Chapter 1474: Chapter 1474

"Why do I get the feeling that sometimes, when you look at me, it's like you're looking at a dead man?"

The halfling asked cautiously after they left the performance tent, his perception incredibly sharp.

"You're imagining things."

Jenkins refused to admit it, instead heading back to the animals' resting tent with the halfling diviner.

The tent reeked from the sheer number of animals living inside. While the halfling stood guard outside, Jenkins turned his attention to the creatures within, each going about its own business.

"Can you tell me what happened to the lion?"

He didn't speak the words aloud, but instead projected the thought silently after activating his [Spiritual Communion] ability.

It seemed to work. The animals had clearly caught his train of thought; a parrot perched high above and a zebra grazing below both turned to look at him.

"Leon has become strange. He's not himself anymore."

Locking eyes with the zebra, Jenkins deciphered the meaning in its simple gaze. Perhaps because most of the creatures here were trained and had spent so long around humans, reading their thoughts wasn't difficult.

"When did this happen?"

"It happened when we came to this human town."

The parrot spoke—actually spoke, forming human words with its beak. Then it turned its head away, refusing to meet Jenkins's gaze, almost as if it were shy.

"Do you know what has possessed its body?" ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ novel⚑fire.net

"Something ancient. Older than all of us."

From a corner Jenkins hadn't noticed, an old tortoise with a beautifully patterned shell answered. When Jenkins's gaze fell upon it, the ancient creature spoke again:

"I am the eldest among us. In my youth, I traveled with an elven druid elder. The entity that has taken Leon's body is more horrifying than the most dreadful things I have ever witnessed. If you can, I beg you, kill Leon. Don't let that foul thing commit evil in his guise."

The animals were surprisingly friendly, and none seemed to mind conversing with Jenkins. They could all easily sense his elven heritage, claiming he stood out like a green torch in a world of shadows.

"Any animal with half a brain can tell you're not ordinary. It's obvious."

The thought came from a lazy-looking spotted dog lying on the ground. It wasn't a performer, just a pet the circus kept.

The animals had known for some time that something was wrong with the lion, but they had no way to warn the humans. They pleaded with Jenkins to kill it quickly, sensing that its insides had been hollowed out and were now transforming into something utterly indescribable.

Jenkins relayed his findings to the halfling, who fell into a thoughtful silence for a moment before agreeing they should act as quickly as possible. He decided against telling anyone else in the circus, however. Neither of them could be sure who was trustworthy, and Jenkins vividly recalled how, in the last story, the mastermind had been the one who seemed the most ordinary.

The two agreed to act that very night. With the help of the animals, they would sneak into the tent and kill the lion. But when night fell, and Jenkins slipped away during the final performance to meet the halfling in his tent, he found it empty. The diviner was gone.

There were no signs of a struggle in the halfling's tent; it was as if he had simply stepped out and vanished. But under the cushion that held his crystal ball, Jenkins found the All-Seeing Card. He took it and stepped outside, scanning the area. Seeing no trace of the diviner, he activated his Eye of Reality and held the [All-Seeing Cards - Apocalypse] up to his right eye.

For an instant, the world seemed to freeze. An infinite web of dense, shimmering lines materialized before his eyes. Like the finest spider silk, they enmeshed the entire world, connecting everything to everything else.

Every thread was fate, every strand a certainty. Jenkins had witnessed this sight before; he was once again gazing upon the true face of destiny. But this time was different. Instead of collapsing, he felt he could reach out and touch the threads before him, perhaps even alter their course.

He gasped for breath, lowering the card after only a few seconds. His heart hammered against his ribs as if he had just sprinted a kilometer on an empty stomach. He touched his right eye, relieved to find no blood, but his vision was blurred—a clear sign of strain.

That brief glimpse into the currents of fate had revealed everything: where the halfling had gone, the origin of the creature inside the lion, and even the root of all the sin that plagued Black Town.

But it was that last, risky glance that had left him in this state. He hadn't gotten a clear look at the thing hidden in the darkness, but through the threads of fate, he had seen it: the Beast of Calamity, born countless ages ago. It was a terrifying, black behemoth, a creature that seemed to be the very embodiment of all the world's sins. Jenkins couldn't fathom what monstrous power could have spawned something so profoundly evil and twisted.

He finally understood why the creature's influence still clung to this land, tens of thousands of years later. From the moment that incarnation of sin was born, the land had been forever tainted. Its power was great enough to contaminate everything—across time, space, and even fate itself.

"It has to be a Beast of Calamity," Jenkins concluded, his mind racing. "In some long-forgotten epoch, a Beast of Calamity was born right here in Black Town! And it was never defeated. Its power is still rippling through time, influencing every possible future!"

It was the only conclusion that mattered. He was certain now that all of Black Town's tragedies were tied to that missing Beast of Calamity. Unlike the "Scarlet Ephemera," this unknown disaster had clearly never been sealed away by any god. Its power was still active, and it could return from beyond the material world at any moment.

"So why did the Lord of Time get me involved in this?" Jenkins wondered. "Surely He doesn't expect me to be the one to seal that horrifying Beast of Calamity?"

Jenkins couldn't make sense of it, but one thing was clear: his priority was to rescue the halfling.

He slipped the All-Seeing Card into his pocket and headed for the animals' tent. As he'd foreseen, they were all in a deep, unbreakable slumber. Unconcerned, Jenkins pushed aside a large chest of performance props in the corner, revealing a starkly out-of-place trapdoor in the floor. He opened it and descended, following a long, ancient stone tunnel deep into the earth beneath Black Town.