“Stop!”
Ling pushed away the cultist clinging to her and unhesitatingly fired at Constantine, who was preparing to leave.
Along with the piercing gunshot, the bullet quickly flew toward this priest.
But he did not care at all, letting the bullet land on his body.
The pellet that should have directly entered flesh and blood suddenly stopped in midair, unable to approach him even half a fraction more.
The bullet, having lost its kinetic energy, also slowly fell to the ground, making a crisp sound.
“No one can stop the arrival of the night.”
He turned around.
The Bible in his hand suddenly began to burn.
In the dim church, the firelight quickly illuminated everything around, and within it, a touch of white radiance slowly emerged.
Everyone involuntarily stopped attacking.
As if facing the greatest deity, they reverently knelt down with hands clasped together, trying as much as possible to look directly at that radiance.
The police officers also involuntarily lowered the guns in their hands, and even did not care about the wounds on their bodies.
Like the other believers, they silently knelt on the ground, looking up at that divine miracle.
It was a moon.
A moon that should have appeared in the sky.
A perfect, pure, yearned-for moon.
So beautiful, so serene.
How one wished time could stop at this moment, stop in this time when the moon rose.
…
A sharp pain suddenly came from Ling’s chest.
An unprecedented sense of fear instantly filled her heart, pulling her awareness back from that moon.
That was the little thing she had specifically retrieved—the Necklace of Fear.
An anomaly that could absorb emotions and convert the absorbed emotions into fear.
It sounded useless?
But this fear was strong enough to make her break free from most mental contamination, even mental control.
At least now, she could be unaffected by the moon.
This was a good opportunity, an opportunity Constantine could absolutely not react to.
So, it was now!
Ling directly charged toward Constantine, and he was facing away from Ling, with no possibility of reacting.
Until he came back to his senses and saw Ling charging at him, everything was already too late.
Ling kicked him.
The physically weak priest directly fell to the ground, and before he could make any reaction, Ling directly pressed the muzzle of her sidearm against his forehead.
“Constantine! Your plan has failed! Surrender!”
“…”
The priest opened his mouth, then suddenly began to laugh, laughing especially happily, and also especially mockingly.
“You think you did it? You think that by not being affected by the moon, you can escape His gaze? The night has already come. The ritual will not stop. Kill me, even if you kill me, my corpse can likewise become His vessel. As long as the moon is here, as long as the twin moons hang in the sky! Then everything will not end!”
Bang!
Ling unhesitatingly gave the priest a punch and directly grabbed his collar, angrily rebuking.
“You will kill everyone, including yourself! It is still not too late to stop now!”
“…I will not kill anyone.” Constantine murmured as if talking to himself,
“I am saving them, saving everyone. Only He, only He can bring us the chance to survive. Can you not hear it? The sound of the waves has already come. Stop resisting… Only the night is our final home. This is the only way…!”
“Madman…! Where is Chrisuna!”
“Chrisuna? Who is Chrisuna?”
Ling was stunned, and the gun in her hand once again pressed against the top of Constantine’s head, whose expression was equally puzzled.
“The flower shop owner, Chrisuna. Did you not capture her?”
“…The flower shop owner? Why would I go capture an irrelevant person who is of no help to the ritual and might even expose the mission? What kind of vile joke is this?”
“It was not you?”
“I do not understand at all what you are saying.”
Constantine looked seriously at Ling, and Ling also slightly frowned, her expression gaining some confusion.
“Your ritual… was it not supposed to use her as a vessel?”
“Her? Who told you that?”
Ling shook her head and said in a low voice.
“Your people.”
“That could not have been our people. I am the vessel. Only I can successfully trigger the miracle of Eternal Night. No one else can.” Constantine pulled up his sleeve, and on it was a strange black symbol.
“Without this mark, He will not gaze upon anyone, and Eternal Night cannot descend. Only I possess it. Only I can.”
“Mark? Mark…” Ling suddenly thought of something.
Completely ignoring Constantine beneath her, she directly stood up.
“Chrisuna also has a mark on her body! If she was not captured by your people, then there are others who have also set their sights on her. Another group’s target is her! They want to use her to summon something else!”
“What did you say…?” Constantine also stood up and angrily shouted at Ling.
“What the hell are you people doing?! How many cults have mixed into the town?! If this ritual is intercepted, then we are all dead! Everyone will have no way to survive! You ruined everything!”
“You motherfucker still have the nerve to blame us?! Yours are the most cultists by far! Stop the nonsense! You have no choice now. Find Chrisuna!”
“Where the hell am I supposed to find her?!”
Clap, clap, clap.
The sound of clapping suddenly rang out in the church, drawing both of their attention at the same time.
A familiar figure slowly appeared at the church’s main door.
“Very glad. You two have finally reacted to what exactly is wrong with this matter.”
Derrien took the pipe out of his mouth and lightly smiled at Ling.
“Officer, I am very glad it was you who escaped. You know, Pasa and I are old friends. If it had been him appearing here, then I would have been very troubled.”
“It was you…!”
Derrien did not deny it, chuckling softly.
“At least I would rather face you, and this Mr. Priest.”
Constantine’s expression was very ugly.
He did not understand why the moon had no effect at all on this man before him.
Its contamination was staged, yet he seemed unable to be affected by any method.
Even Ling, who had escaped mental contamination, would inevitably still be affected, and could not completely ignore it.
Was the other party really human?
Or rather, was he himself also an anomaly?
“The riddle game is over. The mark on Chrisuna’s body is the emblem of the Sea God. Constantine, you are still thinking about the so-called Eternal Night? Why not take a look. The deepest history in this world, the ancient legend originating from the deep sea, the unknown greatness of an ancient kingdom.”
Derrien’s expression gained some fanaticism.
This was an appearance he had never shown before, and what responded to him was Ling’s bullet.
The bullet easily hit him, dyeing his clothes with a large patch of red, but he seemed completely unaware, laughing wildly without stopping.
“The twin moons will not rise at the same time… Everything of His is destined to become nourishment for the storm! Constantine, this is all thanks to you, thanks to you, thanks to those things the Eternal Night Church raised.”
The next moment, his humanoid body suddenly began to change.
His limbs suddenly began to swell continuously.
Along with strange sounds beneath his skin as if something were swimming, a tentacle directly pierced through his skin.
The next moment, countless octopus-tentacle-like limbs surged out from his body, and amid his final wild laughter, completely burst open.
His body turned into fragments, drifting all over the ground.
What replaced it was an ancient strange creature like a mass of seaweed, standing quietly in place.
Its body was covered with tentacles.
No other limbs could be seen.
Its rounded body surface was completely wrapped by tentacles, and as it waved its tentacles, crimson pupils and sharp teeth simultaneously appeared before everyone.
Now, they had to face the true enemy.
+++
T/N: And here I thought Darrien would be the Dunn Smith of the story.