Secrets: Priestess

Chapter 79 Night Breeze
The night wind is howling.

Swain, covered in wounds, broke free from the monster's corpse. He slumped beside the monster and tried to feel for the wine flask at his waist, but he had lost the metal wine flask somewhere during the battle.

“That’s an old thing that’s been with me for a long time.” Swain sighed.

"Where's Teacher Gawain? Aren't you going to catch the scammer? How could someone lose control..." Claire jumped from the other ships to the deck of the cargo ship where Swain was.

From the very beginning, she used prayer to find Swain's location because she heard from the curly-haired young man that Gawain was following Swain, and she wanted to find Gawain's location through Swain.

At first, Claire was just worried that Gawain would impulsively do something irrational because of his niece's money being defrauded, which would make their already dire situation even worse.

Unexpectedly, by some strange coincidence, he encountered a battle between Swain and the out-of-control team members.

"Gawain is with the patrolman who brought the news."

Swain looked gloomy and confused:

"At first, a few brothers mentioned the fraud. This fraud case, which didn't involve any extraordinary factors, had nothing to do with us..."

"But several of the brothers' friends were badly scammed, and someone from the orphanage also came to Gao Wen and told him that Ijebel had also been scammed."

"To be honest, from the Mandated Punisher to my bar buddies, several young men have a crush on Ijebel."

"In that situation, I simply brought them all out to help catch the perpetrator. I thought we were just looking for a scammer, and even if we couldn't find him, there wouldn't be much danger... But unexpectedly, while we were trying to catch him, I encountered a patrol officer who said there was a monster. I didn't think much of it at the time, so I put aside the scammer and prioritized dealing with the supernatural incident."

“When we arrived at the scene, we discovered that it was Daftren who had lost control.”

"At that time, Daftren was still partially conscious. He begged me for mercy. He begged me to let him go. He said he would enter the sea from the Tussock River, dive into the deep sea, and stay away from human society..."

"But he forgot that he once helped me clean up the water monster that crawled up from the Tussock River."

"That 'water monster' is the out-of-control creature I once let go..."

"After I let you go..."

"It crawled up from the riverbank again and ate four workers who were repairing the boat."

Swain looked tired, his face distorted by the unsuppressible pain, his blue eyes becoming cloudy and blurry. The tall and strong man tilted his head back and gritted his teeth in hatred, until traces of blood appeared on his gums.

"Why did it get out of control? Why is there any reason... For people like us, no one knows which will come first, tomorrow or losing control..."

"So my biggest hope is to die drunkenly among a pile of bottles. At least... that way I won't cause trouble to others, and at least I'll die in a decent way."

“So I was timid.”

"So when the Church offered me a Sequence 7 potion, I was afraid and refused. I was afraid that my advancement would bring me even closer to madness. I was even more afraid that after my advancement, I would have to shoulder the task of…eliminating even more of those out of control."

Swain's lifeless eyes fell on Claire, and he murmured softly:

"I admire your Captain Dunn very much. That guy who gave me the first impression of being skinny and weak is actually better than me."

"Over the years, so many of you Nighthawks have lost control. Etter, Adelaide, Dawn... so many former Nighthawks, all of them were dealt with by him personally."

Claire had seen these names in various corners of the information before, but she had only obtained knowledge and experience from various documents to make herself stronger, and had never thought about the life and experience behind these personal names.

She only knew that "Adelaide" was the name of Roxanne's father.

She had heard Luo Shan mention casually that her father lost control and then died.

"This damn world..." Swain regained some strength. He carried the corpse of the "monster" on the deck on his shoulders and left dejectedly.

"What a fucking world." Claire stood in the night wind, feeling a little cold.

The world is fucked? Who is the world?

Since there is a problem, there must be a root cause.

The reason for despair and pain is that we lack the power to shake the root cause.

Roxanne, Dunn, Swain, she had witnessed their difficulties and could feel some of their pain, but Claire did not agree with their idea that "the higher the promotion, the closer to madness and loss of control."

Recalling the names in the column of the person in charge of the Nighthawk incident report, they are suspected to be the powerful Templars of the middle and high sequences, those senior deacons and archbishops, whose active years are obviously much longer than those of the low-level Nighthawks!
Claire respected the guardian spirit of all Nighthawks.

Even from her personal perspective, she is willing to help those around her if she can.

But Claire didn't blindly trust the church's internal records, the supposed rules, and the teachings of her predecessors. For example, "Don't the higher you rise, the faster you go crazy?"

But what is the reality? Those who master the "acting method" can be promoted quickly and steadily!

What's more, are those evil gods hiding in the dark side of the world and the righteous gods sitting on the throne really born gods?
Claire wasn't sure if this world was inherently "crazy," but she was certain that being weak was a sin in this world.

Those poor and weak homeless people were driven away or even arrested and forced to work. Even the laws of Loen declared poverty a sin.

In Tingen's lower streets, in the city's more secluded corners, and in countless villages and towns, Claire had seen enough miserable lives.

There are women making matchbox paste who only get 1 pence for a whole basket; there are scenery workers who have to work until 2 o'clock every night and have to sleep on the floor... There are homeless people who lie on the steaming manhole covers to keep warm.

Suffering comes from lack of strength, and confusion comes from lack of vision.

The lack of strength and vision is not only due to one's own qualities and choices, but more importantly, it is due to the lack of channels to become stronger.

The "favor" of the Night Goddess, the "pollution" of the hidden sage, the "gathering" of the foolish, the mystery above the gray fog...

These are both unknown horrors, but they are also "channels" that ordinary people cannot access at all.

Claire didn't think she could help many people, but she was realistic and didn't want to end up in that situation.

Is it really more terrifying to turn into a monster and die out of control than to die from poverty and weakness?

Compared to Swain's stagnation, Claire admired Captain Dunn's choice to keep moving forward.

"Work steadily and steadily in the church and advance as quickly as you can. At the same time, use the Tarot Club to obtain the diary of your predecessor, Russell, and expand your horizons from a different perspective than the church."

"It would be great if we could find more information channels... The whispers of the hidden sage? You can't be greedy with things like this, or you're really courting death."

"There's also the mysterious Fool, and 'that woman' who seems to know a lot of extremely advanced secrets..."

"Testing the Fool, capturing that woman, and exploring the Gray Mist World as much as possible... these are all things that must be done with caution."

Claire thought a lot.

Some thoughts become clearer, others become messier.

However, the fear of the unknown and dangerous world burned in Claire's heart as she didn't want to die blindly in the so-called "madness of the world."

Late at night, Claire returned to Blackthorn Security Company.

Reported to Dunn the Lanevus fraud case and the Mandated Punisher's loss of control.

Dunn didn't say much after hearing this. "These cases are handled by the Mandated Punishers."

Even though the Lanevus fraud case involved a supernatural crime, because the company involved in the Lanevus case was located in the South District, according to the jurisdictional division, it was also a case of the Punisher, with the East District, South District, and Dock District being under the jurisdiction of the Punisher.

With a sigh, Dunn handed a report to Claire. "There's something suspiciously haunted in the West District. Now that you're back, go find Luo Yao and check out the situation together. Remember to ensure your own safety."

PS:

The first "Squidward" is a story of madness and protection. It's the story of Squidward. My initial love for it, followed by the pain and confusion of rereading it after writing a fanfiction, finally led me back to my deep admiration for the design of the first "Squidward" story. It also made me realize that, even within the same path and sequence, the difference between the performances of different characters is even greater than that between humans and dogs; and that when writing novels, the differences between different people are similar...

Since the book was published, many readers have left comments and reviews. I read them all, and some comments have even led me to change some plot arrangements. But there are also comments that I won't change even if I think they make sense.

When writing this book, there are only two things I want to write about most.

Become stronger and stickier.

An ordinary earthling becomes stronger and more intimate in a mysterious way.

I will take into consideration any comments and suggestions related to these two points.

For example, there was a description where "Old Neil patted Claire on the back." After receiving negative feedback from readers, I immediately changed it within ten minutes of posting. Why? Not only because of the historical context mentioned by the readers, but mainly because this description affected the viewing experience of readers who wanted to read the post.

The introduction once had a line: "The priestess says 'good morning' to the world." My original intention was to say good morning to the mysterious world, with a subtle allusion to programming's "hello world." But when a reader pointed out that "world" was Klein's smurf, I immediately changed it. After being reminded, I felt uncomfortable reading this introduction myself. I'm not a big fan of everything when it comes to reading books, so I do pay attention to this kind of thing.

As for questions like whether it's fun or not, I will tighten the pace appropriately.

This book is a bit of a flop, but I think that with such a huge readership on Qidian, there must be some readers who share similar ideas with me. At least there are readers who have read this far.

(End of this chapter)