Chapter 213: The Epilogue of the Story

Chapter 213: The Epilogue of the Story

The instant the Luck Stealer charm left Leonard Mitchell’s hand, it vanished into midair, gone to some unknown place. The positions where he and Ince Zangwill stood both turned dim at the same time; even the expanding silver-white storm could no longer illuminate them.

At that moment, Leonard felt the surface of his body go numb. Lightning seemed to already be dancing across him, bringing a faint, needle-like sting that might carbonize his body at any moment.

But what followed was no unbearable agony. It was as if nothing had happened at all.

No—one thing had happened. A bolt of lightning, baring its claws and fangs, struck down violently in front of him, shattering the ground and blackening the soil.

At the same moment Leonard Mitchell used the Luck Stealer charm, Klein had actively made his lightning deviate from Ince Zangwill!

“Ah!”

A shrill scream rang out. The dense darkness around Ince Zangwill failed to offset the storm woven from bolt after bolt of silver-white lightning and allowed his body to be swept inside.

He had inherited the fate of Leonard Mitchell being swallowed by Lightning Storm!

Rumble!

A low peal of thunder exploded. The forest of lightning swiftly scattered. Yet before the previous Lightning Storm had completely ended, bolt after bolt of silver-white light descended again from high above, raising a new wave.

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!

The roars of the Thunder God sounded one after another. The lightning frequency that had just dropped returned to normal, and now there were even fewer gaps. Even as layer after layer of darkness gushed out from Ince Zangwill’s position, it could not annihilate all the silver-white light.

After several storms, the piercing radiance finally dimmed. Tiny electric snakes weakly darted in every direction.

Ince Zangwill still stood there. He had not fallen.

However, his head, with its pitch-black eyes, blood-red light clusters, and mysterious symbols, had split open with crack after crack. Within those fissures, his flesh was charred, and a grayish-white liquid slowly seeped out.

The four “legs” at his ribs and waist were completely carbonized, curling inward as though they would fall off at the slightest touch.

Not only were the white feathers on them almost nowhere to be seen, even the blood vessels wrapped around their surfaces had been carbonized and shattered, scattering across the ground, matching his body all too well.

Even like this, Ince Zangwill still did not die. Creatures that had obtained divinity possessed vitality far beyond what ordinary people could imagine.

The blood-red light in his eyes grew richer, and his violent, maddened aura could no longer be suppressed. Regret filled his heart, along with the impulse to vent.

He hated himself for only thinking of escape at the beginning instead of killing the enemies present. Back then, if he had used his abilities without restraint, if he had displayed the terror of a demigod without holding back, he absolutely could have killed Daly Simone and Leonard Mitchell amid the lightning strikes. He would never have been driven into such a miserable state by two mid-sequence Beyonders.

“Damn it, damn it!” Ince Zangwill roared. He threw away 0-08, that dim quill pen, and pushed off the ground with his remaining four “legs,” pouncing toward Leonard Mitchell.

Leonard had just been about to act when he suddenly felt threads of coldness wrap around him, as though thin strands of hair were extending from the darkness, from the dream, binding him until he could no longer move.

Rumble!

A bolt of lightning struck down and hit Ince Zangwill. But he merely swayed, dropping a few pieces of charred flesh without stopping his attack. He even revealed a cruel smile.

After that strike, he was utterly certain that the person hiding behind the scenes and driving the lightning had reached their limit. They could no longer use demigod-level abilities.

Meanwhile, Leonard, bound by invisible hair-like threads, felt his thoughts rapidly grow tranquil, as though he no longer wished to resist and wanted only to fall into slumber in the night.

Unable to move, he bit his tongue lightly, briefly recovering a measure of clarity. The transparent book before him once again rang out with an ethereal chant:

“I came, I saw, I record!”

The sound of howling wind suddenly echoed. A terrifying tornado roared toward Ince Zangwill, who had just pounced over.

It tore apart those illusory black hair-like things, and Leonard regained his freedom.

Whoosh!

Ince Zangwill was thrown into the air and smashed heavily into the ground, deep cracks appearing across his body as pale blood flowed from within.

Having lost another front “leg,” he still did not die. He “stood” again, his gaze locking onto the poet of the night across from him, whose eyes remained closed.

Without the slightest warning, Leonard’s foot slipped, and he fell to the ground. He tried to climb up, but he could not maintain his balance. Even his attempt to conjure a violent wind and lift himself failed miserably.

“Damn it! Back in Tingen, I should have killed you while you were unconscious!” Ince Zangwill cursed through gritted teeth. “That woman is dying, and you soon will be too!”

As he cursed, he limped toward Leonard’s position, seemingly having lost the ability to move at high speed. His expression was exceptionally savage.

“That captain of yours was so disgusting. That teammate of yours too. And all of you!

“After I kill you, I’ll leave this place, go back to Tingen, and dig up all their graves!”

Amid the curses, darkness carrying the aura of death gushed out from Ince Zangwill and swept toward Leonard Mitchell not far away.

Leonard felt misfortune wrap around him, yet he could do nothing—not even open his eyes.

Bang!

A gunshot rang out. A pale golden bullet shot into the dense, deathly darkness, releasing blazing sunlight that neutralized the abnormality within.

Pa! Tarot cards flew over one after another, stabbing into the ground at different spots.

One of them landed in front of Leonard. Crimson flames rose from it at once.

Within the flames, a figure wearing a half top hat and black formalwear, carrying a long-barreled revolver, walked out. He had black hair and brown eyes, deeper contours, and a distinctly scholarly air. It was Klein Moretti.

No longer able to wield Sea God Scepter, he had decisively returned to the real world, bringing Death Knell with him—to make it toll.

“You! It really is you! You really are still alive! Then let’s die together!” Ince Zangwill’s speed suddenly returned. He circled around Klein, trying to forcibly drag him into a dream.

He had been pretending all along!

Yet Klein was not affected in the slightest. He showed no sign of falling asleep. He raised his right hand and pulled the trigger as though guided by premonition.

Bang!

Ince Zangwill was flipped to the ground by the tremendous impact. The cracks on his head widened even further.

“That shot was for Madam Daly,” Klein said in a low voice. With a snap of his fingers, he used the rising flames to flash to the other side of Ince Zangwill.

Ince Zangwill’s eyes bulged. While moving at high speed, he spread misfortune outward, attempting to affect his opponent. But it had no effect at all.

“This shot is Leonard’s.”

All the Tarot cards ignited at once, like blooming fireworks. Klein flashed behind Ince Zangwill, cocked the hammer, and pulled the trigger purely by instinct.

Bang!

A flower of pale blood burst from Ince Zangwill’s left leg, and it snapped directly from the middle.

His run came to an abrupt halt; even his balance nearly failed.

Klein used the burning Tarot cards to perform Flame Jumps again and again, preventing himself from falling under the influence of those black “hairs.”

“This shot is Megose’s.”

“This shot is for that internal keeper.”

“This shot is for the destroyed Blackthorn Security Company.”

“This shot is for all the Nighthawks.”

“This shot is for myself.”

Amid bang after bang, Klein continuously pulled the trigger and made the appropriate reloads, firing silver demon-hunting bullets. He shot apart Ince Zangwill’s other leg and opened his forehead, making the man’s roars grow softer and softer, making him gradually collapse onto the ground.

At last, Klein flashed in front of Ince Zangwill and pressed the Death Knell revolver to his face.

At that very moment, on Ince Zangwill’s skull, which was nearly split open, strange and mysterious patterns protruded, producing a powerful impact.

He still had the power to resist!

He had been waiting for the other party to approach, waiting to reverse the situation with his own mythical creature form!

Yet Klein’s brown eyes looked at him without reflecting anything at all.

He pressed Death Knell even harder against him and pulled the trigger.

Bang!

Ince Zangwill’s head exploded completely, like a smashed watermelon, fragments and liquid splattering everywhere.

Death Knell tolled for him.

Klein raised his left hand, rubbed away the two false eyes, and pushed the real ones hidden beneath them back into place.

A mist filled his brown pupils. The corners of his mouth slowly lifted again. Facing the now-dead Ince Zangwill, he said in a low voice,

“That shot was the Captain’s.”

He had given the other party no chance to leave final words. He did not want to know whether Ince Zangwill had any sorrowful past.

Then he took the last remaining Tarot card from his pocket and tossed it onto Ince Zangwill’s corpse.

It was an inverted Star card.

At that moment, a figure appeared not far away and bent down to pick up the now-dim quill pen.

The figure wore a plain white robe and had a pale golden beard covering the lower half of his face. A silver cross pendant hung before his chest. He looked like the most ordinary of priests. It was the King of Angels, Adam.

Adam looked at Klein and smiled gently.

“What a pity. I could not keep that serpent here.”

He glanced at the quill pen in his hand, then at the Tarot card, and added with another faint smile,

“All gifts of fate have already had their prices marked in secret, have they not?” (Note 1)

With that, he turned and disappeared step by step across the broken square, leaving behind a sentence that sounded like a chant:

“Under the witness of the Audience, Klein Moretti completed a magnificent drama and directed a miraculous murder. Through this, he finished digesting his potion and gained enough additional power to attempt advancement as this drama falls its curtain.”

Klein did not dwell on the digestion of the Marionettist potion or the corresponding feedback. With a Flame Jump, he arrived before Daly Simone.

This lady was now close to completely losing control. In a daze, she said,

“I don’t want… to become a monster…”

“All right…” Klein looked at her with sorrow, swiftly thinking of whether there was any way to save someone who had lost control.

He considered having her recite the Fool’s honorific name and pulling her spirit body above the gray fog. But with her body already mutated, that seemed useless unless Daly chose to remain there forever. The Blood Flower ring likewise could not solve the corresponding problem.

Daly smiled with difficulty, fighting the white fuzz and black scales constantly emerging over her body.

“So it was you…

“Before, didn’t you ask me why I didn’t take the initiative, why I didn’t confess to Dunn, push him down… onto the bed?”

She drew a breath and laughed bitterly.

“I had… far too much indulgence in my past. He… he was a conservative man. I… I felt inferior.”

She was almost beyond control, about to become a monster.

At that moment, she heard Klein Moretti reply,

“The Captain actually liked you very much. But you were too outstanding, too young. He felt inferior too.”

Daly smiled. Then, in her blurred vision, she saw the man in the black windbreaker, with a high hairline and deep gray eyes. She saw him press a hand to his chest, bend slightly, and extend his palm, inviting her to dance.

She reached out her hand, and her thoughts became sluggish.

The gray-eyed man in the black windbreaker took Daly’s hand. The signs of mutation on her gradually receded. Under Leonard’s gaze, in the ruined square where the fountain flowed chaotically, the two began a light-footed dance.

One material after another flew out: golden grapevines, a rather ugly rubber mask. Guided by spirituality, they slowly merged together and poured into a small metal bottle.

Amid the beautiful dance, Daly leaned gently forward and rested in Dunn’s embrace.

Klein held the bottle of potion, brought it to his lips, and drank it down.

Note 1: A famous line from the Austrian writer Stefan Zweig.