UCPA Chapter 48: Black Light

Chapter 48: Black Light

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: PlumSauce

 

Coraci felt his strength returning slightly, but he still couldn’t stand. He whispered to John, “Liz and Carolyn should be fine. I got them out. Now we need to figure out how to leave here.”

“Do you have a plan? Where is this place?” John asked, then immediately felt something was off. “Wait…you mean you got them out, but didn’t leave yourself?”

“Do you want me and Liz to run away and have Carolyn come here to find you?”

“That’s not the point… I mean, this is dangerous. And how do you know I wasn’t—”

“I know you won’t die.”

“Because they can’t eat bloodkin?”

“I’m not entirely sure, probably not. The Association has no record of specters eating bloodkin.”

“So…”

Coraci propped himself up with John’s forearm. “Just intuition. I can feel that you’re still alive.”

With John’s help, he stood and looked around. “I really wish you could see this place as it really is. It’s incredible.”

John saw the Atwood manor, with a garden path beside them and a forest in the distance.

“What do you see?” John asked, knowing that everything in Coraci’s eyes would appear differently.

“It’s an empty, dark house. Thin illusions drift through, like mist. The illusion is a garden. The house is huge, and it feels peculiar. The door is over there.”

Coraci pointed in a direction.

John looked where Coraci indicated, then pointed half a meter to the side. “Over there…isn’t that a storage cabinet? And another row beside it. They’re empty.”

“Yes, there is. But it’s still far from us. Are you saying…”

John nodded. “The walls are a little moldy, right? My god… We’re in the real storage room!”

Strangely, when John had fallen in alone, he had felt relatively calm. Now, standing with Coraci, he felt extremely tense. Being in a hidden basement was far more unsettling than being in an unfamiliar garden.

He unconsciously gripped Coraci’s shoulder harder, until Coraci reminded him to relax.

“I have a somewhat disgusting analogy,” Coraci said. “When we were swallowed by the semi-corporeal spirit, it was like being food eaten by someone. Then we followed its digestive tract downward… This is its rectum. Previous victims died completely during digestion. Obviously, we’re harder to digest.”

“That’s more than ‘somewhat’ disgusting…” John said, not knowing whether to laugh or cry. “But if this really is the storage room, why are the bodies of the couple and the hunters still in the room?”

“The souls remain; the bodies are expelled,” Coraci said, motioning John toward the door. He still could hardly stand and needed support. “You saw that black worm, right? Its whole body is head or tail. Once a human is fully digested, they’re thrown back from some unknown end. In our case…maybe it’s…constipation?”

“Alright, alright. The scene I’m imagining is a hundred times more bizarre than what we actually encountered.”

Even so, John felt that the atmosphere was less terrifying than before.

Coraci guided him toward the door, while the voices in the air continued chattering, repeating questions.

They began to realize that these two humans could find a way out! They stopped questioning and instead tried to stop them.

“You are not allowed to leave.”

“Stay.”

“The undead must stay.”

“I am undead too.”

“Leave one.”

Although Coraci could see the real environment here, he still couldn’t see who was speaking. He whispered to John, “The real door is just a few steps ahead. Once we reach it, we can touch it. We need to hurry.”

“You okay? You look worse than before.”

This was not an illusion. Coraci’s breathing was more labored than when he had just woken, and his pulse had grown even shallower and weaker.

“It’s still trying to digest me,” Coraci said. “I don’t know…how much longer I can hold on.”

John said nothing further. He draped Coraci’s arm over his shoulder and supported him as they walked toward the door.

The voices grew increasingly angry.

“You are not allowed to leave!”

“Stay!”

“So lonely.”

“Stay! Stay! Stay!”

Many exorcists knew the rule: among ghosts and specters, the ones that talk the most are usually the weakest.

Similarly, the ones that create the most realistic illusions often lack true killing power. Many ghosts use illusions to nearly scare people to death but are unable to actually strike. Truly powerful spirits rarely speak and prefer to ambush.

Coraci had assumed this entity was the same. After all, it kept talking endlessly and let them discuss digestive systems. Yet, he had underestimated it.

Suddenly, the ground beneath them loosened and sunk without warning, turning into a quicksand-like texture.

John shoved Coraci away. In his vision, Coraci seemed to crash into sculpted oval shrubs, but he had actually hit a moldy wall.

The ground wasn’t just like quicksand — it had become quicksand. John had never fallen into quicksand before, much less one created by a specter. Bloodkin instinctively feared anything related to “burial”. Coupled with the voices chanting “stay, stay, stay” in his ears, he panicked, unsure how to escape. Within seconds, he was buried up to his waist.

There was no proper foothold, and the dirt and sand seemed to have suction power. He couldn’t jump. The more he struggled, the faster he sank. He actively adjusted his posture, trying to keep his upper body above the surface.

The soil had reached his chest. From afar, John saw Coraci trying to stand by the wall, but his steps faltered and he fell to the ground.

John could still hear his pulse and breathing — Coraci was close to losing consciousness. The “garden” grew darker, no longer the blue sky from before. Perhaps the black worm’s body had gathered here, attempting to continue digesting human souls.

The vampire’s fangs had no effect on the quicksand. The only mercy was that John didn’t need to breathe — he wouldn’t suffocate even if the sand rose above his neck.

Coraci couldn’t see John clearly. His vision was blurred, and the sensation in his limbs had vanished once again. He couldn’t be certain this time whether he would be completely digested.

He had to make a choice…push himself to the door, or reach for John’s hand? But at that moment, neither option seemed realistic.

He supported himself against the wall and tottered forward a step, then collapsed entirely, weak and powerless.

The pitch-black worm segments had returned, all of them, back to the place they were familiar with. They were unwilling to let the survivors escape. Normally, a single digestion could swallow a person’s entire soul, killing them instantly. But when the worm tried the same on Coraci, his soul remained abundant.

It wanted to keep devouring, to dig deeper, to empty out this mysterious body.

John, meanwhile, could no longer see outside. Only one arm remained, raised high. Even with sand filling his nostrils and mouth, his mind stayed clear. The sensation was both terrifying and oppressive.

The more he struggled, the deeper he sank. Gradually, he could only move a few fingers. In the crushing darkness, he faintly heard a metallic sound.

The scraping of sharp blades against a hard surface, muffled by the heavy soil. Even a vampire’s ears couldn’t make out exactly what it was.

The worm’s massive body was compressed within the storage room, shattering the garden’s illusory imagery. Suddenly, a few streaks of black light flashed within its body.

Like the glint off obsidian blades: minuscule, cold, dazzling.

At first, they appeared only occasionally, then tightened, and finally erupted entirely.

The whispering voices in the air turned into screams of fear. The worm’s body was torn into several pieces from within!

Within the ruptured worm’s body, thousands of thin, leaf-like obsidian shards danced wildly in a whirlwind, their edges slicing outward, cutting down anything in their path.

It was like a miniature tornado filled with sharp knives. The black light flickered relentlessly, slaughtering everything it touched while shielding the creature within its eye of the storm.

The worm’s ashen face that had just begun to regenerate, was now shredded into fragments. In seconds, its entire body turned to fine powder and completely vanished into the air.

The blades did not stop. Alternating between dense and sparse in rhythm, they continued to slice through the viscous air of the illusion, tearing apart garden plants and stone tiles, until they shredded the old storage shelves, even scraping a thin layer off the moldy walls…

Gradually, they finally ceased, gathering at the eye of the storm, collapsing, and vanishing entirely.

The sealed basement fell silent. Coraci lay where the creature had disappeared, curled into a ball, shivering like someone with a relentless fever.

Morning arrived at the Atwood manor — the hour when specters are slowest.

The sky hadn’t fully brightened yet. The basement lay in darkness; only a faint glow seeped through the cracks in the sealed windows.

Minutes later, Coraci woke up. Like someone abruptly shaken from a dream, he jerked upright, then toppled back, dizzy.

After several deep breaths, he tried again to get up. The storage room was pitch dark, and he couldn’t see clearly, but he knew the illusion was gone. Now, it was just a silent storage room.

Due to the poor lighting, he couldn’t see the shredded storage shelves. He could only discern something near the exit…a hand extending from the floor.

“John?” he stumbled toward it, knelt down, and carefully touched the hand.

John made an “OK” gesture.

Coraci exhaled in relief. He grasped John’s hand, keeping close to the ground, and asked if he could hear him. John’s response was hesitant, probably recognizing the words but unable to hear clearly.

“I’ll go get help…” Coraci squeezed the hand tightly, trying to comfort John as much as possible — but even buried, John could feel how pitifully weak that grip was.

Coraci’s body felt so heavy he could barely move. He couldn’t help but think that this was probably how astronauts felt when they first returned to Earth.

He had expected the basement door to be difficult to open. Yet, surprisingly, it swung open with a single push.

He didn’t notice that a layer of the door had been sliced off and the lock was destroyed.

The last thing Coraci remembered was being enveloped by the black worm, surrounded by its chaotic roars. He felt his life draining away bit by bit, his senses fading, until he completely lost consciousness.

Why he woke up — he had no idea.

 

John had been buried for a long time. The earth had compacted immediately after swallowing him, making it nearly impossible for even a bloodkin’s immense strength to break free. The hand that remained exposed felt the rush of strong wind. Something was happening aboveground, but the dense soil blocked sound entirely. Some dirt even filled his ear canal, muffling any noise.

All vampires are afraid of being buried. Some extreme ones were even afraid of amusement park ball pits — not because they caused harm, but because they triggered a deep, ancestral fear tied to their blood. The undead feared burial like how humans feared heights.

John struggled continuously. He thought it was somewhat effective as he could sense the soil slightly loosening, though he had no idea how long it would take to escape. He worried about Coraci, fearing he might face an irreversible scene if he didn’t reach him in time. When Coraci touched his hand, John felt a familiar warmth, a familiar heartbeat. He instantly felt much safer.

After an uncertain amount of time, chaotic sounds came from above again. Someone was digging, and John continued to struggle in sync to help break through. Then, a shovel plunged forcefully, striking his elbow. Since mud filled John’s mouth and his eyes couldn’t open, he could only writhe and scream silently.

The digger unearthed his entire arm and the top of his head. He wrinkled his nose, opened his eyes, and saw a flash of sharp silver. Terrified, he shuddered, and the dirt fell out from his mouth.

“Sorry, almost hit you,” Carolyn said, adjusting the direction of the silver sabre that was extending from her skirt. That thing had nearly pierced John’s face just now.

Another shovel thrust into him, and John howled.

“Uh, is this your rib?” Carolyn shifted direction again. “My right hand isn’t that dexterous, sorry. Don’t scream so dramatically. It’s just a shovel — like a tickle to a vampire.”

 

Author’s Note:

The “thin obsidian shards” were inspired by Aztec weaponry. Geographically, this culture has nothing to do with the story, but I thought it sounded beautiful when I saw it in a documentary…

Also, real obsidian isn’t that hard. Probably not as hard as crystal. Before steel existed, people might have used it for spear tips and knives. Here, it’s metaphorical — there aren’t literally flying shards of obsidian everywhere; they just look like it…

 

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