The Great Demon Holmes

Silence...

The events that just unfolded were actually extremely brief. From the moment the Bishop sprang up from the smoke, to the eruption of gunfire that suppressed him in the rain, it took less than half a minute. Even the time it took to saw open the skull with the bone saw afterwards was longer.

But it was precisely this brevity that made the sound of the blade scraping against the bones particularly grating, and the nauseating sound of fingers mashing the brain was chilling.

Catherine, who was on the bell tower, was too far away to hear the disturbing squelching sound, but because of her distance and elevated position, she could clearly see everything that happened on the ground below.

At the same time, it made her the most shocked person in the crowd.

In her line of sight, in the distance on the long street, that particularly strange figure and his prophetic actions, an ordinary gun that hadn't been modified, a few of the lowest-quality bullets, managed to suppress a Judgment Executor?

Although it was during his weakest moment...

But at the same time, it was also during his strongest moment!

And that uncouth fellow showed no sign of fear throughout the entire process. On the contrary, everything he did was so casual, silent, sparse, smooth, and seamless!

Was it ignorance?

Or had his state of mind become so strong that he could ignore the desperate counterattack of a second-tier contractor on the brink of death?

Catherine didn't know. She just stared blankly at the fragmented remains on the ground, which could never stand up again in any way. And in that moment, an image of his face appeared in her mind, the first time they met outside the elevator, a smile that was both charming and utterly despicable.

Suddenly, her body stiffened, and only then did she realize, belatedly... that he was just an ordinary person, a commoner from the Lower City, a private detective.

...

Sherlock, at this moment, was unaware of the profound impact he had on the judgmental Sister Catherine, and he was simply looking at the shattered remains on the ground, feeling quite satisfied as he stretched his body.

Turning around, he looked at the High Priest behind him.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

In fact, he had some fondness for this man of few words, because whenever he wasn't nodding off, the man always responded with a very affable smile, which even contained a hint of encouragement and admiration. Such a smile was rare among those in power when facing commoners.

In the rain, the High Priest seemed to have just come to his senses. He made an effort to suppress his shock and weakly smiled, nodding to indicate that he was fine.

Then, his thin lips moved slightly, as if he wanted to say something.

But Sherlock didn't hear it, because the next moment, he was surrounded by a group of guards rushing over.

At this moment, the safety of the High Priest was naturally more important than anything else.

The rain continued, and a few minutes later, when everyone finally recovered from the previous scene, some medical personnel who had been waiting on the outskirts of the battlefield finally dared to enter the glare of the searchlights.

They quickly searched for any survivors and began treating and tending to the soldiers who were almost steamed inside their armor. Ropes were lowered from the airship, and dozens of people dressed in the attire of the Holy See Guard, without steam armor but wearing their uniforms, descended and silently began to clean up the battlefield, recovering bodies and equipment with ruthless efficiency.

In the aftermath of the battle, the remains of the Judgment Executor were swept into a pile from the pool of blood, along with his Void Creature, and placed in a large iron box. The box was then hoisted up by a rope and brought onto the airship. The cries of the medical soldiers around gradually became the main melody, and Catherine's vines and the gigantic spider silently retreated into the Void Rift. Everything gradually returned to order.

In the process, almost everyone who survived unconsciously looked towards the direction where Sherlock stood.

The meanings conveyed by these gazes were complex: gratitude, shock, confusion, and even a hint of underlying fear. They could only steal glances from a distance and quickly avert their eyes when their gazes met with the detective's.

More than ten minutes later... The High Priest finally recovered from his injuries after several medical soldiers had confirmed several times that he was fine. With the support of his aides, he was lifted onto a wheelchair. Waving away the guards who tried to hold an umbrella for him, he propelled the wheelchair, moving past the bloodstains on the ground, and approached Sherlock.

He smiled, not hiding the mixture of melancholy and gratitude in his smile.

"When I was at Scotland Yard, I inquired about you... at that time, I only thought of you as an outstanding young man, even more outstanding than I had imagined. But I never expected that you would exceed my imagination by so much."

Sherlock had been standing in the rain, his hair drenched and hanging on his cheeks. He didn't know where he found a rope and casually tied his unkempt hair behind his head. Facing the aged High Priest, he put on a familiar fake smile, like the workers in the Lower City meeting their boss.

"Oh, it's nothing. I just helped a little."

"You don't need to put on this act!" Suddenly, a voice came from beside him.

Sherlock turned his head to see Catherine walking weakly towards him. There were some dark lines beneath her skin, probably blood vessels undergoing spasms after some kind of backlash, and traces of blood remained in her mouth. However, she didn't care at all and even refused to let the accompanying personnel hold an umbrella for her.

"You did well. The Holy See will give you the rewards you deserve, so your modesty will only irritate people."

Sherlock shrugged his shoulders, feeling that this Sister of Judgment really didn't like him.

"What did you do to accomplish this?" Catherine asked again.

"What do you mean by 'accomplish'?"

"Don't play dumb! You just killed a Judgment Executor..." Her tone became more intense.

"Oh, that... I had a gun." Sherlock gestured with his hand, mimicking the motion of a gunshot. "It just so happened that the Bishop was very vulnerable at that time, so I was able to kill him with a gun."

His words were somewhere between an explanation and a load of rubbish. Catherine found them quite unpleasant and was about to question him further. But suddenly... she inexplicably sensed a strong sense of forcefulness between his words.

Yes, that's right. The entire process was just like that. She had witnessed it with her own eyes. It was just a gun, killing a person who could be killed with a gun. This strange but true narrative made her hesitate for a moment...

"Have you killed many people?"

"I have killed a few." Sherlock flicked a puddle of water with his shoe and answered absentmindedly. But he immediately added, "They were all within the limits permitted by the law."

Catherine squinted her eyes, feeling skeptical...