Chapter 418
The Enchanted Deadlock
After leaving the top floor of the Lloyd Society headquarters via the elevator, Eivass didn’t depart immediately. Instead, he headed to the seventeenth floor.
This was the floor where Lawyer York Hermes’s office was located.
He had been dead for some time now, but his office hadn’t been reassigned by the Lloyd Society.
This was partly because more than half of the Lloyd Society’s high-ranking officials were already imprisoned, and the remaining ones dared not make any drastic moves. Another reason was that the Inspection Department had placed a seal on it using a Law Spell.
Eivass dispelled the seal without hesitation. The crow on his shoulder flew down and pecked at the door lock. The door then opened on its own, and they walked straight in.
The room, untouched for a long time, was filled with a musty, ancient scent.
The furnishings around the room were almost unchanged from the past.
Only the plants that Lawyer York had taken good care of were now mostly withered and dead. The beautiful green parrot in the birdcage had long since died. Its starved corpse had not rotted but had shriveled and dried. The fish tank was full of dead goldfish, and the water had turned murky.
Only the group photos hanging on the wall remained unchanged.
The photos captured the vibrant years of Lawyer York. Even though he had been dead for many days and his reputation was ruined, he still smiled brightly and happily in the pictures.
“Heh…”
Eivass looked up at the photos and let out a soft laugh, as if mocking something.
The crow on his shoulder vanished silently like a shadow.
It transformed into the form of a Night Demon, one hand resting on the chair behind the desk.
Shadow-like wings unfurled behind the Night Demon, and the dust in the entire room was blown away by an inexplicably swirling gust of wind. The corpses in the fish tank and birdcage all disintegrated and vanished. A murky stream of filth surged out of the fish tank.
And the faces of the people in the photos turned blank after a gust of black wind passed by.
When Eivass turned his head, she had already reverted to her crow form, standing quietly in the birdcage. Only the chair she had pulled out from behind the desk was slowly rotating.
“…Playing the host, are we?”
Eivass chuckled and calmly sat in the chair the Night Demon had pulled out for him.
He took a deep breath and said softly, “Please get me a candle, Vines.”
The crow opened the birdcage on its own and flew out, heading towards a cabinet on the side.
Meanwhile, Eivass sat in York’s original seat, gently touching the bone-deep wound on his collarbone. The intense pain made him gasp.
The flesh from his collarbone to his shoulder blade had been peeled away and pecked at; his bones were visible to the naked eye.
Eivass’s blood had already soaked through his upper body clothing. His sensitive nerves screamed in agony, and the veins on his forehead throbbed violently from the pain. It was only because Eivass had reached the Third Tier of the Path of Devotion… an Ordinary Person would have been unable to move around casually with such a severe injury, and would have died from excessive bleeding if left untreated.
But for Eivass, such an injury was no longer fatal. Merely walking a few steps had stopped the bleeding, and the wound was no longer worsening. By the time he woke up tomorrow, it would have basically healed significantly.
However, it would still take a few more days to grow back the lost flesh and blood out of nowhere.
Yet, Eivass still had to pick up Isabel later. Therefore, Eivass still had to use the Fire Worship Art to quickly recover from his injuries.
After lighting the candle the crow had brought, Eivass reached his hand towards the flame, closing his eyes.
The wound on his neck sizzled, emitting white smoke, and healed at a visible speed. The missing flesh, nerves, and blood vessels were drawn out like tentacles, weaving themselves together. It was like building a house, quickly poured and shaped, finally restoring completely.
And Eivass, immersed in the tranquility of being enveloped by the fire, reviewed his actions.
This time, he had been somewhat overconfident.
Perhaps it was because during the previous Ascension Ritual, Eivass had actively broken free from Beyad’s “Charm” state… this had made him subconsciously underestimate the value of the Succubus Emma.
Another reason was that he still had the Night Demon with him.
Although Eivass had tried his best to control the Night Demon from attacking Emma, if Eivass were truly in danger, Vines would undoubtedly step in to save him. This had caused Eivass to slightly lower his guard.
As a result, Eivass was controlled upon their first encounter.
He savored the feeling of being controlled by enchantment.
…How should I put it?
It was like an innocent boy in his first love, joyfully eager to fulfill all the wishes of the person he liked. Just making eye contact brought about joy, and a moment of physical touch and warmth would send him into a frenzy. When the other person felt troubled, Eivass would subconsciously switch his thought process to “consider their feelings.”
He even stopped the Night Demon several times when she wanted to attack Emma, out of concern for Emma’s safety. He could hear Vines anxiously calling out in his mind, but he calmly reassured her, even explaining that everything was fine.
“Is this the effect of the love potion…”
Eivass muttered, feeling a lingering fear, “The Path of Love… it’s truly terrifying.”
Fortunately, Vines’s attack had momentarily awakened him.
That moment of pain brought Eivass back to his senses.
Although Emma quickly tried to charm him again, Eivass had already begun to realize what was happening. Afterwards, he assigned Vines a task: if he fell into such a state of “not listening to reason” again, she was to attack him and begin consuming his flesh and blood.
Later, when Emma took Eivass’s hand, he immediately felt his heart softening.
He was even trying to cancel the task he had just assigned.
He resisted the enchantment with his willpower, and amidst Emma’s soft whispers, Eivass’s consciousness gradually sank into the abyss again.
Perhaps because he had maintained physical contact with Emma throughout, this mental control was even deeper than before.
Even when Vines attacked Eivass again, he couldn’t immediately regain his senses as he had before.
So, Vines directly followed Eivass’s previous instructions, ferociously attacking him and pecking at his flesh and blood.
During this time, Eivass, who frequently used the Art of Pasturing, had almost formed a habit. The state of enchantment simply made Eivass unwilling to be enemies with Emma and want to obey her commands and requests… but it hadn’t distorted Eivass’s other behavioral logic and habits.
When Vines expressed hunger, Eivass instinctively attempted to feed her. It was like a nursing mother instinctively wanting to breastfeed when hearing her child cry.
– And the moment Eivass entered the “compassion and sacrifice” state of the Shepherd’s Method, the enchantment was suddenly broken.
One part of the reason was that the Shepherd’s Method had overridden Emma’s Charm Aura; another part was that Eivass had, in turn, controlled Emma.
As a blood-drinking Child of the Moon, and also a Demon Avatar, she couldn’t resist the charm of Eivass’s Shepherd’s Method. From this perspective, Eivass had even charmed her back – just like the technique used to subdue the Shadow Demon back then.
In other words, even though the demon within Emma had not yet broken out of her body, she had actually been classified as a demon by the Shepherd’s Method. The Shepherd’s Method was effective against all Phantom Demons, and especially effective against demons of the Transcendent Path.
Or rather, precisely because her demonic soul and her Child of the Moon body yearned for Eivass’s flesh and blood, her extreme appetite had overwhelmed the Mark of Sin, which represented lust, in the Succubus.
Using control to break control… this could perhaps be considered a form of control cancellation.
Although Eivass hadn’t completed “pasturing” her, the moment Emma showed her desire for Eivass’s flesh and blood, she had become Eivass’s “child.”
Just as Eivass’s mind still retained a trace of Emma’s imprint – whenever he closed his eyes and thought of Emma, the pink pupils would flash in his mind, and he still couldn’t bring himself to kill her. And as long as Emma couldn’t completely forget her inflated appetite when looking at Eivass, she couldn’t wholeheartedly charm him.
And in this “deadlocked” state, the person holding the initiative to break the stalemate was Eivass.
Because he could actively enter the state of the Shepherd’s Method at any time, paralyzing Emma’s inherent talent as a Succubus.
Although it also meant Eivass would be controlled by himself and rapidly lose his life… he had Vines guarding him.
– Even so, Eivass was extremely wary of Emma.
Although she was just a Succubus… her power and danger were far from top-tier.
But she was the first BOSS Eivass had encountered as an enemy after awakening his past life memories, someone whose information he didn’t know, and the only person who could definitively kill Eivass.
“Wait a minute…”
Eivass’s expression stiffened slightly.
He suddenly realized something was wrong.
…From yesterday to today.
Was everything he had experienced a little too coincidental?
