"From the looks of it, your descendants came to believe in some evil god, and cultivated a custom of blood sacrifice using living people."
Silas said, after inspecting the area.
According to the intelligence Klein had given him, Bansy had once had a custom of worshipping a "God of Weather," and there had also been incidents in the past of Loen soldiers who landed on the island vanishing into the fog, only to reappear as bare bones.
It was only after the Church of the Storm Lord replaced the local faith that this belief had seemingly disappeared.
Now it seemed it had only vanished on the surface.
Furthermore, according to the intelligence on the Red Priest card, Sequence 2 of the Hunter Pathway was called the "Weather Warlock," possessing the ability to create extreme weather.
Perhaps the truth of the matter was that someone among Medici's descendants had once been promoted to a Sequence 2 angel, but had come into conflict with the Storm Church during Loen's colonization and had ultimately been wiped out.
And his descendants had secretly kept up the worship of him in the shadows, all the way to this very day.
That was probably why the locals had a custom of never going out in strange weather... likely because that was when the blood sacrifices began, when living people would be seized at random.
Once Silas had worked all this out, he no longer felt any need to hold back with the man and woman before him.
They were madmen who used living people as sacrifices anyway, so it hardly mattered if they died to serve as a vessel for Medici's resurrection.
"Which one?"
He asked the red angel evil spirit within him.
"The woman. Her bloodline runs purer."
The woman?
A strange smile crept over Silas's face.
"Well, well. Both Elaine and Sophia, who provided you blood, are women, and now the vessel you've picked out is a woman too... Add the three together, and it seems you, my dear red angel, might just be resurrected in female form!"
"Hahahaha!"
"Hahaha!"
Two other voices burst into laughter at the same time, the evil spirits of Solen and Einhorn.
"Your foolishness is, frankly, a bit disappointing to me," Medici retorted, seizing the chance to mock Silas in turn. "The Hunter Pathway represents innate maleness. Even a woman would turn into a man!"
That wasn't necessarily true.
Silas thought of Trissy, who had retained her feminine features even after having her Beyonder characteristic extracted from her, and shook his head.
But he didn't say this aloud, only reached out his hand. Thick shadow welled up and swallowed the red-haired Pavo Kurt.
At the same moment, the red-haired woman standing right beside him was also brought under control, her eyes taking on a shimmering gold.
Hypnosis, from the Visionary Pathway.
When Silas withdrew the black shadow, the woman named Melanie Dimi, one of Medici's descendants, stood there in a daze, showing no intention whatsoever of resisting or fleeing.
"Whoosh..."
A fierce gale rose up inside the telegraph office. Silas gripped her and rose into the air, flying toward the peak at the island's center.
This strange mountain had no vegetation covering it at all. Following Medici's guidance, Silas made his way to the summit of the peak.
There stood an ancient stone altar.
The altar was circular overall, its cracks plainly visible, badly weathered, and still bore quite a few scorched marks of damage which, on closer inspection, looked as though they'd been caused by lightning strikes.
A dense white fog spread out beneath the altar, blanketing the entire island.
"Good, it hasn't been completely destroyed."
Medici seemed to let out a small sigh of relief.
His spirituality spread outward, pouring the vial of blood belonging to Elaine Solen into Melanie Dimi's mouth.
Her face immediately turned pale, her spirituality surging upward, forming some faint, intangible connection with the altar.
Beneath the peak, the thick fog suddenly began to behave strangely.
As though some storm were at work, the fog churned violently around the altar as its center, gathering together.
The entire base of the mountain peak was filled with howling currents of air, the dense white blocking out all sight.
"Crash!"
The altar suddenly stirred to life, splitting open along a crack, swallowing Melanie Dimi's body inside, then slowly closing back up.
At the very moment her body was swallowed, the fog abruptly vanished, as though it had never existed at all.
The whole island lay bathed in the afternoon sunlight, glittering brightly.
Looking out from a distance, the streets of the town had already returned to normal. People opened their doors and stepped outside as if nothing had happened, going about their usual business.
They showed not the slightest curiosity about the strange phenomenon that had just occurred, simply living their ordinary lives.
"That's it? It's over?"
Silas asked, almost without thinking.
"No choice, we're still missing the other portion of blood, so this can only be carried out halfway for now."
Medici said, "If you're willing to provide me with that blood as well, I promise I can show you something truly unforgettable..."
"I'll pass on that."
Silas refused at once.
With this, he had fulfilled the promise he'd made to Medici back then, and naturally had no reason to remain here any longer. It was time to leave Bansy Island and head for Loen...
Silas turned around, intending to summon his flagship and travel straight to his destination through the spirit world.
And that was when he saw the feathers.
At first it was beam after beam of light, coming from some unknown source, shining directly down onto the summit of the peak.
Within that light, layers of illusory, pristine wings gradually took shape.
Beneath the covering of those wings, a figure with long, silver-white hair emerged along with them, outlined into being within the empty air.
That figure knelt reverently on one knee, and only once it had fully descended did it rise to its feet and look over.
He wore a simple linen robe, his features handsome, his face gentle, meeting Silas's gaze with calm, quiet composure.
Silas knew him.
In the dream of the ruins of the God-warring, he had parted the sea with his mighty power. On the mural in the Forsaken Land of the Gods, he had led the faithful into the deep black earth.
In that age of glory, he had sung the praises of the Lord's radiance. In the dark epoch, he had gazed up at the blood-red cross.
Ouroboros.
This King of Angels of the Creator of old, now the favored one of a fallen evil god, had finally appeared before him for the first time.
Abrupt, dangerous, utterly without warning, extremely lethal.
"Antia..."
Silas cried out, his composure breaking.
And almost at the same instant, he drove the tide within him to its very limit, meaning to transform into a river of blood, releasing every single lamb he possessed all at once.
Standing before him now was a genuine, true King of Angels. He could not afford the slightest hint of false hope.
He had to resist with his strongest possible state, and perhaps then there would be a sliver of a chance at survival!
"Crash!"
Silas's body collapsed in an instant, transforming into a thick, crimson-red tide that surged across the peak. And atop that strange tide, the figures of numerous Beyonders were now surfacing!
Ouroboros watched him with calm, pristine eyes.
In the next moment, time abruptly ground to a halt.
He found it hard to put into words what kind of sensation this was. He watched, wide-eyed, as the river of blood on the ground flowed backward, gathering together once more, reassembling into his own body.
And the lambs, naturally, returned to within him along with it. The strongest ability he had seized the chance to unleash had, in this manner, been reversed, returned to its very starting state.
Silas understood: he was in grave danger!