Chapter 283 - 276: Unbearable Memory Fragments (2)

Chapter 283: Chapter 276: Unbearable Memory Fragments (2)

Lloyd quickly offered an awkward explanation, then reluctantly holstered his Revolver. Drawing the Short Sword from his waist, he dealt the supervisor on the ground a few final blows, putting an end to his monstrous transformation.

[Ding! Madness Value +500]

[Ding! Memory Segment +1]

[Ding! Knowledge Fragment +3]

[Ding! Skill Fragment +3]

’I got a full Memory Segment, not just a fragment?’

Lloyd felt a flood of new information in his mind, but he didn’t rush to examine it. Instead, he looked toward the scholar, Kading, and asked:

"How are you doing? You were coughing up a lot of blood..."

"Whew... At least I’m alive. My head’s still clear."

Kading must have sensed that Lloyd truly meant no harm and that the three earlier shots had indeed missed on purpose. He lowered his guard, sat on the ground, and took several deep breaths. Then, he pulled a vial of pale blue potion from his coat and downed it in a few gulps.

He followed this by muttering a stream of curses:

"Blech! Damn it, that’s bitter! Didn’t those assholes in logistics say it was supposed to be a mildly sweet mint flavor?"

The potion must have been truly awful to make such a seemingly refined and gentle scholar resort to swearing.

But its effects were apparently excellent. The deathly pallor of his face quickly gave way to a healthy color, and he managed to get to his feet without any help from Lloyd.

Seeing him recover, Lloyd hurriedly asked:

"Why did that guy attack you? And your two companions? Where are they? Also! I just found something over at the lumberyard..."

He had a million questions, but Kading held up both hands in a calming gesture, signaling for him to slow down.

"Don’t be so hasty, young man. I don’t know the answers to your questions either. Right now, let me use the time we have to perform a Spirit Communication."

With that, he walked over to the supervisor’s corpse, which still largely retained its human shape. He began muttering an incantation, channeling what little Spiritual Power he had left in an attempt to view the man’s memories.

This was a dangerous maneuver, a gamble. Using Spirit Communication on a cultist who was clearly more powerful than him could lead to all sorts of unforeseen perils; it was easy to get dragged down and lose himself in the process.

But with the situation so critical, Kading had no time for caution. He could only rely on the high spiritual resistance unique to the Redemption system and risk it all.

Lloyd knew it wasn’t his place to stop him, so he leaned against a nearby tree and started to review the information that had just flooded his mind.

Although he had received a Memory Segment this time, not mere fragments, it was still disjointed and far from a complete, coherent narrative. He couldn’t see the supervisor’s entire life story.

But it was enough to understand the full story behind the current incident.

As expected, the man belonged to a sinister organization known as ’Chasing Madness’.

This group wasn’t like the illegal Associations he’d encountered before; it was a bona fide Sect!

They worshipped a mysterious entity codenamed ’Enjoying the Feast of Madness’. This wasn’t the casual adherence seen in a conventional Sect, but a true religious faith with fixed rituals, mandatory daily prayers, and regular sacrifices.

And the sacrifices they were currently preparing were none other than three Extraordinary Beings, each no lower than Tier Three...

The plan was to use a ritual to destroy their Rationality and shatter their Cognition, forcing them to struggle in an agony of madness and despair, all to please that mysterious entity.

Lloyd finally understood why the supervisor had attacked the investigation team...

This mysterious entity had no clear form in the supervisor’s memory. It was described only with phrases like ’incomprehensible, untouchable, unseeable, unglimpsable, unknowable,’ coupled with terms like ’immeasurably mysterious, immeasurably sublime, immeasurably great.’

’Simply put, "godlike," I guess?’

It was to the point that the members of this Cult didn’t dare speak the entity’s true name. Instead, they opted for the bizarre-sounding codename, ’Enjoying the Feast of Madness.’

’Lloyd didn’t quite get it. The name had no specific referent; it was just the description of an action. How could that even count as a codename?’

’Isn’t that, in a way, a form of profound disrespect?’

’Or is it... that they don’t dare use the mysterious entity’s actual name, or any of its more orthodox titles and designations?’

With these questions in mind, Lloyd continued to sift through the supervisor’s memories and soon uncovered the secret of the lumberyard’s storage area.

’It’s a small-scale Alternate Space?’

It was similar in nature to the Dream Theater, but laughably smaller in scale—the whole thing was only about the size of a normal warehouse.

The supervisor himself hadn’t known its exact origin, only that he’d heard other members of the Sect speculating it might be a remnant of some ancient civilization that they had stumbled upon by chance.

His own understanding and control of the place were limited. He hadn’t even discovered it; the Cult had simply tasked him with managing it. He was to use it as a base of operations for all sorts of grotesque rituals and insidious Cult machinations.

The supervisor hadn’t been privy to the full details of the plot. He only knew that the Cult’s leadership had ordered him to become a raw material supplier for the Great Expansion, responsible for providing them with lumber.

So, he had put in some effort and, with the help of various powers from the Cult, successfully convinced the lumberyard’s backer to invest in construction here. With that, he smoothly infiltrated the Great Expansion project.

His next plan was to pull that same investor deeper into the fold, recruiting him as a member of the Sect. He believed the man’s financial resources and social standing would be a great boon to the Sect’s growth.

His attack on the investigation team was also part of the plan. By using the size, reputation, and influence of the "Prosperous and Contented" investigation team, he could implicate the backer, essentially dragging the man onto their pirate ship.

Reading this, Lloyd felt a chill run down his spine. ’These cultists are just too damn insidious, too vicious, aren’t they?’

’I’m supposed to be a righteous young man who despises evil as his mortal enemy! Even if I wield a Taboo System myself, I can never stand under the same sky as these malevolent forces!’

After seething with righteous indignation for a moment, he resumed his search through the supervisor’s memories, looking for clues about the father he’d met.

What he found next sent an even deeper chill through his heart—

All 400-some villagers had met a terrible fate. Tortured by the Cult’s rituals, they had been turned into the living dead, no different from walking corpses...

They still breathed, their hearts still beat, and they could move about like normal people. But their self-awareness and Rationality had been utterly erased and destroyed. They had become like mobile coma patients, mechanically carrying out the supervisor’s commands.

Their memories, emotions, senses, and even their basic human instincts like the ability to feel pain—all of it had been erased. They were like so-called "biological robots," capable of executing any command tirelessly and without fear of death.

Besides using them for logging to enrich the Cult and advance its plans, the supervisor was also using a certain Evil Technique. He used the villagers to absorb and filter Forbidden Knowledge.

He had essentially turned these hundreds of people into a human filter, making them bear the brunt of the Spiritual Contamination contained within the Forbidden Knowledge. This allowed him to safely enjoy the Forbidden Knowledge granted as a Blessing from that mysterious entity.

This explained why, when Lloyd had probed the villagers at the lumberyard, he’d found their inspiration was exceptionally high and they were all in a state of Moderate Madness, yet were still able to work normally.

They were already dead...

Such cruel and gruesome methods sickened Lloyd to his core. He didn’t want to look at the memories any further...

But he still hadn’t found any trace of the grave-digging father. Frowning, he forced himself to endure the disgust and keep watching.

In the end, he still found no clues about the father. The final Memory Segment he could access was from just a few hours prior, showing the supervisor consulting with one of his accomplices.

The topic of their discussion was how to deal with Lloyd and the other three.