But sothing still lurked in the shadows. A cold glint of light flashed, and Brut, nursing his injured left arm, frowned at the scene before him.
Amidst the great fire, a young man with black hair and dark eyes hovered in mid-air. His tranquil expression seed to transcend the world itself, while slender, hiltless swords of ice-blue and fla-red spun ceaselessly around him.
"Who are you?"
Brut demanded, his voice booming. One side of his body shimred, transforming into pure light. But the young man remained silent. With a wave of his hand, a thousand streams of white sword energy rained down from the sky.
After completing the sowhat abstract drawing, Jenkins had passed out. As if in a dream, he found himself on the streets of Nolan City, following an instinct that carried him into the heart of the inferno.
He could see everything but couldn't control it. The instinct driving his body seed to spring from his subconscious.
The face of a familiar stranger appeared before him. He raised a hand, and a stream of sword energy pierced through the man's left arm. Then, he spoke in a language he hadn't used in a long ti—Chinese:
"Sword of a Thousand Phantoms."
It was like watching a spectacular special-effects film. The flying sword immortal relentlessly hamred the ice-wielding Enchanter, leaving him with nowhere to hide.
Even when the Ice Attendant froze the entire street solid, even when he commanded the raindrops to form a volley of a thousand ice arrows, even when he transford parts of his body into an elental form to evade the onslaught—the sword immortal neutralized every move.
But a Cursed Item is always dangerous. Gradually, Jenkins could feel the sword immortal—the one he was seeing through—beginning to lose control. His attacks were no longer limited to a single enemy, and at the sa ti, the eerie whispers returned to Jenkins's ears.
"I'll spare your life!"
Watching Brut, now missing his left arm and covered in blood, disappear into a sewer entrance, Jenkins gritted his teeth and fought to wake up. He knew that if he didn't pull himself out of this state, he might not be sane even if he did manage to regain consciousness.
He opened his eyes. The fire in the distance still raged. The paper under his left hand now bore the lifelike drawing of a man in a classical Chinese style.
"Careless. How am I going to explain this?"
he thought in frustration. In the darkness, he glanced at the corpse staring back at him, and a vicious thought took root:
"I still have eight bullets. That's more than enough to kill everyone here!"
A plan to kill ford in his mind. Jenkins could already picture himself sneaking into the apartnts below, muffling the gun with clothing to silence the shots, and killing every single resident in the building, one by one.
The white paper in his hand trembled in the wind from the window, once again awakening the user's purest desires.
The Badge of Wisdom pinned to his chest suddenly began to vibrate, but it was useless. In an instant, it cracked into pieces, turning to dust before it even hit the floor.
Unfortunately for the Cursed Item, this ti the artist had drawn sothing that did not belong to this world.
A re snippet of information from Jenkins's pen had revealed a world with entirely different laws of reality. As the rules of this world clashed with that other, unseen ripples spread out in all directions. From the void, a great entity cast its gaze upon them. The ripples were reflected back, converging on the paper, and the sheet shattered into fragnts.
An icy current flowed from his left hand into his body. He shuddered violently, suddenly realizing what he had been thinking.
He looked down. The Cursed Item had been reduced to scraps of paper, its glow completely gone.
"Did I get so spirit as a reward from the world for destroying a Cursed Item?"
he wondered as he stood up. As the spirit flowed into him, the weakness and numbness in his body began to fade. The ntal shock from using the Cursed Item was also subsiding.
Only the extre cold in his right palm remained, but it was now dormant.
After a mont's hesitation, Jenkins gathered the scraps of paper and stuffed them into his pocket. He then hid the young student's body under the bed and hurried out of the attic.
He had expected to be questioned by the landlady, but he ran all the way out of the apartnt building without seeing a single soul. With a clear goal in mind, Jenkins stepped out into the rain. His replenished strength was more than enough to activate his abilities and break into a sprint.
The trouble was more or less dealt with. Now he just had to get back to where he was supposed to be to clear his na.
He crossed the dark street, the Church of Ocean and Exploration in the dock district just ahead. But as he rounded a corner, a figure that seed to have crawled up from the ground itself collided with him.
"Goddess above, I'll never trust in fate again!"
Jenkins cursed. The person he had crashed into was none other than the fleeing Ice Attendant, Brut.
Without a second thought, he flung the two explosive talismans he was clutching in his hand. But they never went off. Encased in ice, they simply smacked against the other man's face.
"So it's you?"
Brut asked, a wide grin spreading across his face. He rembered seeing this young man at the antique shop that morning. He might be down an arm, but at least he'd escaped from that demon. And what could be more satisfying now than running into an ant he could crush at will?
"It's ."
Jenkins fell to the ground with a bitter smile and leaned against the nearby brick wall, oblivious to the rainwater trickling down his collar and soaking his underclothes. Even though he was practically at full strength, he knew he stood no chance against an injured level-8 powerhouse.
"Are you going to kill ?"
"Yes. My apologies."
Jenkins shook his head, unsurprised. "I was just thinking, maybe I've inadvertently angered a god. If so, I hope that great entity can forgive , because I really have no idea what I did. Hahaha... could this day possibly get any worse?"
Brut listened to Jenkins's strange rant, puzzled. Had his day been unlucky?
He raised a finger and pointed it at Jenkins's forehead. Perhaps a god really had heard Jenkins's plea, because a timid voice suddenly spoke up beside them:
"Sirs, would you like to buy a flower?"
Both n turned their heads at the sa ti. The little girl Jenkins rembered so vividly had appeared at the mouth of the alley, not ten ters away.
She was hugging her flower basket tightly, shivering in the downpour. The rain had soaked her clothes through, and her wet hair was plastered to her pale cheeks.
If he didn't know what she truly was, Jenkins's heart would have overflowed with pity. But as it was, he couldn't quite comprehend the feeling in his chest.
"Thank you, but we're not buying any flowers."
Brut said after a mont's silence. He didn't seem to know about this particular Cursed Item that had recently appeared in Nolan City. Still, having survived to beco a level-8 Enchanter, he knew full well that anyone selling flowers here on a night like this was no ordinary person.
Out of caution, he refused the offer. What he didn't know was that Jenkins, collapsed against the wall, was suddenly overco with ecstasy.
"Refuse her flowers, and you die within a week! If this bastard kills , he won't be living much longer either!"
The little girl in the rain nodded dejectedly, but instead of turning to leave, she looked at Jenkins.
"Sir, you gave too much money last ti. I didn't have any change, so I couldn't give you the rest back."
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