novelraw Chapter 627: Analysis
Chapter 627: Analysis
Chapter 627: Analysis
The nine people stood on the hillside, sizing each other up.
Silence lasted a few seconds. Then the middle-aged male wizard in a deep blue robe spoke.
“It seems everyone chose this place.” His voice was calm as his gaze swept across their faces. “I didn’t expect quite so many people to pick here.”
“Because they probably chose more obvious targets,” another young female wizard interjected. Her voice carried a cold, analytical tone. “This point’s Strange is the slow-killing type, not the violent kind that destroys cities right away. Many people might think this ‘gentle’ Strange isn’t very valuable.”
“Value not high?” A burly male wizard scoffed. “Do we really judge the value of rule-based creatures by their killing speed?”
The young female wizard glanced at him but did not argue. She simply said indifferently, “I’m only analyzing other people’s psychology. It doesn’t represent my own view.”
Jie Ming stood at the edge of the group and did not rush to speak.
He noticed that the atmosphere among these wizards was not as tense as he had imagined. At the same time, it was not particularly warm either. It felt more like a group of temporarily assembled colleagues probing one another before officially starting work.
No fool had managed to secure a spot here. They all understood clearly that on this battlefield where output energy levels were restricted and large-scale destruction was forbidden, going solo was not necessarily the optimal solution. Especially when facing a Strange with unknown characteristics, one more person meant one more layer of insurance.
The middle-aged male wizard in the deep blue robe, whose spiritual power fluctuation was the strongest, seemed to have become the temporary leader.
He spoke again, “Since everyone is here, I suggest we first go find the administrative android and obtain firsthand intelligence before deciding on the next step. What do you all think?”
No one objected.
Nine figures rose from the small hill and flew toward the center of the town.
To avoid causing panic among ordinary people, they lowered their altitude before entering the airspace above the town, gliding close to the rooftops, and finally landed in front of a three-story stone building.
A wooden sign hung at the entrance: “Town Hall.”
An old man stood at the doorway.
Or rather, something that looked like an old man.
He was hunched over, wearing a gray coat that had been washed until it was faded. His face was covered in wrinkles, and his graying beard was neatly trimmed.
His eyes were amber-colored, exactly the same shade as the sky of this plane.
Everyone who had just familiarized themselves with the plane’s information knew this was the signature feature of an administrative android.
“Old Herman?” The male wizard in the deep blue robe stepped forward.
The old man bowed slightly, his movements carrying an old-fashioned politeness. “Indeed. You lords have finally arrived.”
His voice was hoarse, carrying a tone that was hard to tell whether it was exhaustion or helplessness.
“Let’s talk inside. It’s not convenient out here.”
The first floor of the town hall was a spacious conference room with more than a dozen chairs arranged on both sides of a long table.
The nine wizards took their seats. Old Herman stood at one end of the long table, hands resting on the surface, his amber eyes sweeping over everyone present.
“Let me first confirm the information you already know,” he said. “The report you saw on the magic network terminal was from three hours ago. In these three hours, two more people have died.”
The atmosphere in the conference room grew heavier.
“Same household?” Jie Ming asked.
Old Herman looked at him and nodded. “Yes. That finger appeared in the salt shaker of blacksmith Hans yesterday. Hans’s family of five ate dinner last night. Early this morning, Hans and his eldest son passed first. In the morning, his wife and youngest daughter followed. The youngest son is still struggling, but…” He shook his head and did not continue.
“Take us to see the bodies,” the young female wizard said as she stood up.
Old Herman glanced at her, said nothing more, and simply nodded before immediately turning to lead the way.
The basement of the town hall had been temporarily converted into a morgue.
Forty-nine corpses were neatly arranged on metal tables, each covered with a white cloth.
A strange smell permeated the basement. It did not smell like the stench of decay, but rather… a salty, fishy odor.
“Like the smell of a seaside drying yard for fish.”
Jie Ming lowered his gaze and thought silently to himself.
Old Herman lifted the white cloth from the nearest corpse.
Jie Ming and several wizards stepped forward.
The deceased was a middle-aged man. His body was severely swollen, his skin a semi-translucent pale white, as if it had been soaked in water for a long time. But what was more striking was the texture of the skin’s surface—there was an unnatural contraction and hardening between the muscle fibers, like salted meat.
“Has a more detailed autopsy not been performed?” the deep blue-robed male wizard asked.
“We don’t have the conditions for that here for now, and my soul does not carry the corresponding technical knowledge.”
Old Herman shook his head regretfully and looked up toward the earlier corpses.
“At this stage, relying on the basic anatomy knowledge loaded from the doctor’s side, we could only perform a preliminary examination. Anything more detailed is beyond our capability.”
Upon hearing this, Jie Ming did not hesitate.
He raised his hand. A wisp of extremely fine wind blade condensed at his fingertip and gently sliced along the deceased’s abdomen.
The skin parted.
The state of the subcutaneous tissue caused every wizard present to change expression.
In a normal person who had died not long ago, the subcutaneous fat should have been pale yellow and soft in texture.
But this corpse’s subcutaneous tissue was a grayish white, hard like wax.
Jie Ming did not stop. His wind blade continued deeper and cut open the kidney.
The kidney had already shrunk to nearly half its size. Its surface was wrinkled and shriveled, dark red turning black.
He used the tip of the wind blade to lift a small piece of tissue and examined it carefully before his eyes.
“Interesting. The sodium content inside this tissue is normal,” Jie Ming said. “But the state of the tissue truly looks as if it has been pickled. It seems the opponent’s method is not simply altering matter, but…”
He paused, searching for the right way to express it.
“…an alteration at the level of existence.”
The young female wizard also leaned in. She extended her right hand, a faint blue glow lighting up at her fingertip, and gently touched the kidney tissue.
After a few seconds, she withdrew her hand, her expression turning serious.
“My detection sorcery tells me that this person’s kidney has, on a ‘conceptual’ level, become salted meat.” Her tone was calm, but the content made everyone’s heart sink. “It was not actually pickled with salt, but redefined by some power as ‘what it should be.’ In that power’s cognition, this tissue was originally supposed to be salty, hard, and pickled.”
Silence fell in the basement for a few seconds.
The deep blue-robed male wizard took a deep breath. “So the food was the same. It wasn’t that too much salt was added, but that the food itself had become salty on a ‘conceptual’ level.”
“Correct,” the young female wizard nodded. “And it’s not just the body. Feel the soul remnants on these corpses.”
The other wizards instinctively extended their spiritual power to sense them.
Jie Ming’s spiritual power delved into the residual soul traces of the corpses. He felt an unprecedented “distortion.”
There was no fear or pain in the deceased’s soul fragments… or rather, those emotions had been completely overwritten by some power.
What covered them was a pure, “matter-of-course” “saltiness.”
It was like asking a piece of salted meat, “Do you feel salty?” The salted meat would not answer, because it simply was salty.
Saltiness was its essence, not its sensation.
Jie Ming withdrew his spiritual power and exchanged a glance with the other wizards.
At this moment, the nine people reached a consensus.
“This is not a curse,” another wizard said, his voice not loud but clear. “This is a redefinition of the concept of ‘salty.’ That finger is not poisoning the food, but rather saying… ‘You were salty to begin with.’”
The conference room fell quiet.
Old Herman stood to the side, his amber eyes watching these high-ranking wizards reach their conclusion. The corners of his mouth twitched slightly.
Then he turned and walked toward the staircase, leaving behind a single sentence.
“That finger is currently in blacksmith Hans’s salt shaker. If you lords are ready, I can lead the way.”