Chapter 188 - 185: Red Demon Brown
The Ruby Couple struggled to wake up today, feeling utterly exhausted.
Mrs. Ruby touched her cheeks and was shocked to find how prominent her cheekbones had become.
They still had to work, take Luna to school, and face the day’s tasks, so they had to force themselves out of bed.
The scale was still in the corner of the room, but today, Mrs. Ruby was a little hesitant to step on it. Belatedly, she was starting to feel that something was deeply wrong.
She noticed that when her husband got up and stretched, his ribs were so visible they were as terrifying as a skeleton’s. She also saw how bony her own arms and legs were, how much her knees and elbows protruded.
Her husband, though completely exhausted, followed his usual routine. He went into the bathroom to brush his teeth, emerged with dark circles under his eyes, and started getting dressed as if he didn’t think there was anything wrong with him.
An inexplicable panic began to rise in Mrs. Ruby.
"Honey, come weigh yourself!"
"Why? I’m not on a diet."
The man, busy straightening his short-sleeved shirt, paid her no mind, but Mrs. Ruby walked right over and pulled him in front of the scale.
"Just do it. I want to see how much you weigh."
"Fine, fine. I was 82 kilograms last time, I think."
As he spoke, Mr. Ruby stepped onto the digital scale. The display flashed and settled at 61.2 kilograms.
"Huh? What’s going on? Is your scale broken?"
Mr. Ruby was shocked. How could he have lost twenty kilograms so suddenly?
The couple argued in the room for a while before finally deciding to go to the hospital.
Luna hadn’t slept all night, but she was still surprisingly alert. The moment she heard her parents stirring in their room, she immediately opened her door to wait for them.
Her parents looked even more frightening today.
She wanted to drag them outside immediately, but she thought better of it and patiently waited for the family to finish breakfast.
The three of them left the house and were heading for the car when Luna suddenly broke away, dashing toward a nearby intersection.
"Sweetie, where are you going?"
"Luna, come back! We have to get you to school!"
The Ruby Couple called after her, not knowing what their daughter was up to, but their feet carried them after her reflexively.
Luna stared at the car. It was still parked there.
In the car, Brown and Philier were each opening a bottle of mineral water to rinse their mouths when they suddenly saw the family’s little girl sprinting straight toward them.
"Hey, Brown, you think she’s coming for us?"
"Maybe not. Let’s see what she wants. It’s not like we’ve done anything wrong. We don’t need to be scared of a little girl."
The little girl ran breathlessly to the side of the car and saw two men inside staring at her with baffled expressions.
Before Philier and Brown could react,
"Help me~~~!"
the girl’s childish shriek tore through the air.
’Holy shit! What is she doing!?’
Philier nearly choked on his water. It was the first time either of the men had encountered a situation like this, and they scrambled clumsily out of the car.
"Hey, little girl, don’t just scream! Tell us what happened."
"Yeah, yeah, calm down first. Are you hurt?"
"Help me... help me... I’m so scared...!"
Luna started crying as she yelled, leaving the two men at even more of a loss.
In the distance, the Ruby Couple panicked. Thinking their daughter had run into kidnappers, they started sprinting forward with all their might.
"Let go of Luna! I’m warning you, I’ve already called the police!"
Mr. Ruby held his phone as if he were about to make a call, or perhaps throw it like a weapon.
"Wait, sir! We don’t know what’s going on either! Your daughter just ran over here screaming for help..."
As Brown and Philier struggled to explain, they caught sight of the Ruby Couple and froze.
’What in the world?’
’How did these two end up looking like this? To put it bluntly, they barely looked human anymore.’
’If you ran into them at night, they wouldn’t need any makeup to scare you.’
Luna ran to Brown and Philier’s side, grabbing at their clothes.
"Sirs, please save us!"
’So *that’s* the "help" she was screaming for?’
The Ruby Couple stood there, still dazed, while Brown and Philier’s expressions grew serious as they looked from Luna to her parents.
"Sir, ma’am, I’m sure you can see this is all a misunderstanding!"
Brown glanced around as he spoke. The commotion was starting to attract neighbors, and he didn’t want to draw any more attention.
"I suggest you join us for breakfast somewhere so we can get a better understanding of the situation."
"Mr. Ruby, do you need help? Who are these two?"
A burly, bearded man called out from a distance, walking—or rather, dragging—his dog, which stubbornly refused to move forward.
"Mr. Ruby, Mrs. Ruby, look at the state you’re in! You look like ghosts. You’re about to die and you don’t even realize it. If you don’t give us a sign, we’re leaving!"
Brown muttered to the ghastly-looking man and woman, then shot a look at Philier, who was already getting back in the car to start the engine.
"Don’t go!"
Luna panicked, clutching Brown’s clothes and refusing to let go.
The Ruby Couple seemed to snap out of a trance. Recalling the morning’s events, they were suddenly overcome with a bone-chilling fear.
"It’s nothing, Mr. Todd," Mr. Ruby called out. "Luna was throwing a tantrum about school, and these two gentlemen were just helping me stop her."
"Oh, okay. But you two don’t look so good yourselves. Make sure you get some rest."
The nearby neighbor waved and left, and the ones farther away didn’t approach.
Brown watched them walk away. ’Just ’don’t look so good’?’ he thought. ’Is that all they saw?’
"Mr. Ruby," Brown said, "if you don’t mind, let’s go back to your house."
’While we were standing watch outside, the Demon has already started its work. There’s no point in just watching anymore.’
’And compared to the Demons the Association usually faces—the kind that can cause massive destruction at a whim—this one took this long just to drain two ordinary people. It can’t be that strong.’
...
Although Luna was very reluctant, the family of three, along with Brown and Philier, ultimately returned to the house.
Along with twin brothers and two other girls who arrived shortly after, the six of them split into two groups of three and searched every inch of the Ruby house, from top to bottom, twice over.
But they found nothing.
Everyone gathered in the living room. The Ruby family stood in the center, while Brown and his team stood or sat casually around them.
"Luna, is there something you know? Do you know where the source is?"
Luna was sitting between Brown and Philier. She could feel a faint, warm flame emanating from this group of men and women, and it made her feel much braver.
She glanced cautiously upstairs, then looked at her parents, and finally summoned her courage.
"It’s... it’s the mirror in Mom and Dad’s room!"
The moment the words left her mouth, everyone, including Brown and Philier, felt the temperature in the room plummet. Goosebumps instantly erupted all over their skin.
The light in the house seemed to dim.
RUMBLE RUMBLE RUMBLE...
The entire house began to tremble. Cups on the table, the chandelier overhead, and the dishes and cutlery in the kitchen all began to rattle and clatter faintly.
Everyone’s reactions seemed to have slowed.
CRACK! A sound like shattering glass came from upstairs.
"Hhhhh... arrgh... hhhhh..."
"Hhhhh... hhhhh..."
A series of hoarse, grating groans, like the wails of rattling bones, drifted down from upstairs.
No one in the living room was spared. They were all frozen in place, unable to move, as the sounds—and the bone-deep chill—drew closer.
’What the hell is this thing!?’
A sense of shock and terror enveloped him. Brown strained to take a step, his leg muscles tightening, but he remained frozen in place.
Philier and the others were in the same state, their bodies ice-cold and drenched in a cold sweat.
The Magic Power in his arm radiated intense heat but failed to surge and flow as it normally would. It only produced a sizzling sound. ZZZZ...
"No, don’t come here! Stay away! Mom! Dad! Sirs, help me... ah!"
Only the little girl was screaming in the living room. She too was paralyzed, her face deathly pale, her eyes fixed in terror on the staircase.
’What?’
Brown and the others strained to move their eyes toward the top of the stairs, but they saw nothing.
RIIIP—
With a sound like tearing fabric and a scream from Luna, they could only watch helplessly as her body seemed to stretch and contort before she was dragged upstairs.
"BASTARD!"
Sweat dripped from Brown’s chin as his muscles bulged, veins standing out on his skin like writhing serpents.
His skin flushed red, radiating heat.
’It... it happened right under our noses!’
’His lofty ambitions, the promise he and his team had made to the Master Sage—all of it felt like a joke. Their days of careful surveillance had culminated in this, leaving him feeling as humiliated as a clown in a farce.’
The Magic Power in his arm felt like gunpowder on the verge of igniting, contained and ramming against its confines. Even his pupils turned crimson.
’I’m not who I used to be!’
"ROAR!" BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
With his furious roar, every glass and lightbulb in the living room exploded!
BOOM!
The Magic Power from the Great Sage in his arm finally burst its confines, flooding through Brown’s body. With a series of rips and tears, most of his clothing was shredded to pieces.
In a tenth of a second.
BANG!
The floorboards beneath his feet splintered, forming a crater. Brown’s body shot upward like a rocket, hurtling toward the second floor.
With a deafening CRASH, he smashed straight through the bedroom doorframe.
PS: First Chapter for Sunday.