Chapter Thirty-Five
The cat purred softly, staring incredulously at the creature before it.
It pierced its own chest with the sharp bone, and blood slowly dripped down the bone to the ground.
Monsters that tried to approach it instinctively avoided it. They were all supposed to be bloodthirsty monsters, but in front of this guy, even the most ferocious beasts seemed to lose their appetite.
However, the reason is unclear, because its blood carries a strange fragrance and attraction. Logically, one should not be able to maintain rationality when smelling something and decide whether to pounce on it.
But now he is thinking very seriously because such a strange person has appeared in front of him.
Its blood flowed on the ground, each drop crisscrossing and forming a huge magic circle, as if it were a sacrificial lamb, as if this creature was about to offer itself up as a sacrifice.
"Who are you?" the cat asked again, slowly walking on the ground and circling around Ark.
An invisible barrier now surrounds Ark.
That's because its blood forms a protective magic circle. This is witchcraft using blood; such an evil technique shouldn't be in the hands of a merchant.
It made a sound like a spider crawling, but if you close your eyes, you can't tell where the sound is coming from. It might be very close, or it might be getting farther and farther away.
“Where is the coffin?” Yak said softly, not as a question, but as a statement.
As if giving a command.
The cat shuddered, realizing it wasn't being spoken to. It slowly turned its rotting neck to look behind it and in front of Ark.
It was a girl dressed in white, her face covered by a robe. She looked very small. The large robe covered her limbs.
She wore chains around her ears and neck, and it seemed she also had chains on her wrists and feet, which made a dragging sound as she walked.
“A rare guest. It’s been a long time since anyone’s been here.” The man slowly raised his head, seemingly looking at Ark. “We don’t have… refreshments. Sorry.”
“I’m not here for tea,” Yak sighed helplessly. “I just want to know who’s in the coffin here.”
“Uruk, Abaz, Ivenkrig.” Her voice was soft, but she pronounced the three names with perfect clarity. She didn’t explain what they meant; she just said them and then paused.
"Follow me."
After she finished speaking, she slowly turned around and walked into the depths of the street.
Yak followed behind, while the crows and cats stopped in their tracks.
The surrounding scenery continued to change; the buildings slowly turned into ruins, and after a while, they transformed into a forest.
For no apparent reason, they found themselves in a forest. A mist slowly rose around them, and Ark could only follow the creature in front of him.
Here, if you take even one wrong step, you'll never get out again, so he has to stick close to the guy in front of him.
It's actually not difficult, because if you stop, the guy in front of you will also stop and will shake the chains on his body to remind Ark to keep up with him.
Just like a child bringing a classmate home, for no apparent reason, Ark had just seen a hint of joy in her eyes.
Everything here is inexplicable; this is the first time Ark has ever seen such a "lock".
The consequences of the war between gods and demons were not limited to the chaos of elements, but also included the chaos of space itself.
The realms of hell and heaven, and the human world, are partially distorted together. By traveling along these distorted paths to places that do not belong to this world, one can see the legendary hell or heaven.
The paths through which one passes are called doors. These spaces are mostly small, and each has a guardian.
Just like that cat, as a monster in the truest sense, the eerie feeling it gives off is enough to make people linger.
As for the person in front of her, if she hadn't emphasized her name, she would be called Lock.
Yak still hoped she could have a decent name, because a beautiful girl should have a name that is different from others of her kind. Such a name would make an individual unique and prevent her from blending into the crowd and disappearing into the unknown.
Yak stopped and looked at the white crows in the sky watching him.
White crows are truly rare. Speaking of which, if a crow were white, could it still be called a crow? Ark's mind was a jumbled mess, and he subconsciously pondered these meaningless word games.
"Guest, please don't stop." The lock stopped as well, turned to Ark and whispered, "That thing is a trap."
Yak sighed helplessly and nodded, indicating that he understood.
Sure enough, most beautiful things like this are traps, and Ark noticed this to some extent. Because of the inexplicable malice emanating from this crow.
From this perspective, the lock looks so clean; at least so far, Ark hasn't sensed any hostility from her.
“Thanks for the reminder.” Yak said, walking a few steps to her side. “Speaking of which, you speak human language quite well.”
"Really? Thank you. I always feel like I don't speak very well..." Lock said with difficulty, but still managed a smile.
“I’ve been to a few places similar to this place, but I’ve never seen a lock like yours.” Ark carefully observed the guy, thinking about how to get information out of him.
"Really? What's the difference between me and similar things?"
“At least I’ve never seen a lock as friendly as yours. I once saw a giant skeleton that looked like a dog, and that guy bit me as soon as he saw me,” Ark said casually, trying to continue the conversation.
"Ha, haha." She chuckled a few times, as if it were an interesting topic: "Then it might be especially good for dogs."
"Possibly, after all, it's the first time I've ever seen a human-shaped lock."
After saying this, Yak received no reply, so he had no choice but to retreat behind her and follow her into the woods.
A very long time later, until even Ark felt it had been far too long, the lock in front of her stopped. Ark didn't stop and knocked her to the ground.
"I'm so sorry." Ark quickly got up, reached out to the lock lying flat on the ground, and pulled it up.
She didn't react to the unexpected incident; she simply nodded, and that was the end of it.
Yak looked at what was in front of him and took a few deep breaths to calm himself down.
It was a coffin, a wooden coffin. The age was indiscernible; it was just a coffin, and apart from that, there was no other information about it.
“I’ll reiterate the question from before: who’s in here?” Acton paused and said.
“Uruk, Abaz, Ivenkrig,” Locke repeated the cryptic conversation in a low voice.
"Could you please explain this to me, my lovely friend?" Akko was exasperated and had no choice but to ask.
"The names of the things inside here, these are the full names." Lock hesitated for a moment, then stood in front of the coffin and paused.
Yak realized the reason, shook his head, and expressed his helplessness.
“It’s empty here, there’s nothing inside,” the lock said softly as it walked over and stroked the coffin.
I don't know how many times I muttered this sentence, but the pauses that caused my unfamiliarity with the language were gone.
Yak watched as she pushed open the coffin in front of him, and just as she had said, it was completely empty.
Oh, except for that strange knife in the corner. The jet-black knife radiates an odd energy, neatly placed in the corner.
"As expected." Ark sighed. "I'll help find it."
Suo was stunned for a moment. Before she could say what she wanted to say, this guy had already said it on his own.
“Don’t look at me like that. Someone asked me to do this. I came here specifically for this.” Acton paused and said, “If that thing isn’t brought back, none of us will be in good shape.”
He quickened his pace, pulled the knife out of his pocket, and examined the patterns on it.
“Clarity in the void, is this sword Lanxing?” Akton paused and said, “Let me think, who used this weapon again?”
"Uruk..."
“Stop, I understand, you don’t need to repeat yourself.” Yak gestured for her to be quiet. “Let me think about what to do.”
After hesitating for a very long time, Ark looked up at the lock and said:
"Do you have the ability to suppress that thing?"
"If I can find it, I can bring it back." Lock said with great difficulty, while trying his best to show that he would help: "But I can't just leave here."
“But you have a way out, right?” Ark looked at her. “Please, I need your help. I can help you deal with that thing, but I don’t have a way to seal it away.”
This time, the lock remained silent for an even longer period.
"Wait for me a moment." Suo tugged at her clothes, her face obscured, seemingly a little embarrassed.
She seemed to slowly fade away, her clothes falling loose. Her already small body grew smaller and smaller until finally, her clothes fell to the ground.
"Meow." A cat's voice came from inside. It slowly came out and looked at Ark with its big eyes open.
Yak held his head, not really wanting to look at this guy.
Because it was still a strange creature, its entire body was white, but starting from the back of its neck, scales grew along its cervical vertebrae, and then down to its entire tail, which turned into a cold, sinister snake.
Should we say that a cat grew out of the back of a snake, or that a cat had a snake on its back?
And those wings—thankfully, they weren't the spider legs we saw at the entrance; they were normal winged creature wings. Behind the cat, it slightly raised its paws, revealing its abdomen adorned with strange patterns.
It's a place that looks like a keyhole. It's red.
"Hey, outsider." Suddenly, Ark heard a strange voice behind it. It turned around and looked at the monster.
It was a person, who covered his body with a robe like a lock. But his skin was an eerie reddish-black, and he was hunched over.
It appeared to be male, but for a man, this fellow was excessively sinister. He wasn't tall, small as a lock. Behind his robe, one could see the bony protrusions on his back—the sharp spines of his cervical vertebrae piercing his skin.
It stood unsteadily, so it used a long-handled sickle to support itself on the ground. In its other hand, it held a short-handled sickle, and the necklace around its neck swayed in the air because of its hunched posture. It was a cross, but instead of Jesus, a cat was bound to it. And behind it, it seemed as if a giant spider was trying to encircle it.
Yak remembered that there was a similar necklace around Suo's neck, but he had never had a chance to see it clearly... In fact, it was impossible to see it clearly anyway, as it was hidden by the robe. The only way to see it would be to do something that would get him slapped.
This must be the cat that blocked our way earlier, Ark deduced simply. This guy is the guardian of this place.
“If she gets hurt, I will hunt you down to the ends of the earth.” He held the scythe to Ark’s neck, swinging it so fast it was almost imperceptible.
“Hey, he’s a guest. No, that’s rude.” The white cat jumped onto the coffin, folded its wings behind it, and looked at him, saying, “This place, please, stay here.”
“Grey, you shouldn’t trust a guy you’ve just met.” The guy called Dark mumbled indistinctly, “He might have been involved in the theft.”
Even as he said this, he removed the scythe from Ark's neck, braced himself on the ground, and let out a cold snort at the guy.
"I don't remember anyone telling us to trust these kinds of people of unknown origin."
"But I remember someone mentioning his blood."
“I know, I know, the locks in other dimensions tell you how reliable someone with this kind of blood is. But I don’t trust this guy I’ve just met.” An turned his head and looked at Ark, who was making a helpless expression. “He always gives me a feeling that he’s untrustworthy.”
Gray turned his head and saw Ark playing with the knife in his hand. That was the weapon used by Lanxing, the guy in the coffin.
He could temporarily possess this weapon; it was a good weapon, no less powerful than the half-bones still embedded in his chest. After all, it was a weapon created by one of those demon gods long, long ago, before the order of this world had been established.
She couldn't deny what he had said; this guy was indeed untrustworthy. If she hadn't been forced to, she wouldn't have chosen to believe him.
But he seemed very familiar with these things, and he even had a way to enter from the real world. This place isn't open to just anyone; it's hard to say whether more than ten people know how to get in.
That's why she called this guy a rare guest, because it had been a very, very long time since anyone had come here.
Continue read on readnovelmtl.com