Chapter 212: Beneath the Roses

Chapter 212: Beneath the Roses

Outside the window, the glass greenhouse reflected the pale sunlight. Even in the thin fog, the bright, vivid roses were so eye-catching.

Inside the bedroom, Duke Negan seemed to have recovered the sensation of his youth, when he had followed his father and elders across vast lands on horseback, driving hounds and chasing beasts.

Finally, he reached the summit, and everything around him seemed to grow strangely quiet.

Just then, something rumbled in his mind. He felt that pleasure, that comfort, suddenly explode, then explode again, endlessly, without limit, without end, over and over.

Duke Negan’s waist trembled repeatedly. His vision went blank, and all thought left his mind.

His heart began beating violently, unable to bear the burden, like a steam boiler under pressure far beyond its limits, ready to explode at any moment and spray scalding mist outward without warning.

Were it an ordinary person, or even a Beyonder whose physical constitution was not especially strong, they would certainly have suffered a heart attack, cerebral hemorrhage, and immediate death on the spot. But in the end, Duke Negan endured it. His eyes merely lost focus, drool dripped from the corner of his mouth, and his body fell weakly toward his lying mistress.

The Wind-blessed and the duke’s secretary, who were guarding the rooms on either side, sensed the abnormal spirituality and the scent of mystery at the same time. The former was suddenly wrapped in a violent gale, which hurled him toward the wall. With a crash, he broke a large hole through it and entered the bedroom.

The secretary went straight toward the source of the mysticism—the attic of the house!

Along the way, he neither dodged nor avoided, yet the decorative vases and other objects in the corridor seemed to come alive, cleverly shifting aside one after another.

As he leapt and ran up the staircase toward the attic, the wooden floor seemed to move upward, as though helping him along.

In only three or four seconds, this refined, delicate-featured blond young man had entered the attic and seen a figure seated on an old chair.

The figure was entirely covered in viscous black liquid, like the gathering of every ugly desire and violent emotion buried deep in the human mind. It was the greed that would willingly sell the rope used to hang oneself, the hunger that would not spare even one’s own kind, and lust without restraint.

This was a Demon walking upon the earth!

The slim secretary’s expression did not change in the slightest, nor did he directly launch an attack. Instead, he looked at the other party, reached a hand behind him, and politely closed the door.

Bang!

The attic’s wooden door shut.

The entire room abruptly took on the feeling of being completely sealed. It seemed impossible to leave without breaking through it by force.

In that instant, the concept of “closing the door and sealing the room” seemed to have been tampered with into “seal this place and isolate inside from outside”!

The Apostle of Desire moved. His form expanded and grew, sprouting a pair of enormous bat wings wreathed in pale-blue tongues of flame.

Fireball after fireball, each giving off an intense sulfurous smell, formed one after another and bombarded Duke Negan’s blond secretary in succession.

The secretary extended his left palm in its white glove, clenched it abruptly, and half turned his wrist.

Boom! Boom! Boom!

The fireballs no longer followed the principles of straight lines or parabolas. They scattered violently in all directions, as chaotic as the irregular motion of tiny particles proposed by a certain botanist. Some struck the walls, some hit the ceiling, some landed beside the frail-looking secretary, and some even flew backward, nearly blasting the Apostle of Desire himself.

The entire attic became a mess, with shattered and charred marks everywhere. Even the house shook twice.

However, the mysterious force that had “sealed” the place—or rather, the rules that had been tampered with—had not been destroyed. The surrounding walls, old wooden door, and dusty roof merely looked as though they might collapse, but never did.

The Apostle of Desire was not frustrated by the failure of his attempt, nor did he panic because the other party’s emotions were stable and desires restrained, making them impossible to manipulate or catalyze. In his brown eyes, a lava-like fire-red suddenly leapt up, condensing into the image of the blond secretary. From his mouth came a Demonic word filled with filth and stench.

“Die!”

Almost at the same time, the gold-rimmed-glasses-wearing secretary’s pupils constricted. He spread open his left fist and aimed his palm at the Apostle of Desire.

All at once, his figure split apart. One was his true self, refined and frail. The other was a shadow covered in the black liquid of desire. The two alternated rapidly, overlapping from time to time.

“Die!”

The filthy word echoed inside the attic. The secretary gave a muffled groan and retreated two steps.

The split image vanished. Large patches of rust-red marks immediately appeared on the surface of his body and face, as though he had turned into an iron man left in a damp place for many years.

Cough! Cough! Cough! He coughed violently, spitting out lumps of blood covered in rust.

The marks on his body slowly trembled and fell away with it.

Cough! Cough! Cough!

The Apostle of Desire was coughing too, coughing out coagulated, rust-covered blood. The viscous black liquid covering his entire body thinned considerably at once.

It seemed that half the effect of his filthy word had been transferred back onto himself by Duke Negan’s secretary!

…

Inside the bedroom.

The Wind-blessed helped Duke Negan up and kicked the beautiful mistress to the other side in case she was the attacker’s accomplice.

The reason he did not go help the secretary was because he knew very clearly that he had only one duty: protect Duke Negan!

And in a situation like this, one had to guard against the possibility of more than one enemy!

By then, Duke Negan had recovered slightly. But despite his considerable strength, his limbs remained weak, his body hollow, and his mind exhausted. He had no way to use his own Beyonder powers.

He gestured for the Wind-blessed to remove the conch necklace from his neck and place the item near his mouth.

Duke Negan drew a breath and blew hard into the small conch covered with strange patterns.

Splash!

A deep sound of tides spread outward, rapidly surging toward the Cathedral of the Holy Wind.

“With His Excellency the Archbishop’s speed, he’ll arrive soon!” the Wind-blessed first reassured him. Then he carried Duke Negan on his back, approached the window, and leapt down.

He intended to regroup with the duke’s guards outside, among whom were two or three low-sequence Beyonders.

Panting, Duke Negan said, “Capture him. You must capture him alive, or his spirit body…

“I want to know who is behind this!”

The last time, it had been Pirate Admiral Qilangos who had come to assassinate him. This time, it was a strange Sequence 5 powerhouse. Duke Negan asked himself whether he had recently developed a feud to such irreconcilable heights with anyone, and therefore felt especially angry and resentful.

He wanted to uncover the mastermind behind this and use every resource he possessed to tear that person apart!

And the premise for all of this was finding clues from the assassin.

Seven or eight seconds later, most of the duke’s guards swarmed over, surrounding Pallas Negan and the Wind-blessed at the front of the garden.

“We wait here and guard against the enemy,” the Wind-blessed ordered.

According to normal procedure, he should have protected the duke and left the assassination scene as quickly as possible, heading for the safe shelter of the Cathedral of the Holy Wind. But he did not know whether there were other enemies, and feared being ambushed on the road. Most importantly, he worried that they might miss the reinforcements of the Singer of God, Ace Snake, and thus fall into an even more dangerous situation.

One second, two seconds, three seconds… Time passed. The house trembled from time to time; the battle inside seemed to have entered a white-hot stage.

“Why has the archbishop not arrived yet?” Duke Negan asked in a panic as his breathing steadied.

Given the other party’s flying speed, he should almost have arrived. Yet toward the direction of the Cathedral of the Holy Wind, there was not the slightest sign of the thin fog being dispersed.

The Wind-blessed remained highly vigilant and said hesitantly, “Perhaps, perhaps His Excellency the Archbishop, the archbishop…”

In the end, he did not say the possibility that the archbishop was not at the Cathedral of the Holy Wind.

At that moment, Duke Negan’s beautiful mistress walked to the second-floor bedroom window. Her eyes were dazed, and she revealed a mournfully beautiful smile.

Immediately afterward, she threw herself down, deliberately landing headfirst on the cement ground.

Bang!

After a sound that made one’s teeth ache, that beautiful head split open with a considerable crack, and blood flowed out in streams.

She rolled weakly several times, finally ending face up.

Her eyes had completely lost focus, and her frozen expression was filled with madness and fear.

Seeing this, many members of the duke’s guard found fear uncontrollably rising inside them.

Even Duke Negan himself, with Archbishop Snake still absent, felt his emotions nearly collapse.

“Go! Leave this place!” he instinctively shouted in his weakness.

The Wind-blessed had just been feeling fortunate that he had not softened his heart and had kicked the mistress away ahead of time, otherwise the duke might have been killed on the spot. At that moment, hearing the command filled with fear, his heart suddenly lurched.

In the attic, the Apostle of Desire, locked in fierce combat, suddenly liquefied, turning into many black shadows that darted chaotically across the floor.

After using this to avoid the blond secretary’s attack, he re-formed in another direction.

Then he looked at the enemy, raised his right arm, and slightly curled the corners of his mouth.

“No!” The blond secretary’s eyes turned red at once.

In an instant, the Apostle of Desire clenched his fist.

Outside the luxurious house, Duke Negan’s terror exploded violently, shooting straight into his brain, drilling into his blood vessels, and covering his nerves.

He heard the sound of something shattering and felt warmth at the back of his head.

At the same time, several members of the duke’s guard became panicked and frightened. They each raised their specially made revolvers or rifles and fired wildly toward the center.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The Wind-blessed moved one step faster, hugged Duke Negan, and rolled to the ground. Invisible blades of wind, sharp as knives, were created from nowhere and cut through the throats of those guards.

Thud. Thud. The guards clutched their throats and slowly collapsed into the blood seeping out, while Duke Negan’s body twitched several times and then stopped moving.

His own fear had taken his life.

If he had not been a Sequence 6 Beyonder, his fear might even have dismembered him.

Of course, if he had not already become extremely weak, he would not have had such intense emotions; even if he had, he would not have died directly because of them.

But there are no ifs in this world. The leader of the Conservative Party, the greatest land noble after the king, the elder brother of the current prime minister, a Sequence 6 Beyonder, and a genuine great figure, Duke Pallas Negan, died just like that.

Nearby, the roses inside the glass greenhouse continued to bloom.

Inside the attic, the blond secretary clearly sensed what had happened, and his emotions could no longer be controlled.

Thus, his mind went blank. In anxiety, he ran outward and opened the door of the sealed room by himself.

Two seconds later, he reacted and turned around again, only to find that the figure covered in black liquid and the suitcase in the corner had already vanished.

…

The Apostle of Desire swiftly left the villa and withdrew from the scene along his planned route.

Just then, before his eyes, it seemed as if a dense sea of blood had appeared.