Lord of The Mysterious Realms Chapter 675

Bray Decker. Male. Born in the Universal Year 1829, during the Month of Starry Skies and Long Nights. His mother passed away when he was young, leaving him to grow up with his father at the Bel Diran Central Hospital. Constant exposure to medicine and the suffering of patients from an early age inured him to the cycles of life and death, of joy and sorrow. This, combined with the absence of a mother’s affection, caused his mind to twist as he matured.

He followed the typical path of an elite, successfully completing his studies at medical school. His future seemed set: he would join a hospital, just like his father, and in time, perhaps become a private physician or open his own practice. But the tracks of his destiny were derailed by a single event—a trip he took one autumn, two years prior.

During his time at medical school, Decker had made a close friend. He had arranged to visit his friend’s family, but an unforeseen emergency forced them to leave Shire City temporarily. Left without lodging in the city, Bray Decker used the funds his friend provided to rent a vacant apartment.

One night, he happened to push open a kitchen cupboard and discovered a patched crack in the wall behind it. Driven by curiosity, he pried it open and found a hidden cache of materials on necrology and biology. From that moment, he set foot upon the path of the extraordinary.

The subjects of his research were far from what society would accept, and Decker knew well that the path he walked was strictly forbidden by the Church. This was why he had taken refuge as a doctor in this remote mountain villa. In reality, he was secretly continuing his study of the forbidden texts he had discovered.

The man possessed a very low sense of morality and held neither fear nor reverence for death. In his eyes, all living creatures were divided into two simple categories: "possessing research value" and "lacking research value." This detached perspective allowed him to advance at a terrifying pace. By the time Jenkins and his companions arrived, Decker had already established three research bases in the vicinity of the villa, similar to the ice spider's nest, all built within a single year based on the forbidden materials and his own experiments.

The masked man with the hunting rifle, encountered by those who went missing, was none other than the doctor. He had slipped out of his room through a secret passage he’d discovered within the villa, concerned that the blizzard might harm the "pets" he was raising. It was then that he ran into Hathaway and her companions.

During the ensuing chase, the doctor relentlessly pursued Hathaway and Miss Mikhail. Realizing the danger, Hathaway quickly knocked the blonde girl unconscious, hid her away, and then deliberately led the doctor in another direction.

She had expected to return swiftly, as the doctor appeared weak. However, she inadvertently stumbled upon a secret cabin he kept outside the villa, where a fierce battle erupted between them. A mere level-one practitioner, the doctor was certainly no match for Hathaway. But then, an entrance to a Mysterious Realm suddenly gaped open, and in a moment of carelessness, Hathaway was shoved inside by him.

As for why Miss Mikhail had ended up in the villa’s basement, no one could say. And when Hathaway, having miraculously escaped, discovered that her friend was missing, she nearly went mad with worry.

She rushed back to the villa in a panic, desperate to find Jenkins and ask for his help. Pushing open the heavy main doors against the raging blizzard, she saw him—and standing right beside him was the doctor.

Seeing that his time was up, the doctor turned and fled, with Jenkins immediately giving chase. In the midst of the pursuit, the doctor pulled out a test tube he carried and used its contents to transform a passing male servant into a ghoul.

The substance in that test tube was clearly not of the doctor's own creation. In all the lore Jenkins had studied, he had never come across a method for creating a ghoul so rapidly.

He suspected the doctor had found the test tube in Shire City as well. But the ghoul did not attack Jenkins as its creator had intended. Instead, driven by instinctual dread, it turned and fled. It sensed its own nemesis—the terrifying spirit of life emanating from Jenkins.

Acting on pure instinct, it made for the only occupied room on the second floor: Miss Mikhail’s bedroom.

What happened next was precisely what the two ladies had just experienced. With the ghoul no longer an obstacle, Jenkins had easily knocked the doctor unconscious before quickly following the creature's tracks.

Hathaway, frantic with worry for Miss Mikhail, moved even faster than Jenkins. The gunshot they’d heard had been a diversion, a sound meant to convince everyone that a firearm had dealt with the threat. In truth, the two of them had used their combined agility and brute force to ensnare the ghoul in the heavy curtains, whereupon Jenkins set it ablaze and hurled it out the window.

While they were chasing the doctor, everyone else had been on the second floor. Now, with the corpse charred beyond recognition, no one would be able to connect the event to the supernatural world of legends—and Jenkins preferred to keep it that way. He had no desire for ordinary people to learn of such matters.

Still, the incident was not without its lingering questions. The most pressing of all was why Miss Mikhail had been in the basement in the first place. Although her presence there had directly led to her rescue, Jenkins still felt it was crucial to understand how she got there.

For now, the doctor remained unconscious, and any questions about Quake’s death or the man's other secrets would have to wait. As for the two ladies, both thoroughly terrified, they no longer dared to remain alone in the room with its shattered window.

Braving the swirling snow, Jenkins and the butler, accompanied by two sturdy male servants, once again trudged out into the blizzard. They located the blackened corpse below, wrapped it in a white sheet, and carried it back inside.

Jenkins had been careful to control the flames, ensuring the body wasn't reduced to ashes. Even so, it was now only barely recognizable as a vague human form. No one could possibly imagine what it had looked like before its demise.

"Mr. Williams, that... that contagion... it isn't infectious, is it?"

The butler was clearly anxious about Jenkins handling the corpse. Bundled in a heavy winter coat, he had to shout to be heard over the wind as they walked. Both men instinctively followed in the footprints left by the two servants ahead, making the trek through the deep snow less arduous.

"No, I assure you it won't," Jenkins replied. "Miss Hersha found Decker's research notes in the forest cabin. This particular contagion doesn't spread through direct contact or the air. If it did, Decker would have already wiped out everyone in this villa."

The survivors, twenty-six conscious souls in all, were gathered before the main entrance of the villa. Hathaway and Miss Mikhail had returned, but their homecoming was marred by the fact that the culprit now lay unconscious while a male servant had met a tragic end.

The night was still deep, and this ordeal was far from over.