Nightmare's Call

532 Plotting: Part 2

Most of the partygoers were ordinary people, but there was no lack of soul hunters, too.

Many ordinary folks, for some reason or other, would choose to do this.

The moral degradation of the soul hunters had been a concern. Ansel knew this problem, but it was not something he alone could change. Since the soul hunters were still relatively weak, the Darksider groups always found fault with and suppressed them.

Among the more self-indulgent soul hunters had several powerful ones. So everybody just had to groan and bear it.

Ansel meandered in the streets, scanning the goods that were spread out for sale on the ground. There were precious jewelry of the past, expired instant noodles, and also various weird-looking stones and woods.

The Blacktide was not static. It moved like a sea with low and high tides. So many people, to get some food, would wait for the tide to recede and salvage anything they could find useful near the edge of the Blacktide.

Ansel called them the scavengers, the number of which had increased recently.

He frowned when his eyes swept over a scavenger stall. There were few things for sale today. Asides from some stones and woods, there were only some food and water they scavenged from the abandoned buildings.

Many of these things were not consumable because of the contamination. But the soul hunters might have ways to purify them. They looked for the clerics, the believer of the holy light, to purify the things, separating the edible part from the non-edible part, which could be regarded as food.

Ansel was looking for a popular scavenger stall where he usually found the things he wanted. But today, the scavenger was not here.

“Where is Sola? I don’t see her around today?” he asked the other stall owner.

“Sola will not open her stall anymore. She has become a member of the Cult of Salvation. There is food and drink there and she won’t give a rip about this little money.” The stall owner sounded sour grapes.

“The Cult of Salvation?” Ansel was a famous soul hunter leader around here with a dozen soul hunters in his group. One of the group members had joined the Cult of Salvation, and he had never heard from him again since then.

“What? The Salvation thing is growing that fast?” Ansel was surprised.

“They were neither here nor there last time. But for the past week, they have been growing. I heard that they were giving out food. The benefits are wonderful!” Another stall owner said enviously.

“Benefits are wonderful? Where do they get the food? Are they all from the holy cities?” Ansel was surprised.

“Holy cities? Who knows? They might be forces like the holy cities growing their down line,” one said in a low voice.

Ansel said nothing. People will find excuses, no matter what, if they want to deceive themselves.

Those stall owners started to waffle away about the Cult of Salvation. One particular sentence caught Ansel’s attention.

“It’s said that there are Salvation cultists in the holy cities!”

“The holy cities...” Ansel mumbled to himself. He had a bad feeling about it.

...

Khadula was walking in the drizzle with an umbrella in hand on the street of Shermanton.

It had been over two weeks since her original body was in cultivation. Within these two weeks, she and her avatars would roam around, patrolling the streets to make sure the city was in order. The city was safe and peaceful because of her.

Khadula Beauty Center was not just a taboo name but a hallmark.

“If you don’t listen, I’m going to send you to Khadula Beauty Center!” It was not just something parents said to make their kids toe the line.

“If you cry again, I’m going to ask Khadula to take you away!”

This was a phrase some parents like to use. These words just vividly showed Khadula had an upright image in the holy city.

Whoever found to have floated the law, especially those who willfully exploited the loopholes of the law and walked in the gray area, would be given a beauty package by Khadula for free. Of course, she was not making their faces but hearts better.

Using some whitewash technique exclusive to the Sanctum, every customer coming to Khadula Beauty Center would come out like a breath of fresh air. They were willing to drop everything and join the big family of Khadula Beauty Center, becoming part of Khadula.

“This is my plan to showcase my sense of aesthetics,” Khadula recalled what she had done and was proud of herself.

“My original body is in cultivation, I, as his brothers and sisters, should be helping each other. The beauty center not only beautifies people but also the city. I’m not only giving a facial but also the facial of the heart to the people of this city.”

Khadula felt a heavy sense of mission and responsibility. People might find her scary, but that did not make her dislike it.

Walking past a newly opened bakery, she looked inside the shop through the glass entrance. A shopkeeper with a morbid face was explaining something to a few customers. Despite they were a dozen meters away from her, separated by a thick glass door, Khadula could make out their conversation.

There were terms related to the Cult of Salvation mentioned occasionally, as the woman shopkeeper explained. She seemed to try to persuade the customers to join the cult. They would get to buy bread at a 90% discount if they joined.

Ninety percent? That was as good as giving it out freely. Two customers were seemingly moved.

Khadula stood outside the entrance, quietly observing what was going on inside.

She used to hear about the Cult of Salvation, which seemed to be a harmless civilian society. It had even filed a record at the Sanctum for their activities.

It was all legal, no hanky-panky of promoting evil thoughts or riot. What they were doing was only one thing: collecting materials from the Blacktide at each tide interval and then reselling them to the members at dirt cheap prices.

Khadula did not give a hoot who this tiny cult survived and who they did recruitment. All she was concerned about was whether there was anything fishy going on with them.

Still standing outside the door and listening, she made sure there was nothing unusual in their conversation. After that, she moved on and headed to other places.

However, unknown to her, after the two customers consumed the food that the shopkeeper gave them, their pupils started to undergo very minute changes, unnoticed by the customers. They were genuinely glad that they were able to purchase some bread at an extremely low price.

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