Chapter 476: Infiltration
Simply put, those foreign tourists who have been brainwashed by the Cult of the Cadaver, turned into mindless zombies, are all under Rayna’s control, making them serve the Cult of the Cadaver.
So, Shi Zixuan believes that as long as Liu Xing and the others can kill Rayna, then these foreign tourists will no longer be accomplices of the Cult of the Cadaver. However, these foreign tourists will also truly die because of this...
In the final section of Rayna’s information, Shi Zixuan also mentioned that Rayna had once married and had children under the identity of "Alexander". However, three months ago, Rayna suddenly chose to divorce his wife, after giving her a substantial amount of compensation, and also granted custody of the child to his wife.
What’s more important is that the day before yesterday, Rayna instructed a lawyer who was a member of the Cult of the Cadaver to transfer all of "Alexander’s" inheritance to his ex-wife and child, and prepared to send his ex-wife and child out of England. However, due to the sudden Thick Fog that locked the country, Rayna’s ex-wife and child should still be stranded in Liverpool.
Seeing this, Liu Xing couldn’t help but speak up, saying, "If that’s the case, then Rayna should have feelings for his wife and child. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have divorced his wife in advance and still planned to send his wife and child away from this dangerous place."
Lu Tianya nodded and affirmed, "Indeed, although Rayna is a fanatic believer, ultimately he is still a person. Love and family are hard to give up for anyone, so it’s normal for Rayna to still have feelings for his wife and child."
"So, should we use this as a breakthrough point? To try to persuade Rayna to defect?" Ling Ishikawa asked.
Yis People shook his head, saying helplessly, "When Rayna was still human, perhaps we could persuade him to defect. But now it’s probably too late because Rayna has become a Ghoul, and a Ghoul like Rayna, who was transformed from a corpse, can only be considered a minor Ghoul. It should also be under the control of the Ghoul responsible for its transformation, so it’s basically impossible for us to persuade Rayna now."
Zhang Jingxu nodded and said, "Exactly, for Ghouls like Rayna, who were transformed into Ghouls after death, they can only be considered minor Ghouls and will be controlled by their superior Ghouls for their entire lives. So even if Rayna still has feelings for his wife and son now, it’s useless."
"Well then, let’s continue to look at Ace’s information," Liu Xing said as he opened Ace’s file.In addition to what Liu Xing and the others already knew, there were also many noteworthy pieces of information provided by Shi Zixuan in Ace’s file.
Firstly, why Ace joined the Cult of the Cadaver, or rather, why Ace was coerced into becoming a pawn of the Cult of the Cadaver.
After the Ritual Ceremony, Ace, who was wanted by the English police, had no choice but to flee into the Dreamrealm. However, trouble followed him, and Ace was soon targeted by a Moon Beast. Naturally, Ace was no match for the Moon Beast, so he became the Moon Beast’s slave.
So, after being tormented by the Moon Beast, Ace was brought to a city by it to be sold. Because the Moon Beast could sense a powerful deity behind Ace, it decided it would be safer to sell him.
Then, Ace was sold to a Ghoul, who happened to be one of the high-ranking members of the Cult of the Cadaver and also knew about Ace’s actions in England.
Thus, Ace was semi-coercively "invited" to join the Cult of the Cadaver by that Ghoul, and Ace had no choice but to agree because the Great Old One Mordiggian behind the Cult of the Cadaver was no less powerful than the snake deity he worshipped.
So, Shi Zixuan believed that Ace now should be in a dilemma, not fully committed to serving the Cult of the Cadaver.
Birds hide in their nests, and rabbits are cooked when the dogs die.
Ace understood very well that he was just a dog to the Cult of the Cadaver. When useful, they would treat you well, but when not, sorry, you were only good for meat.
So, upon seeing this, Liu Xing understood Shi Zixuan’s implicit message, that Ace was also trying to find a way to break free from the Cult of the Cadaver because Ace could be certain that in the upcoming module, he would definitely turn against the Cult of the Cadaver, and he would be risking his life by infiltrating behind enemy lines.
Therefore, Ace wouldn’t fully cooperate with them now because it was Ace’s best chance to escape from the Cult of the Cadaver, and possibly his last chance.
After all, the larger the Cult of the Cadaver’s influence, the greater their control over Ace, and the harder it would be for Ace to break free from their control. If the Cult of the Cadaver were to fail in Manchester, then Ace would have a chance to leave the Cult of the Cadaver.
So, simply put, as long as the Cult of the Cadaver was at a disadvantage, Ace might choose to give up advancing in this module and try to break free.
Although dropping out in the module was the same as dying, both meant you might lose a character card, but as long as you dropped out correctly and successfully passed the resurrection module, the items on your character card would still be retained. So, this cost was acceptable to Ace.
Thinking of this, Liu Xing began to consider the possibility of kicking Ace out of this module.
And Zhang Jingxu was thinking the same, "Although we can’t persuade Rayna to defect, if we handle it properly, Ace should choose to leave the Cult of the Cadaver, or escape from it. So, we can still use this Ace as a breakthrough point to weaken the Cult of the Cadaver’s power."
Alice nodded and said, "That’s right. If we can get this Ace to leave the Cult of the Cadaver, it would be great because judging from Shi Zixuan’s speculation about Ace’s abilities, Ace should be a formidable wizard, and his magic is mainly venomous, which makes it difficult for us to defend against."
Liu Xing glanced at Shi Zixuan’s prediction of Ace’s abilities and found the key point was the word "poison". From this, it could be seen that Ace might indeed be associated with the same Great Old One worshipped by the snake men.
But then again, dealing with poison-based magic spells in the Cthulhu RPG Game was indeed very difficult. In many cases, you didn’t even know when or how you were poisoned, and this kind of poison caused by magic spells was very difficult to cure.
Of course, the casting conditions for Poison-type Magic Spells are still very stringent, so even if the success rate is low, Liu Xing feels that Ace’s threat to their group isn’t significant.
However, Liu Xing noticed in Shi Zixuan’s final summary of Ace, it mentioned that Ace’s personality is very introverted and self-deprecating, somewhat submissive, but whenever it comes to the snake deity he believes in, Ace becomes very assertive.
That makes things easier.
Liu Xing stroked his chin, thinking that as long as they target Ace’s beliefs, it should be easy to persuade Ace to leave the Cult of the Cadaver, and then the situation would become four against two.
After reviewing Ace’s information, Liu Xing opened the last document, the undercover Manchester police officer bureau, the most mysterious player of the Bai Hecheng faction—Romero.
Romero, currently twenty-five years old, was born in a slum in Argentina. Due to his outstanding football talent, he successfully immigrated to England. However, at the age of nineteen, he retired due to a serious injury to his left leg and then successfully entered the police academy, becoming a civilian police officer.
Although Romero’s experience was very inspiring, because of his background and the disability he had, Romero often faced racial discrimination in the police station, which made him withdrawn.
And such a withdrawn personality is the best candidate for a secret cult’s missionary because such personalities are more prone to extremism and are willing to find spiritual solace for themselves.
So Romero was quickly noticed by Rayna, still "Alexander". After a brief contact, Romero was recruited into the Cult of the Cadaver by Rayna, becoming an undercover agent of the Cult of the Cadaver in the Manchester police officer bureau. Moreover, Rayna even arranged some lackeys to help Romero gain experience, so Romero quickly leveled up three times, becoming a mid-level cadre of the Manchester police officer bureau and was hailed as the rising star of the police force.
This reminded Liu Xing of a movie— "Infernal Affairs".
If the Cult of the Cadaver can endure for more than ten years before taking action, then they would have a police bureau chief as an undercover agent.
But then Liu Xing suddenly remembered something, that is, Wang Ming had previously mentioned that the undercover police informant who talked to Bai Hecheng on the phone was a woman, but Romero is a man.
However, Liu Xing quickly got the answer.
It turns out that, to be cautious, Rayna always demanded that Romero not directly contact him, only communicate through intermediaries, and Romero’s chosen intermediary should be his family.
So, this became somewhat troublesome. Although they could inform Chris about Romero’s situation and make Chris wary of Romero, even transfer Romero to some less critical department, Chris couldn’t gather enough evidence to arrest Romero in the short term. So during this time, Romero could still provide information about the Manchester police officer bureau to the Cult of the Cadaver without any pressure.
"Alice, please transfer the contents of this Memory Card to Chris now. Although even if Chris knows this information now, it won’t be of much use, it’s better than nothing," Alice sighed and said.
Liu Xing nodded. Chris was basically impossible to lead the manpower of the Manchester police officer bureau to raid the Cult of the Cadaver, or do anything to Romero for now, but regardless, these messages that should be told to Chris must be conveyed.
Just a few minutes after sending these documents, Chris called back.
Liu Xing answered the phone, and Chris on the other end was excited, saying, "Mr. Ryuusei, are you sure the information you sent me is true?"
Liu Xing thought for a moment and said seriously, "I believe the authenticity of this information is over eighty percent because the content of these materials matches, and Shi Zixuan has no reason to deceive us now."
After a moment of silence, Chris said helplessly, "Damn it, I’ve always felt something was off about Alexander. As a mafia boss, he was always elusive, and my former boss Tom, before he got in trouble, told me he was investigating Alexander. So even though someone took the blame after he got in trouble, I still believe it was Alexander’s doing. But unfortunately, I never had substantial evidence to prove my point, so I’ve let Alexander roam free. What’s most annoying is that a few days ago when we were retrieving Alexander’s body, I actually mourned for that damn guy for three seconds!"
Liu Xing nodded silently because he understood Chris’s feelings at the moment.
At this point, Alice gestured and took Liu Xing’s mobile phone, saying, "Mr. Chris, do you know if Alexander’s body was taken away?"
"Of course I know, because Alexander’s body was in our police station at the time, and when Alexander’s family came to claim the body, I approved their request to take it away because at that time I thought there was nothing wrong with Alexander’s body. Now that I think about it, I just hate myself for not sending Alexander’s body directly to be cremated!" Chris said angrily.
Since Chris said so, Liu Xing was sure that the information provided by Shi Zixuan was mostly reliable.
"Never mind, since it’s confirmed that Rayna is Alexander, then I must personally kill this damn guy. But I really can’t believe that Romero turned out to be a member of the Cult of the Cadaver. Although Romero did face racial discrimination when he first entered the police station, which made him somewhat alienated, he quickly adjusted, and he also showed strong talent in solving cases... Well, this is indeed exactly the same as the information in the documents. And recently, Romero has been very interested in various news in the police station," Chris sighed and said.
Alice raised her eyebrows and asked, "So, Mr. Chris, what are your plans for dealing with Romero, the undercover?"
Chris smiled bitterly and said, "If I have a week now, then I can definitely produce evidence of Romero colluding with the Cult of the Cadaver and then make this sly guy roll into jail. But now I only have three days, and there’s no way I can get conclusive evidence to deal with Romero. After three days, Romero is ninety percent likely to officially reveal his identity, and I have no way to deal with him."
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