Chapter 38: Chapter 35: Regression Day, Prison Break, and the White Fog
Hira and Al had left. Baron also said goodbye to the Little Nun and Sessi.
Sessi was reluctant to see him go. She used a charcoal stick to draw a black stick figure on the ground, then drew a smaller one. Pointing to the taller figure, she babbled at Baron.
Demon Hunter L understood the girl’s meaning. He patted her head, but only smiled and walked silently into the quiet night.
His destination was Mundra Prison. There were some questions he needed to clear up in person!
「 」
Mundra Prison was located in a village outside Mundra Town. It was originally guarded by the town’s prison guards, but with the arrest of the Baron and Lady Baroness, Demon Hunters from Yalilan had taken over.
"Halt! Who goes there in the middle of the night?"
In the firelight, the brute who had tried to elbow Baron earlier—only to be counter-elbowed himself—recognized the newcomer.
"L! So it’s you!"
He drew his sword, pointing it at the slender, dark figure that seemed to blend into the moonlit night. "Without an order from the Lord Viscount or Lord Andre, no one is to approach this prison!"
He raised his sword. "Trespassers will be considered accomplices and cut down!"
With a resonant SHING, swords were drawn, their silver light splashing like mercury.
The Demon Hunters all drew their Alchemy Swords. Their expressions were grim, and the black Alchemy Circuits that appeared on their faces made them look both deadly and solemn.
The brute brandished his sword and shouted, "L, back down now!"
Demon Hunter L remained expressionless, his gaze calm. "I have urgent business to investigate. If you don’t believe me, you can go ask the Lord Viscount, or your Lord Andre."
No one responded. The swords remained drawn, the moonlight reflecting off the blades casting a cold, white gleam on every face.
The brute sneered. After Andre had backed down to Baron, he hadn’t found a chance to cause trouble for him. Now, an opportunity had just presented itself.
L glanced around. The Demon Hunters’ faces were stern, looking as if they would cut him down at the slightest disagreement.
Although they were under Andre’s command like the brute, they were more loyal to the brute, who came from the same place they did.
’The vassal of my vassal is not my vassal, huh? To think I’d run into such a textbook case even in an Otherworld.’
The corner of Demon Hunter L’s mouth twitched into a smirk. Without hesitation, he drew his revolver and pulled the trigger.
BOOM!
The explosion was like the roar of a great beast. Billowing smoke filled the air as the Demon Hunters instinctively raised their swords and retreated. The sheer force of the blast left them dizzy, their ears ringing, nearly causing them to drop their blades.
"L, you’re forcing your way into the prison! You tried to kill your own comrades! I will report this to the Lord Viscount and have you sentenced for your crimes!" the brute yelled, swinging his sword in the smoke.
But when the smoke cleared, the massive crater revealed in the ground made his shouts seem utterly hollow and weak.
Everyone was stunned by the immense destructive power. The faces of the Demon Hunters changed, all thinking what would have happened if that blast had hit them.
Demon Hunter L aimed his revolver at the brute and his cronies. "I don’t want to explain myself a second time. Get out of my way. I have urgent business to attend to!"
"Get out of the way!"
This time, it wasn’t L who spoke, but the brute. He roared at his companions, "You’ll be held responsible if you hinder the lord’s investigation!"
L paid no mind to the brute’s attitude change, which was faster than a chameleon’s. He just told the Demon Hunters to wait outside and entered the great prison himself, revolvers in hand.
The brute wasn’t sure if it was a trick of the light, but for a split second as L walked through the gate, he thought he saw faint golden threads appear in his pupils.
An unknown amount of time passed. By the time wisps of fog began to crawl across the moon and the Demon Hunters on guard were growing drowsy, the outlander Demon Hunter finally emerged from the prison.
The brute went up to him, intending to ask what he had investigated.
But the Demon Hunter just retreated wearily, leaning slowly against the main gate and gazing up at the thick fog that was starting to spread across the sky as the Reverse Sun approached.
"Got a smoke?"
The brute took out his pipe and lit it for L.
L exhaled a puff of smoke and said a single sentence. It was just one sentence, but it made the brute and the other Demon Hunters’ faces drain of color. They grabbed their swords and scrambled into the prison like wild dogs, only to re-emerge just as frantically.
"They’ve escaped..." the brute muttered. "The Baron and the Blood Demon have escaped! I have to inform the Lord Viscount immediately..."
"But sir, the Reverse Sun will be here in a few minutes. Once the fog sets in, the Demon Beasts within will attack anyone enveloped by it. It’s too late now," another Demon Hunter said in a low voice.
"Are we just going to stand here and watch the escaped Blood Demon go on a killing spree?!" the brute snapped. "Get me a horse! The Blood Demon’s prison break is a major event; the Lord Viscount must be informed!"
A prison guard brought a horse, but the brute didn’t mount it.
"It’s too late..." The Demon Hunters stared at the second moon, which was faintly rising in the sky.
"The white fog of the Reverse Sun is here! Draw swords! Draw swords! Draw swords!"
The brute shouted "Draw swords" three times. After a moment’s hesitation, he tossed a sword to L, who seemed to be ignoring the commotion—it was one of his own twin blades.
Everyone drew their swords with practiced discipline, their Hunter’s Eyes flickering. At some point, their surroundings had been completely enveloped by the thick fog.
The prison guards who had been watching the prisoners inside were also summoned by the brute. They were yawning, as if they had just woken from a pleasant dream.
White fog. The mist was thick, and the faint, low growl of some creature echoed from within it, carrying a phantom scent of blood.
"Beast! There’s a Beast coming toward us!"
Some of the younger Demon Hunters shouted. They could see thick, slimy, cylindrical shadows—what looked like the tentacles of some creature.
"It’s a Dream-eating Beast! It feeds on human memories! Don’t let its suckers touch you!"
The brute roared after pulling an old booklet from his coat and flipping through it.
L recognized the booklet. It was the Book of Sin, exclusive to Silver Faction Demon Hunters.
Advancement in the Silver Faction required a Magic Potion, and the potion required the Demon’s Blood of a demon slain by one’s own hand.
The Book of Sin automatically recorded the true names of slain demons and displayed the Magic Potion recipes that could be concocted from their body parts.
In the darkness, a massive shadow rose slowly behind the fog. Its body was enormous, seemingly coiled yet unrestrained, like thousands of sea serpents tangled together.
The monster hiding in the fog, the Dream-eating Beast, had its sights set on the Demon Hunters. From the darkness, it extended massive tentacles, one after another, each tens of yards long.
The Demon Hunters and prison guards drew their swords and fought back against its tentacles. Their blades struck true, drawing blue blood.
It was pitch black all around. The air was filled with a chaotic mess of shouts, clamor, and the clash of metal. It was impossible to tell what was happening where. Even now, they still hadn’t seen the true form of the monster behind the fog.
Not until L lit a sandalwood pipe and threw the burning bowl toward the back of the fog were the hundreds upon hundreds of emerald green eyes—like those of a young girl—revealed.
The moment they saw those eyes, it was as if a clap of muffled thunder exploded in everyone’s mind.
"Bronze... It’s a Bronze Tier Demon! We can’t beat it! We should run!"
One of the prison guards, recognizing from the color of the eyes that this enemy was far beyond their league, dropped his sword with trembling hands and fled back toward the prison.
This action caused some of the other guards to throw down their weapons and run back to the prison as well, creating a gap in what had been an ironclad formation.
Because of the gap, a young Demon Hunter was snatched from behind by a tentacle and lifted into the sky. His shriek was bloodcurdling, but it was abruptly cut short. A moment later, a warm, wet rain fell from above.
The brute wiped his face. It was blood.
"Ande’s dead! Ande’s dead!"
The young Demon Hunter’s companion screamed, his voice filled with anguish.
A tentacle shot out from behind, aiming for him. The brute lunged forward but failed to sever it. Just then, a dark figure swooped down like a swift. The moment a sword was drawn, moonlight condensed on the blade in a flash of blue blood.
L flicked the blue blood from his sword and looked at the brute. "I have lamp oil. We’ll use fire."
Before the brute could even agree, he saw L produce a barrel of lamp oil from nowhere and pour it all over a tentacle the Dream-eating Beast was slamming down at him.
"A torch! Who has a torch? Flint and steel will work too! Don’t let this guy from Feinan steal all our glory!"
The brute yelled. Someone handed him a torch, and he threw it at the monster with all his might. The flames suddenly erupted.
In the blink of an eye, the monster became a writhing, colossal pillar of fire. Its hundreds of eyes cracked in the heat, bursting and scattering on the ground, where the Demon Hunters impaled them with their swords to extinguish them.
"The fire attack worked!" the Demon Hunters said in joyful surprise.
The Dream-eating Beast was like a fish on a red-hot chopping block, writhing and dancing in the blaze before collapsing with a great crash as the fog began to dissipate.
Before the crowd could celebrate their victory in a battle far above their level, the NEIGHHH of a horse tore through the hard-won silence. A figure, hunched over the horse’s back, shot out and slipped silently into the night.
It was L.
Just then, the brute seemed to realize something. He walked over to the dead monster and saw a torch lying on the ground, burning slowly—it was the one he had thrown.
He found the iron barrel Baron had used to pour the lamp oil. There was still some residue at the bottom.
He poured the "lamp oil" onto the torch. The torch went out.
It clearly wasn’t lamp oil. It was water.
But why...
The brute’s heart sank. He looked in the direction Baron had disappeared.
There, the fog was beginning to thin, revealing a long road bathed in moonlight, profound and mysterious.
「 」
Baron spurred his horse to the place where he had seen the Demon Hunters gathering during the day, but he didn’t see a single person.
He hesitated for a moment, intending to ride to the Baron’s Mansion alone, but then he heard stumbling footsteps emerge from the darkness.
Baron cautiously drew his revolver and aimed it at the figure gradually appearing in the mist...
THUMP. The young man carrying the girl with braided hair collapsed to the ground. He looked up at Baron, his face streaked with what could be tears or blood, his voice a mixture of grief and hatred. "She’s dead..."
"Dead? Who?"
Baron frowned, looking at the braided-haired girl on the young man’s back, a sense of foreboding creeping into his heart.
"Hira..."
"What happened to Hira!?"
The young man lowered the girl from his back and hugged her with all his might, as if clutching a boneless doll. He murmured, "Hira is dead. The Blood Demon killed her."
A roar filled Baron’s head, and his mind went completely blank.
