The Secret Code of Monsters.

Chapter 302 Ch.301 The Impaled Cultist

Helen Menzie.

It is impossible for a cultist who brought shame to the Holy Cross to be free from torture.

Besides, Roland 'cheated'.

He has a wrench.

"The Seventh Crown God: Hands of Dispute, Web of Shadows."

"The 'Iron Cavalry' that started the war, the 'Assassin' that manipulated the shadows..."

"Is it right?"

Roland turned slowly, his toes making a small pit in the soil.

The pierced middle-aged woman raised her head.

She had no teeth in her mouth, her cheeks were sunken, and she was looking at him quietly with her one eye.

"who are you?"

She asked.

"Hypocrite of the Holy Cross? No, that's not right. You don't belong to the 'Saints'..." She read quickly, her eyes moving across Roland: "'Thinker' or 'Craftsman'? No... You don't have the stench of those people..."

Her eyes became a little strange: "You are not the "Holy Flame" of the Forged Fire..."

"interesting."

"The monastery actually let in a ritualist who was not of the same path..."

"Ha ha ha ha…"

Roland couldn't help but frown at the crow-like laughter.

"I'm here with my friends."

"Friend?" Helen Menzi sneered, "You are a worldly-wise boy. You don't understand what kind of place this is..."

Roland blinked, raised his hand, and began to reflect light from the blade onto her one surviving eye.

Helen Menzi: …

"If I can still move, I'll peel your skin off."

Shine in the eyes.

"Stop."

Shine in the eyes.

Keep taking pictures.

“…Tell me what you want to know.” Someone compromised.

"My friend's going to be okay, right?"

"Of course not." Helen Menzi grinned, revealing her receding gums, with a malicious look on her face: "Did you pay attention to the keyhole when you opened the lock?"

she says.

Not a key.

The number above is the price to open the stone gate.

"Scars. Your friend will have to bear a corresponding number of scars as the price of opening the door."

she says.

'The pain of burning heart.'

'We give love to the flesh, and then take away the offspring of the soul.'

As Helen Menzi murmured, a few lines of small words appeared in Roland's eyes.

…………

……

"Name": Blazing Heart
Type: Great Ritual (Saint)

Description: Never ending, He says.

A special ritual unique to Holy Cross.

A ritual that requires extremely harsh conditions to work - note that within the scope of this ritual, the scars will become permanent scars.

Don't get hurt.

Get away from this ceremony as quickly as possible.

Or, find a way to ensure your death and commit suicide.

(You can't imagine the consequences of a failed suicide attempt.)
……

…………

Roland looked at the golden spears that pierced Helen Menzie, her empty eye sockets and the sores all over her body - it was hard to imagine how much pain this woman endured every day.

This is how monasteries and churches treat heretics differently from the Inquisition.

The former will bring long-lasting suffering to the sinner, while the latter is simpler and more direct.

"What number is recorded on my door?"

"two hundred."

Helen Menzi smiled sinisterly: "After you leave, you will be able to see your scarred friend."

Roland was not worried about Shandel.

Because it wasn't her who opened the door.

"My friend won't let anyone torture him."

"Torture?" Helen Menzi raised her head as much as she could. The light made her face look even paler, and strands of greasy black hair fell in front of her eyes, reminding Roland of the horror stories that Yam had told him when he was a child, which were specifically used to scare children.

"Where do you think this is?"

Roland: "Prison cell?"

"Outside is the cell, kid. This is their pious sanctuary, the core of the petri dish... The friend who brought you in must be extraordinary. Such a person is willing to bear 200 scars for you..."

"You may have misunderstood, ma'am. My friend is no longer in the convent. She has been transferred."

There was a pause in the sound.

The kneeling woman grinned and showed Roland some squirming juice sacs in her mouth: "Name. Tell me, what is it called."

"Kratov. She said you can answer my questions." Some invisible emotions melted on her face.

"Kratov... Shandel Kratov..."

She half-drooped her swollen eyelids and said, "Tell me why you're here."

"I have a magical item that can create a dream that belongs to me in the sleeping world. At the same time, I can also invite some 'guests' that I recognize."

"Ms. Menzi, I hope to form a secret society, a 'family' that can unite me and my friends closely - but Shandel thought that a sect was more appropriate and recommended you to me."

"Can I get any useful advice from you?"

After Roland finished speaking for a while, the air became slightly quiet.

Her breathing quickened several times, and suddenly she burst into an extremely hearty laugh, like a woman who finally gave birth after ten months of accumulation. All the suppressed and accumulated emotions finally poured out at a certain moment, so refreshing.

“Kratov…hahahahaha…”

The malice in the voice almost solidified into substance, piercing Roland's skin again and again.

"She actually went out..."

"sect…"

"Go out?" Roland didn't care about his own question: "You mean, Xiandel was also imprisoned?"

"Imprisoned?" Helen Menzi laughed at his naivety and ignorance: "Except for a small number of people, most of them came here voluntarily, Miss Vansittart, including your friend, Cinder Kratov."

Roland shook his head slowly. "This stinking prison, this ritual that makes wounds impossible to heal and causes eternal pain, this entire monastery—"

Helen Menzi stared into his golden eyes, which were brighter than the lamplight, as if she could see through the brain behind his eyeballs.

"This is the Promised Land, Vansittart, or whatever it's called."

She croaked:

"Only those who have the mercy of the Holy Father can be allowed to enter the world - and the 'prison' you mentioned is the starting point of glory: only those who pass the test can have an undefiled body and raise the scepter that symbolizes holiness..."

“This is where the Saint Girl ascends to the throne.”

"There are so many nuns who have come one after another, and the applications are piled up on the desk."

"Do you still think of it as a prison, Miss Vansittart?"

Although Roland didn't know how high the status of the "Saint" was.

But David Cromwell and his followers' attitude towards Shandel was obviously different from that towards Fernandez.

Like awe and respect from the soul.

The saint is even worse.

Roland rubbed his painful fingertips and still shook his head: "It's not a prison anymore."

He paused for a moment, and when Helen Menzi made a listening gesture, he continued: "This is more like the hell in the Book of Eden."

Helen Menzi laughed again: "You're right, I kind of like you, Vansittart..."

She seemed to have squeezed the squirming sac in her mouth, and some green juice flowed down her lips to her chin, dripping and making holes in the mud.

"…They say that Shandel Kratov was not devout enough to complete the Path of the Burning Heart. I think she has realized that she can't find what she really wants here…"

Roland's pale face was reflected in his sleepy single eye:
"You do need a sect, Vansittart."

"I see indifference and patience in your eyes."

"I saw a painful past, a boy holding a cross and committing cruel crimes."

"I see your anxiety, your wavering thoughts..."

"An almost insane soul..."

"You are not afraid of death, but you are afraid of other people dying..."

Her captivating eyes seemed to be able to see through a person's memory and soul.

At this moment, the imprisoned cultist who had lured and killed dozens of ritualists finally showed his ferocious fangs.

Roland subconsciously closed his eyes, trying to stop her from continuing to "read" him.

Maybe it was the lights, or maybe it was some past that was too painful to look back on that was brought up again.

The palm of his hand holding the dagger was wet with sweat.

"Look, you are like a fragile lamb in front of me, a lamb that has not grown up and has never left the pen..."

More ridicule, apparently the 'reading' does not come from the eyes.

"You put other people's lives before your own..."

"But it made my good neighbor, Shandel Kratov, speak..."

"Compared to those bastards, you are much more interesting."

When Roland opened his eyes again, the expression on his face slowly calmed down like ripples on water.

Raise your arms.

Adjusting the aim of the dagger: "I'm going to blind you."

"..."

The laughter stopped abruptly.

Helen Menzi looked surprised: "...I am beginning to wonder which path you are on."

Since she possessed some unknown special skills, she could obviously see that the path Roland was taking was gradually devouring his "humanity" - not the kind of humanity that would turn him into a beast without his humanity.

It is a peculiar "weight" that the world gives to everyone.

Every mortal, even a homeless person, possesses a significant amount of 'weight' - a weight that keeps one firmly grounded in the waking world.

And this thing was gradually slipping away from him.

Like an inverted hourglass.

Very slowly, but they gradually flow away one by one.

The further he went, the more he floated.

interesting.

"Let's make a deal, Miss Vansittart."

“A real deal.”

(End of this chapter)