Chapter 209: Light

Chapter Two Hundred NineLight

“Wah!”

The baby inside Megose’s belly cried. It squirmed, wanting to be born, wanting to help its mother escape her predicament.

The black, cold, slippery threads seemed frightened, or perhaps seized by some invisible force. They retreated one after another.

“Wah!”

Dunn and Klein both grew visibly dizzy. Their throats constricted on their own, their windpipes compressing again and again, making breathing instantly difficult.

From their noses, the corners of their eyes, beside their ears, bright red liquid dripped down. It was as though every capillary in their bodies had ruptured.

If Klein had not endured the test of ravings and roars every time he entered the gray fog, if Dunn had not been holding Saint Selena’s ashes, they would certainly have fainted already—just like Leonard Mitchell.

Megose’s headless body turned toward Klein. The charred flesh and skin falling away in pieces, and the white bone blade that was both sacred and demonic, were clearly reflected in his eyes.

Klein had only just relied on abundant experience to break free from the influence when his scalp suddenly tingled. He forgot the agony in his right chest and seemed to see Megose pouncing toward him in a flashing frenzy, giving him no chance to recite the incantation, pour in spirituality, and throw the Sunflame Charm.

Just as he was about to roll aside, Klein saw Megose suddenly freeze. He saw Dunn Smith’s black windbreaker fly backward. He saw the Captain, diagonally ahead, lower his head. Beneath the back of that windbreaker, thick, writhing shapes protruded one after another, as though venomous snakes, tentacles, or monsters were hidden there.

Dunn was using his Nightmare ability to forcibly interfere with Megose.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

With only a single struggle from Megose, the thick shapes bulging beneath Dunn’s back burst open all at once.

A large amount of bright-red blood splashed outward, pouring like a rainstorm into every nearby corner.

Yet Dunn, face pale, did not despair at that result.

Because the blood had been absorbed by the black threads created from Saint Selena’s ashes.

Absorbed!

The countless cold, slippery, tentacle-like black threads instantly turned violent. They stopped retreating and surged forward instead, binding Megose tightly, binding her high, writhing belly.

An opportunity!

Klein felt both tense and delighted. In his throat, the ancient Hermes word corresponding to “light” was already forming.

“Wah! Wah! Wah!”

The infant cries rang out once again—more continuous than before, more urgent than before.

The black, countless, nearly invisible threads suddenly stopped. As though struck by lightning, they trembled violently, shivering as they withdrew.

Dunn watched this scene. Seeing that Megose was about to break free, his expression changed once. Then, without the slightest hesitation, he withdrew his right hand, opened his five fingers, and with a pfft, inserted them into his own chest—into the left side of his chest.

His right hand quickly pulled free, covered in blood. Clenched in his five fingers was a heart that carried the tranquility of night and the shifting nature of dreams—a heart still contracting and expanding.

Captain…

Klein watched helplessly as Dunn Smith placed the heart in his right hand into Saint Selena’s casket. His vision swiftly blurred.

Woo! Woo! Woo!

A cry sounded, like the voice of a Nightmare in the depths of night. The countless black threads tightened again with an abnormally cold and silent feeling, binding Megose firmly, desperately, in place.

Even when another infant cry came from Megose’s belly, they did not loosen in the slightest. They even locked that terrifying sound inside the thing they had wrapped.

Klein’s tears mixed with blood and slid drop by drop down his face. From his mouth, he uttered one ancient Hermes word in a low voice:

“Light!”

Light that illuminates the darkness!

Light that brings warmth!

Almost all his remaining…