"How dare you say such a thing!"
The young man preparing to drown himself was enraged by the youth's words from the shore.
His face, pale from the cold, flushed red as he scrambled up the gentle slope of the riverbank in just a few moves.
Old Kohler's eyes widened in shock.
How impressive! One sentence was all it took to get him back on shore.
"So what if I did?"
Silas, the youth sitting on the bank, asked dismissively. "Aren't you planning to die anyway?"
With that, he casually lifted his foot and kicked the young man back into the river just as he was about to climb out.
But he'd already made it up. Why kick him back in?
Old Kohler's mind filled with surprise and confusion as he watched the other man slowly walk down the slope toward the water's edge.
The young man thrashed violently in the water, trying to climb back out.
But Silas simply extended his foot and stepped on his head, forcibly pushing him underwater.
"Can a dead man take care of the living?"
Silas's cold question rang out mercilessly over the quiet river, accompanied by the violent splashing of water.
He would press down for a while, then release, forcing the young man to endure the agony of drowning over and over, occasionally allowing him a single breath of air.
All the while, he continued speaking:
"No matter how much your mother gets bullied or ends up homeless on the streets, what does it have to do with you?"
"You're already dead!"
"The moment you decided to die, you abandoned your family.
Now you suddenly remember and want to make things right? Too late!"
"Just die obediently."
Old Kohler was too horrified to speak.
He watched as Silas questioned and tormented the poor young man until the latter stopped struggling and slowly sank to the bottom of the Tussock River.
"You... you killed him!"
He said tremblingly.
Silas glanced at Old Kohler.
Without seeming to do anything, the drowned young man suddenly floated back to the surface, though he appeared completely lifeless.
Silas grabbed him by the collar, dragged him onto the shore, tore open his shirt, and thrust his hand directly into the man's abdomen!
"Cough, cough!"
The young man's eyes snapped open as he coughed violently, vomiting large quantities of water mixed with fresh blood.
He was forced to breathe.
A hand gripped his lung, forcibly making the fragile organ expand and contract, expelling river water and replacing it with cold, piercing air.
Extreme pain and the lingering terror of suffocation flooded his mind. He didn't even notice that his belly had been pierced.
Seeing that he'd recovered enough, Silas withdrew his hand. The man's abdomen was completely intact.
"Sob, sob..."
The young man coughed and wept. His pitiful state made even Old Kohler feel sympathetic.
Yet, despite crying so miserably, he no longer had any impulse to die.
After catching his breath, he sat dazed for a moment, then silently got up.
He exchanged a glance with Old Kohler before walking toward the far end of the smoke-filled street.
He shouldn't die now, right?
Old Kohler thought as he watched the man's retreating figure. Looking back toward the shore, the blue-eyed youth had vanished without a trace.
That young fellow really had a way with things, though his methods were a bit extreme.
Old Kohler recalled the intense scene from moments ago, feeling quite shaken.
Come to think of it, didn't his hand actually go inside that man's belly, squeezing his lung hard?
A cold, damp wind blew over. Old Kohler shivered and quickly wrapped his clothes tighter around himself.
Impossible. I must have seen it wrong.
Old Kohler decided not to dwell on the strange things he'd just witnessed. This was the East Borough.
If you didn't want to die mysteriously, you had to learn to turn a blind eye.
Better head to a nearby café and use what little pennies I have left to get some breakfast.
Lord of Storms, please let me find work this afternoon...
Old Kohler, only in his thirties or forties but looking much older, prayed as he lowered his head and walked into the acrid smoke.
The Shadow Ascetic potion had digested a bit more.
Walking back to his lodgings, Silas felt the changes within his body and was slightly puzzled.
I didn't really do anything. I just saved a troubled young man.
Today was the first morning after moving, and he'd originally planned to familiarize himself with the surrounding area.
He hadn't expected to encounter what just happened after only a brief walk.
Could those actions somehow align with the potion's name, causing digestion?
Regarding "shadow," it might be because my actions were relatively secretive, witnessed by very few people, fitting with the abilities of darkness.
As for "ascetic"... an ascetic is someone who studies divine knowledge, someone who also has the duty to spread the gospel.
If that's the case, then Shadow Ascetic might mean "spreading the gospel in secret"?
As for the gospel being spread... it's probably extreme, corrupting emotions.
Thinking back, everyone who witnessed his abilities received quite a shock.
They experienced fear, despair, pain, and other such emotions.
Silas suspected that if he directly converted them into believers of the True Creator, the potion might digest even faster.
Combined with the name of the next sequence, "Rose Bishop," Silas gradually gained a deeper understanding of this pathway.
This pathway is completely a cultist's rise through the ranks of an evil cult!
First, petition an evil god and establish contact.
Then listen for blessings, become a believer, and begin ascetic practice until achieving the position of bishop...
Somehow, it even feels a bit inspirational.
The buildings gradually emerged from the smoke as Silas returned to his rented apartment.
Pushing open the door, he immediately spotted his landlady, Emily.
She held a school bag and wore a veil hat, looking like she was about to head to school.
"Good morning. Off to school?"
"Yeah."
Emily replied. She glanced at the straitjacket Silas wore, hesitated, but couldn't suppress her curiosity.
"Do you have some kind of mental illness?"
"Nothing too serious, just schizophrenia."
Silas waved his hand dismissively.
He wasn't joking.
Severe visual and auditory hallucinations, other personalities in his mind... it all perfectly fit the definition of schizophrenia.
At the hospital, that's exactly how the doctor had diagnosed it. He could only hope that once the potion fully digested, this condition would improve.
"I see."
The landlady said.
She didn't seem very familiar with mental illness. "If you break something during an episode, as long as it's not too valuable, I won't ask you to pay for it."
"I appreciate your understanding."
Silas smiled.
Though he wasn't short on money, he still accepted her goodwill.
After spending this time together, he'd found the young girl to be quite decent.
In this chaotic East Borough, with her parents dead, she was still working hard to survive. According to his sister, the light in her bedroom had stayed on late into the night yesterday as she studied diligently.
It seemed she wanted to use education as her way out of the East Borough.
Silas didn't dislike people who worked hard to save themselves.
After saying goodbye to her in the hallway, Silas continued into the apartment.
He saw breakfast already set on the dining table in the living room, with his sister Cecilia waiting for him in the back.
"Welcome back, brother. How was it? Were the views outside nice?"
"Ugly as sin. Nothing like Tingen."
Silas smiled and sat down, picking up a slice of bread from the plate.
In truth, he now only needed to absorb large quantities of raw meat to sustain his life.
But he still felt that eating normally with his sister gave him a sense of ritual that helped stabilize his condition.
For this, he was willing to expend some spirituality and draw upon the illusory tide in his mind.
He'd pretty much figured out the acting principles of the Shadow Ascetic potion.
What he needed to do next was try to make contact with the Beyonder circles here while attempting to digest the potion and reduce his madness.