384
"What good are your efforts?"
The Demoness laughed like silver bells, resting her chin on Maria's shoulder. Her white fingers crawled up Maria's neck like snakes. "You're all sacrifices. No one cares whether you live or die."
"..." Maria distorted the air before her again, considering whether there was any other way out of danger.
Just then, her keen ears caught an extremely faint sound ahead. Both she and the Demoness looked toward it.
The Demoness immediately waved her hand. The mist ahead parted like a pair of doors, revealing bodies strewn across the ground, all already lifeless. She and Maria quickly identified the source from the direction of the sound-
A small stone.
The Demoness's puzzlement first vanished, then suddenly surged again.
A stone? A stone couldn't make a sound on its own!
At that moment, Lady Despair noticed a rapidly expanding shadow overhead. Someone had hidden on a nearby rooftop and leaped down in her instant of confusion!
Panatiya dismissed this suicidal attack. Strands of spider silk burning with black flame immediately shot upward, suspending the figure before he could fall onto her-the sensation transmitted through the threads was wrong. This wasn't a living person!
Maria finally seized her chance. She whipped her head around, letting the spider silk slice a bloody wound across her neck, then spat viciously at the Demoness of Despair!
"I turn thirty-two next January-"
"You call me a little girl? How old are you, you old hag?!"
The Demoness turned aside to avoid this inexplicable spit, then suddenly discovered that the threads on Maria were no longer under her control. This was the Lawyer Pathway's "Bribery"! Even this counted as "Bribery"!
Having digested her nonexistent Provoker potion, Maria immediately distorted her image and hid in the poisonous fog.
"Sharp-tongued brat! Once I