Lord of The Mysterious Realms Chapter 1163

"Where is it, where is it..."

Once inside the cemetery, Jenkins muttered to himself, pulling a slip of paper from his pocket with his free left hand. It detailed the location of the graves belonging to Louise's family and their neighbors.

He double-checked the note to make sure he remembered correctly, then raised his umbrella and pressed on. Blinking, he tried to pinpoint the female Scribe's location first, which would tell him if Fini was still in the cemetery.

But as he scanned the area, the pinpoint of light marking her ability was unexpectedly in the woods just outside the cemetery grounds. Jenkins furrowed his brow. Seeing no one around, he took a running start and vaulted the fence, landing in the trees.

The spring woods were already lush with leaves. The female Scribe had been hidden behind a large tree, its trunk twice the width of Jenkins's waist. She was not dead, merely unconscious. Jenkins checked her breathing and let out a sigh of relief. After healing her with his Life Source, he did not wake her immediately. Instead, he left his umbrella propped against the tree to shield her from the rain before turning back toward the cemetery.

Fini was still in the cemetery, accompanied by an unfamiliar level-four Enchanter. They were close together, and the moment Jenkins spotted them, they started moving quickly.

The rain muffled most sounds in the dreary cemetery, but through the rustle of the bushes, Jenkins could just make out the faint sound of voices, nearly lost in the wind.

"I failed to protect Louise. If something happens to Fini too..."

He couldn't bear to imagine that outcome. He swore to himself that he would protect Fini, even if it meant exposing all of his secrets.

For the Jenkins of today, however, the distance was trivial. A few breaths later, he saw Fini and an unfamiliar man locked in a tense standoff among the gravestones.

Fini looked a little frightened, clutching her umbrella with a wary expression, but at least she was unharmed. The wind carried the sound of their conversation to Jenkins's ears, and he could just barely make out what they were saying.

"...I don't know what you're talking about. Did you kill Sister Diggs?"

The Scribe who had been escorting Fini was a Miss Diggs. Jenkins couldn't recall her first name, but hearing the surname was enough to place her.

"Impossible. The divination was clear. The object is on you, there's no mistake. The thing that fell from the sky on Monday—it's on you."

The man threatening Fini was middle-aged and unremarkable, wearing a black hat. He held a cane in his left hand and a pistol in his right. His cane was clearly not standard issue; it was unusually long and its thickness was uneven.

It was ill-suited to his height and build, which suggested it had been modified. There was probably something hidden inside.

Jenkins was about to leap out and send the man—who had the gall to stir up trouble while he was in such a foul mood—to his death. But a sudden intuition stayed his hand. He remembered his plan, slipped behind a nearby gravestone, and continued to observe.

"I don't care who you are, the Church won't let you get away with this."

"Little girl, I know the Sage Church won't let me go, but right now it's just you and me. You're all alone. I rarely kill children. Hand over the item now, and I promise I won't kill you." ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ NoveIＦire.net

"No. Even if I'm not in a church, God is with me. The distance between mortals and God is..."

"Such a young zealot. How rare. Well then, my apologies."

As he spoke, the man raised his gun and aimed at Fini's heart, but he was startled to see a ring of flickering golden flames dancing around the little girl through the thin curtain of rain.

A primal unease urged him to pull the trigger at once, take the body, and flee. Yet that same unease held him back, a chilling premonition that if he fired, he would be the one to die a gruesome death.

"I'm not a zealot. I'm just a fortunate child, blessed by God. The gentleman told me that mortals should be reverent. You show no respect for God, and you will surely be punished."

A look of resolve settled on Fini's young face. The rain had soaked her hair and the cold made her tremble, but she still managed a brave retort.

The man opposite her suddenly laughed.

"Then tell me, I'm about to kill you. Can your god protect you now?"

"God is with me. I am never alone. The gentleman promised he would always be with me, and I will also..."

Fini never finished her sentence. In that frozen instant, a spinning brass bullet flew from the muzzle flash into the curtain of rain, scattering the falling raindrops in its path.

But as the bullet neared Fini, it seemed to strike an invisible shield, deflecting harmlessly into a puddle on the ground.

The uneven ground was dotted with puddles collecting the rain from the sky. The flattened bullet lay at the bottom of one. In the puddle's rippling surface, Fini's reflection was surrounded by a golden aura that flickered like a flame. It also reflected the stunned face of the strange man.

"You're clearly not an Enchanter. What is this ability?"

He took an instinctive step back, but feeling ashamed to be frightened by a little girl, he pressed on.

"Is this a trap for me?"

"It's not a trap. The gentleman said that fate always guides people to the right place. Even though it's just you and me here now, I am not alone, and I am not powerless."

Fini insisted, though even she did not understand what was happening.

"Your god is with you?"

"I don't know, but I believe He is with me. I believe the gentleman. I'm not alone. Even if Father and Mother... The gentleman was right. Even if I have nothing and no one around me, I am never truly alone."