Chapter 1353: Chapter 1353

"Huh? What do you mean? What did I do to this world? I... I haven't done anything."

The question left Jenkins completely bewildered.

"This world has no normal sunrise or sunset, so I can't be certain of the exact time. But about two days ago, you suddenly appeared and took most of the bones from this city. You haven't forgotten that, have you?"

inquired the mouth in the old man's palm.

"That... You're not asking me to bring back those useless bones, are you? If I recall correctly, you aren't the master of this place."

"Of course, I wouldn't ask something so pointless. I only wanted to warn you. By taking so much material from this world back to your own, you've strengthened the connection between the two cities. The doomsday city is now merging with reality much faster. If my senses are correct, ever since you did that two days ago, more people have been unintentionally dragged into this world. If you want to save them, you must act more quickly."

"If I bring the bones back now, will that stop the acceleration?"

Jenkins asked a foolish question.

The old man said no more on the matter, instead giving Jenkins the location and method for the next ritual, along with the coordinates of the monster parts he needed. He seemed to possess an encyclopedic knowledge of this world. The locations he provided were always unnervingly precise, as if he could survey the entire doomsday city from his perch in the clock tower.

"There is one thing I'd like to ask. Of all the people who entered the Mysterious Realm back then, how many actually made it out?"

Jenkins asked just before he left. The old man remained silent for a long moment, and Jenkins, assuming he wouldn't get an answer, turned to go. But then, to his surprise, the old man spoke:

"A total of six people entered the Mysterious Realm. Three of them died here."

Silver Flute Miss had told him that six people entered the Mysterious Realm in total. If three died, that meant two others besides her had managed to escape. The thought surprised Jenkins. He also recalled the corpse he had found on the stairs the first time he climbed this tower. That meant there were two other bodies from the real world lying somewhere in this city.

But none of that was his concern for now. He was in the doomsday version of Nolan, and he needed to hunt. He moved quickly to kill the required monster. His timing was perfect. Just as he finished carving a scale from the foreclaw of a translucent lizard that could teleport at will within a thirty-foot radius, the brilliant yellow moonlight vanished from the sky above.

He looked around. He was back in the quiet night of Nolan. Fınd the newest release on N0v3l.Fiɾe.net

"Excellent," he thought. "I wonder if the Church managed to find the entrance to that Mysterious Realm in the last couple of hours."

So he thought, but a few minutes later, he concluded they clearly hadn't. After struggling to the rooftop of a nearby building with his cat, he had a clear view two streets over. Two Enchanters were locked in combat with a massive, frenzied demon.

Regular soldiers armed with rifles had blockaded the intersection, but in a fight against a creature that could so easily warp the minds of ordinary people, they would only end up as puppets for the beast.

"Another new aberration? I'd better hurry. Otherwise, more and more of these monsters are going to spill into the city."

As the most important port metropolis on the west coast, Nolan's urban sprawl was easily as vast as any city from the same era in Jenkins's original world. Even with the guiding beacon from Alexia, finding the entrance to the Mysterious Realm—which could be hidden in any corner of the city—was no simple task.

Considering that his cat had always been a furry good-luck charm, Jenkins even considered letting Chocolate try to find it. But this time, the cat refused to cooperate. It must have sensed that Jenkins had no intention of resting that night, because it burrowed deep into the inner pocket of his coat and stubbornly refused to emerge.

"Once I find the Mysterious Realm, I'll have to go inside. I can't take you with me on an adventure like that. Chocolate, why don't you head back to Ruen and get some sleep?"

The cat, of course, was having none of it.

Alexia's small cube was highly sensitive, but it lacked precision. From the top of the city's clock tower, it had marked a potential entrance to the Mysterious Realm. But when Jenkins rushed to the location—a barn on the outskirts of the city—he found nothing.

A more thorough search revealed a hidden room beneath a pile of straw, but nothing inside possessed a spiritual aura. Driven by curiosity, Jenkins leafed through some letters tucked into a crevice of a bookshelf. The pages were filled with letters, but they formed no coherent words. He realized they were encrypted.

"There's a secret here, but it's not the one I'm looking for."

He thought with a flicker of disappointment and returned the letters to their hiding place. Just as he extinguished his candle and prepared to climb back to ground level, he heard the main doors of the barn creak open.

He cursed under his breath. A glance around the cramped chamber confirmed there was nowhere to hide. He blinked, confirming the person approaching was just an ordinary man. He pressed himself against the wall beside the ladder. As the newcomer opened the trapdoor and carefully climbed down, Jenkins gave the cat in his pocket a light pinch. The sleeping Chocolate instantly let out an indignant meow.

The sudden meow in the enclosed space made the stranger jump. He frantically searched the darkness for the source of the sound, and his gaze landed right on Jenkins's wide eyes:

"There's nothing here," Jenkins declared swiftly. "The cat's meow, the man you see now—it's all an illusion!"

The power of his lie flowed through his words. The man's eyes went unfocused for a moment, his head swimming. As if forgetting something important, he glanced around the dark chamber before turning and walking toward the bookshelf on the far side.

While the man's senses were still clouded by the lie, Jenkins scrambled up the ladder. He pulled Alexia's cube from his pocket and looked at it. This time, it was marking three different locations at once.