Chapter 148: A Semitransparent Little Worm

Chapter One Hundred Forty-Eight
A Semitransparent Little Worm

“Are you looking for me…”

The moment the voice entered his ears, Derrick froze. Every inch of his skin tightened, and every hair on his body stood upright.

How is he behind me?

How did he appear inside my room?

What about the seal?

What about the effect of that magical item?

Cold sweat seeped from Derrick’s forehead. Instinctively, he was about to turn and look back.

But his instinct stopped that movement.

And that instinct came from the City of Silver’s course on “Common Monster Knowledge,” as well as some strange scenes he had experienced after joining the patrol team:

When someone speaks behind you, do not rush to turn around!

Derrick lifted both hands and clasped them into fists before his chest. Then, under extreme vigilance, he slowly, inch by inch, half turned his body.

The room was sunk in profound darkness, leaving nothing visible. Yet in each of Derrick’s eyes, a speck of golden light expanded, turning into two miniature suns.

With the aid of his Light Suppliant ability, he saw a black shadow quietly sitting at the edge of his bed.

That shadow rapidly became clear, revealing a head split vertically down the middle!

Within the middle of that head, two grayish-white halves of a brain wriggled as though alive, wanting to draw close to each other yet unable to do so.

From the severed surfaces of the brain, viscous liquid drooped down into thin threads, only to shrink upward like maggots.

The eyes, each on one side, were very far apart. The bridge of the nose was split in two, and the blood was vivid and fresh.

The left half of the mouth grinned open, while the right half stayed tightly shut.

This terrifying monster was naked. Across its body lay one dark-red wound after another, running this way and that.

Those countless wounds split open ferociously, revealing rows of ghastly white teeth. Without order, they all spoke the same sentence:

“Are you looking for me…”

It paused. The corners of its mouth and the edges of its wounds all lifted at once.

“Look. Am I not very normal…”

Derrick’s pupils contracted sharply. Without thinking, he lifted his clasped fists from before his chest to beneath his chin, as though in prayer.

The cramped room suddenly brightened. A pure beam of light twined with flames descended from the ceiling and struck that monster.

The beam was not as brilliant as when Derrick used it outside the round tower, because the seal here, and the magical item here, cut off inside from outside.

But at that moment, Derrick stared in astonishment as the sacred beam of light he had prayed forth abruptly thickened. It became so dazzling that he almost could not stop himself from closing his eyes.

Vaguely, within that grand, resplendent pillar of light, something even purer and richer separated out, like a figure made of light with no features and no clothing.

That “light figure” flashed violently and pounced upon the monster.

All of the monster’s “mouths” opened at once, as though it were releasing a shrill scream.

However, Derrick heard nothing.

The monster trembled violently. Under the “light figure’s” burning and radiance, it swiftly collapsed and disintegrated, vanishing as though melting away.

When it was close to transparent, an illusory figure strangely appeared there—a figure wearing a black classical robe and a pointed soft hat.

The figure had black hair, black eyes, a broad forehead, a thin face, and wore a monocle carved from crystal.

The moment it appeared, the “light figure” abruptly exploded. Derrick’s eyes were filled with blazing white.

When his vision recovered, he discovered that at some point, he had already appeared outside the room. He was now standing in the corridor inlaid with one metal lamp bracket after another, illuminated by dim yellow light.

He turned his head in a daze and looked back into the room. He saw a tall, sturdy back clad in dark trousers and a brown coat.

In front of that back, upon Derrick’s original bed, rays of light like dawn were rapidly gathering onto a white leg bone, transforming it into a sharp, pure-white straight sword.

Beside the sword lay a semitransparent little worm.

It was only the length of a thumb, slender—almost the size of a child’s little finger. Its entirely transparent rings divided it into many segments.

Derrick glanced at it and did not count the rings carefully. He only vaguely felt there were around ten.

The tall figure with his back to him reached out and picked up that strange semitransparent little worm. As he turned around, he sighed.

“So close…”

At that moment, Derrick finally saw the front of that tall figure clearly.

His hair was graying and unkempt, making it seem rather messy. His nasolabial folds were deep, yet there were no wrinkles at the corners of his eyes or upon his forehead. On his cheeks remained old scars, some deep, some twisted.

He wore a flax-colored shirt underneath, and at his waist was a belt divided into many compartments. His light-blue eyes were deep and weathered, and his whole person resembled a book filled with stories.

Derrick first froze, then, with the joy of having survived danger, blurted out, “‘Chief’!”

The one standing before him was none other than the “Chief” of the City of Silver’s six-member council, the powerful Demon Hunter, Colin Iliad, whose age exceeded one hundred years!

Colin lightly nodded.

“We always knew he had a problem. But in order to figure out what that person named Amon was truly trying to do, and what strange qualities he possessed, we deliberately did not cleanse him directly. Instead, we imprisoned him at the bottom of the round tower, sealed within the influence of the magical item, and often had Beyonders who merely showed signs of losing control live next to him and speak with him, to see whether we could induce abnormal changes in him and obtain the information we wished to understand.

“Unfortunately, before today, he had always been very normal. But too normal.

“Why do you think he suddenly changed today and suddenly attempted to pass through the seal? What makes you feel that you are different from the others?”

So they deliberately arranged for me to live beside that former exploration team captain…

With some dawning understanding, Derrick fell silent for a few seconds and said, “Perhaps because my Beyonder pathway is different from the others. Sequence 9: Bard. Sequence 8: Light Suppliant.”

In other words, the Sun pathway… If Mr. Hanged Man is not wrong, and the Amon family are the descendants of the ancient Sun God, then it is perfectly normal for me to cause him to change…

Derrick felt that he had grasped a certain truth.

Colin listened without any change in expression. He sized Derrick up and down for several seconds.

“We had him under surveillance. Members of the six-member council took turns being responsible for it. But we did not expect him to suddenly change without the slightest warning, and to act with such decisiveness and determination.

“What were you doing in the room just now?”

Derrick was still thinking about the connection between the Sun pathway and the descendants of the ancient Sun God. For a moment, he failed to react to what the Chief was asking.

When he understood, his head still felt somewhat wooden. He carefully recalled what he had been doing just now.

I did not do anything. I only knocked on the partition wall, trying to communicate with him… Before that—before that, I was attending the Tarot Gathering… The Tarot Gathering!

Derrick suddenly froze. He felt that the matter was probably not as simple as he had imagined.

He understood that what he was thinking absolutely could not be told to the Chief, yet he did not know what sort of expression he should make. He could only maintain his usual lonely, introverted silence, then thoughtfully say, “I knocked on that wall. I knocked three times.

“Before that, the candle in my room had gone out. It was completely dark. I had tried practicing part of my Beyonder abilities.”

Colin quietly looked into Derrick’s eyes. More than ten seconds passed before he said, “What a pity. What Amon left inside his soul was not the main body. And because events occurred too suddenly, we failed to obtain the result we wanted most…

“Before he changed, did you sense anything abnormal?”

“No.” Derrick shook his head with complete certainty.

Within Colin’s eyes, two complex dark-green symbols suddenly surfaced, reflecting Derrick’s figure between them.

After nearly ten seconds of silence, the Chief of the City of Silver closed his eyes briefly.

“Your condition has stabilized. You no longer need treatment. You may go back.”

Derrick was startled.

“All right.”

He watched Demon Hunter Colin Iliad turn and enter the room, picking up the sharp, pure-white straight sword and inspecting it over and over.

Derrick quietly drew a breath. He followed the passage toward the exit, encountering the guards who arrived one after another.

After slowly returning home and closing the door properly, he carefully observed his surroundings for a while. Then he sat on the edge of the bed and recited in a low voice:

“The Fool that does not belong to this era; You are the mysterious ruler above the gray fog; You are the King of Yellow and Black who wields good luck.”

“I just experienced a terrifying matter…”

Derrick recounted everything that had just happened exactly as it was, and mentioned his two guesses.

After doing all that, he calmed down quite a bit.

As the tension faded, he felt intense fatigue. He lay down and quickly entered sleep.

Inside the quiet, dim room, bolts of lightning sometimes illuminated everything and sometimes vanished into darkness.

The sleeping Derrick’s right index finger suddenly twitched on its own and began leisurely tapping the surface of the bed.

Once. Twice. Three times…

…

After the Tarot Gathering ended, because his spirituality had been consumed rather heavily, Klein did not divine the Werewolf Beyonder characteristic or the Biological Toxin Bottle. Instead, he directly returned to the real world and, taking advantage of the chance, napped. Twenty minutes later, he woke, pulled open the curtains, and let the radiance piercing through the thin fog bring some brightness into the room.

Sitting at the chair before his desk, Klein quieted his heart and began considering the matters he needed to handle recently:

“The most important thing is still to continue summarizing the Magician’s rules and adjust them according to the subtle feedback from my spirituality.

“Although, from the current view, rules such as ‘a performance is not made without preparation,’ ‘a stage and a performance are needed,’ and ‘one is skilled at completing performances by diverting others’ attention’ all have no major problems, if I keep performing like this and adjusting myself little by little, I will sooner or later digest the potion enough to advance. But this acting is still insufficient. It still lacks some important rules, which will make digestion slow and not thorough enough. Perhaps it will take one year, or even two or three, before I can advance.

“And Ince Zangwill will not remain where he is waiting for me! Only by becoming a high-Sequence Beyonder as soon as possible will I possess the qualifications for revenge!

“Therefore, exploring the other Magician rules is the foremost task from now on. I will begin by verifying whether ‘the audience’s applause’ can stir one’s spirituality and thereby better digest the potion.”

Just as Klein was calmly thinking, illusory, layered prayers suddenly sounded beside his ears.