"And I stood upon the sand of the sea, and saw a beast rise up out of the sea, having seven heads and ten horns, and upon his horns ten crowns, and upon his heads the name of blasphemy." Sitting on a chair on your study, you read the line out loud, "What does that even mean? And blasphemy? What's that?"
"Blasphemy is neither an act of sacrilegious or profane talk that offended God. Sacrilegious is an act to treating a holy place in an unrespect way. Now back to the verse, the sea here represents the Gentile nations of the world, from which this beast comes."
"The beast is the Antichrist, the false messiah. He is the final Gentile world ruler, also known as the 'little horn', the willful king, the coming prince, and the man of sin. This 'sea' means large numbers of people. One writer says unstable nations of peoples. These 'heads' show dominion. We have said before that 'ten' has to do with world government and 'horns' show power."
"The 'crowns' here show dominion. It is not difficult to understand where their power comes from, 'Upon his heads the name of blasphemy'. This beast has the ten horns of power. This is the personification of what Satan does with this world power. The personification of evil is when it takes over governments and the people who are heads of those governments," Thomas explained what the verse means in a whole great detail. He then fixed the position of his monocle before glancing down at the copy of The Book of Revelation.
"Why is there so much to understand and remember on the first verse?!" You groaned, putting the book down. You still couldn't get why they have to make the book so long and complex in the under meaning of every single word, "The title doesn't even sound interesting! They should have named it like Revelation or something. I mean like it could be anything and yet it end up like that."
Your demon butler chuckled and replied, "That's how it's had been for centuries, Lady _(y/n), now please continue with the second verse."
"Fine… And the beast which I saw was like unto a leopard, and his feet were as the feet of a bear, and his mouth as the mouth of a lion: and the dragon gave him his power, and his seat, and great authority. I give up," You complained, frowning at Thomas, "I make absolutely no progress on the second verse. It's just too CONFUSING!"
"His resemblance to a leopard, a bear, and a lion refer to the first three beasts in the vision of Daniel 7. This Beast includes the people and cultures of the three previous empires, and is an outgrowth of the Roman Empire itself. The description of the Beast connects it closely both to the dragon and to the fourth beast of Daniel 7, though his actions show him to be somewhat distinct from both. As the first scripture indicated a beast with seven heads, the other two, earlier empires was Syria and Egypt. To make the next scripture easy to understand, I will name the 6 again. They are-..." His lecture was soon to be cut out again as you interrupted.
"-Syria, Egypt, Babylon, Medo-Persia, Greece and Rome. These are the 6 empires of the past. I guess so, I am not sure, it have been a while," You finished, seeing an astonished sign on his face, "I think I read this before, that must be why. How many more would I have to read?"
"That would be better since we would find out why the murderer kill their victim faster. And about your question, don't worry, ma'am. There are 66 books in total, I think that there are only 32 left to go, we're already halfway through," The word would never eased the anti-bookworm in you as you sighed looking back at the page. He smiled, glancing back at you before returning to the book, "And on with the verse 3."
It took you quite a while to get to the end. All of this was for something that the queen assigned, some kind of murder case that have Bible related features in it.
"And he causeth all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads. And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name."
"I don't think I know what does that two verses actually means…"
"This is the Mark of the Beast,' one of the most often quoted and least understood endtime prophecies of the Bible. The word translated 'Mark' means, literally, 'graven.' It conveys the sense of being 'branded'. Accepting the mark of the Beast means they are sold into slavery, to Satan. Without a mark, a person will be unable to engage in routine commerce. Notice here, it does not say thy cannot live. It says they cannot buy or sell. They should never take this mark since Jesus will help them. Anyone who accepts this mark during the Tribulation has already made his choice, and that choice will permanently disqualify its wearer from heaven. Remember when they get the mark they MUST swear allegiance to the Antichrist as isn't merely economic, it is a worship system. To accept the mark of the beast, one will knowingly agree to renounce God and to accept this mark. Without the mark, no one will be able to buy or sell and will fear they and/or their family will die. But to accept the mark means eternal death." He said.
"That's some hard stuff to be going through because you worship them," Being branded already hurt while hearing, you could imagine the pain but you wished you never should have.
"Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six. Threescore stands for sixty," The number caught your attention as you opened your eyes before reciting the verse.
"So the number is like 666?"
"I would say it as six hundred and sixty six, and yes," Seeing your confused face, he chuckled and said, "The False Prophet will use this mark as a means of forcing people to worship Antichrist. He will demand that everyone have his mark on their foreheads or on their hands in order to buy or sell. One can scarcely imagine the pressures of having to possess such a mark in order to secure the necessary food for his family. There are many views on what the 666 stands for but nowhere is it given in the bible as to what it means exactly. Many think that the Antichrists name, the first, middle and last, each will contain 6 letters each. We do know that to accept the mark is to accept Antichrist as God and thus deny God. Only those who walk with Christ will be able to understand why taking of this mark cannot be done even if it means death to their physical body. And that is the end for today, we will continued with chapter 14 tomorrow," Thomas escorted you back to your room.
"So the three victims worship the devil," You muttered, the name 'Hadesy' did came to mind but he's dead, you are the one who killed him.
Having their back burned using acid, tongue cut, eyes stabbed, nails pulled out and branded… What have they done to get all of the torture?"
The torture was obviously brutal no matter how you look at it, the murderer them self must at least traumatized or having such hate on the victim. The forensic also show that the acid was poured carefully so something stood out from the burned skin, two piece of long flesh was cut out from the victim's back. Looking closely at the picture, you recognized a few features as the cries from the Angel blood became louder.
"All of the victims are… Angels?"
~Time Skip~
You were now sitting on the carriage which was heading to Phantomhive Manor. A small black box was sitting on your lap, your shaky hands wrapped around it. A high pitch sound was ringing in your ears and you felt bit light headed on it.
May it was the side effect of the blood.
The Angel blood inside you was crying out like a wild animal gone berserk, it's grown louder ever since the time you touched the box. What laid inside the box was a mystery to you but you're sure that whatever it was, it's the one thing that was missing from the crime scene.
"Are you okay back there, Lady _(l/n)?" Thomas asked, sitting at the front of the carriage.
He doesn't know what was inside the box. He doesn't need to know.
"No, I'm fine, just focus on leading the carriage," Sighing a little, you glance down at the little object.
This would have to wait until I arrived at the Manor.
~Time Skip~
"Lady _(l/n), welcome to Phantomhive Manor," Greeted Sebastian as he helped you down the carriage in which you only nodded in response.
The demon led you through the same corridor before stopping in front of the Earl's study, "Lady _(l/n) is here milord."
Soon, you sat down on a chair in front of the Earl, with the box still on your lap as Sebastian went off to get some tea and cake.
"I thought you arrange the appoinment to be a few hours away from now?" The Earl was confused as he raised a brow.
"It's an emergency," You replied bluntly.
"About yesterda-"
You frowned, "We have work to get on, dicussing about what happen yesterday would only be a nuisance."
He then looked surprised, "Okay, then you must have looked through the folder," He said sipping some of his favorite tea, Earl Grey.
"As I might say, the way the victim died were indeed intriguing," You put the box onto the study table, right in front of the Earl, "This arrived at my Manor just after I finish reading it."
"What's in it?" He asked, looking curiously at it, "It looks like a mere present to me."
"It's not however. You should open it yourself," You watched as the Earl retrieved the box over to his side and untied the pink ribbon before lifting up the lid.
"Good god," He stared at the inside of the box.
Glancing at the box, you felt the scones you had earlier rising up so as the Angel blood's cries. There was a tongue with a black pentagram inside being branded on along with a few red cards and a oval-like with two sharped end container. Around the middle of the container was a four swipe-able stripe. The stripe was divided into 10 parts which contain a number from 0 to 9. In your opinion, the object looked like a cryptex but this wouldn't be contaning a scroll but another object. However, as far as you know, with what the human know now about mechanism. It's impossible for them to created such an advance invention as this.
Unless... Could it be that a supernatural being is involved in this?
Realizing that Ciel might be waiting for your reaction, you then proceeded to reply with, "There's no doubt that tongue belongs to one of the victims," There's no doubt that tongue belongs to one of the victims," Wringing your nose in disgusted, you picked up the card. The writing on it was handwritten.
To be honest, the writing is actually very fancy with all the curves but it had would been better if this wasn't from a murderer.
"'I hope you like my present.' The murderer is a very sick person," You commented, picking up the second card, "'Nevertheless; there will be more to come.' He must have mean the victims's tongue."
"Definitely, three tongues means three messages," While you're reading out the cards, the Earl was taking his time examining the cryptex, "This looks fairly interesting."
"It's a cryptex for your information, well something that was made for a purpose lik the cryptex. Except for having the scroll, it's an objcte, perhaps the clue to find the murderer. Definetely something created by a very sophisticated person," You explained sternly.
"Cryptex. That word is new."
"I don't expect you to know it but would be hell of a shocked if you do know," You smirked, continuing with the next card, "'Never would you catch me, keep looking. The next card may help. M.' The murderer is really itimidating both of us aren't they?"
He huffed at your reply, "You're underestimated me. It seems like the murderer is a very arrogant one but we won't back down now," He smirked, playing with the cryptex, "So this is what it said in conclusion, "One of my present… Nevertheless, there will be more to come… Never would you catch me, keep looking. The next card may help… M… The murderer wants us to call he or she 'M' as her or his initial. In my opinion, I think that the murderer is a man since all of his victims are all grown-up man. It isn't possible for a woman to kill them."
Hold up the last card, you were surprised to only see two words written on it, "'His birthday.' Could this be-" Your word was interrupted as the study door burst opened.
"CIEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLL!" The blonde glommed onto the Earl, suffocated him like last time.
"Eliza- L-Lizzy! L-lemme go!" He squirmed, trying to free himself.
"I can't! You're just TOOOOOOO CUTE to resist!" Whined the blonde as she tightened her grip.
"H-Help!"
"Pathetic," Sighing at the scene, you pulled out a tiny stuff animal from your bag. You had brought it along with you, just in case Lizzy dropped by and refused to let her fiance go, "Ne, Lizzy-chan, I have something for you."
"Ahh! _(y/n)-chan! That's a wolf right? I have always wanted a wolf in my stuff toy collection!" Her hug was now directed toward you as you stood there, letting her hug you with no expression on you face at all before giving the little wolf pub to her. You saw the Earl looked you with a surprise impression plastered on his face; you smirked, hugging Elizabeth as light as you can.