Chapter 2081: Chapter 2081

The miner was telling the truth. The sea of lava below was simply too vast, and what's more, it housed a slumbering, frenzied demon. Even with the ability to swim in it, there was no guarantee of finding the door. Therefore, the safest approach was to find three creatures capable of traversing the lava, which would greatly increase their odds of success.

There was just one other problem. The miner had said that moving through the lava would burn his soul...

"How did you gain the ability to move in lava?"

Jenkins pressed the miner, who replied through sobs:

"It was the demons. They captured me, wanting to cultivate my soul as bait, so they gave me these vile powers."

He covered his face with his soot-stained hands, as if he couldn't bear to recall the terrible memories.

Jenkins stared at him for a long moment.

"So, before you died, were you an ordinary person?"

This time, the miner fell silent, continuing to sob behind his hands. Jenkins knew something was amiss. He narrowed his eyes, summoned his monocle, and observed the man before him more closely. Then he spoke.

The miner's constant twitching stopped instantly. A few seconds later, his head spun a full one hundred and eighty degrees on his neck, presenting the back of his head to Jenkins.

There, amidst the short brown hair, was a human face. Its eyes were not the miner's gray ones; they were blood-red.

"Just as I thought. Your death may have been a mining accident, but it wasn't that simple. In the material world, you must have gained power from some terrible entity, and you died because of that power. Interesting, very interesting."

He directed the last sentence at the human-faced mechanical snake.

"You went to great lengths to find someone . It couldn't have been easy."

"No, I didn't find him."

The snake's voice was exceptionally gentle.

"Not even my master found him. He was already here, waiting for the one who would choose him."

Jenkins ignored the snake, focusing his full attention on the face that had appeared on the back of the miner's head. The miner before him was a soul, and when the new face appeared, it was still part of that same soul. This meant the miner's soul was a rare "dual entity," a single soul housing two separate consciousnesses.

A soul's form could rarely be disguised, and it was certainly impossible before Jenkins's eyes. He just couldn't tell if this peculiar soul had been born this way or had been altered by supernatural powers.

He asked the face on the back of the head.

"Me? I'm not that cowardly crybaby."

The face spoke, its voice identical to the miner's.

"Think of me as whatever you like. I know you want us to burn our soul and enter the lava where the frenzied demon sleeps. We can't defy you, but perhaps we could make a deal. Would you be willing to—"

But upon seeing the sword materialize in Jenkins's hand, he wisely held his tongue.

"How impressive. A twin demon, in another sense of the word."

He commented, taking another step back. While keeping a wary eye on the cowering miner, he casually pointed a hand diagonally upwards.

"For the second one, I'll choose this one."

Amidst the clattering of chains, a second metal cocoon descended to the same level as the large rock. It didn't stop above the rock, however, but hung suspended over the sea of lava.

When the human-faced snake remained still, Jenkins had no choice but to fly over on his stool, slash the chains, and retrieve the metal cocoon himself. After he cut it open, the same puff of black smoke with its strong "Nolan flavor" billowed out. Following it, a man in a filthy train conductor's uniform crawled out from within.

Having learned from the first time, Jenkins immediately put on his monocle to observe the newcomer. He then grabbed him by the neck and slammed him against the seemingly soft but unusually tough metal cocoon. Black smoke hissed from the point of contact.

"Don't play games with me. Let the face on the back of your head do the talking."

Just like before, the conductor's head rotated one hundred and eighty degrees on his neck. From behind his thick, short red hair, a grotesque face emerged.

"A train accident. Oh, for God's sake, please let go of me before we talk."

It was the common tongue of the 18th Epoch again, and this time Jenkins could even make out the distinct features of a Nolan accent.

"You still believe in a god?"

Jenkins scoffed, tossed the man back onto the ground, and then glanced at the human-faced snake.

"You really have gone to great lengths."

"I will stress this again: neither my master nor I currently have the ability to interfere with the core of this Mysterious Realm. Furthermore, we are not the ones who brought these sinners' souls here."

"So, you want me to believe that the two people I chose at random just happen to be from the modern era, and both show signs of a split soul?"

The human-faced snake maintained its smile and offered no reply. Its coiled mechanical body merely squirmed, the sound of metal scraping against the ground exceptionally grating.

"So, do you have the ability to move through lava?"

Jenkins asked the conductor. The man was also curled into a ball, and the face on the back of his head answered:

"But that would sacrifice my soul! Oh, a kind person like you..."

A flash of Jenkins's sword swept over its head, slicing off a lock of hair and leaving another clear gash on the metal cocoon behind it. The face quickly changed its tune.

"You've probably guessed that I ended up this way because I worshipped an unnamable entity from the void. But did I have a choice? My mother was gravely ill, and that winter, the train I was in charge of encountered Enchanters, an avalanche, and a series of other terrifying events. My memory of that time is incomplete for some reason, but it was truly horrible... If I hadn't pledged my loyalty to those terrible beings, not just the mother who raised me, but also my wife who was sick with a lung disease, and my daughter who sells flowers on the street, they would have all starved or died of illness..."

It sounded like a desperate plea for sympathy, but surprisingly, every word of it was true.

"What brought me to this point, what turned me into this demonic form, wasn't my own desire. Life forced my hand. Kind sir, are you going to force my hand, too?" ʀᴇᴀᴅ ʟᴀᴛᴇsᴛ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀᴛ novel[f]ire.net

Halfway through his plea, his head swiveled back around. The second half of the tragic story came from the conductor's own face. His situation was similar to the miner's. The charitable term was "dual entity"—two different beings sharing a single soul. The less charitable term was "split soul"—one soul divided into two interconnected yet distinct consciousnesses.