"Crunch... crunch..."
The sound of bones being chewed echoed in the room.
Illumi looked at Gluttony with a grim expression. A grotesque maw had appeared on his belly, filled with razor-sharp teeth like a chainsaw, ceaselessly chewing on the policeman's severed torso.
The crunching of bones continuously resounded from his "mouth," and fresh blood splattered from it.
"You are not allowed to eat people without my permission."
"But, I'm so hungry..."
Gluttony bit his finger, his expression innocent, as if he had been wronged.
"Heh heh, I'm actually starting to look at him with new eyes."
Greed chuckled sinisterly, taking a deep look at Gluttony.
Illumi no longer paid attention to Gluttony. He lifted his leg and stepped over the threshold. Greed followed closely behind.
Seeing Illumi about to leave, Gluttony quickly swallowed the remaining half of the body and followed.
"Hey, why did the forensic examiner leave by himself?"
Detectives Seto and Sumner, who had just finished questioning the surrounding neighbors, returned just in time to see Illumi get into a car and leave.
"Sorry, I'm late."
A middle-aged man in a suit and glasses hurried over to the two, apologizing.
"Who are you?"
Sumner looked at the middle-aged man who had inexplicably appeared before them and asked.
"I am the forensic examiner. Heavy rain combined with rush hour traffic, I'm late."
The forensic examiner shrugged, looked up at the sky, his expression saying, I didn't want this either.
"You're the forensic examiner, so that person just now was..."
Sumner's mouth hung open. He pointed at the forensic examiner in front of him, then pointed at the road where even the car's shadow was no longer visible.
"Go check the corpse quickly!"
Seto immediately reacted, rushing into the room and instantly seeing the blood splattered on the floor and walls.
"Something's happened!"
Sumner and Seto's faces darkened. They immediately went upstairs to the room where the corpse had been found.
"Nothing unusual found."
Sumner carefully examined it and then looked at Seto.
"Something must be different. Send the body for autopsy and identification."
Seto also inspected it for a while, but ultimately decided to wait for the autopsy results.
"Pull up the nearby surveillance. That forensic examiner and that police officer are both problematic."
Seto's face was grim. Since he entered the police force, this was the first time someone had acted under his nose, and a police officer had even gone missing.
An hour later, the autopsy room.
"Splash..."
A large bucket of water was poured over the pale corpse, washing away some of the blood from its skin.
"He's been dead for a long time, and he wasn't poisoned."
The coroner took off his mask, washed his hands, and said to Seto and Sumner, who had just entered.
"My God, how did he do this to himself?"
Detective Sumner circled the corpse on the autopsy table, disgusted.
"It took four attendants just to lift him onto the autopsy table. This guy is ridiculously heavy," the coroner spread his hands.
"How did he get out if he's that fat?" Sumner shook his head. It was his first time seeing such an obese person.
"Clearly, he's been kept indoors," Seto interjected. He didn't believe this person could still walk freely.
At this moment, the coroner lifted a bloody, basketball-sized object, resembling some kind of organ, from the autopsy table.
"Guess what this is?"
The coroner even deliberately bounced it, indicating that the object was very heavy.
"You're not going to tell me that's a human stomach, are you?"
Sumner's mouth twitched. This stomach was almost bigger than a basketball.
"This is his stomach. I swear this is the largest human stomach I've seen in my twenty years in this line of work."
"And what's strange is that his stomach was also ruptured."
The coroner put the stomach down, walked around to the direction of the corpse's anus, and, wearing gloves, pried open the corpse's anus and said,
"Look here, look at his anus. It's almost ruptured from being distended with food."
The coroner pulled at the corpse's anus, making Seto and Sumner disgusted, and they quickly stopped him.
"Alright, alright, we see."
The coroner nodded, then again pulled open the corpse's abdomen, allowing the two to see the situation inside.
"His duodenum is greatly distended, and its inner wall is ruptured."
The two stood in front of the autopsy table, watching the coroner pull at the intestines inside the abdomen.
"Did he eat himself to death?"
"Not entirely. He had severe internal bleeding, and hematomas in both his rectus abdominis and obliques."
"So, he ate himself to death?"
"Not entirely."
The coroner spread his hands, moving slightly aside to let the two detectives observe carefully themselves.
"What about these abrasions on the corpse?"
Detective Seto pointed to the wounds on the corpse's head. The coroner forced a smile and said,
"I haven't examined that part yet."
While the two were talking, Sumner bent down and carefully examined the bloodstains on the back of the corpse's head. He even used an autopsy knife to scrape away the surrounding hair.
"Hey, these aren't abrasions."
"It looks like someone pressed a gun to the back of his head and lifted it."
Sumner said, looking at the bloodstains.
"Only if it's pressed hard enough will it look like this," Seto interjected.
Sumner said nothing. He took out his phone, turned on the flashlight function, shined it on the back of the corpse's head, and took a picture with a click.
"Taking pictures for commemoration, putting them in a notebook, planning to write an autobiography later?"
Seto watched his actions and joked.
"Perhaps you'll see my book in a best-selling magazine."
Sumner raised his hand and put away his phone.
"Oh, right."
Suddenly, the coroner, from somewhere, produced a glass bottle, the kind for medicine, and placed it in front of the two.
"Found in the deceased's stomach."
Sumner picked up the glass bottle, looked at the label and the contents inside, and gently shook it. A "rustling" sound came from within.
"Mixed in with the food, it looks like small pieces of..."
"Plastic!"
Seto interjected, taking the glass bottle from Sumner's hand and holding it up to his eyes for a careful look.
"Someone forced him to eat these things."
"Could it be related to the forensic examiner who made the police officer disappear?"
Sumner asked. He still remembered that police officer well; he had even given him two cups of coffee. He was deeply impressed.
"No, not necessarily," Seto shook his head.
"The killer's modus operandi is very unique. He won't return to the scene to check the situation like ordinary criminals."
"That forensic examiner and the killer are definitely two different people."
"But since he appeared at the scene, that means there must be some connection between the forensic examiner and the killer."
Seto judged. Having been a police officer for over twenty years, he had extensively studied the psychology of various killers and criminals, and could uncover the truth of a matter through clues.
Coronel City Police Department, Chief's Office.
"OK, let's summarize."
Sumner sat at the chief's desk, flipping through his case notes. He looked at the chief and Seto, then lowered his head to his notebook and said,
"The killer placed a bucket under him, forcing the victim to keep eating, slowly making him eat for a very long time."
"The coroner said he had been eating for over twelve hours."
"The victim's throat was swollen, also due to eating."
"Then at some point, the victim passed out, so the killer kicked him hard."
"And at that moment, the victim's belly burst."
"Damn sadist."
Sumner paused here, specifically adding a jab.
"Did someone have a grudge against this fat man, so they decided to torment him in this way?"
The chief took the victim's photo handed to him by Sumner and frowned.
"No, it's not that simple."
Seto sat on an office chair, his left arm resting on the desk, and said with a grimace.
"When you want someone dead, you just shoot them directly."
"You wouldn't waste so much time doing something like this. The killer must have some deeper meaning behind this."
Hearing this, the chief and Sumner exchanged glances. Sumner shrugged, and the chief motioned for Seto to continue.
"We found two receipts in a grocery bag."
"Meaning the killer stopped once during the process, and then went to the supermarket again."
"This isn't the end, this is just the beginning."
"Wait, are you saying this case will escalate into a serial murder case?"
The chief closed his eyes, rubbing his temples with his index fingers, looking as if he had a headache.
"Please, this is just an ordinary case. No need to overcomplicate it."
Seto and Sumner looked at each other. Seto stood up and walked out, and Sumner also picked up his notebook from the chief's desk.
"The killer's motive is unclear. Continued investigation might uncover a lot of things."
Seto said this before leaving the chief's office.
The next day, eight in the morning, crime scene.
"Rip..."
Seto grabbed the police tape on the door and tore it off, then pushed the door open and entered.
"What are we doing back here?"
Sumner followed behind him and asked.
"Looking for clues."
"You have a clue?"
Seto no longer answered. He took out his powerful flashlight, shined it into the gloomy room, and climbed the stairs to the second floor, arriving at the room where the deceased was found.
"Clap!"
He took out the glass bottle the coroner had given them from his pocket and slammed it onto the table. He held the flashlight in one hand, shining it on the table, and used the other hand to slowly slide the top of the bottle across the table.
"Hey, can you tell me what exactly you're doing?"
Sumner couldn't hold back anymore and asked again.
"Don't rush."
Seto, however, was unusually calm. He held the glass bottle in his hand, his flashlight shining on the table, then on the shelves, then on the refrigerator, and then on the floor.
"Found it."
Seto suddenly crouched down, extending his left hand. His index and middle fingers touched a scratch on the floor.
"What's this, made by a dog?"
Sumner also noticed. There were many scratches on the floor, not looking like they were made by a tool, but rather by some animal's claws.
"This was scratched by human fingernails."
Seto said. At the same time, he twisted open the glass bottle cap, poured out the contents, picked up a plastic-like object, and placed it on the scratch.
"The bottle contained not plastic, but wood chips scratched from the floor?"
Seeing the wood chips perfectly fit into the scratches, Sumner realized that it wasn't plastic at all, but wood chips.
"Damn it, to gouge that out with human fingernails, that must hurt so much."
"That's not the point. Stand up and look."
After Seto put all the wood chips back, the two stood up and looked at the scratches on the floor.
"My God."
The two saw a line of letters formed by the scratches on the floor. Sumner couldn't help but be shocked.
GLUTTONY!
Gluttony!
"Rumble~"
The sky ahead was pitch black. Large masses of dark clouds completely obscured the sky. The sky was so low it seemed to press down on their heads.
Clouds rolled, and silver lightning danced wildly.
"Swish... swish..."
Raindrops fell on the dry leaves on the ground, making a subtle sound.
This was on the outskirts of Coronel City, a village called Ganem.
"Tap... tap..."
A slow cadence of footsteps sounded. Illumi, Greed, and Gluttony slowly entered the village.
"I've seen it. That peculiar emotion."
Greed's tone was arrogant. His right eye was blood-red, and the rattlesnake mark appeared.
"Mmm... is it delicious?"
Gluttony still looked like an imbecile, biting his finger, a trickle of drool at the corner of his mouth, constantly thinking about eating.
"Boom!"
Suddenly, the wind became fierce, and a crimson lightning bolt streaked across the sky.
The world suddenly brightened, followed by a thunderous explosion that shook the heavens and earth, and a torrential downpour began.
"Splash..."
Large raindrops fell on their bodies. The rain grew heavier and heavier, and the raindrops became denser and denser.
"Ahead is the objective of our trip."
Illumi stepped forward. In his eyes, a wisp of black negative emotion, transformed into aura, floated in the air.
Illumi and his two companions followed the black aura to an old, two-story house.
"Creak~"
With a harsh creaking sound of the door opening, Illumi and his two companions slowly stepped inside.
"Hmm?"
Upon entering, Illumi lowered his gaze, discovering that within the house, wisps of black aura densely permeated the entire space.
Like threads, they continuously tried to penetrate the skin and enter the body, giving one a strange sensation.
"This aura can also affect a person's mind."
Illumi frowned slightly. A faint aura emanated from his body, isolating the black aura.
These black auras were not malicious, but they could invade human bodies, thereby affecting their minds.
Illumi scanned the living room. It was a rectangular hall made of white stone from Oshi, just like his European-style hall in his previous life.
He stood at the main entrance of this rectangular hall. To the left upon entering were a sofa and a rectangular dining table.
The dining table was cluttered with various tableware, and the white tablecloth covering it was dull, old, and messy.
To the right was a white fireplace, its firewood long burned out, leaving behind a pile of cold charcoal.
"Upstairs."
Illumi looked up at the second floor. He could sense two emotions hidden on the second floor.
One faint, one solid.
"The path from hell is long and arduous; after leaving, light awaits."
"Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy, Pride, Lust, Wrath."
Illumi slowly stepped onto the second floor, his deep, magnetic voice echoing in the room.
"You, how far have you gone?"
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