Chapter 705: Death
"Charles, I'm sorry for not keeping the promise. If I had tried a bit harder, I could've stopped your property from falling into Cardinal's hand." Reynolds's voice was filled with regret and bitterness.
"Kill me and let my soul enter the Eternal River of Life than falling into the hands of some demon, Charles. All this time, I hoped that there would be a way to save myself from this situation. But after hearing this mister's explanation, I realized how naive I've been all this time." Tears dropped from the corner of his eyes and drenched his wrinkled face.
"Is there no other way? What if we use Stormheart Whisper's ability to extend his lifespan and think of a way to remove the demonization?" Charles hesitated.
Upon seeing this, Bishop Reynolds couldn't help but let out a bitter smile.
"I always thought of using you even when you are in a precarious situation. But you didn't hold any grudge and still trying to help me. What a pathetic man I was." His voice grew rough as he noticed that the runes that were blocking the eye patterns started to break slowly.
"It seems that Demon is forcefully taking over my body. Kill me, Charles." Bishop's voice grew hoarse.
At that moment, he suddenly thought of something and added.
"The Sinful Demon is still lurking in this City and waiting for the right time, Charles. And one more thing, this Demon has some connection with the Crown you possess."
"Crown?" Charles was stunned by Bishop's words and asked in puzzlement.
"The Sinful Demon appeared only after the arrival of the Holem Crown in this City. I don't think it's a mere coincidence."
"Bullshit!" Runeth couldn't help but glare at him.
"You think I will collude with some demon to cause chaos? Humph, don't you dare blame me for your own mistake."
As Runeth spoke, he noticed that the rune characters surrounding his body started to crumble at an incredible rate.
"Arrgghh!" Bishop Reynolds screamed as blood spurted out from those creepy eyes and spoke in a stutter.
"O-One more request. Please take care of my only child." As his words ended, Reynolds's eyes turned completely blood red and showed signs of insanity.
"Hurry up, lad. Don't let the Demon take control of his body and soul. I don't want to witness the Descend of Demon from Abyss using a puppet body."
A deep sigh leaked out of Charles's mouth.
"I also don't want to dirt the floor with blood again. Moreover, not with an ally's blood."
Taking a deep breath, he walked forward, unsheathed his long sword, and directly slashed at Bishop Reynolds' neck.
"Farewell, Father!"
Eerie dark blood splattered everywhere as Bishop Reynolds' head rolled over and soon landed at the kitchen entrance.
He didn't even have the power to scream as a strange dark aura surrounded his body and tried to take the shape of a humanoid figure with three heads.
But Runeth didn't wait for the Demon to take over the dying body completely and instantly moved closer.
He then squatted down, placed his hand on Reynolds's chest region, and uttered.
"Erase Existence!"
A second later, a powerful dark force came out of his hand and started disintegrating the dying body, the spattering blood, and even the rolling head.
In a moment, Reynolds's consciousness was completely erased from the Existence itself.
But before Runeth's dark power could erase the demonized soul, another invisible force came out of nowhere and pulled it into the astral realm.
"Tsk, that demon still managed to take his soul back." Reynolds clicked his tongue and shook his head.
"My spell's power has regressed a lot."
Meanwhile, Charles looked at the area where Reynolds's body was before and sighed.
"It seems I still have a long way to go. Although I wanted to search for the Sinful Demon or whatever, I don't it's my job." Charles quietly looked around and noticed that the living area looked rather empty.
"Runeth, can you install a teleportation circle in this house, so I can directly enter the Rebirth Fire from here?" He asked.
"Sure." Runeth nodded inwardly and then added.
"We can do it after we return from Ember Kingdom."
Nodding, Charles calmly gazed at the entrance and spoke.
"It seems it will take some time for the Cardinal to arrive here." Saying so, he walked towards the spiral staircase, went to the second floor, and soon reached his bedroom.
But as soon as he reached the bedroom, Charles noticed something was off and halted his footsteps at the entrance.
In the middle of his room, a sizable magical ritual circle had been etched, with a thumb-grey crystal resting at its core.
Runeth also followed him closely from behind and spoke as he looked inside.
"It seems they only use a divine array circle to maintain the link between the Nightmare World and the real world. Strange. This whole room is being merged with the Nightmare Realm, lad."
"Same thing that happened in the Star Tombs Dungeon layers?" Charles asked.
"Yes. Hmm, if we don't do something to stop this, some powerful nightmare creatures might escape from the Nightmare Realm and enter here. That thing happened in Dream God Phoebe's divine realm might reoccur." Runeth said as he slowly gazed at the three-beaded bracelet on his wrist.
"And I'm not sure how this unique bracelet of your will influence this place. In the worst case scenerio, the whole City or even this Kingdom might merge with the Nightmare Realm in a span of few years. At that moment, not even the 'Will' of this world will find it hard to stop this nightmare invasion."
"It seems we have to find a way to seal off this place and also this bracelet from influencing the outside world." Charles felt that he had involved himself with another troublesome matter again.
"Don't worry. It's way easier for me to severe the link from this house to the Nightmare Realm." Saying so, he walked closer to the divine array, inspected it slowly, and started writing rune characters in thin air.
In the meantime, Charles quietly moved a little away from the divine array circle and patiently waited for Runeth to break it.
...
After being chased out of the 45 El house, the Silver Armored Lady Knight Mary, Head Deacon David, the High Priest, and the other two priests returned to the Life Church in a hurry and informed the Bishop.
After that, Mary took the horse from the nearby carriage house, left the City in a hurry, and soon entered the dense woods.
She followed the lone dirt road in the woods for more than 15 minutes, entered fertile lands, and soon saw houses from time to time.
Before long, she saw a lone three-storied mansion building surrounded by a three-meter tall compound gate. Even the compound gate was entirely made of Iron and didn't even allow her to peek at what was hiding inside.
'I heard that many inhumane experiments are being conducted in this place. There are several missing cases also filed in the City's administration but no one dared to take this request and find out the cause. I also heard that there is some strange deal going on between Count Vossenburg and Cardinal Benedictus.'
While thinking, she arrived before the entrance gate and was instantly stopped by two knights clad in iron armor. Both appeared as tall as 6 feet, had muscular bodies, and held spears in their hands. One had unique red hair, while the other one had long black hair.
Even though she was as powerful as peak Rank-3 Mystic, she shuddered at their mere gazes.
"Are you a Knight from the Life Church? What are you doing here?" The Red-haired Knight instantly recognized the symbol on her armor and asked while pointing his spear at her throat.
'They are Rank-4 Mystics.' Unlike the Fake Origin Class Mystic like her, they were true Rank-4 Mystics and looked domineering.
She even sensed the invisible power around them and was amazed.
But compared to the moment when she faced Charles, this looked more like child's play, and she wasn't intimidated at all.
Mary instantly jumped from the horse, bowed her head, and answered.
"Two mysterious men took over 'that dream house' in El Street and asked His Eminence to come right away."
"Mysterious men? That earlier wisdom scan was one of their doing?" The other black-haired Knight asked with a frown.
"Yes. Both looked pretty strong and even made Lord David scared." Mary responded.
Upon hearing those words, both nodded their head and allowed her to enter inside.
"His Eminence is currently in an important meeting. But I don't think he will scold you once you mention the reason." The red-haired Knight paused as he recalled something and warned her before opening the tall metal gate.
"Also, when you enter this compound, you might see strange things. But don't get distracted by them and continue to walk."
Meanwhile, Mary gave the horse rope to the red-haired Knight and quietly stepped into the vast courtyard.
But as soon as she stepped inside, she felt that the whole surroundings appeared greyish color. It was as if the color seemed to have dimmed and appeared more like black and white.
But what startled her most was she saw many strange creatures like chickens with no heads, two-headed goats, horses with two tails, and even a human-faced monkey running here and there, giving her eerie goosebumps. She even saw the trees had creepy eyes and looked more like monsters from the nightmare itself.
