Chapter 137
137: This Is My Escape Route!
"In that case... Mr. Victor, could you please explain why the number of names on this transfer list sent back from headquarters doesn't match the number of those children you claimed were 'transferred to monasteries for study'?"
Jasmine revealed a brilliant smile. She spread out the documents in her hand and cheerfully pointed to the line labeled "Christian Orphanage."
At the same time, Victor was already drenched in cold sweat. Large beads of sweat rolled down from his temple. This former Bishop, who had served for nearly ten years and was now in his sixties, experienced the feeling of having pins in his back for the first time.
He stared dead at the stack of documents in Jasmine's hand, screaming crazily in his heart.
『Bastard! This Saint has only been gone for less than half a day. How could she have collected all the evidence so quickly!?』
Victor had mixed with the Holy Church for many years and knew very well the nature of those indifferent people inside the Church. In his understanding, unless the supreme Pope personally supervised, even for Jasmine the Saint, if she couldn't go there personally, those lazy wastes would definitely drag things out for four or five days before responding to her request.
How could they possibly do it in less than half a day...
However, the bloody fact was laid right before Victor's eyes. Jasmine really had collected the evidence. And looking at her stance, she was probably planning to directly conduct his trial right here.
Dead bitch! Even at this point she still had that smiling face. Truly a smiling tiger!
Victor gritted his teeth and began frantically thinking of ways to escape.
"Silence? Well, that's fine too. After all, silence is also a right, isn't it? But in that case..."
Jasmine's smile disappeared, replaced by unprecedented seriousness.
"Can I understand this as your tacit admission of your actions? Mr. Victor?"
"Victor, you actually..."
At this moment, even Sauron, who always wore a smiling face, had his expression darken. He stared at Victor intently and said to him, word by word:
"Do you know, Victor, even someone as easygoing as this old man has his bottom line! Apart from loyalty to the Lord, those children who symbolize humanity's future are my bottom line!"
"My Lord..."
Victor opened his mouth as if wanting to refute, but under Sauron's completely darkened gaze, he ultimately couldn't say any words of rebuttal.
"Hmph, Mr. Victor, since you've tacitly admitted it, then I have another question that urgently needs your explanation."
Jasmine stepped forward two paces and pulled out another notebook from her bosom that Victor found terribly familiar.
And when Victor saw the notebook in her hand, the unwillingness and resentment in his eyes instantly transformed into terror.
It was his ledger.
"I checked your bank account. The deposits there are normal. But your other assets are a different story. Records show you spent large sums purchasing stocks, made multiple investments, and bought real estate. Presumably, your illicit gains were used for these purposes, right?"
"However, these aren't the most important thing. The most important thing is..."
In an instant, Jasmine rarely revealed an expression of disgust. Evelia had only seen that expression once before, when Harrison mentioned Jasmine's former adoptive father Howard.
"Why does your property value severely mismatch the ledger's records? It's not that there's anything extra that shouldn't be there. Rather, when all your current assets are added together, they don't even amount to half of what the ledger records!"
"After my careful examination, I found that the missing portion of money corresponds exactly to the value noted after the list of children taken by a certain 'customer' in your ledger! Most critically, according to your ledger's records, the number of children taken by that 'customer' has already exceeded one-third of all the children you sold! Tell me, where exactly... did you send those children!?"
"Hehe..."
This time, Victor didn't remain silent. He slowly raised his head, the corner of his mouth curving into a strange arc.
"Lady Saint, I think you already have the answer in your heart, don't you? As early as when you learned that this Christian Orphanage was established by your father, you already had your suspicions."
"You just never dared to confirm them."
"So now, I'll tell you. You are correct."
"..."
What riddles were these two speaking?
This was the common thought of everyone present upon hearing these words.
But although somewhat puzzled in her heart, Evelia keenly noticed.
Right now, Jasmine was already trembling all over from anger.
She suddenly raised her head and said in a low voice, enunciating each word:
"Bastard..."
In an instant, countless golden chains wrapped with divine energy materialized in the air, rushing toward Victor's body in an overwhelming tide.
What terrifying magic power.
At the same time, Evelia, standing closest to Jasmine, clearly felt the boundless magic power within Jasmine, deep as a surging ocean.
And she also felt Jasmine's anger and killing intent that had nearly condensed into physical substance.
"Jasmine, really. Earlier she herself said to stay calm and not act impulsively. And the result? She even forgot her own principle about not using magic in front of ordi... ordinary people."
Evelia sighed and, before the chains could fully form, covered little An An's eyes.
The little one hadn't seen anything yet! But out of trust in Sister Evelia beside her, she didn't make a fuss and just obediently pressed against Evelia, looking quite endearing.
"Hehe, Lady Saint... you've truly given this old man quite a gift!"
The golden chains wrapped around Victor's body as expected. This old thing didn't struggle much either. He knew very well the gap between himself and Jasmine, and knew that so-called struggling would be futile.
"Victor! According to headquarters' records, you already had a bribery incident back when you were a Father. But at that time, because you actively admitted your mistake and corrected yourself, you weren't severely punished. But now it seems, the Pope was too merciful to you!"
Jasmine waved her hand, and the other end of the chains quietly fell into her grasp. Victor had now become a lamb awaiting slaughter, unable to cause any more trouble...
Or had he?
Victor, who should have been suppressed by the God-given chains, suddenly raised his head and revealed a sinister smile at Jasmine.
"Lady Saint, this old thing also has a gift for you. How about it?"
"!"
Hearing this, Jasmine seemed to realize something. Her expression instantly changed dramatically, and her figure violently retreated backward.
But it was already too late.
A test tube containing an unknown black substance suddenly fell from Victor's sleeve. The moment it touched the ground, it quietly shattered. The substance immediately began spreading violently in all directions in gaseous form. In just the blink of an eye, it had enveloped everyone present.
"What is this smell! So awful!"
Evelia instantly frowned. She could sense the faint magic power contained in this black gas, but could also clearly perceive that it wasn't any deadly poison. Rather, it seemed like the vaporized product of some special magic crystal.
The strangest thing was that although she had never encountered such bizarre magic attributes before, she could feel an inexplicable familiarity from it.
As if she had seen it somewhere before.
"Cough! Cough cough cough cough!"
Just then, Jasmine, who wasn't far from Evelia, suddenly began coughing violently. Evelia felt something was wrong with her and wanted to go help, but Jasmine waved her hand at her, signaling her not to worry about her.
"Hurry! Victor! He's... going to run... cough cough cough cough!"
"What!?"
Only then did Evelia notice that the golden chains originally held in Jasmine's hand had already begun disintegrating at some point. And what was being suppressed at the other end of the chains was precisely that sinister old thing Victor!
"Hmph!"
At this critical moment, Sauron, who had been silent for a long time, snorted coldly. Dazzling golden light instantly dispersed the black magic fog, while also revealing Victor's skinny figure once more to everyone's eyes.
"Not good!"
Victor, who had just finished chanting half of his teleportation magic, suddenly felt something was wrong. In the next second, a gleaming golden Spear of Judgment flew right before his face! Victor gritted his teeth and similarly used the God-given Magic's Spear of Judgment to try to block it.
"Clang!"
A crisp humming sound rang out. The Spear of Judgment Victor condensed was instantly shattered. But at the same time, the Spear of Judgment condensed by Sauron was also forced to change direction due to this block. It grazed past Victor's body, tearing open a not-too-large, not-too-small gash on him.
"Damn!"
Victor cursed in a low voice. Although this originally fatal attack had been blocked by him, his teleportation magic that had been chanted halfway was also interrupted simultaneously.
"Still want to leave? Stay right there!"
Just as Victor subconsciously wanted to chant the teleportation magic again, Mo Wuyou's figure instantly appeared before him. Compared to the Church's God-given Magic, the magic system used by the Watchers was much more varied. And what Mo Wuyou was using right now was precisely a self-enhancement type magic that could multiply physical abilities several times over.
"Ora!"
Mo Wuyou shouted, and his enhanced fist instantly flew toward Victor's face. Facing Mo Wuyou's punch that was so fast it was nearly invisible to the naked eye, Victor surprisingly didn't use any means of protection, contrary to everyone's expectations. Mo Wuyou's fist just solidly landed on Victor's face.
In an instant, Victor's face was nearly caved in. Blood sprayed from his face, spinning and floating in the air along with his knocked-out teeth.
Honestly, taking such a punch head-on, an ordinary person would probably have had their skull shattered.
But Victor was a Bishop after all. Even though his physical condition had greatly declined due to age, the foundation of his former status as a high-level practitioner remained. This was evident from the fact that he hadn't died after taking such a punch from Mo Wuyou.
But having said that, Victor was clearly not having an easy time either. Not only was his entire body sent flying, his bones had also undergone very obvious deformation.
However, far from feeling fear and panic, he instead began laughing wildly like never before.
"Hahahahaha! Didn't expect that, did you!? This is my escape route!"
"What!?" ×6
Everyone watched in disbelief as a spatial teleportation scroll had somehow appeared in Victor's hand.
He had been holding back until now? You bastard...
"Don't think about leaving!"
Just one second before Victor was about to activate the spatial teleportation scroll, Amya immediately spread the wings at her waist. Her speed reached its peak in an instant! In just the blink of an eye, she had already caught up to Victor. The longsword condensed from light elements in her hand stabbed toward Victor's chest without hesitation.
"Haha! Too late!"
Facing the blade right before him, Victor laughed wildly. The scroll in his hand instantly burst with brilliant light. In the next instant, Victor's figure disappeared.
Amya's strike also predictably hit nothing but air.
"Damn it!"
She hadn't expected Victor to escape after all. Amya stomped her foot in anger. She petulantly slashed at a large tree beside her. With a "boom," our poor Mr. Tree was innocently caught in the crossfire and cut in half at the waist by Amya's sword.
"...My mistake. I really didn't expect Victor to use this method to escape. Everyone from the Church, please don't worry. The Watchers will immediately activate Level 1 alert status. There's absolutely no way we'll let that beast leave Wangyou City!"
Mo Wuyou's expression was also somewhat dark. After all, in a sense, he was the one who had let Victor escape.
But fortunately, the spatial teleportation scroll in Victor's hand was clearly only a mid-to-low-level scroll. It couldn't directly teleport out of Wangyou City. As long as vigilance was strengthened, Victor would definitely be unable to leave this city.
"Hard to say... If what Victor said is true... this matter might not be as simple as we imagined."
By now Jasmine had recovered a little. Earlier, when she came into contact with that unknown black magic power, she had displayed a dramatically different reaction from everyone else. Even now, her small face was still somewhat pale.
"So what do we do? We can't just let him run away, can we!?"
"That..."
"But strengthening vigilance now is also useless work. Whatever we can think of, he can think of too!"
Watching the adults arguing in a mess, An An felt mentally exhausted for the first time. She opened her mouth, trying hard to say something, but each time she was drowned out by others' voices.
"Eh? Little An An, what's wrong?"
Finally, Amya noticed An An's abnormality and took the initiative to ask.
"U... um... it's... Sister Evelia! She... she's gone!"