Chapter 128: Chapter 128

The divine ability's protection against the environmental anomalies was gradually weakening. Mad whispers and blasphemous knowledge echoed in his ears. Jenkins narrowed his eyes, staring at the dark shadow. The feeling it gave him was much like that demonic figure from behind the church. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ noveⅼfire.net

Miss Hersha flicked her right wrist forcefully. Jenkins had planned to close the distance with his cane and unleash that dark power as he had before, but the sound of the bell struck him down. He felt blood welling up in his nose.

"Damn it, another one of these indiscriminate items!"

He thought in a daze as a pair of soft hands pulled him back, and he found himself leaning against the young woman.

"I was already injured, so I can't defeat him now. I'll use the bell to lure the demonic figure away. You need to run."

She whispered in his ear. The bell continued to ring, but now that he was closer to her, its effect on him seemed to diminish.

"I can handle him. Stop."

Jenkins tasted iron in his mouth.

Jenkins was exasperated, his skull throbbing with every ring of the bell. He vaguely saw Miss Hersha stand up. She left her violin and the silver ring from her left hand with him, but took his pistol. Then, she vanished into the forest, along with the dark shadow that was clearly agitated but didn't dare get too close.

"Alright, how am I supposed to repay a favor ?"

Once the sounds had faded, he struggled to his feet. Tearing two strips of cloth from his clothes, he plugged his ears and plunged deeper into the forest after them.

Just as he'd feared, Miss Hersha hadn't lasted long. One of her shoes lay discarded at the foot of a tree, and she was being held aloft, a scaly hand clamped around her throat.

"Blasphemous Creation!"

Once he was close enough, the ability activated instantly. The dark, indistinct shadow began to writhe in agony, and Miss Hersha dropped onto the soft earth.

This wasn't a physical creature at all. The reason Jenkins couldn't make out its true form was because it had no fixed shape to begin with.

Black smoke poured from the demonic figure. Just like before, the shadow dissolved into a pile of black dust that scattered across the ground, leaving behind only an ethereal coin and a small wisp of black flame.

The Blasphemous Creation ability seemed to be particularly effective against these demonic figures.

He picked up the coin. The moment it touched the one from before, they instantly merged, becoming slightly more substantial.

He hurried to help the young woman up.

Her voice was much weaker. "So you're actually that powerful."

"Yes. A very powerful person taught me a very powerful ability."

After more than ten seconds passed without a response, Jenkins carefully checked her breath and realized she had simply fainted.

He laid her down at the base of a tree and collapsed beside her.

"Alright, since you risked your life for me, I'll help you out this once. But don't expect it to happen again. Though, I admit, I'm also very curious to see what these so-called demons are really like."

He took out the black metal hexahedron and slowly infused his spirit into it.

A strange yet sacred aura manifested in the forest before swiftly moving away. An eerie hymn echoed through the trees as a black-robed human figure glided, as if floating, toward the distant manor.

Chocolate emerged from behind a tree, shaking his head to flick a blade of grass from his nose. He glanced at his master's body and the woman beside him, then extended a paw and drew a circle in the dirt around them before vanishing into the undergrowth.

In the dining hall on the top floor of the manor, all the lights had been extinguished. Only a single candle, burning with a black flame, provided illumination.

Surrounding the eerie light was a spread of fresh hearts, livers, spleens, and lungs, alongside other meticulously prepared ingredients.

The younger Wellington, dressed in a tasteful black suit, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and elegantly dabbed his mouth.

"The kind boy returned home, hoping to be rid of those terrible powers forever so he could live peacefully with his younger brother and sister. But not everyone is kind. The boy's brother and sister learned of his power through his stories. Greed and jealousy consumed their two young, fragile souls; they lacked his noble character and were corrupted by the seeping demonic power."

"One night, following the guidance of whispers in their ears, the two children killed their brother with a sharp knife. They then performed a ritual to please the great lord of the Magma Hell, and they succeeded. The world lost one demon yearning for the light, and gained two who plunged into darkness."

"And that... is our story."

He lifted his wine glass between his index and middle fingers, took an elegant sip, and then looked toward Miss Bevanna at the other end of the long table. A golden light shimmered around her, a protective ward. Behind her stood a solid black shadow, its arms wrapped around her neck as if they were intimate lovers.

In the corner, the few surviving youths had fallen completely unconscious, Miss Mikhail among them. A web of fine, black markings snaked down from her forehead, squirming ceaselessly, like a swarm of insects writhing just beneath her skin.

"I truly didn't expect it. Two high-ranking demons, here in the material world. You must have snuck away from your master, didn't you? What for? The prophecy? Just because you were twins as mortals, you believe you're the Twin Demon Savior candidates?"

Her hands were pressed flat on the table, her entire body radiating light. The book she always carried was gone, but a transparent golden barrier woven from glowing text still shielded her.

"And why shouldn't we be? We are twins. We are demons. If the plan had succeeded, if the ritual had been completed, saving the world would not have been impossible."

The black shadow behind Miss Bevanna murmured, while the younger Wellington was still smiling.

"I didn't expect it either. To think that simply tossing a contract to a few greedy humans would expose us. For them to actually display their powers in front of common folk... Ha! The mortals of this epoch are far bolder than they used to be. What are the Righteous Gods even doing? Where is the fear that mortals are supposed to have?"

The young man scoffed, using a silver fork to lift a slice of dripping lung to his lips.

"What I want to know is, what exactly were you trying to accomplish by coming here?"

"It no longer matters. The ritual has failed," Wellington declared. "But our dear, departed brother once brushed against fate. The title of the Twin Demons will be ours!"

As they spoke, a sizzling sound came from the tightly shut dining room doors. Someone pushed them open, and a red box slid across the floor, snapping open with a soft pop.

One of the demons asked with curiosity, "That looks like something that escaped from the Magma Hell through a Mysterious Realm."