Chapter 44: Thus, Eivass Began His Hunt
“—It’s a curse,” Eivass stated solemnly, immediately identifying the type of curse. “It’s the Foul Blood Curse.”
This was a curse of suffering, cast using ingredients like scorpions, poisonous snakes, and live poisonous toads, with menstrual blood as a medium. It inflicted pain equivalent to three times that of menstrual cramps, tormenting the victim for anywhere from half an hour to six hours, depending on their resistance to curses.
Sherlock’s expression instantly turned grim, deep blue light flaring in his pupils. A cold, rational, and mysterious radiance reflected from the bottom of his eyes. He extended his left pinky finger, tracing a cane-like rune in the air.
“Water overcomes blood, just as the pure triumphs over the tainted,” he chanted softly, picking up the bottle of pure water from the table.
Sherlock inverted the bottle, but the water didn’t fall to the ground. Instead, it filled the rune. When it was full, it suddenly contracted into a ball of water. It then shot forward, splashing onto Lulu’s face. As the water droplets scattered, they transformed from pure water on her face into fetid blood, dripping onto the ground.
Lulu’s pained whimpers instantly ceased. However, she still continued to vomit, spitting up blood. Eivass reached out to feel her, discovering that the back of her neck and her chest were unusually cold.
Frowning deeply, he said, “You didn’t cleanse it completely. You only got half of it.”
Sherlock glanced at her, judging from Lulu’s symptoms. “This curse is rather complex. It appears her esophagus and stomach are being corroded by the curse. The medium isn’t just menstrual blood. This is a composite curse. You handle it… Professionals do professional work.”
“Mm, I will.”
“Is your mana still sufficient?”
“It’s enough to at least heal her,” Eivass replied.
He helped Lulu sit up, positioning her semi-recumbent with her face downwards to prevent the regurgitated foul blood from causing suffocation. Then, Eivass extended his left hand, his fingers burying themselves in his “own wife’s” thick, dense white-gold hair. With his palm’s heel, he gripped the back of her slightly cool neck, and with his left middle finger’s fingertip, he pressed against the back of her head.
His expression was somber and solemn, the deep blue of his pupils burning with a radiance as brilliant as a sunset. When he resonated with his Path, he emitted a deep crimson and gold radiance, symbolizing an excess of fire element in the Path of Devotion. This was the most pronounced healing reaction of Eivass’s “Illuminate Spell.”
Black smoke hissed and continuously poured from the back of Lulu’s head, even dulling the color of her white-gold hair. Her body convulsed violently, trembling at an extremely high frequency. Yet, she gritted her teeth, refraining from crying out, fearing she would wake Little Eivass… only muffled groans could still be heard.
“We have a guest, and it’s not a friendly one,” Sherlock said languidly. “Leave it to me. You continue your treatment.”
He reached out and hurled the bottle of sulfuric acid on the table, making it fly towards the wall. But the instant the bottle shattered, he clenched his right hand into a fist and violently punched towards the sulfuric acid in mid-air.
The clear, oily concentrated sulfuric acid did not splash out. Instead, it was infused with a deep green gas, causing it to bulge slightly… like a fist, or like a beating heart. It was more viscous than sulfuric acid, yet its volume increased considerably.
The next moment, Sherlock opened his right hand into a claw, reaching towards a spot not far from where the sulfuric acid bottle had landed. There was an unnatural patch of shadow there, which was gradually becoming clearer and turning reddish.
Long-distance instantaneous movement requires a manifestation period. Ever since Lulu was cursed, Sherlock had been observing their surroundings. The “Fox” had chosen a good spot. Within this sealed factory, the brightness should be uniform. As long as a place suddenly became darker or brighter, it would be a precursor to the Hooked Demon Jack’s teleportation!
The mass of oily green viscous liquid suspended in the air simultaneously formed claws, reaching out towards that location!
A piercing sound, like a baby’s cry or a tomcat’s mating call, echoed… it was a high-pitched sound capable of penetrating eardrums and making one feel a buzzing in their ears. But even so, the sleeping Little Eivass was not woken. He merely struggled in pain, as if having a nightmare.
“I detest ill-mannered children,” Sherlock said in a low, menacing voice. “Especially those who scream so loudly…”
His spell inflicted significant damage and control. —A little demon, only calf-high, completely crimson, with two legs and four arms… possessing a bald, fat, or fierce baby-like head, was tightly grasped by the sulfuric acid claws the moment it appeared!
A hissing, burning sound arose, and it couldn’t break free for a moment. The liquid sulfuric acid claw, however, seemed to contain a solid entity, pinning it firmly in place and continuously burning it!
—Though the situation seemed to be going well, Sherlock felt no joy. Because he could clearly sense his water and earth attribute mana rapidly burning within him as he guided and maintained the spell. He had already used some water attribute mana when purifying the curse on himself. Only two points of water attribute mana remained. Even though he used his Path Trait to forcefully use his most abundant earth attribute mana to replace the water attribute mana to activate the bottle of concentrated sulfuric acid and construct the “Water Demon Hand,” bearing half of the subsequent mana consumption for maintenance. However, this spell still required at least half of his water attribute mana to sustain.
Two points of water attribute mana, plus two points of earth attribute mana, was only enough to maintain this spell for forty seconds. For a human with flesh and blood, it was more than enough. An activated sulfuric acid claw, with a maximum speed of twenty meters per second, was sufficient to easily take down a squad of ordinary people. A Water Demon Hand constructed from pure water could briefly melt and penetrate armor; whereas the Water Demon Hand he constructed with earth attribute mana could easily snap large trees and tear apart leather armor.
However, even with all this, it was highly unlikely to kill the Hooked Demon Jack. They could only hope to injure it and drive it away. As long as “Fox” could quickly dispel the composite curse on “Lulu,” it would be a victory! Because without a cursed person nearby, the Hooked Demon Jack would not be able to teleport. Then its threat… would at least be greatly reduced.
…Wait?
Sherlock’s expression suddenly changed as he realized something. A curse? Although he didn’t know much about them, he knew a principle: the difficulty of repeatedly cursing the same person would increase. Curses would also raise the cursed individual’s resistance to curses, and a medium used once could not be reused.
In other words, within the limited time of four hours, the enemy could perhaps only curse them once. If that were the case, perhaps Koko hadn’t set up an Anti-demon Array… but rather, like himself, had directly dispelled the curse on herself, causing the tracking to fail!
Among the Alexander couple, the first to be cursed was not “Fox.” —It was “Little Eivass”! Now that both he and Lulu had been cursed… the next would be Fox!
Thinking of this, Sherlock’s heart sank.
This was the downside of the Path of Devotion. He could easily remove curses from others, but he couldn’t use Illuminate Spell on himself. That was a secret art of burning oneself to illuminate others.
Right, priests can use “Fire Worship”! But there are no candles here!
“Fox!” Amidst the Hooked Demon Jack’s piercing screams, Sherlock suddenly called out loudly, “Can you use ‘Fire Worship’ on burning wood or chemical reagents?”
“…You think too highly of me?” Eivass replied helplessly, also shouting back, “Besides, the healing power of Fire Worship Magic isn’t nearly as strong as Illuminate Spell. Even if I could use it, as a First Tier, I can’t dispel a Second Tier curse, can I!”
…That’s true. Sherlock didn’t know much about the Path of Devotion. But he just remembered… that Eivass Moriarty was also a priest, yet he had to use a wheelchair. It was likely because the source of his injury was too high-level, and thus Fire Worship couldn’t dispel it.
Because the essence of a priest’s “Fire Worship” was “restoration,” not “healing” and “regeneration.” This meant that the higher the level of the cause of damage, the more difficult it was to heal. True “regeneration,” the ability to recover health solely through the body’s own self-healing capabilities, was found in the Path Adaptation and the Path of Balance.
However, hearing Fox say this, Sherlock understood that this intelligent and cunning young man had also realized the problem.
“Then what do you plan to do?” Sherlock asked.
“What else can I do?” Eivass replied lightly. “We’ve already won, haven’t we?”
As he spoke, he had successfully dispelled the curse on Lulu. Hearing this, Sherlock knew what Eivass intended to do. The Hooked Demon Jack’s screams abruptly stopped. This was clearly not death—its condition was still healthy. It must have been recalled by its master.
Eivass breathed a slight sigh of relief.
“Don’t look, Mr. Sherlock,” he warned, unbuttoning Lulu’s coat and having her lie on her side. He then slipped his left hand under her skirt at the waist, directly touching the skin of her chest, and used his scarce remaining light attribute mana to activate “Illuminate Spell.”
“You too,” Sherlock retorted without looking back. “Don’t touch her inappropriately—Miss Lulu is still a young girl.” He mentally added: and a princess.
“Of course, I know,” Eivass replied irritably. “What do you take me for? A beast who preys on children?” He had subconsciously treated Lulu as a child.
To be polite, Eivass touched the side rear of her heart, not the front. The searing light mana flowed through her limbs with the heart’s powerful pumping, and the corroded mucous membranes in her throat and stomach rapidly regenerated. Lulu’s minor injuries were easy to recover from, costing Eivass only a little mana.
After Eivass withdrew his hand, the first thing Lulu did was tidy her clothes.
“…Thank you, Mr. Fox,” Lulu said seriously to Eivass, her face slightly flushed. “You didn’t have to save me…”
“You mean, kill you?” Sherlock was the first to react.
“I refuse,” Eivass said lazily. “If it were Rorol here, she might have done that. But I won’t.”
He then walked alone back the way they came.
“—Mr. Fox?” Lulu exclaimed, subconsciously wondering if she had said or done something wrong again.
Eivass stopped, turned back, and said leisurely, “The demons can no longer find you. But they can still find me… The ritual ends in an hour. So, as long as I am not with Little Eivass, we have already won. Since a sacrifice is needed to achieve victory at this moment, it can only be me. You two stay here obediently and don’t move.”
Eivass then looked at Sherlock and asked as if nothing happened, “Ah, right. Do you have a dagger? I want to take some personal belongings, otherwise, I’ll be a bit uneasy.”
“…Do you want a paper cutter?” Sherlock produced a small knife. It was a paper cutter carried by newsboys, with no offensive power whatsoever. But it was sufficient for suicide. Sherlock assumed the Fox wanted the knife to commit suicide after luring the demon out—that way, he could at least avoid the agony of being disemboweled.
“That’ll do,” Eivass took it. “Better than nothing.”
“Do you want me to help you? I can make your death more painless.”
“I should die outside, otherwise Lulu will be scared,” Eivass said lightly.
Of course, he didn’t want the knife to kill himself. As long as he could cut himself, it would be convenient for him to use the “Shepherd’s Method”… otherwise, he might have to bite himself. —Yes, Shepherd’s Method.
The skill “Shepherd (Flesh and Blood)” belongs to the Path of Devotion. Perhaps it was because he had read the Shepherd’s Revelation and possessed the Shepherd’s Method that the ritual assigned them the Hooked Demon Jack as an enemy… and thought they could defeat a powerful foe and find the mastermind. It was because, in terms of this mission’s difficulty, besides Bone Sculpture and Sherlock, Eivass’s Shepherd’s Method and his knowledge of demons were also taken into account!
As long as he successfully completed the Shepherd’s Method, he could control this Lower Demon. Even Shadow Demons couldn’t resist Eivass’s blood… the Hooked Demon Jack was far weaker than a Shadow Demon. Moreover, the Hooked Demon Jack’s intelligence, like that of a three-year-old child, was considered exceptionally low even among Lower Demons. This Hooked Demon Jack was not specially trained in intelligence; its master clearly lacked such skills, or perhaps didn’t believe anyone in Avalon was familiar with the Hooked Demon Jack’s characteristics. After being captured by Sherlock, it only shrieked, not knowing to use instantaneous movement to escape restraint—this could be achieved with training and special reinforcement. Jack the Ripper had undergone such reinforcement, thus becoming much more troublesome.
According to the original, ideal scenario, the Hooked Demon Jack should have descended before “Little Eivass,” and then been controlled by Eivass. Sherlock would then use his wisdom to gather everyone, form a well-defined nine-person team, and track down the culprit following the Hooked Demon Jack’s clues. That would indeed be an easy difficulty. But just as Bone Sculpture refused to cooperate with them… this ritual also didn’t account for Eivass’s intention “not to reveal that he possessed the Shepherd’s Method”—especially his desire not to reveal it in front of Sherlock. Because of this, the difficulty had inexplicably increased so much. After all, the identity of “Fox” had to remain untainted. This was merely a superficial identity Eivass deliberately created to be exposed. That’s why he meticulously maintained his image in front of the two of them. He wanted to hide his other identity beyond the Transcendent Path using the guise of Fox!
What Eivass just said was true. For Sherlock and Lulu, this ritual was already over—they had achieved victory. The two essential missions, ensuring Little Eivass’s survival and playing the role until the end, were effectively completed. But for Eivass, who sought higher points and the truth… his adventure had just begun.
Eivass, with his back to the luminous doorway, concealing his killing intent, smiled and nodded lightly, waving goodbye. With a final greeting to the complex-looking Sherlock and the somewhat sad and reluctant Lulu, he delivered what they believed to be his “last words” before his heroic sacrifice:
“Look after ‘our child,’ Lulu. Sing him another lullaby; he doesn’t seem to be sleeping soundly. He seems to have been disturbed. And Mr. Sherlock, if you have time, I will look for you… if you have time.”
They would definitely remember me. —And now, I shall begin the hunt. Eivass thought to himself.
Today’s update is eight thousand characters, written until 7:30 AM…! Leave comments for any typos, and I’ll correct them when I wake up! The dungeon will end tomorrow! The readership has reached seven thousand! Please continue to vote and follow!
