Chapter 40: Sawamura Sayuri! The Fusion of Demon and Evil Spirit!
"Ren!" Seeing him rush in, Eriri's pale face showed a flicker of surprise and relief.
Sawamura Sayuri's panicked face also showed surprise, then she suddenly cried out in alarm, "Ren-kun! Get out of the way!"
Looking at Eriri's father, who had turned his knife towards him and was charging with a crazed expression, Ren frowned slightly. Something was growing stronger inside the man's body.
He raised a finger and made a slight, almost imperceptible movement.
Eriri's father's body suddenly floated into the air, his limbs flailing uselessly as if caught by an invisible hand. He was completely unable to move. The kitchen knife he held was also sent flying by a strange force, clattering uselessly to the floor.
"Eh!!!" The two women looked at this bizarre scene in utter surprise.
Ren could control the subtle air currents with a single thought, thereby inducing larger airflows. By manipulating the direction and gathering of these currents, he could instantly achieve an effect similar to psychokinesis.
He stepped past Eriri's suspended father and stood in front of the two women. "Eriri, Sayuri-san, are you two alright?"
Eriri immediately threw herself into his arms and burst into tears, her body trembling uncontrollably. "Waaaah! I was so scared! The atmosphere at home became so weird!"
Ren gently patted her back, his presence a solid and reassuring anchor. Eriri was emotionally unstable, so he had to ask her mother. "Sayuri-san, what happened here?"
Sayuri looked at her husband with a mixture of worry and fear, her expression dazed as she recounted the situation. "A few days ago, Eriri and I both fell ill. Neither medicine nor IV drips seemed to help. My husband… he hasn't been home for years, but he suddenly came back today, grabbed a knife, and started trying to attack us. Then the house became eerie, filled with this black mist."
He knew that Sayuri and her husband had been estranged for a long time. The reason still had to do with Aki Tomoya and the bullying incident in middle school. Sayuri had tried her best to protect Eriri, wanting her husband to use his connections to deal with the bullies. He had refused, citing the difficulties of his position. But facing Eriri's repeated suicidal tendencies, Sayuri didn't care. The two had a fierce argument.
Fortunately, Ren had stopped it all in the end. He had found an old friend whose family had ties to the underworld and given her almost all the money he had earned at the time, asking for her help. Those bullies all met bad ends. From then on, no one dared to trouble Eriri again. Although she also lost many friends, Ren was always there, which allowed her to emerge from the shadows. But ever since then, the conflict between Sayuri and her husband had intensified, until their marriage was merely a shell.
Eriri wiped away her tears and looked up. "Ren, are there ghosts here?"
He pondered for a moment. Now that they were already contactees, they could know some basic information. So he spoke slowly. "They are malevolent spirits and demons."
He pointed to her father. "There's a demon in your father's body; he's being affected by its negative emotions. There's also a malevolent spirit in this house. With your father's return, the two unexpectedly merged, which is why this black mist appeared."
"There really are!" They trusted him very much, but were still shocked by the existence of such things, and that Ren knew so much.
Sayuri looked worried. "What will happen if they merge?"
Ren shook his head. He didn't know either. This was the first time he had encountered such a situation.
"Ahhhhhh!!!" Suddenly, Eriri's father let out a painful roar in mid-air.
Then, under their gaze, the black mist in the room all drilled into his body through his mouth. Ren shielded the two behind his broad shoulders. He naturally wouldn't fear such a small thing; he didn't act simply because he wanted to see what they could merge into.
When all the mist had entered his body, "Khehehehe!" a strange, sinister laugh came.
Immediately after, a pitch-black claw covered in eyes emerged from his mouth. And a second, a third… until the fifth claw. A more twisted head and body, connected to the limbs, squeezed out from that small mouth. It was undoubtedly a monster.
The mother and daughter's eyes trembled violently; this terrifying scene made their hair stand on end. "Ren…" Eriri, trembling with fear, pressed herself against his back. Even Sayuri was no exception.
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