Chapter 109: Mutual Restraint

Chapter 109: Mutual Restraint

What a terrifying intuition. She clearly has not discovered that the “Gehrman Sparrow” before her is only a substitute, yet she still feels something is wrong…

Hidden inside a distant house, Klein hissed inwardly. Thoughts whirled in his mind, and he swiftly devised a response.

He controlled the Wraith Senor, making the marionette speak in a low, hoarse voice.

“I also feel somewhat uneasy.

“After the ‘door’ opens, if you leave first, then when I go out, you could completely ambush me outside. You would not even need to ambush me. You could simply wait there.

“I believe I should be the one to leave first. Before that, you must return my flesh and hair to me. When the time comes, you can stand a little closer to the ‘door.’ That way, you will have enough time to pass through the ‘Door of Escape’ before your Spirit Body Threads drift to the top of the church.”

The Demoness of Despair, Panatiya, listened in silence, then asked in return, “Then how should I guard against you destroying the ‘Door of Escape’ after you leave?”

“That is also my question,” the marionette in Gehrman Sparrow’s appearance replied without yielding in the slightest. “After I obtain the special symbol, I will show it to you. In that case, even if I close the ‘Door of Escape,’ you can reopen it.”

Panatiya closed her mouth again, as though considering the details. However, she appeared somewhat irritable, finding it difficult to calm down. It was as if her mind was filled with a large amount of madness.

Only after more than ten seconds did she speak again.

“I feel that a pure curse may not necessarily harm you. Seers do not lack methods for avoiding damage, just like the Paper Figurine Substitute you used earlier.”

She really leaves no loopholes… Thankfully, the person in front of you is fake from head to toe…

While lampooning inwardly, Klein had the Wraith Senor take paper figurines from his pockets one after another and burn them all in front of the Demoness of Despair.

“I cannot be certain whether you still have one hidden,” Panatiya said, still somewhat neurotically suspicious.

Gehrman Sparrow pulled the corner of his mouth without expression.

“You can divine it. Witches are quite skilled at that, are they not?”

Panatiya laughed with some impatience.

“This place cannot communicate with the spirit world, and my spirituality…”

She did not finish speaking. Her gaze turned rather dangerous.

Klein understood what the Demoness of Despair meant very well. He knew that because of her half year of “eating,” her spirituality had been contaminated, becoming somewhat chaotic and mad. It could no longer provide sufficiently reliable “answers,” especially when the person she faced was a Beyonder most skilled at divination.

The two of them were deadlocked, temporarily unable to resolve the problem of how to establish trust.

At that very moment, from the roof on the left, a hoarse, indistinct voice sounded.

“I can help you ‘witness’ it.”

Gehrman Sparrow and Panatiya turned their heads at the same time and looked over, only to see Mr. A “grow” out from the shadows. His hooded robe was stained scarlet.

“How will you ‘witness’ it?” Klein made the Wraith Senor ask.

Mr. A tugged at his hood and laughed deeply.

“I will use Flesh Magic, drill into your body, and monitor your state. The moment you stop manipulating the Spirit Body Threads or try to use Paper Figurine Substitute, I will immediately give a warning or attempt to stop you.

“Once the ‘Door of Escape’ you mentioned opens, I will leave your body and enter the door before the Spirit Body Threads are affected.”

Do you take Gehrman Sparrow for a fool?

Klein made the marionette curl the corners of his mouth slightly.

“As far as I know, a Rose Bishop can indeed hide inside another person’s body, but when he burrows out, the host dies on the spot.”

“No. That method is for avoiding detection, so the flesh must be fused with the host’s flesh and blood. This time, that is unnecessary. I will stay quietly inside your stomach pouch.” Mr. A gave a fairly detailed explanation.

No. Not my stomach pouch. Senor’s stomach pouch…

Klein had Gehrman Sparrow take out a gold coin and put on a show of attempting divination.

This mad adventurer kept muttering under his breath, and the gold coin began jumping between his fingers.

With a metallic ring, the coin flew into the air, then fell back into his palm.

Gehrman Sparrow gave it a careful glance and said, “It seems he is not lying.

“However, you must leave my body before I show that special symbol to Lady Despair.”

Otherwise, Gehrman Sparrow might very well be murdered by the two of them working together. If Panatiya obtained the “door-opening symbol” and controlled the obsidian slab, and if the remaining time were still relatively sufficient so that she did not need to worry about her Spirit Body Threads mutating, she would have no need for Gehrman Sparrow’s help at all. Mr. A’s presence would also prevent the use of Paper Figurine Substitute.

If Mr. A came out in advance, Gehrman Sparrow would have no worry in that regard. He would not even need to fear Panatiya turning on him after learning the door-opening symbol. At that point, he could rely on Paper Figurine Substitute to avoid certain death. Panatiya would not chase him inside the church, because as time passed, she would inevitably be hung up. She had to seize the chance and escape at once!

On the other hand, the obsidian slab could not be taken away. Gehrman Sparrow would still have a chance to escape later.

Although this plan still had certain flaws in the details, it had considered the situations of all three parties fairly comprehensively. The Demoness of Despair, Panatiya, raised a hand and caught a strand of hair that had slipped down her temple. Suddenly, she asked again, “If I leave first, are you not afraid of being ambushed?”

This was also what Gehrman Sparrow had worried about earlier.

Klein immediately had the marionette lift the corner of his mouth slightly.

“I am afraid.

“But I still have some methods of escape. I can gamble once.”

Panatiya paced irritably for two steps, then finally said, “Then we will do it this way.”

Once she made the decision, her smile became exceptionally relaxed.

“You truly are a special man. A man who lets me see hope. After we leave this place, if you are not afraid, I would not mind letting you experience what ultimate pleasure is.”

Gehrman Sparrow laboriously moved his eyes away and turned to look at Mr. A.

“I have no more problems.”

The wind abruptly rose. Mr. A flew down and landed not far from Gehrman Sparrow.

His body, along with his “clothes,” swiftly melted into a lump of sticky flesh.

Immediately afterward, that flesh continuously folded and compressed, turning into an arm-thick “stream” that flowed toward Gehrman Sparrow.

Inside the distant house, Klein felt slightly nauseous and dry-heaved once. Then he made Gehrman Sparrow open his mouth.

The “stream of flesh” immediately climbed up the marionette’s body and drilled into his mouth. That slightly warm yet slippery sensation passed through the esophagus and entered the stomach pouch.

Heavy… However, Mr. A’s flesh is helping support the stomach pouch so that it does not sag too much…

Klein examined the marionette, then had him lift his head and glance at the crimson moon, which was obscured by fog in midair. He then said to the Demoness of Despair, Panatiya, “Let us begin now.”

“Good.” Panatiya, already unable to restrain the impulse in her heart, walked impatiently toward the church entrance.

Klein had Gehrman Sparrow follow beside her. First, he casually pulled out a handful of hair. Then he made two fleshy sprouts grow from the skin of his arm and directly tore them off, making blood stream out.

If someone extremely familiar with me were here, they would definitely discover the problem, because I cannot be so decisive when harming my own body… Mm, in the eyes of others, the mad adventurer Gehrman Sparrow should be able to complete something like this with ease…

As Klein found the issue and summarized the experience, he had the marionette hand the hair and flesh to the Demoness of Despair, Panatiya, just as he crossed the half-open door of the ancient church.

Panatiya slowed her steps and took out an ugly palm-sized wooden doll. She smeared the flesh over it and wrapped the hair around its thin neck.

Holding the curse doll in one hand, she finally crossed the church entrance. Klein immediately had Gehrman Sparrow manipulate both their Spirit Body Threads. As for Mr. A’s, because they overlapped somewhat with the marionette’s, there was no need to handle them so carefully.

Uh, if even I can accomplish this, then with Zaratul’s displayed ability, He should completely be able to help Beyonders outside the Seer pathway resolve the issue of Spirit Body Threads easily going out of control inside the church. In that case, as long as He found a way to make the Demoness of Despair enter, He could have opened the door long ago… Why did He not do that? Is He unable to communicate with the outside of the church, and even His use of power is limited to the area near that pitch-black altar? Therefore, Beyonders outside the Seer pathway who are not Marionettists or above cannot reach Him at all?

Through the marionette’s senses, Klein analyzed the situation from afar.

Inside the church, those corpses remained suspended in midair, heads drooping, eyes rolled white. In the wind that occasionally blew through, they swayed gently and emitted dreamlike murmurs:

“Hornacis… Flegrea…

“Hornacis… Flegrea…”

Seeing this scene, the Demoness of Despair, Panatiya, stiffened slightly. But she soon adjusted and walked together with Gehrman Sparrow beneath the “downward gazes” of the hanged ones.

It did not take long before they saw the pitch-black altar and the statue of the ancient god’s descendant.

Zaratul still sat diagonally behind the stone statue, wearing a hood, his face covered with white beard.

Only when Gehrman Sparrow and Panatiya approached did He slowly lift His head and laugh.

“Very good. Beyonders of the Seer pathway must learn how to use their brains, rather than always thinking about fighting.”

He seemed to have foreseen that Gehrman Sparrow’s paper figurines had been nearly destroyed. He directly stretched out His withered hand and grabbed forward, drawing out a sheet of yellow-brown parchment, a feather pen filled with ink, and a bottle of ink.

This made the Demoness of Despair, Panatiya, unable to stop her brows from moving.

Zaratul picked up the feather pen and swiftly wrote words and symbols on the parchment. Then He rolled it up and handed it to Gehrman Sparrow.

“The ‘door-opening’ symbol, and the Bizarro Sorcerer potion formula you wanted.

“They can only last for three quarters of an hour. They cannot be taken to the outside world.”

Avoiding the Demoness of Despair, Klein unfolded the parchment and let the potion formula and “door-opening” symbol enter his eyes at the same time.

Suddenly, his gaze shrank and froze.

That “door-opening” symbol was largely identical to the complex symbol the Antigonus family notebook had provided through the Misfortune Cloth Puppet. It was a vertical eye formed from numerous mysterious patterns and concealed symbols!

However, there was one difference in the details between the two: a crescent-moon pattern and a zigzag mark had switched positions!