join p atreon.com/KeyofStars and become a Sequence 9: Reader for hundreds of additional chapters and over a dozen stories
"Why are you so slow?" Darc asked, maintaining a perfectly polite smile on his face.
"I was looking for candles, and it took some time," Derrick replied calmly.
He walked alongside Darc, returning to the table with him, and they both sat down.
Darc took a small cloth bag from his waist and asked with a smile, "Freshly dried fruit, would you like some?"
"No, thank you."
Derrick cautiously shook his head, his voice a little hoarse and stammering due to his extreme tension.
"Alright."
Darc took a black fruit from the small cloth bag, put it into his mouth, and bit it with a crunching sound.
A silence fell over the room, with only the sound of Darc chewing the black fruit echoing.
After a moment of hesitation, Derrick initiated a conversation:
"Did you encounter any Monsters during your exploration of the half-ruined temple?"
"Quite a few, but they weren't very powerful; we cleared them out easily."
Darc paused for a second, then a smile curved on his lips as he said,
"We found some peculiar plants in the temple. They looked like the mushrooms taught in the general knowledge classes, very vibrant, making one feel full of appetite just by looking at them."
"Eating them can enhance spirituality and strengthen the physique. If paired with roasted Monster meat, they emit an unimaginable fragrance."
As he spoke, he took out a palm-sized mushroom from another small cloth bag. It was brightly colored, translucent, and adorned with dark golden spots.
Just seeing it made Derrick's mouth water, and his appetite was so stirred that it was hard to control.
"Here's one for you," Darc said with an enthusiastic smile, handing over the mushroom.
"Okay," Derrick forced himself to speak, struggling to resist the urge to immediately put the mushroom in his mouth.
"I'll try it tomorrow."
Darc didn't say much, pushing the mushroom in front of Derrick before continuing to eat the black fruit on his own.
Derrick with difficulty shifted his gaze from the mushroom and continued to chat with Darc about other topics:
"Did you discover anything during this exploration?"
Darc stopped eating and replied with a very serious expression,
"We found many murals, continuous murals. Do you still remember the statue inside the temple?"
"The newly discovered murals record related content. The temple builders believed that the statue represented the Lord Who Created Everything, the Omnipotent and Omniscient God. When the Great Cataclysm arrived, the Lord bore most of our sins, which is why His image changed from standing upright to inverted, from walking freely to being nailed to a cross!"
"We are not abandoned people; we are favored by the Lord!"
Derrick listened silently, neither refuting nor questioning.
But Darc's attitude towards that statue almost indicated that he had sincerely begun to believe in the True Creator.
Darc and the others have been completely corrupted.
"If everything recorded in that temple is True, we only need to change some symbols and the corresponding honorific names during sacrifices to regain the Lord's response."
Darc narrated endlessly, becoming more and more excited as he spoke, even starting to wave his hands.
Derrick's brows gradually furrowed, and he no longer had the energy to listen to Darc's words. He found himself increasingly unable to resist the mushroom's temptation. It seemed as if his body might break free from the constraints of reason at any moment and swallow the mushroom whole.
No, I can't eat it. I must hold back. Derrick felt a surge of panic, constantly thinking about what he should do to cope.
"I'll go get you a glass of water."
Derrick tried his best to make his voice sound steady, without revealing any abnormality.
Then he walked aside, deliberately slowing his movements, and softly chanted the honorific name of the The Fool:
"The The Fool who doesn't belong to this era; the Mysterious Ruler above the Gray Fog; the King of Yellow and Black Who Wields Good Luck…"
Backlund, 15 Minsk Street.
Having just finished a lavish dinner prepared by a spirit chef at Leyton's place, Klein returned home and heard a faint, low prayer echoing in his ears.
"A male voice, is it Sun? Or Mr. Hanged Man?"
Leyton was slightly puzzled, but he quickly closed the bedroom doors and windows, then took four counter-clockwise steps to enter the Gray Fog.
Derrick, while pouring water, silently chanted Mr. Fool's honorific name twice, but received no immediate feedback.
After a slight hesitation, he bit the bullet and said in a deep voice,
"I'm sorry, the water at home is a bit cold. I'll boil some hot water again."
"It's fine, we are all Beyonders; it doesn't affect us much."
Darc crunched on his Doom fruit, speaking in a nonchalant tone.
Derrick didn't know how to respond for a moment. His right hand was already secretly resting on the hurricane axe at his waist. As soon as Darc made any unusual move, he would erupt into action.
"I prefer hot water," Derrick replied, his voice dry.
If I were to summon a Holy Light to illuminate the Darkness now, would it attract the attention of those secretly monitoring me?
As long as there were other people here, Derrick felt he wouldn't be so panicked.
Derrick hesitated briefly, then saw Darc take two steps forward, looking at him with some confusion and asking,
"What are you doing?"
Derrick opened his mouth to make up an excuse. Suddenly, a dense, grayish-white mist surged before his eyes, and a deep red light rose. He saw the true appearance of his room at that moment:
Darc's expression suddenly turned grim, with streaks of fresh red visible in his blue eyes!
The fruit he had been eating also revealed its True form: they were human fingers, bloody fingers!
Where the vibrant mushroom had been, there was now a layer of blood-stained scalp with short black hair!
The next moment, a magnificent golden figure with twelve pairs of dark wings appeared in Derrick's vision. The figure enveloped him with layers of wings.
Derrick felt the panic, fear, and other emotions in his heart all being suppressed. Reason once again took the lead.
"What are you doing…" Darc's voice grew colder, his eyes fixed on Derrick, the hidden malice seemingly ready to surge out at any moment.
Derrick did not answer. He clasped his hands in front of his chest, forming a prayer pose.
A beam of light descended from the sky—a holy, pure, brilliant, and utterly warm light instantly illuminated the entire room.
The Purification ability of the Holy Light seemed to naturally counter the abnormality on Darc's body. The Doom fruit in his hand, the vibrant mushroom beside him, and even Darc himself, all sizzled under the Holy Light, emitting wisps of black smoke.
Darc's clothes were suddenly stretched by a series of strip-like bulges.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Bloody strips of flesh pierced through Darc's clothing, surging forward to attack Derrick.
Derrick swiftly picked up his hurricane axe and swung it forward.
Thud! Several bloody strips of flesh were severed and fell to the ground. These strips even had rough skin with body hair still attached.
Then, more bloody strips of flesh surged in, tightly coiling around the hurricane axe again and again.
Derrick decisively released his tightly gripped right hand from the hurricane axe, rapidly retreated, and at the same time, cupped his hands in front of his mouth and nose, assuming a prayer posture.
Silently, a clear pillar of light burning with flames appeared out of thin air and struck the bloody strips of flesh.
"Ah—!" Darc, who had transformed into a Monster, let out a shriek that sounded more like a roar. Many bloody strips of flesh instantly charred, broke, and fell off.
All these changes happened almost in an instant. The next moment, the bloody strips of flesh that Darc had transformed into seemed enraged, launching a fierce counterattack.
Derrick's expression changed abruptly, and he quickly moved to evade to his side and rear.
The anticipated attack did not land on him. After Derrick stabilized himself and looked, he found that Darc, who was waving bloody strips of flesh around him, was enveloped by an unknown dark, viscous liquid. He was like a cat placed inside an opaque bag.
The surrounding shadows continuously spread and distorted. Soon, the Monster that Darc had become was wrapped into a giant black cocoon.
Derrick quietly watched the person who had suddenly appeared, understanding that this was the one responsible for monitoring him from the Darkness.
For a moment, he didn't know what to say, so he just stood there silently, watching the other person, wanting to know how they would deal with Darc, who had become a Monster.
The monitor scanned the scene in the room, seeing the scattered pale fingers and blood-stained scalp with short black hair, and couldn't help but gasp.
Then, using his Beyonder power, he manipulated the shadows outside, forming tidal waves to notify Chief Colin in the Tower.
"Darc was silently corrupted during his exploration of that temple. I think the other members of the exploration team should have the same problem!"
Derrick hesitated for a moment but still spoke up to warn.
"Someone will deal with them," the monitor responded with a heavy, hoarse voice.
The two fell silent again until Chief Colin of the Council of Six arrived.
At the top of the Tower, in Chief Colin's room.
The white-haired Chief Colin Iliad of the City of Silver listened quietly to Derrick's description of what had happened earlier, then gently nodded:
"Why did Darc come to you first, instead of returning to his own home and then making his move when the opportunity arose?"
Derrick looked down, somewhat at a loss, and said in a muffled voice,
"Perhaps it's because I went to see them when they were still in isolation at the training ground, and I had some interaction with him. Also, Darc and I were already quite familiar with each other."
Thinking of Darc, who used to be cheerful and always wore a bright smile, Derrick's mood inevitably dropped a few degrees.
"How did you discover his abnormality?" Chief Colin continued to ask expressionlessly.
"That mushroom, it was that blood-stained scalp. When Darc handed it to me, it looked like a mushroom in my eyes."
"It had an abnormal attraction, constantly urging me to eat it. I felt this wasn't normal, so I… I secretly chanted the honorific name of a great existence. He showed me the true scene in the room."
"What happened afterward, that monitor also participated…"
join p atreon.com/KeyofStars and become a Sequence: 9 Reader for hundreds of additional chapters and over a dozen stories