CHAPTER 416: CHAPTER 31 YOUSI COMMUNITY

Venice City, Cannaregio district, inside a high-end apartment.

Having finished their hunt, Tiberius returned to the apartment and saw his brother Gaius lying on the sofa watching TV.

"How many people did you eat?" Gaius asked casually.

"Three," Tiberius wiped the corner of his mouth, "plus about twenty mice, and brought one back for you by the way."

Extracted from the Flesh Sequence, the Devouring Law allowed for more efficient harvesting of Spirituality by devouring living beings. With the Anti-Demon Magnetic Field preventing the natural replenishment of Spirituality, consuming humans was the quickest way for the two demigod brothers to restore their Spirituality.

Once they had gathered enough Spirituality, they could use the contaminating ability of the Flesh Sequence to feed their own flesh to the surrounding mice, transforming them into their flesh puppets and thus manipulating them to monitor the main thoroughfares of Venice City, in search of Agrippina’s whereabouts.

"Do you think she might have also spread a lot of puppets throughout the city with the Poison of Belladonna?" asked Gaius, his eyes fixed on the TV screen, speaking off the cuff, "I remember she likes contaminating pigeons."

"Perhaps," Tiberius said, "but under the Anti-Demon Magnetic Field, she’ll consume Spirituality every time she uses her abilities."

"Without a devouring-related Law, she can only rely on the ’Life Stealing’ ability in her Bloodline, which is quite inefficient for harvesting Spirituality."

"Maybe we can approach it from this angle," Gaius suggested, "Has there been a string of murders in the city recently? It could be the work of the Poison of Belladonna—of course, excluding the ones committed by us."

"Don’t be naive," Tiberius said, "Do you remember where you’ve eaten bread before? Besides, drinking blood in itself isn’t lethal; she could simply have her companions provide her with the small amount of blood she needs each day, in turns."

"That said, the existence of the Anti-Demon Magnetic Field itself imposes a bigger restriction on her than on us," Gaius’s tone lightened, "What’s for lunch today? That old lady yesterday was too tough to chew."

Tiberius clapped his hands and a young Yousi girl walked in from outside the door. Her eyes were filled with terror, her expression was one of near despair, yet her body, contaminated by the ability, was completely out of control. Trembling, she tied napkins around the demigod brothers’ necks, set the knives and forks in place, and then quietly laid down on the dining table.

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"The opponent has the Devouring Law and will undoubtedly use this ability to restore Spirituality and create puppets, so wherever there’s been a spate of murders, the target is likely lurking there," Peggy’s notebook revealed Agrippina’s writing.

"Good," Aske wrote down a word and closed the notebook.

This time, he was accompanied by Eleanor’s squad of girls. Since they had not previously had any encounters with demigods, the risk of their identities being exposed was comparatively lower.

Aske himself still wore the same robe, pressing the hood low to conceal his face.

The contaminating trait of Flesh Power allowed these demigods to corrupt small animals to surveil urban districts for them, even contaminating humans to create blood slaves, which in turn enabled them to maintain a measure of strength under the suppression of the Anti-Demon Magnetic Field.

This contamination granted the Polluter a partial "Flesh I" Extraordinary Trait, much like Peggy had become after her transformation, possessing certain Explosive Power and Self-healing Ability.

However, due to the incomplete nature of the trait, it was not possible to upgrade further, unless one drank more Magic Potion or assimilated a complete "Flesh" trait.

Of course, there are many who are entirely clueless about Transcendents, and so the number of ignorant individuals tempted by such power, willing to become blood slaves, is likely not small.

Although Aske was not incapable of dealing with these small fry, startling the Venice officials as a result would inevitably bring unnecessary trouble.

Therefore, the group still decided not to employ the aggressive strategy of drawing the snake out of its hole but instead first sought to locate the opponent without alerting them.

"So, what do we do?" Nora asked, "Should we go to the hospital first to see if there are a large number of victims’ bodies?"

"That’s not right," Thira said. "Considering the nature of the Devouring ability, the victims may not leave behind bodies. We should head to the nearest militia security station."

"You mean to check for missing persons reports," Eleanor asked.

"Exactly," Thira said.

So everyone headed to the nearest security station, which was staffed by several Venice militiamen.

"Missing persons reports?" Hearing Aske’s question, the Guards immediately became vigilant. "Who are you? Why do you want to inquire about this?"

Aske was about to speak when Nora suddenly emerged from behind him, clapping her hands and laughing:

"We’re tourists from Solomon City, but our guide told us not to go out recently because there have been many missing persons reports. So we wanted to see if that was true?"

Seeing that this time it was a beautiful chestnut-haired young lady speaking, the Guard’s tone immediately softened:

"Missing persons reports are a weekly occurrence. However, most of the time they’re found either having run away from debts or having drowned after falling into the water while drunk."

"Honestly, I’d advise you visitors to stick to the bustling city center for your outings. Although the prices are cheaper in the outlying neighborhoods, there are a lot more petty thieves. If you insist on exploring, at least don’t wander too far from the security stations. Look, there’s a map on the wall. Take note of the distribution of our security stations; it might be helpful if you need to seek assistance from our militia later on."

Miel approached the map on the wall. As a sniper, she had a keen intuition for maps and quickly noticed the distribution of the militia stations, which almost covered most of the island’s areas.

The wealthy city center to the south is the densest, followed by the central district, while the sparsest is the poor area in the north.

However, on the central island of the Canaregio district in the far north, there was not a single militia station.

"What is this place?" she asked, pointing to the area on the north side of the map, her voice crisp.

"Little girl, you shouldn’t go there," the Guard told her, trying to scare her since she was young and had a sweet appearance. "That’s the Yousi community, full of scammers and human traffickers who love to kidnap little girls like you."

"That toy gun of yours won’t protect you," another Guard said, looking at the rifle on her back and laughing. "They’ll use a handkerchief soaked in sedatives, cover your mouth and nose from behind, and you won’t even have a chance to cry for help."

"Thank you," Miel said earnestly.

The Yousi are a rather mysterious ethnic group in the "Song of Iron and Fire" game world. They originally lived in Jerusalem but had to disperse around the world after the city was conquered by the Solomon Empire.

In a world where the Solomon Sect almost rules the entire continent, the Yousi still cling to their own religion. Since the Yousi Sect itself espouses mysticism and believes that becoming a Transcendent is an essential part of the path to becoming the Messiah (Savior), they have long been ostracized by the technological civilization, consequently leading to discrimination against the Yousi as an "inferior race."

Though the Venice City State accepts the immigrants from Yousi, they are restricted to a small area in the northern Canaregio district. Hence, that part turned into the notorious Yousi community—a slum within the slums—and with it came a variety of strange rumors.

For instance, rumors spread that the residents there communicated with devils or demons, concocted potions using rats or bats, and kidnapped children to perform witchcraft, among others. Not only the citizens of Venice City but even the militia were reluctant to patrol that "cursed area."

"That means, if we’re only considering the angle of staying undetected by the authorities, it’s most likely that our target is hiding in the Yousi autonomous community," Aske explained to everyone after leaving the militia station. "After all, no militia patrols there."

"Alright, let’s head there first," the ladies agreed, expressing their readiness to follow the Squad Leader’s lead.