There can't be a Harvest Moon in the RimWorld.

This is not scientific at all!

It's clearly magic!

Standing at a distance, watching this scene in shock, I suddenly noticed a strange figure, full of flames, rushing out of the indigo fire, passing through the wall and Father Carter's body without any hindrance, and flying straight towards me!

Its body looked as if all its bones had been smashed, and with each step it caused all parts of its body to shake simultaneously. The limbs and facial features that should have been in place were also twisted into incomprehensible shapes.

But the twisted fire spirit eventually stopped just a hair's breadth away from me.

At that distance, I saw a pair of pitch-black, lifeless eyes suddenly appear on the face of the distorted, grotesque figure, staring at me motionless. Its dark, gaping mouth slowly opened, but without uttering a word, it turned into a puddle of ashes and scattered in the wind...

…………

"Marcus, why aren't you saying anything? Are you scared?"

Father Carter took two steps back to my side, and then, quite unceremoniously, collapsed onto the ground.

I glanced at him. "You're the one who's scared, aren't you? Don't you need to go back and change into a pair of yellow pants?"

The unscrupulous priest said with dissatisfaction, "I sacrificed a rare amulet made of mercury to help you! Why are you being so cold towards me!"

I said nonchalantly, "Then I'll just buy you an elite controller—the kind that swallowed Qin Chuan Derich."

Father Carter frowned and said, "No need for that. As long as you don't tell anyone that I know how to enter dreams, I won't charge you any fees."

I plopped down and patted him on the shoulder: "Sure, it's a deal!"

After saying that, the two of them revealed knowing, wicked smiles.

But the next moment, I stretched out a hand, making a "please give me some" gesture, "Since we're even, you can give me the compensation for breaking my window!"

Father Carter was shocked and jumped to his feet: "You're kicking me when I'm down! I was only trying to save your ranch..."

I immediately interrupted his questioning, "There's no need to go into that anymore. We've already reached an agreement on this—you sacrificed the amulet to help me, and I promise not to reveal your secret. But breaking my window is a separate matter. You're not trying to renege on your promise, are you?"

Father Carter gritted his teeth and said, "You're kicking me when I'm down! I absolutely will not admit it!"

A surge of secret joy welled up inside me. To have driven that shameless priest to this point showed my skills had improved! It must be my righteous spirit that suppressed his wicked ways!

My scheming against Carter isn't out of petty malice or a desire to persecute him. Rather, he has too many problems, and I need to find a way to get to the bottom of things from him.

"Okay, then, as long as you explain what happened to me clearly, I won't charge you for the broken glass. First of all, how did you suddenly come back?"

Seeing that I had finally revealed my true intentions, Father Carter sighed with a complicated expression, "If you wanted to ask questions, you should have said so earlier... As long as we don't talk about money, everything is negotiable..."

"It's all fine if we don't talk about money? Did you originally intend to tell me the truth?" I countered.

"Of course not! I'm not stupid..."

Father Carter stopped midway through his sentence when he saw my darkening expression and chuckled awkwardly, "Actually, I came back the day before yesterday, but I told Zack not to tell anyone and to sneak back to the church on my own."

"Go back to sleep? Do you know I've taken over your job and started teaching kids!"

I'm so angry about this. While I was working my butt off, you lazy bum were sleeping soundly in the church!

Father Carter became even more guilty upon hearing this and quickly explained, "Hey, don't misunderstand! I was summoned back by the Vatican for a very important mission! I've been working non-stop for over two months, I need to rest for a couple of days..."

He said with a bitter face, "Two months ago, various degrees of anomalies occurred at the distortion points around the world, and many churches built on them were also affected. Under these circumstances, the Vatican recalled every priest with exorcism qualifications and divided them into small teams to resolve the crisis..."

Two months ago?

Upon hearing about this particular time, my right eyelid twitched involuntarily.

Father Carter said helplessly, "Yes... The Order of the Spirits didn't issue any warnings, and then this strange thing suddenly happened... The last time there was a record of such a large-scale event was during the first Holy Spirit Crisis of the Holy See. And before that, we probably have to go back to the time when the Church of the Holy Spirit had just left the Holy City of Illidan..."

He sighed, "In order to suppress the Twisted Point, the Church distributed all the mercury in its stockpile. I managed to save a small piece, intending to keep it for future use... I never expected to lose a precious mercury amulet in the process..."

I ignored his self-pity and continued to ask, "Are the things that happen elsewhere the same as what I'm experiencing here?"

Father Carter shook his head: "The situation at the Twisted Point is not that simple. In the parishes I've visited, for example, there have been incidents of clandestine unrest, secret cult gatherings, the breaking of seals on Twisted Objects, and flashbacks of demonic spirits. Even seasoned exorcist priests have seen several return to the embrace of the Holy Spirit..."

"By the way, I was just about to ask you about this."

I took the opportunity to voice my doubts, "The federal government doesn't know about any of these things you're talking about? Do you still adhere to vampire traditions like humans by day and the Holy Race by night?"

Father Carter looked at me with a strange expression. “Who said that? Although the relationship between the Vatican and the Federation is very bad, the Federation’s entire investigation team was mobilized this time to provide us with reliable clues, and many of them are members of the Church themselves. For example, Lilia’s husband in town was an exorcist priest in the Church of the Holy Spirit when he was young.”

Mr. Rhodes has a religious background? That's the first time I've heard of that!

Father Carter sighed, “Humanity has never been able to remain unscathed in the face of these indescribable beings. What you encountered tonight, though the twisted power is still weak, the evil emanating from that spirit was more intense than I’ve ever seen before! Given time, the consequences will be unimaginable…”

Of course...

After all, what you saw was the limit of human potential in life...

"Why is this happening here? I've never seen a ghost before!"

Let alone my past, even Old Man Hook didn't tell me this place was haunted before I came here!

Could I have run into a shady real estate agent who sold me a haunted house?

Father Carter said somewhat awkwardly, “I was in a hurry to come back and check on the Hilichurls, so I haven’t had a chance to tell you about this yet… On the night you disappeared, I found a long-lost mirror from the Holy See’s Crypt in your room. That mirror has the magic to communicate with other dimensions, and it has long been inhabited by a troublesome evil spirit…”

"Holy crap! My house is really haunted!" I exclaimed.

Father Carter comforted him, "It's alright, the evil spirit has somehow dissipated. It's just that the fragments of the magic mirror are scattered throughout the house and the pasture, which might attract strange things here in the future..."

...Oh, it's really not a big problem.

By the way, what's the phone number for a moving company? Are they expensive? I want to move right now!

Chapter 580 As the saying goes, good people attract good leopards.

"Are you looking for a moving company? I happen to know the phone number of a pretty reliable one..."

Father Carter rummaged through his pockets for his business card as he spoke.

"No, the emperor guards the nation's gates, and the monarch dies for the state. This pasture is mine, and no one can take it away!"

Seeing that this guy also had the attitude of a defeatist strategist, I immediately became more determined.

It's just some weird stuff, right? Why are you kicking me out the moment I show up?

Cutting off the water and electricity can't do anything to me. Don't think that holdouts give up so easily, you bastard!

"No need, but your behavior..."

I looked at him with suspicion.

Father Carter immediately straightened his priestly robes, his eyes filled with determination. "Don't get me wrong, this phone was used three years ago when we were helping the Hilichurls move. It just happened to be in my pocket and I didn't throw it away! Those annoying little guys were such stubborn folks back then, they wouldn't move even if they were missing a single brick or a single window..."

After Carter's explanation...

I became even more suspicious of him.

Why is a three-year-old business card still in my clothes?! Do you want me to believe that I've worn this garment for three years without washing it, and that I'm so lazy that I only formally wear a priest's robe once every three years?

I initially trusted him quite a bit, but now it seems I need to reassess his credibility...

Carter's thick skin had long been tested and he was no longer afraid of this level of questioning. He stood in front of me without any shame, maintaining a solemn smile.

"Let's not get sidetracked. Why did the evil spirit rush towards you but not attack you? Do you know each other?"

I shook my head: "I have never seen this person, whether he was alive or dead."

Father Carter picked up the wooden chair that had fallen to the ground, straightened it, and sat down. "Modern evil spirits are all embodiments of human malice and obsession. They appear because negative energy is entangled in this world and refuses to dissipate. Before it dissipates, it insists on rushing towards you. Such obsession can only be described as deep hatred, right? And you don't even recognize it?"

I shook my head calmly: "I don't know him, that's all. Who knows why he was running around in circles in my house, juggling chairs, and banging on my door... Are all evil spirits this vicious?"

Carter clicked his tongue and said, "No, if evil spirits of this caliber were everywhere, civilized order would have been completely destroyed long ago... I've only ever seen evil spirits that can corrupt an entire house in such a short time in century-old cemeteries where heinous criminals are buried. It requires perfect timing and location..."

I instantly realized, "You mean... my ranch is now as gloomy as a centuries-old cemetery?"

The priest rested his chin on his hand and thought for a moment. “What you said is not accurate. The century-old cemetery I was talking about used to be an infectious disease hospital for a long time, so there were many deaths there... In terms of time, this pasture is probably equivalent to a thousand-year-old cemetery!”

"Or you could just give me the moving company's phone number."

It's not that I'm afraid of the name "millennial cemetery." It's not uncommon for wealthy people to put Tang tri-colored pottery and tomb guardian beasts in their homes. But the thought of sleeping on a graveyard...

Even the most brain-dead rich person wouldn't think it's particularly prestigious to sleep in Emperor Taizong's tomb and lie down in the coffin with a pillow between their legs!

Father Carter quickly explained, "I was just using an analogy! Relax!"

He wrote a few lines on the ground with a twig and explained to me, “Currently, the classifications of Old Ones mainly include the following: Spiritual Corruption, Hidden Families, Twisted Contamination, and the Descent of the Old Gods. Among the phenomenon of Spiritual Corruption, the most terrifying are evil spirits that are formed from fallen natural spirits and are born with the ability to manipulate supernatural powers. Evil spirits derived from human souls can only carry on their obsessions from their previous life, and it just so happens that the evil part of human nature prevails…”

"Is evil spirits only obsessed with evil? That doesn't seem to make sense..."

Father Carter sighed, “If all evil spirits were to act with good intentions, then a final prayer would be enough to dispel most of their obsessions. I once encountered a case where a loved one died unexpectedly and I worried that they might become an evil spirit. In the end, instead of staying by their side to watch them grow up as I had hoped, they twisted into a demon that could only be seen by those they cared about, relentlessly haunting and terrifying their loved ones day and night…”

After a moment of silence, Father Carter continued, “That’s not what I wanted to say. I just wanted to tell you that what’s causing these effects is actually the distortion of this world. Individual consciousness can at most distort the perceptions of a few people, but land that’s been fed on the aura of death for a long time will produce evil spirits that feed on the collective perceptions of others…”

He gestured to the ground in front of him. "It's like a Death Mirror, originating from a special evil spirit. It happens to contain two elements at the same time, which is why the ranch's distortion level is extraordinary. But that doesn't mean this is a graveyard, so you can rest assured!"

...I just can't rest easy about it!

"Father, as a professional, you should have a way to solve this, right? Divine magic, magic, arcane magic, eye magic, Constantine's tricks—anything will do. Just handle it like you would anywhere else!"

Of course, all the Olympiad math classes in the community are scams, and parents should never let their children go there—I studied for six whole years, and I never saw anyone in my class able to conjure up an Olympiad math missile!

The priest raised his eyelids slightly and said to me in a helpless tone, "Marcus, I've already told you, you must believe in science. At least the Vatican has never been superstitious about these external forces."

"Impossible! Then how did you suppress the old, twisted forces on the mainland?!" I grabbed his collar, refusing to believe reality.

"Let me explain..."

Father Carter fled in disarray, then said to me with certainty, “We rely on the guidance of the Holy Spirit, combining the powers of alchemical engineering, alchemical potion-making, astrology, symbol and ritual studies, and so on, to fight against the distortion and mutation.”

I asked him incredulously, "What? You guys are a group of scientists?"

This is not what we agreed on. Isn't the normal purpose of the Vatican to spread religion, deceive young boys, and hinder technological development, only to be overthrown and trampled on by everyone, and to make a living by collecting "intelligence tax"?

His righteous words were like when I approached Blade and told him I wanted to join the team hunting vampires, and he told me there were no vampires in the dark corners of the city.

The real vampires hide in spacious rooms in factories and office buildings, smoking cigars and drinking whiskey—they are not afraid of sunlight and crosses, but only of the gleam of scythes and hammers.

"There must be a way, right?"

Father Carter sighed, “It seems you don’t quite understand alchemy. It involves techniques such as forging, liquefaction, separation, combination, corruption, condensation, addition, sublimation, fermentation, elevation, proliferation, and projection. But we generally divide the world’s matter into two sources: sulfur, which represents sinking, destruction, and chaos, and mercury, which symbolizes rising, protection, and purification. The mercury stone fragments we just showed you were made by the Vatican using various materials to purify harmful substances within evil spirits, hence the name mercury…”

"This is only a method for dealing with evil spirits. If it involves the creation of a twisted and polluted land, the Holy See usually uses large alchemical golems to clean up the contaminants, and finally applies alchemical sulfur fire magic potion to blast and burn the entire source of the twisted and polluted land to ashes..."

I gasped, forcing out a question through gritted teeth: "May I ask, what is the recipe for this sulfur fire...?"

Father Carter generously replied, "Oh, it's not a secret. It's just mixing sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal powder in a certain ratio, plus a little bit of essential holy water..."

No need!