Pastor's Tantra

"A one-and-a-half-year-old child... probably can't speak yet."

Bayard tapped the amber wine glass with his fingers and said with some surprise.

"Absolutely. One or two words are fine, but I really can't say a complete sentence."

Franz Pomponazzi nodded: "Before I could speak, I would kill people. That was the first time I sucked blood from a living person instead of drinking from a blood bottle.

"When I grew older, I discovered...it seemed like everyone knew about this. It seemed like everyone knew...that I killed my biological sister with my own hands when I just learned to walk. Hahaha..."

He laughed, but there was no joy in his laughter.

He placed his glass back on the table.

Even though the wine in the glass was the best in this world, he couldn't bring himself to drink it.

"Do you still remember what people called me back then?"

Pomponazzi did not wait for "Bayard" to reply, because he was asking and answering himself: "That 'little monster from the Pomponazzi family'."

"So, you became a real monster?"

"Bayard" said softly: "Kill your whole family?"

"Why not."

Peng Bonazi said calmly: "My brother killed my sister, and my sister killed my brother. My father killed my brother, and I myself also killed my sister. Since this is the education I received since I was a child, and this is what people expect of me, then Why can't I become this person when I grow up?

"Besides, I didn't kill them completely..."

As he said that, Peng Bonaqi reached out and touched his chest and abdomen.

Aleister realized something: "You can't be..."

"Oh, it's not as simple as eating."

Peng Bonazi smiled: "At that time, all the servants in the family were killed by us as 'blood packs', and they all fought against each other until they were gray... and I was the one who won in the end.

"But I myself was seriously injured and dying in that 'Civil War', and was cursed by my mother. So I prepared a resurrection ritual - I drained the remaining blood from my own body. Mixed with the remaining blood that I collected, More blood, use them to resurrect me again... this way to clear the curse.

"At that time, I had a sudden thought - because I was worried about what if my resurrection failed due to lack of blood, and they were resurrected by others by chance.

"So I smashed all the statues of my family members and gathered some of their ashes around me. I took away a part of them so that none of them could be fully resurrected.

"And after I died and was reborn, I merged with them. I had a sister and two brothers, plus my father and mother, a total of five copies, and I was the sixth… …It’s the ‘adaptive number’. The original blood was not even enough for one person’s resurrection, let alone six copies of ashes. I thought… I could survive from that state, perhaps because of the favor of the Lord of Scales and Feathers. Bar."

——That’s why he calls himself “Peng Bonazi”.

Aleister understood.

Not because he was distant, or because he still remembered his last name as a down-and-out aristocrat. Because to him, it's more than just a last name... it's "family."

He is not a pure "Franz", but the ultimate fusion of all "Pomponazi".

That's why he likes both men and women, gentle and violent, conservative and radical... because what constitutes "Pomponacci" is not the same consciousness.

"Because I am the only one left in the whole 'Peng Bonazi', so of course the family's assets also belong to me. Although my family is considered a noble, it has long lost its fiefdom... It is just a down-and-out noble. So I simply All the family's assets were sold for my own enjoyment.

"People hate me and reject me. Although they respect me on the surface, I know... they just want my money."

Peng Bonazi sneered: "If they want it, I'll give it to them. Watching them fighting to the death for that kind of thing, attacking and framing each other, makes me happy - who is the monster? Is it me? Is it them?" Or those shiny golden round cakes?

"After all, I don't care about that kind of thing. Rather, I have been prepared to die. I am not a ritualist, and the resurrection ritual is just a mechanical device. If something goes wrong, I may not be able to Resurrected; even before I did this, I didn't know whether it was me or some Chimera who was resurrected.

"Until I met Bashir. He is a very interesting human being... I can feel that he is one of the few people who is not afraid of me or laughs at me - he dared to come directly to me when we first met. Want money."

"……oh?"

Aleister couldn't help but laugh.

Was it the development of "this man is so special that he caught my attention"?

But Pomponazzi’s words denied Aleister’s guess:

"In order to use money to support his research, he was even willing to die. It was not as a blood slave, nor was it empty talk like 'I am willing to die for you'... He came directly with a contract certified by the Silver Crown Dragon Come to me and give me your life in exchange for a sum of money.

"Until he later became a monarch and established a kingdom... this contract was still with me. He never asked me to get it back, nor did he ask me to destroy it."

"You must have agreed."

"Of course I gave it to him! It's just a small amount of money, how can such a thing be fun!"

Peng Bonazi laughed wildly. It was hard to tell how much of his laughter was sincere and how much was an exaggerated performance.

It's like a child telling a joke and then starting to laugh hard.

In a sense...Peng Bonazi, who was born the son of the moon and has permanent bright red eyes, has never experienced a true coming-of-age ceremony.

The Moon Children's transformation into adulthood occurs when they realize that they are no longer the same person they used to be. At that moment, the emotions and desires suppressed by morality burst out instantly... Then [Beast] defeated [Love], and the Moon Child completely transformed into a bloodthirsty beast.

——The so-called adulthood is to let go of the innocent self in the past.

For Pomponazzi, he "mature" too early and "adults" too late - from the beginning of his memory, he has been doing things that adults would do; in his teenage years At a young age, he got part of his family's personality and memories out of thin air.

But maybe until now, he has not truly matured.

Because he has no innocence that can be discarded.

Seeing that "Lady Bayard" was not smiling, Peng Bonacci's laughter gradually stopped.

He was silent for a while, calmed down, and then continued: "I was very curious at the time, what on earth was he studying... that made him so desperate. Do you know what he was talking about?

"——He said, I am researching the Moon Child. But I can't find a Moon Child that I can use for research. I can only find someone to buy the Moon Child's ashes at a high price."

This time even Aleister couldn't hold himself tight.

...Is Bashir so awesome? The person in front of you is the son of the moon!

Having said this, Peng Bonazi laughed again: "Because at that time, the Sons of the Moon had not yet fully occupied the upper echelons of the empire.

"At that time, there were some 'vampire hunters' who had hatred towards us. In order to deceive other nobles into targeting us, they created a rumor about the United Medical Association - claiming that the ashes of the Children of the Moon can aphrodisiac.

"...I have to say that this widely circulated rumor has caused great obstacles to our penetration. Many nobles hire 'vampire hunters' at high prices to hunt the Children of the Moon. Although there are many fakes on the black market, occasionally There are also real ones. At the same time, there are also some nobles who try to raise the children of the moon.

"In most cases, the children of the moon are young and beautiful, immortal and have strong desires. Because the children of the moon cannot cross the flowing water, when the children of the moon are imprisoned underground and surrounded by underground rivers, It forms a cage that exists in one direction and cannot be broken out of.

"So there will be some nobles who buy the 'complete ashes of the Moon Child girl' at a high price, and then sprinkle their blood and resurrect; there are still some people who long for immortality... Although some people warn that the resurrection of the Moon Child is not what they want, but it does not hinder it. Some people would want to imprison the Son of the Moon to force him to find a way to transform, or use a contract to bind the other party to become his thugs - this is why I specifically wanted to crush the ashes of my family members.

"It is for this reason that those Moon Sons with higher 'birth' are fine, while those with lower origins are often mercilessly hunted by hunters. Even so, the price of Moon Son's ashes on the black market is very high... …It’s so high that Bashir can’t afford it in his lifetime just by relying on his own income.”

"So you gave him money?"

Aleister asked.

"No," Pomponazzi shrugged, "Although I don't care about money, this level of waste is still unnecessary."

"……waste?"

"Well, I gave him all the ashes of my family."

Peng Bonazi smiled happily: "His 'disenchantment' will completely destroy the possibility of their resurrection - if I had known this, I wouldn't have had to use that method to fuse.

"Maybe it's because I often sigh and say, 'Why didn't I meet you earlier?' That child probably regards me as a confidant or a close friend."

But it was obvious that until then... Pomponazzi did not regard Bashir as a person with whom he could communicate as an equal. It's just that Bashir, who has low emotional intelligence, thinks that "the two are already friends."

"——Until he gave me his research."

Peng Bonaqi said softly: "I admire his talent - he actually analyzed the method of perfecting the human being by disenchanting the ashes of the Son of the Moon."

"..."The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony"?"

Aleister knew what he meant by "research."

"The Triumphal Carriage of Antimony" written by Valentine I tells the story of the transcendent alchemy that sublimates animal nature into God.

If this alchemy can be completely completed... it will mean that he has created the ability to "become a Tiansi stably". In Xianxia novels, it is a technique that can be used from Qi training to ascension.

But obviously... perhaps because the material Bashir consumed during his research was Children of the Moon, Pomponazzi believed that this book was about how to reach the "perfect man".

"Let a ferocious gray wolf devour the body of the king, and then burn it to ashes in the fire. Repeat this three times, and the lion will overcome the wolf, and there will no longer be anything in him that can be devoured.

"Then the lion purified himself with the wolf's blood, the color of which most wonderfully matched that of a lion; and after the lion's hunger was appeased, his spirit became more powerful than ever, and his eyes shone like the sun... "

Pomponazzi recited the words in "The Triumphal Chariot of Antimony" without hesitation: "The lion is the 'soul of gold', and the color of the moon is gold. On the surface, this sentence is about a way to purify gold, but in fact it is about the predation and sublimation of the Son of the Moon.

"As a beast of transcendence, the more powerful lion is the Son of the Moon. The gray wolf is a mortal and also symbolizes the alchemist - the mortal draws divine power from the dream world and burns himself to ashes in the ascension ceremony. After three repetitions, it is promoted to the fourth energy level... and the human body is purified.

"Taste the blood of gold, and the lion's hunger will be quenched. The blood of the Son of the Moon can only quench thirst. Only blood above the fourth energy level has the sacred effect of completely calming the Son of the Moon..."

... So that's it.

Aleister finally understood why the blood of Isabel and Aiwas could calm him. But Selene's blood only made him more excited and agitated...

For a moment, even Aleister himself was a little doubtful - did he understand it wrongly?

Does "Antimony's Triumphal Chariot" really describe the art of perfection?

"At the same time... he also prepared the path for himself to be promoted. 'The king traveled through the six regions of the sky and settled in the seventh region. There, the palace was decorated with golden tapestries. If you understand what I mean, this key will open the first lock and push the first bolt'... This is the first of the twelve keys proposed by Bashir in the book. After reading this, when you become an alchemist, you will become a star antimony alchemist.

"The 'Golden Stone Knight' will change his soul seven times. The first six energy levels have reached the limit of the world, and the seventh energy level has undoubtedly reached the realm of God.

"This book records his promotion method and my promotion method at the same time. When we were in the mortal world, he was the king and I was the wise minister... and when we ascended to the dream world, I would be the Immortal King, and he would be my Golden Stone Knight."

Pombonazzi said softly: "From then on, I regarded him as my true friend.

"Far closer than my family... my only friend, my companion. "