mtl008 Chapter 4243 Possession by Evil Spirits (23)
Chapter 4243 Possession by Evil Spirits (23)
Chapter 4243 Possession by Evil Spirits (Part 23)
The agent was currently hiding on the church's roof beams. Thanks to the architect's ingenuity in building the church, the roof beams weren't concealed but instead decorated in an antique style. This allowed him to climb up easily.
The horde of mummies chasing him was fast and strong, their claws harder and sharper than alloy; a scratch would either kill or seriously injure you. However, they had one small problem: poor balance.
These ghosts were once living people and only knew how to use living bodies. But the mummies they're using now are weathered and decayed, their age unknown. The way they manipulate them is definitely different from before, and their weight and joint flexibility are much less, meaning they need to adapt to a completely new body.
When walking on flat ground, they possess great explosive power due to some mystical force, but this fails when it comes to certain details, such as walking on a balance beam. The beams on this roof are only slightly wider than an adult's foot, and by that little. To walk on them, one must have an extremely high level of balance; a slight misstep will result in a fall. The agent used this method to evade the mummified corpses here for several hours.
These mummies are excellent jumpers and can often leap onto the platform, but they can't stay on it and can't catch the agents. The agents are using them to stall for time.
It's nighttime now, making movement inconvenient. There are some lights in the church that illuminate the ceiling. He'll stay here until dawn before he can act. Otherwise, facing these terrifying monsters in the dark would mean certain death.
Another mummified corpse leaped up from beside the wall. The detective nimbly jumped onto another beam. The corpse tried to jump over as well, but misjudged the distance and jumped up suddenly, hitting its head on the beam above it. It also made it over to the beam behind the detective, but it didn't land properly and ended up hanging from the beam by its hands.
The agent, of course, didn't hold back, walking over and giving it a hard kick. The creature screamed and fell to the ground. There were already two bodies lying on the ground, broken into pieces. This church was a European-style structure with a very high dome. Since gravity applies equally to all, falling from such a height would result in being smashed to pieces.
By then, dawn was breaking. Seeing the first rays of sunrise streaming through the windows and across the church, the detective breathed a sigh of relief. As long as he could get through the night, everything would be fine. Unfortunately, he wasn't on a hunt; without night vision goggles, he couldn't see clearly at night, otherwise he wouldn't have wasted so much time.
Just as he was about to find a way down, he suddenly saw a strangely dressed corpse jump up in an even stranger way. It first jumped onto a lower beam, then did a backflip and landed on it.
The detective looked at it with some surprise, examining its costume, and realized that it seemed to be a circus performer, with a style of clothing somewhat similar to the clown mummy they had seen before.
He quickly identified the mummified corpse from its shoes. It was likely an acrobat, and quite skilled at riding a unicycle, as evidenced by the wear and tear on its shoes. Judging by its performance, it could probably also handle a balance beam and tightrope walking with ease.
"This evil spirit is quite clever," the agent thought, realizing he was using his balance to deal with the mummified corpse, and immediately brought in an acrobat. This creature had excellent balance in life, and while it was less so after death, it was still better than other mummified corpses.
The creature was a bit far away, and the best way to get it down was to shoot it. But the mummified corpse wasn't afraid of bullets; even if you shot it down, it could just come back up. With it blocking the way, the agent had no chance of getting down.
The detective didn't draw his gun; he simply waited. When the mummified corpse jumped to a spot not far from him, he lunged at it, aiming for the window. He used the corpse's body to break through the window, and the two of them crashed heavily to the ground.
As the saying goes, gravity is fair; anyone falling from that height would be badly injured. But having a cushion makes a difference. Although the cushion was a bit dry, it at least reduced some of the impact. The agent curled up in mid-air, like a cannonball, crashing down with the desiccated corpse. None of his body touched the ground, but the desiccated corpse fared poorly; the impact split it open from the chest.
These ghosts have limited control over their bodies. Besides burning them, you can also kill them by breaking them into enough pieces. Once their bodies are shattered, they are unable to reassemble themselves.
The acrobat's mummy body was completely smashed; the remaining fragments twitched for a moment before becoming still. Taking advantage of this, the detective evaded the mummy guarding the church and successfully circled around to the back of the church.
He came to the church not just to buy time. He needed to find out where Kate Kane was.
If Peter has been possessed by the evil spirit, then Kate, as Peter's teammate, who has been missing for so long, may have already met a terrible end. She has most likely been kidnapped by that evil spirit.
However, Kate is definitely not dead, otherwise the evil spirit would have sent them a message. She's likely being hidden somewhere. The agents can't pinpoint the exact location, but during a previous dialogue, Peter, possessed by the evil spirit, mentioned "church" and "waterfall." He can only try his luck at those two places.
The agent believed the evil spirit must want Kate to do something, which was why it hadn't killed her. But if the evil spirit succeeded, everything would be over. So even if it was necessary to strike at the enemy's expense, he had to rescue Kate.
After circling around to the back of the church, he descended into the church's underground chamber through the cellar. He had already noticed during his previous visit that this was likely not a church established by the Mormons; they had simply taken over. The agent was quite familiar with the structure of Catholic and Protestant churches. Churches built in this era typically had basements, often connected to cellars. In less developed times, church basements often served as refuges.
The church wasn't large, and the underground area wasn't complicated either, with just one passageway and several rooms around it. The detective cautiously made his way there and soon heard movement coming from the last room.
He stepped aside into the doorway to open it, and as soon as he pushed it open, he saw Kate. Her head was covered in blood, and her face was also covered in blood. Judging from the direction of the blood, she had been struck on the back of the head from behind, knocked unconscious, and then brought here.
Kate was already awake. Upon seeing the agent, she whimpered softly. The agent went over, loosened the ropes binding her, and removed the duct tape from her mouth.
“Peter…Peter he…”
“I know,” the detective said. “He’s possessed by an evil spirit. But he didn’t lie to me. I managed to fend him off for now, and now he’s sending a whole bunch of mummies around town. Are you alright?”
“I’m fine. But while I was unconscious, I entered a new world. It seemed to be a mental world, and there I saw the evil spirit,” Kate said. “The guy tried to hypnotize me and said some strange things to me, which I didn’t understand at first. But connecting the clues from before, I roughly figured out what was going on.”
"What's going on?" the agent asked.
"Do you remember Linda? She's my aunt's daughter, the girl who's a bit crazy."
The agent nodded. He was certainly impressed by Linda; the girl possessed a frenzied vitality.
“She had a child,” Kate said, “a boy named Bing Burger. He was nominally her brother, but he was actually her son. He was born to her and an elder of the Mormon Church.”
“The Kane family has a genetic disease that is a curse on all of us. Women in this family face high risks when giving birth, are prone to miscarriage during pregnancy, die during childbirth, and their offspring are often not healthy. That’s how my daughter left me.”
Kate looked sad and said, "However, there was an exception in this generation, and that was my mother. Miraculously, she didn't have the genetic disease, and she didn't encounter any accidents when she gave birth to me. Everyone was happy for her, except for Aunt Kane."
"Her first marriage was very unhappy because she had two miscarriages and was unable to conceive afterward. My mother was unhappy when I was born because she thought it was unfair. The two of them were sisters, but their fates were completely different. Later, she divorced her first husband and met her second husband, Berger, who came to New York to preach, and she married him and moved to this remote town."
"Perhaps it was her unresolved issues regarding childbirth that led to her psychological problems. She began to place her emotional burdens in religion, becoming a devout follower of Mormon doctrine, believing that as long as she was a devout believer, God would grant her a lovely child."
"Later, she did get pregnant and successfully gave birth to Linda. But unfortunately, her good luck only lasted once, and it was probably because of this childbirth that her body was completely damaged and she could never get pregnant again. But the more this happened, the more she wanted to have another child, because her sister had two, and she wanted to surpass her."
"Aunt Kane's husband, Borg, was never a very devout person and even tried to run away while he was preaching in New York. He was terrified of his wife's state, and the couple's relationship gradually deteriorated. At this time, the Mormon pastor who had been preaching to her—the people they called elders—constantly comforted Aunt Kane. They developed feelings for each other, and Aunt Kane wanted an elder's child."
"She herself was no longer able to have children, and at this time, Aunt Kane's daughter Linda was growing up. So, they let Linda give birth to the elder's child."
"Aunt Kane was very pleased. She wanted to teach the child herself and also hoped to gain the elder's attention. After all, the Mormon Church practiced polygamy, and almost all the women in the town were the elder's wives, bearing him many children. Aunt Kane was already old and past her prime, and knew she could no longer use her looks to seduce the elder. So, she poured all her attention into the child. Just as she always wanted to compare him to her sister, she also always wanted Bingo to be better than the elder's other children."
"Unfortunately, the elders disliked the child from birth. This was his 13th child, and 13 is an unlucky number. Devout believers dislike this number, so the elders abandoned Binge at birth."
"Moreover, as Bing grew up, he began to show extraordinary abilities. He possessed prophetic abilities, accurately predicting disasters and animal movements, and mastered many forbidden knowledge, even black magic that could curse others. And he was the culprit behind the town's destruction."
"Are you done?" the agent asked Kate. Without waiting for Kate's reply, he drew his gun.
"Go well."
boom!