Chapter 6: God's Spokesman — A Demon Is Born!
Nanaha covered his mouth and nose.
The intense smell of blood mixed with the freezing air kept his throat in constant discomfort.
"Could it be that there's also…"
"No." Kanae cut him off. Since she and Nanaha were now sharing the same body, she could share all five of his senses.
"It's not a demon. If it were a demon, the smell would be even stronger, far more murderous," Kanae explained.
The snow fell thicker and thicker, and the wind against his face felt like tiny blades.
The sky had clearly darkened, and the outlines of the distant mountains were beginning to blur. Nanaha glanced back the way he had come. All he saw was a vast sheet of white, with no trace of his footprints left.
Ahead was the deathly silent Luyu Village.
Behind him was a snowfield stretching for dozens of miles.
"We have to go in." He let out a breath of white mist and rubbed his stiff, freezing fingers. "Even if there's no demon, I still need to find somewhere to shelter from the snow tonight."
No matter how good his stamina was, enduring a blizzard outside for a whole night would be suicide.
And more importantly, he needed to find out what had happened in this village.
By now, the snow had covered most of the road. Each step he took produced a crunching sound.
He had not expected such heavy snow to fall before December had even arrived.
But that smell of blood was growing stronger and stronger.
Until Nanaha arrived near a broken bridge.
There were many houses near the bridge. Their doors were all tightly shut, yet strangely, despite the blizzard outside, there were no fires burning inside any of them, and no smoke rose from their chimneys.
Nanaha stepped forward and knocked on one of the doors, but there was no response from within.
His brows furrowed.
"Sorry about this."
Ever since receiving Kanae's guidance, Nanaha's physical skills and overall strength had improved tremendously, so he was easily able to force open the wooden door.
Bang—
The wooden door crashed down, shaking loose a shower of snow from the eaves.
Nanaha walked inside. There was no smell of blood in the house, and the furnishings were neat and orderly. Although no fire had been lit, there was still charcoal in the stove that had not yet been ignited.
"This doesn't look like a place where no one lives. But in weather this cold, where did the people in this house go?" Kanae asked in confusion.
"The smell of blood is stronger on the western side of the village. Let's go check there."
"Alright!"
Before leaving, Nanaha propped the door back up to keep the snow outside from blowing into the house.
The layout of the village was simple. After passing through a main road, he quickly reached a somewhat remote and open area.
This was probably a square used for gatherings and rituals.
There were many implements related to ceremonial worship.
And in the center of the square, firelight was flickering brightly!
It must have only been lit recently, otherwise he would have seen the smoke rising earlier.
He did not make his presence known and instead approached slowly.
Even with the snowstorm raging through the air, Nanaha could still see clearly.
A group of old people were either standing or sitting, gathered around the bonfire that had been set up. Their figures flickered in and out between the firelight and the curtain of snow, making them hard to make out clearly.
No one spoke.
No one moved.
Nanaha crept closer, and when he was less than ten meters away, a young voice rang out:
"Good evening, everyone!"
Standing directly before the bonfire was a thinly dressed boy with his arms spread wide. His voice burned with a strange passion, as if he were standing atop a stage before countless admirers.
"Welcome to this place! From this day onward, I shall lead all of you into a brand-new world!"
The old people remained silent, the firelight dancing in their hollow eyes.
"Have you all ever felt pain? Despair? Resentment? Have you hated this wretched old life with nowhere to rely on?"
The boy stepped forward, his voice extremely penetrating.
"From this very moment, forget all of it!"
"If there is anything you do not wish to do, then no longer force yourselves! Cast aside everything that brings you suffering!"
"We came into this world for one purpose alone—"
He spread his arms wide, and his voice suddenly rose sharply, as if proclaiming a divine revelation:
"To live every single day free of burdens, in joy and happiness!"
The wind and snow carried his words, letting them echo across the empty square.
The boy suddenly dropped to his knees. With trembling hands, he pulled a sealed little jar from his clothes.
Excitedly, he pulled out the wooden stopper.
"This is what that lord bestowed upon me. At this moment, before all of you as my witnesses, I shall become a true spokesman of God!"
"From today onward, I shall become the first priest of the Eternal Paradise Faith to be acknowledged by God. I shall live forever and spread—"
The boy laughed madly as he lifted the jar and was about to pour its contents into his mouth.
"This is bad, stop him!" Kanae's face filled with alarm the moment she heard the boy's final words.
Clang—
A normal long sword instantly appeared in Nanaha's hand. He gripped it in reverse, with the hilt facing forward.
The muscles in his calves tensed. His foot dug hard into the snow as he charged toward the boy.
But even though Nanaha was fast enough, he was already too late.
The boy had already poured the contents of the jar into his mouth.
Nanaha could only use the flat of his blade to strike the boy's wrist.
The jar fell to the ground.
The boy suddenly seemed to be in excruciating pain, clutching at his own throat.
Then a bizarre and terrifying scene unfolded.
His whole body bent forward, and beneath his skin, it looked as though something was writhing and bulging.
The exposed skin on his neck and the backs of his hands turned bluish gray and black at a speed visible to the naked eye. Veins bulged beneath the skin one after another, like wriggling black worms.
His fingernails grew wildly, curving and sharpening in an instant into pitch-black claws.
"Ughhhh—!"
An inhuman wail burst from his deformed mouth.
His head snapped unnaturally backward, and his neck bones let out a chilling crackling sound.
"So this is it, so this is it—wonderful, ah~ the blood bestowed by that lord... so this is what immortality feels like—"
The person who had been perfectly normal just moments ago had now turned into a hideous, ugly demon.
"Hm? I feel a little hungry... meat, fresh meat..."
Saliva mixed with black threads of blood dripped from his split-open mouth onto the snow, making a sizzling sound.
Then it suddenly lunged at the nearest person, and that person did not even try to avoid it.
Nanaha hurled the sword in his hand with all his strength.
Slash—
Although it was only an ordinary sharpened sword, Nanaha's force was tremendous. It pierced straight through the newly transformed demon's face.
"Ahhh—! It hurts, it hurts, it hurts! Who is it?! Who is interfering with this sacred ritual?!"
Nanaha stared fixedly at the demon.
Ever since killing the demon in Caomang Town, he had not seen another one for two months.
Now that he was facing one again, his hand was still trembling slightly.
He took a small dagger from his clothes.
"Kanae…"
Kanae's voice sounded in his mind, unusually cold and heavy.
"That's right. He turned into a demon. And—"
"It was that bastard who gave him the blood! The one whose head looked as though blood had been poured over it—"
"The one who smiled so harmlessly—"
"The demon who uses a fan as a weapon!"