Iron Hook Demon

The abandoned chemical plant was flanked by cracked brick walls, but from outside it still looked fairly neat. There was not much ivy or overgrowth, only a layer of grayish-yellow dust and mud.

Compared to a factory, this place looked more like an abandoned villa or warehouse.

The corridor was not wide, probably only enough for two or three people to walk side by side. With no lighting at all, it was pitch-black inside even though it was noon outside.

The moment Iver entered, he smelled a very strong odor of dust. There was also a pungent smell like durian that made it hard to breathe.

Lu Lu carried the child and carefully made her way inside while coughing softly.

Even though she knew there was no one here, she still moved on tiptoe.

She felt her heart speeding up. Although she still had not left Glass Island, she felt a sense of adventure unlike anything she had experienced before. Everything here was so novel that she was immensely excited.

"We came here..."

Lu Lu whispered, "To hide from that murderer? Since this is a chemical plant, should we get some chemical reagents for self-defense? What if he follows us here?"

"He has to find the door first."

Iver spoke without hesitation, giving information that was excessively precise. "This chemical plant has no main entrance. Its back entrance is actually a dead end, and only the warehouse's rear door leads here. After the plant was abandoned, the original main entrance was blocked by a newly built stone warehouse. As the warehouse expanded, it was eventually sealed off completely.

"This chemical plant is two stories tall, with even higher areas accessible by ladder. Each floor has many connected rooms, and there are three stairways between floors. If the intruder is alone, we have plenty of room to play cat and mouse..."

Halfway through, he suddenly heard the sound of a Death Knell.

Iver immediately fell silent and turned to meet the other two's eyes.

"The fourth."

Sherlock spoke softly.

"There are the three of us, plus Bone Carver. That makes four."

Iver narrowed his eyes. "Who else do you think could still be alive?"

"Ke Ke. I suspect she has two Paths."

Sherlock quietly reminded him, "Do you remember, Fox? Lady Erlini mentioned that 'three of the Ascenders this time possess multiple Paths.'

"You, Knight, and Lu Lu are clearly newcomers. King and Cheese are not very clever either. Excluding me and Bone Carver, there should be one more... either Luo Le or Ke Ke."

"I don't have much of an impression of Lady Luo Le."

Lu Lu leaned closer and whispered, "I can't even remember what she looks like."

"That is one manifestation of the Path of Adaptation: hiding oneself and blending into the surroundings to gain an advantage. Don't underestimate her. Think carefully, and you'll realize that among the nine of us, Luo Le is the only one who has revealed no information at all. We know nothing about her."

The paperboy warned, "If this is the New Moon Ritual, the person I'd be most wary of would not be Bone Carver, but her. Every extraordinary individual on the Path of Adaptation is a professional hunter and assassin. I won't be able to relax until she is dead."

"What about Ke Ke?"

Iver countered, "Why do you think Ke Ke has two Paths?"

"I'm not certain. I simply lean toward the third person being Ke Ke. As for the reason..."

Sherlock said, "It's because of what she said: 'My Profession is not Demon Scholar.'

"She was among the last two brought in, arriving even later than King. King is in Stibium, so Ke Ke definitely isn't in Avalon either.

"But in Stibium, although the Path of Transcendence is legal, ordinary people generally can't obtain an Extraordinary Profession other than Demon Scholar."

"Like how, in Avalon, the Extraordinary Professions of the Path of Authority can only be Law Mage, Arbitrator, and Sky Knight?"

Lu Lu asked.

Sherlock corrected her, "More precisely, only Law Mage and Inspector. Not every Inspector can advance to Arbitrator. Even if they reach the required level, they cannot advance without passing the Round Table Hall's review. The necessary condition for becoming an Arbitrator is obtaining 'arbitration authority,' allowing one to bypass the courts and pass judgment alone.

"Even if an Inspector enters the Inspectorate, they can obtain, at most, law-enforcement authority. That cannot satisfy the requirements for advancing to Arbitrator.

"And the Sky Knight advanced from Knight's Light Cavalry Profession is exclusively part of the military system. Every Sky Knight is an elite among the elites of the Avalon army."

"Ah, I know this!"

Lu Lu's eyes lit up. "The Red Griffin has to become a talking White Feather Griffin before a Light Cavalry can become a Sky Knight, right?"

"Correct. They must wait for their griffin companion to reach adulthood, shed all its dangerous reddish-brown fur and turn pure white, grow from one point eight meters to more than two and a half meters, become calmer in temperament, and gain enough intelligence to speak simple human language. Only then can a Light Cavalry advance to Sky Knight. To achieve this, they must continuously strengthen their companions through the Path of Authority. A White Feather Griffin needs to eat thirty pounds of fresh meat every day even without training, and twice that during training and battle.

"Griffins obtained by ordinary Inspectors are of a different breed. They can grow to no more than one and a half meters in their entire lives and can never learn human speech. They only need around five pounds of fresh meat a day and live for merely thirty years. Compared with companions, they are more like loyal pets capable of carrying people through the air. The White Feather Griffins used by the army can live for centuries. When their human companions grow old and die, the griffins are still alive.

"In the Stibium Kingdom, the Extraordinary Profession corresponding to Inspector is Demon, while the one corresponding to Law Mage is Demon Scholar. An ordinary person who enters Royal Law University and becomes extraordinary cannot possibly become a Light Cavalry upon graduation. Purebred griffins are scarce, and the loyalty of the Light Cavalry has to be guaranteed. Thus, Light Cavalry are selected only from Knight families—just like our 'Knight.' He was wearing a helmet when he performed the ritual."

"Knight" might not have realized that he was actually the first person to reveal his identity. He had done so even faster than Lu Lu.

In Avalon, people outside Knight families were forbidden from privately owning armor. They would most likely be sentenced to death.

This meant that his father or mother had certainly been a Knight of the Round Table Hall. That was why he had obtained a knight's helmet, and why he had been able to become a Light Cavalry.

"...A noble of the Stibium Kingdom?"

Lu Lu murmured, "I've heard that Stibium has nobles whose titles are passed down through the generations. They have ranks, as well as their own lands and estates. I've read about them in quite a few plays and poems."

Avalon regarded Stibium as an enemy nation, yet did not dare launch a direct war against it. One reason was indeed that they could not be certain whether the Royal Curse had been initiated by the Stibium Kingdom. And power in Avalon was concentrated in the Round Table Hall rather than the Queen. Such an ambiguous pretext was insufficient for Avalon, whose national strength was considerably weaker, to declare war on Stibium of its own accord.

The Stibium Kingdom was currently the most powerful nation on the continent.

It had once been the only empire on the continent. Even after splitting into four countries, it remained powerful.

Founded by Valentine I, who had written the Holy Book of the Equilibrium Path, Triumph Chariot of Stibium, the Stibium Kingdom had now reclaimed two fragments of its former empire and restored eighty percent of the empire's territory.

Avalon could defeat Iris, but it definitely could not defeat Stibium. More than fifty years ahead of Avalon in alchemical research, Stibium possessed extraordinarily advanced technology. Only a few years ago, it had launched a war and annexed another neighboring country that had previously broken away from the empire. The enormous golems on the battlefield, which could regenerate endlessly, were terrifying.

Only when Avalon allied with Iris and Theocracy could it barely maintain a balance of power. But if Stibium truly attacked one of them, the other allied nations might not participate in its defense unless it displayed powerful resistance.

Yet Princess Isabel had another question in her heart: why had a noble of such a powerful nation only become extraordinary at this age?

Although Ke Ke looked very young, as if she were only in her early twenties, Isabel's keen perception from the Path of Beauty, together with her understanding as a woman, convinced her that Miss Ke Ke—or rather, Madam Ke Ke—was at least thirty years old.

She must have used an alchemical potion that preserved her appearance, allowing her to maintain such a youthful, pure appearance, like that of a maiden.

Was becoming extraordinary in one's thirties a little too late?

She immediately realized the answer and said with certainty, "Ke Ke must be the person with two Paths!"

"Why are you so certain?"

Sherlock countered.

"Because Miss Ke Ke is not as young as she appears. She should be over thirty. She has used alchemical potions to preserve her youth."

"...I see. That explains it. The fifth survivor should indeed be Ke Ke."

Sherlock slowly nodded, but his expression grew solemn instead. "That may be bad news."

Iver raised his brows. "You mean the enemy could be a Demon Scholar?"

"Listen, you two. I just remembered an incident."

Sherlock lowered his voice. "Ten years ago, in 1888, which is four years after this current Timeline, Lloyd District was struck by a series of murders. Every eight days, a pregnant woman was killed. The baby was brutally cut out of her womb, and the kidneys inside her body were taken as well. These were clearly ritual murders.

"The Bureau of Supervision called it the 'Jack the Ripper' incident. I was sixteen at the time and participated in the investigation."

The detective with the face of a boy slowly continued, "The murderer was a young Demon Scholar. He inherited an Iron Hook Demon from his mentor. It was a demon born more than a century ago from the concept of 'surgical abortion.' Thus, he tried to strengthen that concept and enhance the demon he had obtained through this ritual.

"He was eventually arrested and executed by us. But before Jack was executed, he told us that he had another master.

"—He confessed that his master had stayed on Glass Island for a long time, apparently serving someone continuously. Over the past few years, he had killed many people for that mastermind. Recently, he had gone abroad, reportedly heading for the Horus Empire or the Parthian Ancient Kingdom. 'To cross the desert, he needed to keep himself pure, so he transferred the demon to me.' After that, his master never returned.

"Based on the timing, that Demon Scholar should now be on Glass Island. The Iron Hook Demon itself is only a Lower Demon and is not strong in direct combat. It is simply exceptionally skilled at ambushes..."

At this point, Sherlock suddenly asked, "Did you have any curses on you when you appeared?"

Iver and Lu Lu exchanged a glance. Iver spoke. "We didn't, but Little Iver did. It was not very powerful, but it was a curse used for tracking."

"That's it!"

Sherlock said firmly, "I had one when I appeared as well, exactly the same type. I dispelled it with a spell myself. That may be why we haven't been attacked yet... A tracking curse counters the concealment abilities of the Path of Adaptation. The person who just died should have been Luo Le. She held out for a long time, but still failed to escape.

"The Iron Hook Demon can locate its target through a curse and directly leap through space to reach them. A Mirror Demon, which also fits these conditions, needs a mirror as a medium, while a Shadow Demon cannot appear at noon. Besides, both of those demons are Greater Demons..."

"Ke Ke is only First Level, right?" Iver asked.

"The Path of Transcendence is inherently proficient in demonology. The anti-demon ritual she casts against it should be able to dispel a Lower Demon. It's also possible that she transferred the curse on herself to someone else."

"So our enemy is the Demon Scholar controlling the Iron Hook Demon?" Lu Lu understood.

"Mm. More precisely, it's the Iron Hook Demon he is controlling remotely. The only problem is that although the Iron Hook Demon is only Second Level in strength, it is too fast and excels at ambushes. Even Second Level extraordinary individuals would find it almost impossible to defeat. Unless one of us is a Law Mage who can suppress it instantly, we may not be able to kill it."

Sherlock's brows were deeply furrowed as he scolded in a dissatisfied undertone, "Who knows how much Bone Carver and Ke Ke have increased the difficulty of this ritual—they raised the difficulty, yet refuse to cooperate with us! The three of us definitely can't defeat the Iron Hook Demon, and even with 'Knight,' we probably still couldn't. He is neither an Inspector nor a Law Mage, but a Light Cavalry. He has no suppression abilities. Based on the ritual's difficulty, it seems that at least one of Ke Ke or Bone Carver must be willing to cooperate with us before we have any hope of driving off the Iron Hook Demon.

"Now we can only hope that you didn't leave behind any other cursed items... A Second Level Demon Scholar can curse only one person once per day. I've already been cursed, leaving the two of you. If we're lucky, perhaps we can keep stalling until it ends... There are only two hours left."

At that, Iver subconsciously touched his nose.

...To be fair.

I'm not bragging, but—

If the enemy is a demon... then I may have accidentally increased the difficulty of this ritual.

An update of more than seven thousand words. Please give me some monthly tickets~