Who hid My Corpse!

"Ugh..."

Vic huddled in the corner of the wall, retching repeatedly.

Rella stood behind him, like a little adult, tiptoeing to pat his back, but waited a long time without Vic vomiting anything, and said somewhat displeasedly, "Do you have something or not, want to puke or don't."

"Enough, Rella." Ryan said lightly from his original seat, "Don't add fuel to the fire, let him recover on his own."

Only then did Rella retreat.

Vic took several deep breaths before finally standing up straight, then returned to his previous position, saying "Sorry" as he picked up the cup from before.

But his hands still couldn't stop trembling, causing the water in the cup to spill continuously.

Ryan glanced downward, "The truth is indeed hard to accept, but what I said earlier is not the truth, just speculation... It seems your bond with that little dog is truly strong, and your psychological endurance is indeed weak."

Vic weakly said, "Ade is a wolf..."

He remained silent for a while.

"I truly cannot believe this is real." Vic said softly, "I can't imagine that I would eat Ade... really, I cannot imagine. May I ask, do you have any other evidence?"

Ryan shook his head, "Precisely because there's no more conclusive evidence, I say it's just speculation. After the death of the God of Senluo, Wildfire believers have completely replaced hunters as the strongest force on this land, yet to this day, we don't know where their power comes from, just like how we don't know the origin of the corpse ghosts that spread from the boundless night after the God of Senluo's death."

"...corpse ghosts?" Vic didn't know if he truly wanted to know information about corpse ghosts or wanted temporarily to escape from the topic of Ade, anyhow he said quite urgently, "Can you tell me, what are the corpse ghosts? I mean... when the God of Senluo was alive, what was this land like?"

"Back then this land had a name, like other churches, it was called Senluo." Ryan said, "But now, only hunters still use the name Senluo."

While speaking, Ryan paused, then slightly furrowed his brow, as if recalling something.

"Regarding that past of Senluo, I haven't experienced it firsthand, after all, when I was born, the God of Senluo was already dead, so I heard it from the elder hunters, who were the last batch when the God of Senluo was still around."

"According to what they said, the God of Senluo didn't suddenly pass but underwent a long process, lasting hundreds of years."

"When Senluo was first established, the God of Senluo was still very powerful, not weaker than the other seven divines, and even paid more attention to this land than the other divines. He single-handedly founded the Senluo Church and cultivated the hunters of Senluo. Remember I mentioned before, the heritage of Senluo hunters comes directly from the God of Senluo. Even the earliest generation of hunters faced the God of Senluo directly."

Faced the... God of Senluo?

Although Vic had seen the statue of the God of Senluo in those dilapidated churches, he still couldn't imagine what the true appearance of the God of Senluo was like.

"Yes, back then the hunters of Senluo were arguably the strongest batch of divine servants in the world, not yielding more to Rhine, Holy Sound, those Orthodox churches." Ryan said, "But unlike them, Senluo's hunters were hard to leave Senluo."

"Why was that?"

"Because the hunters had to deal with a rather troublesome entity."

"A rather troublesome entity?"

"Yes, you can understand it as... the precursor of corpse ghosts."

Vic was slightly stunned, "But you just said corpse ghosts emerged only after the death of the God of Senluo."

"That's why I call them the precursor to corpse ghosts; we called them corpse puppets." Ryan said, "Back then they appeared only at night, but not as endless as later. They would mutate from rotting corpses as if the dead suddenly revived and became monsters, so hunters didn't yet give them the title of 'ghost.' Even then, they were already troublesome, as they could evolve from all sorts of corpses, not just humans but livestock, even some small animals."

"Sounds quite troublesome as well..."

"Indeed, and the strength of corpse puppets correlates with the length of the mutation time; the longer the mutation, the more challenging to deal with." Ryan said, "And this was when the role of hounds became evident. Hounds often could find them before they puppetized, allowing hunters to handle them early, greatly reducing risk. From that time, hounds became standard for hunters."

Hearing this, Vic couldn't help but purse his lips.

He thought of Ade again.

Hunters and hounds collaborating in hunting was something he dreamed of, yet unfortunately...

Vic unconsciously clenched his fist.

Ryan naturally noticed this detail but said nothing further, gracefully shifting the topic.

"Have you ever wondered why only this land has the existence of corpse ghosts or corpse puppets?"