Following the evil spirit's escape.
Ian's body collapsed crookedly onto the ground. He was completely blackened, clearly having suffered severe "poisoning." Spidery, black-purple lines crawled all over his skin.
He was even foaming at the mouth.
Being directly possessed and corroded by an evil spirit indeed causes significant harm to a human.
It would be difficult for a normal person to survive.
"Quick! Constantine!" Charles rushed toward Ian, immediately reminding Constantine when the evil spirit appeared. He originally intended to catch the young boy falling to the ground.
However.
People associated with Constantine were often unreliable to some degree. Charles utterly missed the catch, failing to even grasp the gust of wind Ian created when he fell.
"..."
Charles held up his hands, which were supporting air, looking somewhat awkward.
At this moment.
"Don't tell me what to do!"
Constantine, who had been slightly stunned, reacted quickly.
Even though he didn't understand why the evil spirit's reaction was abnormal, he immediately held up the container he had just finished carving—it was a thermos that looked slightly warped on the surface.
Constantine had used the available time earlier to engrave a hexagram and runes on it. The evil spirit let out a deafening shriek, but an invisible force pulled it toward the seemingly ordinary container.
"This is where you belong! Demon!"
Constantine continued chanting the sealing spell, finally trapping the fleeing evil spirit directly into the container. The black mist was forcibly compressed and completely sucked into the thermos.
"Charles! Your teacup is a hero!" Constantine immediately slammed the clear lid on and quickly screwed it shut, thoroughly sealing the stainless steel thermos.
The hexagram pattern glowed blood-red. Strangely, the thermos did not violently shake, as if the evil spirit inside had no strength left to struggle.
"Done!"
In his confusion, Constantine couldn't help but let out a sigh of relief.
"Looks like another day where everything turned out fine in the end." Charles also wiped the sweat from his forehead.
"Everything turned out fine? Hahahaha! This isn't over between us! That damned crazy boy's body is completely decayed! It's impossible for him to survive!"
"Constantine, you will carry this sin as well!" The evil spirit's voice could still transmit outwards. However, no matter how one listened, its hateful voice carried a hint of relief at having narrowly escaped disaster.
"I'll wait for you! I'll wait for him! In hell!"
Of course.
There was also a dose of fury and anger directed at Ian. Honestly, if it hadn't been for the pull of Constantine's exorcism spell, it truly might have become the first demon to be eaten by a crazy human.
The evil spirit felt a sense of dread just thinking about it now.
"What crazy boy?" Constantine glanced at the fully blackened boy lying motionless on the ground, frowning anxiously. He knew the boy's condition was indeed dire.
"You must save this innocent person, or I will absolutely make you suffer alongside me." Constantine began threatening the evil spirit in the bottle to bring the boy's life back.
However.
The evil spirit was unmoved.
"Demon! If you don't save him! I will make your life a living hell! Believe me! You will never be able to return to hell!" It wasn't that Constantine cared deeply about strangers.
He cared about his own soul.
"Hmph."
The evil spirit just sneered.
And just as Constantine was frantic, unsure of what else to do.
"Um..."
Charles nudged his arm.
"Not now, Charles!"
Constantine turned back irritably, only to find Charles staring blankly and pointing to the side—before Constantine could even turn his head, a small hand reached out and snatched the thermos.
"This is impossible!"
The evil spirit's face pressed against the clear glass above the stainless steel thermos lid.
Its twisted face became even more hideous from the shock, yet due to the incomplete state of its soul, it looked weak and ethereal—its soul had been almost entirely gnawed away by Ian.
"How is it possible... how could he be alive?"
The evil spirit shrieked in disbelief. It wasn't just the evil spirit, even Constantine was dumbfounded. The boy, who had been completely purple black just moments ago, was now standing up as if nothing happened?
Not only was he no longer in mortal danger, but he looked energetic, his skin was fair with a healthy blush, and he even had the strength to steal the thermos and glare at it with fierce ridicule.
"It took you three minutes just to half-kill me. You couldn't even grind away zero point five percent of my life per second. A small evil spirit, truly laughable, laughable."
Ian's tone was full of passive-aggressive mockery.
"You should be dead! You should... No! What the hell are you!" The demon's scream vibrated the cup body. It was no longer willing to view Ian as a human.
What kind of human could be so bizarre that it made a demon like itself feel creeped out?
"Ptooey, ptooey, ptooey! You are the ghost thing, your whole family is a ghost thing." Ian was greatly displeased by the nun evil spirit's slander and immediately began to defend himself.
"This is the charm of stats!"
"Stats!"
"Don't you understand what it means when I say my stats are above yours?" While Ian was fiercely spitting vitriol, he hugged the thermos with both hands and began violently shaking it up, down, left, and right.
He held a grudge.
Naturally, he had to take insane revenge.
The Son of Superman.
Never holds a grudge past midnight.
"I already overcame my psychological discomfort, and at the cost of giving my young mind psychological trauma, I was gnawing on you, and you run away when I've only eaten two-thirds of you?"
"Run! Why aren't you running now!"
Ian's hands were shaking so fast they were a blur.
He was inflicting physical torture on the evil spirit.
The effect was quite good.
"..."
"..."
Constantine and Charles exchanged glances, seeing the astonished expressions on each other's faces. They seemed to finally understand why the evil spirit called Ian that damned crazy boy.
"What is going on?"
Constantine couldn't help but swallow.
He seemed to realize the truth.
The evil spirit wasn't expelled by him, was it?
"I have no idea... I told you earlier that this boy was scarier than a ghost, and now it seems my judgment was absolutely right." Charles couldn't help but recall his encounter in the taxi.
He was still feeling a little scared now.
"You brought him, and you're telling me you don't know?" Constantine looked suspicious. He stared at his accomplice, only to see Charles shrug helplessly.
"I just picked up a random passenger on the street." Charles was telling the truth, but in Constantine's view, the probability of such a coincidence was no less than winning the lottery jackpot.
He gave Charles an 'Are you pulling my leg?' look, then turned to Ian, who was playing the role of a human blender, and immediately spoke to Ian with a serious expression.
"Kid, give me that evil spirit. It's not a toy... On the contrary, this thing is very dangerous, and only professionals like me can handle it properly."
Constantine wanted to retrieve his spoils of war.
However.
"Hmm?"
Ian's eyes narrowed, his expression alert. He believed this thing was his spoils of war. "Something that crawled out of my body naturally belongs to me!"
"This is a clear matter of property rights! Trying to swindle my property away? No way! The sun in America once said that the private property of American citizens is sacred and inviolable!" While Ian was righteously railing against him, he looked at his personal panel. Devouring most of the evil spirit had given him considerable benefits.
Spirit: 4.2
This was an attribute that was difficult for a Berserker to obtain. This situation further strengthened Ian's resolve to inconvenience himself. He needed to find a better "cooking" method to eat the rest of the evil spirit.
As for the negative effect of [Soul Corruption]? It would only slightly affect his sanity and thought process. Ian didn't even plan to immediately cleanse this negative status once he got home.
Could the poison for others not be his sweet fruit?
A curse?
No!
This was his shortcut to a higher career path! Who knows, maybe accumulating a few more negative effects on himself in the future could directly save him the tedious effort of self-harm and self-healing every day!
What is wisdom?
This is startling wisdom!