Hell's Handbook

Chapter 264: Incident After Incident

The demon was terrified. His eyes were as wide as saucers and he stared at Su Jin as though Su Jin were the demon instead.

“Jin, what did you do to him?” asked Wu Chen curiously.

“Nothing much. I just created a tiny cage out of psychokinesis. If he puts in a little effort, he can break out of it within a second. But… if I fire six shots within this one second, I guarantee you that all six shots would be fatal to him.” Su Jin smiled faintly. Psychokinesis was considered a high level Spirit Power because it had a million and one uses. As long as the user was sufficiently skilled in using it, such a Spirit Power could deal with most situations.

A small psychokinesis cage was very useful in dealing with something like a demon, since it resided in a living thing in spirit form. This was something that Xu Ran had taught Su Jin how to do not too long ago. He was pleasantly surprised that it came in handy so quickly.

The demon began to panic because Su Jin was right. It was very easy for him to break out of the cage and one second would definitely be enough. But those holy bullets that Su Jin had were enough to reduce him to ashes within that one second.

“Now, I will ask you some questions and you are to answer me. Otherwise, you’ll get blasted right away. Understand?” Su Jin tapped the demon’s head with the barrel of his gun and smiled warmly at him.

Cold sweat ran down the demon’s forehead as he nodded obediently. He could sense that Su Jin was very calm and confident. If he tried anything funny, Su Jin was definitely going to retaliate.

Su Jin was very pleased with the demon’s response. He went straight to the point, “Your name, address, and reason for coming here.”

“What?”

“Don’t act stupid now! I said, your name, address and reason for coming here!” Su Jin suddenly raised his voice and pressed White Ash much harder against the demon’s face. It looked like the gun was about to stab the demon in the eye.

“Do you think you’re acting now?! Don’t go too far: you might stab the suspect to death at this rate,” Wu Chen reminded Su Jin when he saw the terrified expression on the demon’s face.

“That’s what he gets for playing games.” Su Jin threw the demon a nasty glance, then smiled creepily as he asked again, “Your name, gender, address and reason for coming here!”

“You didn’t ask about gender just now!”

“I’m asking now.”

“My name is Artoris. Demons don’t have a gender, so I’m genderless. I originally lived at the border of hell, but because the Top Devil returned, all the demons who betrayed him in the past like myself had no choice but to run from the border. I just wanted to find a place where I could be safe!” Artoris started crying as he spoke, so much so Su Jin wondered if he was being too mean to this demon.

“Artoris, what do you mean by the Top Devil?” asked Su Jin.

“That… that refers to the leader of hell. But I’m just an ordinary demon and the Top Devil is just a term of address to me. I only know that he has returned again after a thousand years, cast an item into the sea of flames in hell, and also chased away all the demons there. I betrayed him before, so I have no choice but to run away,” said Artoris honestly.

Su Jin didn’t think this matter had much to do with this Challenge, so he didn’t ask for more details and moved on. “How many of such evil creatures are currently within Mo City?”

“I have no idea,” replied Artoris without hesitation.

“You’re a loyal one huh! But that won’t help you in any way,” said Su Jin frostily.

“I really have no idea. It’s not as if all evil creatures belong to the same family. Even with regard to the affliction demon, I only know he’s here but he’s been trapped. I don’t have any contact with the other creatures,” explained Artoris.

Su Jin didn’t think he was lying, so after pausing to think, he asked, “Is that affliction demon very powerful?”

“If I were as powerful as him, I would have torn all of you to shreds by now,” snapped Artoris. He was held hostage by Su Jin, but it didn’t mean he wouldn’t get angry.

Su Jin laughed. Now he looked more like an evil creature. The way he looked like he was about to collapse from fear earlier on would have disappointed some of those deluded believers in the power of darkness.

“You’re too humble. The fact that you’ve been able to possess the body of a priest and enter the territory of God is already shocking for a demon,” said Wu Chen. He had gone through several Challenges and was no stranger to evil creatures like this demon, but he had never seen any creature possess a priest within a deity’s territory.

Artoris scoffed. “I didn’t want to admit it, but it’s really because the Righteous God isn’t in this world. His powers have been taken away as well as a result, and that’s how I was able to do this.”

This background story doesn’t sound like it belongs to a Level D Challenge, thought Su Jin. Is this something that’s actually happening in this world? Mention of the Top Devil and the Righteous God couldn’t possibly have anything to do with this Challenge, but judging from the way Hell’s Handbook worked, it was hard to say if the Challenges would change accordingly, so he decided not to pursue this matter further.

“Moving on. Does the affliction demon have any weaknesses?” asked Su Jin.

Artoris shook his head before curling his lips into an icy smile. “He’s a high level demon, so none of you are his match. Once he breaks free, all of you are definitely going to die. Holy items can hurt him, but they can’t kill him. He’s invincible here!”

“I can’t kill him, so I can only seal him up?” murmured Su Jin.

“You…!” Artoris’ eyes widened. Sealing him up was indeed the only way to deal with the affliction demon, but Artoris had no idea how this man managed to guess that.

Su Jin glanced at Artoris and said matter-of-factly, “It’s pretty obvious, right? Sherva was able to use his body and some symbols to trap him, so if nothing goes wrong, we might not even have to deal with him at all.”

Wu Chen and Kano Mai, who were initially a little worried about what to do, realized that Su Jin was right. Sherva had trapped the affliction demon inside his own body. He had paid a great price, but he had managed to do it. As long as they didn’t break the seal, there was no need for them to face this demon.

Artoris’ expression didn’t look too good now. “I’ve answered your question, so let me go like you promised!”

“Like I promised? I only got you to answer my questions. Did I promise to let you go after that?” Su Jin looked confused. At that exact moment, the look in Artoris’ eyes changed. He had been waiting for Su Jin to let his guard down, and now, Su Jin seemed to be distracted. He just needed one second and he could escape.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

But just when he was about to run out from Su Jin’s little cage, Su Jin’s fingers pulled the trigger as steadily and accurately as a robot, firing eight bullets straight into Artoris’ head, which destroyed him just as he was about to make a breakthrough.

The rest watched as the priest’s body trembled several times before collapsing heavily to the floor. Black smoke rose from the eight bullet holes in his face. Or rather, it was more like there were some facial features among eight bullet holes.

“What do we do now?” Situ Jin asked Su Jin.

Su Jin paused to think, then turned and asked Wu Chen, “You’re the senior here. How would you handle such a Challenge?”

“Catch some sleep!”

“Wait, what?!”

“Why are you so surprised? This is a three day Challenge. So many things happened within the first day because we took the initiative to get so much done. If everything could be settled within half a day, why would we be given a three day time limit? What we need to do now is to get ourselves prepared for the road ahead. More enemies will slowly appear as time goes by,” said Wu Chen as though this was all common knowledge.

The rest quickly realized that he made sense, so Su Jin decided to get everyone to rest for the time being. But everyone had to sleep in the main hall of the church. That way, if an attack occurred, everyone could help out. There was no way they were going to let each person find their own room like the way horror movies did. That was a sure way to die.

Everyone settled down to rest or to calm their minds down. Su Jin volunteered to keep watch for the night. His physical strength had been reduced by 60%, but he was still way stronger than ordinary people. Even if he had to fight for three days without sleeping or resting, he wouldn’t feel tired, so there was no need to take a break now.

He sat on the roof of the church and flipped open the book they had retrieved from Sherva. This book did contain information on evil creatures, including how to kill them. One of the pages featured the same symbols on Sherva’s body. According to the book, it was a special symbol that was created by the Righteous God that could trap all energies that did not exist as physical entities.

“The weakness of shapeshifters are their heads, alright, but that will only kill them temporarily. The weakness of vampires is their heart. You need to chop off the head of a werewolf to kill them. You kill witches by throwing them into a fire.” Su Jin continued flipping through the contents of the book, only to find that they weren’t too far off from the myths he had heard in his world.

Just then, Wu Chen stepped onto the roof and asked Su Jin, “Do we still make holy water?”

“Of course! Of course we do!” said Su Jin.

Wu Chen didn’t understand why. “That priest turned out to be fake. So why do we still have to make holy water?”

“We only found out he was a fake later on, and he didn’t know we were fakes earlier too, so the method he mentioned definitely works. Tell Situ and the rest to continue,” said Su Jin confidently.

Wu Chen agreed with his logic, so he turned and left. A short while later, Kano Mai hopped onto the roof as well to give Su Jin some water.

“Thanks,” said Su Jin with a nod. The church was the highest building in Mo City besides the castellan’s residence. As he looked down from above and scanned the city, he could vaguely see a faint black mist wafting through the streets.

“It will take some time before dawn breaks. But will the light really come?” murmured Kano Mai. She looked a little worried, since Team Boning Knife’s luck was always rather poor. Even a Level D Challenge might feel like a Level A Challenge as a result, so she continued to worry.

After working together for so long, Su Jin knew what Kano Mai was worried about. He rubbed his nose nervously as well. He didn’t know if it was because of the team or because of himself, but it was true that the Challenges they had gone through hadn’t gone very well at all.

“Don’t worry, we’ll be f-” Before Su Jin could console her, his eyes widened as he spotted the older woman from the slum standing at the entrance of the church, looking up at himself and Kano Mai with a creepy smile on her face.