The Deceitful One

Seeing Dylan agree to his proposal, Bryan sighed in relief. If the police arrived here first and saw Kenny who currently looked like a monster, they would definitely freak out.

After all, Transcendent related stuff was a very closely guarded secret. Very few people in the world knew about it. That's why he had asked Dylan to inform the Church first. The Church could definitely deal with the aftermath of this situation.

Bryan picked up a tablecloth lying on the ground and covered Kenny's face with it. Then he rushed to the second floor.

The Church officials would be here very soon and he didn't have much time. Bryan wasn't looking for money or anything of that sort. No, he was searching for the meditation technique or the potion recipe for Kenny's Transcendent Path.

Although Bryan wasn't sure if he could find it in the house, it didn't hurt to try.

There were three rooms on the second floor. He hurriedly searched through the guest room and the bedroom and found nothing except around 100 Pounds in cash. Naturally, Bryan kept the money. Next, he entered Kenny's study.

He scoured through the place, looking in between book pages and behind the bookshelf. Finally, he arrived at Kenny's table. He checked through all the papers and books kept on it but didn't find what he was looking for.

Bryan then searched through the two drawers and was thoroughly disappointed. Right when he was about to close the second drawer, he noticed a hidden switch buried under the parchment papers inside.

His eyes shone with expectation as he took out the papers again and pressed the switch. With a click, another compartment opened up inside the drawer.

Bryan pulled open the hidden compartment and inside it, he found two sheets of ancient-looking parchment papers. He picked it up and read the contents on the first parchment paper.

The text was written in Ancient Hymmnos. It read: 'Rank 1 Illusion Path potion recipe. Main Ingredients: Every drop of an adult Kalahari Fish's blood & One Timber Peacock's egg. Supplementary ingredients: 50ml of purified water, 5 drops of crimson weed juice…'

Then, he read the second parchment paper which contained the Rank 1 Illusion Path Meditation Technique. Bryan smiled widely as he hurriedly stuffed the two parchment papers inside the inner pocket of his vest coat.

This potion recipe and meditation technique weren't for him but for Grace. He had promised Grace to look for it when they had first met. Now, he had finally found it. Bryan felt that the Illusion Path would really suit her.

After keeping the two parchment papers, Bryan took two random papers from the drawer, stuffed them inside the hidden compartment, and then closed it. He made sure that his blood stains weren't present in any of those places he had touched.

Bryan made sure that everything was the same as before he came here and then immediately left the room. He headed straight for the basement where he had heard the screams of the girl when he entered the house.

'So the fucker was an Illusion Path Transcendent. Now it all makes sense." Bryan thought in his heart as he approached the basement.

His fight with Kenny was really taxing on him. After casting Earth Spear and Shadow Chains, Bryan's spirituality had completely dried out. Using the embryonic form of spiritual sense, in the beginning, had also taken a severe toll on his mind.

Kenny was a really difficult opponent to fight against. If it wasn't for Bryan's Mystiko blades that were concealed under his bracers and him leading Kenny to believe that he had already lost the fight after losing the curved daggers, Bryan would have surely died.

As Bryan analyzed his battle with Kenny, he reached the basement and found a young lady in her late teens struggling to free herself from the steel table.

She had blonde hair but half of it was covered in her blood and her white dress also had some blood stains on it. Her light blue eyes stared at Bryan in horror.

Bryan approached her with a smile and said, "Miss, everything is alright now. Please allow me to untie y-"

But before Bryan could finish what he was saying, the blonde young lady started crying as she screamed, "No! Stay away from me, monster!"

Bryan's smile froze as his eyebrows twitched. He cursed in his heart, 'The fuck? Lady, I just fought a life-and-death battle to rescue you. Perhaps a simple thank you would have sufficed. Who are you calling a monster?'

The scene of Bryan's entire face covered in blood and smiling at her had really scared the living daylights out of the blonde young lady.

Bryan could only shrug his shoulders and sigh, "Fine. Stay where you are then. I'm going back up."

With that said, Bryan turned around and prepared to leave.

"W-wait!" But right then, the young lady's voice called out to him from behind. Bryan turned around and raised his one eyebrow as he asked, "What is it?"

The young lady stammered as she mustered her courage to speak, "W-who are you? And what about the other guy?"

"Me? Hmm, you could say I'm with the police. As for the other guy, he's dead." Bryan replied nonchalantly.

"Dead!?" The young lady was severely shocked as she looked at Bryan who was acting as if a fly had died instead of a person.

Bryan nodded his head and asked back, "Do you want me to untie you or not?"

The young lady with blonde hair hesitated for a moment and then nodded her head weakly. Bryan approached her and undid all the belt straps tying her limbs to the steel table.

Then without saying another word, he turned around and headed back upstairs. He was so exhausted, both mentally and physically, that he just wanted to find a place to sleep.

But he couldn't yet. He still had to deal with the Church officials and give them a recount of what took place.

The blonde young lady saw Bryan turn around and head upstairs. She hesitated for a long time and then finally followed him upstairs.

After coming to the living room, Bryan found a corner and sat down with his back against the wall. He instructed the young lady who had nearly met her doom tonight, to not leave until the police arrived at the scene.

Seeing the young lady obediently stand beside him without saying a word, Bryan then shut his eyes to get some rest and patiently waited for the people from the Church to arrive.