World version update

Chapter 285 Faith in the Holy Spirit, Council of the Dead

Industrial zone, Aon Steel Plant.

As a super-large steel plant in the Orank Industrial Zone, Orn Steel Plant accounts for one-fifth of the entire Orank's steel production, making it one of the lifelines of the kingdom's industry.

However, this steel plant was shrouded in an unusual atmosphere at this moment.

The dormitory area, which used to be filled only with the roar of machines and the shouts of workers, is now densely packed with workers. The noisy discussions buzz like a swarm of bees, drowning out the noise coming from the factory buildings in the distance.

The steel mill owner, a portly man dressed smartly but with his collar askew, stood on the periphery of the crowd, his forehead covered in fine beads of sweat.

He waved his arms, trying to drive away the onlookers with his voice, which had long lost its former authority.

"What are you all doing gathered here? Have nothing better to do? Get your asses to work!" His voice was laced with obvious anxiety and a fierce but weak tone.

The crowd stirred slightly, like waves of wheat rippling in the wind, but did not disperse.

Someone in the crowd muttered in a low voice, "Boss, it's not time to start work yet!"

This quiet rebuttal seemed to give everyone confidence. The workers, who had been hesitant, finally stood firm, their eyes still fixed on the drab dormitory building with a mixture of curiosity and fear.

No matter how much the steel mill owner scolded and shoved them, they didn't budge; instead, they surrounded them even more tightly.

The steel mill owner's heart pounded; he was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan.

Something terrible has happened, and it's a big deal!
Three workers were found dead in the staff dormitory, their deaths extremely bizarre.

In the past, he wouldn't have even blinked if thirty workers died, let alone three.

As a large factory backed by the royal family, he could easily find an excuse to get away with it and then use a little bit of insignificant compensation to shut the family up.

Sometimes they don't even give compensation. What can these low-level workers do to him?
He only needed to shout at the onlookers, and they would scatter like startled rabbits. Who would dare to say a word?
But things are different now; times have changed!
That damned workers' union spread like a plague, and even the high-ranking nobles and the esteemed royal family voluntarily had their factories join the union.

The workers' rights were protected like never before, and his power as the boss was naturally greatly restricted.

The deaths of these three workers were shrouded in mystery, and the scene was so bizarre. If the matter were to escalate and the union were to seize on it, he, the factory owner, would undoubtedly be the first to be pushed forward to take responsibility.

Losing money is a minor issue; the real problem is if the union uses him as an example to make an example of others and severely punishes him, or even revokes his factory license. The consequences would be unimaginable.

He knew all too well that these noble lords wouldn't even blink an eye at sacrificing a small factory owner like him in order to appease the unions and stabilize the situation.

Just as the steel mill owner was getting so anxious he was about to jump up and down, and was about to personally pull the workers away, a commotion finally broke out on the outskirts of the crowd.

Accompanied by clear shouts and footsteps, the police, arriving late, finally pushed through the crowd of onlookers and reached the scene.

Leading the group was Officer Slater, his face stern and brows furrowed. He wore a fairly clean but slightly worn police uniform, forcefully shoving aside the workers blocking his way, repeatedly shouting, "Get out of the way! It's a police investigation!"

Several police officers behind him also cleared a path, forcibly squeezing a passage through the dense crowd.

Officer Slater practically stumbled through the last few layers of human walls and finally stood at the entrance of the dormitory building that exuded an ominous aura.

Their sharp gaze swept across the open dormitory door, but what they saw next sent chills down the spines of all the police officers.

What came into Officer Slater's view were three faces frozen in a moment of extreme terror.

The three workers lay stiffly on their narrow beds, their bodies already cold and rigid. Their eyes were wide open, their pupils dilated as if they had seen some unspeakable horror before their lives ended.

Three corpses, three identical deaths, neatly arranged in the cramped dormitory space, exuded a strange and chilling sense of ritual.

"A cult of evil gods?" Officer Slater's face turned deathly pale instantly. This was the first possibility that came to mind for a policeman who had spent many years working his way up from the bottom.

Murders of this scale and method are often inextricably linked to fanatical secret cults.

Almost instinctively, he prepared to escalate the matter to the church, which specializes in handling such incidents.

"Wait, Slater."

Just then, an old but strong hand pressed down on his arm.

The speaker was a gray-haired, experienced police officer. He frowned and looked at the corpses on the bed with a serious expression. "Look closely. These three corpses are exactly the same as the case at the textile factory three days ago."

Officer Slater's eyelids twitched; the old officer's words were like a lightning bolt that cleaved through his thoughts.

He immediately remembered that three days ago, in that large textile factory in the East District, more than a dozen workers were found dead in the dormitory overnight, their deaths exactly the same as the three men in front of him, all lying on their beds in the dormitory with expressions of fear.

The incident caused a huge sensation at the time, but for some reason, after being reported at each level, it ultimately disappeared without a trace.

No clear investigation results or response were given from above; instead, the workers at the bottom were talking about it privately.

Some claim that the dead workers were tyrannical bullies who preyed on the weak, and that their deaths were punishment from the Holy Spirit, a judgment of the wicked.

Since the old police officer said so, Slater suddenly felt that this matter was probably not as simple as a cult killing, and there might be a deeper reason behind it.

Regardless of the reason, the fact that there has been no response from above proves that this is not something a mere police chief like him can touch.

As Slater was lost in thought, he was completely unaware that some of the bolder workers on the periphery could no longer contain their curiosity and quietly followed them, sticking their heads into the dormitory.

"I've seen it, I've seen this scene!"

A sharp scream suddenly erupted from the crowd at the entrance, shattering the heavy silence.

Slater was startled and quickly turned around, her sharp gaze locking onto the worker who had screamed.

He demanded sharply, "Where have you seen this scene before?"

The young worker was terrified by the police officer's imposing manner, and stammered, "I...I dreamt about it last night."

"What nonsense!"

The steel mill owner squeezed in at that moment, and upon hearing this, he became even more furious. Pointing at the worker, he angrily shouted, "Bringing your nonsense here? What rubbish are you spouting?"

However, what happened next was completely unexpected by everyone.

As the young worker finished speaking, voices of agreement rose one after another from the other workers around him:
"Yes! I dreamt about it too! It was exactly like that!"

"I've also seen the three of them in my dream, lying in bed with their eyes wide open!"

"They are villains! They are wicked people! They have been punished by the Holy Spirit!"

"That dream was real! The Holy Spirit really was watching over us!"

"The Holy Spirit has brought us equality, giving us a better working environment and security. However, some wicked people who have received the gifts of the Holy Spirit are wantonly oppressing the weak and destroying our beautiful environment. That is why the Holy Spirit has sent down judgment to punish these wicked people!"

Praise the Holy Spirit!

In an instant, the crowd's emotions were ignited, fear, awe, and a certain fanatical belief intertwined, and the noisy discussions rose again, this time with an almost pious tone.

Officer Slater and the veteran officer exchanged a glance, both seeing deep shock and confusion in each other's eyes.

This murder case seems to be developing in a direction that they could not have predicted at all.

However, not all eyes in the bustling crowd were focused on the miserable state of the dormitory or the discussion about the Holy Spirit.

On the relatively sparsely populated outskirts, a police officer, also in uniform and arriving a little later, was observing everything with a gaze that seemed out of place with his surroundings.

His gaze was sharp and deep, sweeping over the terrified or pious faces, finally settling on the three corpses, where a barely perceptible glint of greed flashed in the depths of his eyes.

With the long blast of the factory whistle, it was finally time to start work.

Despite their hearts being filled with awe and curiosity about the Holy Spirit's discipline, the workers who had gathered in front of the dormitory building for their livelihoods gradually dispersed like the tide, heading back to their respective posts in twos and threes.

Even so, whispers and heated discussions about the Holy Spirit’s apparitions and the punishment of the wicked took root in their hearts like seeds, spreading throughout the Orne Steel Plant.

The steel mill owner, who had been on edge, finally felt relieved after Officer Slater announced that the incident was an unfortunate accident and made it clear that the preliminary investigation would not directly involve the factory management or the union.

He let out a long sigh of relief, his face immediately beaming with satisfaction. He quickly pulled out several gold pounds from his pocket and, without a word, stuffed them into the hands of Slater and several of the main officers in charge, thanking them profusely.

They also requested their help in properly handling the aftermath, especially the removal of the body and maintaining consistency in their statements to the outside world.

As for the real cause of death of those three workers...
The steel mill owner didn't care; as long as the trouble didn't fall on him, the truth seemed insignificant.

The hustle and bustle of the day gradually faded away, and night, like a huge black curtain, silently enveloped the entire city.

In a cold, dark morgue at the police station in the industrial zone, the policeman who had been at the Orne steel plant during the day, his eyes flashing with greed, stood alone in front of the cold metal morgue.

He reached out and deftly lifted the white sheet covering the body of one of the steelworkers.

The pale, stiff face was once again exposed in the dim light, and the wide-open eyes still held extreme fear.

The policeman remained unfazed. He slowly raised his right hand, and with a sharp scratch on the pad of his right index finger, a small wound opened, and bright red blood immediately seeped out.

He held his bleeding index finger above the corpse's chest, letting the blood drip down.

The blood did not disperse; instead, it flowed and outlined on the corpse's skin as if it had a life of its own, instantly forming a complex and eerie scarlet rune.

The moment the rune was completed, it emitted a fleeting, eerie light.

The next moment, a chilling scene unfolded: the corpse, which had been dead for some time, began to make a slight "creaking" sound.

He stiffly turned his neck and sat up like a marionette.

"Who killed you?" The policeman's voice was low and hoarse, with an inhuman coldness as he stared intently at the corpse's empty, lifeless eyes.

"Who exactly is this so-called Holy Spirit? Why would she go to such lengths to infiltrate dreams and spread her faith?"

The corpse stared blankly at him, its mouth opening and closing unconsciously, making barely audible gurgling sounds in its throat, but no sound came out, and it could not answer his questions.

"Hmm?" The policeman frowned slightly, a hint of surprise flashing in his eyes. "The soul is gone? He's only been dead for a day, and his soul has been completely stripped away, leaving not even a trace?"

He immediately realized the crux of the problem.

Without any remaining fragments of the soul, it is impossible to directly access the deceased's memories through conventional psychic methods.

But for the Council of the Dead, to which he belonged, this was merely a trivial matter.

A cold glint flashed in his eyes, and without hesitation, he stretched out his hands, his fingers like iron pincers precisely probing into the corpse's wide-open eye sockets.

With a sickeningly slight tearing sound, he actually gouged two dull eyeballs out of their sockets.

The gouged-out eyeball fell into his palm and did not roll off.

A strange change occurred: the surface of the two eyeballs suddenly began to wriggle, cracking open with fine fissures, from which grew countless tiny teeth resembling fish teeth.

In an instant, the two eyeballs transformed into two strange little mouths that opened and closed constantly, filled with sharp teeth.

Like the whispers of countless people overlapping each other, a chaotic and frenzied sound began to emerge from the two gaping mouths formed from eyeballs.

The police officer brought the two whispering eyes close to his ear, closed his eyes, and listened intently, as if deciphering some message from an unknown place.

After a while, the mouths on the two eyeballs stopped whispering, quickly withered and dried up, and finally turned into two small clumps of ashes that drifted down from between his fingers.

On the corpse's face, only two bottomless, pitch-black eye sockets remained.

The policeman slowly opened his eyes, and his usually cold and hard face now showed an almost twisted look of ecstasy.

"Haha...I see! The so-called Holy Spirit is nothing more than a Sequence Eight that can infiltrate dreams and strip away the soul?"

His voice was filled with disdain and greed, "A mere ant at Sequence Eight dares to covet the power of faith and spread dreams to gather believers?"

"No! This matter must be reported to the council immediately!"

His eyes gleamed with excitement. "Find her, seize her. This Holy Spirit is simply a perfect sacrifice delivered to our doorstep."

Using her as a medium, we can easily plunder the newly formed faith of those ignorant workers—far faster than we could painstakingly guide and deceive them ourselves!

Thinking of this, he could no longer restrain himself and casually threw the white cloth back onto the corpse's face, covering the empty eye sockets.

He then hurried away from the cold morgue, eager to bring the good news back to his organization.

However, lost in his ecstasy, he didn't notice that shortly after his figure disappeared at the end of the corridor, the cold walls of the morgue rippled like water.

A nearly transparent, ethereal spirit emitting a faint, eerie glow silently passed through the thick wall and appeared in the basement.

The wandering spirit hovered silently in mid-air, its gaze fixed on the blind corpse.

Without making any movement or sound, it simply observed quietly, as if recording everything that had just happened.

(End of this chapter)