The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 1014: Lu Li's Sacrifice

The crackling of dismembered bodies echoed like groans, their fires burning away the midday night.

A heretic led Lu Li into the square and bound him to a stone pillar covered in intricate runes and patterns.

The flames blazed. Professor Haig stepped onto the dais, standing before Lu Li with a short dagger wrapped in rags.

"Are you going to sacrifice me to an evil god?" Lu Li asked, his gaze fixed on Professor Haig's gentle smile.

"You don't seem surprised?"

Professor Haig saw his own reflection in those calm, dark eyes.

"I had my suspicions."

For instance, why was I left in a simple cell with no guards? And why did the heretic bow to us in the last dream?

"You trust others too easily," Professor Haig said. He turned Lu Li's head as a butcher would before the slaughter, exposing the soft flesh of his neck.

"Until my suspicions reach a certain threshold, I see no reason to alter my judgment."After all, Professor Haig's reverence had never seemed feigned, which made his betrayal all the more startling and incomprehensible.

The moment he finished speaking, a sharp pain lanced through the back of his neck. A warm, wet stream trickled down, flowing into the carved channels of the stone pillar at his back.

"You performed very well, Your Excellency Lu Li." Professor Haig tossed aside the bloodied dagger, his tone still laced with deference.

"Excellently, even... We had assumed it would take a great deal of time to complete the ritual's preliminary stages. My son, Sisoran, was merely the beginning of the plan. He was meant to feign conversion, lead us in an escape, and then, just as success seemed within our grasp, betray us all to be recaptured. After that, you were to escape again and rescue me, at which point it would have been my turn to betray you... But your remarkable performance has greatly accelerated the ritual's completion."

"It seems we were right not to get greedy and prolong the ritual," Professor Haig added as he prepared to step down from the altar.

"Otherwise, you might have uncovered the truth sooner and attempted to escape."

"Why?"

Professor Haig stopped.

"What do you mean?"

The wound refused to close. Blood trickled ceaselessly from the back of his neck, seeping into the carved grooves of the stone pillar.

"You're a professor at the Academy of Giant Trees. You've obtained everything others only dream of. Why would you join a secret cult dedicated to an evil god?"

"Or were you already one of them before you even became a professor at the Academy?"

From the blood loss, Lu Li's face began to pale, yet the calm composure never left him. It was as if he could escape his predicament at any given moment—

In truth, however, Lu Li had no way to break free, and no last-minute rescue was coming.

"No... Your Excellency Lu Li. I joined the Church of Equilibrium after becoming a professor at the Academy."

Professor Haig confessed the details of his betrayal without reservation.

"The Academy of Giant Trees is not as brilliant as it appears... Did you know that the junior course professors are considered 'expendable'? To protect the students, we are forbidden from touching or studying any mystical powers beyond pure knowledge. We are just... ordinary people."

We cannot leave the Crown Level. We cannot leave Midnicht. We cannot even have faith.

I call it... being a caged bird.

"Objectively speaking, the Academy was not wrong. We need protection, and the students need protection. But humans are born flawed. When we are hungry, we desire food. When we are full, we desire warmth. When we are warm, we desire safety. When we are safe, we desire connection... We attained connection, yet we craved more... wealth, long life, power... Our desires are a serpent that is never satisfied, and so we need faith to redeem our souls... That is when the Church of Equilibrium appeared. It helped me, and in doing so, it saved me."

"Do you want to know why I placed my faith in the Church of Equilibrium?"

Gazing at the weakening figure, at the head that was slowly beginning to slump forward, Professor Haig began to tell Lu Li the last story he would ever hear.

Professor Haig was exceptionally intelligent.

The moniker of 'Wisdom' had followed him since childhood, allowing him to stand out from the other candidates and earn his place at the Academy of Giant Trees.

But, as Professor Haig himself had said, reflecting on more than a decade of his life: when one is full, one desires warmth; when warm, safety; when safe, connection. Human desire is never satisfied.

At the time, Professor Haig had obtained everything an ordinary person could not, and his desires grew, culminating in that anomalous incident—

Before help could arrive, his wife revealed her true nature and the means to save their dying son. Professor Haig did not hesitate. He paid the price, offered his devotion, and saved their son, Sisoran.

"Then... did you never consider... that the incident that harmed Sisoran... might have been orchestrated by the Church...?"

Lu Li's thoughts were fading, and speaking had become an effort.

The cultists at the edge of the altar could not hear his blasphemous words, and the only one who did, Professor Haig, was intelligent and rational.

"The Lord's lambs do not question the sheepdogs," he said.

"The Lord of Equilibrium will be pleased with the exquisite sacrifice we offer Him."

Professor Haig stepped back down from the dais. He raised his hands, holding them parallel before his chest, and, maintaining this pose, tilted his head back and began to chant.

"We use the opposition of light and dark as bone, the conflict of life and death as flesh, the turn from hope to despair as blood, the shift from friendship to enmity as sinew, the paradox of progress and betrayal as skin, the dynamic of capture and escape as hair, and with this perfect ritual, we offer this sacrifice to You—"

The chanting of the heretics grew clearer, merging into a single voice. Whether it was Professor Haig's family, the cultists in the square, or the figures patrolling the edges of the camp, their prayers fused into one and echoed across the encampment.

From the depths, something ineffable, indescribable, inscrutable, and unseen—a nebulous consciousness—descended, drawing near the altar.

Bound to the stone pillar, Lu Li's head slumped forward, his chest seemingly no longer rising or falling. Amid the echoing prayers, a pair of symmetrical golden scales slowly unfurled behind his back, like the fantastical, luminous wings of an anomaly.

Receiving this response from his god, Professor Haig grew even more fanatical, spreading his arms wide to welcome the miracle.

"Oh, Supreme Truth, Lord of Equilibrium, accept the sacrifice prepared for You by Your faithful believers!"

"Oh, Supreme Truth, Lord of Equilibrium, accept the sacrifice prepared for You by Your faithful believers!"

"This... is a false... equilibrium."

At that moment, a faint whisper could just be heard in the lulls between the echoing chants.

"The talons of outer gods have pierced the world... The surface is shrouded in darkness... Anomalies rage across the land... Humanity cowers in corners... The native gods are being exterminated..."

"The strong and the weak... is this also what you call equilibrium?"

"We use the opposition of light and dark as bone... the conflict of life and death as flesh... the turn from hope to despair as blood... the shift from friendship to enmity as sinew... the paradox of progress and betrayal as skin... the dynamic of capture and escape as hair... ultimately turning the sacrificed into the sacrificer... and with this perfect ritual, we offer this sacrifice to You..."

The weakened Lu Li lifted his pale face. As he repeated the cultists' chant, he was enveloped in a pure golden radiance. His dark eyes reflected the figures of the cultists in the square—and their terrified expressions.

"Oh, Supreme Truth... Lord of Equilibrium... accept Your faithful believers... as the sacrifice prepared for You..."

"Heretics who have turned from the Truth of Equilibrium..."