Splash—

The sound of water echoed in the room as the girl stood up.

A red-haired girl, covered in blood, rose from a tub full of blood.

She picked up a clean towel from the edge of the tub and carefully wiped the blood from her body until the originally clean white fleece towel was stained dark red.

The girl’s body swayed slightly. She leaned her backside gently against the edge of the wooden tub, lifted her right leg, and continued wiping with the towel.

Once her right leg was clean, she extended it out of the tub, stepping onto the wooden floor. Then she lifted her left leg, wiped it clean, not wasting a single drop of blood clinging to it.

Finally, the girl picked up the towel and wrung it out forcefully over the tub until not a single drop of blood dripped from it, before hanging the dark red towel on the edge of the wooden tub.

By now, the tub was filled almost halfway with deep, dark blood.

“Hoo...” Ciel slowly exhaled, her body swaying as she walked towards the washroom.

Cold water washed away the bloodstains from her body and the ends of her hair. No matter how hard she scrubbed, the thick scent of iron and blood lingered on her skin.

After washing her body clean, Ciel dried herself, put on her original plain pale yellow blouse and dark brown long skirt, changed into white ankle socks and the academy’s standard small leather boots, and returned to her room.

She almost had to force herself to sit on the wooden stool in front of the desk, leaning back against the desk behind her, calming the intense dizziness assaulting her brain.

After a long while, Ciel slowly opened her eyes and looked towards the window.

She had drawn the curtains tightly, but a tiny sliver of light still managed to peek through the edges after continuous diffuse reflections between the curtain and the windowpane.

Morning had arrived.

Ciel had become somewhat numb from letting her own blood.

It was equivalent to dying countless times within just five or six hours.

However, this high-intensity self-mutilation allowed Ciel to grasp some knowledge, whether useful or not.

Firstly, regarding the 【Temporal Disorder】 negative effect, each simulated save file within 【Temporal Disorder】 was independent.

This meant that during 【Temporal Disorder】, if excessive blood loss caused a certain save file, like “Instigator,” to go into shock or die, Ciel would genuinely enter a state of suspended animation until time became disordered again and switched to another save file.

Furthermore, 【Echo of Time】 could not be used again during 【Temporal Disorder】.

After the one hour of 【Temporal Disorder】 ended, using 【Echo of Time】 once more would refresh the status of all save files.

Apart from the somewhat too frequent switching every 3-5 minutes, the negative impact of 【Temporal Disorder】 on Ciel now was even less than its positive effects.

After all, for the ordinary Ciel in reality, switching to any save file was stronger than her real self with no path abilities.

Also, organs cut off during 【Temporal Disorder】 would not be preserved but would disappear along with the 【Temporal Disorder】, not even leaving behind skin fragments or strands of hair. It seemed only blood could be retained.

Most importantly, the original body was not considered a save file. Once 【Temporal Disorder】 switched to her original body, Ciel had to stop the bloodletting and rest—fortunately, she was prudent enough to test this by making a small cut on her wrist when switched to her original body.

The simulated “Instigator” Ciel hadn’t told her this, either forgotten or intentionally omitted.

Besides learning more about the pocket watch’s abilities, Ciel also gained some...

Could it be called medical knowledge? Or killing knowledge?

When Ciel first started bleeding herself, she directly severed her carotid artery. This caused her transformed “Instigator” self to quickly go into shock, remaining so until the time limit expired and the transformation effect vanished.

But through subsequent, continuous bloodletting using the stopwatch, Ciel mastered some bleeding techniques.

After experimenting with most of the major arteries in her body, Ciel discovered the most stable bloodletting method.

First, use 【Echo of Time】. When the countdown reached the last four or five seconds, directly sever the abdominal aorta. The closer to the heart, the faster the blood pumped, and it wouldn’t cause death before 【Echo of Time】 ended, avoiding passively triggering 【Death Reversal】 and losing significant mental energy.

During the subsequent 【Temporal Disorder】, for each save file, she could first cut both wrists to bleed slowly. Wait until the blood flow from the wrists stopped, or intense dizziness occurred, or the disorder switched back to this save file for the second time. At that point, sever her own abdominal aorta, release the final wave of blood, and enter shock.

This formulaic method was the most effective way Ciel found to bleed the maximum amount in a limited time. Yet, even after nearly six hours of effort, Ciel had only managed to collect half a tub of blood.

She estimated this method could drain at least half her body’s blood, but her height and physique were too small; her total blood volume was likely only around 3100 milliliters. Combining the contributions from several save files, she barely managed half a tub.

Apart from the pain each time the knife tip broke the skin or cut into her body, the hardest part was facing the suffocating fear of impending death and shock.

This fear was unavoidable each time, and with every subsequent instance, Ciel became even more afraid of facing that cold, deathly sensation.

It was an instinctive fear of death; Ciel currently had no way to overcome it, unable even to become numb to it.

Continuously facing death consumed a vast amount of Ciel’s energy. Although she had woken up just six hours prior, she already felt dizzy and faint.

However, the plan wasn’t finished yet. Ciel still had things to do; she couldn’t just fall asleep now.

She turned around, no longer looking at her blood, picked up a pen, tore a page from the notebook, and began writing and drawing on it.

The blood array she had used seemed imprinted in her mind; she could easily draw its scaled-down version.

But she deliberately blurred some areas, leaving large sections of the spiritual summoning blood array incomplete.

This was to prevent others from mastering this complex blood array and summoning spiritual beings.

Anyway, she just needed the blood to be in the right places. When she arrived and activated the array, it would form naturally. Moreover, according to “Instigator” Ciel’s notes, this pre-prepared blood array would form much faster.

This was the difference between a prepared battle and an encounter.

With sufficient preparation, even an ordinary person could kill a low-tier transcendent.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by lotustale.com