Death Notice

In the forest, not far from the little cabin, the Maize witch’s arms were spread open and her legs crossed together. She was like a cross nailed to a tree, four people wide.

“You… you want to question me?” The Maize witch’s words contained a hint of mocking; her face colored with disdain. “Youngster, do you want big sister to teach you a few torture techniques?”

This witch called Mesa had already recovered from her panic. She felt ashamed at how afraid she was of an ordinary exorcist. She wanted to enrage Qin Lun for a chance at freedom.

The exorcists and the Maize witches were like fire and water, two completely incompatible groups. There was no possibility of reconciling. No matter which side ended up victorious, as a captive, the best ending was death.

Comparatively speaking, as a witch, being a captive was not as bad. At worst, she would be purified by holy light. If an exorcist were to become a captive, their fate would be much more miserable. Many exorcists would be placed on a witch’s experiment table and turned into magic creatures.

However, it seemed like the exorcist now wanted to torture her to avenge his comrade’s tragic deaths.

However, witches truly had the right to look down on the exorcists’ torture methods. Their bodies had been transformed by undead power, and their sense of pain had been dulled. Also, witches tend to have strong willpower, enough to sever the body from the mind.

Besides very rare methods that could directly harm the soul, most tortures were ineffective against them.

“Question?” The youth, whose body was controlled by the killer, Joey, seemed to smile. A very insincere smile spread across his lips.

“That cowardly kid did prepare some questions, but Sir Joey will never do something as crass as question via torture. I care more about ‘art’. Oh, you’ve reminded me, it’s better to keep you quiet so you don’t interrupt the process!”

Joey walked up with an evil grin. Before the witch’s shocked expression, he stabbed the broken sword into her mouth. It only took a few moments to turn her tongue and vocal cords into mush.

“Not bad, now I can begin!” Joey stroked his chin and began to laugh. He pulled out Crime, which was still stabbed into the witch’s chest.

In fact, a witch’s heart core was equivalent to a human’s heart, but there were a few differences. If a human’s heart gets injured, they would undoubtedly die, but a witch’s heart core had self-healing capabilities.

Wanting to kill a witch by harming their heart core requires it to be thoroughly smashed to pieces. Another way would be to use a longevity powered magic tool to stab their heart core. Using longevity power counters the undead power in the heart core.

The reason why Qin Lun’s dagger, Crime, hadn’t killed the witch, despite stabbing into her heart core, was because it wasn’t like the other weapons exorcists use. Crime slowly consumed the heart core instead of instantly expelling the undead power inside.

Joey spun Crime in his hand for a while, then nimbly stabbed into her chest and ruthlessly cut down.

“Psh!” A spurt of dark green liquid shot out like an arrow of water. Joey skillfully tilted his head to avoid it. His blood red pupils glowed with a strange light. He had single-mindedly devoted himself to the dagger in his hand and began to ‘dissect’ the witch’s body.

Joey’s ‘dissection’ wasn’t like a normal one. He removed one layer at a time, starting from the outside. First was the skin. The witch’s, tough as leather, skin was skillfully removed by his dagger. Then it was flattened out and hung on a tree.

Looking back at the Maize witch crucified on the tree, it was like she had grown a pair of wings made of skin like a peacock spreading its tail. It also looked like a suffering angel nailed to a cross.

Next was the flesh. Joey carefully used the dagger to divide the various groups of muscles and extracted one strip at a time. He stretched them out and hung them over the skin, forming the delicate feathers of the wings.

“Your skin is such a perfect work of art. A pity your flesh is a bit rotten. There is no flexibility. It doesn’t make the best feathers!” Joey obsessively stroked the layer of feathers on the wings.

“Your expression is pretty good. You still haven’t passed out yet. Persevere! You can do it!” Joey made a fist and cheered her on, then leaned towards her ear and whispered with concern, “How is it? Do you want a break? Then let’s start the next half!”

By now, the witch couldn’t even hear what Joey was saying. She trembled from head to toe, her two eyes pale white. Dark green foam came out of her mouth, as if she were a seizure patient. After Joey started his so-called art, the witch suddenly discovered that she had misjudged.

Every time Crime cut into her body, it would drain her undead power. One could say that the power that normally strengthened and transformed her body had now become a source of pain.

This type of draining wasn’t just a physical pain; it was extracting the power that had already merged with her flesh and her soul. Besides the heart core, the rest of a witch’s body obviously also contained undead power.

If Joey had chosen to keep the dagger stabbed in one spot, the power consumed would be very little, and the witch would be in much less pain.

However, Joey’s dissection speed was very fast. His dagger never stopped, as if afraid that the piece of art before him wouldn’t be able to last, afterall, he currently had no anesthetics at hand. His light touch was exactly the cause of the witch’s pain.

She felt it deep in her muscles and her skeleton, as if hundreds of thousands of ants were crawling. The numbness and itchiness were impossible to withstand. If she could choose again, the witch would definitely not have provoked Joey. Instead, she would have immediately gathered the last of her power and self-destructed. Up until now, having so much undead power drained from her, she had already completely lost control of her body. She couldn’t even self-destruct.

“Hwee hwoo~~” Joey cheerfully began to whistle. Holding Crime, he began the final process of the ‘dissection.’

To finish the final part, he needed to empty out the witch’s organs and clean up the skeleton, completely turning it into a skeleton with wings of skin, a ‘skeleton angel’.

This was the source of the killer, Joey Foster’s, nickname, ‘The Dissector’. It was also the reason why Lin Feng would treat Qin Lun’s killing method as a work of art. This was the devil, Joey’s, ‘Dissection Art’.

“Kill me, kill me!” The witch’s weak plea could be heard in his head.

“Eh, you can actually interact with me without a tongue?” Joey stopped his hands from working and sized up the dying witch in wonder. He first took note of the despair in the witch’s imploring eyes.

“Don’t you still have questions for me? I can tell you everything. I beg you, set me free!” The witch opened and closed her mouth like a dead fish, her voice stammering in Qin Lun’s head.

“Right, your hunchbacked companion, I can help you save his life!” The Maize witch appealed to his emotions and shouted.

“No, no no! Sir Joey has no interest in listening to this. You are perhaps Sir Joey’s best work up until now. The only clear-headed ‘skeleton angel’.” Joey licked his lips and showed a bloodthirsty grin.

“Eh?” Joey was just about to step forward and continue his work when his head suddenly lifted. From his nose, two snake-like lines of blood appeared, as if he had been punched.

“No, you… can’t! You said she’s mine!” Joey suddenly stooped over and covered his face. From his throat came a challenging roar.

“No, you can’t have it!” Joey furiously raised his head; his two eyes revealed endless madness and ruthlessness. His whole body shuddered as he walked towards the witch, trembling as he raised Crime.

“She… is mine. Mine! Nooo~” Joey left hand suddenly grabbed his own throat. Crime, in his powerless right hand, fell straight to the ground, under the tree. Like a curled up shrimp, he bent down in pain.

After a long while, Qin Lun stopped his struggling. His curled up body straightened up. A smile appeared on his face. Exhausted, he looked at the half-finished angel on the tree trunk.

He could see the peeled off skin and muscle. Amidst the bones dripping in blood, one could vaguely see the beating organs of the witch. Qin Lun faintly shook his head and sighed. “No wonder his reaction would be so intense. This really is his most perfect piece of work up till now.”

“Speak up. How can I save my companion’s life.” Qin Lun pinched the witch’s chin with one hand and asked with a cold expression. “I hope you don’t lie to me. Treasure this final chance.”

“In… the cabin. Inside my cabin is a crystal ball… It can preserve a human’s soul…”

“Then the body? How do I resurrect it!” Qin Lun’s eyes flashed as he asked solemnly.

“Body… no, there’s no way. The undead elixir I have on hand has already been depleted. I’m unable to restore an ordinary person’s physical body. I can only use it… use it to create a half-human body!” The witch’s gaze slowly darkened. She almost couldn’t hold on any longer.

“Humph, you aren’t allowed to die yet!” Qin Lun sneered, took out a soul power crystal, and pushed it into the witch’s broken heart core.

“What is this? Why am I feeling such a pure soul power!” The witch’s consciousness shook.

“I don’t want you to die, so you can’t. If you cheat me, I’ll let you enjoy being a skeleton angel forever.” Qin Lun showed a peaceful smile, but his eyes were cold. “Now tell me, what kind of traps are there in the cabin…”

   ……

“Oh!” Tony slowly opened his eyes. He only felt the world spinning and a scorching heat from his face.

“You’re awake.” Qin Lun smiled and turned to him. “Rest well, there are still a few hours before we rendezvous with Miss Nova.”

“Doctor Stein, the witch… did we win?” Tony asked weakly, “Otto, Will, they…”

“They are beside you. There is also my servant Frank.” Qin Lun fell silent for a moment before replying indifferently.

Tony strived to support his body. Only now did he notice that he was lying in the carriage that originally imprisoned the werewolf. Otto, Will, and Frank’s body were all stacked beside him. Qin Lun was sitting at the front, driving the cart.

The miserable state of his companions’ corpses left Tony silent. An indescribable grief consumed his heart. However, the blond young man very quickly noticed the fourth body in the carriage. It was a skinny, old man’s corpse. It definitely wasn’t one of the exorcists he recognized.

“He is… a victim from the witch’s cabin?”

“You don’t recognize him?” Qin Lun smiled at Tony. “He’s the creature you personally brought over.”

“He… don’t tell me…” Tony slowly opened his eyes wide.