Mystery: The Witch of Desire

Time passed, and the clock silently struck midnight. The cemetery grew even more silent in the night, as if even the air itself had solidified. From afar came the calls of some unknown species, cold and eerie. In the darkness, something seemed to be lurking in the shadows, silently watching.

Reeve glanced at his watch and muttered to himself:

"Why hasn't Ms. B arrived yet...?"

"I've arrived."

Ms. B's somewhat lazy voice startled Reeves.

"Um...B...Miss Cynthia, where are you?"

After hesitating for a moment, Levi decided to still refer to Ms. B as Cynthia, since it seemed impolite to address someone by a code name.

"You don't need to know where I am. Now, head deeper into the cemetery. Demon Throat Honey won't be in those frequently visited areas on the outskirts."

Ms. B's gentle voice rang out again. Levi heard it clearly, but couldn't pinpoint the direction from which it came.

Reeves asked with a hint of helplessness:

Can you guarantee my safety?

Venturing deep into the cemetery in the dead of night, even if he didn't encounter the Demon Throat Honey, he was very likely to run into undead or ghosts. As a Sequence 9 assassin, he had no means to deal with undead.

Ms. B, however, solemnly assured him:

"Don't worry, I went to great lengths to get you infiltrated into the Hyena Gang, how could I easily give up such a pawn?"

"Although it's not pleasant to hear, it makes sense. Besides, if I really encounter danger, I can borrow power from the being in the mirror."

After some deliberation, Levi finally made up his mind.

Under the cover of darkness, he stealthily made his way to the perimeter of the cemetery, circled the fence, found a dilapidated gap, and quietly slipped inside.

Chapter 39 Deep in the Cemetery

The air inside the cemetery was colder than outside, carrying the smell of earth and decay. Levi moved slowly, tiptoeing along the shadows of the inner wall. In the distance, the gravedigger's hut glowed with a dim light, but no one was in sight; only an owl perched under the eaves, its green eyes coldly watching him.

The outer cemetery area was fairly spacious, with neatly arranged tombstones spaced far enough apart for one person to pass through. Levi crouched down and quickly passed through several rows of graves, using the tombstones as cover.

As they ventured deeper, the tombstones became scattered and disordered. These were all old graves—the stone surfaces were mottled, the inscriptions blurred, some half-buried in the soil, others leaning precariously towards their neighbors. The long-neglected tombs had collapsed, revealing the white, decaying bones within, which gleamed coldly in the moonlight.

In the darkness further away, a few trees stood sparsely, and several blurry shadows drifted among the trees, indistinguishable as living creatures or illusions cast by moonlight filtering through the branches. Levi swallowed hard, resisting the urge to activate his spiritual vision.

"Miss Cynthia, are you sure the Demon Throat Honey is in that forest?"

Looking at that gloomy place, a chill ran through Levi, and he tentatively called out to Ms. B.

After a moment of silence, Ms. B's voice drifted from somewhere:

"The witness saw it in the forest last time. Also, once you're in the forest, don't talk to me. The Demon Throat Honeydew is very sensitive to sound. Everything is arranged. Just follow the plan."

Reeve nodded somewhat reluctantly and followed instructions to enter the woods.

The surroundings grew increasingly eerie. The darkness instilled a strong sense of unease, and Levi felt as if a monster might leap out of the shadows at any moment and tear his throat apart. He unconsciously gripped the broken revolver—the gun without its wooden handle felt awkward in his hand, but it was his best option for the moment.

At that moment, a strange, lingering fragrance wafted over, its peculiar scent possessing immense penetrating power, spreading rapidly through the air.

Levi breathed cautiously, and after confirming that the scent was non-toxic, he tried to pinpoint the source of the fragrance, but he couldn't find the direction.

Reeves walked on nervously for a while longer, then realized something was wrong:

Wherever he goes, this scent follows!

There may be gases in the world that spread so widely, but it is highly unlikely that they would happen to appear in Raphael's Cemetery in Tingen.

Therefore, there are only two possibilities:

First, the fragrant aroma was following him.

Secondly, the fragrance emanates from my own body!

"What on earth does this taste like?!"

Remembering Ms. B's instructions, Levi muttered a sentence to himself and suppressed the urge to ask her.

Just then, Levi suddenly felt a chill down his spine, as if a pair of fierce eyes were staring at him.

He immediately became alert and turned around, raising his gun to aim behind him.

There was nothing noteworthy there, only a desolate darkness and the occasional bird call from within.

Is it just my imagination?

Levi was somewhat suspicious and wondered if he should activate his spiritual vision to take a look.

Just as he curled his tongue, he suddenly felt that there was no need to use his spiritual vision, so he gave up the idea of ​​activating it and continued walking forward.

After walking several hundred meters more, the eerie feeling behind them suddenly intensified.

Reeve stopped abruptly, turned around, and raised his pistol.

There's nothing there again!

Levi felt somewhat confused, thinking that he must use his spiritual vision to observe this time.

But then he abandoned the idea, thinking it must be because he was too nervous in the dark and overly sensitive to spiritual warnings.

"What a coward I am!"

Reeves scolded himself in annoyance and continued walking forward.

Before long, the familiar eeriness crept back into view.

This time, Levi ignored it completely, focusing only on moving forward and remaining indifferent to the strange occurrences behind him.

However, the sinister aura behind him suddenly intensified, and the intense sense of crisis was almost tangible. Killing intent exploded from behind, and a strong spiritual warning instantly shot straight to the top of his head.

Levi turned his head quickly in fright and saw a strange bird with jet-black wings and talons about two inches long swooping down, almost touching him!

The strange bird was incredibly fast. Just as Levi's hand reached for the pistol at his waist, the bird's sharp claws were already piercing his chest.

"Oh no, it's too late!"

Levi suppressed the urge to fire and instead reached for the bronze mirror on his chest—if he could survive the monster's attack, he would have a chance to ask the being in the mirror for power.

However, the moment the fingertip touched the bronze mirror, the mirror suddenly shattered.

The next second, a graceful figure appeared out of thin air amidst the flying fragments. A deep, dark flame ignited in her palm, and the moment the strange bird swooped down, the black flame condensed into a sharp dagger, slashing fiercely across the bird's wing.

It was Ms. B, who had been missing for a long time!

The sound of a sharp object slicing through flesh rang out, and half of the strange bird's wing snapped off, black flames spreading upwards along the severed edge. The strange bird let out a shrill scream, circled in the air, and fled in panic along the path it had come from.

Rewi snapped out of his shock and quickly pulled out his pistol, firing his last two bullets at the back of the strange bird.

Bang! Bang! A bullet pierced the strange bird's body, but it didn't cause it much damage.

The strange bird, dragging a broken wing, let out a sharp cry—the very same sound that Levi had heard in the darkness before, only now it sounded even more mournful.

The moment the cry pierced the night, Ms. B, who was about to cast a spell, paused slightly, seemingly abandoning the idea of ​​continuing the pursuit.

The next moment, she returned to normal, but the strange bird's figure had already disappeared into the vast darkness.

Still shaken, Levi looked at the shards of mirror on the ground, then at Ms. B standing before him, and asked in confusion:

"So, you've been hiding inside my mirror all this time?"

Ms. B sighed and said slowly:

"That's not important. What's important is that the bird has flown away, and all our efforts were for nothing."

Reeves asked, somewhat puzzled:

"You can pinpoint its location, can't you continue tracking it?"

Ms. B shrugged:

"Obviously, I can't. That thing has some anti-divination abilities, and my magic mirror divination can't track its exact location."

"Then what happened to you before..."

As Levi was speaking, he suddenly realized something and questioned:

"So, you actually don't know exactly where that bird is, and that you put that strange scent on me to attract the bird to attack me?"

Ms. B laughed jokingly:

"As bait, you're not too stupid. Of course, that Demon Throat Honeydew isn't stupid either, so you're no longer useful as bait."

Reeves was truly provoked, and unwilling to give up, he quickly composed his own words and retorted:

"You've prepared for so long as a Sequence 7, and it got away from a bird that's equivalent to a weaker Sequence 8?"

Chapter 40 Tracking

Ms. B, however, was not angry at all. She simply looked at Reeves and said earnestly:

"That's because I was too concerned about the safety of the bait. If I had waited until the bird's talons pierced your chest before I made my move, it wouldn't have been able to escape."

Levi was rendered speechless. So far, he seemed to have gained no advantage over Ms. B in terms of words, nor in any other way.

"Let's retreat first. The cemetery at midnight is not a suitable place to stay for long. As for that Demon Throat Honeybee, we'll have to wait for another opportunity."

Ms. B continued, preparing to leave the cemetery.

Levi nodded in agreement, but he was still a little scared.

Before the Demon Throat Honey officially launched its attack, he had received several spiritual warnings, but it seemed as if some unseen force was preventing him from using his spiritual vision to investigate.

"This may be what Ms. B was referring to earlier: the cry of the Demon Throat Honeybee can make those who hear it act involuntarily according to its will. So after hearing its cry, I abandoned my spiritual vision and ignored the sense of danger, in accordance with its will."

"It does resemble the instigating ability of Sequence 8. Is this a coincidence, or is there some kind of mystical connection?"

As he pondered this, a sudden surge of emotion welled up within Levi.

He sensed it carefully and discovered that the source of this tremor was the bullet he had fired earlier. That bullet had established some kind of connection with him, as if it were guiding him in his direction.

"What's going on? How can I sense the location of that bullet? And this location is constantly changing..."

Just as Levi was feeling surprised, a thought suddenly flashed through his mind:

The bullet pierced the body of the Demon Throat Honeybee. If I follow its guidance, will I be able to find the Demon Throat Honeybee?

Worth a try!

He immediately called out to Ms. B, who was about to leave:

"Wait, perhaps I can track down the location of that Demon Throat Honeydew? Follow me!"

As he spoke, Levi relied on his intuition to track the location of the bullet, ready to slip into the shadows at any moment to follow it.

Surprisingly, Ms. B did not express any doubts. She glanced at Reeves quietly and then followed behind him.

"Hmm, don't you doubt me?"

Reeves was prepared to be questioned by Ms. B, but Ms. B's obedient following behind him surprised him.

Ms. B said with a smile:

"Why should I doubt you? If you lie to me, I will make you pay the price."

Reeve shivered, said nothing, and focused on sensing the location of the bullets.

He and Ms. B crept into the shadows, proceeding cautiously. Sometimes they bypassed the woods, sometimes they walked through them, sometimes they crossed graves. After wandering around for an unknown amount of time, Levi felt that the bullet was very close.

It stopped at a high point not far ahead.

Reeve winked at Ms. B and then gestured ahead with his finger.

Ms. B understood immediately. She took out a small mirror, placed her hand on the mirror surface, closed her eyes, and tried to sense something.

A few seconds later, she opened her eyes, reached out and wiped her face, and she vanished from the spot.

Levi held his breath and waited silently. One second, two seconds... time slowly passed. Just then, a piercing bird cry broke the silence of the night, and then the night returned to stillness.

Not long after, Ms. B returned carrying a large bird that was more than half a meter long. It was the Devil's Throat Honeybee. Its two-inch-long claws were still gleaming coldly in the moonlight, but it had already lost its life.

"That was it, so easily resolved?"

"I asked, somewhat surprised."

“Of course.” Ms. B smiled easily. “It’s already badly injured. Once we find its location, dealing with it will be a piece of cake.”

Levi nodded, recalling Ms. B's black flames that transformed into daggers, which were identical to the witch's abilities he had previously borrowed from the mirror. This meant that Ms. B was at least a Sequence 7 witch.

"Ms. B is indeed very capable..."

After considering it to himself, Levi gave up on the idea of ​​adding more compensation.