The Third Elder’s Demise

When Reyn opened his eyes, the sun was already blazing high outside.

As he sat up from the bed, he saw Steward Ark standing silently by the door, his face unusually somber, as if something terrible had occurred.

Reyn frowned. “Ark, has something happened?”

Ark’s voice was low. “Patriarch, the Third Elder is dead.”

Reyn’s pupils constricted sharply. After a brief moment of contemplation, he immediately spoke. “Leila, help me change.”

The young maid specifically tasked with serving him approached. In the meantime, Reyn didn’t remain idle. He met Ark’s gaze. “What exactly is the situation?”

Within the Rheinhebo family, the Patriarch’s authority had always been constrained by the Elder Council. The current elders were all Reyn’s grand-uncles.

Ark carefully chose his words. “This morning, the maid responsible for serving the Third Elder prepared to help him wash as usual. Instead, she found his corpse in his bed.”

Reyn’s expression grew solemn. “Could the cause of death be magical suffocation again?”

Ark shook his head, his face still grim. “No, the Third Elder committed suicide.”

Reyn, having just finished changing, frowned deeply. Suicide? It was an impossibility. As a member of the Rheinhebo family’s Elder Council, the Third Elder had no conceivable reason to take his own life.

He swiftly exited his bedroom and arrived at the Third Elder’s residence. There, he found numerous enforcers from the Holy Church already gathered in the corridor outside the room.

Within the crowd, Louise noticed Reyn’s arrival, and a subtle shift appeared in her expression.

Reyn entered the room, his gaze quickly falling upon the Third Elder’s corpse lying on the bed. There were distinct ligature marks on his neck, and a noose hung from the ceiling.

He frowned and approached Louise, inquiring with an uncertain tone, “Officer Louise Christian, did the Third Elder hang himself?”

Louise’s gaze lingered on Reyn’s face for a moment, an odd glint in her eyes, before she slowly replied, “According to our investigation, he hanged himself and then lay back down on the bed.”

Reyn’s expression changed drastically. So that was why Ark said the maid found the Third Elder’s body in his bed?

A growing unease settled within him. “Is this also the work of the Witch’s Assembly?”

Louise met Reyn’s gaze for a moment, then shook her head. “No, no witch in the Witch’s Assembly meets the criteria. This was not their doing.”

Not the Witch’s Assembly’s doing?

Reyn’s unease intensified. Did this mean that the Witch’s Assembly wasn’t the only entity targeting the Rheinhebo family?

“Was it magic?”

“There were no traces of magical residue at the scene. Our preliminary suspicion is that it was the work of a certain heretic.”

A heretic again?

Reyn’s face grew even more unsightly. He bit his lip hard and cursed under his breath, “Damn it! The Witch’s Assembly… and the Voice of the Deceased, and now a new heretic has emerged?”

Louise quietly watched Reyn’s ‘performance.’ Upon hearing him mention ‘the Voice of the Deceased,’ she responded indifferently, “The Holy Church’s protection will arrive soon, Count. You do not need to be so anxious.”

Reyn offered a bitter smile. “Officer Louise Christian, it’s not just the Witch’s Assembly targeting me now; it’s also the Voice of the Deceased.”

Louise’s pupils constricted sharply. She wasn’t entirely sure what Reyn meant by his words and cautiously probed, “What happened with the Voice of the Deceased?”

Reyn briefly described the sudden incident from last night. When he mentioned that the Voice of the Deceased’s true consciousness was suspected to have appeared, Louise’s expression completely lost its composure.

Heretics are beings from beyond this world. When they descend into this world, they maintain a semblance of humanity, which is not truly their own, through various means to stabilize their power.

For example, the Seven Deadly Sins use the bodies of young girls as vessels; the two merge to become the Seven Witches of the Witch’s Assembly. Similarly, the Voice of the Deceased uses the memories of the deceased to maintain a humanity that does not truly belong to it.

And Reyn Rheinhebo had actually taken the initiative to deny the Voice of the Deceased’s humanity!

A heretic unable to maintain its humanity would inevitably become a natural disaster. Even the Holy Church, which specifically opposes heretics, would not destroy a heretic’s humanity.

Why would Reyn Rheinhebo do such a thing?

Louise struggled to calm her mind. She was now tied to Reyn Rheinhebo, but he could cast her aside at any moment. Therefore, she had to understand what Reyn Rheinhebo was truly thinking.

She carefully formulated her words, slowly beginning, “This will likely cause significant changes to the Voice of the Deceased—”

As Louise spoke, a dark shadow suddenly fell from the window in her peripheral vision.

Ark, who was directly facing the window, turned pale, his voice low. “Patriarch, was that the Eighth Elder?”

“Ah!”

A piercing scream from outside the window tore through the sky. Without time to ponder, Reyn quickly rushed out, his face grim as he gazed at the old man lying in a pool of blood.

His neck was twisted at an unnatural angle, clearly broken. Yet, in the very next moment, the Eighth Elder’s corpse suddenly twitched, then sprang upright from the grass. It stood there, head tilted, staring at Reyn, and let out a chilling laugh from its mouth: “Reyn Rheinhebo, this is only the beginning. First your relatives, then the servants of this manor, and the people living in this territory. I will spare no one connected to you!”

Reyn’s expression changed drastically, his voice hoarse. “The Voice of the Deceased?”

The Eighth Elder’s corpse smiled eerily, then instantly collapsed back onto the ground.

Louise, who had witnessed everything, grew extremely solemn. She looked at the Eighth Elder’s corpse on the grass, her brows gradually knitting together.

‘Reyn Rheinhebo, is this the purpose behind your deliberate provocation of the Voice of the Deceased?’

As an enforcer dispatched by the Holy Church to this territory, she was well aware of the internal workings of the Rheinhebo family. As an illegitimate son, Reyn Rheinhebo was destined to clash with the Elder Council from the start. However, his three elder brothers’ successive deaths had made it increasingly difficult for the Elder Council to ascertain his true intentions, preventing them from making a move.

But Reyn Rheinhebo was not an indecisive man. If he could kill his own three brothers, how could he possibly care about a little blood kinship?

‘He deliberately denied the Voice of the Deceased’s humanity, using its power to eliminate the members of the Elder Council one by one!’

‘And if he could achieve this, it meant he had long anticipated what form the Voice of the Deceased would take after losing its humanity!’

Perhaps it was the bleak autumn wind, but a sudden chill ran down Louise’s spine.

‘Actively seeking the Holy Church’s protection, yet also actively denying the Voice of the Deceased’s humanity. Turning himself completely into a victim while simultaneously eliminating dissenting voices within the family.’

‘Reyn Rheinhebo, is this truly your objective?’