"You…betrayed the Faith!" A Spirit shouted in rage as his neck was squashed by Vhiny. As blood dripped down had tattered exoskeleton, Vhiny groaned in exhaustion, having been fighting nonstop all along.
"You should rest a little." Stunra said in worry, "You've been fighting nonstop for a week."
"I have to vent my frustration. Otherwise, I might go mad!" Vhiny whined. More than twenty Hhoka took off to the skies in response to her shout. All of them were elites among Hhokas, created solely using the bodies of Spirits as fuel to lay down her eggs.
"We've pretty much killed all the devoted Spirits. The remaining ones are just like us. They decided to defect to the Fear Path." Stunra sighed as she looked around, "Let's focus on our search."
"It's frustrating!" Vhiny clenched her hand into a fist tightly, "The corpse is nowhere to be found. We can't even sense a trace of it."
"How can something vanish into thin air?" She wasn't smart enough to determine an answer to such a riddle.
"There are two possibilities," Stunra said after consideration, "The first possibility is of Lady Vonne capturing Iota. Naturally, the Fisherman Devil's corpse would fall under her custody."
"What's the second?" Vhiny asked.
"Iota isn't in the city," She said in all seriousness, "He might have fled to the wilderness."
"That's just suicide!" Vhiny shouted, "In the wilderness surrounding our city lies the habitat of the Kjallar. Most of them are just one-armed Kjallars, but if your luck is horrible, you'll even encounter a two-armed Kjallar."
"That's an entity stronger than Keyn. And it's not even the most terrifying Rave Beast out there."
"I know, but that's the only other option…" Stunra said when she paused, feeling like she was missing something. "Wait, something doesn't add up."
"What doesn't?" Vhiny was confused.
Stunra stared at Nedy, "Remember the information you found through Ray Tracing?"
"Yes," Nedy nodded.
"Iota knocked her unconscious and left. But, we came within an hour since that." Stunra then asked Nedy, "What were you doing before that?"
"I was…absorbing the lifeforce of a person," Nedy said, blushing a little in response.
"Yes, and your boat was quite close to the Sect." Stunra said, pointing at themselves, "A Hhoka had latched onto your boat all along. Moreover, the two of us were roaming the area in search of clues to the Fisherman Devil."
"That means…" Nedy's eyes lit up as she muttered, "There's only one way to enter and leave the Sect. If Iota escaped during that window, we would have noticed him. The Sect's entrance was within the range of my senses."
"But, it doesn't make sense." Nedy frowned when suddenly, she stared at Stunra, "Impossible!"
"We were fooled due to our misconceptions." Stunra stated in a hurry, "We left the Sect since we couldn't sense the Fisherman Devil's corpse there. But what if…"
"Iota never left the Sect."
Vhiny realised a step later as she carried the two women and rushed towards the Sect, voicing her doubts, "I have left two Hhoka at the entrance. They never left their station. Had they felt the Fisherman Devil's Fear, they would have alerted me already."
"Maybe there's another hidden treasury in the Sect." Stunra said, "It's a classified area in the city. And now that we know the Sect was operating under father's orders, it won't be a surprise if they have another hidden treasury. Maybe the Fisherman Devil's corpse was there all along and the broken container we saw was just to fool our senses."
After an hour of travel, the trio arrived at the tunnel leading into the Sect, halting in alarm upon noticing the two Hhoka sprawled on the ground, sedated. Vhiny reacted at their state and leaped forth, exuding her anger.
But a moment later, she prostrated on the ground submissively, her body trembling faintly as she stuttered, "L-Lady Vonne, I didn't see you here."
"My patience is waning," Lady Vonne said as she calmly turned around to stare at the trio. Even though she hadn't done anything, the trio instinctively kneeled in fear. Her gaze alternated between Vhiny and Nedy before eventually focusing on Stunra, noticing that she was still a normal human, "Is this entertaining?"
"Why are you still a human?"
"I…" Stunra felt like she was grasping at straws, unable to think as the sense of fear continue to grow in her. Alarms rang in her head as she wished to flee. Unfortunately, her body refused to cooperate, 'S-She's pissed!'
When she was a Spirit, Stunra wasn't afraid of Lady Vonne. Even though the latter was far stronger than her, she was still a strong Spirit of the Faith Path. Moreover, she was in Garobu City where the Garobu Faith was strong, allowing her to recover her Faith simply by will.
It was in contrast to Lady Vonne who couldn't recover her expended Fear. As a result, Stunra didn't feel inferior. But that was back when she was a Spirit.
To protect Vhiny, she killed Knass Garobu and as a result, lost her qualifications to be a Spirit. Now, she was just a normal human, unable to even endure Lady Vonne's gaze.
"Look up," Lady Vonne still spoke in her calm voice.
"Yes…" Stunra looked up in response when suddenly, Lady Vonne pulled her lower jaw open and stuffed a ruby inside, "Aargh!"
"Don't worry, I already made it consume the Faith of three Spirits," Lady Vonne revealed a smile, "Now, it only needs to hatch in your stomach. You'll receive the same powers as Vhiny."
"But…" Stunra resisted as the ruby hatched in her stomach and began to transform her body, causing her to feel an intense sense of hunger.
"Since you failed to obtain the Fisherman Devil's corpse, I am giving you some fighting strength first." Lady Vonne then motioned for Stunra to get up, "The three of you, follow me."
"Ah, also…" She suddenly paused and turned around, staring at a location two hundred metres away, at a small bush there, "The two flies there, come out."
A Hhoka, thrice the size of what Vhiny controlled flew out of the canal water and trimmed the bush in a matter of seconds, eliciting painful screams from inside as it then bit onto two men and dragged them to Lady Vonne.
Their limbs had been severed as Lady Vonne stared at their bloody selves, not even the least bothered. Her focus then fell on the severed hand brought by her Hhoka. Held securely by it was a syringe.
"Canl…Menl…?" Nedy stared at the bloody duo in surprise, "The two of you were alive?"