Detective Agency of the Bizarre-Chapter 1341 - 181: This Is the End

Lu Li thus recalled that the Inferior Demons encountered along the way were spared no waste, being resolved by the Power of Redemption in his left hand when near death. Only a few Inferior Demons crashed directly against him and perished, but they could not keep the bonfire burning for even a second longer.

"You shall not commit slaughter within Beauty Lake Town again!"

The Blue Blood Chief grasped the fresh corpse—already his—stern and deep in his warning to Lu Li, allowing no refusal.

Clearly, trying to lure the bar’s demons outside for a hunt again seemed infeasible.

Lu Li indeed didn’t wish to excessively pressure a lawful, restrained, and communicable intelligent being.

Even if it was a demon.

If possible, communication remained his foremost approach.

As the Blue Blood Chief dragged the Claw Demon’s corpse away, Lu Li once again halted him, asking the Blue Blood Chief to tear open the corpse’s wound, covering himself in the sticky blood amidst caution and anger.

The shirt, tie, and trench coat were preserved as Lu Li’s mark before death, a part of the soul, no worry that the bloodstain might become irremovable.

"No more within the town...

"I know."

While the Blue Blood Chief went next door to collect another corpse, Lu Li returned to the bar, theatrically staggering with wind and sand as he burst inside.

"I want to hire a demon to escort me to the nearby town!"

The pale, blood-streaked figure shouted, and though the face seemed almost statuesque and rigid, the lure was sufficient for demons who hadn’t seen a new soul for decades.

In the seats, the Black Sludge formed humanoid outlines, like viscous mud approaching Lu Li.

"Is there more?" Lu Li continued to survey the bar’s patrons.

Some demons stirred eagerly, the Black Mud Demon suddenly manifesting a Banshee’s head, shrieking at them to suppress their greed.

Beauty Lake Town’s harvest seemed to end here.

Amidst gazes mingled with covetousness and malice, Lu Li left the bar with the Black Mud Demon, walking outward following the sandstorm.

The scorching wind swirling through the gorge made his trench coat cling tightly around him, his center of gravity tilted back, moving down step-like short paces to avoid being swept off by the wind from the gorge depths.

The Black Mud Demon maintained a seemingly harmless soft mud form while following Lu Li, but it didn’t last long; the mud gradually swelled, monstrous claws protruded from the sludge, grasping at the figure ahead.

Each time, Lu Li would turn back trying to converse with it.

Sadly, the Black Mud Demon couldn’t respond or didn’t wish to speak with food, leaving Lu Li with no additional gains.

Finally, Lu Li departed from Beauty Lake Town’s bounds, the cliff-face town reduced to a blurred black silhouette.

The Black Mud Demon following Lu Li quietly returned to a humanoid outline, inflating sea urchin-like spiked claws stretching toward Lu Li’s back—the dream-like reality coloring this scene also reached out to it.

No surprise materialized, as the Black Mud Demon was compressed, kneaded by the power of dreams, collapsing into a smooth black sphere.

Instead of directly using the Power of Redemption, the Dreamwalker resolved the Black Mud Demon, some essence akin to vitality infused into Lu Li’s body—but humanity wasn’t increased.

Lu Li gained insight. The soul is not humanity... humanity is a fuel surpassing the soul.

Like coal to timber, kerosene to candles.

The acquired soul didn’t represent specifics as humanity does, usually divided half to the Hunter, half to hell.

This implies severed ties with the human realm, the hellish scenario worsening over twenty years without new souls arriving than imagined.

Perhaps Beauty Lake Town’s desolation is widespread in hell.

Lu Li caught the Black Sludge Demon left by the Dreamwalker’s withdrawal, nearly falling due to its weight.

The Black Mud Demon’s collapsed shell, like an infant’s head, retained weight, weighing about 30 pounds; if Lu Li weren’t a soul, his arm might even dislocate.

Lu Li gazed back at Beauty Lake Town, a vague silhouette standing at the town’s edge; he approached the Blue Blood Chief, dropping the heavy Black Sludge Demon Sphere at his feet.

"I didn’t engage in personal battle within town limits."

Lu Li demonstrated his innocence and adherence to the rules.

"But you infringed on Beauty Lake Town’s interests—" yet to Law Enforcers, existence straddling the edge of order and chaos won’t welcome: "Beauty Lake Town’s 67 residents and guests are reduced to 64 because of you; you’re not welcome here..."

"Beauty Lake Town’s rules shouldn’t prohibit self-defense when attacked."

Lu Li, like a lawyer of the Old Era, pierced through legal control. In the Blue Blood Chief’s eyes, he was another kind of being.

"You’re as cunning as demons..." Blue Blood Chief no longer considered him a normal entity: "Human, what would make you leave?"

"I need some maps and intelligence."

After a brief pause, the Blue Blood Chief stared at the black sphere beneath him: "The corpse is mine."

"Deal."

...

Bang—

The bar door burst open again under the strain.

The bar patrons avoided the Blue Blood Chief, their gaze falling toward the following Lu Li, this soul surprisingly unharmed, those stains also disappeared.

"I only have this one body left!" the waiter screamed at the Blue Blood Chief.

"Hand him the maps."

The waiter cast a quick glance at Lu Li and slipped into the hole beneath the counter leading to unknown depths.

"Muscle-brained fools." The Blue Blood Chief, clad in a grim armor crust, seemingly the least qualified to say such words, turned to mock all the bar demons: "Actually want to hunt the soul marked by a demon, trust me why that demon doesn’t directly collect his soul?"

The Blue Blood Chief wasn’t purely sarcastic; it really wanted the patrons to answer to vent the pressure Lu Li brought: "Well? Why don’t you say."

"Because demons cannot go to the human realm." A demon thought itself clever enough to speak.

"You’re saying demons randomly toss marks to someone unknown in the human realm?" perhaps calling it muscle-brained might not be accurate, yet compared to the Blue Blood Chief, they were indeed fools.

So being the same Mid-Level Demon, the Blue Blood Chief was the Law Enforcer of Beauty Lake Town.

Lu Li awaited the Blue Blood Chief to vent its emotions: "I come from Lava Lake, what occupies it?"

"Inferior Demons, we’re accustomed to calling it Fire Demon."

"Also Inferior Demons?"

Inferior Demons is a general term, usually describing hellish creatures, like Ashes, of the lowest order. No soul, no value, the flesh reeked unbearably sour.

Most are the degenerate products of burnt-out souls, driven by only remaining instinct. Killing them offers no Death Retrace, nor liberation—after all, Inferior Demons are ashes left with no fuel.

Even among them, a fortunate one possessing a lone soul won’t birth intellect from dormant flesh, merely detach temporarily from Inferior Demons, joining many Lower Demons or Middle Demons until it’s consumed again.

Every creature in hell is a firethigh. They burn in the hell-furnace, to survive and grow strong, necessity dictates seizing others’ fuel. Yet Inferior Demons are nothing but Ashes, not containing a shred of heat. Should they reignite someday, it would merely be a new flame over Ashes.