"Didn't I tell you to get out?"
Roy's eyes narrowed. This middle-aged Black man really had no manners.
Only athletes and coaches were allowed in the lounge. Outsiders weren't supposed to be here.
Normally, the staff should have stopped unauthorized people from entering. He wondered how this middle-aged Black man had gotten in.
Could this dude also be a coach?
Didn't look like it!
The middle-aged Black man was wearing a well-fitting suit and had a gold watch on his wrist. You could tell at a glance that he was loaded, and not in a nouveau riche kind of way.
Totally different from those Black guys on the street who flash gold chains all over themselves as soon as they get some money.
"Excuse me for dropping in unannounced. My name is Don King, and I'm a boxing promoter."
The middle-aged Black man handed Roy a business card.
Don King? A boxing promoter?
Roy immediately thought of Tyson's second boxing promoter. This was the guy who maximized Tyson's commercial value but also led to Tyson's rapid downfall.
While Tyson's decline was largely his own fault, this boxing promoter's influence definitely played a role.
"I know who you are. Did you come all the way here to sign me?"
"Yes, Mr. Black. I watched your last fight, and then I looked up recordings of your other matches. After seeing this one, I'm convinced you're the next Mike Tyson I've been looking for!"
In this day and age, Mike Tyson was the idol of countless boxers. Every boxer dreamed of becoming a heavyweight champion like Tyson and making tons of money.
Too bad Roy didn't need a boxing promoter like Don King. He was confident in his fighting style and looks. Even an average boxing promoter could get him huge commercial value.
So there was no need to get squeezed by Don King. Top-tier boxing promoters like him took a big cut, and they were more trouble than they were worth.
Rather than being manipulated by a boxing promoter like Don King, Roy might as well have one of his girls be his boxing agent.
It was just a license anyway, and Roy would trust his own woman to handle things more.
"Sorry, but I'm not planning on signing with a boxing promoter right now. I still have to go to college."
Don King frowned slightly. He had single-handedly promoted over a dozen boxing champions including Muhammad Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, Larry Holmes, and Mike Tyson. He was one of the top boxing promoters and promoters in the boxing world.
Very few boxers would turn him down. Roy seemed to have made up an excuse about going to college, but he was actually still rejecting him.
"Mr. Black, with your talent, you don't need to waste time going to college at all, and you definitely don't need to participate in any Olympics. The professional boxing world is the path you should take!"
Roy smirked coldly. In the end, it all came down to profit.
Boxing promoters couldn't take a cut from amateur boxing matches, so Don King was trying to persuade Roy to go directly into the professional boxing world.
This guy really was the kind of boxing promoter who only cared about making money and didn't care about the boxer's own thoughts.
Roy looked disgusted.
"Sorry, Mr. King! I'm not planning on entering the professional boxing world right now. If there's nothing else, please leave. I need to change!"
Don King still wanted to say something, but Roy punched a locker, denting the metal door.
The dude's eyes instantly went wide.
"Uh, Mr. Black, I still advise you to consider it carefully! I'll be going now!"
Don King didn't dare to stay in the lounge any longer and hurried out.
In the hallway, Don King's face turned gloomy.
"Damn bastard! A little amateur boxer actually dared to threaten me!"
Muttering curses, Don King took out his cell phone and started making a call.
"Hey! This is King. I need you to help me check someone out. This person's name is Roy Black, from Texas... Yes, the sooner the better!"
After hanging up, Don King was still muttering curses.
"Little punk! Don't let me catch you slipping!"
Back in the day, boxing matches were often tied to the mob, so all the old-school boxing promoters had some kind of background. Otherwise, they wouldn't even know when they'd get whacked.
After all, the stakes involved in boxing matches were huge.
But before Don King finished cursing, Roy happened to come out of the lounge.
"Why are you still here?"
Don King's expression instantly changed. He now saw Roy as the kind of hothead who was best left alone. As a billionaire, Don King definitely didn't want to get his butt kicked for nothing.
"I'm leaving right now!"
The dude took off like he was running the hundred-yard dash and disappeared from Roy's sight in the blink of an eye.
After leaving the competition venue and shaking off a bunch of sports reporters, Roy drove his Bumblebee back to the private hospital.
Roy was still a bit worried about Claire.
Fortunately, nothing had happened to Claire, and she was getting along well with Jennifer. There hadn't been any catfights or hair-pulling.
"Jennifer, how are things?"
"Everything's normal. It seems Death has shifted its attention to other targets."
That fit the setup in the "Final Destination" movies.
"Shall we start the ritual then?"
"We need to wait until midnight, and we still need to prepare some materials."
The materials were actually quite simple – mainly white candles and some fresh blood with magical power. The key to this ritual was still to put Claire into a state of suspended animation.
Roy would mainly provide the fresh blood, and Lilith went to buy the white candles.
As it approached midnight, Roy moved the hospital bed to make space. Lilith would use Roy's blood to draw a magic circle.
If a nurse happened to come in for rounds at this time, they would probably think Roy and the others were performing some kind of dark ritual.
Drawing the magic circle was very quick. Lilith then placed 13 candles around the magic circle.
"Claire, the effect of this ritual is to lower your presence. After the ritual is successful, your presence will become very low. You need to be mentally prepared for that."
Claire paused, surprised.
"You mean people around me won't be able to see me?"
Lilith shook her head.
"That kind of invisibility isn't what low presence means. Low presence means that in the presence of other people, you will often be ignored."
This situation wasn't very serious in some ways, but quite serious in others. For someone with social anxiety, it might even be a good thing, but for someone who was socially adept, it would be quite unpleasant.
"Jennifer, can the effect of this ritual be reversed?"
"Yes."
"Claire, then you don't need to worry. Once I find a way to resolve the Grim Reaper's curse, we'll help you return to normal!"
Claire nodded obediently.
"Then let's begin! Claire, take off all your clothes and lie down in the center of the magic circle."
Having to take off all her clothes again, Claire couldn't help but feel a little shy, but she still followed Lilith's instructions, took off her clothes, and lay down on the cold floor.
Lying naked on the floor late at night was still quite cold, and Claire couldn't help but shiver.
Jennifer glanced at her watch to check the time.
"Okay, it's about time! Listen, Claire, next I'm going to put you into a state of suspended animation. Your consciousness will enter a state similar to lucid dreaming. Remember, you absolutely must not struggle, and don't let your mind wander."
"I, I understand!"
Having contact with this kind of supernatural power for the first time, Claire couldn't help but feel a little nervous, but after feeling Roy's gaze, she slowly calmed down.
Claire didn't want to die, so she had to complete this ritual.
Lilith placed her hand on Claire's face and recited a spell that Roy couldn't understand. It was probably some kind of lost ancient language.
Gradually, Claire closed her eyes, and her breathing became weaker and weaker, just like she was dead.
At exactly 12 o'clock, Claire had completely stopped breathing. She was no different from a dead person. If it weren't for believing Lilith's words, Roy would have really thought Claire was dead.
"Claire has entered a state of suspended animation. Next, we need to wait for the Grim Reaper to come and confirm."
Lilith's words surprised Roy greatly.
"The Grim Reaper will come here to confirm whether Claire is dead?"
Lilith nodded.
"However, this Grim Reaper might not be what you imagine. It's a conceptual Grim Reaper, without a comprehensible entity, so it can't be observed with the naked eye. We can only judge whether it has come through changes in the environment."
"Then what kind of environmental changes are the signs that the Grim Reaper has been here?"
Just after asking this question, Roy felt a sudden inexplicable chill, and at the same time, some water droplets inexplicably appeared on the hospital room window.
Roy quickly activated his Eye of Truth. His golden pupils scanned the ward, and he indeed saw black gas filling the room, just like a chemical factory.
A moment later, the black gas suddenly disappeared again, and along with it, the chill that Roy and Lilith had felt.
"Phew, the Grim Reaper has already left."
Roy was a little surprised.
"It left just like that?"
"Yes! The way the Grim Reaper judges death is different from us humans. It only needs to pass over Claire's body to determine if she is alive."
Roy's expression became strange. This Grim Reaper sounded like it had some kind of detection mechanism, but it was like an AI with loopholes.
"Okay, Roy, give me some more blood. I need to draw a magic circle on Claire's body! I don't have much time left. If we don't hurry, Claire might really die."
The state of suspended animation naturally wouldn't be without a price. People who entered it were indeed at the critical point between life and death. If it dragged on for too long, it was possible for the suspended animation to turn into real death.
And this time frame was very difficult to grasp. It completely depended on the individual's physical condition.
Claire had just been injured in the middle of the night, and her body was relatively weak, so the faster they acted, the better.
Finally, with Lilith's efforts, the drawing of the magic circle was completed at 12:12. Then Lilith woke Claire up.
"Huff... huff... huff..."
Claire breathed rapidly a few times. The expression on her face was very complicated – a fear of death, and a relief of having survived.
"I almost thought I was really going to die!"
Claire suddenly hugged Roy, looking quite emotional.
Roy started comforting Claire, while Lilith began cleaning up the scene.
"It's okay, Claire! What did you just feel?"
"I felt like I was floating above an abyss. As time passed, my whole being started slowly sinking into it. Just a little bit more, and I would have completely sunk into the abyss!"
It sounded like Claire's mental world was quite thrilling. Roy didn't feel anything in reality.
"It's okay, it's okay! Let me help you put on your clothes first!"
With Roy's somewhat clumsy but comforting hands, Claire's fear quickly dissipated, and instead, her face turned completely red.
"Don't! Jennifer is still watching!"
After some tugging, Claire still managed to put on her hospital gown.
"Ahem! Jennifer, Claire's ritual should be considered successful, right?"
Lilith yawned, looking very tired.
Presiding over a ritual was quite energy-consuming, especially drawing the magic circle. You couldn't make even a single mistake, otherwise the ritual would fail.
"Yes, the Grim Reaper probably won't pay attention to Claire anymore. It's your problem though. Are you ready?"
"I'm ready. What should I do?"
"Your ritual is much simpler than Claire's."
Saying this, Lilith got more fresh blood from Roy again. Roy had really lost a lot of blood today.
The magic circle drawn earlier had already been wiped away, but the white candles were not removed. Candles could be used in many rituals.
Lilith drew a cross and then made Roy take off all his clothes and lie on it in an inverted cross position.
"Is this an inverted cross pact?"
Roy recognized the ritual Lilith wanted to perform because it was recorded in the Key of Solomon and belonged to a type of demonic ritual.
You could tell just by looking at the symbol of the upside-down cross.
Lilith raised an eyebrow.
"So you knew? The effect of this ritual is to make a pact with a demon, thereby changing your own destiny. However, by slightly modifying the details of this pact, it can change the Grim Reaper's curse on you."
No wonder she was an ancient witch. She could even modify the details of magical rituals.
Someone like Roy would usually just copy the rituals recorded in the Key of Solomon directly because he didn't understand the principles of these magical rituals at all and wouldn't dare to change them randomly.
This difference was like the difference between a student who uses mathematical formulas to solve problems and a scholar who can modify the formulas.
"So, what's the price?"
Demonic rituals definitely required paying a certain price to obtain something. Sometimes what you had to pay was much greater than what you gained, just like gambling.
"I told you, the price is that you will gain misfortune, but this misfortune can also be resolved, though it requires some special items."
"I understand. Let's begin!"
Roy had already lain down, but a certain area seemed too conspicuous, making Claire, who was watching, blush a little.
Lilith glanced at the somewhat attention-grabbing 'nightstick' and then began to recite the spell.
It was still that incomprehensible ancient language. Then Lilith took out a dagger. This dagger was Roy's Cursed Dagger. She could only use this dagger for the ritual because ordinary daggers couldn't cut Roy's skin.
Lilith prepared to use the Cursed Dagger to draw a pattern on Roy's chest, but as soon as she brought the dagger down, Belial's mark appeared, making her extremely shocked.
"Wait! Roy, have you already signed a pact?"