Unsurprisingly, despite Jenkins and the priest’s attempts to intercept them, one or two of the nurous flying torches managed to ignite the pyre. Doused in oil, it imdiately erupted in roaring flas.
"What are you doing!"
The priest demanded loudly, but no one paid him any mind. Jenkins saw his chance and turned to rescue the poor man, but a sudden flare of the flas forced him back a step.
With things having escalated this far, he could no longer afford to hide his abilities. He used his power to instantly chill the air, then took a step back, lunged forward, and launched a flying kick that sent the pyre crashing to the ground.
Flas scattered in every direction as the priest and Jenkins worked together to free the bound man. He was badly burned, but at least his life was not in danger.
As Jenkins helped the man to his feet, he realized all the townspeople were staring at them with peculiar expressions.
Jenkins took a deep breath and began muttering an incantation. An arcane aura radiated outward from him like a ripple. The dancing flas cast his face in alternating light and shadow as he stood on the platform, looking down upon the townsfolk. The sheer weight of his presence was enough to instill panic.
Channeling a re sliver of spirit into his [Aura of Fear], supported by his imnse ntal fortitude, he easily shattered the villagers’ resolve. One person took a step back, then another. Soon, enveloped in the eerie atmosphere of the crackling fire, the townspeople retreated, leaving only the church mbers and the burned man standing by Jenkins's side.
The innocent, injured man was given temporary shelter in the church. The priest, having recognized the [Aura of Fear], revealed that Jenkins was the very "demon hunter" who had departed that morning. But Jenkins's identity was of little consequence. What mattered was that the next morning, the townspeople gathered on their own to discuss how they might root out more of the "unclean things" hiding in their midst.
Jenkins was certain there were no longer any non-human creatures in town, but the villagers, caught in a strange fervor, couldn't be reasoned with. The previous night’s events repeated themselves almost exactly. The pyre Jenkins had kicked over was erected once more, and a new accused was bound to it.
If Jenkins recalled correctly, this was the very man who had been the first to throw a torch the previous night.
The priest rushed to the scene and again tried to persuade the villagers to disperse, but this ti, they refused to listen. Having lost all reason, they began to bla him, claiming his negligence had allowed evil to invade their town.
Conflict erupted swiftly. The crowd sward the platform, and soon the clergy and the townspeople were locked in a chaotic brawl. Amidst the turmoil, soone tossed a torch, igniting the pyre. Jenkins sent it crashing down with another flying kick, and the people, seized by a naless dread, fled once more...
It was an almost perfect reenactnt of the previous night, except this ti the victim's burns were far more severe.
If this continued, sooner or later soone would actually be burned to death. The priest and Jenkins were both deeply concerned. After confirming once more that there were no creatures with black auras in the town, Jenkins proposed a new theory:
"Perhaps the one pulling the strings behind all this is just an ordinary person."
"An ordinary person?"
"It's not unheard of. An ordinary person stumbles upon a wicked grimoire and, driven by selfish desires, commits so insane acts. You have to understand, we aren't the only ones who can wield supernatural power. With the right materials, even an ordinary person can perform certain rituals—especially the malevolent ones with a low barrier to entry."
Under the cover of darkness, all the Enchanters from the church mobilized. They ventured deep into the forest with Jenkins, heading for the location of the buried treasure. As expected, all they found was a deep pit. Its contents had long since been dug up.
One of the church mbers was a skilled tracker. Under his guidance, the group returned to the night-shrouded Black Town and eventually located the ho of the town clerk, who lived next to the church.
The town clerk was primarily responsible for helping the magistrate record local events, and he sotis earned extra money writing letters for the villagers. He held a position of considerable status; in a town with a low literacy rate, any educated person was well respected.
They forced their way into the clerk's ho. The man, ard with a small crossbow, put up so resistance, but they ultimately managed to arrest him. During the subsequent search and interrogation, Jenkins and the priest learned that the clerk was the mastermind. The whole affair had begun with an earthquake the previous month. A fissure had opened in his basent, revealing a passage that connected it to a vast complex of buildings deeper underground.
"There's an ancient complex of buildings beneath Black Town?"
Jenkins stood in the church corridor with the priest and asked in confusion. He'd learned of this possibility from the stories he'd read, but this was the first real confirmation.
"Yes. Based on our preliminary exploration, it's as if the entirety of Black Town is suspended above a vast, ruined undercity. I've already had the entrance dynamited. You can't imagine what we saw down there... Behind the remnants of those gray, twisted stone buildings, I fear sothing even more terrifying lies hidden. It was absolutely horrifying..."
The priest spoke, his face haggard. In a single night, he seed to have aged more than a decade.
The clerk had also ventured deep into the ancient underground complex hidden in the darkness. When he returned to the surface, he had spontaneously acquired a vast and malevolent knowledge of the occult. He had even successfully predicted that an entrance to a Mysterious Realm would appear in the forest east of town.
For no discernible reason, he felt compelled to help the evil entities from the Mysterious Realm invade Black Town, which is why he incited the three young n to explore it. Those three victims were not the first; many others before them had already been replaced by creatures from that realm.
Those replaced individuals were the ones caught and burned on the first and second nights. The riots targeting innocents on the following nights were all planned and instigated by the clerk. The deaths of the creatures were part of his plan; he intended to use the chaos to create confusion and panic, dividing the populace. He hoped to use the opportunity to release all the evil spirits from the treasure.
Because the clerk had used only mundane ans, Jenkins, who was unfamiliar with the town and its people, had not noticed anything amiss.
"So there really is an ancient complex beneath Black Town?"
Jenkins thought in disbelief as he woke up in his bed once more. He activated his Eye of Reality and looked down, but saw nothing.
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