Lord of The Mysterious Realms Chapter 1008

The two moons in the sky tonight weren't full, but their light was still enough to illuminate the dark woods. Not that the professor and Jenkins needed it; the glow from the entrance to the Mysterious Realm rivaled that of a high-powered gas lamp.

"It's a little past seven now," the professor mused. "I figure by the time the gathering's over and we make it to the church, it'll be around eleven. I doubt any unlucky soul will stumble upon this place between now and then, so leaving it for the time being should be fine. We will, however, need a decent excuse for being out here so late."

This was the professor's proposed course of action for the Mysterious Realm's entrance. Much like Jenkins, he was reluctant to abandon the gathering and head back to the city right away.

The entrance to a Mysterious Realm was, by its nature, a potent source of mental corruption. That very quality had resulted in the near-complete annihilation of everyone in that apartment building during the debt-collection incident. But both the professor and Jenkins possessed unshakable willpower; luring them inside would be impossible.

Even as they stood so close to the entrance, which pulsed with a brilliant white light, neither man felt any compulsion to enter. Jenkins's soul and spirit were exceptionally resilient, and the professor had gained ample enlightenment from his dreams.

As they spoke, more footsteps crunched through the woods behind them. They spun around to find a burly, bearded man striding toward them, his eyes wide.

He wore a white uniform, much like a chef's, which stood out starkly in the dim woods. Before Jenkins or the professor could say a word, he spoke.

"Have you seen my friend?"

So, he must have known one of the two from the earlier chase—either the pursuer or the one being pursued. Based on the strange composition of those specks of divine light, Jenkins guessed he was with the pursuer.

"That's certainly possible. Thank you... but I'm afraid, since you've seen my face..."

He seemed polite enough, but his demeanor shifted in an instant. As he uttered the first word, his body began to swell and stretch. By the time the word "possible" left his mouth, he had become a giant, towering nearly twenty feet tall. The source of thɪs content is novel{f}ire.net

He lunged toward Jenkins and the professor with startling speed. Though both had braced for a fight, the attack was too sudden to dodge. They had no choice but to stand their ground.

Both Jenkins and the professor were immensely strong; even in his giant form, the chef might not have been able to best either of them in sheer power. But his intention wasn't to overpower them. He slammed into them like a cannonball, sending them flying like bowling pins straight into the Mysterious Realm.

Even if they could match his strength, few could have kept their footing against such a forceful collision.

"When I get out of here, that oaf is dead!"

The space between reality and the Mysterious Realm swirled with a bizarre cacophony of colors. As Jenkins tumbled through, his first coherent thought was a burning hatred for the man who'd thrown him in. He pushed himself up from a tiled floor, his head still spinning, and took in his surroundings. The place was clean and orderly—nothing like the decaying, decrepit Mysterious Realms he was used to.

Still disoriented, he heard a strange noise behind him. He turned just in time to see two strangers locked in a fatal struggle. One man, crouching low, drove a dagger upward into the abdomen of his attacker. At the same moment, the tip of the attacker's cane plunged deep into the crouching man's chest.

The word escaped both their lips in a strangled gasp. The man with the cane in his chest died instantly. The other collapsed, pinned to the floor by his assailant's corpse. Blood gushed from his abdominal wound, so much so that Jenkins wondered if the dagger was cursed to cause massive bleeding.

Jenkins felt an impulse to heal the man, but the unpredictable rules of Mysterious Realms gave him pause. He couldn't afford to act rashly.

The dying man struggled to lift his head. His gaze fell upon the professor in the distance, then to the younger man nearby and his wide-eyed cat. With a trembling hand, the man reached into a pouch at his belt and, with a final surge of effort, extended a grimy glass bottle filled with a cloudy liquid toward Jenkins.

"Don't trust anyone," he rasped. "Don't let anyone know you have this. It is desire... it is power... it is a bridge... it is..."

He never finished his sentence, breathing his last. Jenkins stood frozen for a second, then quickly snatched the glass bottle before his cat, Chocolate, could dart out from inside his robes.

The bottle, no larger than his palm, was filled with a murky, grayish-yellow fluid. Sinuous red strands, like tapeworms, drifted within it. But what truly drew the eye was the jet-black object suspended in the liquid—an object difficult to describe.

It floated in a spiral, seemingly hollow, its ends unevenly severed. The surface of the black, ribbon-like thing was covered in bumps so dense and tiny they were nearly invisible. What could be seen, however, were small, fingernail-sized pits distributed evenly across it.

A faint wave of nausea and dizziness worsened the headache still lingering from his abrupt transition between realms. He had never seen an umbilical cord before, which made it all the more bizarre that his mind instantly supplied the word. On further reflection, it felt like pure instinct identifying the object for him, akin to the omniscience he experienced in his divine state.

Seeing the professor, who had fallen some distance away, beginning to stir, Jenkins hesitated for a second before tucking the small bottle into his robes. He had no idea what it was, but the brilliant auras of gold, white, and black light it emitted screamed that this was something profoundly dangerous.

The dead man's warning might be valuable, so Jenkins decided to investigate the umbilical cord by himself for the time being. This wasn't a decision driven by greed or arrogance; he reasoned that if the object was a threat to him, it would pose an even greater danger to anyone else.

Crucially, his instant recognition of the object suggested it had directly resonated with his divine nature. This only solidified his certainty that the umbilical cord was something extraordinary. He might turn it over to the Church eventually, but that day would not be today.

The professor was back on his feet in no time. He noticed the two bodies, and Jenkins quietly filled him in on what had transpired. It was a shame to lose two potential allies so soon after entering the Mysterious Realm, but since they were strangers, neither Jenkins nor the professor gave it much thought.

A quick search of the corpses revealed tattoos belonging to the heretical cult, the Dead Man's Whip, but nothing else of value. Now, they deserved even less sympathy.