Habit was a terrifying force.
Though countless harsh taxes and levies existed under Jabus's rule, vast numbers of people still supported him and pledged loyalty to him.
On Vitalia Island, Jabus was the sole ruler, an existence like a god.
Mark looked at Victor with a half-smile. "What, scared?"
"..."
Victor lowered his head, his hand trembling slightly.
He truly was afraid. That was Jabus, the ruler of Vitalia Island, the nominal master of them all.
Mark opened the Chat Group and typed with a smile: Looks like this kid isn't all that brave after all.
Jennie: What's strange about being afraid of Uncle? I'm afraid too.
To her, Jabus had always been terrifying. Before, although he was frightening, at least he did not kill people indiscriminately, so she had regarded him with awe and respect.
But now Jabus had gone mad. Even she had gone from reverence to fear.
Wasn't that perfectly normal?
Yet when Mark saw Jennie's words, he felt a little annoyed.
This was already the second time Jennie had spoken up for Victor. He suspected that she had feelings for Victor.
Mark typed: Jennie, don't tell me you like Victor?
Jennie: How could that be? I already have someone I like. I don't like him.
Mark: Then who do you like?
Arthur: I want to know too. Sister Jennie, who do you like?
Ai Miye: Arthur, you idiot! Why did you have to speak up? Wouldn't it have been better to watch quietly?
Jennie: ...
The Chat Group instantly went cold.
Mark closed the Chat Group, torn between hope and fear, only to see that Victor had already picked up his blade and resumed sharpening it.
He crouched beside Victor and watched him sharpen the blade. After quite a while, he finally asked, "What, you still want revenge?"
"My reputation in Two-Harbor Town is terrible. Everyone thinks I'm good for nothing. Only Xiao Wei was willing to listen to me and believe that my dream could come true," Victor said in a low voice as he sharpened his blade.
Mark asked curiously, "May I ask what your dream was?"
"It's gone already," Victor replied after a moment of silence.
Mark nodded. "All right, so you still want revenge?"
"..."
Victor did not answer. He merely continued sharpening his blade.
At that moment, Hawkins emerged from the Black Knife's cabin, and Mark immediately returned to the Black Knife.
"Dock the ship!" Hawkins instructed Mark.
Mark nodded and entered the wheelhouse.
The Black Knife gradually approached the shore before finally stopping at the pier.
Victor stopped sharpening his blade and rose to look at the Black Knife, his grip on the weapon tightening slightly.
He was not afraid of death.
But he feared that if he died, no one would be left to avenge Avril.
Hawkins and Mark went ashore. Before they had taken more than a few steps, a Long-Haired Demon burst from one of the nearby houses.
"Watch out!"
"Come back quickly! There's a Long-Haired Demon!!"
Those watching from the ship all shouted warnings.
But when the Long-Haired Demon came within three meters of Mark, Mark's Curse Spirit, Silver Wolf, struck.
Silver Wolf's fingernails transformed into slender blades. With a sweep of its right hand, it severed the Long-Haired Demon's thick mane and sliced off its outstretched arm.
That was not all. Almost at the same instant, Silver Wolf's other hand cut off the Long-Haired Demon's head. The demon remained in its charging posture as its corpse crashed down and rolled across the ground, finally stopping at Mark's feet.
Though Long-Haired Demons were strong, their defenses were clearly inferior to Joyce after he had turned into a paper effigy.
Silver Wolf's nails could extend and retract, and it also possessed extremely powerful invisibility. Caught off guard, the Long-Haired Demon was killed in an instant.
"Doesn't feel that strong."
Mark looked down at the headless corpse and said to Hawkins beside him.
The main reason was that the Long-Haired Demon's weakness was far too obvious. It could only attack at close range and had no long-range abilities whatsoever. Mark's Curse Spirit specialized in mid- to close-range combat, so the Long-Haired Demon was killed before it could even touch him.
Hawkins's Curse Spirit was called the Eternal Spirit. It possessed two traits: one was hardness, and the other was mist form.
Simply put, it was "hard black mist."
Precisely because the Eternal Spirit was mist-like in form, its greatest difference from Silver Wolf was its endless transformations and myriad forms.
In an instant, black mist poured from Hawkins's palm. Like ropes, it swiftly bound the charging Long-Haired Demons.
Naturally, the Long-Haired Demons were unwilling to be restrained. They struggled wildly and even rolled around on the ground, but they could not break free from the black mist at all.
Hawkins opened a passage to Eternal Space, and the black mist directly hauled the Long-Haired Demons toward it one after another, throwing them into Eternal Space.
"Dead?"
Hawkins frowned slightly. The Long-Haired Demons had died suddenly one after another the moment he threw them into Eternal Space.
He thought of one possibility. Perhaps Long-Haired Demons could only survive on Vitalia Island, and would die the instant they left it.
If that hypothesis was correct, did Jabus possess a similar weakness?
Hawkins opened the Chat Group and asked: Jennie, has Jabus ever left Vidalia?
Jennie replied: I don't know. I rarely see Uncle. I see Qiao Si more often than I see him.
Qiao Si: Captain, only the butler knows Jabus's whereabouts. There's no use asking us.
Across all of Vitalia Island, the person closest to Jabus was his butler. Most of his itineraries were arranged by the butler. Aside from a few maids, no one could meet Jabus himself without being summoned by him.
Out at sea, Victor and the others all stared at the shore in shock. They had thought the two men were doomed, but in the blink of an eye, they had dealt with every Long-Haired Demon.
Mark's Silver Wolf was invisible, so the death of that headless Long-Haired Demon had been somewhat inexplicable.
But Hawkins's Eternal Spirit was visible to the naked eye. In their eyes, Hawkins was like a sea demon from legend, wielding miraculous power, capable of releasing strange black smoke to instantly wipe out a group of Long-Haired Demons without even leaving behind corpses.
Yet no one dared cheer, because sea demons were said to be fickle in temper and might even eat people.
Victor also felt somewhat afraid. But recalling that Mark had not seemed like a bloodthirsty madman when speaking to him just now, coupled with the obsession in his heart, he still sought out the captain and decided to go ashore.
A moment later, he rowed a small boat toward the pier, quickly climbed onto the dock, and caught up to the two men.
"Wait!" he called out.
Hawkins and Mark stopped and turned to look at him.
Without panicking, he ran before them and said between breaths, "I know where Jabus is!"
"You know?" Mark asked in surprise.
Victor nodded. "I swam through the sea all the way here and saw him enter a cave with my own eyes. Only I know about that place!"
"All right, lead the way!" Mark looked at Hawkins. When Hawkins nodded, he agreed.
Victor looked at the two of them and said, "If possible, can you let me strike the final blow?"
"We'll see," Hawkins said without agreeing outright.
Victor understood as well. He nodded. "That's enough. Follow me!"
"Kid, what happened to that little ghost afterward?" Mark followed behind Victor. Seeing that Jennie had asked him to help inquire in the Chat Group, he spoke up.
Jennie had not seen George's final outcome in her dream, so she was somewhat curious.
"He was taken away by Jabus. I guess he's probably dead," Victor said. Thinking of George, his expression darkened.
Hawkins suddenly stopped and pondered, "No, why did Jabus take George away instead of killing him directly?"
"That's right. Everyone else was killed, so why was George the only one taken away?" Mark realized, asking in confusion.
Victor shook his head. "I don't know, but Jabus really did take George away."
"Captain, wasn't Jabus already mad? Could taking George away mean he has recovered?" Mark guessed.
Hawkins smiled noncommittally. "Won't we know once we take a look? Let's go!"
But inwardly, he had also become vigilant. A madman and a rational person were certainly not equally dangerous.
If everyone had been ordinary people, the madman would surely have been more frightening. But Curse Casters were different. The calmer a Curse Caster was, the more dangerous he was, because you never knew what abilities he had hidden away.
Neither the amount of Curse Power nor one's rank was enough to judge a Curse Caster's strength. In the final analysis, it depended on what Cursed Relic the Curse Caster possessed and what abilities it had.
It was not entirely impossible for a First-Rank Curse Master to topple a Ninth-Rank Curse Master. If they embraced the resolve to die, low-rank Curse Casters could be just as dangerous.
Hawkins extended his Curse Power and began scanning the surroundings.
Even if Victor had not come along, Hawkins could still find Jabus as long as he was nearby. It would simply take more time.
The three left Harbor Village and headed toward Two-Harbor Town.
Along the way, they encountered quite a few Long-Haired Demons. This time, Hawkins simply dissected the Long-Haired Demons on the spot, leaving both Mark and Victor pale with fright at the horrifying sight.
But the two soon discovered in shock that Long-Haired Demons had no blood inside them!
Hawkins cut a Long-Haired Demon in half and found that its insides had all been replaced by a kind of black hair. Its entire body was stuffed with black fur like a rag doll.
"Mark, shave off the hair on this Long-Haired Demon," Hawkins instructed after pondering for a moment.
Mark froze for a second, then nodded in acknowledgment. Silver Wolf behind him immediately grew sharp nails and swiftly shaved away the Long-Haired Demon's hair.
Once the hair had been shaved clean, a swollen human face appeared before the three of them.
"It seems Long-Haired Demons are transformed from humans," Hawkins said calmly.
Mark nodded. "Looks like one of Jabus's abilities is creating puppets. These Long-Haired Demons are all his puppets."
"Not necessarily puppets. They could merely be making use of waste," Hawkins said thoughtfully as he looked at the Long-Haired Demon on the ground.
He had already vaguely guessed what Jabus was doing, but for the time being, he did not understand the purpose behind it.