as a visitor wanted to, they could drag these corpses out of those "drawers" at any time.

Viva closed her eyes. Her corpse had slowed its decomposition due to the cooling weather, but a layer of white mold had grown on her face, the result of the harsh environment of the criminal cemetery. "What crime did she die for?" Clayton asked the attendant. For him, her being here was absolutely unjust. What crime could a person who could keep their sanity in front of the man who killed their husband commit? Who could convict this respectable lady?

The attendant didn't know Viva, so he was more rational: "The reason for conviction was attempted suicide. However, she was not sentenced to death—naturally, the charge of suicide wasn't that heavy. The sheriff sentenced her to a one-month term, then her cellmate killed her. The Parish Council couldn't find any of the lady's family, and because she was serving a sentence, they sent her here."

"Her cellmate?" Clayton licked his lengthening fangs: "What kind of criminal would harm such a noble person?" Viva had recognized Athena's conspiracy and didn't shoot him; he felt he should repay the favor.

"The criminal is lying right below her. Because of the murder, she was sentenced to death shortly after," the attendant said, pointing to the corpse lying in the bottom niche. "Do you recognize Viva?"

"She left a deep impression on me, the good kind," Clayton restrained his desire to attack and shrugged: "Truly, good and evil have their rewards."

"Unfortunately, I'm afraid this has nothing to do with good or evil. The reason her cellmate killed her was fear."

The attendant beckoned Clayton to help move Viva's body down, then untied the shroud and laid it on the ground. The clothes on Viva were the same ones she had worn when Clayton last saw her. Clayton noticed a piece missing from her left hand; this was undoubtedly the masterpiece of the Wandering Soul Street Church's watchdog.

"Previously, I didn't intend to count her as one of William's victims, but her experience is indeed... quite special. I think William's changes might be related to her." The attendant crouched down, staring at the deceased's closed eyes, vaguely expecting her to get up and say something. But this expectation was in vain; he could only tell her story from the perspective of others.

"Last month, probably on a Wednesday, the jailer of the Beckett Women's Prison invited Father Delundon from here to preach as usual. This work ended quickly, like in the past. But after the sermon, this Ms. Viva’s roommate caused a commotion. They wanted to see the priest, claiming there was a witch here that needed purification. Therefore, Father Delundon invited me over as well."

The attendant spoke with a hint of pride; identifying a witch wasn't something just anyone could do. "After I arrived, they told me that Ms. Viva would babble in her dreams, as if chanting, but she knew nothing about the content of the babbles after waking up. This was clearly a sign of demonic possession. But because of my extensive experience, I didn't think so, because demons can only possess dark-born. Moreover, Ms. Viva herself talked about what she saw in her dreams." He paused, suddenly swallowing his saliva in hindsight, looking at Viva with a somewhat nervous expression, as if recalling something terrifying again.

"She said that she didn't speak anything in her dreams, but heard others talking. When she 'woke up' in her dream—I don't know if I should use that word, but she was sure she was awake then. I continued to say, when she woke up, the scene she saw was no different from reality; she was still in the prison compartment, but everyone else had disappeared, and the cell doors were open. A voice that couldn't distinguish between male and female hovered in the sky, as if calling for something. She walked through the empty prison all night, but the prison in the dream was still in the daytime. I have to say, this is indeed a bizarre matter. Her external behavior in reality is very much like the symptoms of a 'demonic disturbance.' Do you know what a demonic disturbance is?"

Facing the attendant's inquiry, Clayton nodded: "I know a little, but not much." He had known this term before he became a werewolf and really touched the inner world. Its extended meaning was probably that a person's eyes were covered by the devil, thus seeing bizarre illusions. Many rural areas had reports of similar things, and it was like that before this year. Colonies in the Western Continent also had another term to express the same phenomenon, but most cases were eventually confirmed to be the victims' overdose of psychotropic drugs, so Clayton always thought all cases were like this. Now it seems that many things are worth re-examining.

"Demonic disturbances do exist, but they are divided into two types," the attendant explained to him: "One is that a demon is really involved, and the other is that a person's inspiration is too high, connecting to Wonderland. I state here that I do not agree with your interpretation of Wonderland, but this word is indeed very appropriate. In general, things in Wonderland are more bizarre than reality; it will not appear as a one-to-one reality model. Ms. Viva didn't see Wonderland, but there were no traces left by demons on her."

"We asked about what she saw in her dreams and compared it with the prison in reality. The answer is astonishing. She actually knew some of the room layouts that prisoners shouldn't have known, and this was all explored by her in her dreams. But we have no similar case results to analyze the category she belongs to. After many different tests, the only thing we can be sure of is that her inspiration is indeed very high. If she chose to be a witch, ten years would be enough to stand out in a big city like Sasha."

"I know Ms. Viva was once found by a priest of the Holy Grail Order. That guy is named Athena Baluge, proficient in black magic; she might have done something to Viva." Clayton interrupted him, but provided additional clues. In the lieutenant's mind, if that group of religious lunatics was involved, then everything was not surprising.

"The Holy Grail Order? Perhaps so, but that doesn't explain what Viva saw." The attendant's expression became serious: "The traces left by invisible arts are indeed difficult to discover, but demons are different from devils. If there is no master nearby to restrain them, the areas they pass through will cause widespread mental disturbances. Unless the heretic you mentioned is in the prison, it cannot explain this phenomenon. Or maybe they have developed a new blasphemous art."

"I think our topic has deviated from the incident we need to solve." Clayton spread his hands: "We should talk about your dog. I will find a way to investigate Viva's matter later, but only after I eradicate all enemies."

"Actually, that's what I want to say." The attendant looked at Clayton sincerely: "While Viva was alive, there was nothing special about her. And after her death, her left hand gave William strange abilities—let's assume this is a fact—but that piece of meat is already in William's stomach, unable to be identified, and our existing means are not enough to check for abnormalities in Viva. So, there might be a way here to test where the anomaly appears..."

Clayton blinked his eyes and soon realized what the attendant meant. Rage caused his figure to surge, and his incompletely werewolfized body almost blocked this aisle. His sharp claws brushed the attendant’s face and slapped the tomb niche behind him, shaking off a layer of dust.

"What do you take me for? A beast?!"