Hatred, resentment, and frenzied, agonizing malice rapidly brewed and fermented amid the wet churning of the black slurry before violently erupting.
“Aaaaaah!!!”
Rachel’s mouth was clearly submerged beneath the black liquid, yet her muffled, piercing scream remained deafening.
The infant’s crying rose and fell against her shrieks, instantly ruining most of Yin Chen’s excellent mood.
His expression cold, he raised the tip of his blade and aimed at her head, preparing to swing. But just then, Rachel abruptly began screaming with even greater terror.
Before Yin Chen could move, the half of her head that had struggled free suddenly sank downward, as though some horrifying existence hidden deep inside the black slurry had seized her and dragged her back into the filth.
Her mud-stained golden hair remained above the floor. Half her head floated and sank while she struggled for a long time, her screams almost unbearable.
Yin Chen raised a brow, reversed his grip on the saber, and stabbed forcefully into the mud.
Boom!
A huge hole was punched through the floor tiles, and the terrified shrieks of patients downstairs could faintly be heard.
Yet the filthy black slurry attached to the shredded fabric did not disappear, remaining suspended in place in an uncanny state.
It looked bottomless, but when viewed from the side, the pool of liquid was actually only an incredibly thin layer… like some strange portal to another world.
Mr. Butler watched thoughtfully, then quietly left the reception room and went to the private patient room where Sister Rachel’s body had been placed.
Sure enough, the unfortunate woman was currently hanging from the ceiling in a posture that nearly suffocated her.
Over the course of one night, the ceiling of the room seemed to have been violently infected by mold, covered in densely packed black spots. Some of the patches grew white fuzz, while many more clung overhead in the form of sticky black sludge.
Half her head was inside Yin Chen’s reception room, while the other half was completely submerged in the murky mold slurry. Every breathing passage had been sealed airtight, and her suspended body struggled desperately as though trying to escape upward.
Wait. Escape upward…?
The butler’s expression turned grave. An indescribable terror suddenly rose in his heart. The instant cold sweat emerged, it froze into frost, locking his chilled limbs in place and draining the air from his lungs until he could barely move.
He quickly retreated, but it was already too late. Slick, flexible living things churned inside every patch of mold on the ceiling, and the instant fear entered his heart and he tried to flee, they erupted violently.
Large numbers of tentacles in different lengths and colors surged out wrapped in evil black slurry. They whipped through the air, swelling and lengthening rapidly before blocking the butler’s retreat all at once and wrapping him into a writhing ball of flesh.
Being enveloped by filthy tentacles… was terrifying. His hair became completely soaked in disgusting, foul-smelling mucus. Expanding and contracting suckers maliciously blocked his airways. His hands and feet could not move. The suffocating, near-death sensation of something tightening around his carotid artery overwhelmed him. His covered eyeballs burned and stung sharply. His entire existence sank into hopeless darkness with no escape.
Mr. Butler stood quietly where he was, struggling to suppress his uncontrollably pounding heart. He held his breath and stopped voluntarily breathing.
Seconds passed one after another. Oxygen deprivation filled his ears with buzzing, while brilliant phantom lights appeared before his eyes, dreamlike and unreal…
He successfully entered an extremely convincing state of suspended animation and peacefully went to sleep.
The tentacles tightly wrapped around him suddenly froze at the same time. Then, confused, they gradually slowed and began loosening their restraints.
Thud.
The rigid, heavy “corpse” collapsed onto the floor without struggling, fleeing, or making any unnecessary movement.
The next instant, Lin Xing stood at the doorway of the private room, trembling violently. His terrified shout suddenly tore through the sky.
“Holy shit, when did you wake up?! Holy shit, why are you wandering around?!”
Xu Wei Ran sprinted over and once again knocked Lin Xing unconscious with a punch. Then he turned, saw the interior of the room, and likewise widened his eyes in terror, legs weakening and hands trembling until he collapsed to the floor with a thud.
He was terrified, yet had no idea what exactly he was afraid of. Those flesh-red tentacles, their tips drawn taut and hideous, dripped nauseating black mold-fluid… The despair they inspired felt impossibly vast, inconceivable, an absolute hopelessness against something that could never be matched.
Helpless and horrified, he fell into the monster nest that was frantically breeding and dividing. No matter how he struggled, nothing helped. He trembled uncontrollably beneath suffocating fear.
The commotion woke Lin Xing. The instant he opened his eyes, he burst into terrified tears, and Xu Wei Ran immediately began crying too.
The two grown men clung to each other, trembling and sobbing loudly while calling back Mr. Butler’s soul for him. The scene looked somewhat ridiculous.
Elio’s Note: 叫魂 (jiàohún), literally “calling the soul,” is a traditional folk practice meant to call a frightened, wandering, or displaced soul back to the body. Here the phrase is used comically for their panicked attempt to revive Mr. Butler.
“W-what happened?”
Li Ming arrived late and stared dumbfounded, almost unable to look directly at Xu Wei Ran’s idiotic state.
Her arms were filled with a pile of herbs that obviously belonged to witchcraft and heresy. She had rushed all the way there and was panting heavily.
Song Zang hid pale-faced behind Yin Chen and said quietly, “See? I was right. This panic can’t be allowed to spread carelessly. It’ll create a huge disaster.”
“Mm. Even hearing them cry is annoying.”
Yin Chen slowly tightened his grip around his saber hilt. Then he glanced at Song Zang’s disapproving expression, thought for a moment, and said to Li Ming, “Try praying.”
“Praying?”
“Catholicism has an exorcism prayer for expelling evil spirits. I’ve heard it before.”
Li Ming immediately understood. She gripped the cross at her chest, gritted her teeth, tossed aside the herbs, and hurried toward the door of the room packed with writhing tentacles.
Cautiously, she knelt on both knees and kept her eyes lowered firmly toward the floor, absolutely refusing to make eye contact with any of the tentacles. She concentrated and stared directly at the sobbing Xu Wei Ran… and the several teeth missing from his mouth.
So ugly! Compared with fear, the speechlessness inside her was actually much stronger.
Li Ming cleared her throat. “My Latin is terrible, so bear with me… Begone, Satan, master of every deceit, enemy of mankind’s Savior. You shall tremble beneath the hand of God…”
The prayer she had roughly memorized was inaccurate, and her Latin pronunciation was far from perfect, yet somehow, it genuinely worked.
In the dark, cloud-covered sky, a beam of pure white light pierced the heavy clouds and resonated with Sister Li Ming’s prayer, standing against the evil frost-condensing force. Li Ming’s cross pendant trembled gently, surrounded by a hazy, pure milky-white glow that became increasingly brilliant as she recited.
The slick tentacles reacted as though facing a mortal enemy. They rapidly contracted into a mass and joined together to resist the holy light.
The sacred halo swiftly expanded, gradually enveloping the sobbing men on the floor like a warm, gentle hand, soothing the extreme terror inside them.
Xu Wei Ran calmed down first. He sat limply on the floor in a daze for a moment, then immediately turned and slapped Lin Xing twice.
Lin Xing sprang upright. “Fuck!”
“You awake now?” Xu Wei Ran weakly asked.
“Mm… Did I just lose my mind?” Lin Xing scratched his head in confusion, then found a small cowhide whip shoved into his hand.
Xu Wei Ran rolled up his sleeves. “God’s power works great on these disgusting things. Let’s go together and whip the hell out of these freaks!”
“Oh. Okay!”
Lin Xing’s brain was sluggish, but his muscles were magnificently developed. Under the enhancement of the milky-white halo and the nun’s prayer, the holy-water whip gleamed brilliantly, like a sacred artifact delivering judgment upon evil.
As though divinely empowered, he snapped the whip and tore through several tender pink tentacles at once. Flesh-pulp sprayed everywhere. Strange, inhuman shrieks came from deep within the mass of meat, mixed with Sister Rachel’s increasingly intense screams.
“Li Ming, I hate you! I hate you!”
“Save me… No! Get away!! Leave this place!!!”
The completely contradictory shrieks left everyone confused, but Li Ming did not pause.
Head lowered and completely immersed in the prayer, she continued reciting the exorcism formula at high speed. She seriously repeated the entire thing three times, then began stumbling her way through the Gospel of Mark.
The entire East Wing became wrapped in holy light. Dense black sludge and mold burned away beneath sacred flame.
Having lost their “home,” the tentacles had nowhere to escape. Lin Xing and Xu Wei Ran attacked from both sides, lashing them until they broke. Wet, dark-red chunks of flesh dropped one after another onto the floor, spilling red fluid and giving off a strange, piercing rank odor.
Seeing the situation stabilize, Yin Chen finally put away the saber that devoured vitality.
He switched to his handgun. Beautifully crafted silver bullets shot out with explosive cracks and struck every muddy tentacle trying to launch a sneak attack with perfect accuracy.
Song Zang watched with delight, unable to hide his curiosity. “Your silver bullets are amazing. Why can they hurt tentacle monsters too?”
“Because the Capet family is actually a hidden lineage of exorcists.” Yin Chen explained at leisure while reloading. “That’s why my family is absurdly rich. We had more gold, silver, and jewels than we could use, so we forged all of it into exorcism weapons.”
“Huh? Seriously?” Song Zang widened his eyes.
“Seriously. But my character is extremely rebellious. He refuses to kill people and only wants to save them. That gives him excellent compatibility with the merciful Lord and makes him highly suitable for carrying the Holy Son…”
At this point, Yin Chen abruptly paused. He lowered his eyes and pressed a hand to his abdomen, sensing something. “The power Li Ming is using for exorcism doesn’t seem to be coming from the heavens. It seems to be coming from my baby.”
Song Zang froze too, then realized the possibility was genuinely high. God was trapped, but the child who shared His power remained free.
“But didn’t the baby become a ghost baby? I remember his resentment was pretty strong when he charged into your stomach.”
Yin Chen smiled. “His beloved birth mother has already reconciled with us and joined our side. Under circumstances like these, a good child won’t deliberately cause trouble.”
The instant he finished speaking, the sacred glow wrapped around his hand trembled gently, as though proactively affirming Yin Chen’s conclusion.
“What a pitiful good baby.”
Song Zang’s heart softened. Pretending to lovingly pet Yin Chen’s stomach, he shamelessly rubbed and kneaded all over it.
For some reason, Yin Chen’s gaze immediately turned cold. “Don’t praise him.”
Song Zang paused speechlessly and firmly pinched a piece of taut, warm muscle. “I just wanted to touch you more. What did you think I was doing?”
“…Mm. Then touch me some more.” Yin Chen froze for a moment, his Adam’s apple rolling quietly as he relaxed against the cold brick wall.
As Song Zang continued touching him, the chaotic private room finally returned to peace.
The mangled tentacles turned into thick, muddy red slurry beneath the holy whips and completely lost all signs of life. Sister Rachel died as well.
She had escaped her body as a vengeful spirit, only to helplessly catch fire inside the milky-white halo. Black-red tears ran from her bluish eyes. Her savage, resentful gaze remained fixed on Li Ming, but after a moment, it gradually transformed into peaceful relief and vanished beneath the holy light.
Li Ming sighed. “In Father Riley’s room, I found a nun’s habit embroidered with Rachel’s name. It had been violently torn to pieces and was covered in blood and strands of hair ripped from her head.
“She was coerced by Father Riley and followed Sister Pudu in doing many terrible things. But later… she was also the one who saved me. She realized I was about to be chosen as the vessel for the demon’s child, so she pretended to join the other nuns in bullying me, took my position, and suffered in my place.”
Without Rachel, Li Ming would now have been the vengeful spirit tangled inside the black slurry.
Perhaps Li Ming would have handled this terrifying monster better than Rachel had. But looking at the miserable states of Lin Xing and Xu Wei Ran, and at Mr. Butler lying on the ground without breathing… even if Li Ming successfully escaped, she would have lost half her skin in the process.
With complicated feelings, Li Ming voluntarily carried away Rachel’s cold body and went to the washroom at the end of the corridor to tidy her appearance for burial.
Xu Wei Ran eagerly followed her. As for everyone else, they immediately began preparing the object-finding ritual.
Zhang Ming Shen dug up a large amount of rosemary from the rear garden and wandered the marketplace for quite some time before finally obtaining black-goat blood. Once the materials were complete, the sacrificial procedure itself was fairly short.
It had to be said that Satan was rather responsive toward the requests of His followers. The instant Lin Xing cut open his wrist and spoke the request to locate the object, he felt an invisible pull catch his heart, and his blood flowed backward into his body.
Immediately afterward came repeated sounds of rushing wind. Everyone’s vision darkened. A blood-red ring suddenly lit up over the crude little altar, along with… a mountain of materials required for summoning the Devil’s Bible.
Several people stared blankly as a pitch-black, foul-smelling frog hopped down from the altar. Every step left a corroded footprint, practically turning Yin Chen’s reception room into a toxic wasteland.
That was right. A devil’s object-finding ritual did not merely locate an object. It tyrannically snatched treasures directly out of other people’s hands.
Meanwhile, in Nar Town not far from the Diocese of Carlisle, Witch Gina let out an ear-splitting shriek.
“Which goddamned bastard stole the poisonous demon frog I’ve raised for years?! My spirit-pearl leaves! My infant finger bone!!! I curse this lunatic to drop dead on the spot!”
Lan Yu Heng, who was quietly sitting nearby polishing an astrolabe, froze. Suddenly realizing something, she hurriedly lowered her head and pretended nothing had happened, too guilty to make a sound.
As for the poisonous black frog throwing the room into chaos, Mr. Butler, who had regained consciousness, eventually caught it personally.
He was somewhat weak, but still had enough stamina. Smiling, he wrapped the frog inside one of the infant’s diapers and tied it securely.
Song Zang would preside over the sacrificial ritual, since his Resistance was absurdly high and he had similar experience.
Besides, a ritual on this scale would inevitably attract the attention and gazes of even more distant entities. Zhang Ming Shen was mute and could not speak, while Lin Xing’s brain could no longer withstand additional mental torment.
Yin Chen was even less suitable, because inside his stomach… he was carrying a sacred and fragile baby. If some devil actually noticed him and accidentally caused him to “miscarry,” that would be a terrible loss.
To be safe, Yin Chen drove everyone except himself out of the reception room and personally guarded Song Zang.
Watching Song Zang cut open his wrist, expertly dip his fingers into his blood, kneel down, and draw an elaborate, eerie ritual diagram made Yin Chen’s face darken.
He rubbed the hilt of his blade with a black expression. Only after Song Zang lightly glared at him did he reluctantly suppress the murderous aura stirring around his body.
Once Song Zang confirmed that Yin Chen would not deliberately cause trouble, he concentrated, knelt among the blood with feigned devotion, and began reciting a convoluted Latin sacrificial prayer that lasted a full fifteen minutes.
The blood belonging to Lucifer’s son gradually boiled at the center of the altar, releasing an enticing, dreamlike fragrance. Intoxication covered Song Zang’s exquisite face. Misty pleasure shimmered inside his wet black eyes.
Yin Chen stared fixedly at that excessively delighted expression. His brows darkened, and the muscles of his arms quietly tensed.
Dong…
Dong…
…
The mighty old bell had stood for centuries, an immovable fixture of the asylum and a symbolic holy object of the Catholic Church. It represented lasting peace beneath the Lord’s watch and was said to suppress all vengeful spirits and demons.
Despite its age, it had always been meticulously maintained and repeatedly repaired. Its majestic splendor never faded, and the sound could carry an extraordinary distance.
Yet this towering golden bell standing on the ruins of the old monastery rang six hundred and sixty-six times in one breath during the sacrifice to Satan.
Exactly six hundred and sixty-six ominous chimes. Song Zang had deliberately counted. What began as slow beats transformed into a violent storm. The insane tolling echoed across the asylum and through the Diocese of Carlisle, summoning enormous bolts of lightning that tore across the sky and terrifying thunder.
The temperature plummeted once more. Fierce winds swept through, carrying black rain and filthy sleet that tore apart the livestock pens of ordinary households.
“O great and majestic Goddess of Frost and Snow, this humble family begs for Your mercy…”
“Please look upon Your submissive subjects. We are willing to sacrifice fruits and jewels and slaughter every heretic for You. We beg You to restrain Your wrath…”
Terrified poor families knelt helplessly on the ground and began praying with absolute devotion.
Ironically, within a diocese ruled by God, not a single person’s first instinct was to seek help from Him.
They all depended upon the Goddess of Frost and Snow ceasing Her anger in exchange for the slightest chance to continue surviving.
Song Zang knew nothing about what was happening outside, but his entire body was equally tense and ready to flee at any moment. He had a strong feeling something enormous was about to happen.
His guess was correct, because the enormous bell that had madly rung more than six hundred times suddenly exploded, bringing the entire building down with it.
Fortunately, the unnatural tolling had been disturbing enough that the nuns became wary and evacuated everyone nearby in advance.
After the explosion, thick black smoke coiled upward through wind and snow. A heavy golden fragment ripped free from the old monastery ruins, shot into the sky, and flew directly toward the altar.
Inside the reception room, the beautiful carved window Mr. Butler had only just repaired was smashed to pieces again, taking half the wall with it.
Boom!
Dust exploded everywhere. Yin Chen reacted instantly, hooked an arm around Song Zang’s slender waist, yanked him backward, and held him securely against his body.
The enormous bell fragment landed precisely in the center of the altar and trembled violently as boiling blood surrounded it. In an instant, large areas of elaborate, uncanny markings spread over its surface.
Then came a sharp crack. The fragment shattered apart, revealing what had been hidden beneath its outer shell.
The Devil’s Bible.
The enormous book was nearly a meter tall and half a meter wide, appearing directly before them.
Thick animal hide covered wooden boards, bound securely by countless carefully placed brass studs. Even the pages were made from expensive high-grade calfskin vellum produced from the delicate hides of healthy young calves, something ordinary families could never afford.
On the cover, a grotesque demon in intersecting blue-green and crimson tones bore blood-red horns, waved thick limbs, and displayed a mouth full of fangs. It gleamed within the blood-red halo, evil, gorgeous, and overwhelmingly heavy.
“Wow… incredible…”
Song Zang’s face flushed pink. His voice sounded soft and floating as trembling fingers stroked the heavy cover of the Devil’s Bible. The instant the ritual succeeded, many thoughts he should never have entertained were drawn out of him.
Lust, brutality, greed… Every dark and twisted negative emotion rose like flame, scorching his restless soul.
He even began hallucinating.
Amid the dizziness and flying dust, a handsome man who looked remarkably like Yin Chen approached lazily in a white shirt soaked through with water, subtly displaying the perfect lines of his body.
Taut pale arms, beautifully defined abdominal muscles gleaming under the water, elegant collarbones appearing through wet fabric, an Adam’s apple moving suggestively, and clean lines from shoulder to neck…
The handsome man knelt on one knee and kissed the back of Song Zang’s hand with gentlemanly restraint, then suddenly bit down on his fingertip like a wolf cub. Narrowing his eyes, he licked away the bead of fresh blood at the corner of his lips.
He kissed Song Zang’s vulnerable, burning ear tip and coaxed softly, “I like you very much, my confused, innocent little lamb… Come with me, darling. I’ll give you everything you want.”
Song Zang had to admit that this worked extremely well on him. He loved this exact type so much that the seduction made his mouth dry and his heart itch.
But the actual Yin Chen was standing right there. Who would choose some handsome hallucination instead??
Song Zang pretended to be seduced and encouraged the illusory beauty to continue flattering him so he could find out what the creature truly wanted… and also make Yin Chen furious while he was at it.
Yin Chen indeed became furious. Warning bells screamed inside his head, and he wanted nothing more than to chop the stupid book apart.
But it was a crucial item needed to advance the instance, and the last pieces of his soon-to-shatter reason were still fighting valiantly.
Until Song Zang’s ear tips turned pink, his expression dazed and shy, and he slightly pursed his lips as though preparing to kiss someone who did not exist…
The saber moved soundlessly, fast as lightning. In the blink of an eye, the extravagantly bound Devil’s Bible was chopped in half, the altar became powder, and the floor tiles covered in blood-red markings split open into a horrifying trench.
Song Zang was lifted by the throat, yet he did not cry out in pain. Instead, he panted, body burning, and gave Yin Chen’s rigid neck a slow, sticky kiss.
Clang.
The saber fell from Yin Chen’s hand. His expression froze instantly as he hugged Song Zang tightly without moving, stiff as a statue.
“…Mm?”
Immediately afterward, Song Zang’s kiss stopped. As if waking from a dream, he lifted his flushed face and asked blankly, “What happened?”
“Kiss me again,” Yin Chen demanded stiffly.
Song Zang frowned, coughed weakly twice, then gently pushed him away in disbelief. “You suddenly grabbed me by the throat just because you wanted me to kiss you?”
Yin Chen accused him coldly, “You kissed someone else first.”
“Did I? Who?”
“There was absolutely a ghost in this room just now. Don’t try to trick me. The baby inside my stomach can sense evil spirits.” Yin Chen sounded rather resentful.
Song Zang blinked. A smile like spring melting snow appeared in his eyes. “That’s right. You did very well. Your slash just now was extremely accurate. It’s already dead.”
“So you kissed it?” Yin Chen refused to let the matter go.
“With you here, I wouldn’t look twice at anyone else.”