The facts proved one thing.
When pushed to the brink, life really would find its own way to survive.
That was exactly what Ian had done. He sensed the danger, so he came up with a solution.
And at this very moment,
he was carrying it out.
Of course,
it was nothing inappropriate for children.
"Get off me!"
The evil spirit howled and groaned in pain. There was no helping it. It had discovered that Ian had opened his mouth and sunk his teeth viciously into its neck.
He was genuinely eating it.
Swallowing it down and everything.
"Shut up!"
Ian raised one hand and pinched shut the nun spirit's already distorted mouth. He only had five minutes to eat an evil spirit even larger than himself.
That was absolutely a difficult task.
Still,
fortunately, they were both souls, so he did not need to worry about getting full. That said, for someone as picky as Ian, the texture of the evil spirit was honestly not to his taste.
"Eat, eat, eat! You disgusting ghost woman!"
Ian even copied the evil spirit's earlier tone while complaining. The facts proved that his belief in the conservation of energy was absolutely correct.
Well.
There was probably a bit of relativity involved here too.
The evil spirit could devour him, so naturally he could devour the evil spirit too. The system's feedback proved he was on the right track.
[Spirit: 2.9 -> 3.1]
Ian's attributes were rising.
Clearly, that meant the energy belonging to the evil spirit was flowing into him. Perhaps the [Spirit] attribute was also related to the strength of the soul. Ian had not fully figured out everything the four core attributes affected yet.
For example, he did not understand why he had come up with such a brilliant counterattack strategy, yet his [Intelligence] attribute still had not increased. Maybe that attribute really did not have much to do with wisdom.
Chomp, chomp.
Under normal circumstances, Ian would not make noise while eating.
But right now he was wolfing it down, so table manners were obviously not a priority.
He figured the nun spirit probably did not mind.
[Negative Status: Soul Corrosion]
Devouring the evil spirit was not without cost. A new negative status had slowly appeared above the transparent [Rage Value] bar.
But for a [Berserker], negative states were the least worrying thing possible.
He had already leveled up anyway.
In a moment, all he had to do was learn a new class skill. Who knew, maybe this kind of negative status would even be good for his body. Not only did Ian fail to stop, after getting used to the taste, he sped up his eating.
"No!!!"
The evil spirit struggled wildly, but Ian pinned it down without mercy. It truly had never encountered anything like this before. It was always the one devouring humans, and now things had reversed.
This was not magical at all.
It did not fit the laws of the universe.
...
At the same time, in the real world,
Constantine crawled out of the rubble.
"Why did you bring a kid here?!"
He roared at his companion while rushing toward Ian, who had fallen into a blank, motionless state.
"Damn it, Constantine! You just said you were going to die. You never said you were about to be killed by an evil spirit! I thought you were doing some insane dangerous experiment again!"
Charles crawled out after him, full of regret and frustration.
"Get me the holy water, now!"
Constantine knew this was not the time to play the blame game. He yanked open the shirt of the motionless boy. Ian's skin was turning gray at a visible speed.
Black vein-like patterns were also starting to appear across his chest.
That was the sign of a body being corrupted by the "power" carried by an evil spirit.
"Charles! Get ready to hold him down! I'm starting the exorcism!"
Constantine grabbed the bottle his companion handed him and tried to pull off the ancient pendant hanging from Ian's chest.
"Hiss!"
However,
the moment Constantine's fingers touched the pendant, it felt as though he had grabbed a red-hot branding iron. He sucked in a breath from the pain and snatched his hand back. Burn marks were already visible on it.
"What the hell is this thing?!"
He was alarmed and uncertain, but had no way of immediately identifying what exactly the pendant Ian was wearing was. And with every second counting, there was no time for careful study.
"Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus!"
"Omnis satanica potestas!"
"Omnis incursio infernalis adversarii!"
...
As Constantine splashed third-hand holy water over Ian and recited Latin exorcism prayers under his breath, his face was grave and his tone rose and fell with dramatic seriousness.
However,
although Ian's body did start steaming with white smoke upon contact with the holy water, the evil spirit still did not appear. So Constantine raised his voice and poured more power into the ritual.
"This expression..."
Sweat was starting to cover his forehead, and uncertainty flickered in his eyes. He could see Ian's lips slowly curling upward.
The kid was smiling?
Constantine would rather believe it was a demon's mockery.
After all,
at this moment, the evil spirit should have been devouring the boy's soul, and his body should have already been falling under its control. So any expression the boy made could only have something to do with a demon.
"Humiliare sub potenti manu Dei,"
"Contremisce et effuge,"
"Ab insidiis diaboli, libera nos, Domine!"
Constantine felt unease and dread rising in his chest. He quickly switched to a different exorcism method, trying to borrow the power of Heaven to drive the spirit out. He was familiar with all kinds of magical traditions and highly proficient in them.
Yet for some unknown reason, this second version of his exorcism still failed to achieve the result he wanted.
Even though holy light had already burst forth, and black smoke was pouring out of Ian's body, the evil spirit still refused to come out. Its resilience far exceeded anything Constantine had imagined.
This was absolutely not normal.
In all his years as an exorcist, he had rarely encountered anything like this. As a master of magic in the human world, Constantine might have lacked faith, but no one could deny his skill in magic. Especially when it came to exorcism, he had gathered the strengths of countless traditions and far surpassed most priests and other professionals in the field.
"No, this is wrong! How can it resist this for so long? How can some low-level demon from Hell be this strong?!"
A chill ran down Constantine's spine, and his mind could not stop racing.
What kind of horrifying demon could withstand his exorcism?
Could this be another trap aimed specifically at him? Was some great demon acting from the shadows, planning to drag his already hard-to-save soul even closer to damnation by using this boy's soul?
Fear and unease spread through Constantine's heart.
And then,
"AAAAAHHHHHH!!!!"
A scream of agony echoed through the whole room.
It was the evil spirit's voice.
"I'll come back! I'll come back for revenge!"
The evil spirit finally burst out of Ian's body.
But it did not look like it had been dragged out by the exorcism at all.
Instead, it looked like it was fleeing in a panic, desperate and miserable.
It even endured the holy water Constantine was throwing at it, its whole body smoking as it forced itself out through the pain.
The way it looked,
it was almost like some terrified girl fleeing after being violated.
(End of Chapter)
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