Chapter 76

Chapter 76: The Hound Sees Through the Human Heart

Watching Shirley stride toward him with murder in her eyes, Duncan could not help letting out a sigh. [So in the end, this mess still landed on my head.]

He was not very nervous. To be fair, he knew he had almost no combat experience, while the young lady in front of him looked like a female warrior who could charge into Longridge Slope seven times and come back out again. But he still did not panic at all.

First, he had a dove that specialized in Delayed Slash. AI’s power took effect instantly within its range and triggered faster than a gun. If Shirley really swung the dog at him, she would probably be beaten by the dove’s high-ping attack while still in midair and die from packet loss.

Second, he controlled the spirit form flame that had strange effects on all supernatural things. This fire could even control the Vanished, so this Abyssal Hound before him was probably not harder to handle than that pile of monsters on the Vanished, right? At worst, he would let the flame possess it and coil around its whole body. After that, it would be his area of expertise: [Young lady, I can tell your dog and I are destined to meet…]

Last, and most important—this body was not his real body anyway.

Right now, he was only using an avatar form. From a biological point of view, this avatar form seemed alive, but in essence it was still just a corpse driven by Ghost power. Duncan did not need this body to stay physiologically intact for it to move. Just like the previous avatar form in the sewers that kept moving even after it lost its heart, he only needed this body to “exist” so he could keep using it.

He even suspected that even if his current avatar form was chopped into pieces, he could still control it to go home in batches…

The only thing that worried him was that if Shirley smashed all his bones with a meteor-hound strike, how he should explain to Nina afterward why her Uncle’s bones were suddenly so special…

So he stood there calmly, watching the girl in the black dress walk up to him. The black iron chain in her hand swung in the air, and that bizarre, terrifying Abyssal Hound followed at her side with an odd, hard-to-read gait, slowly padding along beside its master.

Because of the fierce battle earlier, the girl’s arms and cheeks were stained with blood. This completely broke the first impression of a quiet, well-behaved girl and instead made her look eerie and dangerous.

“You’re really not afraid. You really are strange.” Shirley stopped two or three meters in front of Duncan, frowning at the “Suntist” in front of her. At the same time, her right hand slowly, quietly lifted. “Have you given up resisting?”

Duncan thought for a moment: “If I say I’m not with them, would you believe me?”

As he spoke, he rubbed his fingers quietly inside his pocket, letting the phantom spirit form flame slowly wander between his clothes and skin, in case this young lady decided to start swinging the dog the moment she got upset.

Shirley froze for a second. An “are you kidding me” expression slowly appeared on her blood-stained face. “Do you think I—”

Before she finished, the Abyssal Hound beside her suddenly spoke human words. A hoarse, low voice came from its throat woven of bones: “I believe him.”

“Huh… huh?” Shirley stared in shock at her summoned creature. “Dog, did I just smash your brain? This guy—”

“Please wait a moment,” the Abyssal Hound shook its head, then, under Duncan’s blank gaze, walked off to the side, stretched its neck, and went: “Uuurgh—”

The extremely loud retching echoed through the blood-stained basement. The terrifying demon from the Abyssal Deep, from the Deep Sea, turned its insides upside down on the spot. It vomited up clouds of choking, acrid black flame, ash, and pitch-black slime like acid. The concrete floor hissed as the corrupted stuff ate into it, and within seconds a large pit sank into the ground.

Duncan watched the scene with a blank face, wondering if he had just found a weakness in Shirley’s fighting power—this young lady was strong, ruthless, and her fighting style was weird and hard to guard against, but she clearly was not good at long battles.

The key was her way of fighting: a person could take it, but the dog could not.

So the atmosphere in the room stayed awkward like that for two or three minutes. When the Abyssal Hound finally stopped vomiting, Duncan could not help leaning over to look at it. “…Are you okay?”

The hound instantly lowered its head. Its tail, made of coiled bones, tucked tightly between its legs. “Thank you for your concern. I hope my rude display did not offend your eyes. Do you have any other orders? If not, we will take our leave…”

Duncan had not even had time to react to what was wrong with this dog when Shirley cried out first: “Dog, are you really okay? Did I actually smash your head just now?! You are never this polite when you talk to humans. No one who stands in front of you ever lasts more than ten seconds before you start cursing their mother…”

By now Duncan had faintly caught on. He suddenly looked at the vicious, terrifying-looking Abyssal Hound, and his eyes grew serious.

From the few words he had heard earlier from the Sun priest, this “great hound” was some kind of demon summoned from the Abyssal Deep, from the Deep Sea. For the moment, he did not care what the so-called Cult of Annihilation was, or what strange things filled the Abyssal Deep, or why people could even summon a dog out of it. One thing was at least clear:

This “dog” was afraid of him. This demon from the Abyssal Deep, from the Deep Sea… it probably had a kind of “sight” very different from that of an ordinary person.

“Do you know who I am?” Duncan asked calmly. “Have you seen me before?”

“I don’t, I don’t,” the Abyssal Hound said without even raising its head. “I truly don’t know you… but you are definitely a big shot, no doubt about that…”

Duncan frowned and asked: “In your eyes, I don’t look like a human, do I?”

The Abyssal Hound hesitated. It raised its head with great care and glanced at Duncan, then said, hesitating: “You… do look like one… and also don’t look like one…”

Duncan withdrew his gaze and looked at Shirley.

The girl in the black dress was staring at them in shock and doubt. She had finally put away her first wave of hostility. In its place was thick bewilderment and wariness.

This young lady seemed a bit reckless, but she was clearly not stupid. After her “pet dog” showed such abnormal reactions again and again, even the most impulsive person would cool down at this point and start to sense that something was wrong.

She quietly tightened the chain between her and the Abyssal Hound as she stepped half a step back without drawing notice, and watched Duncan carefully. “You just said you’re not with them…”

“That’s right.” Duncan spread his hands. “You might not believe it, but I also sneaked in here to gather information…”

“I believe you,” Shirley said crisply.

This time it was Duncan’s turn to be surprised. He suddenly realized that the impression this girl gave him kept changing. At first, from her looks, he had thought she was a quiet, well-behaved child, but then she showed a violent, bloody side. Just now he had thought she was a simple-minded reckless type, yet now she adapted to the situation and backed down even faster than he had imagined…

[What kind of family raises a child like this?]

With that strange thought circling in his mind, Duncan also felt a little thrown off by how straightforward her attitude was. He steadied himself before asking: “Back at the gathering, why did you look at me twice in a row?”

“Dog kept watching you,” Shirley answered, a bit unwilling but still cooperative. “I was just curious and followed his gaze for a couple of looks…”

“Dog? This one?” Duncan frowned and glanced at the pitch-black Skeletal Hound. “Earlier I heard that priest mention the Cult of Annihilation—is that a church that worships the Abyssal Deep Sea? What is your relationship with this Cult of Annihilation?”

“I have nothing to do with them!” Shirley said at once, with extra emphasis. “If they worship the Abyssal Deep Sea, that’s their business. Dog and I know each other for other reasons!”

Duncan’s eyes fell on the chain between the girl and the Abyssal Hound.

From the information he had just gotten, worshipping the Abyssal Deep Sea, being able to summon demons from the Abyssal Deep, and normally using those demons’ power as spells in battle, all seemed to be trademarks of the Cult of Annihilation. That Sun priest had judged Shirley that way only because she had summoned a Abyssal Hound—although he had suffered a “flying dog meteor hammer” for that wrong guess, Duncan still believed that at least under normal conditions this information was correct.

The only problem was this strange girl in front of him.

She seemed very resistant to anyone linking her with cultists—even though she had a hound from the Abyssal Deep, from the Deep Sea.

“Fine, then you have nothing to do with them,” Duncan shook his head and asked again. “So why are you here? What are you investigating?”

Shirley pressed her lips together. She clearly did not want to answer that question, but the tense signals pouring off the hound beside her made her understand that this ordinary-looking middle-aged man was probably extremely dangerous. She had better cooperate.

“I…”

Shirley opened her mouth, but the moment she spoke, a loud blast exploded in the basement. A blazing fireball suddenly flew in from the side!