<h4>Chapter 137 - Ruins of Akaba</h4>


    <i>Bang!</i>


    A dark, massive fist swung like a meteor hammer,nding heavily on the jaw of a humanoid monster. The creature flew backward, crashing into a wooden door on the side of the street. With a crack, the door smashed into yellow and white splinters.


    Cassius strode over with a cold expression. His waterproof boots stepped on the door frame.


    <i>Swish!</i>


    A withered, wrinkled w resembling a tree branch, shot out from the darkness, its five sharp points aiming straight at Cassius''s neck.


    <i>Crack!</i>


    Arge, strong hand grabbed the w, five fingers wrapping around it and unleashing a torrent of power like a mountain flood.


    "<i>Ah</i>!!!" A piercing scream, like that of a baby''s, tore out from the shadows. The sharp w that had reached out was nothing but pulp now, with bones, tendons, and skin twisted and mashed together.


    <i>Whoosh.</i>


    A fierce wind whistled as Cassius swung the monster in the darkness like a meteor hammer.


    The creature, as pale as a mummy, shrieked as it zipped through the air before crashing heavily to the ground with a thud. Almost immediately, Cassius picked it up again and smashed it through a wall. The sound of continuous drum-like impacts echoed.


    <i>Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang...</i>


    <i>Crack!</i>


    The creature’s arm broke off, and its entire body flew out like a cloud. It bounced across the ground like a skipping stone, leaving a long trail. Finally, with a st, its bloody head hit the hard base of a wall.


    A shudder ran through its body like it had been electrocuted. It died just like that, with its head tilted and legs syed out.


    <i>Whoosh.</i>


    A withered arm arced through the air,nding precisely in the crook of the dry corpse''s remaining arm. From a distance, it looked like a drunk had copsed and fallen into a deep sleep on a street corner.


    Far away, Cassius had already turned and walked off. Darkde and Jiri trailed after him, not daring to fall behind.


    They understood that they had entered a mysterious and dangerous area of ck Rain Manor that they had never traversed before, likely one that originally had warning signs. ording to Hellsing lore, getting lost in such ces meant the chances of finding your way out were nearly zero, regardless of if you were alone or in a group.


    On the gray-white street, nked by square, gray-white residential buildings that looked like sharply angr building blocks.


    ck Rain Manor was dim even during the day, with oilmps being lit inside some of these buildings. Slivers of faint yellow light illuminated the shadowy figures through windows and door cracks. The air was filled with sounds of old men coughing, couples arguing, babies crying, furniture being moved, and footsteps on stairs. This street was both silent and bustling, like a real, livingmunity, filled with the ambiance of everyday life.


    But Jiri felt a chill run through his body.


    This was no prosperous city or town; this was the Rainy World. This was ck Rain Manor! The more normal it seemed, the more abnormal it was. The calmer it appeared, the more terrifying it became. The more ordinary it looked, the more eerie it felt. Where were the ordinary people in the manor?!


    <i>Tap, tap, tap...</i>


    The three walked with steady, powerful strides, Darkde and Jiri matching Cassius''s pace. If they didn''t, they would have bolted like scared rabbits as soon as they encountered these eerie sights. Jiri''s heart was pounding wildly, and he swallowed hard.


    Suddenly, a drunkard with a bottle burst out of a nearby shop. Jiri almost had a heart attack.


    The drunk grabbed Jiri''s arm. "Kind sir, lend me some money! Let me buy another bottle of wine! I..."


    <i>Bang!</i>


    The drunk''s head exploded like a watermelon.


    Arge hand reached over, shoving the bottle into the drunk''s neck, then hammering it in like a pile driver. The ss bottle was forced into the gushing wound.


    "Shit!" Jiri''s eyes were as wide as saucers upon witnessing the gory scene up close. He stuttered as he pointed at the corpse.


    A shadow whipped past, flinging the corpse dozens of meters away in an instant. "Don''t just stand there and look like an idiot. Keep up." Cassius''s cold voice snapped Jiri back to reality.


    Jiri quickly wiped the blood off his face and ran to catch up.


    Five minutester, at the entrance of a store.


    A tall figure blocked the door frame. Every monster that roared out was grabbed and mmed into the wall like a hammer. The entire building shook constantly from the heavy impacts. Before long, four to five half-human, half-bull monsters were nailed into the gray-white wall, their lifeless limbs slightly swaying.


    "These monsters are popping up way more frequently."


    Cassius brushed the dust off his hands. This could either mean he was nearing the edge of the normal area of ck Rain Manor, which exined why more monsters had appeared to block the way, or he was going the wrong way and was now entering an even more dangerous, eerie area. But surely his luck couldn''t be that bad.


    Cassius turned around. Confidence oozed out of him as he said, "We''re almost out, stick close to me!"


    Darkde and Jiri nodded like chickens pecking at grain, fully aware that their survival hinged on their proximity to Cassius.


    Faintly sensing the danger at the next intersection, Cassius slowly exhaled, then pulled off his cloak, and tossed it to Jiri.


    "<i>Hiss...</i>"


    He inhaled sharply, his chest heaving. Power flowed into his muscles and bones like air inting a balloon. He spread his arms, his muscles swelling. He was the very embodiment of a ssical sculpture of strength and beauty with his strong, upright upper body and pebbly texture of his gray-white skin.


    "Go!"


    A powerful, savage aura burst forth. Jiri and Darkde trembled, quickly following.


    Five minutester.


    <i>Snap!</i>


    A ck shadow shot forward like a cannonball, leaving a gray footprint on the ground. With one punch, he sted apart the monster leaping at him in midair. He whipped around, delivering a swift roundhouse kick that flung a tentacled monster into a building.


    His massive iron fists struck continuously, moving with such extreme speed that the raindrops in his path exploded into mist. It looked as though ayer of fog was wrapped around Cassius''s fists, forming a half-circle shield.


    In the rainy alley, the numbers grew as monsters swarmed from both sides like dumplings being dropped into boiling water. Cassius unleashed his full power, using fists, feet, elbows, and knees to fight. With his superhuman physique, each strike was incredibly powerful. The air was soon filled with airborne figures.


    Cassius was like an indestructible spearhead, plunging deep into the horde of monsters, his powerful fists carving a path while two small figures, Jiri and Darkde, followed behind, gritting their teeth and trembling as they struggled to keep up. Perhaps because most of the monsters'' focus was on Cassius, the two did not face much resistance.


    "Get out of the way!!!" Cassius''s punch sent a blocking monster flying.


    Yep, the manor was determined to eliminate him. As if misleading him into unknown territory wasn’t already bad enough, it also decided to summon a horde of eerie creatures to kill him. But this small obstacle was far from enough.


    Another three minutes passed.


    n/?/vel/b//jn dot c//om


    At the edge of a wall, a strange woman in white with long ck hair was muttering a nursery rhyme.


    "Son, son, my son is..."


    <i>Boom!</i>


    "Stop singing. You''ll reunite with your son soon."


    A female corpse was flung into the air like a kite,nding with a st on a rooftop.


    Cassius cracked his neck and brushed off the numerous white marks on his body; it sounded like rocks knocking into each other. He looked around. Houses lined both sides, with a high wall blocking the way ahead: a dead end.


    Cassius thought this was likely another trick by ck Rain Manor. Using a dead end to make him think he was going in the wrong direction so he''d turn back, exhaust his stamina, and fight until he died of exhaustion. But he trusted his own judgment more.


    As he moved along, the number and strength of the monsters increased, and the path became more perilous. At the most dangerous point, a wall appeared ahead. There was no doubt about it. The normal area that Cassius sought after was behind that wall.


    "We''ve arrived." He turned to Darkde and Jiri, both of whom had suffered some small injuries. "As usual, stay close behind me. The other side may not be safe either!"


    Darkde and Jiri nodded vigorously.


    "<i>Huff...</i>"


    Breathing heavily like a bull, Cassius''s right arm muscles suddenly swelled. In a sh, he disappeared and transformed into a huge ck shadow, crashing through the wall with Darkde and Jiri following closely behind.


    "Finally. We''re back in the normal area." Cassius lowered his arms, which he had used to shield his face from debris, and opened his eyes with a smile, but it quickly froze as he looked ahead. "Huh?"


    There was a sparse grove of trees, with patches of grass beside them. A winding path ran through the middle, with a carriage station at one end and the manor entrance at the other. On the left path stood Leon who was holding an umbre. His delicate, pale face was filled with shock.


    "Huh?" Twin exmations of surprise came from behind Cassius.


    Darkde was bewildered. Weren''t they supposed to be in the normal area of ck Rain Manor beyond the wall? How did they end up outside the manor?


    Cassius frowned as well. This was not what he expected. The path had be increasingly dangerous, implying ck Rain Manor was blocking their way to the normal area.


    Unless...


    ck Rain Manor hadn''t been blocking them at all, and had merely misled them into a dangerous unknown area. Cassius, being overly aggressive, had believed the more dangerous the path, the more correct it was, eventually breaking through the entire unknown area and charging out of ck Rain Manor.


    <i>Impossible, absolutely impossible! </i>Cassius decisively rejected this idea. He trusted his intuition. This was undoubtedly because ck Rain Manor couldn''t fully execute its scheme due to his overwhelming strength.


    <i>Rumble, rumble, rumble...</i>


    A sound came from behind. The three turned to look.


    The broken gray wall started emitting mist, slowly repairing the uneven edges of the hole. Some strange repair mechanism of ck Rain Manor seemed to have been activated.


    Cassius took a few curious steps forward to take a closer look. Unexpectedly, the wall trembled violently, as if fearing Cassius’s approach. A massive amount of mist erupted, quickly shrouding the hole, and restoring it to its original state.


    "That''s no fun." Cassius patted the cool wall with hisrge hand and shook his head.


    "Mr. Darkde, and Mr. Twilight... what are you doing here?" Leon, who had been startled, walked over from several meters away. He had indeed been quite frightened. Having just taken a carriage back to ck Rain Manor, he had been walking toward the entrance when the wall beside him suddenly exploded.


    Out came a towering, muscr man with a bare torso. One couldn''t help but fear this muscr giant might suddenly go berserk like a rhino, pounding people into a pulp with just a few punches, or crushing them into mush with a bear hug.


    Behind him, Darkde heaved a sigh of relief and casually concocted an excuse for Leon. He vaguely said that the three of them had gotten lost in ck Rain Manor, and ended up wandering through various twists and turns until they reached a dead end. Twilight had been forced to break through the wall.


    "Mr. Twilight, your cloak." Having just narrowly escaped death, it took a while for Jiri to approach Cassius. He returned Cassius''s still-intact cloak.


    "Thanks." Cassius took it and put it back on.


    "We should be the ones saying that, Mr. Twilight." Jiri wiped his forehead; he was drenched, but he wasn''t sure if the moisture was rain or sweat.


    Cassius didn''t respond. Darkde and Jiri were merely coteral damage in ck Rain Manor''s quest to target him. He didn’t feel deserving of Jiri’s gratitude.


    "Let''s go back to the Bolt Sect base."


    With that, the four of them returned to the manor. During the return, Jiri and Darkde were on edge, as if anticipating something to jump out at any moment. Leon found their behavior strange, while Cassius remained calm.


    A few minutester, they arrived at the Bolt Sect base.


    Cassius immediately wanted to visit the Baptism Chapel again, but Darkde and Jiri waved their hands, saying they needed at least two to three days to recover before daring to go out again. So, he left the base alone.


    Walking down the familiar gray road with an umbre, Cassius felt someone''s gaze from above on his left. He looked up sharply, seeing a girl in ace dress peeking from a window. She froze, her hollow eyes streaming with tears. Just as she was about to scream, a hand quickly pped over her mouth. An old woman hoisted the girl onto her shoulder, spanking her while running away like the wind. As if Cassius were some heinous monster.


    For the rest of the walk, he encountered no strange incidents, arriving at the Baptism Chapel without anything happening.


    In the grand hall, under the ornate ceiling, Cassius''s tall figure stood in front of a prayer table, nked by two elegant metal candlesticks, where rows of ck chairs had been ced behind it.


    The task for his atonement was scrawled on the surface of an old, yellowed scripture: "Find the Akaba Ruins..."