After enduring so long at No. 6 Narcissus Street, Ma'am M finally bared her fangs.
She didn't wait for Silas to fully digest the "Listener" potion before becoming restless.
"Go with you? Where to?" Silas asked, feigning wariness.
Actually, he understood perfectly well. Ma'am M's body couldn't hold out any longer.
Taking him away was to conduct the ritual to devour him and obtain his body.
Cecilia stood nearby with a tense expression, her hands clenched beneath the table, knuckles white.
"Don't you already know?" Ma'am M asked with a smile.
At this point, she no longer intended to hide anything. "Stand up. Don't waste time."
Her eyes flashed with captivating golden light, her voice carrying an undeniable force.
Under the influence of that voice, Silas's body involuntarily obeyed the command, rising from the sofa.
"Silas!" Cecilia called out softly.
"Don't come over," Silas said. His body was beyond his control, so he used his eyes to stop his sister, signaling that now wasn't the time to act.
The illusory sound of tidal waves soon arose, and he regained control of his body.
Still, he put on a show of struggling and said to Ma'am M, "At least spare my sister. Otherwise, whatever you want to do, I'll resist with everything I have."
"Fine," Ma'am M said with a smile, as if she didn't care at all, or perhaps never intended to honor the promise.
Silas didn't believe she would keep her word at all.
He said these things purely to perform a show of struggling and resisting, to prevent Ma'am M from detecting anything unusual.
He didn't plan to start the battle here because Klein's family lived next door.
Any commotion would certainly be discovered, and even if he could defeat Ma'am M, he'd no longer be able to remain a Nighthawk.
The place Ma'am M had chosen was quite secluded. Going there would also lower her guard.
"Goodbye, Cecilia. Take care of yourself from now on," he said gently to his sister, adopting a farewell posture.
In reality, however, the siblings had already made their plans.
After Silas left, Cecilia would quietly follow behind and infiltrate the house Ma'am M had prepared, looking for a chance to assassinate her.
Silas followed Ma'am M out the door of No. 6 Narcissus Street.
By now, the sky had darkened. He glanced at his first home in this world, then at the warmly lit windows of No. 2 next door, before turning to walk into the darkness.
East Borough, inside a certain house.
The floor was covered with blood-red patterns forming a complete ritual array. The array had two focal points, precisely where he and Ma'am M were to stand.
No lights were on inside, no candles lit. Only crimson moonlight streamed in, illuminating the bright red, profane patterns on the floor, making everything appear especially eerie.
"Drink this," Ma'am M said, producing a bottle of liquid from somewhere and showing it to Silas.
"Is this the Hermit potion?" Silas glanced at the bottle, detecting something ominous from within.
Recently, Cecilia had been running errands for Ma'am M, and the materials she collected should have been for making this thing.
But Silas didn't know the function of this liquid. The potion knowledge from "Secrets Suppliant" contained no relevant explanation.
"I said, drink it." Ma'am M's tone grew heavier, her eyes carrying an urgent look.
"Hmm, should I drink it or not..." Silas said with a provocative smile.
At this point, he had no more concerns. Since Ma'am M arrived in Tingen, he'd been constantly coerced by her.
Now that he was finally free, given his nasty personality, naturally, he wanted to get good revenge!
Ma'am M looked at him coldly.
"Urgh!"
Intense pain immediately erupted in Silas's abdomen. Ma'am M's flesh was torturing his internal organs.
The pain bent him over, but his face still wore a contemptuous smile as he looked up at her, refusing to yield.
"...Silas Londor, have you finally gone mad?" His attitude greatly displeased Ma'am M, so she increased the force several times over, asking in a pleasant yet cruel voice.
"Ahhh!"
Silas began to wail, writhing on the ground in pain.
He clawed at the floor with his fingernails until the nail beds split and bled, bit his own hand until it was bloody and mangled, yet couldn't stop.
"Don't forget, your sister's life is still in my hands."
Ma'am M only stopped the torture after he'd exhausted his strength and collapsed on the floor, unable to move.
She bent down and, like a mother treating a fallen child, gently lifted him up, caressing his handsome yet deathly pale face as she brought the bottle to his lips.
"Drink it, and you won't suffer so much," she said seductively, her eyes glowing golden.
So Silas, like an obedient child, docilely opened his mouth and leaned forward...
Then suddenly, he opened his eyes, looking at Ma'am M with pure malice.
"You drink it yourself."
Silas spat out a piece of bloody flesh from his mouth onto Ma'am M's body.
"Enlightenment!"
His lips were covered in blood, his face deathly pale, but his eyes brimmed with vivid malice as he shouted the mystical word in ancient Hermes.
The Hidden Sage's charm!
That human-skin charm buried beneath his hand's skin had been bitten out while he pretended to struggle and kept in his mouth.
At extremely close range, he released it without warning.
Silas had already infused spirituality into it beforehand. The moment he spat it out, he recited the activation spell.
The human-skin charm began collapsing and dissolving in mid-air, finally transforming into pure energy that drilled into Ma'am M's head!
In an instant, a pair of cold, lashless eyes seemed to open in the void.
"Ahhh!"
Ma'am M clutched her head, letting out a piercing, shrill scream. The Hidden Sage was watching her.
A massive amount of knowledge was being forcibly infused into her brain.
Her ears became like trumpets, stretching outward on both sides, as if to receive even more information. Her hair and nails grew wildly!
Silas climbed up from the ground. He glanced coldly at Ma'am M, then pulled out a silver ritual dagger.
He raised the blade, pulled open his shirt to expose his stomach, aimed at his own abdomen, and stabbed viciously inward!
"Ungh!"
Silas groaned quietly, his expression pained. Yet he still forced his eyes wide open, searching for something inside his abdomen.
Soon, his Secrets Suppliant's eyes detected an abnormality somewhere in his belly.
He gritted his teeth and stabbed again to enlarge the wound, then reached his hand inside and viciously yanked out a piece of flesh covered in fine black hairs.
"Squelch..."
The flesh made a nauseating sound as it was pulled out.
The flesh Ma'am M had embedded in his body!
Taking advantage of her being tormented by the charm, Silas finally had the chance to tear out this damned thing!
"Splat!"
Silas slammed the still-wriggling piece of flesh onto the ground, then viciously stomped on it, grinding it back and forth until it became a meat pancake.
"I'm going to kill you, you crazy woman," he said, covering his slowly healing wound as he made this declaration to the still-screaming Ma'am M.