Arrogant didn't retreat; he walked straight towards that pool of blood. Natasha followed. Arrogant just glanced at the pool of blood and said, "Some kind of corrosive liquid mixed with fragments of tongue and entrails. As you said, someone drank things they shouldn't have."
Another strange sound echoed, and Natasha turned her head again. When she shined her flashlight over, she saw a bottle rolling on the ground. They both walked over, picked up the bottle, and after a look, Natasha said, "Some powerful cleaner used for thoroughly removing lime scale, it is indeed highly corrosive."
Arrogant took the bottle, looked inside the bottle's mouth, showed a knowing expression, and then said, "It wasn't drunk, it was forced down."
"If he drank it voluntarily, feeling pain and needing to vomit, he would remove the bottle. Only when someone forces it down while continuously vomiting would the bottle be pressed against his mouth, causing this blood and corroded fragments to flood in."
"A murder?" Natasha said.
Arrogant nodded, and just then another strange sound came. This time the sound was loud, coming from one of the water tanks, as if something was moving inside.
"Bang bang bang! Bang bang bang!"
At the moment Natasha shone her flashlight over, she saw a figure with long hair continuously patting the tank wall, which really made Natasha jump.
Arrogant walked over again. He stepped on the nearby bracket, opened the lid on the water tank, and then showed a knowing expression. After Natasha went up, she shone the flashlight inside, revealing a Skull sitting there.
"It's a girl," Natasha said, "about 18 years old?"
She paused and then said, "Multiple fractures on the body, skull also fractured, seemed to have been violently assaulted before her death..."
Just as she said that, some commotion appeared by the wall. When Natasha shone her flashlight over, two Shadows appeared. A man held down a girl, assaulted and violated her, then grabbed a bottle of cleaner from the side and poured it into her mouth, finally carrying her towards the water tank.
"Oh, damn." Natasha's face sank.
"As expected," Arrogant frowned and said, "the alleged carnivorous bacteria outbreak is the revenge of the Ghosts of this murdered girl. And the large-scale supernatural phenomena later were just another round of revenge carried out by those allegedly killed by the bacteria."
"Something seems off," Natasha said, "the Ghosts we've met before can't attack indiscriminately and don't have large-scale attack methods, otherwise Hampton would have been empty by now."
"Moreover, people killed by Ghosts don't seem to turn into Ghosts; otherwise, those two brides and Augustus should have turned into Ghosts, but apparently, they haven't. The most important thing is, if this Ghost is attacking indiscriminately, why doesn't it attack the two of us?"
Arrogant was also pondering this question. It seems that not all the people who died in the Violet Resort Village back then were perpetrators, some should be innocent; otherwise, they wouldn't have become Ghosts, causing a vicious cycle.
But the problem is, if the girl turned into an evil spirit would attack innocents, then they haven't been attacked despite being here for quite some time, just like the innocents back then.
Moreover, later on, the place was remodeled into a mall with so many people coming and going, yet none were attacked by the Ghost, which indeed doesn't make much sense.
"Perhaps those people weren't killed by the Ghost," Arrogant pondered and said, "even though it appears that their deaths, like the girl's, seem like acts of ghostly revenge, they might not be imitation crimes."
Natasha opened her mouth and then said, "Imitating the murder of one or two people is possible, but killing so many at once, that's hard to achieve, isn't it?"
"For ordinary people, it is indeed difficult, even poisoning would be hard to accomplish. But what if they're not ordinary people, but superpower users?"
"Imitation perpetrators mostly wish to evade investigation. In this case, they framed the case on Ghosts through these methods. But who would investigate during that era? S.H.I.E.L.D. hadn't even been established yet."
Arrogant shook his head. The two left the cellar and headed towards the estate. Tonight wasn't entirely fruitless; at least they understood that the carnivorous bacteria outbreak at Violet Manor wasn't an accident, it was deliberate.
They pushed open the estate's main door, and Arrogant walked in. He instinctively looked around, and at the moment he saw Blake, his gray eyes turned cold.
He slowly walked toward Blake. Everyone else noticed and instinctively leaned back, wanting to distance themselves from Blake. Bucky simply stood up and moved away.
"We don't know him," Steve also spoke, "he came in on his own."
Fortunately, Arrogant stopped at about two meters away. He looked at Blake and said, "Did you kill the people at the Violet Resort Village?"
"What?" Blake was stunned, "What resort village?"
"A girl was violated, dozens died there, and the entire area was uneasy afterward." Arrogant looked into his eyes and said, "You are the beginning of all this."
Upon hearing this, Blake seemed to recall something. He slowly stood up, looked at Arrogant, and said, "Where did you see her?"
"In a cellar, her body still lies in the water tank."
Blake seemed lost in his memories. It was Stark's shout that interrupted him: "What's going on? What did you do to the girl who was violated?"
The Avengers began to look unfriendly. Arrogant's words were too vague; it sounded like Blake had done something incredibly heinous and had been discovered by Arrogant.
Seeing Captain America already with Shield in hand, Blake finally came to himself and said, "You've misunderstood. She... she's my mother."
"What?" Steve widened his eyes.
"Her name is Sarah," Blake said slowly, "I told you, I am a form formed by accumulated sins. And Sarah is the one who gave me life. The sins that happened to her are the final grain of sand that formed my body and Soul."
Stark suddenly realized: "Hampton is the Crown of Christ?"
Steve felt something and turned to look out the window. The estate was built on a slope, with the forest behind the house. Since it was winter, all the plants had withered, and heavy snow had fallen, obscuring any thorns, but this indeed matched Blake's description—a region brimming with conspiracy and murder for hundreds of years; where else could it be but Hampton?
"I understand," Wanda suddenly spoke.
Everyone looked at her, including Blake. Wanda said, "Remember when Jarvis and I wanted to have a child? At that time, we discovered that trying to conceive naturally, to get a normal human embryo, was very difficult."
Everyone remembered. It was tough for an Electronic Life and the Scarlet Witch to have a child; they spent a long time researching how to ignite a Soul. They were a bit confused about why Wanda suddenly brought this up.
"Sarah is indeed your mother, but the connection between you two is much closer than that," Wanda looked at him and said, "She was violated, then she got pregnant. At that moment, the flame of the Soul was ignited; as she died, that young Soul became a part of you. So you were able to become human, even the Supreme Magician couldn't detect it. You were, indeed, conceived by a human mother as a true human."
Blake looked as if he'd been struck; he seemingly wasn't aware of this. Everyone fell silent. Greed looked at Arrogant, possibly hoping for a recount of what had been seen at Violet Resort Village.
Arrogant said nothing. Blake slowly spoke: "Yes, those people were killed by me. Even... Sarah was killed by me."
"She was doomed to die," Natasha said in a low voice.
Then Natasha briefly told everyone what they saw at Violet Resort Village. Steve punched the wall but restrained his strength enough not to collapse it.
After hearing such a tragedy, everyone fell silent. Even grief and commemoration seemed too late now. But they had a deeper understanding of why those invited to resolve the issue either avoided it or added fuel to the fire.
Over hundreds of years, countless similar tragedies must have occurred in this sinful land, leading to all current events nearing retribution. Even these inherently good Superheroes had the impulse to walk away.
"Why did you use that method to kill these people?" Arrogant asked.
"What?" Blake said, "What method?"
"Their viscera were corroded."
"That wasn't me," Blake said, "When I was born, I couldn't control my Strength, which exploded out, killing everyone, but it's unlikely there would be identical wounds. However, my father was present at the time."
"I see," Natasha said, "It must have been that crafty old Devil, Mephisto. He feared detection by the Supreme Magician, so he tried to blame the Evil spirit, deliberately mutilating the bodies like that."
Now, everything became clear.
For years, Crown of Christ, or Hampton Region, accumulated countless sins and was targeted by Mephisto, the Hell's Master. He awakened these sins and accumulated them into Heart of Darkness.
The moment Heart of Darkness was born, he killed everyone at Violet Resort Village. Mephisto, seeing the chaos, feared The Ancient One's interference, so he corroded the internal organs of all the bodies, making it seem as if Sarah had turned into an Evil spirit, avenging everyone.
Those innocent souls killed transformed into Evil spirits. They couldn't seek revenge against Mephisto or Heart of Darkness, so they went after others, trapping Hampton in a vicious cycle.
"I need to... I need to find her," Blake mumbled in a daze, "Where is her body?"
Natasha sighed, "Follow me."
"Wait, we're going too," Steve grabbed the Shield, then said, "If we're going to bury her, we'll need a lot of manpower; let's go together."
Everyone in the living room followed suit, and soon they reached the mall. As they walked in, they saw a figure standing in front of the cellar door.
"Poor girl, I'm here to take you. Are you willing to come with me?" a low, compassionate female voice echoed.
Looking at the figure, Wanda widened her eyes and shouted, "Master!"