Chapter 187: The Banality of Evil (4)
A smile spread on the man's lips.
Or at least it seed to. The form was too blurred to make out a facial expression. Part of it was that the mansion's corridor was dark. The man gliding along beside Monica as she crept softly forward, wrapped in low drifts of smoke — he was without a doubt a ghost. Or, to put it more precisely, a soul who had failed to reach the Underworld.
He had composed a viscous body and thrust out his arm.
And so the man laughed. He opened his mouth and laughed. After wrapping his arm around Monica's neck,
──Rumble!
He cackled wildly, along with the sound of thunder.
***
"Uuugh......"
Hank furrowed his brow.
A sharp pain was spreading through him.
Did I twist my leg? Why am I having trouble breathing? The question lasted only a mont.
"Hank."
Henrietta parted her lips.
Mouth working, her eyes tilted. Drip, drip. Droplets of blood falling on Henrietta's face. It was bleeding out of Hank's neck.
"Don't die."
"Ahh, so that's it?"
Hank snorted out a laugh.
He reached up and groped at his throat. He felt not skin but bone. It seed the flesh of his neck had been torn away. Hank's head dangled from what little flesh remained, and the blood began gushing out in a steady stream, and,
"What a relief, sis."
Hank stretched out a hand.
He stroked Henrietta's neck.
"You're safe."
That was the end of it.
Thud. Hank's body tipping over.
Henrietta blinked. Pinned beneath Hank's cooling weight, she thought,
'What just happened.'
As she wondered that,
'The Ectoplasm went on a rampage.'
Abel thought.
Shards of Ectoplasm were flailing through the air. Punching through the walls and smashing the ceiling, they had lost their self as souls and begun destroying everything in every direction.
It was because they had lost their anchor. The crudely congealed souls had scattered, seized by madness, and the black magic that had tainted those souls was being unleashed at random.
'Perhaps it's fortunate, in a way.'
Schwing.
Abel swung his cherished sword.
He severed in midair a shard flying past.
Smoke welled up from the bisected shard. A soul had been released.
'At least it can reach the Underworld.'
Abel closed his eyes gently.
He raised his cherished sword vertically. Then he stretched out his hand and brushed it down the blade. Following Abel's touch, a halo of light began to wrap around the blade. Divine power was beginning to envelop the sword.
The fourth chapter of the Underworld Theory, 'Dance of Death.'
'Dance of Death' was a spell that purified souls on the verge of becoming wraiths. Divine power blessed by the God of the Underworld wreathed Abel's blade, and so it beca a gravestone. The shards of Ectoplasm that had been storming about flew toward the blade. Even if they didn't wish it. Like iron filings pulled to a magnet.
Or as if dancing wildly.
'Thirty-three in total.'
Abel narrowed his eyes.
Shards of Ectoplasm were lting into the blade.
When he counted them up, it ca to thirty-three. That was a portion of the souls the siblings had taken.
'The rest......'
Tatatat.
Abel's feet launched off the tabletop.
Landing on the floor, Abel fixed his glare straight ahead.
Ectoplasm taking on the form of a human.
It was holding Monica hostage.
It had wrapped its viscous arm around Monica's throat.
The sa went for the man's soul.
The voice of the man who had been shouting raucously gradually died away.
He ascended along with his pale, whitish soul. To pay for his sins in the Underworld.
"Idiot."
Monica stretched out her index finger and dug around in her ear.
Why are apostates always so loud. Thinking back on it, Vincent Tremblay had been talkative too. Thinking that, Monica looked straight ahead, and,
"......Professor Argento?"
Just as Monica opened her mouth,
A silhouette moving behind Abel,
"Oh my."
Whirl.
Abel spun quickly on his heel.
He extended his cherished sword, splitting the air.
"I think I'm starting to understand."
And so it was leveled at Henrietta's throat.
As the corroded blade hung just beneath Henrietta's chin,
"It seems I......"
Henrietta wore a smile.
Her blood-wet face warmly twisted.
"......Have to die, do I not?"
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