Chapter Eighty-Seven: The Master of the Kingdom of the Deadland, Part II

Calm down. Stay calm.

After a brief moment of panic, the intelligence officer’s professional discipline steadied the terror in his heart. While warily guarding against the approach of danger, he forced himself to think through how he ought to handle this bizarre situation.

Wait.

Bizarre? Not necessarily.

Having temporarily regained his composure, Simon keenly perceived the core of the incident.

It was the “death” of the Mask.

The moment he had killed this Shadow King of the Lower District, chaos had erupted within Giant Paul’s mansion. Whether the mischief had been wrought by ghosts or by something else, in the end it could not be separated from that monster that controlled corpses.

Yes—a monster that controlled corpses.

Realizing what he had overlooked, the intelligence officer finally grasped the truth. There were no ghosts at all, no demons haunting the place. There was only... a horde of walking dead.

The Mask had been Emperor Michelangelo’s right-hand man. He could manipulate the bodies of the dead with ease, making them move as if they were still alive. Perhaps out of innate suspicion, the Shadow King of the Lower District had only ever controlled Giant Paul’s corpse in front of him, leading Simon to assume that Paul alone had been turned into one of the undead in this mansion.

But that was far from the truth...

In Giant Paul’s courtyard, at least several dozen fresh corpses had been buried.

For the sake of secrecy, and even more to emphasize his own value, he had killed the attendants and maids who might have leaked information, then buried them beneath the flowerbeds in the courtyard. Only at that time, he had never imagined that in this world there truly existed a monster capable of enslaving the dead.

What poetic justice.

With a soft sigh, Simon, realizing that this time he was doomed beyond escape, straightened his slightly disordered clothes. His gaze paused briefly on the corpse on the floor, and then he let out a cold laugh.

“Get up. I know you’re not dead.”

After a brief pause, he corrected himself.

“No—you were never truly alive to begin with.”

It was only a few trivial seconds, yet in the eyes of the intelligence officer from the House of the Lost, they stretched longer than several days. Fortunately, tormenting moments are short-lived after all. Following that brief silence, the Shadow King of the Lower District finally borrowed the lifeless body on the ground to speak.

“How did you discover it?”

He asked in a voice cold and utterly devoid of emotion.

“It’s actually quite simple.” A smile suddenly appeared on Simon’s thoroughly ordinary face, only for his words to stop there. After a pause, he exhaled lightly. “But I have no reason to tell you.”

He stopped, then said, “Your flaw.”

“In that case,” said the Mask, his voice holding no anger and no hatred, only a waterlike calm, “your value to me has vanished completely.”

Almost at the very instant those words fell, the mansion doors exploded inward with a thunderous crash.

Amid the scattering splinters, a giant stood proudly.

“It’s been a long time, Lord Paul,” the former aide said amiably to the intruder who had smashed through the doors. Then his tone shifted. “No, that’s not right. We only met not long ago, Lord Mask.”

“It seems you know more than I imagined,” said Paul, his beastlike rugged face uttering those icy words. “It makes me somewhat reluctant to kill you just like this.”

“Taken a liking to my corpse, have you?” The intelligence officer of the House of the Lost pointed at his own chest, then gave a light laugh. “In that case, I’m afraid I must disappoint you. It certainly won’t be more useful than the one you’re using now.”

“True enough.” The Shadow King of the Lower District nodded. “So I’ve changed my mind.”

“Oh?” Simon let out a low murmur of surprise.

“Please leave,” Paul said with a gentle, refined smile. “Today, I will not lay a hand on you.”

“Today?” The intelligence officer sounded faintly puzzled.

“That’s right,” the Mask repeated deliberately. “Today only.”

“Then farewell.” Simon did not question whether the Shadow King of the Lower District was telling the truth, nor did he wonder whether some trap lurked within that brief exchange of words. It was meaningless to do so, because... the words of an enemy had never possessed the slightest credibility. “No—let us never meet again.”

“We shall meet again very soon.”

As they brushed past one another beside the giant-like undead, an oddly simple and honest smile appeared on that coarse, beastlike face.

“Believe me, much sooner than you think.”

“Oh.”

And so the two passed each other and gradually parted.

“May you enjoy yourself in my paradise.” Watching the intelligence officer recede into the distance, the Mask, ruling over Paul’s powerful body that was almost beyond human, turned around. Without sparing even a glance for the corpse on the floor, he walked straight back to the center of the drawing room and stood there like a statue. “At the very least... you must let them be happy.”

Naturally, Simon had no way of knowing what took place behind him. But as the former assistant of the Shadow King, he understood all too well the man’s coldness and ruthlessness. Even Giant Paul—an old veteran who had followed Michelangelo in his early days and challenged the Dark Guild’s brutal rule—could be abandoned without hesitation. Let alone a traitor like himself. The Mask, that monster who defiled the dead, would never permit him to leave this mansion alive.

He was fully aware of that.

Though in Simon’s recollection the Shadow King of the Lower District had never once stained his reputation for keeping his word, first, they had known each other only briefly, and second, a man’s subjective impression was influenced by far too many factors to be truly persuasive. Thus, from the very beginning, he had prepared himself for an attack from behind.

Yet even after he had walked beyond the best range for a strike, the Mask still did not attack. He merely stood there quietly, watching him in silence, as though waiting for something, or perhaps anticipating something.

It filled Simon with an inexplicable unease.

The strange turn of events caused the intelligence officer of the House of the Lost to raise his vigilance to its highest point. Even if the Shadow King inhabiting Giant Paul’s body intended to honor the agreement he had just made, Simon still had to face at least dozens of walking corpses, not to mention whatever other hidden dangers might remain.

And yet even so, his unease should not have been this intense. What had he overlooked... what had he missed...

Giant Paul’s mansion itself was not large, but with the estate included, it was no small place either. As Simon kept watch for possible danger while thinking over whether he had missed some crucial piece of information he never should have missed, his pace remained slow. He had not yet covered even half the distance to the exit of the stronghold the Mask had built. Under ordinary circumstances, with a brisk pace, it would have taken no more than three to five minutes. But these were hardly ordinary times; each step of those few minutes’ journey was taken with the utmost caution, every nerve stretched tight.

Yet even with his sense of danger sharpened to its limit, he still could not avoid falling prey to it.

Beneath the loose black earth, a pair of yellowed skeletal arms silently pushed through the soil. Then five sharp fingers, like an eagle’s talons, locked into a ring and clamped tightly around his ankles.

The intelligence officer noticed something was wrong a moment too late.

And by then... it was already too late.

Though they were nothing more than decayed bones that should have crumbled at a touch, some inconceivable force had made them harder than steel. No matter how Simon struggled or slashed, they did not budge in the slightest, pinning him firmly in place.

What was he supposed to do now?

If Obadiah’s token had not shattered, perhaps he might have escaped by means of the uncanny power born of the Deepest Night. But unfortunately, even elite operatives like him, men who could be counted among the backbone of the organization, were rarely fortunate enough to possess a token like that—a charm to preserve one’s life. In fact, if not for how dangerous and important this mission had been, even the previous one would have been an impossible luxury.

Which meant... he could only rely on himself.

Calm down—stay calm—

He forced his mind to work, but before he could devise any solution, the situation worsened yet again. The loose black earth writhed once more, and arm after arm burst from the ground like saplings sped unnaturally through their growth, swaying in the dim light of dawn.

Danger!

Most of them were yellowed skeletal hands, but a few still retained scraps of rotting flesh. Revolting maggots crawled freely through the putrid remains, and a single glance was enough to make a person retch up last night’s meal.

Simon did not vomit. Not because he possessed extraordinary fortitude, but simply because he had no time to feel disgust.

Before the overwhelming terror of life and death, when was there ever room for a pampered body to voice its complaints?

He merely struggled in vain like a fish hurled ashore by a storm, resisting with all his strength though resistance was doomed from the start. Hundreds upon thousands of arms filled his vision, swarming over one another as they dragged him downward. Little by little, his feet sank inevitably into the loose black earth.

If this continued, his entire body would be pulled beneath the soil.

So he had to act. He had to act!

Driven by mortal peril, his mind spun almost madly. There were only two possible ways out of his current predicament: either deal with the arms threatening him, or regain his ability to move. But at present, neither path seemed possible. The skeletal hands restraining his movement could not be harmed by blade or sword, and as for the dense sea of arms before him, surging forward one after another, not even the poisoned dagger in his hand—its edge stained with Sindro’s venom—could cut a way through them. He could only be dragged down, inch by inch, sinking toward the deep world beneath the earth.

No—this couldn’t go on!

Feeling himself being carried helplessly and inexorably toward death, the intelligence officer’s mind finally broke. He glanced at the lower half of his body already swallowed by the soil, then looked at the venom-extracting dagger in his hand. After a long silence, he bit down hard and at last made his choice.

The deadly blade lightly opened the surface of his skin.

Then the world spun around him, and he found himself once more on the path less than a hundred meters from the estate gate. There were no skeletal arms, no nauseating rotten flesh and maggots—only a young woman as transparent as the ghosts of rumor. Her face seemed somewhat... somewhat familiar.

His consciousness gradually dimmed, yet his spirit became impossibly calm, as though gently wiped clean.

A vengeful wraith, he thought—a vengeful wraith rare even among demons, one capable of weaving illusions—

Then he closed his eyes.

Somewhere in the depths of his soul, a strangely beautiful flower of ghostly blue seemed to bloom. After that, his body gradually withered, as though doused in a desiccating agent, until in the blink of an eye nothing remained but skin stretched over bone. On that wrinkled face there lingered, faintly visible, only a deeply satisfied and eerie smile. Yet even that lasted no more than the briefest instant. When a breeze passed by, the last trace Simon had left in this world vanished completely.

And because of that, he never saw—

the ghoul beside the wraith, jaws gaping wide and drool spilling everywhere, nor the stitched abomination hurrying this way with four faces, six arms, and three legs...

The Mask had been right.

This was paradise—the paradise of demons.

This was a kingdom.

Its kingdom.