That day, Ethan and Dent moved steadily through the city, traveling from one crime scene to another, taking careful notes at each location and gradually piecing together patterns that had eluded previous investigators entirely, the afternoon light shifting slowly overhead as they worked through address after address.
Ethan, working from a theory he’d already begun forming, found each new scene quietly confirming what he’d already suspected, every fresh detail and every witness account slotting neatly into place alongside the last.
Until finally.
"My theory is that this ritual, whatever it turns out to be, is tied directly to the Serpent God Clan."
Ethan spoke the words calmly, standing over yet another scene marked by the same telltale signs he’d learned to recognize.
At tier 4, roughly equivalent to the Demi-God threshold, summoners could no longer rely entirely on Spirit King Karth for their rituals. Karth himself, powerful as he was, only commanded a limited number of Demi-God tier beasts under his direct authority, resources already stretched thin across every summoner within his domain who reached that particular threshold.
Because of this limitation, certain individuals who found themselves overlooked by Karth’s favor often turned instead toward other gods, or in rarer cases, supreme gods entirely outside Karth’s domain.
Almost never, however, did they turn toward a Demi-human God or Beast God specifically.
Especially a god as cruel and demented like the blood serpent god of the blood serpent god clan.
Most of those particular deities carried deep, longstanding hatred toward humanity as a whole, making that particular alliance essentially unthinkable for any human summoner desperate enough to consider it, the kind of desperation that usually only surfaced once every other option had already been exhausted.
"Blood Serpent God? I’ve heard that name mentioned before."
Dent sighed, clearly picking up on the fact that Ethan already understood far more than he’d let on so far.
"Yes. He’s exceptionally cruel."
Ethan nodded, crouching beside a body laid out within the morgue and pressing firmly against a specific section of exposed flesh.
Ever since first hearing that particular name from Servos, Ethan had studied the Blood Serpent God Clan closely, cataloguing everything he could learn about their methods and rituals, piecing together fragments of information from whatever sources he could find during his limited free time. This particular signature was their entire calling card.
Drain the body completely of all liquid following death. Something investigators typically overlooked entirely, since an open wound paired with a deceased body naturally suggested simple blood loss to anyone not specifically trained to look deeper.
But this went far beyond ordinary blood loss.
Ethan pressed harder against a particular section of the corpse and felt a distinct, hollow crunch beneath his fingers. It had taken considerable time to properly set into this state, but the evidence was unmistakable once you knew what to search for. Not the faintest trace of moisture remained anywhere within the tissue, the skin brittle and paper-thin in a way ordinary blood loss never produced.
They had been turned to a husk of nothing but dry tissue.
"I’ll send a report to Mister Kang. In the meantime, I want the current whereabouts of the Algar clansmen stationed here, preferably their exact place of residence."
Ethan withdrew his hand and spoke plainly as he made his way down the morgue’s narrow corridor, already formulating his next move.
As he walked, an unmistakable sense of foreboding washed over him without warning, and he came to an abrupt stop, every instinct honed across weeks of forest hunting suddenly flaring at once.
"Detective Dent, please alert my companions that I’m being followed the moment I leave this building. You should head your own separate way from here."
Ethan said it quietly just outside the door, his tone flat and controlled despite the tension clearly building beneath the surface.
He didn’t wait around for Dent’s response, pushing the door open and cutting sharply left the moment he stepped outside.
The moment he did, a shadow fell into step behind him down the street, the encroaching darkness of early evening making it difficult to track visually. Still, Ethan’s instincts remained sharp.
Combined with Light Inspect active in the background, he knew exactly where his pursuer was positioned at every moment, tracking the shadow’s movement without needing to glance back even once.
Eventually, he turned sharply into a narrow alleyway, coming to a complete stop at its center, gripping his blade firmly in his left hand as he settled into position.
There, he waited.
Seconds stretched slowly, a heavy, tense atmosphere gradually saturating the entire alley.
"You’re an Algar? Are you from Jacob’s branch of the family?"
The shadow finally spoke, clearly reading unmistakable signs across Ethan’s body that confirmed his bloodline connection.
The full arrangement between the clan head and the Serpent God had been kept tightly contained, known only to a small handful of trusted individuals, hidden even from certain branches within the family itself. One particular member connected to Jacob’s household had gone missing recently, and encountering someone now carrying the unmistakable aura of the Serpent Clan led the shadow to draw an immediate, logical conclusion, one that felt obvious enough not to question further.
"Hehe, yes. It’s me."
Ethan offered a faint smile.
But in the very next instant, he vanished entirely, closing the distance between them in a single heartbeat, his blade already descending with tribulation might crackling violently along its edge.
The shadow reacted instantly, summoning a dark raven to intercept the incoming strike before it could land.
As the blade came crashing down.
[You have slain a tier 8 summon]
The man’s eyes widened sharply behind the shadow, fear spreading through him almost instantly. A tier 7 summoner!!
This was a fight he genuinely couldn’t afford to engage in.
But before he could even turn to flee, the massive silhouette of a seven-foot-tall figure materialized directly behind him, seizing his head in one powerful grip and slamming him hard against the alley wall.
He never even registered what had happened before consciousness slipped away entirely.
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