“Ahhhh! You… you’re lying! You promised you’d let us go!” The surviving student trembled as he watched his companion turn into a plaster figure under Berlin’s hands, raising his gun toward Berlin.
“When did you ever think you could trust the words of a devil? Truly foolish and naive children… but it’s precisely such pure souls that taste the most delicious…” Berlin pressed a hand to his cheek, wearing a rapt expression. Through his crimson eyes peeking from between his fingers, he greedily stared at the boy before him, his gaze so viscous it seed ready to swallow him whole, devour him entirely.
“Ahhhh!” The boy scread, firing wildly at Berlin until his bullets ran out, leaving the gun empty.
He turned to flee, dropping the gun, but soon his lifted legs stiffened. White plaster rose from the soles of his feet, quickly covering his body. Maintaining the posture of running, in an instant, he too beca a plaster figure with indistinct features.
“Thank you for your help. I will eat you with gratitude… ugh—pff!”
Berlin’s words were cut short as a crossbow bolt pierced his body from below.
Spitting blood, he lowered his head in disbelief, looking down at his chest.
The arrow, made of silver and as thick as a finger, had a sharp barbed tip. It shot from behind, piercing through his heart and chest.
From the tip to the shaft, the arrow was intricately engraved with Latin verses from the Bible. As the language closest to the ti of Jesus, Latin itself held a special power capable of directly affecting demons. Clearly, the craftsman who carved the scripture was no ordinary artisan.
Berlin could feel that the part of his body in contact with the silver arrow was lting and deforming rapidly, like wax placed over a fla. In just a mont, a cavity two fingers wide had ford in his chest. The blood that touched the silver arrow, driven by his heart’s stubborn pumping, flowed throughout his body. Wherever it went, skin and blood vessels emitted unbearable groans; flesh blistered and split, sending searing, stabbing pain through him.
At the sa ti, behind Berlin, the exorcist lying on the ground spat blood, tossed aside the now-empty crossbow, and propped himself up with one hand while holding a extinguished oil lamp in the other. Slowly, he rose to his feet.
Only when he tore off his trench coat did everyone realize that he was wearing a thick, full-body bulletproof vest.
“Heh… those two really guessed right. There’s a traitor among the students…” He grinned, twisting his mouth into a fierce, wolfish smile. His sharp green eyes challenged Berlin as his empty hand yanked off the heavy vest, revealing a thin shirt beneath and a dense assortnt of tools hanging from his waist.
“D-damn exorcist… pretending to be dead…”
Berlin’s forehead veins bulged as he sneered, turning toward the arrow and reaching out to pull it free.
But the mont his fingers touched the arrowhead, it felt like striking a red-hot iron. Transparent flas erupted from his palm, coiling around the arrow; his fingers lted, exposing bones, and the skin of his palm charred to black.
“Ugh… aahhh…”
Berlin tilted his head back, letting out a piercing, agonized scream.
“This is a sacred crossbow crafted by the Roman Curia in the 15th century, specifically to destroy demons,” Wester said coolly. “It’s not so easy to pull out.” He flicked a lighter, lit the cigar at his fingertips, took a deep drag, and then stepped closer to Berlin, exhaling the smoke rings right into his face.
“Finally, I’ve t you, the legendary ‘Teacher Berlin.’ I searched for you at school for so long and never saw your true self. It wasn’t until I was attacked that I dared to show myself. Still the sa coward as always… you useless, castrated wretch.”
Swish!
At those words, everyone present witnessed the aning of “a face changing.”
Just monts ago, Berlin’s appearance had been at the peak of beauty, dazzling and imposing. But upon hearing Wester’s words, his eyes bulged, sharp teeth bared, face stretching and contorting, becoming as grotesque and feral as a ravenous beast or a vengeful spirit.
“Heh… hehehe… you actually… actually dare to call that… hahahaha! Exorcist, get ready! I will—bit by bit—devour you… deliciously!”
Ignoring the pain entirely, Berlin twisted his hands into claws. Risking the incineration of both arms, he gritted his teeth and yanked the silver arrow from his chest.
Cling! The arrow’s tail, coated in torn flesh and blood, fell to the ground with a crisp tallic sound.
Within just a few seconds after removing the arrow, fresh red flesh and veins had begun to sprout over his charred skeleton. Berlin bent down, lips stretching back toward his ears, long fangs protruding. His hands elongated until they matched the length of his legs. On all fours, he let out a bestial roar and lunged at the exorcist, colliding with Wester in a flurry of brutal combat.
“Heh… such an ugly face… you really should look in a mirror and see what you’ve beco. After all, that face was the best thing you had going for you.”
“Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!”
Berlin’s expression grew even more terrifying. Missing a strike, his back arched, sharp white bones jutting from his shoulders. Twisting his torso and pivoting his waist, he launched another stabbing assault toward Wester.
“So… did I hit a sore spot? How pitiful. You have decent looks, top-tier education, and artistic talent. Yet in life, you can’t let a single woman get close to you. Because you aren’t a whole man. You’re afraid of seeing their disdain, their disgust. You’re insecure, you’re cowardly, and you have no way to make them happy!”
“Stop it!”
Berlin roared, stomping violently on a lamppost and pivoting to charge at Wester again. The force was so great that the sturdy lamppost snapped in half.
As he passed, the bone spikes on Berlin’s shoulders shot toward Wester like bullets, moving in ways that defied reason.
Just as the sharp tips were about to strike, the exorcist remained calm, as if fully prepared. He didn’t dodge or flinch. The white spikes whirled ever closer until only a few centiters from his skin, when a circle of silvery runes suddenly appeared with a low hum, forming a glass-like shield that blocked all the flying bones.
“Is that all you’ve got…? Seems your master, Paimon, is stingy.”
With a low, mocking tone, the man quickly slid open the lamp’s glass cover, brought his cigar close to the lamp oil, and flicked it lightly—
The ash fell into the golden oil, and a warm yellow fla, finger-sized, flickered back to life. Where the light touched, Berlin’s exposed skin burned as if corroded by acid: his face, neck, arms, and legs all peeled, the flesh beneath charred black, and thick black smoke curled upward.
“Ahhhh!”
Berlin collapsed to the ground, writhing in agony. The lamp’s light had a strong suppressive effect. His instinctive self-repair caused the new flesh to sprout like tentacles, but the mont they touched the lamp’s light, the newly grown tendrils blackened and withered. Fresh flesh grew in their place… but each cycle of repair drained his own strength. It was clear that if the light continued, Berlin would quickly grow weak.
However, at that mont, no one expected a third student to rush out of the auditorium. With a sudden lunge from behind, she knocked the oil lamp from Wester’s hands.
The lamp fell to the ground, its glass shattered, and the golden oil spilled everywhere. The flas were extinguished instantly.
Wester’s face turned as cold as frost. He grabbed the figure that had lunged at him, ready to throw her aside—but his gaze accidentally t a pair of familiar, lancholy gray eyes. The owner of the eyes tilted her head slightly, looking at him with deep affection. She pulled off her mask, revealing the face that had haunted his soul for over twenty years.
“Wester… don’t you recognize ?”
“Rosette…” Wester’s eyes widened in disbelief as he stared at the person before him.
N-No… it can’t be! Rosette had died—dead that hopeless, pitch-black night…
Seeing his fiancée’s face suddenly in reality shook Wester’s emotions, leaving him montarily off balance. Seizing this instant of distraction, “Rosette” flicked a handful of powder into his face.
“Ugh…”
Wester groaned, covering his eyes, and with a single sweep threw the fake Rosette to the ground with force.
The powder wasn’t so magical tool—it was just quickli, ant to temporarily blind a person—so his protective runes didn’t activate. Yet in the critical mont of battle, losing his vision was enough to shift the fight.
Berlin, lying on the ground, seized the rare opportunity. He leapt toward the two solidified plaster figures and grabbed the colorful plaster statues from them.
These plaster figures represented the completely corrupted souls of the sacrifices and contained imnse power. Eating them would not only heal his wounds but also make him stronger than before. Then, bit by bit, he would… devour the exorcist alive.
“Berlin, do you see this?!”
Just as Berlin opened his saliva-dripping, bloodthirsty maw to bite the head off the plaster figure, a clear, crisp female voice rang out.
Plop, plop!
At the sa ti, several dim red lights flickered on, illuminating a cloth screen stretched over a wooden fra. Behind it, a young woman with braided hair, her face painted in vivid colors and wearing a brightly patterned Balivia sorcerer’s robe, pressed herself against the screen. She manipulated a thin, flat figurine with a wooden stick.
The figure was made of so unknown colored material, pieced together so that all its joints moved freely. It wore a very familiar won’s suit, had long golden hair, and under the control of the sorcerer-robed woman, it stiffly advanced toward a small box on the ground.
Both the figure and the cloth screen were thin, and the red light penetrated them fully, revealing every detail behind the screen.
The mont Berlin saw the figure, he realized he had lost control of his body.
A massive hand—from so unreachable dinsion—had taken command of him.
The force, alien, ancient, powerful, and unrelenting, collided ferociously with the Paimon energy inside him, briefly gaining the upper hand.
It lood above, brazenly manipulating his body, forcing him to synchronize with the flat figurine. His upper body arched deeply backward, head tilted to one shoulder, and his legs kicked high, moving in an absurdly stiff march—step by step—toward a spherical wooden box placed on the ground ahead.
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