Chapter 62: The Emotion Plunderer

Serene Heart successfully dispelled the "Heavenly Illusion Song" that had been lingering in everyone's minds.Julian regained consciousness after Lin Jie's resounding slap, leaning against the icy cold Bone Walls while panting heavily, still shaken from the experience.

William immediately entered his highest alert state, his Winchester rifle constantly sweeping across the edges of the illumination range from his carbide lamp, vigilantly watching for the Catacomb Nightingale that could launch another attack from any patch of shadow at any moment.

The entire Shrine Chamber fell into an eerie, deathly silence.

"It's gone." Lin Jie finally lowered his revolver after extending his perception to its limits. "I can no longer sense its 'gaze'."

Only after confirming the crisis had temporarily passed did the three finally have time to redirect their attention to the core of the Shrine Chamber—the homeless man's corpse lying at the center of the Memory Stripping Array, its face frozen in a bizarre smile.

"Something's not right." Julian, as a top-tier scholar, saw his professional research instincts immediately take over once he recovered from the initial terror.

He crouched down to examine the corpse.

"The Catacomb Nightingale uses its song to lure prey here, and then those Eternal Serpent bastards follow behind to scavenge, using this array to harvest the remaining Memory Essence they need from these 'hollow shells.' That process sounds logically consistent."

"But..." Julian's brow furrowed tightly. "According to the forbidden texts I've studied about 'memory stripping,' this type of array should inflict unimaginable, excruciating pain upon the host when extracting soul energy."

"The victim's corpse should display extremely distorted features."

"Yet look at him." He pointed at the peaceful, almost saintly expression on the corpse's face. "This doesn't resemble death by torture at all. Instead, it looks like... he was peacefully euthanized while experiencing immense happiness?"

This contradiction plunged everyone into confusion.

It undoubtedly concealed deeper secrets about the Catacomb Nightingale and the cult's relationship.

"Let me try." Lin Jie took a deep breath, knowing that he alone possessed the capability to touch the key to unraveling this mystery.

He walked to the corpse's side, ignoring the eerie smile, and gently placed his right hand on the cold, stiff forehead of the body.

"Lin Jie, don't act recklessly!" William immediately protested, his voice filled with concern. "Direct contact with a corpse deeply contaminated by a UMA carries far greater mental risks than touching ordinary remains!"

"Your mental energy has only just recovered! This is too dangerous!"

"I understand, Sergeant William, but this is our only opportunity to understand that thing's 'feeding' method." Lin Jie's gaze remained unwavering. "Knowing yourself and your enemy is the key to winning every battle. Don't worry, I'll be careful."

Having said that, he hesitated no longer.

A faint yet intensely concentrated stream of mental energy extended from his arm into the corpse's brain.

Lin Jie's consciousness instantly plunged into a maddening, pure white "emptiness"!

He had imagined witnessing terrifying scenes, experiencing immense pain, hearing piercing shrieks—but what he encountered was something far more unsettling than any horror: "nothingness."

All emotions and feelings, the very "bricks and mortar" that construct what makes a person "human," had been extracted by an irresistible force!

This place resembled a house emptied of all furniture, stripped of all wallpaper, with even the air completely vacuumed out—leaving only the most basic "steel framework" of rationality and logic.

He finally understood why the corpse's face appeared so serene.

When a person's pain, sorrow, regret, and all negative emotions are stripped away, leaving only the lingering shadow of that momentary "happy memory" evoked by the song, it indeed becomes the purest form of liberation.

Immediately after, Lin Jie "saw" the final remnants of that plundering at the deepest part of this ruin.

The ghostly Catacomb Nightingale—its massive mouthparts weren't designed for tearing flesh, but instead gently "blew" a breath directed at the homeless man's head.

That breath was the irresistibly beautiful "Heavenly Song."

Under the anesthetic effect of this song, all the memories from the homeless man's life steamed out from his facial orifices like boiling vapor!

Those memories filled with joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure—colorful and vibrant—transformed into streams of dazzling mental energy, which the Catacomb Nightingale contentedly inhaled into its ethereal body!

After "eating its fill," the Catacomb Nightingale didn't completely consume all of the homeless man's memories.

Like a discerning gourmet, it only savored the portions belonging to "emotional feelings," while disdainfully leaving behind the bland, "bony" pure "factual memories" and "survival instincts."

This led to an utterly terrifying outcome.

The homeless man's "memories"—or rather, the emotionless "data"—would remain in his brain, awaiting decay!

He still remembered his name, still remembered how to walk, still remembered how to breathe.

But he was essentially no different from a walking corpse.

From the residual "data," Lin Jie witnessed the final scene.

After the Catacomb Nightingale absorbed all his emotions, turning him into a "hollow shell" that retained only a muscular smile, the homeless man didn't die immediately. Instead, he staggered to his feet.

Then he silently walked toward a corner.

There, two cult members wearing Eternal Serpent uniforms had been waiting for some time.

They skillfully escorted this hollow shell away from the scene.

This was the truth behind "raw material collection"!

Julian's earlier speculation was both right and wrong.

The Catacomb Nightingale was indeed "hunting" for the cult, but it fed on human emotions and feelings.

To be precise, it functioned more like a "reaper" and "filter."

It performed a "rough processing" on human mental energy saturated with mixed emotions, eliminating all useless components, leaving only the pure "memory" itself that the cult required.

Lin Jie withdrew his hand, his face paler than the corpse's.

He revealed the complete truth of what he had witnessed to William and Julian.

This time, even William—a veteran who had witnessed mountains of corpses and seas of blood—could no longer maintain his composure.

He looked at the smiling corpse, his eyes filled with revulsion.

"Monsters... these bastards are more monstrous than any UMA I've ever hunted..."

Meanwhile, Julian fell into deep thought.

"I understand now, so that's how it is." His voice rose with excitement. "What they've been pursuing all along is a world of pure 'gnosis'—absolutely rational, having discarded all base desires like emotions."

"So what they truly need is precisely this kind of pure 'knowledge' and 'memory' stripped of all joy, anger, sorrow, and pleasure!"

"This Catacomb Nightingale is nothing less than a sacred artifact bestowed upon them by the gods!"