“Doctor, this—”
“A self-preservation mechanism. We’ve entered a secret area within his mind that he refuses to expose, so he’s preventing us from leaving. Hmm, this isn’t very surprising.”
The Doctor made a judgment with considerable familiarity.
Blazing flames licked at their faces and arms. They didn’t continue deeper for now, but stood at the entrance, surveying the interior of the accounting office.
It was still a fire scene. The room was quite large, with collapsed filing cabinets and archives piled on top of each other in the sea of fire. All the cabinet doors were open, and burning paper documents were scattered across the floor, desks, and various parts of the archives, as if someone had ransacked the place before the fire.
“Over there.”
The Doctor pointed to the most ornate desk at the back of the accounting office.
Neither of them paid any attention to the black wisps in the air. They bypassed the filing cabinets and found a man curled up beside a safe behind the desk. Banknotes were scattered around him, but strangely, these banknotes were not on fire.
The man showed no reaction to the footsteps behind him. The Doctor raised an eyebrow, gesturing for Xia De to speak, so Xia De cleared his throat:
“Luther Kinweiss?”
As soon as he spoke, the trembling, curled-up figure finally stirred. He turned his head, and Xia De saw the face of a man weeping in agony. Since there were no burn marks, that face could even be considered somewhat handsome. Xia De was not sure if they had found the right target.
“That’s the one.”
“That’s the one,” the Doctor said, then frowned slightly, because the weeping man actually lay on the ground, slowly crawling towards them, as if he wanted to hug Xia De’s legs. His speed was not fast, so Xia De stepped back and avoided him.
He had a very bad premonition.
Kinweiss lay on the one-pound banknotes, tears streaming down his face, and looked up, his body trembling as he asked him:
“Sir, are you willing to forgive me?”
The voice did not come from his mouth, but from all directions, as if the room itself was speaking.
Xia De immediately looked at the Doctor, while Doctor Schneider shook his head, making a speaking motion with his mouth:
“He’s asking you a question.”
The Doctor’s lip movements probably meant this, but Xia De didn’t understand lip-reading, so he couldn’t rule out the possibility that Doctor Schneider was asking if he still wanted a late-night snack today.
“I have no obligation to forgive you on behalf of others.”
Although he knew that saying “forgive” might prevent the dream master from losing control, Xia De didn’t want to do something against his will. Especially since he didn’t believe the opponent could defeat both of them.
The Doctor smiled and gestured to Xia De to continue.
“You, won’t forgive?”
The prostrate figure asked tremblingly, his swollen eyes looking at Xia De in surprise.
The flickering flames around them suddenly became still for the moment, but then immediately returned to normal.
A wind rose. A wind actually rose within the enclosed fire scene. That inexplicable wind did not make the re-flickering flames sway, but swept the black wisps in the air, quickly gathering towards the man’s body on the banknotes, staining his normal skin and clothes black. At the same time, thick black liquid rapidly gushed out from the floor beneath the banknotes.
Those black liquids, almost in the moment, formed a circular black mire beneath the prostrate body of Luther Kinweiss. The fluid in the mire swirled around him like a vortex, continuously rising.
But the crying man did not fall into the mire; instead, the pus clung to his body, gathering towards the right side of his body.
“Detective, something’s not right.”
Doctor Schneider stood behind Xia De, frowning.
In Xia De’s hand, the Moonlight Greatsword appeared:
“Doctor, was it better if I lied just now?”
But Doctor Schneider’s answer was completely suppressed by the voices coming from all directions in the sea of fire.
The malice conveyed by that resentful voice was even more disgusting than the black pus seeping from the floor at this moment:
“You actually won’t forgive me!”
The black Kinweiss braced his hands on the floor, suddenly raising his head in the sea of fire.
Before Xia De’s eyes, his left half of his body merely turned black, while his right half was completely enveloped in black pus. And when that pus covered his eye, a crimson light point appeared where his right eye had originally been.
Not only did the external pus gather on his body, but Luther Kinweiss’s own internal body also seemed to be gushing out that disgusting black liquid.
As he slowly rose, the black pus covering the right half of his body rapidly swelled and grew like a small tree. Before Xia De could draw his sword, the swollen right half of his body exploded in the moment, the surging pus causing the highest point of his right side to even touch the ceiling.
The black giant hand was like a bizarre tumor parasitic on a normal body, or like a giant tree growing on a human body. The normal left eye, full of hatred, and the crimson light point of the right eye simultaneously looked at Xia De:
“You! You actually won’t forgive me!”
“Moonlight Slash!”
That black giant hand slammed towards the accounting office floor with a violent gust of air, but the silver Moonlight was completely blocked by that giant hand.
Amidst the astonishing Vibration, the floor in the sea of fire completely collapsed. Xia De and the Doctor, unstable on their feet, along with the dream master infected by the demonic power, simultaneously fell from the third floor, passed over the vanished second-floor floor, smashed through the fragile first-floor floor, and, along with wood chips, stones, furniture, and debris, heavily landed in the basement surrounded by flames.
Even though Xia De was prepared, this fall was not light. Fortunately, he had the Miracle blessing applied by Doctor Schneider, so he immediately pushed away the wooden boards and stones on him and stood up from the sea of fire.
The black giant hand slammed onto the ground, causing pebbles and debris to splatter everywhere. Amidst the roaring growl and the earth’s Vibration, Kinweiss also stood up.
Above their heads, the broken hole extending down from the third floor clearly showed the cross-section of each floor, and around them, except for the clear space under their feet with no combustibles, flames completely surrounded them as they faced each other.
“Um, where did the Doctor go?”
“Roar~”
Like a completely irrational beast, Kinweiss charged at Xia De. The black giant hand was raised high, but the imbalance of his left and right body made the movement seem somewhat sluggish.
Xia De did not try to compete in strength with the opponent; instead, he rolled to the left, perfectly avoiding the attack just before the giant hand slammed down.
He agilely pushed off the ground with his left hand and jumped up. As Kinweiss tried to raise his right hand again, Xia De swung the Moonlight Greatsword in his right hand at the opponent’s swollen black right side.
Black pus immediately spilled out, but when Xia De pulled away his Moonlight Greatsword, he couldn’t see any scars left by the attack.
“Why is there no wound?”
The giant hand, like a colossal tree, had already been raised again, this time sweeping horizontally along the ground. A wave of heat rushed over. To prevent jumping too high and staying airborne for too long, only to be swatted to the floor like a mosquito by the opponent, Xia De chose to retreat backward this time.
Fortunately, the basement was very large, and Xia De dodged again. The horizontally sweeping black giant hand destroyed wooden boards and stone debris in the fire, making the crimson flames even more intense.
“He is the master of the dream; he will not die by your hand no matter what!”
The Doctor’s voice finally appeared from above. Xia De looked up during a lull in the fighting and saw the Doctor standing at the broken section of the first-floor floor. He was very lucky and didn’t fall directly into the basement like Xia De and Kinweiss.
“Xia De, can you delay and trap the opponent for three minutes? Don’t let the opponent leave the basement. Give me three minutes to set up the ritual!”
The Doctor’s meaning should be that if Xia De couldn’t do it, he would also join the battle, but that would waste more time.
“No problem, after all, he’s just an ordinary person… But what exactly is that black pus?”
Xia De asked knowingly, actually wanting to test the Doctor.
“Negative emotions, very strong negative emotions, but they don’t seem to be contagious, so just be careful.”
The Doctor replied, then quickly left the position above.
“It seems the Doctor didn’t recognize what this is.”
Xia De held his sword and looked at Kinweiss. The black pus on his body was undoubtedly the power of the “Human Pus Demon.” But compared to what he saw on Darkness, this power was pitifully weak.
And considering that the demon on Darkness had the ability to strengthen itself by absorbing negative emotions, it is highly possible that Darkness had already arrived in Tobesk and, after encountering Luther Kinweiss, saw his resentment and distortion, thus leaving his power on him.
“Human Pus should also be a type of body fluid similar to blood. If I drop this into my eye—”
Xia De was also startled by his bold idea, but no matter what, defeating the enemy in front of him was the current key. The opponent could be considered an extremely weakened version of a out-of-control, mentally deficient Ivan Darkness. This kind of combat experience was very useful.
“But why did the Doctor happen to encounter—oh!”
Kinweiss, who still hadn’t hit Xia De after his horizontal sweep, actually raised his right hand high and leaped high from the sea of fire, his body almost rising above the first-floor ground. The black, giantized limb slammed down from the air onto Xia De, who was lost in thought, with quite astonishing momentum.
Xia De rolled forward again. After feeling the flames rush from behind him and the ground vibrate with a rumble, he turned and swung a Moonlight blade with his left hand, then continued to retreat.
The Moonlight Slash left a wound on Kinweiss, but the wound healed almost immediately. As Kinweiss tried to stand up, Xia De seized the moment and unleashed three more Moonlight Slashes.
Although Xia De couldn’t kill the dream master in the dream, this kind of damage could, to some extent, weaken Kinweiss.
“Roar~”
His sanity seemed to be growing weaker and weaker; the color of a sentient being was no longer visible in his normal left eye. Kinweiss turned around, brandishing his giantized right hand, and Xia De held his sword, ready to respond. He hoped that the standoff between them could last longer, so that three minutes would pass quickly.
