Chapter 46: The Man Behind the Curtain
At this moment, less than an hour remained until the ritual’s end.
To be precise, twenty minutes.
Even if Eivass could control the Hooked Demon and have it lead the way, this time was already insufficient.
Setting aside the terrifying prospect of traveling with such a creature in a carriage, even if he found a way to do that, he wouldn’t make it in time.
The ritual had a four-hour time limit, and Little Eivass had been cursed upon entering.
According to the “ideal scenario” calculated by the Pillar God who created the dream, Eivass should have left the grand cathedral with Lulu and gone directly to Law Enforcement Plaza. The journey would take half an hour.
Upon arrival, the Hooked Demon would appear for the first time. After cooperating with Sherlock to repel it, they would have over three hours to gather their companions, follow the Hooked Demon to find the culprit, and defeat them. This required Sherlock’s wisdom.
This implied that the culprit’s location was not easy to find, possibly requiring deductions from the Path of Wisdom to locate.
However, Eivass felt his own brain worked quite well; with the Hooked Demon leading the way, they should be able to find the culprit.
Eivass’s only miscalculation was that this enemy was somewhat stubborn.
After attempting to attack the bone sculpture once, the Curse Master was still not giving up and intended to dispatch the Hooked Demon to try again.
But this time, instead of defeating it, the Hooked Demon was injured. This indicated that the “bone sculpture” was indeed a very powerful Extraordinary, likely serving as the powerhouse of their team. This directly led to Eivass being attacked when time was almost up.
This should have been a good thing, meaning he only needed to evade for a bit to run out the clock and win.
However, what Eivass wanted was to fight back.
Even if he couldn’t discover the mastermind, he at least wanted to see what the Curse Master looked like with his own eyes.
…Thus, he could only place his hope in “possibility” now.
He had one more chance to meet the Curse Master in under twenty minutes.
It wasn’t teleportation, as Eivass had no means to curse the Curse Master in return.
—It was a counter-summoning.
After the Hooked Demon completed its task, it would be recalled by the Curse Master, just as it was recalled before after failing to attack Lulu.
Suddenly appearing before the Curse Master could certainly be considered a form of “teleportation.”
This would only require Eivass to merge his consciousness with the Hooked Demon, much like Jack the Ripper.
This ritual had specifically emphasized that survival was not necessarily required.
Therefore, he could conduct an experiment now.
An experiment that would hold absolutely no loss, even if it failed… an experiment that couldn’t be performed in reality.
—How powerful could the “Art of Pasturing,” which involved the voluntary sacrifice of one’s complete life, be?
Without using any auxiliary materials and without being particularly strong himself, could highly efficient self-sacrifice be comparable to the reinforcement the Hooked Demon received from Jack the Ripper’s serial killing ritual?
In conclusion…
“Feast in silence, my lamb,” Eivass said softly, gripping the paper cutter as he watched the Hooked Demon with wide, staring eyes. “I am the Holy Communion, This is Mercy.”
He currently lacked the scented oils to infuse with mana, and he held a paper cutter, not a pure silver ritual knife.
It was like omitting the spices to season a grand meal, or its decorations.
But as long as the food was sufficiently delicious and abundant, its inherent flavor would be moving.
Moreover, the one enjoying the feast was not an arrogant Upper Demon, but merely a lowly Hooked Demon born from the soul of an embryo torn apart by hooks.
It was a minor demon born from the hatred of a predetermined death, breaking free from defying the will of “not being born,” becoming one with hatred and anger.
It had no arrogance to speak of.
“Drink the blood from my neck, thirst for it like sweet wine—”
Eivass chanted loudly, slitting his own throat with the paper cutter from left to right, as if unzipping himself.
He cut through the carotid artery above his collarbone.
Eivass’s consciousness immediately blurred, and his vision darkened.
However, his brain felt clearer, as if the flow of time had slowed down.
He clearly felt the sensation of his life rapidly draining away, not as if life was being drawn from flesh and bone into the void… but as if his entire soul, along with his fervent mana, surged out with the blood from his neck, crystallizing.
*Dong—*
“…He must have committed suicide,” Sherlock stated grimly as the funeral bell tolled.
Lulu nodded sadly.
In the abandoned warehouse, Giulio’s lifeless corpse fell straight backward with a heavy thud.
But his blood did not soak into the surrounding earth. Instead, in a manner that defied physics, it sprayed upward like a fountain.
It wasn’t even liquid, but ruby after ruby, scattering into the air and solidifying into red pearls.
Like puppies and kittens eagerly eating, the Hooked Demon emitted whimpering sounds. The anger and ferocity on its face vanished entirely, replaced by the purest greed and adoration.
Each crystalline bead of blood flew towards it, landing on its body.
The Hooked Demon greedily consumed them.
The frost marks on its body receded at a visible rate, and its physique began to expand. From the size of a hound, it grew to the size of a human youth, then to that of an adult.
The scarlet color on its surface, as damp as blood, gradually faded, revealing pale, smooth skin, with only scarlet markings resembling stitch lines remaining. Even its four arms grew some muscle, and the four rusted, blood-stained hooks had disappeared.
Its face was ferocious and hideous, with the features on its massive head completely askew. Its four arms pointed in different directions.
The size and thickness of its six limbs, and even their joints and directions, were entirely different. It crouched on the ground, like fragmented humans drawn by an abstract artist.
Its ignorant yet hateful eyes became slightly clearer, revealing a trace of incomplete humanity.
The anger and hatred settled into a more solidified sorrow and resentment.
The blood was quickly licked clean.
Then, it whimpered, crouched on the ground, and continued to lick the wound on Eivass’s neck, which was on Eivass’s corpse.
As it licked, it suddenly let out a long cry to the sky, a roar like a wolf howling at the moon.
Then, as if determined, it began to gnaw at Eivass’s corpse.
As Eivass gradually awoke from the chaos, he saw that on the scarlet ground, his corpse had disappeared.
And his current perspective had become that of the Hooked Demon.
—Or rather, the evolved “Deformed.”
This was a demon born from a soul whose natural limb deformities led to persecution and death, harboring deep hatred for almost the entire group of “normal people.”
This was an Upper Demon, an elite of level forty or higher, less than ten levels below a Shadow Demon.
While it lost the ability to instantly travel around the cursed one, it possessed near-immortal vitality, immense strength and speed, and the ability to temporarily reshape its six deformed limbs at will.
It also had a similarly low level of intelligence.
Eivass clearly felt the seemingly endless life force within him, the ocean-like surge of power, and his three fiercely beating hearts.
He was now confident that even if “he” were cut to pieces by a chainsaw or repeatedly crushed by a giant rock at this moment, he would not die easily.
However, the ecstasy, joy, sorrow, and hatred from the “Deformed” were also being transmitted to him continuously, proving that it had not been devoured and killed by Eivass, but had voluntarily become his partner…
…and “carrier.”
Carrying Eivass’s soul like a turtle, until he found an opportunity to be reborn.
“So, using the Shepherd’s Method to feed oneself entirely to a demon results in a temporary fusion with the demon?” he asked, lowering his body. Two mouths uttered vague, wet, low voices. “Its ‘nutrients’ are even sufficient to evolve a Lower Demon directly into a Higher Demon…”
No wonder demons would follow “Shepherds.” For demons transcending a Path, this was indeed an irresistible temptation.
Following the normal evolution path, evolving from a Hooked Demon to a Deformed, especially through extreme cultivation methods like Jack the Ripper’s, would likely take several years.
Eivass had initially thought that ten ritual growths would be enough, but he had completely underestimated the value of the Art of Pasturing and a “voluntary sacrificial offering.”
It wasn’t that the Shadow Demon was greedy.
It was that he was truly appealing…
From its misaligned head, which even had three eyes, the three eyes looked in different directions, adapting to this unusually fresh perspective and slowly becoming familiar with the instinct of using “deformed limbs.”
After a while, he finally heard the somewhat urgent call of his “master.”
“…William? William? That’s great, we’re connected… If things go smoothly, come back quickly, good boy! Be careful not to make too much noise, don’t expose your existence—”
The hideous demon crouching on the ground, however, revealed a terrifying and monstrous smile.
“Ugh— wah—”
He imitated the former Hooked Demon, responding with meaningless sounds like a baby’s cry or a puppy’s whimper.
The Curse Master on the other side was clearly unprepared.
“Hey, hey, don’t cry. I’ll pull you back right now, don’t move around…”
Without any guard, he cast the counter-summoning spell.
The surrounding space seemed to distort and crack. It was like the feeling of weightlessness and overweightness in an elevator, except the “source of the feeling” was from behind him.
It was as if he was suddenly “pulled backward” by an immense force, dragged far behind instantly.
What suddenly appeared before whatever Eivass had become was a dark-skinned middle-aged man, about fifty years old, with large ruby rings on all ten fingers.
He looked slightly overweight, with a round belly and a slightly hunched back. His black curly hair was slightly greased, and his small eyes were dark and focused, with little visible white. If not for his ostentatiously wealthy attire, his appearance would only evoke the image of a simple, honest countryman. And even with his expensive belongings, he still looked like a wealthy rural squire.
“William, you did very… ”
The Curse Master habitually tried to soothe the Hooked Demon.
But as he saw the distorted demon, crouching on the ground like a spider, emerge from the ritual array, his expression froze.
Fear solidified his face, leaving him unable to move, like a petrified statue.
This…
—A Deformed?!
How could the demon’s race suddenly change?!
Or rather… was this truly William?
Or had another Demon Scholar seized and modified William’s contract, causing the Deformed controlled by him to be transmitted through the counter-summoning ritual—
But he had no time to think.
Eivass manipulated the Deformed, drawing out a twisted, misshapen limb from its body at a speed invisible to the naked eye.
What had seemed like a “right hand” suddenly elongated rapidly—becoming only two centimeters thick, but growing into a claw over two meters long.
The claw, resembling bone, gripped his face, pushing him against the wall and slowly lifting him.
“Who are you…” the Deformed uttered through its distorted voice, sounding like a voice from a nightmare.
It could speak…?
The Curse Master, his face frozen in fear, now looked like he was about to cry.
He tried his best to grip the Deformed’s “right hand” with both of his own, to avoid his throat being torn directly by his own weight.
To make the Deformed speak so clearly…
…had he encountered a senior?
“State your name…” the Deformed repeated.
It slowly increased the pressure in its extended limb, as if steel pincers intent on crushing the Curse Master’s skull.
Under intense pain, the Curse Master could not help but scream:
“—Aziz! Aziz bin Abdul— Save me… Senior, spare me!”
But the Deformed did not loosen its grip.
Instead, it increased the pressure, feeling the skull in “its hand” gradually deform and emit creaking sounds.
“Who do you work for…” the Deformed changed its tone, asking in a sharp voice.
“—Moriarty! Professor James Moriarty!”
The Curse Master named Aziz screamed and unhesitatingly abandoned his employer. “It has nothing to do with me, I was just taking money for a job— Spare me, Senior, Lord, please, it wasn’t me… Spare me! Help— Help—”
*Squelch—*
The limb the Deformed extended easily crushed the Curse Master’s skull with a sound of bursting.
It was as simple as crushing a tomato.
—Even if everything in the ritual was fake, Eivass had no intention of letting him go.
“This is just a little interest, Aziz. I hope you’re not dead.”
The Deformed uttered an indistinct voice. “I remember you…
“I will find you.”
Having successfully obtained such crucial information, Eivass felt he should be happy.
He had confirmed the upper limit of the “Shepherd’s Method” at no cost and completed all he needed to do before the ritual ended… He should have relaxed and celebrated.
But at this moment, he couldn’t feel happy.
What dampened Eivass’s mood was hearing another name he didn’t want to hear… but one he had somewhat expected, from the Curse Master Aziz.
—James Moriarty.
Old rule, I’ll correct typos when I wake up~
This six thousand-plus character count took until eight in the evening (deep sorrow).
