As it turned out, just a few minutes prior...
When Bloodsong was ordered to the outer hall, he found Ophelia like a lamb among a pack of wolves, surrounded by several men reeking of the sour stench of cheap ale.
Even from several meters away, Bloodsong could clearly see the impatience and repressed panic written all over the girl's face.
He frowned and hurried forward.
The outer hall was far too crowded. The normal din of conversation here was like throwing pebbles into a roaring steam engine; individual voices were practically impossible to hear.
Furthermore...
As a Dvorin with demon blood, while he possessed some enchantment spells, he couldn't directly transmit thoughts into someone else's mind from a distance like a Moon Lord believer could.
He could only resort to the most primitive method: physical proximity.
To avoid unnecessary trouble, Bloodsong had cast Polymorph on himself before entering the outer hall.
His signature dark red goat horns were hidden away, and his barbed tail was tucked into the leg of his uniform trousers.
He had transformed into a rather handsome-looking, perfectly normal Velen Human male.
With considerable effort, he squeezed past two sailors engaged in a drinking contest and finally reached Ophelia.
He was just about to reach out and help the girl shoo away the annoying flies surrounding her.
However, cornered against the wall, Ophelia's nerves were already frayed to the limit.
She whipped her head around and saw a suspicious-looking man approaching.
In such a hostile environment, Ophelia was instantly two hundred percent wary of this man!
She immediately mistook him for another shameless drunkard like the others.
"Don't touch me!"
The female reporter shrieked. Gritting her teeth, she suddenly threw open her right hand, which she had been clutching tightly.
The silver metal plate belonging to Mr. Wayne was instantly exposed to the air.
From the gleaming silver plate, a massive and unreserved force of physical repulsion suddenly erupted!
It slammed directly into Bloodsong's chest.
Bloodsong was sent flying like he’d been hit by a cannonball, slamming heavily into the load-bearing wall behind him.
He then slid down like a limp sack of flour.
CRASH!!
His heavy body smashed through two tavern tables placed against the wall, knocking over several curious onlookers along the way.
Wood chips flew everywhere, and cheap ale splashed all over the floor.
The burly men who had been surrounding Ophelia with foul mouths were so shocked their eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.
What kind of human cannon was this?!
They apologized at light speed. The alcohol in their brains evaporated instantly, and they were eighty percent sober in a heartbeat.
Scrambling through the crowd, they fled from the Siren’s Song like beaten dogs.
The rest of the patrons in the outer hall, who had been reveling like demons moments ago, were stunned by the sudden turn of events.
The music stopped, and the shouting ceased.
Even the innocent patrons who had been knocked over by Bloodsong didn't dare utter a word of complaint after seeing this terrifying woman blast a man away without a second thought.
They could only clutch their aching backs and silently shrink into the corners.
The space that had been as noisy as a chaotic marketplace fell into an eerie silence.
Never mind the patrons; even Ophelia, the perpetrator herself, was completely dumbfounded by the power of the tiny metal plate in her hand.
She stared blankly at the silver plate in her palm. She had thought it would at most cause the person some discomfort; she never expected it to be this powerful!
In a panic, she scrambled up from her seat and ran toward Bloodsong.
Bloodsong’s appearance still maintained the image of the handsome young man. He was dressed in his bartender's uniform, covered in beer stains and wood chips.
Ophelia approached him and looked at his slightly distorted features. She finally realized that because she had been too tense, she had used her life-saving charm on the wrong person!
Friendly fire!
As Ophelia helped the half-demon bartender up with a face full of apologies, Bloodsong hissed in pain, looking at the seemingly fragile girl with difficulty.
"Inside..."
Bloodsong gritted his teeth, delivering Old Crowley's message. "Someone wants to see you."
Upon hearing this, Ophelia's hand on his arm suddenly stiffened.
The guilt from accidentally hurting someone was instantly replaced by an indescribable panic.
Although she knew very well that the influential Mr. Wayne must have done something inside to clear the way for her, the moment she was actually about to pull back the bloody curtain and touch the truth of her brother's death, her body still trembled slightly.
It was an instinctive resistance to the unknown horror.
Taking two deep breaths, she suppressed the tremors in her heart and nodded silently.
Bloodsong stood up straight. He coldly surveyed the low-life patrons who were still peeking at them.
He flicked his wrist, and a flash of pale purple light danced across his fingertips.
Enchantment spell, activated.
Centering on himself and Ophelia, an invisible wave of spirituality rippled outward.
In the next second, the eyes of the surrounding patrons became glazed and vacant.
Under the compulsion of the spell, they began to perform all sorts of bizarre and nonsensical actions.
Some suddenly dropped to the floor, rolling around frantically like maggots. Others were even more absurd, grabbing a mug of cold beer and pouring it into their crotch without hesitation.
As they poured, they muttered with a look of profound devotion, "Grow faster... grow faster..."
Another man stripped off his shirt and jumped onto a table, performing a clumsy, twisting dance.
Of course, there were some relatively normal ones. They simply dozed off and drooled in their seats, or gripped their friend's neck and forced beer down their throat.
The entire outer hall instantly turned into a bizarre, large-scale festival for the mentally ill.
Ophelia watched, wide-eyed and speechless. Her face flushed red; she practically couldn't bear to look at the perverts pouring beer into their pants.
Well, out of a reporter's professional curiosity, she still couldn't help but steal a few glances from the corner of her eye.
"Wh... what's wrong with them?" Ophelia stammered, her voice laced with a sense of profound weirdness.
"It's nothing, just a bunch of drunks who've had too much," Bloodsong said, brushing the dust off his clothes and offering her a gentle smile.
"I just gave them something to do so they wouldn't pay so much attention to us."
He straightened his collar and made a gesture of invitation. "Follow me."
Ophelia looked suspiciously at the chaotic outer hall and followed closely behind Bloodsong.
They walked straight toward the wall with the red curtain, the same one Mr. Wayne had walked through earlier.
As they neared the wall, Bloodsong suddenly stopped, turned around, and grabbed her slender arm.
"Close your eyes," Bloodsong commanded in a low voice, his tone carrying a trace of irresistible magic.
Ophelia's heart skipped a beat, but she obediently closed her eyes.
She felt a cold draft brush against her cheeks. There was no sensation of impact.
"You can open them now."
When she opened her eyes again, the scene before her had transformed into a completely different, mysterious space.
Ophelia gasped, her beautiful eyes widening in shock.
The most immediate sensation was that it was much, much quieter than the outside. The ear-splitting noise was gone.
A few patrons sat scattered at dark tables. The air was thick with the scent of an expensive, unidentifiable spice.
However, she wondered if she had been completely intoxicated by the fumes of the cheap alcohol outside. On a small platform in the corner, she saw an ancient harp playing all by itself!
Looking back, she saw the exact same wall. Had she truly just passed through it from the other side?
When a patron at the bar saw Bloodsong walk in with a woman, he held up his crystal glass and gave a sharp whistle.
"Hey! Bloodsong!" the patron called out jokingly, his voice ringing clearly in the quiet hall. "Why’d you bring in a pretty girl?"
He looked Ophelia up and down. "Since when did you develop a taste for this?"
Another patron sitting in the shadows laughed as well. "Careful," the man warned raspily. "Don't let those Hounds from the Seventh Agency catch you slipping!"
Bloodsong didn't even spare a glance at the transcendents' teasing. Ignoring them, he turned to the still-dazed Ophelia and whispered, "Your friend is upstairs."
He pointed toward the end of the hallway. "Go to the end, turn right, and head up the stairs. It's the only room on the second floor."
"Okay," Ophelia said cautiously, barely daring to breathe.
Under the strange and cold gazes of the patrons, she steeled herself and walked inward.
With every step, the strange feeling in her heart grew stronger. Entering this hidden underground space made her feel completely out of place.
This sense of alienation wasn't just a social inability to join the conversation; it was a chasm rooted in the very essence of life.
She could clearly feel that she was fundamentally different from the people drinking here.
She was like a rabbit that had wandered into a wolf's den.
However, her good upbringing made her stop suddenly. She realized she hadn't thanked the bartender who had kindly led the way and even taken a hit from her earlier. It was far too rude.
Thus, Ophelia forced a friendly smile and turned back, prepared to say thank you.
However, her smile froze on her face the instant she turned around.
Because what she saw wasn't a handsome young bartender at all.
Instead, it was a being with dark red skin, a pair of long goat horns growing straight from the sides of his head, and a long tail trailing behind him...
A demon!!
"AAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!"
Rate on N.U.
