13 Mink Street

Chapter 141: Wellspring Of Sin

At this moment, Mr. Pavaro gave off a somewhat holy aura. It was a sanctity that had nothing to do with any god. In Karon’s eyes, to forcefully link Mr. Pavaro to a god would be to flatter that god and sully the man.

Even Pu’er, seated on Kevin’s back, was staring at Mr. Pavaro with her full attention.

The man was not about to die, nor was he dead. He had already died once, and at this moment, he was on the verge of vanishing completely. Even under that premise, he still held fast to the creed and rules he held in his heart. Pu’er was beginning to understand why, after awakening Mr. Pavaro, Karon always addressed him in a respectful manner.

After Mr. Pavaro finished speaking, his whole body seemed to grow much more bent and stooped. The light visibly dimmed in his eyes and the spirituality within his body, which had been enduring since he ahd first been awakened, had clearly just entered a period of decline.

At that moment, Little John, who had been trailing behind with his arms still wrapped around himself, slowly lifted his head. His eyes had turned white, and the air around him grew cold. “What a nauseating display of hypocrisy, and such absurd words.”

Everyone turned to look at Little John, including Alfred, who stood beside the sliding door to keep an eye on things outside.

The child raised a hand to point at Mr. Pavaro, and then pointed down at the “pigpen,” and laughed. “Do you see? This is the miracle fashioned by the church you believe in. How very real! Real enough to etch itself into memory!”

Karon stared at Little John and asked, “Who are you?”

“Who am I?” Little John pointed at his own face and smiled. “You brought him here because you wanted to speak with me, didn’t you?”

Karon shook his head. “I brought him because he has nowhere to go right now.”

“He is the first one I corrupted. His aura and his body are the most suitable to temporarily house my will, and you actually dare to say you did not arrange for this? I’ve already appeared to you, and you have already seen me. I don’t want to argue uselessly here or make myself the same as him.” Little John pointed at Mr. Pavaro again.

“All right.” Karon nodded. “I did bring him because I wanted to speak with you. So now, can you tell me who the target I arranged to speak with, namely you, actually is?”

A vicious expression appeared on Little John’s face. He spread his hands open, and a piercing shriek ripped from his throat. In an instant, a sound so sharp it could pierce the soul expanded outward.

The golden retriever’s ears laid flat along his head, and on his back, Pu’er also flattened her ears. However, both the cat and the dog appeared to be calm.

They might be afraid of having a fork thrown at them, but they did not fear this supposed attack on the soul, as both of them possessed souls of a high rank.

Mr. Pavaro no longer had a soul. His current existence was the effect of the residual spirituality left in his corpse, so he also stood unmoved.

Alfred, who was walking over, merely frowned. By the churches’ classification of demonkin, he was considered to be a mental type, and he had strong resistance to such attacks.

In the end, the only one who truly needed to face and endure this assault was Karon. He felt a wave of vertigo. The world spun around him violently, but he adapted quickly. He might not possess Alfred’s immunity, but Karon had long since become accustomed to this kind of pain that targeted his brain. He even felt that the assault coming from Little John at this moment was not as painful as when he had been practicing the Spear of Punishment at Allen Manor.

That practice proved that calluses were not only things formed on one’s hand through constant labor, but the mind and soul could do the same.

Little John was startled at the discovery that his assault could not bring down anyone present, not even a cat or dog.

“How dare you!” Alfred stomped forward, but Karon raised a hand, signaling for the demonkin to stop.

Sensing Alfred arrive behind him, Little John lowered his hands and stopped the assault.

“Young Master—”

“Go watch outside. He’s not dangerous.”

“Yes, Young Master.” Alfred returned to the sliding door and resumed standing guard on the situation outside.

Karon observed Little John and asked again, very seriously, “Who are you?”

Little John lifted his head back, mouth open, making a continuous “uh...” sound. His body trembled slightly as he gaped.

A moment later, Little John lowered his head and said in a deep voice, “I reviewed his memories of you again.”

“Oh?”

“His memories tell me you arranged everything long ago.”

“Children look at things in a one sided, extreme way. You can’t take that seriously. I truly don’t know who you are.”

“I still don’t believe you.”

“Woof.” The golden retriever suddenly let out a single bark, then turned his head to look at Pu’er on his back. The cat puffed up in anger and smacked the stupid dog’s head hard with a paw.

Seeing this, Karon looked back at Little John and asked, “Are you a holy relic?”

The child stared at Karon with absolute seriousness, because there was no need for this party to continue to pretend to be so ignorant. “So you really do not know who I am?”

“Yes.”

“Then what are you doing here!”

Karon pointed down at the pigpen behind him and answered, “I came to resolve this matter.”

“You don’t even know who I am, and yet you still came to resolve this matter?”

“I have a rough guess. That Expositor isn’t participating because of some Bloodspirit Powder; He’s here to raise something through sacrifices. That something is you, most likely. You are that holy relic, aren’t you?”

After being awakened, Mr. Pavaro had already told Karon that when he realized an Expositor was actually standing behind what was happening, Karon had immediately understood that the true goal was not only to produce Bloodspirit Powder.

“And then?” Little John asked.

“There is no ‘and then.’” Karon shrugged. “I didn’t come for you; I came to save the people below.”

“They no longer need you to save them. After taking that forbidden drug, their lives have already entered a countdown. Ha! After being dragged down here, their only fate is to die while being tormented and suffering, and then have their inner resentment squeezed out to provide nourishment. Oh, and during the process, their bodies bleed heavily, and it seems that even that is taken as materials. So you don’t need to save them. It is meaningless.”

“No, it has meaning. At the very least, no one will be sent here again in the future,” Karon said.

“Hahaha...” Little John laughed. “Are you claiming to have as noble a character as him?”

Karon glanced at Mr. Pavaro, but shook his head and said, “No. I’m not as noble as he is.”

At this moment, Pu’er patted the golden retriever’s neck again and let out a soft mew. The dog then immediately turned around and carried Pu’er off of the raised platform.

“There is a large ritual array around the outside of this place.”

“We know.”

“But do you know that here inside there is actually a more refined surveillance ritual array?”

“That, we did not.”

“If I hadn’t helped you to block that ritual array’s surveillance of your entry, the Divine Servants responsible for watching it would have already raised the alarm.”

“Mhmm, all right. Thanks.” Karon immediately called Alfred over from where he had been guarding the sliding door. “You don’t need to stand guard over there. Someone is already keeping watch for us. Go ahead and do your task.”

“Understood, Young Master.” Alfred turned and walked over, casting a wary glance at Little John before running down in the same direction Kevin and Pu’er had gone.

On the platform, only Karon, Mr. Pavaro, and Little John remained.

“My intuition tells me you are not very strong,” Little John said. “I don’t know why I can’t see through you, but if you were truly strong enough, you wouldn’t need to sneak in.”

“You’re right,” Karon agreed again.

Little John wanted to speak, but stopped. More precisely, each time Karon gave such a simple reply, Little John did not know how to continue.

“What are they doing down there?” Mr. Pavaro asked Karon.

Down below, Kevin was constantly sniffing all over the floor as Alfred took out ritual array materials from his pockets and followed behind the cat and dog, making preparations.

“Earlier, you kept asking me what I would do after finding this place. This is my answer.”

“I don’t quite understand.” Mr. Pavaro looked at Little John, and, after confirming that the child posed no threat to Karon, asked, “Then should I go down and take a look as well?”

“Of course. I’ll help you down.”

“No, no need. I will walk slowly. You stay here and speak with this- with him.”

“Mr. Pavaro,” Karon called out.

“Hm?”

“You may watch, but you cannot stop them.”

“Of course. I am already dead. What could a dead man stop? Besides, I have no right to stop anything.” After saying this, Mr. Pavaro staggered down the steps.

At this point, the entire platform was occupied by only Karon and Little John. The boy raised both hands, opened his mouth, and screamed again. “Ah!!!!!!!”

However, this time there was no soul assault. He simply wanted to scream, purely to vent emotion. At last, he finished screaming.

“Oh, I suppose you thought we came for you, right?”

Little John did not answer.

“So when you finally realized that you are not our target, you felt disappointed?”

Little John still did not answer.

“I am sorry to disappoint you.” Karon nodded at Little John, then simply turned his back to him and sat down on the platform to watch Kevin, Pu’er, and the others busying themselves down below.

As he sat down, footsteps could be heard behind Karon.

Then a pair of small hands touched his back and slowly moved toward his neck.

“Sit.”

“Why aren’t you afraid of me?”

“Because you seem like you are not very capable.” The power that Little John had revealed while possessed was only a bit stronger than the child normally had. Even the opening scream had only caught them off guard at first, but they had adapted quickly. It was nothing serious.

“I really don’t like speaking with you. Truly. Speaking with them makes me feel pleased, but talking to you makes the anger inside me surge again and again until I can’t hold it down.”

“You might not believe it, but I make my living by keeping people company and talking to them.” Karon patted the space beside him again, signaling him to sit.

Little John hesitated for a moment, but eventually sat down beside Karon.

“Why aren’t you afraid of me? No, it’s not just you, but all of them as well.” Little John pointed down at Pu’er and the others. “None of you are afraid of me.”

“I already told you why.”

“But I don’t like that reason.”

“All right. It’s because that isn’t the only reason. More importantly, the moment you appeared, you scolded Mr. Pavaro, that gentleman.”

“The one without a soul?”

“Yes.”

“Why does scolding him make you unafraid of me?”

“Because you were right, and most importantly, what you said has already revealed your stance.”

“My stance...?”

Karon pointed at the people lying in the pigpens below. “You pity them. You are angry for them.”

“I—”

“You declared your stance from the beginning, and our stance aligns with yours.”

“I feel... That’s strange.”

“There’s nothing strange about it. I’m not interested in you. While I believe that a holy relic raised by an Expositor in this way must be powerful or have some sort of inconceivable ability, if I wanted to steal a holy relic, I would never have come here.”

“Why not?”

“Because this is too dangerous. Risking my life isn’t worth it for a holy relic.”

“And it’s worth risking it for them?”

“That isn’t worth it either.” Karon shook his head. “If I don’t know them, or if I only heard about them while walking down the road, I might pretend I didn’t hear anything, or I might deliberately treat it as an unreliable rumor and do my best to ignore it.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“Some things aren’t about being worthwhile or not, but about running into them and not being able to bear escaping.”

“I still don’t like speaking with you.” Little John shook his head. “But if you can grant them release, I would be happy to see that.”

“Don’t they exist to nourish you?”

“Yes. Without them, I could not have been born.”

So they are raising a holy relic’s spirit.

“The one who buried me here hoped to use them to give birth to me, cultivate me, and help me to mature.”

“You will soon lose this soil for growth. Don’t you resent that?”

“Look at them. They call them pigs in a pigpen. You call them soil. But in my eyes, they, batch after batch that arrives, batch after batch that dies, they are the family who raised me.”

“I understand.” He truly did not expect that in this place, a holy relic spirit brought into existence through such cruel methods could give birth to such simple intelligence.

“This is the second time I’ve possessed him,” Little John continued. “The first time, I had only just learned to walk. Apart from that old grandfather who always wears dark red divine robes, no one else was able to see me. I was lonely, and had just learned to walk. I was lonely, and then I saw him. He was even smaller than he is now, and I wanted to play with him, but we only played for a little while. Then his father took him away. I couldn’t leave this place, so I could only separate from him.”

That’s how Little John was corrupted.

“Later, after he discovered I could walk, that old grandfather placed another seal on me. After that, every half year, based on my growth, he’s imposes a new seal.”

“You don’t hate him?”

“Without him, I could not have been born, so I treat him as family.”

“Oh.”

Little John pointed at the pigpen below. “It’s a beautiful wish. Do you know, every time I chat with them in dreams, after our chat ends, they all ask me for the same thing?”

“What’s that?”

“They ask me to kill them. So I hope that one day, he will meet the same end as my family.”

Karon fell silent.

“It is hard to do, right? I know his identity. I once corrupted several Divine Servants and read their memories, so I also know their faith, heh, faith. Their faith, like that soulless man below, is in the God of Order.”

“It’s not the same,” Karon quickly corrected the boy. “They have faith in the God of Order, while that gentleman’s faith is in Order.”

“Is there a difference?”

“Yes.”

“I have always been curious. Since reading their memories, I’ve always been curious why someone who does this can still have faith, and why he can even become so powerful. It completely contradicts the Code of Order and the Light of Order I saw in their memories.”

“This place is called Veyn, which is a country. When this country’s civil servants take office, they all swear to uphold its constitution. That doesn’t prevent some of them from becoming corrupt, trying to climb higher and higher or gain more and more authority. No matter how much they embezzle or neglect their duties in private, they can still, when facing their voters, put on a ‘performance” of being clean and upright.” Most importantly, Karon remembered that time he had seen the God of Order, and how that god responded to His believers by scattering starlight in a numb, almost mechanical way.

“I like your explanation,” Little John looked at Karon. “So I will answer a question of yours as well.”

“My first question.”

“You already know that I am a holy relic.”

“Be specific.”

“I... am a copper coin.”

“A Lacresis copper coin? You are a Wellspring of Sin?”

A scene instantly appeared in Karon’s mind of Ron clutching a copper coin, drooling as he shouted, “My money... my money... my money...”

“I am surprised you know about it.”

“You’re a replica of the Lacresis copper coins?”

“In theory, I have eight brothers, or sisters.”

“So you are an authentic one?”

“I need to tell you some unfortunate news.”

“Sorry, my wording was offensive. I should not have called you authentic.”

“While I am indeed uncomfortable with that word, that isn’t what I want to tell you.”

“Then what is it?”

Little John stood up and faced the sliding door. “I can sense that Grandfather has returned.”

***

The Lacresis copper coins: the true god Lacresis ordered His believers to gather the Wellspring of Sin from across the world, smelting it into nine copper coins that were then sealed inside a bronze coffin together with His own corpse.