Chapter 1420: Chapter 1420
Standing in the downpour, Magic Miss couldn't fathom their origins. Instead, she asked,
"I don't know anyone of such high standing. A friend bought these bombs for me."
"Yes, that must be him. Oh, miss," the man continued, "you would do well to speak of him with more respect. I suspect you are an Enchanter, but no matter how powerful you may be, you cannot possibly grasp the true dignity of his station."
The man insisted, then repeated his question:
"So, do you know where he is now? Is he safe?"
"He just ran into some enemies, so we split up. I have no idea where he is now. But you don't need to worry about him; he's stronger than anyone. Instead of worrying about him, you should get out of this area. It's a warzone over there right now."
Magic Miss turned to leave, but the man she had been speaking with offered a parting warning:
"Thank you for your advice. You should also stay away from the shore. As we were arriving, we saw someone who looked like Femishue stumble and dive headfirst into the sea. The storm began right after. I suspect it's some kind of omen." ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novel·fire.net
(Chocolate pads onward...)
Jenkins failed to catch the demigod from the Tree House. It wasn't that the unicorn lacked speed, but his quarry knew the slums of Nolan like the back of his hand. Once he plunged into the labyrinth of alleys, Jenkins lost him completely. At first, his Eye of Reality could detect the man's aura, but it gradually weakened until it vanished entirely.
After some thought, Jenkins realized what must have happened: the man had descended deep underground, so deep that his eyes could no longer perceive him.
"Does Nolan even have pipes that run that deep underground? Oh, wait. I remember now. I've long suspected the Tree House was connected to the Gear Artisans' Association."
When he returned to the building where Femishue had been hiding, Magic Miss was nowhere to be found. The sudden, violent rain had obliterated any tracks. The gunfire, however, raged on. But judging by the sounds, a new group of fighters had taken over; the previous ones were probably all dead.
Jenkins felt uneasy leaving Magic Miss behind, especially given her frenzied state today. He decided to find her before making his exit. He was about to climb to the top of the tower bridge to get a better view of the battlefield when he spotted two familiar figures staggering toward him, leaning on each other for support.
"Mr. Hood? Mr. White Cat?"
Jenkins exclaimed in surprise. The two of them were a complete mess—their clothes were in tatters, and their faces were blackened with soot.
Noticing their guarded expressions, he quickly pulled Vanilla, the white cat sheltering in his coat, into view. Rain instantly drenched the cat's head. It let out an irritated meow, viciously swatted his hand away, and dived back under his jacket.
"Mr. Candle, why is it that I always seem to run into you when I'm at my worst lately?"
Mr. Hood lamented. Jenkins quickly helped both men to the shelter of a small, still-smoking warehouse ruin and began to treat their injuries.
"What happened to you two? How did you end up ?"
Mr. Hood and Mr. White Cat were both formidable Enchanters. It was difficult to fathom what kind of enemy could have left them in such a sorry state.
"We ran into a madman!"
Mr. White Cat spat furiously, then let out a low groan as pain lanced through his injuries.
"There was a gunfight going on, and we were pinned down on the second floor of a building, waiting for it to die down. Out of nowhere, some madman showed up behind the building and started tossing steam bombs around indiscriminately. He practically flattened that entire section. If I hadn't dragged Mr. White Cat out a window on the other side just in time, we'd be dead."
Mr. Hood gestured at his ruined clothes:
"I was here for the welcoming ceremony today. I even wore my favorite formal suit. I never thought it would end up completely ruined."
One could tell it had been an expensive suit. Now, it was so shredded it couldn't even be salvaged for a waistcoat.
"I was hired to be a bodyguard, but I lost my client as soon as the gunfire erupted. The panicked crowd swept me right into the heart of the firefight. I was lucky to bump into Mr. Hood while escaping."
"Magic Miss and I came here looking for Femishue. You know her obsession with him. We ran into some trouble and got separated. Have either of you seen her?"
Jenkins asked as he worked. His healing ability was remarkably swift. Though the two men looked battered, their wounds were purely physical, lacking any supernatural taint. Coupled with their own impressive constitutions, treating them was a simple task.
"Femishue? I knew that guy looked familiar. We didn't see Magic Miss, but we saw Femishue fall from the sky, get shot a few times, and then run toward the sea."
Mr. White Cat pointed in the general direction. Jenkins nodded, committing the spot to memory.
"We did see Miss Skylark, though. I mean, I saw her without her face covered. I've seen her before, so I recognized her. Right before that lunatic started his bombing spree, I spotted her from upstairs. She was cutting through the warehouse district, running toward the shore as well."
Mr. Hood added, then ruefully ripped a sleeve from his ruined suit to fashion a sling for his arm. He'd injured it during the recent aberration incident, a lingering effect from a Mysterious Realm that even Jenkins's healing couldn't fix. It still hadn't fully mended, and now it had been aggravated.
"Miss Skylark? Are you sure it was her?"
Jenkins asked, shocked and afraid.
"Yes, her red hair is quite distinctive... I shouldn't have disclosed her identity. Mr. White Cat, Mr. Candle, I trust you are both honorable men. Please, forget what I just told you."
Mr. White Cat raised a hand, as if to make a vow, but Jenkins had no time for pleasantries. He uttered a quick goodbye and took off, sprinting toward the shore.
Hathaway had told him last week that her family would be attending the welcoming ceremony, so her presence at the docks wasn't a surprise. What alarmed him was why she would be running toward the water amidst such chaos.
Leaving the others to shelter in the warehouse, he plunged back out into the rain and straight into the firefight. Yet it seemed as though the bullets themselves were swerving to avoid him; not a single one grazed him by the time he reached the beach.
He scanned the area with his Eye of Reality as he ran, desperately searching for Hathaway. But by the time he reached the shoreline, there was still no trace of her.
Standing on the pier, however, his eyes caught something unexpected: a prominent cluster of black light deep on the seabed. As he drew nearer, he could see the dark light pulsing outward, most of it dispersing into the ocean, but a fraction of it feeding directly into the storm clouds above.
As he hesitated, the distant sea began to churn. He first made out a faint pillar of wind connecting sea and sky, then realized with a jolt that it was a waterspout.
Jenkins was no meteorologist; he had no idea if a waterspout was normal for this season, but he had a sinking feeling that things were about to take a turn for the worse.
The storm and the waterspout whipped the sea into a frenzy, sending waves crashing relentlessly against the seawall. In the half-hour since the rain started, the beach had all but vanished. The water kept rising, and with the appearance of the waterspout, the tide finally breached the shore completely. It swirled around Jenkins's boots, the foam reaching all the way to the foundations of the nearby warehouses.
Even in the memories of his body's previous owner, weather this severe was a rarity. The family had experienced summer typhoons back when Robert ran his little shop in the Docklands, but none had ever felt this terrifying. A dark premonition settled over Jenkins, but he knew his priority remained unchanged: find Hathaway.
He scanned the shoreline again but saw no sign of the red-haired young woman. A new fear gripped him: what if she'd gone out to the ships still trading fire on the water? He turned to head for the vantage point atop the tower bridge, but a rogue wave slammed into the pier, catching him off guard and sweeping him off his feet.
As the wave receded, a drenched Jenkins pushed himself up from the pier's slick surface, spitting out mouthfuls of saltwater. He remembered the poor cat and pulled Vanilla from his coat. Hiding inside his jacket hadn't saved her; the little creature was soaked through and shivering violently.
He scrambled to get away from the edge. Just as he backed onto the solid ground of the embankment, the sea surged again, completely consuming what was left of the beach. Jenkins stared anxiously at the churning chaos, the water battering the very land beneath his feet. Then he saw her—a woman, struggling in the water just off the coast as if she were drowning. But after only a few seconds, she slipped under the waves and vanished.
"Magic Miss? But... she knows how to swim, doesn't she?"
Stunned, Jenkins dropped the cat onto the ground and dove headfirst into the churning water.
Both his past self and this body's original owner knew how to swim, but neither had been particularly skilled. Even with his current superhuman physique, his technique was mediocre at best. However, with [Cat's Grace] active, his prowess in the water was remarkably amplified. It only served to confirm Jenkins's suspicion that his other cat, Chocolate, didn't hate baths because he was afraid of water, but simply because he found them to be a bother.
Underwater visibility was poor, but Jenkins's Eye of Reality didn't need light—it saw auras. Down on the swirling seabed, he spotted not only Magic Miss's aura but also several strange, black ones coiling near the bottom. It was these dark emanations that had dragged her down.
Holding his breath, Jenkins dove deeper. The closer he got to Magic Miss, the clearer the source of the black auras became. They were tentacles—not from an octopus or any other creature, nor were they strands of seaweed. They were tendrils made of nothing but congealed, black seawater.