UCPA Chapter 20: Flogger’s Pith

Chapter 20: Flogger’s Pith

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: PlumSauce

 

John’s concern didn’t last long. As the bone-winged demon slowly approached, the door to the fire escape was slammed open again and Liz and Coraci came running through.

Seeing Coraci, John’s expression was like a lost man in the desert seeing an oasis. He tried to explain the situation when Mitchel, with a sobbing tone, said in a trembling voice, “Sidov, it’s a vampire! I can’t beat him up! I…” Sidov narrowed his eyes and looked at John. Mitchel continued, “Ugh… It hurts. Help me!”

Dumbfounded, John stared at the back of the brown-haired bartender’s head. He did use a lot of force with his hands, almost leaving a purple-black bruise on the young man’s forearm, but… Mitchel was asking for this!

Before Sidov could do anything, Coraci was the first to rush over, running a few steps over to John’s side and grabbing him by the collar.

“What the hell are you doing?” Coraci’s tone was harsh, while sneaking a wink at John. “We are here to investigate the case of the succubi! Not to find mortal-born demons!”

John knew that Coraci said that on purpose, although he still didn’t understand why. He looked aggrievedly at Coraci, let go of Mitchel, and stood aside.

“Don’t abuse your power,” Coraci continued to lecture him in a pretentious manner. “More importantly, you’re an Association worker, not a rapist!”

“I didn’t…”

“Then what are you doing? This isn’t an incubus!”

Mitchel on the floor slowly stood up, wincing as he put on his pants and leaned against the wall to be near Sidov. It looked like he was trying to stay away from John, but he didn’t dare to be directly next to Sidov. That kind of bewildered look was really quite heartbreaking.

Sidov frowned at Mitchel, turned his face and put on a gentle look, and asked Liz, “Your Highness of the Blackmoon, this vampire… Is also one of yours?”

Liz’s acting skills was something John would never forget–she made a perfect “feigning determination while holding back tears, heartbroken but trying hard to hide it” look, softly replied, “Yes, he is our colleague.” She then took a deep breath and looked at John with confused eyes, her steps almost a little weak. She bit her lip and took a few steps back, turned and pushed the door open and ran out, leaving a sentence, “We…are just colleagues. He’s a liar.”

John was deeply shocked. Liz’s series of small movements and micro-expressions contained a huge amount of information. Anyone who saw this scene would think of a whole love-hate soap opera.

Coraci furiously slapped him on the back. “Asshole! Go after her!”

“Huh?”

“If you don’t want to go, then forget it.” Coraci made a distraught face. “In any case, you two weren’t supposed to…”

John knew Coraci wanted him to leave, so he did as he was told. He was so embarrassed that he almost had two left feet. When he passed by the two demons, his entire awkward look was so natural that he didn’t need to act.

After John left, Coraci looked blankly at the ground and sighed deeply.

Bone-winged demon Sidov was a little surprised, but in front of Mitchel, he hid it.

“My dear, go back to work. I’ll be waiting for you,” Sidov said to Mitchel. His voice was very gentle, but with an air of lustful love. Mitchel nodded, opened the door warily, and walked out.

Coraci noted darkly that Sidov’s fingers brushed erotically against Mitchel’s waist.

“What’s up with that vampire?” Sidov asked.

“It’s a long story.” Coraci smiled apologetically. “Sidov, please don’t tell anyone about what you saw today, okay? Especially about Liz. She lost a little self-control, and it’s complicated…”

Sidov took one of Coraci’s hands, pulled it to his mouth, and kissed it. This was not the first time that Coraci had been kissed on the back of the hand by an Abyssal demon. Among certain demons, the hand-kiss custom expresses “respect” and “I will obey you” and is not gender specific.

“I promise to keep it a secret, Mr. Coraci,” he said solemnly. “Are you sure there’s nothing else I can do?”

Coraci again sought confirmation from him, “It’s not a big deal, we’ll take care of it. But Sidov, as much as I believe you, that Phosphor bartender is also a demon. Will he tell people about this?”

“You mean Mitchel?” Sidov smiled mischievously. “Don’t worry, he’s under my control.”

“He’s one of your men? Please tell him I’m sorry. And please be sure to tell him not to say anything to anyone else about today, not even other demons.”

“I promise this won’t happen,” Sidov promised again. “Mr. Coraci, you saved me and gave me my freedom in the first place, and I will absolutely defend your interests.”

Mr. Wu Jiu had parked the car two blocks away to avoid being noticed. When Coraci returned to the car, John was describing to Liz the pattern on the demon bartender’s buttocks and legs.

“Coraci! Are you okay?” John asked.

“I’m fine. Sidov knows me,” Coraci said. “I didn’t think that the ‘bone-winged demon’ the Bewildering Monster was referring to was him. I thought he had long returned to the Abyss. Then again, how many bone-winged demons can there be in a city? These guys are notorious in the Abyss for rejecting their own kind.”

“He seems to also know Liz?”

“John, remember the information I showed you last time? I saved an Abyssal demon. The demon said he was summoned and imprisoned for experiments by the people of the Arcane Covenant. That was Sidov. At that time he was made quite miserable. He probably gradually recovered his power later.”

“The Bewildering Monster spoke of a bone-winged demon and a mortal-born demon. They are Sidov and Mitchel?”

“I think so.”

Just now, when Mitchel heard John say he was from the Association, he was hopeful and deliberately led John to follow him.

Sitting on an elegant sofa, Coraci and Liz had been talking about hunting down the succubi; so Sidov was a few seconds late in noticing Mitchel leaving the bar. He stood up to go find him. Coraci and Liz did not know who he was looking for but only knew that they had to follow.

Without a word, Sidov hurried through the crowd, towards the fire escape, and pushed open the door, where he saw Mitchel being pinned to the floor by a strange man, with his pants halfway down.

In that instant, Coraci, who was following behind, had vaguely seen the runes on the bartender Mitchel’s legs, although he couldn’t see it all. He knew there must be something behind it, so he immediately improvised, with Liz acting along, a “love trials of the Association’s internal exorcists” play.

Coraci could see that Mitchel, the bartender, was afraid of Sidov, and he also knew that John’s behavior had something to do with the crimson runes.

Therefore, he deliberately and repeatedly asked Sidov to keep the secret, because when people feel they have discovered someone else’s shameful secret, they tend to think they are in control of the situation and will temporarily forget about their own vulnerabilities.

“Why do you guys have to be like that?” John asked. “I almost couldn’t react. Also, Liz should really be in movies!”

“Thanks for the compliment.” Liz put her rimless glasses back on.

Coraci said, “John, I’m sorry for calling you a rapist. My guess is that it was Mitchel who tried to ask, or even begged, for help from the Association. He could be being held hostage by the bone-winged demon Sidov. We don’t want to alert him; also, we don’t have any proof. If Sidov discovers what we’re up to, he might take Mitchel out of the city, or even back to the Abyss. And then we’d have even less of a chance to help Mitchel.”

In retrospect, John thought that perhaps Mitchel had noticed that Sidov was approaching, and that’s why he suddenly launched an attack and was deliberately pinned down by himself to create an inexplicable scene.

“Sidov won’t make things difficult for Mitchel, will he?” John asked. It seemed that Mitchel was indeed afraid of the bone-winged demon.

“I’m not sure about that,” Coraci said. “At least it’s better to make Sidov think that Mitchel was attacked by you than to make him think that Mitchel asked you for help. Plus, you are bloodkin; you can’t help Mitchel lift the seal on his body — this point rather helps us. If you were a human exorcist, Sidov would have definitely been suspicious.”

Liz picked up the notepad in her hand, on which she had been scribbling before. “John, did you see something like this on Mitchel?”

A circular pattern, runes coiled around going deep between the legs and then around the legs down to the ankles, winding into the shape of an ankle-cuff. Because the notebook was too small, Liz did not write out each character but only drew the general shape.

Although he did not see the ankle part, John immediately recognized that this was what he saw. “Yes, I think this is it.”

Liz and Coraci looked at each other, the two spell researchers were a little surprised, as if they already knew what it was.

Then Liz asked, “Did what you saw fade from red to black, or was it the other way around?” Liz just now also vaguely saw the pattern, but after all, due to her location, she couldn’t see too closely.

“The top is a little blackened, but it’s still basically red.”

“Oh… Then it was put there less than nine days ago.” Coraci tapped his finger to his lips in thought. “So it wasn’t on Mitchel when the Bewildering Monster met him. The Bewildering Monster was talking about a ‘brand’, and also said that Mitchel wanted to find a chance to remove that brand. That means, at that time, Mitchel was also bound by something, and he had had the opportunity to remove it by himself. Then, apparently that act of asking for help was discovered by Sidov, so Sidov used a stronger, more cruel binding spell on him.”

“What exactly is this binding spell?” John asked.

Coraci and Liz looked at each other again.

Liz pushed up her glasses and said, “It’s called the ‘Flogger’s Pith’, and as for the effect… I don’t really want to explain it myself.”

“Then I’ll explain,” Coraci sighed. “It’s Abyssal magic that only works on demons. If used on a human, the human will be immediately burned to death. It is cast with the spinal cord of a succubus, and the most significant and direct effect is… Uh, it’s the equivalent of a combination of a chastity lock, an aphrodisiac, a satellite positioning chip, and ‘that’ type of massager.”

John slowly turned his head as if his jaw was dislocated.

“The lady wasn’t even that surprised, so don’t look at me like that.” Coraci averted his gaze with a little embarrassment.

“You, you, you mean,” John stammered, “that Mitchel, he, he was always, being, that… that what?”

“Not ‘always’! John, how can your mental association be more sinister than the spell itself? The ‘Flogger’s Pith’ has many effects, and I’m only talking about the four most common ones. It’s up to the caster to decide which ones to turn on and which ones to temporarily turn off.”

“It’s really too awful…”

“Who says it isn’t,” Coraci said, “Sidov is a demon, after all, and I wouldn’t be surprised to see him do anything. Mitchel must have seen my phone number from Sidov, the number I left when I rescued Sidov back in the day.”

“What do we do next?”

“Since Mitchel asked you for help, let’s get ready to bring him back to the Association for questioning.” Coraci dialed a number with a cheerful expression. “I’ll get two hunters to get in on the act. Liz, you contact Carolyn.”

“What’s this about?” John asked.

“Taking Mitchel away. Since he said he’s not afraid of pain.”

 

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