Chapter 61: Demon Creditor
Spiritual human skin, pale broken bones, polarizing blue-white crystals...
One by one, border demons were slain, and pieces of spiritual materials were collected.
These materials spanned across multiple extraordinary paths, yet all of them belonged to border demons at the second or even third stage.
They were not directly intended for Adela’s advancement, but rather served as materials for her to craft a puppet.
The promotion ritual of this path was entirely related to puppets.
Although both the String School and the Doll School chose methods to complete the ritual that were essentially the same, their external manifestations were completely opposite:
The String School assembled various spiritual materials with different effects into puppets they could control.
The Doll School, on the other hand, embedded the spiritual materials into their own bodies, granting themselves various extraordinary abilities.
Because of the unique nature of their own extraordinary abilities, as long as it was not too extreme, the extraordinary powers assembled together would generally not conflict—
After all, they were not truly fused.
Watching Adela’s expression shift from twisted to delighted and then to fanatical, Sylvia began to consider whether she should also gather some spiritual materials for herself, to "upgrade" a little.
But after a moment's thought, she felt that these materials were rather low-end, not even worth considering for her.
With this thought, her gaze turned toward the small necklace inside the inner pocket of her cloak.
Hmm... perhaps it could work, but it was a bit too small, and she still did not know what it was.
She could ask Lakdevo about it once they returned to St. Ruls Cathedral.
At this moment, Sylvia glanced at Adela, who was giggling foolishly, and casually asked:
"Why did you go to the archaeological site of the Church of Machinery?"
Although Buolanke had already explained that Adela’s actions had been influenced by others, she still wanted to know why Adela had gone there.
After all, it was nothing but a wilderness.
Having been carried for forty minutes, Adela moved her body a little, thought for a moment, and answered:
"At that time, I had just arrived at the City of Alova—"
"I didn’t take the steam train directly to the City of Alova but chose to take a detour to avoid anyone tracing my whereabouts."
"Avoid being traced?" Sylvia asked with some surprise.
"Yes, someone is looking for me."
"It’s... one of our family’s creditors."
Adela let out a bitter smile and added, after a brief hesitation:
"They are not human, but... demons."
Demons? Hearing this word, Sylvia immediately grew interested.
As one of the extraordinary races that once existed on this land and now one of the endangered species, demons were undoubtedly among the most powerful.
In ancient times, they ruled the world alongside creatures such as dragons, giants, and elves.
However, unlike other extraordinary races that gradually went extinct after the end of the ancient era, most demons seemed to have suddenly vanished at a certain point in time.
Some suspected that they had provoked a god, thus bringing about divine punishment, while others believed that they had simply withdrawn from reality and settled in the Manifest Realm.
A few radical scholars even speculated that the demons were now residing within the Old Continent.
Of course, in the real world, there were still an extremely small number of demons active, such as Adela’s creditor.
"My grandfather borrowed something from the demons, but eventually lost it. Just like that, our family became indebted."
"Unfortunately, my whereabouts were still discovered by the demons."
She let out a bitter smile, but then her eyes turned as she raised her head and looked at Sylvia with a pitiful expression:
"Can you protect me?"
Sylvia smiled but did not answer.
She did not know the full details of this matter, and Adela had no intention of explaining it clearly, so she did not express her stance directly.
Then, she continued asking:
"So, you detoured to the Church of Machinery’s archaeological site?"
"Yes."
Adela nodded, a look of recollection appearing on her face:
"But I never touched that functional core."
"Oh? Then how did it explode?"
"And why did you immediately take on the debt?"
Hearing this, Adela let out a bitter smile:
"Although I didn’t touch that thing, I saw a white light burst out from my body."
"That light was dazzling and warm."
"Before I could figure out what was happening, that thing exploded."
"......"
Sylvia paused for a moment, her gaze unintentionally sweeping over the inner pocket of her cloak, then she continued to ask:
"Do you have any suspects?"
"I do."
Adela answered dejectedly:
"That letter warned me of the dangers of this trip, so I brought one of the few treasures left in the family—a talisman."
"It’s a high-level talisman from the Radiance domain, but due to its age, its effect has greatly diminished and become somewhat unstable, but it was still my best option."
"After that burst of white light, I checked myself all over and found that the talisman had already shattered."
Her voice was extremely bitter, tinged with a hint of dejection.
"It was an accident, an accident caused by me."
Expired products could be quite harmful.
Sylvia made a sarcastic remark in her heart, barely holding back her laughter.
"You should be grateful that no one was hurt."
"Mm... then why did you kill the leader of the Enris Party?"
After offering a brief reminder, she asked a new question.
She already had some guesses about this matter, but since she was rather bored, she still wanted to confirm it.
"Enris Party?"
Adela’s expression first showed a trace of confusion, but then as if she suddenly remembered something, her expression turned a little odd:
"You mean Uncle Starm?"
"He was a good man."
A good man? Sylvia found it hard to associate this term with a gang leader.
"I was also injured in that explosion, and he chose to take me in."
"Although I could tell he had other thoughts about me, he was just an ordinary person."
"But that very night, my creditor found me."
"And Uncle Starm, because of his own reasons, got into a conflict with that demon and was brutally killed."
"He thought the demon had come to snatch me away from him."
At this moment, Sylvia thought that this girl’s experiences were truly eventful.
Then, with some interest in her tone, she asked:
"So that means there’s still a demon in the City of Alova?"
"Yes."
Adela nodded:
"It was to avoid its pursuit that I fled to the Eplington District."
"Mm... it’s a second-stage demon, but because it wields an extraordinary item, it has obtained the power of the third stage ahead of time."
"Oh."
Sylvia responded meaningfully.
Hmm... perhaps when there’s time, she could go and see what demons in this world actually looked like.
However, at this moment, she suddenly seemed to sense something and abruptly turned her head to the side.
"Hmm? What is that?"
At the same time, Adela also mimicked her movement, voicing her confusion.