Pastor's Tantra

"Ha... ha..."

Isabel gasped for air, holding on to the wall and trying her best to move forward.

She could no longer remember how many times she had died, nor could she tell which level of dream she was in now.

It hurts so much...

Every death brought severe punishment to her.

At first it was just some fever and weakness. As painful and uncomfortable as it is, it is possible to investigate.

After she was pushed down the stairs and fell to death for the first time, when she woke up again she found herself tied up and sitting in the hall.

Besides himself, there were six other people present. Some of them cursed loudly, while others remained silent.

And a young man with brown hair and deep features found a violin from nowhere. He was admiring the storm in front of the window and playing the tuneless noise as he pleased.

Yes, noise - at least by Isabel's standards, she had been playing the violin better than this in the three months she had been playing it.

Because it was not any piece of music at all, but an improvisational performance, but the performer lacked the musical theory foundation for improvisation. The result was a torturous mess.

This also made her finally unable to bear it any longer and spoke out to stop him.

"Lulu...your highness, right?"

The man turned around with a cold and arrogant attitude and bowed respectfully to everyone at the table.

His knuckles were distinct, and the bow in his hand was like a sword.

Even though everyone cursed him louder and louder, he still turned a deaf ear.

"You just go down first, I have to wait for some more time. But don't be afraid, I will go down before the end of time."

He didn't introduce himself, but Lulu easily guessed his identity - her intuition was sure that this was Sherlock, not Merlin pretending to be him.

"What should I do... to help you?"

"Daya" at the table asked seriously: "I investigated Room 201 from the upper floor..."

As she spoke, she tried to ignore the curses and quarrels of the people around her, and told Sherlock everything she saw.

Sherlock was a little surprised at Isabel's strength and initiative, and the corners of his mouth slightly raised, revealing a rare smile of approval.

"When you go down, confirm who is dead on each floor. Then remember these people. After you find the fox, tell him what you saw, and then tell him my strategy."

Sherlock said calmly: "I choose to wait here. Seeing how many people will fall to my level, I finally know that I should descend several levels in a row. I am confident that I can recognize Merlin, and he cannot fool me. .

"Of course, I may fail. For example, if someone above me misjudges the number of layers and doesn't come down until the end. Then I will be eliminated together with him.

"-In short, those who are waiting on the ground floor may see that more than two people have not arrived, or that everyone has arrived. But it is impossible to see only one person who has not arrived.

"If this happens, there are two possibilities - because I chose an extremely safe strategy, Merlin will most likely disguise himself as me in order to offset the situation I created. If this is the case, then what is missing? That person must be below my level.

"Take these words of mine to the fox, and he will understand."

After the detective finished speaking, he raised the muzzle of his gun and pointed it at Daiya, and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

——And from this death, Isabel began to feel the pain.

The heat became more severe and she began to vomit repeatedly. The heart beats abnormally violently, but it cannot pump much blood because it contracts without fully relaxing. Her temperature continued to rise and her consciousness began to blur.

"Three people died," she repeated, "the woman, the monkey, and the old man."

She was too weak to pull the trigger.

Looking at the body of the vicious man on the ground, she found the gun he was carrying.

Isabel knelt on the ground and buried the muzzle of the gun deep in her throat. The small index and middle fingers of both hands were stacked together, and the trigger was pressed down with the weight of the body——

Take yourself to the next level.

From here on, she discovered to her horror...that her skin was cracking.

Her skin became pale and had tiny cracks. An unknown purple glow oozed from it, mixed with a little gradient of pink.

The girl's silver bell-like laughter became clearer and clearer, as if ringing in her ears.

Because her memory began to become blurry, Isabel began to mutter to herself repeatedly about everything she saw.

"The story of Merlin...the fairy tale book, the bear...the dead end..."

She stumbled around looking for the body, and kept chanting in a dry and hoarse voice: "Basement 1, detective... Either two of them are absent, or everyone is present..."

"On the second floor, three people died...a woman, a monkey, and an old man."

"——Sister, let's play together?"

The girl's voice rang out from her ears, interrupting Isabel's chanting.

"Don't make any noise!"

Isabel got angry in a rare moment.

But just shouting loudly made her head hurt more and more. The pain, which was like a needle prick, made her stop, holding her head and gasping for air.

——No one can help me now.

On the contrary, he still carries the hope of victory.

Looking at the corpses, Isabel had already guessed the rules of whereabouts.

Without his own intelligence, Aiwass might fall to the wrong level due to intelligence errors... Sherlock might also die...

She should have felt powerless.

Anyway, she has always been like this... always being protected behind her. She has never been responsible for something important independently, and she has never shouldered the lives of others.

"……Ha ha……"

She gasped softly, and the cracked lines on her skin flickered as if she was breathing.

...Speaking of which, is this a matter of life?

Isabel's consciousness began to blur.

This seems to be a promotion ceremony... It doesn't matter even if you lose...

Just stop it. too painful. If it goes any further, it might be painful to death.

——Although she knew that even if she failed, no one would blame her.

But Isabel was still unwilling. The green flames were reflected in Daya's eyes like an illusion. She seemed to have some strength and her consciousness became clearer.

The closer she gets to her limit, the more motivated Isabel becomes.

The more painful it is, the stronger she becomes.

Still don’t want to admit defeat——

"The story of Merlin...the bear puppet...ha...201..."

Isabel moved while holding on to the wall, murmuring in a low voice, as if she was talking in her sleep.

At this moment, she saw a strange hallucination before her eyes.

A blond girl threw the ball in her hand towards Isabel.

"Come and play ball, sister?"

She was looking forward to it, and a voice with an ethereal echo sounded: "Let's play ball together?"

Isabel subconsciously wanted to reach out her hand to block the ball. Her body, which was already on the verge of reaching its limit, was knocked down by the ball and fell to the ground.

The ball and the little girl turned into phantoms and disappeared, but the feeling of being hit by the ball was so real.

In the bottom of her heart, the little girl's voice sounded again: "Sister...will you leave me?"

The voice became panicked.

She was so lonely and scared... This made Isabel's heart soften.

She couldn't help crying, as if for herself and for this girl.

But she cried for a while and then got up again, silently wiping away her tears. Keep walking, towards darker places.

She passed body after body. Some people were alive before and now they are dead; some people died once and then died a second time.

The consciousness in her mind became blurry, and she had long forgotten that she was in the promotion ceremony and still in a dream. The ever-clearer pain continued to torment her, making her experience at this moment so real. She even forgot for a moment that her name was Isabel.

"Remember these people."

A cold and arrogant voice sounded: "Just bring these words of mine to the fox, and he will understand."

"He will understand..."

Isabel murmured and repeated, her copper-money-like pink-purple pupils reflecting light.

Her skin was cracked in large areas, and pink blood slowly shed as she walked.

There were also some living people who met her on the road - anyone who saw this little girl with a high fever wanted to take her away.

But after they got close to Isabel, their bodies became blurry and transparent.

They ran towards Isabel anxiously and distressedly, but became transparent before picking her up. After Isabel passed through them and left, she stood up as if nothing had happened. It was like he had never seen her before.

Not just living people—even the world around her occasionally became blurry and transparent.

She remembered the corpses on each floor, but she couldn't remember how many floors she had descended. Her memory was still functioning, but she was no longer able to think.

——Finally, she saw the long table lit with candles again. I saw the familiar detective and the vicious man sitting in the chief seat.

It was like a painting, imprinted in her heart.

Isabel burst into tears for a moment.

Just at a glance, her instinct told her that this person was Aiwass.

"...Ai Hua..."

Isabel stumbled over and ran into his arms.

——Although they look exactly the same, this is definitely not the man with a ferocious face. Her eyes told her so.

She no longer remembered that she should call him Fox, but her instinct told her not to say his name.

"In Room 201, there is Merlin's storybook and a bear puppet. After picking it up, it leads to a dead end...

"I met the detective on the first floor, and he asked me to tell you..."

Isabel's voice became smoother: "The deceased are..."

She recounted the people she remembered from memory in one breath. Everyone was quietly listening to the information she brought.

——Her mission accomplished.