Miss Mason tried to avoid her husband's gaze, but Mr. Enriquez looked at his wife seriously and read his wedding vows again:
"No matter you are sick or healthy, rich or poor, I will always be by your side. Knowing you is the greatest blessing of my life."
At any other time, Miss Mason would have felt like the happiest person in the world, but at this moment she just hoped her husband would be quiet and not say anything.
But Mr. Enriquez obviously doesn't know how to read minds, so he said the most crucial sentence:
"From now on, only death can separate us. Yes, only death. Miss Maggie Mason, thank you for always loving me, since we were children. I will also..."
He couldn't continue. A cold wind from nowhere swept through the room. The curtains that had been drawn closed automatically without anyone touching them. The gas lamps on the walls of the room flickered a few times and gradually went out. But the room was not completely dark, because a pale green light lit up the next moment, and the evil spirit of the man appeared in the room.
The green light illuminated Miss Mason's desperate face, Mr. Enriquez's terrified face, Shad's gloomy face ready to attack at any time, and Stone Oxenfurt's expressionless face.
Perhaps Mr. Enriquez saw nothing wrong with this, but in the eyes of the other three, it was undoubtedly his words that angered the soul into its current state. Of course, the process of evil spiritization was a little too fast, and Shade was sure that the soul had been polluted.
As an ordinary person, Mr. Enriquez's panic seemed normal, but he still stood in front of the bed and in front of his wife:
"Maggie, please go."
Because of excessive fear, even his voice was trembling, but the woman behind him did not think of leaving, but hugged Mr. Enriquez from behind:
"No, I can't leave. He won't hurt you if I'm here."
Sure enough, when the two hugged each other, the horrible soul did not attack immediately, but the situation was not much better, because once the transformation into an evil spirit was complete, he would probably lose all his sanity.
"You know him!?"
Mr. Enriquez asked in disbelief, his doubts even diluting his slight fear.
"I'm sorry, I... He was my classmate during the two years I studied in Willendale. Although you and I corresponded frequently at that time, I was studying alone... Willendale's towering lighthouse, cathedral, Royal Opera House, Civic Square, high society socializing, and aristocratic ladies' clubbing all dazzled me... I was very depressed for a while, and I spent some time with him, only three months, and then we broke up... Before I was about to graduate, he died of a sudden illness. A week before our wedding, he suddenly appeared near me... I'm sorry, I'm really sorry."
Miss Mason hugged Mr. Enriquez and sobbed on his back. Her fragmentary description basically let Shade know the general story.
Mr. Enriquez's expression was very varied at this time, and even the fear of facing the legendary undead was somewhat diluted. He really didn't know about these things, and he never thought that his childhood sweetheart, his wife, actually had such a past.
Just as Mr. Enriquez tried to turn around and look at Miss Mason, the restless soul was finally completely enraged. The negative emotions in the soul completely destroyed him, and the evil spirit pounced on Mr. Enriquez. In Miss Mason's desperate expression, they saw some strange silver halos, and then saw large pieces of flying flowers, and then fell into a coma.
The confinement halo restricted the evil spirits' movements, and the flying flower spell made the bride and groom fall into a coma.
The figures of Shade and Stone Oxenfurt appeared in the room. Although the evil spirit could only move slightly at this time, it still looked at Shade with a ferocious face. However, when it looked at Stone Oxenfurt, it showed a look of fear again.
"What a shame! As an audience of this play, why didn't they wait until the end before going on stage and interrupting the performance? In my opinion, it wanted to possess Enriquez and achieve its own goals in another way. If it is not discovered by the church later, this is actually a pretty good ending, although neither of them will probably live past the age of thirty."
The burly man said this, and Shade asked:
"If this is really a play, then you are the director, right? It's not like I haven't seen evil spirits before, but this is too fast. Mr. Osenfurt, may I ask, does this soul have anything to do with you?"
Stone Oxenfurt did not deny:
"It's just that I found a wandering soul some time ago, so I talked to him."
The demonic power affected unknown souls, and although it did not lead to their direct corruption, it at least accelerated the process.
Shade shook his head and made no comment. He reached out to get rid of the evil spirit, but he didn't expect the dark airflow inside the spirit to spread to his confinement halo, and the bright silver halo actually shattered.
The evil spirit gained the ability to move freely almost immediately, but it neither attacked the two unconscious people nor pounced in the direction of Shad and Osenfurt. Instead, it passed directly through the wall and escaped outside.
So Shad and Stone Oxenfurt chased after it, and although they still had to go downstairs, the latter seemed to know where the soul was at any time.
So they came to the back of the manor courtyard, walked through the crowd of people having fun, passed by the guests who were watching the clown playing the trumpet, and left through the backyard fence gate.
The back door of the manor leads directly to the farmland attached to the manor. Under the moonlight, I walked along the ridges towards a hill not far away, and under a tree on the hill, I finally caught up with the escaped evil spirit.
Compared to ten minutes ago, the spirit's external visual features became even more terrifying. At the same time, it got a rusty long sword from somewhere in its hand, turned around and controlled it to stab towards Shade's chest.
With the skills inherited from the Night's Watch, Shade was already a master of swordsmanship. He dodged the sword lightly, and even grabbed the hilt with his left hand to prevent it from flying down the hill. Then, the black chain in his sleeves scurried out like a long snake.
"Oh? Sin?"
Osenfurt, who was following behind Shade, frowned slightly when he saw the chains of sin.
The evil spirit still wanted to dodge Shade's chains, but as soon as it came into contact, it completely lost its ability to move. Although the Light of Imprisonment is easier to use than the Chains of Sin, the latter is actually more effective.
"Don't keep those who should leave."
Xia De muttered as he walked over and touched the severely deformed spirit with his hand:
"Guide to death."
Under the starry night of winter, the scenery under the trees on the hill disappeared. Originally, Xia De should have seen the most profound memory of this man's life at this time, but the scene in front of him had just taken shape in a classroom, and then everything became chaotic.
Some kind of extreme malice was staring at Xia De in the chaotic scene, and without "her" reminder, Xia De took the initiative to withdraw his hand.
Looking at the undead imprisoned by the chains of sin, it was crawling on the ground, and its original shape was basically unrecognizable.
Black particles continued to float from the surface of the spirit toward the sky above the huge dead tree, and the spirit became increasingly thinner. The soul was collapsing, and the only remaining normal hand tried to reach out to Shade:
“Help…help me.”
But it was too late. The corruption of demonic power preceded the wedding banquet, and it was not a process that could be reversed.
"Vision Demon."
With his back to Osenfurt, Shade used the magic again. In the normal field of vision, as the black particles flew, the soul gradually became invisible. But in the special field of vision of the magic, Shade saw that the soul was petrified. During the petrification process, something like a rose vine forced its way out from the loose cracks of the gray stone.
The vines were simply dancing, and the soul crawling in the snow under the tree reached out to Shade's hand, but it didn't touch him after all. Starting from the fingertips, the petrified soul disintegrated into powder, and soon only invisible flying ash was left in the place.
Of course, these were only seen from the perspective of the thaumaturgical seer. What Shad saw with his normal eyes was that the spirit became transparent and then disappeared, leaving behind a piece of black stone covered with runes on the ground.
“It’s so sad.”
Stone Oxenfurt came up from behind Shade and bent over to pick up the black stone left after the spirit collapsed. Shade took back the chain, and the two stood under the tree together, looking at the lights of the manor under the hill.
"Why do you say he is pathetic?"
Shad asked.
"I didn't fight for the woman I loved before I died, but she pestered me after I died. In the end, I ended up like this. Isn't it tragic?"
Ossenfurt asked back, and seeing that Shade didn't want to express his opinion, he changed the question:
"I thought you would now want to return to the manor and give tonight's bride some small punishment for her infidelity."
"Do you misunderstand what kind of person I am? What does this have to do with me?"
Xia De snorted, frowned and looked at the manor where the banquet was held, and casually stabbed the rusty sword in his hand into the snow under his feet:
"The sheep in the East Village ate the grass in the West Village, the village chief's wedding ring was stolen, the cat of the old lady at the entrance of the village was lost last night, and an unknown woman admitted that she had cheated on her husband at the wedding... These messed up things happen almost everywhere. Do I have to care about them? What does this have to do with me?"
"I thought you were the kind of guy in the chivalric novels who would intervene when he saw injustice."
There was a hint of mockery in Ossenfurt's tone:
"I should have insisted on making a bet with you just now, on the ending of this story. If you agreed, I would finally be able to beat you this time."
"There will always be a day when you lose in gambling."
Xia De turned and looked at him:
"And the only sure bet we can make is that we are all mortals."
He has an extraordinary understanding of this matter.