Mystery: The Witch of Desire

Samira's face was torn in half, her entire body was bathed in raging black flames, and the remaining half of her face let out a heart-wrenching roar.

Her body disintegrated rapidly, and her original five or six-meter-tall body was reduced to only three or four meters. Large amounts of corroded body parts and corpses fell out from the organic matter that made up her body.

Revi struggled to lift his head, wanting to witness Samira's final destruction.

But at that moment, all of Samira's flower buds in the black flames opened at the same time, spewing out a large amount of pus!

The pus hissed upon contact with the black flames, releasing a large amount of eerie gas. This gas exerted a suppressive force on the black flames, causing them to rapidly decay and eventually extinguish. Samira's body was also partially burned away, resembling charcoal stubble in the ruins of a fire, yet it still retained a tenacious will to live.

Levi lay on the ground, lost in despair.

He looked at the bronze mirror again. His reflection still showed a long black snake growing from his head, but he could no longer feel the gaze of that deep look, nor was he blessed by any new power.

He has lost all his cards and has no hope of winning.

The twisted vines snaked their way over and constricted his body, while another cluster of tentacles wrapped around the female statue. Both clusters of tentacles dragged Rivi and the statue toward Samira's true form.

Samira looked at the statue with a greedy expression.

She eagerly opened the flower bud at her lower abdomen, letting out strands of purulent yellow mucus, desperately wanting to take the statue into her body.

Reeves was pulled and slammed against the flowing surface of her body, where he would be swallowed up like the other thugs.

As Levi watched the approaching mass of rotting organic matter, the pungent stench seeped into his head, and an overwhelming sense of sorrow welled up within him.

The image of Jason dying flashed through his mind again: the gushing blood, the heart-wrenching cries…

His eyes went mad.

"At least let me die with you cultists!"

Driven by the pity of adrenaline, Rivi unleashed the last of his strength, lunging forward and lunging at Samira's lower abdomen.

His hand reached out towards the statue, which was almost completely engulfed by the flower buds.

*Pfft!* Levi inserted one hand into the flower bud in Samira's lower abdomen, and his hand was immediately covered in sticky fluid, feeling a stinging burning sensation and intense nausea.

Levi didn't care about any of that anymore. He grabbed the female statue, pulled it out violently, and plunged it directly into his own chest!

In an instant, the black pattern on Levi's chest seemed to come alive, strongly repelling the statue, which in turn trembled violently, as if terrified of the black pattern.

Under this intense reaction, Reeves felt an unprecedented pain erupt in his chest. Fortunately, the pain only lasted for a moment. The next second, his chest cavity was completely numb, as if his body did not belong to him.

Samira, having lost the statue, let out an extremely shrill scream, like a woman driven mad by the loss of her lover. All her tentacles simultaneously lashed out at Revi, desperately trying to snatch the statue back.

With a heavy heart, Levi simply shoved the statue directly into his wound, which had reopened due to the stitches coming undone, and pushed it in so that the lower half of the statue was deeply buried in his flesh!

"Come on, aren't you an evil god? Aren't you capable of corruption? Come on, come and corrupt me!"

Revi roared like a madman, while the statue trembled as if it were alive, filled with deep fear of Revi.

The flesh and blood at the site of Rivi’s wound began to writhe, repeatedly squeezing and enveloping the statue, as if trying to devour and assimilate it.

Samira became even more frenzied, as if watching her lover cheat on her with another woman. All her tentacles wrapped around Revi's body, desperately contracting and squeezing him so tightly that his bones cracked and popped, as if he were about to turn into a puddle of mud at any moment.

Under immense pressure, Reeves clutched the statue, now embedded in his chest wound, and recklessly pushed it deeper into the wound. The statue gradually sank into his flesh, about to pierce his chest.

In an instant, Levi felt a gaze. That gaze came from the vast distance, as if piercing through the boundless universe, and landed on him.

He froze on the spot as if petrified, all his strength drained away. The trembling statue suddenly calmed down, regaining its mysterious and unfathomable aura.

The next instant, something quietly seeped out from deep within the statue, slowly seeping into his flesh and blood, reaching the deepest part of his soul.

Reeve felt it—it was an endless desire, surging and burning within him like a raging fire.

This lust spread rapidly like a plague, devouring every cell in his body. The pattern on his chest clashed violently with this lust, the two like fire and water fighting, intertwining, twisting, and tearing, ripping Levi's frail body into chaos.

Reeve felt himself entering a trance-like state, in which he heard the manic laughter of the woman from his dream again, only this time the laughter was furious, as if his property had been violated.

Then another woman's giggle rang out—just hearing it was enough to make one feel a seductive, bone-melting allure, and to arouse endless desire. The two voices intertwined and echoed, tearing and tug-of-war within Levi's body, like two strings stretched to their limit, simultaneously binding the two ends of his soul.

He felt like he was being torn apart.

"collapse--"

With a sharp crack, the string snapped.

Levi's vision went black all at once, his consciousness being swept away by a torrent. He tried to grab onto something, but his body went limp, his head lolled to the side, and he completely lost consciousness.

Chapter 30 Aftermath

His heavy eyelids slowly opened, and Reeves' vision gradually cleared—

The surroundings were familiar; it was the same room Rowling had been in on the second floor. He was lying on the large round bed, with his luggage and belongings placed on the table beside him.

At that moment, a pair of beautiful eyes filled with worry came closer and stared intently at him.

"you're awake!"

Rowling's surprised voice rang out.

Levi paused, his mind blank—then, memories flooded back, and he sat bolt upright in bed, hurriedly asking:

"Where is Samira?"

Rowling's face showed lingering fear from surviving a close call, yet she still managed a slight smile, her tone carrying a hint of relieved relief:

“She’s dead—dead beyond dead, turned into a puddle of rotting mud. I’ve already ordered her to be burned.”

Reeves nodded, rubbed his still somewhat aching head, and asked:

"What happened next? There are some things I can't remember."

Rowling shook her head with a wry smile and said:

“I’m not entirely sure either. All I know is that you were fighting her for that statue, and then her body suddenly disintegrated rapidly, and the spiritual wall disappeared as well. I didn’t find the statue among her belongings, so it must have been destroyed by you.”

"Perhaps, I absorbed that statue into my body..."

Levi didn't tell Rowling his guess, only muttering it to himself. He recalled the two completely different voices clashing and tearing at him inside his body before he fainted, and he increasingly felt that his body had become a battlefield between two forces. One was the presence watching him in the mirror, and the other was the "Great Master" worshipped by the Hyena Gang.

"Hmm... The being watching me in the mirror lent me its power, so it should be considered friendly, right? Or maybe it only intervened temporarily to compete with the 'Great Master' for control of my body. Now that I'm still alive, I guess the one in the mirror has won?"

Revi tried to examine his body. The black pattern on his chest was still there, but the two high-sequence abilities he had extracted had disappeared. Revi was not too disappointed about this, as it was supposed to have a certain time limit and could only last for about an hour.

He then asked Rowling:

"How long have I been in a coma?"

Rowling waved her hand:

“You were unconscious for two days, and you have no idea how busy I was! I had to deal with the disgusting mess left behind by Samira, handle the investigation sent by the boss, and face the investigation by the Storm Church's Punisher Squad…”

"Boss? The Punisher Squad?"

Rowling's words were so revealing that Levi was startled and couldn't help but ask further questions.

Rowling smiled wryly:

"When a subordinate leader dies, the boss naturally sends people to investigate. The boss is a very mysterious person; I've never seen his face, and only the leaders of the various outposts know his true situation. The person who came to investigate was 'The Chaser' Princeton, a very dangerous guy... However, Samira's death was clearly caused by pollution, so Princeton and the boss accepted the conclusion that she died from pollution and loss of control. This kind of thing isn't too unusual in the Hyena Gang."

"As for the Punisher Squad... our battle was a bit too loud. The official Extraordinary Ones may have noticed something, so the Storm Church launched an investigation. Fortunately, those hot-tempered men don't have much brains. With the boss's help, we managed to keep it from them."

Reeves couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief:

"Thank goodness it was the Punisher Squad that came, not the Night Goddess's Night Watch Squad..."

This is because the main means of the Storm Church are sailors, while the Church of the Night Goddess has the means of investigation and spiritual communication, such as the Sleepless and Corpse Collectors, which are obviously more difficult to deal with than the extraordinary beings of the Storm Church.

Secondly, because of the phrase "Beware of the moon" in Emperor Roselle's diary, Reeves had always had an inexplicable fear of the goddess of the night.

However, it now seems that the goddess of night is not the only being associated with the authority of the moon. Samira's prisoner pathway is heavily influenced by the full moon. Does this mean that the great master worshipped by the Hyena Gang is also related to the moon?

Rowling looked at Levi, who was deep in thought, and said with a smile:

"Thanks to you so much this time, I will make it up to you..."

She changed the subject, saying with a hint of resentment:

"However, I never expected you were hiding such a big secret. You really kept it from me for a long time..."

She emphasized the word "big" very much, and a playful glint flashed in her eyes.

Reeves immediately tensed up. Could it be that during the two days he was unconscious, Rowling had already discovered that he was a man?

He examined his own condition: his outer clothes were off, but his undergarments hadn't been changed; he still wore a vain butterfly around his neck; the exaggerated wound on his chest had been stitched up, but this also exposed his flat chest...

"Oh no, Rowling will definitely know I'm a man now that she sees my flat chest..."

Reeves was filled with regret when Rowling gently patted his shoulder and playfully scolded him:

"You actually went and got breast augmentation surgery, and such a big one at that! You're something else! It made me feel really insecure before."

Reeve was stunned.

"Ah, breast augmentation surgery..."

This is a surgical procedure invented by Roselle, which he claimed could bring good news to women withered bodies. It was very popular in the Indis, but not so popular in the more conservative Loen.

He looked into Rowling's smiling eyes, smiled awkwardly, and replied with a reproachful tone:

"Am I not allowed to pursue beauty?"

He hadn't taken any Soft Qi for two days, and his voice no longer sounded like a woman's sweet voice; it sounded a bit hoarse. However, since Levi's voice was naturally quite thin, Rowling didn't suspect anything and just assumed he had a cold.

"Yes, of course you can. It's just a pity that this battle was too difficult and your fake breasts were blown apart."

Rowling continued to joke, clearly in a good mood.

"The boss has ordered me to temporarily manage the Kingfisher Bar. In any case, we have achieved our goal. I will start arranging things for those girls in the next couple of days, and I hope they can all live the life they want."

Reeves nodded with satisfaction; at least, all his efforts had not been in vain.

He said with a hint of amusement:

"What about me? Can I regain my freedom too? I can't wait to go home."

Wearing women's clothing for several consecutive days has been extremely damaging to Levi's body and mind. He can clearly feel that his body is undergoing some irreversible changes. If he doesn't take off the butterfly of vanity soon, he may really become a woman!

Pretending to be a complete stranger, carefully maintaining that persona, and living with a false facade is extremely damaging to one's soul. Levi desperately longs to see Emily, to see someone who knows his true self, and to rediscover his real self.

Rowling smiled slyly upon hearing this:

"Of course, I bet you have a passionate lover waiting for you at home, right? But before you go home, take your payment first."

As Rowling spoke, she pulled out a stack of bright green banknotes, which smelled pleasantly of ink.

Chapter 31 The Eerie Lady

Reeve's eyes were instantly drawn to the banknotes, and a look of longing appeared in his eyes.

Rowling counted the money as she spoke:

"This haul includes Samira's extraordinary ability and her magical item 'Blood Goblet.' The Sequence 8 extraordinary ability is worth around 500 pounds, while the Blood Goblet is a magical item made from the Prisoner Path Sequence 7 Werewolf extraordinary ability. Although its effect is not powerful, it is still worth around 1000 pounds."

Rowling paused, then continued:

"Both of these items are half yours, and with my personal gratitude to you, I should pay you 1000 pounds. What do you think?"

“1000 pounds…”

Reeves muttered to himself, the happiness coming so suddenly that he could hardly believe it. Just a week ago, he was the kind of guy who'd brandish a knife at a hotel owner for a few pennies, and now he was earning £1000?

Rowling, seeing his shocked expression, added with amusement:

"Of course, I don't have £1000 in cash right now. Our boss took the magical item, and I need to use that Sequence 8 extraordinary trait for my advancement, so I can't raise much cash right now. However, I will give you a portion of the bar's monthly revenue later to repay the £1000. For now, please accept this £100."

Rowling counted out 10 bright green banknotes, neatly stacked them, and handed them to Reeves.

Reeves took the money with trembling hands, carefully putting it away and tucking it deep into his pocket. Reeves found his own reaction somewhat amusing; he seemed to have become even more obsessed with money, treating it as if it were his life, as if he were afraid these little green things would be taken away.

At this point, his savings amounted to £137, 4 sous, and 9 pence.

After accepting the money, he keenly noticed some interesting points in Rowling's words and asked curiously:

"You just said you're going to use that Sequence 8 extraordinary property for advancement?"

“Yes,” Rowling nodded in reply. “Samira and I both follow the Prisoner Path, and I have already digested the Sequence 9 potion, so I can try to advance.”

"Digestion... potion?"

Reeve was even more confused, looking at Rowling with some bewilderment.

Rowling looked at Reeves, both amused and exasperated, and said:

"You're not illiterate in the mysticism, are you?"

Reeve scratched his head somewhat embarrassedly.