Lord of The Mysterious Realms Chapter 623

Jenkins finally realized it and subconsciously thrust the black spear in his right hand forward. The tip of the spear connected with the rotting parts of the woman's body, producing the sharp clang of metal striking stone.

It wasn't a pointless move. The spear wedged itself between Jenkins and the woman, halting the snake-face's inexorable pull.

The snake-faced monster emerging from her mouth hissed, coiling another half-turn around Jenkins's neck until it was directly in front of his face. Jenkins forced a grim smile, opened his mouth, and with a great heave from his throat, unleashed a torrent of ferocious flames.

The fan of fire instantly engulfed the snake-face, then rapidly traveled along its slick, wet body toward the cavernous mouth. The flames finally breached the woman's lips, and Jenkins felt a jolting, excruciating pain in his spirit, forcing him to hastily retract the fire. Simultaneously, the snake-face slithered back into her mouth.

The corpse closed its mouth and sat back down.

"That was delicious. I think... if you can make me feel full, I can leave here."

Jenkins didn't answer. He clutched his head, pressing his face into the sand. The woman had just consumed a part of his Inexhaustible Flame. While the Bestowal itself wasn't damaged, the attack had dealt a devastating blow directly to his spirit.

"What else do you want to eat?"

As the words left its mouth, it licked its swollen lips with a half-rotten tongue. It shifted from a sitting position to all fours, scuttling toward Jenkins like some quadrupedal beast.

"Maybe you could eat yourself. You see, the legendary eternally hungry Ouroboros does just that."

In truth, he had no strength left to move. The words were merely a desperate attempt to stall for time.

To his surprise, it worked. The crawling corpse froze, its gaze fixed blankly on him. One of its eyes was perfectly normal, the blue iris startlingly beautiful. The other, however, was a swollen mass of overgrown tissue that had burst from the rotting socket, and it dangled precariously, swaying in the air.

Jenkins suspected the thread-like strands holding it in place were exposed nerves.

she repeated, her voice trembling. Then, slowly, she raised her right hand—the one with healthy, unblemished skin.

Jenkins bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut. The sounds of swallowing and tearing flesh were horribly distinct. He no longer felt the urge to vomit; the waves of discomfort rolling through the rest of his body had completely overwhelmed any sense of nausea.

After a few minutes, the sounds ceased. Silence descended. But Jenkins had no strength to lift his head and see what had transpired.

The woman with the black umbrella atop the dune spoke once more:

"You offered counsel to the gluttonous wraith, She devoured herself, and in doing so, found her release.

But her soul was utterly shattered in the act, And you shall be tormented by guilt for a century."

Jenkins wanted to tell her he wouldn't feel the slightest shred of guilt, but he lacked the strength for even that. At least his guess had been correct. Refusing to answer meant a fight, but it also meant he wouldn't have to bear the "sin."

He was keenly aware of the disadvantages of facing a Mysterious Realm alone. It wasn't just the lack of anyone to discuss a strategy with; in the worst moments, there wasn't even a soul to help him sit up.

"What will I do next time?"

he asked himself. He had clearly been lucky just now, managing to resolve the trouble through dialogue alone. But that kind of luck couldn't last. With the third corpse, he would have to choose between a "fight" and "bearing the sin."

He didn't know how long he had been lying there, but by the time he could finally stir, the black clouds in the distance were pressing in on the dunes. The time allotted for this Mysterious Realm was almost up.

Biting his chapped lips, Jenkins struggled to his feet. After confirming that nothing remained where the last corpse had been, he stumbled up the dune and began to dig at the feet of the woman with the umbrella.

The soul-deep chill emanating from the woman continued to ravage Jenkins's spirit. As he dug, he even started to hallucinate, vaguely seeing the shape of Chocolate.

The thought was enough to rally him, squeezing one last drop of lucidity from his desiccated soul. He couldn't imagine how his willful cat would survive if he disappeared. It would probably just waste away in a deep melancholy, waiting day after day for death.

Unlike the first two, this one hardly looked like a corpse at all. It was the perfectly preserved body of a middle-aged man in what appeared to be ceremonial robes. He wore a repugnant smile, the kind of smile that was like honey laced with filth—it seemed sweet at first glance but was utterly sickening upon closer inspection.

It spoke before Jenkins had a chance, skipping all the usual steps and jumping straight to the final question:

"Are you willing to help me bear my guilt?"

Jenkins had every reason to believe this thing could see his weakened state and was pressing its advantage, forcing the confrontation. It was also clear that this creature understood the situation perfectly—it wanted to escape the Mysterious Realm!

In his current state, a fight was out of the question.

"What is your guilt?"

He had to be prepared.

"Blasphemy. I blasphemed against the gods, and for that, I was sentenced to this prison. Will you bear this sin for me? Of course, if you refuse... I'll kill you."

"Why did you blaspheme against the gods?"

"Because it was amusing."

He nodded, then sat down on the sand and raised the black spear in his right hand. He channeled a sliver of Spirit into its shaft, and the tip began to shimmer with a black light.

As he uttered the words, the man in the ceremonial robes dissolved into sand with a satisfied smile. But Jenkins had already hurled his weapon, striking the man's spirit the very instant it separated from the disintegrating corpse.

The attack had been entirely unnecessary; his only task was to free the soul. But Jenkins hated being threatened, and that smile had filled him with a profound, visceral disgust.

The effort completely drained him of his remaining strength. He collapsed once more, missing the look of terror that crossed the man's face an instant before his soul shattered. Newest update provıded by novel·fiɾe·net

Black smoke wafted from the pile of sand and coiled around Jenkins, inflicting him with an even more severe affliction. He lost consciousness again, deaf to the woman with the black umbrella announcing his victory.

But he had miscalculated. The reward for bearing the sin this time was not a lessening of his affliction. Or rather, a reduction of the negative effects was merely one possible outcome. It was clear that he still didn't fully understand the nature of the Mysterious Realm.