"Die."
Silas said softly to Madam Sharon in Hermes, his voice barely a whisper.
His throat had been scorched, his mouth cracked and charred.
Just uttering those few simple words split the wounds open again, fresh blood seeping out.
Hearing his vicious curse, Madam Sharon almost laughed aloud.
If she hadn't confirmed through mysticism that the curse truly originated from him, she would have questioned his sanity.
However, in the very next instant, Madam Sharon's smile froze.
From the formless void, something like fragmented, hidden whispers seemed to pour into her ears, taking effect in her mind.
"Thump! Thump!"
Black, root-like veins suddenly bulged out, spreading rapidly across the surface of her skin.
"Ah!"
Madam Sharon screamed, clutching her head.
The spider silk that had been reaching toward Silas lost its power at once, drooping downward.
Countless blood vessels burst in the whites of her eyes, tinging her vision with red.
Against that crimson backdrop, she saw the charred figure of Silas slowly rising.
With each movement, his body split open and bled. But soon, incredibly, his flesh began to heal, breaking through the scabs and regenerating!
"You're not a Secrets Suppliant? You... you're a Listener, or a Rose Bishop?!"
Madam Sharon's voice carried shock and suspicion. Dark fireballs began condensing around her body again, preparing to shoot toward Silas.
I'm your father.
Silas struggled to stand upright, swaying unsteadily. His eyes were coldly fixed on her as he spoke again in Hermes, "Die."
"Pffft!"
Blood erupted simultaneously from Madam Sharon's eyes, ears, and nose.
The black veins swelled and bulged, as if they would burst through her skin! She let out an even more piercing scream, feeling her ears filled with crazed ravings.
Her sanity was spiraling uncontrollably into madness, the world before her eyes beginning to twist.
Silas wasn't faring much better. The spirituality within him gushed out like floodwaters through an opened gate.
He could barely maintain his footing and collapsed back onto the ice.
Through his blurred vision, he saw Madam Sharon trembling as she raised an ice spear high, preparing to hurl it at him.
"Go die!"
As if wringing his brain like a rag to squeeze out the last drop of moisture, Silas shouted again in Hermes.
"Ahhhh!"
Madam Sharon shrieked miserably.
All the thick black veins covering her body exploded, oozing foul-smelling black pus.
Her hair began to swell and thicken grotesquely, her eyes filled with pain and madness.
"Crack!"
With a crisp sound, her figure gradually shrank, finally transforming into a shattered black wand.
Her actual body appeared not far away. The black veins had receded from her skin, but her mind still teetered on the edge of losing control.
At the same moment, Silas's mind had gone completely blank. He pitched forward, crashing onto the ice.
Just as he was about to slip into unconsciousness, an illusory sound of ocean tides finally echoed in his mind.
The sound seemed to nourish his nearly depleted spirit, bringing him back to awareness.
On the other side, Madam Sharon had recovered somewhat during the moment he'd lost consciousness.
When she saw him regain awareness, she surprisingly didn't launch an attack.
Instead, a look of fear crossed her face. She stepped back and vanished into invisibility.
Was she fleeing?
Or was she hiding, waiting for him to collapse before assassinating him?
Things had come to this point. The ruthlessness buried deep in Silas's bones erupted. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the white bone whistle Azik had given him, pressed it to his lips, and blew with all his strength!
He had just used up the whistle's final charge!
He had originally saved this for Miss M, but now he had no choice!
Another wave of frenzied spirituality extraction hit him. His head felt like it would split apart, the pain so intense he couldn't even speak.
The blood-red glow on the bone whistle gradually dimmed until it disappeared completely.
As the crimson faded, a bronze double door sketched itself into existence in the void, then materialized. With a creaking roar, the door opened.
Countless dark green vines emerged from behind the door, covered with deformed tumors.
Upon closer inspection, those tumors revealed themselves to be ugly faces resembling infants.
"Wah, wah..."
The hideous faces began to wail, their twisted cries striking directly at the soul.
Even Silas, merely caught in the periphery, felt his fragile spirit about to shatter.
Accompanied by the crying, the space where nothing had existed before began to ripple.
Madam Sharon's curvaceous body was forcibly "squeezed" out. Her face still bore traces of agony, but she struggled desperately.
Just as she was about to act, the dark green vines attacked, wrapping around her limbs.
"Crack, crack..."
Ice began forming beneath Madam Sharon's feet, encasing and protecting her body.
However, the dark green vines resisted against the ice, causing the upward spread of ice to slow dramatically.
Silas struggled to his feet once more. He searched the ground and finally found his revolver.
Checking the cylinder, he saw four demon-hunting bullets remaining in the brass chamber, their mystical patterns glinting strangely under the crimson night.
Silas snapped the cylinder shut and dragged his broken body slowly toward Madam Sharon.
Half of Madam Sharon's face, beautiful, half ugly, was now completely overtaken by the madness of impending loss of control.
Yet in brief moments of clarity, fear still flickered across her features.
"Don't come closer!"
She screamed, manipulating ice spikes to bombard Silas.
An ice spike pierced Silas's abdomen.
He stopped, slowly pulled it out, and continued approaching Madam Sharon.
"Please spare me. I'll do anything you want."
Sharon quickly adopted an extremely alluring tone, speaking pitifully. Her voice carried an indescribable seduction, capable of instantly awakening people's most primal pursuit of pleasure.
For the sake of such pleasure, Sharon had witnessed fathers and sons slaughter each other, husbands abandon their wives, all desperately begging her in despair and anguish.
"Really?"
Silas grinned. The ocean tide sounds in his mind blocked out the temptation.
The skin on his face was slowly healing, making his smile increasingly handsome. "That's great, then. Rip out your heart for me."
With that, the revolver was already pressed against Sharon's forehead, the trigger pulled without hesitation.
"Bang!"
The bullet shot rapidly from the chamber, but before reaching Madam Sharon's brow, its speed began to slow, as if penetrating layers of invisible barriers.
It continuously decomposed, the demon-hunting power and the resistance constantly canceling each other out.
Finally, the remnants of the demon-hunting bullet left only a bloody scratch on her forehead.
Despair flooded Madam Sharon's face. She seemed to give up entirely, her long hair beginning to surge violently.
She wanted to lose control!
"Bang! Bang! Bang!"
But Silas wouldn't give her that chance.
He fired three shots in rapid succession, the demon-hunting bullets queuing up to blast through that beautiful yet hideous head, sending her brain matter flying along with pieces of skull to land steaming on the ice.
"Creak..."
The dark green vines slowly withdrew, and the bronze door closed behind them.
Finally, she was dead.
Silas took a deep breath.
He had originally wanted to pull out his dagger and take her heart. But the moment he tried to move, he felt completely drained of strength.
He could only slowly sit down and wait for his stamina to recover.
Beneath the pitch-black sky, a man with skin mottled between charred and pale, his face handsome yet fierce, sat expressionlessly on the ice, facing a headless, delicate corpse.
The scene was bizarre with a touch of the absurd.