Lord of The Mysterious Realms Chapter 896

"For The Player! I sacrificed a heretical god and killed my own lover with my own hands!

For The Storyteller! I risked offending the Church of the Sage to trade with a renegade Scribe!

For The String-puller! I spent three years exploring an ancient, desolate forest, killing all my friends just to find a clue on the wall of a ruin!

For The Performer! I trafficked in human lives with dangerous, unregistered Enchanters!

For The Construct Stage! I was swindled out of one hundred thousand gold pounds by that detestable woman!"

"That detestable woman" had to be Magic Miss. It was certainly something she would do, and she did need the money for that strange, otherworldly Mysterious Realm.

"Now, just as I'm about to succeed, a follower of the God of Lies appears. You people already have more than one qualification, so why must you be so greedy! The greedy shall be met with retribution!"

By the end of his speech, the duke sounded utterly hysterical. The way bubbles frothed from his mouth as he spoke was almost ludicrous.

His tirade had the flair of a theatrical protagonist, but unfortunately for him, Jenkins considered himself the hero of this particular story.

Jenkins repeated the line, the Twin Demons that had been hovering behind him poised to strike.

A violent explosion suddenly ripped through one side of the clock tower's top floor, but it wasn't one Jenkins had caused. He instinctively threw up an arm to shield his face but was still sent flying into the opposite wall by the powerful blast.

As he struggled to his feet, he saw a massive hole torn in the side of the clock tower. A howling wind and a choking, thick fog rushed in through the breach. And just outside the tower, standing on a small boat made of bones and some unidentifiable gelatinous liquid, was Skryu Pompey.

The skeleton boat was a terrifying sight. A black mist swirled around it, a stark contrast to the gray fog of the city. Human skulls adorned its sides, with eerie blue flames burning within them as a light source. Vague, wailing faces writhed within those flames.

At that moment, low whispers filled the air, like someone murmuring right beside his ear. The light in the already dim tower seemed to be swallowed by the boat, and the ghastly, blue spectral fire became the most prominent color in the darkness.

"Since I can manipulate this stage that is Nolan, I can naturally arrange for the right people to appear in the right places at the right time."

The duke gloated from within his coffin, completely oblivious to how his words implicitly relegated the man on the skeleton boat to the status of a mere pawn.

But Skryu Pompey remained expressionless, as still as a corpse. In that moment, he reminded Jenkins of the Corpse Gentleman.

But Pompey was far from being as powerful or bizarre as the Corpse Gentleman. Among all the opponents Jenkins had faced, Pompey, even wielding the Skull Sword, wouldn't even rank in the top five.

Amidst the silent standoff between Jenkins and Pompey, Duke Antak casually pushed open the coffin lid, picked up his clothes from the side, and dressed himself. Then, he nonchalantly walked down the barely intact staircase.

From the corner of his eye, Jenkins could see the duke's triumphant expression. He was right, at least this time. The stage was unfolding exactly as he had planned.

"Is this a new ability of that sword? I'm quite curious how many numbered items you've stolen today," Jenkins said with a sneer.

"Follower of the God of Lies, I will say this one last time: I have no intention of being your enemy. After this, I will be leaving Nolan. You and I have no conflict of interest. If you wish to kill that fool who just left, I have no objections."

"Pompey, I want you to understand something. Even with that sword in your hand, I am still the stronger one. You are in no position to negotiate with me!"

The long-charged Twin Demons finally shot forth from behind Jenkins, but they only blasted a large hole in a wall of skeletons that had appeared out of thin air.

The scattered human limbs that landed in the tower did not stop moving. Instead, with a sickening, grating sound, they began to reassemble themselves into new skeletons and crawled toward Jenkins.

With a deafening roar, a fire that seemed capable of incinerating all things erupted from Jenkins's body. But he didn't allow his form to fully merge with the flames. He simply let the Inexhaustible Fire wreath around him, burning the approaching skeletons to ash.

He walked step by step to the breach in the clock tower's wall, staring across the biting wind and thick fog to meet Skryu Pompey's gaze once more.

"My own abilities are no match for yours, of course. But I am also certain that you are no match for this sword."

The Cursed Item hovered quietly beside Pompey. Compared to their previous encounters, it seemed far more restrained. Yet at the same time, the power and the eerie feeling it contained were much, much stronger.

Pompey's voice perfectly suppressed the omnipresent whispers, and the murmurs seemed to echo his words, taking on a deep and terrifying tone. Get full chapters from n0velfire.net

"How can you be sure I'm not its match if we don't even try? While A-12-1-0044 is indeed powerful, perhaps the strongest weapon of this epoch, that doesn't mean it has no equal."

"Follower of the God of Lies, you are correct. But I can tell you with certainty that my sword has already revealed a fact to me. In the material world of this era, there is nothing that can defeat it in a direct confrontation..."

This was proof that the Skull Sword also possessed the abilities of divination and counter-divination, and that it indeed had a certain level of intelligence.

"Unless a miracle occurs, the possibility of you defeating me is very low. Think about it. You and I truly have no conflict of interest."

Pompey's confidence was clearly not as absolute as he made it out to be, otherwise he wouldn't be wasting so much time talking. And Jenkins had his own reason for patiently engaging in this conversation: he was searching for a beacon that could trigger his fate.

"A miracle occurs..."

The writer murmured to himself. He realized that the duke who had just fled had also used the word "miracle."

"So you're saying, for me to defeat you, I'd need the luck of a play's protagonist."

This was a crucial point. While it held no practical significance, this was a world governed by conviction, where sometimes victory and defeat could be decided by a single sentence.

Unfortunately, Skryu Pompey failed to grasp this. He only saw the black demonic shadow re-forming behind Jenkins, completely missing the subtlety of the question.

"Yes, that's right. The probability of you defeating me is almost zero, unless you have the luck of a play's protagonist... Are you thinking of getting help from Antak? I doubt that fool would make such a decision."