Book 3

Chapter 51: Dawn

Translated by Addis of Exiled Rebels Scanlations

Editor: PlumSauce

 

The Atwood family and the other specters had vanished into thin air. When the semi-corporeal evil spirits struck, they seemed to have been cut off.

Hunters and exorcists readied their weapons — some wielded sabres shimmering with silver light, while others held ordinary cleavers coated with special powders.

This time, it wasn’t the black worm that appeared first, but a white shadow the size of an average person. Perhaps it had been the one attacking the campers in the tent. Like the black worm, it was a semi-corporeal evil spirit, but unlike the worm, it was slender and agile. The black worm devoured humans, while this one tried to cling to them like a leech, feeding on their souls.

The massive black worm never appeared. Of course, the hunters weren’t idle — over the course of several hours, they had dealt with multiple evil spirits. The white shadow was chopped apart until it vanished completely. Meanwhile, some were on the second floor battling beast-like forms. Other evil spirits were irregularly shaped, lightning-fast, or had mouths so enormous they occupied half of their bodies. Perhaps these creatures had always existed, but the black worm had been so large that it completely hid them from view.

Time passed quickly. Three hours later, dawn approached.

The old house fell silent once more. The thick darkness faded, revealing the house as it should appear just before sunrise.

“Are they really all gone?” Carolyn shook the weapon in her hand. “There was only one corpse — how did so many evil spirits appear? And can’t we do something with Daisy’s¹ body? Like burn it, or cover it in protective spells or something…”

“That wouldn’t help,” Liz said. “According to records, any creature sacrificed will generate a backlash, even if the corpse has dissolved. These evil spirits must have manifested because of her. The only way to stop this is to kill Dessine herself — but the problem is, we don’t know which one she is.”

The hunters chatted among themselves, preparing to return to town to rest. Smith and Liz discussed how to locate Dessine as they left the house, while only Coraci remained at the doorway, quietly watching the specters gradually appearing inside.

John hadn’t rested for an entire day, and the morning sunlight made him dizzy. He had already returned to the car and pulled the blackout blanket over himself, but seeing Coraci like that made him want to go back and say something.

John couldn’t read minds like Smith, yet he felt that Coraci’s gaze carried a meaning deeper than simply disappointment in the Atwoods.

When John finally decided to get out of the car, Coraci turned around and walked over. He silently opened the door, sat beside John, and continued to stare at the old house. Only after the engine started did he slowly pull his gaze away, folding his hands and lowering his head in thought. John kept peeking from the gaps in the blanket until he finally reached out from the edge of the blanket and gently touched Coraci’s forearm.

“I’m fine,” Coraci said. “I’m just thinking about some things.”

“About what?”

“It’s complicated. Once I sort it out, I’ll tell you.”

Several cars drove back toward Linton. After a night of chaos, many hunters had fallen asleep inside the vehicles.

Just outside town, the lead car slowed to a stop. Drivers behind stuck their heads out — or got out entirely.

Not far away stood a senior care facility, housing elderly people and long-term bedridden patients from nearby cities. Two police cars blocked the entrance. The local sheriff spoke urgently into a radio, requesting reinforcements from regional authorities.

The hunters woke up one after another, and stared in shock at the scene before them.

Two bodies lay on the steps outside the facility, as if the victims had tried to escape but didn’t make it. There was no doubt that more dead remained inside. A female caregiver trembled and cried as she recounted events to the officers.

Carolyn and Liz exchanged a look and walked forward together. Coraci stepped out as well, instructing John to stay in the car since the sun had risen higher. Though blocked by the police, they could faintly hear what the caregiver said.

“Nothing like this has ever happened before! I swear, what came in wasn’t human. Everyone it grabbed — is dead…”

When asked if it had said anything, she replied, “I couldn’t hear clearly. It seemed to keep saying ‘No, no’ and ‘Regret’ and some other fragmented words… I don’t know what it meant…”

Coraci patted Liz’s shoulder. “Back to the car. We need to return to the old house.”

“What’s wrong?”

“It’s spreading. At first, it was confined to a single room. Then the whole house. Then the surrounding woods. Yesterday it reached the campers… Today, it’s already outside Linton.”

Smith watched Coraci from a distance. Reading his thoughts, Smith’s expression grew more astonished.

“Hey… I get what you mean. I’ll tell the others,” he called out to Coraci.

Coraci nodded and returned to the car. John heard everything through the door, noticing that Coraci’s expression had grown even more tense.

The cars started heading back. Coraci leaned in his seat and said deliberately, “John… we may have to… kill all the specters in the old house.”

“What?! Why?” John exclaimed. Everyone had thought finding Dessine alone would be enough.

Carolyn looked even more shocked than John. Liz urged her to focus on the road.

Coraci said, “Did you hear what the caregiver said? The evil spirits she encountered…they spoke.”

“Evil spirits are like specters. Humans can’t understand them,” Liz added.

Not only were their words incomprehensible, but their sounds didn’t resemble language at all. Yet the caregiver claimed the thing attacking them could speak.

Coraci closed his eyes tightly, then opened them again.

“On the way here, I noticed…when we left the estate, the specters and ghosts in the old house seemed to be fewer. And you remember Mist and Annie? The giant specter and the small young female specter who liked running around. Since yesterday afternoon, we haven’t seen Mist, and we didn’t see Annie this morning either.”

“Maybe they just didn’t show up…” John said casually. But he was already beginning to understand what it meant.

“Mist is massive, almost blocking the corridors, making you feel like you’re in a huge shadow. Annie is small, is good at making wailing sounds, and scurries everywhere. I hate to think this, but…the black worm we encountered may have been Mist. And the white one that attacked the campers in the tent…that must have been Annie.”

The car was silent.

From roughly 3 a.m. to 6 a.m., the specters and ghosts in the old house were blocked, unable to recall what had happened during those hours. It wasn’t exactly amnesia — they had simply become evil spirits for a short time, puppets of Dessine.

John nodded, recalling details from the illusion. “I remember… I was captured first. Coraci, you hadn’t shown up yet. Those voices said they had no power, and then they said things like ‘Once it begins, it can’t stop’, ‘infection’, and ‘their prey becomes part of me’. I kept trying to figure out what it meant, but what happened afterward was too overwhelming.” He glanced at Carolyn, feeling his ribs throb with a phantom pain. “I didn’t really have a chance to think. Maybe it meant that the specters were infected somehow — and the people they killed became its nourishment…”

The infected specters became something else for a limited time, like venomous tendrils reaching outward. Everything living in the old house was dead, including the insects and animals. Then it was the creatures in the woods, the campers outside, and eventually they started to extend toward the town of Linton…

“You’ve probably figured it out,” Coraci said. “The evil spirit outside Linton can speak. And inside the old house, the only specter that can converse with humans now is…”

“Atwood,” John said immediately. Of course he knew. The old specter had a sparkling diamond embedded in his body as a magical artifact, allowing his words to be understood by everyone.

Back at the old manor, the specters and ghosts stuck their heads out and peered around, confused by why the hunters had returned. Atwood remained close to Mrs. Holly like usual, while Grandmother stood before them, as if trying to protect her son. The number of specters and ghosts had diminished considerably — the hunters had killed many evil spirits the previous day.

Outside, Coraci, Liz, and Smith whispered among themselves, while the hunters and John stood aside. The next task was the exorcists’ responsibility; the hunters could do little to help.

John overheard Smith asking, “There really isn’t another way?” and Liz replying, “The backlash from the sacrifice is irreversible. If we don’t do this, their reach will only grow…”

“I know their real names,” Coraci said. “Even their baptismal names. Every member of their families. Liz, Smith, the other specters are yours. The Atwoods and the ghosts are mine, because only I can see the ghosts…”

The exorcists returned to the cars to concoct their potions and then handed them to each hunter. The hunters stationed themselves outside the old manor, forming a barrier to prevent the specters from escaping.

John stood in the shadows, draped in the blackout blanket. When Coraci handed him a potion, he couldn’t help but ask, “Aren’t you going to explain things to them?”

“Explain what?” Coraci looked up at him, tired.

“About…the infection. About what they did without knowing. Look, all of this was caused by Atwood. The specters in the old house who came afterward were victims…”

Coraci shook his head. “It doesn’t matter whether they know or not. This is the only way.”

“But shouldn’t the Association protect them?”

“The Association protects only the harmless, non-threatening ones.”

When Coraci said this, he enunciated each word very carefully. John could hear he was trying to hide the choked edge in his voice.

“Sorry…” John said. “I wasn’t questioning you… I just…”

“I know,” Coraci said, offering a weary smile. “They will bring vast waves of death. The killings will continue to spread, and we have no choice. Because so many of them are innocent, I don’t want to tell them the truth. If we tell them first, then kill them, the last thing left in their minds will be guilt and regret. Instead…”

He paused, leaving the thought unfinished, then turned with the other two exorcists toward the old house.

Atwood held his wife, confused, as Coraci glanced out the doorway and asked, “I just remembered something… Mrs. Holly, long ago, wasn’t there a garden outside this house?”

Atwood answered for her. “Yes. You see that shapeless wasteland, overgrown with weeds? The old house was once a military hospital. At that time, the garden was removed and replaced with temporary housing, which was later torn down”

“There used to be many holly bushes in that garden,” Coraci said, in his palm were silver powder and crystal pellets used for destroying specters. “That’s why you call yourself Holly, right? I’m guessing Dessine has seen this garden too.”

Of course, Dessine had seen it. That’s why her illusions included the nighttime streets, the forest outside town, and the garden in front of the house… That year, when she entered the garden and stepped into the Atwood house, she could never leave again.

Outside, the hunters held the potions. The gas released into the air would keep the specters from escaping.

John couldn’t help but squint his eyes. The flashes of light coming from the windows of the old house pierced his eyes more sharply than the sunlight.

The specters and ghosts shrieked, their wails like wind rushing through a canyon. Soon after, the old house fell silent again. Coraci slowly crouched in front of the dining table, staring at the ghost huddled beneath it.

All the other specters and ghosts had vanished, completely gone. Only one remained.

It had almost no strength on its own, but it could infect other spirits, turning them into killers in the early hours of the morning. They would gradually devour nearby life, spreading bit by bit into areas where living beings dwelled. With each soul it consumed, it grew stronger; the lives of the living were its sustenance. Normally, it was very feeble, but at dawn, it would reside within the illusion, waiting for the infected specters to bring it prey.

Coraci had seen it the first day he arrived at the old manor. Even then, it had been in the same spot, blurry and weak, motionless, with no discernible gender, like any ordinary ghost.

Now it was far more distinct. Coraci could make out its outline.

Messy curly hair. A naked body. She was a pale young girl — not beautiful, exactly — and without hands or feet.

“Dessine…”

Sunlight streamed through the glassless windows. As daylight flooded the dining room, only the shadow beneath the table remained.

As the exorcists chanted their spells, her body gradually dissolved, fading entirely into light.

The Association didn’t learn the full details until they returned to West Bay City. They studied the marks on the skeleton, cross-referenced more detailed records… At the old Atwood manor, not long after 3 a.m., the first blood was spilled. Dessine had been struck on the head, fainting but not yet dead.

Over the following hours, her hands and feet were cut off, her chest carved open, and her body pinned beneath the earth. Just past 6 a.m., when the first morning sunlight touched the ground, she had already completely died under the soil.

Coraci stepped out of the old manor. John emerged from the shade of a tree, letting the blackout blanket fall to his feet. The sunlight was hot but bearable.

He walked toward Coraci, hesitant, words caught in his throat. Coraci only made a gesture, signaling him to retreat back into the shadows.

Coraci’s hair was slightly tousled, a faint smile lingering on his face. John remembered seeing that same smile the first time he had met him.

Now, he felt as if Coraci might dissolve in the sunlight itself.

 

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