Chapter 294

Chapter 294: Deathbed Hallucinations

A strong herbal scent filled the room.

No, it did not slowly spread. It appeared in their senses all at once—as if that thick scent had already filled the space long ago, but this fact had always been kept outside the Mortal Realm. Only now, as the old caretaker finished speaking, did this ever?present smell suddenly reveal its existence to the uninvited guests.

The two men in black reacted almost instantly. The shorter one jerked up his hand and pointed at the old caretaker standing by the stove. A low, hoarse cry came out of his throat, strangely like two voices overlapping. At the same time, the other man quickly pulled a few dirty paper slips from inside his coat and hurled them into the air.

The low, hoarse cry turned into a faint, visible ripple, like the shock wave from an explosion, and swept out in all directions from the old caretaker. The paper slips scattered with a rustling sound into countless shadowy fragments. The moment they hit the floor, they turned into a mass of black poisonous insects, snakes, and scorpions, which swarmed toward the stove while making a sickening scraping sound.

The old caretaker stayed hunched over and quietly watched those vicious attacks rush straight at him. He did not try to dodge at all.

The shock wave tore apart the shelf beside the stove. With a huge crash, every bottle and jar on it shattered. It also smashed the burning stove, snuffing out the flames that had been sending up the thick herbal smoke. The black swarm of insects and scorpions crawled over the old man’s body and began to madly gnaw at his limbs and flesh.

The old caretaker was swallowed almost at once. His bent, withered body fell to the floor and turned into a mess of filthy blood and torn cloth.

It all happened in just a few seconds.

Only when the warden was lying on the ground and the still?warm ashes from the stove had spilled everywhere did the two men in black finally exchange a tense look.

The same confusion showed on both their faces.

“That’s it?” The tall, broad?shouldered man stared at the remains on the floor in disbelief and said to his companion: “Those graveyard wardens you always hear about in stories, all strange and dangerous… so they’re actually this easy to deal with? Or is this old guy just the weakest of the wardens?”

The shorter man did not relax at all. He still stared fixedly at the spot where the old caretaker had been standing, and at the same time swept his gaze around the cramped hut from the corner of his eye. His brows drew together bit by bit: “Strange… Do you smell that? The herbal scent is getting even stronger. It’s like someone is burning incense right beside us… No! We have to leave, now!”

The short man seemed to suddenly understand something. He rushed toward the wooden door of the hut at once. But when he reached out and shoved hard, he found the door did not move at all. It stayed as unmoving as a wall. The old, rotten?looking planks under his hands felt as solid as cast iron.

An old, grim voice rose in the hut: “One kind of Deathbed Hallucinations: you think you’re trapped in a room, the way out stands right in front of you, you try to go through that way, but you can’t find how to open the door.”

The sudden voice made both men in black jump and also fed the fear that had already been rising in them. That kind of fear often turned into helpless anger. The short man gave up trying to force the door. He turned and shouted into the empty air: “I don’t care where you’re hiding!”

As soon as he spoke, layer after layer of ghostly ripples appeared around him. In those ripples, you could faintly see an ugly bird?shaped monster standing on his shoulder, stretching its neck and shrieking—that was a Death-Omen Bird demon.

The shriek of the Abyssal demon overlapped with the short man’s roar. A semi?transparent shock wave swept across the whole room in an instant!

The roar of splintering furniture and shattering ornaments rose together. In the blink of an eye, the warden’s small hut was left in ruins. Almost everything inside was smashed to pieces by the invisible wave. Only the space around the other man in black remained intact. The tall, broad man had raised a barrier around himself. While he blocked the leftover force of the wave, he quickly scanned the surroundings, trying to spot the twist of air that would show where the warden was hiding.

He had already guessed the warden’s trick—it was hallucination.

Some strong hallucinogen had been burned to cause visions.

The warden had used both extraordinary power and the herbs to hide himself and play tricks in the hut. But if his voice was still here, then he had to be nearby as well. As long as they swept through the whole house, that old bastard would have to show himself.

But he found nothing. The shock wave tore apart everything in the room and churned the air, yet it still did not force the warden out.

“Another kind of Deathbed Hallucinations: fear and anger are magnified. You feel a fierce helplessness. Sometimes you even feel as if you’re all?powerful, as if you’re about to overturn life and death itself—but that illusion usually fades in a very short moment, and then you fall into emptiness and an even greater terror…”

The old voice echoed through the hut. For some reason, the two men in black suddenly felt that it had gone thin and drifting. It sounded now near, now far, like light and shadow behind a curtain.

“A demon’s aura… Now I know who you are. You’re two Annihilators. Your disguise is good. You fooled my eyes, but not my intuition,” the old caretaker went on. “Why are you here? What are you trying to do?”

“The Holy Lord has given us courage and a pure essence!” the short man shouted. He forced his faith in the Abyssal Lord to press down his fear and slowly sank into a fanatical mood of sacrifice. “You stupid worldly replicas can gloat all you like! But you can only be proud for one moment!”

When he finished, the cultist suddenly pulled a pitch?black dagger from his coat and, without the slightest hesitation, stabbed it into his own heart!

“The Holy Lord gives me power beyond life and death!”

Knowing there was no hope and that he could not match a graveyard warden with his own strength, the cultist chose to offer his heart to the Abyssal Lord as a sacrificial rite. He meant to fully release the power he had gained from his symbiotic pact and make one last desperate try.

But the death he expected did not come.

He did not feel the sharp pain that should have followed when the dagger pierced his body.

He did not even feel his own heart.

The Annihilator raised his head in shock and looked at his companion. But he only saw that the other man was already lying on the floor. A huge hole gaped open in the man’s back, and all his blood had long since drained away.

In the last few seconds, as his vision darkened and his thoughts grew muddled, he recognized that terrible wound as the result of a double?barrel shotgun fired at close range—his companion had died long ago. The moment they stepped into the warden’s hut, the man had been shot from behind and killed by the old caretaker.

And what about him?

The short Annihilator lowered his head and saw that he was actually sitting in the chair in the center of the room.

A red?hot fire poker was driven cruelly through his chest and belly. Thin curls of smoke still rose where metal met flesh.

He remembered now. He had lost a brief but fierce struggle and had been killed with that poker—just ten seconds ago.

“So that’s it… a person can’t… die twice…”

The cultist muttered, his head lolled to the side, and he stopped breathing for good.

“The Deathbed Hallucinations are over. May your souls now scatter and vanish, with no blessing and no suffering.”

On the chair across from him, the gloomy old caretaker sat quietly, watching the cultist who had finally stopped breathing. He muttered in a flat voice, his face expressionless.

By his hand lay his trusty old double?barrel shotgun. All around him, traces of the brief struggle still marked the room.

The old man sat and panted a few times. Once some strength returned, he reached for the shotgun, pushed on his knee, and rose from the chair.

“I’m really getting useless… Two heretics left me in such a sorry state, and in the end I didn’t even manage to ask them anything,” the old caretaker grumbled. He stepped over the tall corpse on the floor and the other body that had fallen from the chair, then walked toward the wooden door with the shotgun in hand. “There are two more problems outside. I hope I’m not too late.”

He reached the door and was just about to open it when his hand suddenly stopped.

A strange aura was drawing near.

Sharp wariness flashed in the old man’s eyes. He tightened his grip on the shotgun, and in the next second a knocking sound came from the other side of the door.

Knock, knock, knock—

In the cold, silent winter night, the sudden knocking sounded almost shrill.

The old man did not answer. He simply stared hard at the dark, aged wooden door.

The knocking went on, very patient.

The thing outside was not a living person.

The old man narrowed his eyes. In his sight, a pale, dim outline stood outside the door. Twisted, chaotic light and shadow moved around it, but he still could not see what the thing really was.

It was not alive—but it was definitely not dead.

What was it?

“Please open the door. Thank you.” A polite voice spoke from outside.

The old caretaker slowly raised the shotgun and, through the door, aimed at the hazy outline beyond.

But before he could pull the trigger, a light click reached his ears.

The door… opened on its own.

A rush of dazzling, twisted starlight poured in.