Lord of Lies (Second Update)

After settling the matter, Salomon took a walk around the orphanage. Only after confirming that all the surveillance personnel had left did he begin casting spells around the building, ensuring that no unrelated individuals could sneak inside. The spellcasting continued until evening, when little Lorna called. Only then did Salomon stop what he was doing.

When he first answered the phone, Salomon worried that something had happened to her. But after the child chattered away, first sounding aggrieved and then furious, the Arcanist finally set aside his worries as an old father. The child had merely been robbed. She had not even fired her gun.

Salomon could only patiently comfort her. While promising to give her another seven hundred dollars, he instructed her that she absolutely had to shoot next time. It was a sacred right granted to citizens by United States law to protect their property—minor matters like the gun being unregistered or little Lorna possibly being seen using her powers naturally did not concern Salomon. The world was becoming more and more chaotic. Lorna’s personal safety mattered more; he could handle the other little problems.

If she encountered a pedophile, she was to shoot immediately without hesitation. Even if the other party was the President of the United States, the same applied. Salomon had made a point of telling her that.

The NYPD would not dare cause trouble! The last time Salomon had driven without a license, they had chased him once. Fortunately, he ran fast, hoisted his motorcycle onto his shoulder, and slipped away. Otherwise, Nick Fury would have had to bail him out.

That would have been humiliating.

The Arcanist checked the time and prepared to leave. He entered an alley near the orphanage, intending to open a portal and return home. He never cast spells to leave directly from the orphanage, lest someone watching him grow suspicious of the place. Thus, he always sought out deserted corners to teleport from. Fortunately, there were not many residents around the orphanage, so Salomon was not worried about being seen.

However, halfway through the spell, he stopped his movements—he heard vicious breathing and smelled the stench of Dark Magic hanging in the air. Salomon stood still, clenching his spellcasting gesture into a fist. Amid a series of light footsteps, a black shadow crashed through a window above him. The Arcanist immediately raised his right hand, using an orange-red shield to block the rain of shattered glass and the claw strike that came with it. The attack had been so sudden that he had not even managed to see his attacker clearly. But whoever it was, launching an attack this close to the orphanage had utterly enraged Salomon. In his heart, he had already passed judgment on the creature.

Death.

"Three-Headed Satan sends his regards." The black figure laughed as it fell from the air, then leaped at the Arcanist again. The heavy breathing trapped in its throat reminded Salomon of blood dripping from gleaming white fangs, of the faint tearing sounds made by claws rending flesh.

This time, Salomon had time to react. When the Dark Magic Creature was less than a meter away and its filthy claws were about to rake across his skin, he instantly vanished into a thin silver mist. The next moment, he abruptly appeared behind it and swung the orange-red Ring of the Ragador with all his strength into its back. The Arcanist did not waste a second. The instant he landed, he charged again, pinned the Dark Magic Creature’s limbs as it fell, and smashed its cursed-enhanced joints apart with his heels. He grabbed its deformed head and, full of fury, repeatedly slammed it into the ground until thick, foul-smelling blood spread across the concrete. The Werewolf no longer had any ability to resist.

"Marduk sent you?" the Arcanist asked roughly. Three-Headed Satan was a title specifically referring to Marduk, the most detestable devil in Hell, because he loved calling himself Satan and possessed three venomous dragon heads. Even Mephisto disliked that madman. Salomon did not know why Marduk’s subordinates had come to attack him, nor did he know why these Dark Magic Creatures knew his location.

The Werewolf’s eyes had been sealed shut by blood, but it seemed not to care at all about what it was about to face. It coughed up a mouthful of blood and revealed a disgusting smile. "The great Three-Headed Satan knows your secret, Arcanist," it said. "Your conspiracy with the Lord of Lies cannot be hidden from him."

Lord of Lies was another name for Mephisto.

Kamar-Taj’s plan with Mephisto? What Salomon thought of was the contract the old steward had signed with Mephisto on behalf of the Sorcerer Supreme back in Hell. He did not know the terms of the contract, nor did he know what agreement The Venerable One had reached with Mephisto. But one thing was certain: the contract concerned Marduk, and the information it contained terrified Marduk.

He had originally thought the matter was over. After all, not every Hell Lord could bear the threat of the Sacred Spear’s procession. But now it seemed that Mephisto truly could not suppress his nature. Not long after the contract was signed, he had sold out his temporary partner. The Devil of Negation had used this to persuade the impulsive madman Marduk to act, and perhaps Mephisto had even thrown Salomon out as a bargaining chip.

Salomon smashed the creature a few more times. Seeing that the Werewolf could say nothing more, he decisively slit its throat with the short blade he carried. Then, as if sensing something, he immediately rose from the ground and sprinted desperately toward the orphanage without even dealing with the Werewolf’s corpse.

He ran faster and faster, leaping over trash cans and using walls to vault over obstacles. By the end, he was even crushing wall tiles and concrete beneath his feet, and several buttons on his formerly neat shirt had burst open. He raced forward in a fury, agile as a wildcat. Power filled his muscles, and he vented his rage upon a figure trying to sneak into the orphanage.

Salomon descended from the air, his spark-wreathed fist slamming into the Dark Magic Creature’s head. With a sharp impact and the crack of a shattering skull, the sheer force drove its head into its chest cavity. It met death cleanly before it could make a sound. A huge cloud of bloody mist burst across the Arcanist’s chest, and blood spattered like rain over the orphanage’s white tiled outer walls. The Arcanist did not stop. He did not even care about the cries of alarm from passersby.

Salomon broke into a run again, racing toward the next location indicated by the magical alarm.

"The Venerable One." Salomon walked into the Sorcerer Supreme’s meditation room, panting heavily. His white shirt was covered in mottled dark brown and crimson bloodstains, while pale pink blood trickled slowly from his forehead along with sweat, making him look as though he had rolled around in a bathtub.

Salomon’s anger could not be contained. He had dealt with the Dark Magic Creatures’ attack on him through the most brutal means, and the fallen leaf dagger had enjoyed the grandest feast of blood since its creation. He had slit more than ten throats with that blade—those Dark Magic Creatures came in many varieties. Werewolves and Vampires were among the most common, but there were even more cultists carrying the bloodlines of infernal creatures. These were ugly beings born when cultists summoned lower-plane creatures through Blood Sacrifices and mated with them afterward. There were also infernal beasts.

It was an utterly nauseating sight. Female cultists serving as mothers had little chance of surviving after the ritual, and particularly violent half-breeds would even tear open the mother’s womb and crawl out on their own.

In his fury, he had not even had time to deal with the Dark Magic Creatures’ corpses. Still, Salomon had retained his reason. He promptly informed the Arcanists of Kamar-Taj, who removed the bodies before the NYPD arrived. As for the bloodstains, Kamar-Taj could do nothing about those. Salomon intended to contact Nick Fury afterward and have him handle the matter. Otherwise, he would have to make a trip to the NYPD archives or a biological monitoring agency and manually delete the records.

Salomon had returned to Kamar-Taj specifically to inform the Sorcerer Supreme that Mephisto had betrayed them. Yet the Sorcerer Supreme seemed to have known about it all along.

"Working with Mephisto was bound to result in betrayal. What is there to be surprised about?" The Venerable One said calmly. "But we have already obtained what we needed. I do not care what Mephisto does afterward. On the contrary, we have already seized Marduk’s weakness. This mad devil’s attack on you proves that he is afraid. He fears Kamar-Taj touching his sore spot. I know what you are worried about. It is all right. I informed Athena long before the attack occurred. She will take good care of those children. Do you really think anyone could defeat her?"

"Also." The Venerable One slowly poured Salomon a cup of tea, allowing him to moisten his parched throat. "Athena does not blame you," the Sorcerer Supreme said. "On the contrary, she thinks you did very well."