Lord of The Mysterious Realms Chapter 870

It was nearly dawn by the time they returned to Old Jack's herbal medicine shop. The two of them had a late-night snack before retiring to their respective rooms. Chocolate had been planning to sneak out for a nightly stroll, but just as he settled by the pillow, feigning sleep, Jenkins scooped him up by the waist and pulled him under the covers.

"You need to behave from now on, understand? I'll let the butterfly incident slide for today, but this can't happen again."

The small bedroom's curtains were open, and moonlight streamed directly into the room, casting an ethereal sheen on the cat's fur. Man and cat stared into each other's eyes. After a long moment, Chocolate let out a soft "mew" and lifted a paw to lick it.

Early Tuesday morning, Jenkins received a letter forwarded from Nolan City. It was an invitation from the Silver Jasmine Opera Troupe. The opera's premiere was scheduled for the weekend, and Nelly was inviting Jenkins and his friends to attend.

The letter jolted Jenkins from the lingering haze of yesterday's Mysterious Realm, making him realize the end of the month was fast approaching.

"What's this? Planning to return to Nolan?"

Old Jack had also seen the letter.

"I'll head back tomorrow. The Church is planning my baptism for Friday. With everyone being so busy lately, no one mentioned it during my week in Shire City, but I doubt the schedule has changed."

"Nolan is in quite a state right now... I'll prepare a few potions for you. Take them with you; they're bound to be of some help."

"You don't have to go to all that trouble."

It was a polite refusal, for deep down, Jenkins had no intention of turning down the kind offer. It was just an indispensable part of social etiquette.

Under the pretext of buying some local Shire City specialties and souvenirs for his friends before returning to Nolan, Jenkins headed out again after breakfast.

Just as he had the past few days, he donned his black robe, took his cat, and checked into a small inn. A moment later, he was standing inside his house on St. George Avenue.

"I really have grown accustomed to Nolan's wretched air."

Jenkins muttered as he leaped from the second-floor window into the backyard.

A week away from Nolan wasn't a long time, but aside from the familiar air, the entire city seemed to have undergone a strange transformation.

It was Tuesday morning, yet the streets were completely devoid of pedestrians. A thick fog shrouded the city, blurring the occasional distant figure into an indistinct silhouette. In just one week, not only had the rumors of a plague intensified, but the very atmosphere seemed to have soured along with the public mood.

Walking down the street felt like moving through a dream. Only the clatter of a carriage on the pavement and the hissing of steam pipes equalizing pressure brought Jenkins any sense of reality.

He strolled over to a nearby street. It was quiet today, a far cry from the bustling crowds of the previous week. Feigning curiosity, Jenkins spent a good while admiring the various cats in a pet shop, only turning toward the plant store when Chocolate was on the verge of an outburst.

He went in and came out five minutes later, carrying a long, narrow black cloth bag tied shut with a string. Inside was the thousand-year-old heartwood of an elder tree. After overcoming all sorts of difficulties, Jenkins had finally gathered all the ingredients for the elven potion.

"Excellent. Now I just have to wait for the full moon to brew the potion!"

He still had no idea what the elf's recipe would actually produce. But after such a long wait and so much effort, his anticipation had been cranked to the absolute maximum.

Even the most mundane task could become exciting after such lengthy preparation. Jenkins was now itching to brew the potion. He might not even drink it himself, but simply succeeding would bring him immense satisfaction.

With this in mind, he planned to head back to St. George Avenue. He would buy some gifts in Shire City for Hathaway and Briny later. The thought of the two young women made his head ache slightly.

He turned out of an alley onto a main road. Hearing the sound of a carriage approaching through the distant fog, Jenkins stopped by a postbox at the side of the road. He felt a pang of nostalgia for those autumn nights when he used to stuff stacks of letters addressed to the Aediran District into this very postbox.

A massive explosion erupted in the distance. Though Jenkins felt the ground vibrate beneath his feet, he wasn't surprised. He and his cat looked up toward the source of the sound. A monocle materialized over his right eye, piercing through the thick fog that obscured his vision.

Three streets away, a squad of Gravediggers was battling a tall, humanoid skeleton. The dense black spiritual aura indicated that it had undoubtedly been reanimated by the Skull Sword. ᴛʜɪs ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀ ɪs ᴜᴘᴅᴀᴛᴇ ʙʏ novel⁂fire.net

Jenkins patted his cat, then nimbly scaled a drainpipe to the roof of the adjacent building. A few leaps later, he had crossed the distance and arrived at the scene of the battle.

He paid no mind to the Gravediggers' startled gazes and directly summoned his black Twin Demons, sending them pouncing downward. The scattering demonic flames and dust forced everyone nearby to retreat. Jenkins seized the opportunity, leaping down with the toy dagger he'd acquired from the tomb, and brought it down in a vicious chop.

The wooden dagger collided with the tattered, blast-scorched skeleton. The immense force from Jenkins's descent pitted the dagger directly against the bone.

His wrist jolted, and the impact felt wrong. His eyes widened as he saw the dagger in his hand snap in two. The blade half flew across the street from the force of the break, landing quietly on the ground...

Jenkins was now genuinely starting to wonder if he was dreaming, if he had returned to a fog-shrouded Nolan in his sleep. Regardless of whether the weapon had any special effect on the undead, this was a Bestowal. He had never heard of a Bestowal being damaged by physical impact.

The man froze for a second, then drove a left hook into the skeleton. Frost rapidly spread from the point of contact, encasing the skeleton's entire frame. Before the skeleton could retaliate, he had temporarily frozen it in place.

Mortified, he ducked into a little jog to retrieve the broken piece of the dagger. Before the Gravediggers could fully process what had happened, he quickly used [Real Illusion] to vanish from sight.

Blushing, he returned to St. George Avenue. He stored the elder heartwood in the basement and then returned to Shire City with the broken dagger.

Chocolate seemed very interested in the two pieces of wood, eager to take a few nibbles, but Jenkins stopped him.

"So, what on earth just happened?"

Staring at the two pieces of wood in his hand, Jenkins was utterly baffled and confused.