UCPA Chapter 49: Beneath the Soil

Chapter 49: Beneath the Soil

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: PlumSauce

 

Carolyn planted the shovel into the ground, wiping sweat with her arm. “This dirt feels like it’s been packed down by a steamroller!”

John had half his body exposed and was straining to push himself out, wary of Carolyn stabbing him again.

The girl looked down at him, tilting her head and frowning. “Hey…I just remembered — aren’t you a vampire?”

“Does that need remembering?” John replied.

“Can’t you just fly out?”

“No. If you mean vaporizing, I tried it when the black worm first swallowed me. Maybe it’s because they ingested me; I couldn’t vaporize at all.”

“Did you try it while buried in the pit?” Carolyn asked and lifted her military-grade shovel again. John pressed his lips together, bracing for any part of his body that might get struck.

“I tried. No luck,” he replied. “Maybe there’s some rule. Like…when I was possessed by Ms. Hai Jiu — you know her, right? I couldn’t vaporize when she possessed me. Maybe any time a ghost overlaps with me, it just doesn’t work?”

Carolyn jabbed her shovel into the soil near John’s chest with a “phut”. “Can’t you try again? Right now! I can’t dig anymore!”

John suddenly realized — the illusion was gone. Even Carolyn had arrived, moving freely and unscathed. Maybe now he could vaporize!

He tried it and…succeeded. He became a wisp of smoke, drifting out as the earth and stones behind him collapsed.

He returned to solid form, breathing a sigh of relief. Carolyn’s eyes widened as she stared at the ground behind him.

A skeletal hand protruded from the dirt, right beside where John had just been.

“Oh my god…what exactly did you guys go through?” Carolyn looked from the bone to the storage room — every wall was marred with fine slice marks, the old shelves were nearly reduced to sawdust, and a thin layer had been shaved off the door panel.

“I don’t know. I got pulled down…” John mumbled, scanning the room. “Where’s Coraci? Why isn’t he here?”

Carolyn pointed outside. “He’s gone up. Don’t worry — he’s okay, just as weak as if he just gave birth.”

“You mean…he lost a lot of blood?” John asked, clenching his fists nervously.

“Give me a break!” Carolyn shot him a look that screamed: You’re impossible. “Why don’t you first point out that my metaphor isn’t appropriate? Is your brain stuck in your appendix?”

John silently grumbled, Even after all this, she still has to make these metaphors… and followed her out of the basement.

In the hallway, the terrified specters had gathered in a circle. The Atwoods flickered particularly brightly.

Clearly, they knew the storage room had been discovered. They stood silently, heads bowed, watching the murderous Carolyn and dirt-covered John emerge from the stairway.

“Are we really leaving it here?” John asked quietly, gesturing toward the skeletal hand in the dirt.

Carolyn’s gaze swept over the group of specters. “These specters can’t hold objects. They can’t do anything, even if they want to.”

“You sure?”

“Since they wanted to hide the corpse, if someone had the ability, they would have already dug it up and reburied it elsewhere.”

The sun had fully risen by now, though the morning light wasn’t too harsh yet. John tried to walk in the shaded areas under the trees wherever possible. Before he saw Carolyn’s car, he already heard a woman crying.

The female tourist was sobbing again. She was already terrified and had just lost two friends. Now she had to take care of two people whose survival was uncertain.

Coraci had fallen asleep again, slumped against the car, impossible to wake. As the female tourist checked his breathing, Liz stirred in the back seat — but her body still wouldn’t cooperate, and she collapsed face-first.

Relieved to see Carolyn return, the female tourist stepped aside. Carolyn asked her to get into the car to rest, and then leaned toward John. “Can you make her sleep?”

John was checking on Coraci and Liz. “I can’t… What are you planning?”

“You see…she’s about to go report this to the police in town.”

“That’s exactly what she should do! Two humans have died next to the tent, and there’s no signal here. Of course she should go report it.”

Biting her lip, Carolyn lowered her voice. “Has your brain been eaten by worms? We need to contact more hunters! If she reports this now, the entire area will be cordoned off, with flashing police lights everywhere. How are hunters supposed to work then?”

“Just buy her a drink, add some medicine to it to make her sleep?” John suggested.

“I’ve got bottled water in my car. Where am I supposed to get medicine? Aren’t you a vampire? Can’t you hypnotize her?”

“I can’t.”

Liz tried to nudge Carolyn with her toes, signaling her to come closer. Still barely able to move, she said weakly, “My necklace.”

Carolyn followed her gaze, pulling out the necklace from Liz’s collar. It was a tiny antique spice box.

Liz gestured for her to open it, revealing several cumin-sized brown beads.

“One. Sleeps for two days. Won’t wake,” Liz said succinctly, her voice barely above a whisper.

“Two days… Liz! You gave me this last time, didn’t you?” Carolyn stared at her partner in disbelief.

“Just testing the effect…” Liz turned her head away.

Carolyn and John helped Liz and Coraci into the car. John rode in the back with them, while the female tourist sat up front.

As they approached the town of Linton, Carolyn pulled out a bottle of water. The tourist had been crying since early morning and was long overdue for a drink. After she drank half the bottle, her eyelids grew heavy, and eventually she slumped back into the seat, fast asleep.

“Works every time. Last time I fell asleep this fast too,” Carolyn said, glancing at Liz through the rearview mirror. “Cost me the chance to go hunt werewolves.”

“You shouldn’t have gone anyway. Your rib fracture hadn’t even healed yet,” Liz replied, noticeably more coherent now, speaking smoothly and able to sit upright on her own.

Next to her, John and Coraci were covered together under a blackout blanket, heads and all.

Coraci slept deeply — not unconscious, just sound asleep. John could sense it through his breathing and heartbeat. He remembered hearing his father say that many bloodkin loved listening to human heartbeats and were obsessed with feeling human warmth. He hadn’t understood back then. Now…he realized he was the same.

In truth, the blanket was mainly for John. He wrapped it around Coraci because he was holding Coraci’s shoulder. In the darkness, John quietly leaned his head toward Coraci’s, lips brushing the top of his head. He moved cautiously, careful not to let Liz notice.

The basement in the Atwood manor had held a corpse all this time. Neither Atwood himself nor the other specters in his house had ever mentioned it. They had even deliberately concealed it, claiming the storage room had been filled in.

Thinking of this, John suddenly understood why the storage room had felt so oppressive. It was a dual effect of perception and visual cues.

Perceptually, bloodkin could be considered reborn from death; they were more sensitive than humans to the scent of mortality. Modern cemeteries were cleaner, but older burial grounds — or makeshift graves like this — carried a strong aura of death.

Visually, the storage room’s floor had been raised. Whoever had buried the corpse had not only dug down but added a layer of soil and stones on top, then re-laid the tiles. The effect made the basement feel low, as if the dark walls themselves pressed inward.

Why hadn’t they simply filled the entire basement? John thought about it and realized a simple reason — he had lived in that era. There were no construction vehicle rentals, and the Atwoods weren’t in masonry work. They didn’t have the means or the know-how to get enough soil and stones to fill the basement themselves.

Thinking of the skeletal remains and the silent old spectral couple, John clenched his teeth. He couldn’t imagine these creatures, seemingly Coraci’s friends, having possibly done terrifying things. On the way here, they had listened to the old specter’s lamentations and he had reflected on Ms. Hai Jiu’s fate. Now, he dared not think too deeply about why the Atwoods had been slaughtered.

Back in Linton, Carolyn found a hotel and settled the tourist, who was dead asleep, into a separate room, placing her personal belongings on the nightstand.

The four members of the Association piled into one room. Liz rubbed her still somewhat numb body. Coraci lay on the bed, still asleep.

Carolyn had contacted Instructor Jere to request more hunters for backup. Liz listened as John recounted the events after the worm swallowed him. She thought carefully.

“John, you’re saying that…the things there said ‘break free from the cage’ and ‘damn shackles’?”

“Exactly. And the tone was harsh, as if the words were spoken between gnashing teeth,” John confirmed.

Liz’s expression darkened.

“Burying a life under a house…that’s like an ancient sacrificial ritual.”

Carolyn had just set the phone down and leaned over. “Wait, you mean…they planted a dead body, and a bunch of evil spirits grew out of it?”

“I’m not joking,” Liz said. “I can’t say for sure what it is yet. Once we meet up with the other hunters and go back, we’ll know from the corpse itself.”

“You can recognize it?” John asked.

Liz nodded. “If it’s the one I know, yes. My family has one too.”

John nearly slid off the bed. Carolyn froze for a few seconds, then yelled, “How come I don’t know this?! You mean that thing is buried under our apartment?!”

“No! I mean the Blackmoon family house,” Liz said, adjusting her glasses and grimacing as if discussing something disgusting. “I never told you because it wasn’t necessary. You weren’t going to visit, and my family wouldn’t invite you anyway.”

“Enough with the heartless details. Tell us about this sacrificial ritual,” Carolyn urged.

“I should first clarify. It wasn’t my parents or grandparents. It happened a long time ago,” Liz explained.

What she described was known to members of the Blackmoon family, though none had witnessed it firsthand.

“The ownership of the Blackmoon family land passed down through generations. Long ago, the ancestors apparently held noble titles which I don’t really remember. The house has been renovated many times; now it looks new. But deep below…nothing has ever been disturbed. Toward the end of the witch-hunting era, they captured a real, evil devil — not a demon like Sidov, but a devil: the kind that roams our world, infiltrates it, and seeks to overturn everything.”

“I read about that,” John said. “I heard devils are extinct now?”

“Yes. You know, in that era, everyone burned witches, and most of those who died were innocent. But humans were still threatened by hidden evils. Real evil hides well, skillfully manipulates people, and watches human slaughter innocents with glee. Later, the surviving true wizards and witches united with some hunters. They fought for a very long time, gradually exterminating the devils. The Blackmoon ancestors captured the most terrifying one.”

“How terrifying…?” Carolyn asked, elbows on her knees, hands cupping her face.

“I don’t know. It’s written in the Blackmoon family books,” Liz shrugged. “The ancestors decided to execute the devil according to sacrificial rites by killing it in a pre-dug pit. The pit was extremely deep… I don’t know how deep as I’ve never seen it. You’ve probably heard that across every continent, there are people who like to bury something underneath their houses — some are symbolic objects, some are living things, even prisoners. These customs derived from sacrificial practices.”

She shook her head and sighed. “It’s really terrible. Supposedly, the sacrifice ensures that the family who lives on that piece of land will have wealth and power as long as the family line survives. Even future dangers wouldn’t threaten the family itself…”

“Wait. What does that mean? I’m losing you…” Carolyn asked.

“It means…as long as someone in the family survives, the underground sacrifice remains a sacrifice. Its resentment turns into a benefit for the family. But once the family dies out, the sacrifice gradually breaks free, becoming a terrifying entity, crawling out for revenge.”

“Revenge on who?” John recalled the black worm and the voices in the illusion. “If they emerge, doesn’t that mean the people who buried them are already dead?”

Liz shook her head. “Maybe it’s not ‘revenge’. Hurting the living becomes instinct, like human’s involuntary breathing. They’ll do it without reason. Every time a family that used this ritual perishes, a new terrifying monster appears; each one is unique. The family’s long dead — there’s no one to take responsibility. Appalling, right?”

“You talk about your own family like that…” Carolyn muttered.

“It’s the truth. My brother Lucian agrees,” Liz said. “Of course, this is all my ancestors’ matter, and we can’t change it. So the Blackmoon family members can’t all die — we’ve got a devil buried beneath our house.”

She clenched her hands, then relaxed them, feeling her body was now more alert. Seeing John and Carolyn deep in thought, she added, “The Blackmoon family also prospered after using the sacrificial ritual. Records say our ancestors’ luck was terrifyingly good.”

“But the last person to die in the Atwood family should’ve been Ms. Hai Jiu, right?” John asked. “That was almost two hundred years ago. Why is something happening now?”

Liz said, “Exactly. That’s why I can’t be sure it’s really a sacrificial victim. Maybe it was just an ordinary murder. No one from the Blackmoon family has ever seen a freed sacrificial spirit. Everything is based on records. I can’t say for sure.”

“It’s not her…” A faint voice spoke from behind John.

Coraci had woken up, gripping the blanket and trying to sit up. John quickly moved to support him and noticed his lips trembling slightly. Coraci looked toward Liz, clearly having heard part of their conversation.

Coraci’s complexion had improved, but his eyes were still full of fear. He took a deep breath and finished his thought. “The last one to die…wasn’t Hai Jiu.”

“What?!” John tightened his grip on Coraci’s shoulder, hoping to give him some sense of security.

“Because I lived with Hai Jiu and Wu Jiu, I know a lot about the Atwood family,” Coraci said. “Remember the grandmother? Atwood’s mother? She also had a daughter — Atwood’s sister.”

Liz’s eyes widened in realization. “That woman married and stopped using the Atwood name, but she still carried the same bloodline!”

Perhaps distant bloodlines didn’t weaken magical effects. For the Atwoods, it didn’t matter whether it was Atwood’s descendants or his sister’s descendants — the magic recognized the bloodline, and both branches were equally valid. Magic didn’t care about official registries; it only cared about blood.

According to old stories Hai Jiu and Wu Jiu had told, Atwood’s sister lived a stable life and had children. But no one knew what became of them. Perhaps they died one by one over the years. When the last direct descendant passed away, the sacrificial backlash would begin.

Before reinforcements from the Association arrived, Coraci and Liz turned on a computer to search for the daughter’s name.

The tragedy that had struck the Atwood family was well-documented. Some websites even preserved scans of old newspapers and analyses of historical murders. Thanks to these, they discovered the surname of the daughter’s husband.

It was familiar, though not extremely common — Walter.

“Walter…” Coraci murmured. “John, does that sound familiar?”

“Maybe. There are a lot of people with the same surname. Unfortunately, we can’t trace the descendants of the Walter family.”

“I remember someone,” Coraci said. “If his ancestors never moved far, then geographically, he likely lived in this area…”

If it wasn’t a coincidence…that person’s death had occurred not long ago.

“The wizard — the one who died at Russell’s hands — shares that surname.”

 

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