Lord of Cinder in American Comics

At Firelink Shrine, Ash opened the documents Kingpin had sent and examined them carefully. After checking, he discovered that the apartment Kingpin had sent was not far away, though it was slightly different from the private residence next to Firelink Shrine.

The private residences next to the shrine cater to customers who need complete privacy and need to handle all aspects of their lives. This building, on the other hand, is marketed as a property service provider, claiming that residents can enjoy everything within the building.

And this building is called Starry Sky?

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Author's Remarks

Voting, merging

2022-01-28 04:00

## Chapter Eleven: This is what professionalism is all about

Ash led the Fire Keeper to the building, which was only a ten-minute walk from the location of the Firelink Shrine. Judging from the extent of Kingpin's properties around the Firelink Shrine, this was also Kingpin's territory.

After showing the documents to the property management with the fire-preservation woman, Ash was led by the housekeeper to the door of his apartment building. It was a two-unit-per-floor design with a central passageway dividing the east and west directions, ensuring that both units had good lighting.

However, when Ash arrived, there were still people moving items in and out of his apartment.

The housekeeper explained that this was not a zero-dollar purchase event.

"Sir, please wait a moment. The furniture replacement and cleaning service will take a while. You can go upstairs to the executive suite for a short rest. We will notify you when the cleaning is finished."

Just then, the door to the next room opened, and a man with a slight mustache came out. Seeing the butler and Ash together, the man greeted the butler warmly.

The butler responded quickly and introduced the man and Ash to each other.

"Mr. Ash, this is your neighbor, Mr. Cassel. Cassel is a famous writer in New York. The currently popular book, 'Niki Heatwave,' is his work."

When the butler turned around to introduce Ash, he froze, because he didn't know anything about Ash and didn't know how to respond.

Ash extended his hand and shook hands with Cassel, saying, "Ash Solar, formerly a military chaplain, now presides over a shrine."

The friendship between the men developed quickly and inexplicably. In just a few words, Cassel invited Ash to his home. The housekeeper also said he would bring the keys over after cleaning was finished.

Unable to refuse the Fire Keeper's hospitality, Ash and the Fire Keeper went to the Kassel house. As soon as they entered, they saw a woman tilting her head back and chugging a bottle of red wine.

"Mom, what are you doing?" Kassel called out.

Kassel's shouts startled the woman, who quickly put down the wine and hid it in the wine cabinet.

"Caselle, didn't you go out?" The woman's demeanor instantly became noble and elegant when she saw that there were still people behind Kassel.

"Kassel, you've brought a new friend."

“Mom, these are our new neighbors, they live right next door. But you can’t drink like that,” Cassel said.

The woman took a new bottle of wine from the wine cabinet, along with several glasses, and walked to the group. She handed them to Ash and the Fire Keeper, filling their glasses. Raising her glass, she said, "Martha Rogers, Kassel's mother."

"Sharing a name with the mothers of Batman and Superman, you must be a great mother. Ash Solar, that's the Fire Keeper," Ash complimented.

Martha covered her mouth and laughed, saying, "It's nothing, it's just that I have a naughty child named Cassel. He was very disobedient when he was young. He was expelled from every school in New York, which has caused me a lot of worry."

Kassel was indeed expelled from all schools, but the fact that his mother, Martha, was able to ensure that Kassel could continue his education after being expelled from all schools speaks volumes about her influence.

When asked about Kassel's arduous academic journey, Kassel himself, standing to the side, looked quite embarrassed.

“But Mom, you’re wrong too. She even drank alcohol and took Alex away from the baptism.” Cassell and Martha, mother and son, were exchanging barbs, with Cassell trying to win back some ground.

"Kassel!"

Upon hearing this, Martha instantly became very serious, calling Kassel's name in a low voice, and the situation immediately reversed. Everyone knows that when your mother calls your name in a very serious tone, it's definitely not a good sign.

Kassel shrank back like an ostrich, and even involuntarily took half a step closer to Ash.

Seeing this, Ash had no choice but to step in and help.

“It was actually a good thing that Martha took Alex away from the baptism.”

Kassel, with a writer's intuition, instantly became interested in what Ash was saying and gestured for Ash to explain.

“Caselle, you need to understand that the world isn’t as peaceful as it seems on the surface.” Ash didn’t say it directly.

At that moment, as if a lightbulb had been turned on in his head, Kassel immediately said, "When I go to the poker games every week, the other writers often tell dark and scary stories, and I've always used them as a source of inspiration."

"Holy Reichert, could it all be true?!" Cassell exclaimed in shock. His mind raced, connecting the dots with events that had happened around him.

"And for a time, Martha forbade me from going to certain areas of New York and from going to bar parties at night."

At this point, Kassel looked at his mother, Martha, who simply swirled her wine glass without explaining why.

Ash understood what Martha meant; it was more convincing for a priest to explain the reasons than forcing someone to stop you from doing something.

“Some areas of New York are vampire hunting grounds, and these scumbags rely on bars to find their prey.”

"Vampires exist! Aren't they just characters in literature?" When he learned that dark creatures really existed, Kassel was a little incredulous.

"Of course not. Vampires have always existed. They were once major landowners in the South. The American Civil War was even a war against vampires. Almost all vampires were slave owners."

The truth about the Civil War haunted Kassel. He picked up his glass, took a large sip, and then asked, "So the government knew this truth all along?"

"Of course, Abraham Lincoln was a vampire hunter. Without his leadership, humanity would not have won the Civil War."

Lincoln, a vampire hunter, was determined to completely subdue these arrogant, bloodthirsty vampires and their enslaved human helpers after his mother died at the hands of these supernatural monsters.

For an ordinary person to kill a vampire, the only way is to cut off its head, and only weapons made of silver can cause damage.

"In order to defeat the vampires, Lincoln created the IRS to collect taxes by force. The IRS's first task was to collect silver and melt it down to make silver bullets so that the Union army could kill the vampires."

"Didn't we defeat the vampires? How come there are still vampires in New York now?"

"There are always some fools who try to side with those dark scum and gain so-called immortality. Don't they realize there's no such thing as a free lunch in this world?"

Even the invincible Galactus, one of the five great gods, will be defeated once again and again. Those who try to escape into the darkness will only have their souls extracted, leaving behind only empty shells to eke out a living.

After Kassel absorbed this shocking information, he regained his composure and asked Ash the question he had asked at the beginning: "Why was it right for Martha to take Alex away from the baptism?"

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Author's Remarks

Every vote you cast can help vampires buy a bag of spicy blood curd. Protecting endangered species starts with you and me.

2022-01-28 04:05

## Chapter Twelve: The Snowstorm Mountain Lodge

Kassel had his daughter Alex with his first wife. Although Kassel was not a believer under Martha's guidance, he still decided to have his daughter Alex baptized in a church according to tradition, influenced by his first wife.

However, on the day of Alex's baptism, Martha got drunk and took her granddaughter away early, so the baptism had to be canceled.

“Casel, since there are dark creatures, then what other creatures must exist? So tell me, in all the horror stories and religious tales, among which group of people will you find a God to save you?”

Martha swirled her wine glass with interest, waiting with Ash for Cassel's reply.

"After suffering?" Kassel tried to give his answer.

Ash shook his head and denied it, saying, "No, it's among the believers, among those who start to believe and then become lax, that there are all sorts of terrifying stories. After being tortured, those people's so-called Lord will come to save them."

Ash has already told Cassel a harsh reality: there are no free lunches in this world, and everything that seems wonderful already has a price tag attached. And that price doesn't discriminate between darkness and light.

"So Martha took Alex away from the baptism ceremony to avoid him being labeled."

Kassel remained silent in front of Martha, who simply stroked her son's face affectionately. Neither mother nor son said much, but they both understood each other's meaning.

The Fire Keeper finished sipping her drink, put down her glass, and whispered something in Ash's ear while standing on tiptoe.

Ash frowned, interrupting Cassel and Martha's conversation.

"Casel, I have some very bad news for you. There are evil spirits in your house!"

Upon hearing Ash's words, Martha and Cassell both jolted and instantly became serious.

Although Martha had learned how to handle various situations after so many years of life experiences, she was still somewhat at a loss when faced with this kind of supernatural event for the first time.

After hearing Ash's words, Kassel didn't know what to do either, but he quickly calmed down and asked Ash for a solution.

"Is there anything else in the house? Is it an evil spirit or a ghost? Is there anything I need to prepare first? Like a crucifix? Holy water?"

Ash shook his head: "God's things don't work well. There isn't even an omnipotent God like the one in the Bible, nor is there a Heaven."

"If there are dark creatures, why isn't there a God? Didn't God create this world?"

Kassel stared at Ash in shock. Although he wasn't a believer, Ash's words were still incredibly disturbing.

"You can think of God as a powerful being with some abilities, but he doesn't have the ability to create the world."

"Although he recruited a group of 'angels' as his preachers in an attempt to gain some faith, the angels were not good people. They were driven out by a powerful being and beat God up. From then on, God went into seclusion and spent his days thinking of all sorts of evil tricks to deceive souls."

Ash, thinking about the study materials that Obek, who was diligently studying in Kathmandu, kept copying back, selectively answered Kassel's questions.

As for who beat up God at the time, a Supreme Master who declined to be named said that he had a bad temper and was a bit hot-tempered when he was young.

“Caselle, let’s take care of things at home first. We can ask Mr. Ash about the other issues after that,” Martha interrupted the back-and-forth between Casale and Ash.

Ash pointed at the Fire Keeper and said, "The Fire Keeper has the ability to see into the abyss; she can 'see' where things are different."

As she spoke, Ash reached out and helped the Fire Keeper, asking her to point out the direction.

The Fire Keeper, who could see the face of the abyss and the future, led everyone directly into Kassel's study, then pointed to a typewriter in the corner of the room.

"Lord Ash, this is it. It is inhabited by a cruel and absurd soul."

Upon seeing the typewriter, Martha immediately took out an amulet and threw it at the typewriter. The amulet bounced off the typewriter the moment it touched it, following a parabolic trajectory.

“Caselle, you never listen to me. How many times have I told you not to bring these weird things back? Didn’t I tell you what to do with whatever you bring home?”

Castle's father is a super agent, and Martha was able to get Castle to continue his studies after being expelled from all schools; it just goes to show that no one in this family is simple. The amulet Martha just threw away is a simple detection method, capable of preventing ordinary people from being harmed by supernatural forces.

“I’ll take it and throw it away,” Cassel said sullenly.

Just as Cassel's hand was about to touch the typewriter, Ash gripped Cassel's arm tightly, making it impossible for Cassel's hand to move forward.

"Don't touch it anymore. Once the evil spirit locks onto you, you're finished. And this thing can't be driven away; it can only be destroyed. Now do as I say, and let's see what it is."

Ash had Cassel sit next to the typewriter and gestured for Cassel to place his hands on the typewriter, then took out a soul that was about to disappear.

All they saw was Ash pressing a faint, milky-white ball of light onto Cassell's hand, and then Cassell involuntarily typed on the typewriter, "Working without playing, even smart Jack becomes stupid."

Cassell froze, then turned to Martha in a panic and explained, "I... my hand moved by itself, I didn't type it."

Martha stroked Cassel's face, comforting her frightened son. She said to Ash, "If you have any way, please save him."