Chapter 621: First Probe

The burly male witch brought the salt granules to his nose and sniffed, then licked them with his tongue: "It's just ordinary salt, identical to the salt in this jar—no anomalies at all."

"So that's it. I understand." A soft female voice came from behind.

The speaker was the witch who had remained silent until now.

She stood in the darkest corner of the kitchen, clad in a black cloak whose hood obscured most of her face, leaving only a pale chin visible.

She was a witch specializing in curses.

"That finger used genetic material as a medium," she said, her voice quiet yet each word cleaving clearly into the ears of everyone present, "it imposes the curse at the soul level. As for the curse's content… it's likely something like 'the body and salt are exchanged.'"

She stepped toward the stove, extended her pale finger, and lightly tapped the edge of the salt jar.

"But this isn't a complete exchange. If it were complete, the victim would instantly turn into a pile of salt—that would be clean. But the designer of this curse… or rather, the anomaly itself… doesn't want a quick death. It wants torment."

Her gaze shifted to the doorway. Karl was blocked from her view by Gao Jie Ming, so he couldn't see her expression beneath the hood, but the boy's body still trembled involuntarily.

"So it designed 'incomplete exchange.' A vague, unstable correspondence has formed between the victim's body and salt. While alive, this exchange is partial and reversible. Their kidneys begin turning into salted meat, yet still function barely. Their bodily fluids begin to turn salty, yet blood still flows."

"But upon death, the exchange reverses. Salt becomes flesh again; flesh becomes salt again. That's why we see the corpses preserved in a pickled state—not because the curse is still active, but because the curse has already completed, leaving only the 'trace of having been exchanged.'"

When she finished, she lifted her head, revealing a pair of pale gray eyes beneath the hood.

"That's why we detected no anomalies. The curse's carrier isn't the finger—it's the victim's own genetic material. The finger is merely a… a signal. It doesn't emit energy, but a 'correlation' based on fundamental laws."

The kitchen fell silent as the witches rapidly analyzed the gathered intelligence.

The man in the dark blue robe drew a deep breath: "So when we saw that finger, it had already finished its work. Through genetic correlation, it 'wrote' the curse into the souls of Hans's family. The finger itself was just a doorbell—once pressed, it became useless."

"Precisely," the curse witch nodded.

The final piece of the puzzle clicked into place in Gao Jie Ming's mind.

That was why neither he nor the Fate System detected any anomaly in the finger: because it truly had none.

It was merely a vessel, a container, a one-time-use 'key.'

The truly terrifying thing had already entered the souls of Hans's family before they even saw the finger.

The witches exchanged glances; though silent, each could read the others' understanding in their eyes.

They had all encountered this anomaly for the first time, yet through their accumulated knowledge, they had already deduced its mechanism with near-complete accuracy.

This was the terrifying strength of Gao Gao Jie witches.

They might never have seen something before, but they had seen enough, studied deeply enough, that when faced with the unknown, they could rapidly deduce its rules from what they already knew.

"So now the question—"

Gao Jie Ming's words were cut short by a shrill scream.

"Salty! So salty!"

It was Karl.

The boy staggered backward from the doorway into the center of the living room, clutching his throat with both hands, his face swollen and purplish-red.

His lips trembled violently, saliva dribbled uncontrollably from the corners of his mouth, his eyes bulged as if about to burst from their sockets.

"So salty! Water… give me water…"

He stumbled toward the dining table, grabbed the glass of water Gao Jie Ming had poured earlier, and downed it in one gulp.

But the water didn't ease his pain—it only twisted his expression further, as if even the water had turned to brine.

"The curse has activated," the curse witch said, her voice still calm but noticeably faster, "he saw the finger—the genetic correlation has been triggered. The finger rang the doorbell; now the door is open."

The man in the dark blue robe moved first.

"Soul Protection!"

He growled, formed a hand seal, and a silver-white halo spread from his palms, enveloping Karl.

The halo shimmered with countless runes, each spinning rapidly, attempting to peel away the boy's abnormal state.

The halo stabilized, but Karl's expression showed no clear improvement.

He still gagged in agony, fingers digging into his throat, nails embedded in his skin.

The young female witch followed suit.

Blood oozed automatically from her fingertips, and she traced a complex witchcraft array in the air; the array spun and flew toward Karl, adhering to his forehead.

"Curse Removal. Explore the infinite possibilities of fantasy novels, visit the category navigation." Her voice carried an odd rhythm, "Separate involuntary attachments, nullify abnormal state interference."

Karl's body jerked violently; a layer of gray mist surfaced on his forehead—the sign of the curse being peeled away.

The burly male witch joined in.

His body-altering witchcraft proved useful now: dark green light engulfed Karl's body, his muscle fibers swelling slightly under the glow, his skin forming a resilient membrane.

He was reinforcing Karl's physical resilience, preventing his body from collapsing under the curse's initial assault.

Other witches were acting too.

Some cast mental soothing spells to ease Karl's fear and pain; others erected isolation wards around him, severing the link between the curse and the finger.

Gao Jie Ming stood at the outer edge, watching the sixth-rank witches deploy their techniques without rushing to act.

Though their spell power was capped at the third rank and the enemy's method seemed highly anomalous, these witches still effortlessly saved the boy.

Even their sequential casting—rather than eliminating the curse all at once—was deliberately reducing each spell's potency to probe the curse's various parameters.

In truth, the moment these witches acted, they had already deduced nearly everything about the curse.

Honestly, Gao Jie Ming wasn't skilled at removing curses… he was better at enduring them.

But since the other witches were already testing the data, he couldn't just stand by.

His right hand reached into his storage space and pulled out a fist-sized lump of liquid adamantium.

Using alchemy, his spiritual sense infiltrated the liquid adamantium, breaking its structure down to its most fundamental particles, then constructing within his mind an exquisitely precise "coating" model.

The same thing he'd crafted for himself back when he first refined adamantium.

But now, his control precision was higher—he could integrate seamlessly with Karl's skin, muscles, even cell membranes at the molecular level.

Constructing a dual barrier of physical and spiritual protection, without disrupting normal physiological function.

After the others finished their spells, Gao Jie Ming flicked his wrist.

The liquid adamantium shot forth as a silver streak, striking Karl precisely; upon contact with his skin, it exploded into countless invisible micro-particles, evenly coating his entire body.

To the outside, Karl's skin merely gained a faint, nearly transparent sheen—as if lightly rinsed with water.

But Gao Jie Ming knew: the coating had seeped into every cell surface of Karl's body.

Even if the anomaly returned, this coating would easily repel the curse.

Karl's body stiffened abruptly.

Then, his struggles ceased.

His bloodshot eyes slowly cleared; his hands loosened from his throat, his chest heaved as he gasped deep breaths of air.

"I…" His voice was hoarse, dazed with survival, "I don't feel salty anymore."

In the kitchen, the witches silently recorded the data they had just gathered.

After calming Karl for a moment, Gao Jie Ming suddenly remembered something and turned his attention to the opened salt jar.

"Strange. The finger hasn't reappeared. The intel said even if destroyed, the finger could still reappear."

Gao Jie Ming's spiritual sense swept over the jar.

Inside were only pure white salt granules—no foreign objects between them.

He expanded his spiritual sense to the entire kitchen, then the whole house—still no trace.

The other witches were doing the same.

Moments later, all their spiritual senses retracted.

"No new emotional fluctuations detected," said the young female witch.

"No new life signs detected," said the burly male witch.

"I scanned the entire town," came the curse witch's voice from beneath her hood, "within a five-hundred-kilometer radius, no object matching the finger's signature."

"Nor underground."

The witches exchanged glances.

The combined spiritual range of the nine witches was enough to turn the entire area upside down.

If the finger still lurked anywhere in this town, it could not have escaped their joint search.

Yet it vanished.

No—it had simply ceased reappearing.

"Did it abandon its goal upon realizing it couldn't kill the last person? Or did its mechanism judge the killing complete, and thus disappear naturally?" the blue-robed witch speculated.

Gao Jie Ming stepped to the salt jar, reached in, and pinched a small amount of salt between his fingers.

The granules crunched softly—fine, dry, utterly unremarkable.

He brought them to his nose and sniffed, then touched them lightly with his tongue.

Just ordinary table salt.

(Today's bonus chapter—there's one more coming.)