The Bizarre Detective Agency

Chapter 362: The Conclusion and the Dawn

The coarse rope scraped against his skin, and a sense of suffocation instantly overcame Lu Li, as if he were drowning.

Tap, tap... The soft sound of knuckles rapping on the table broke the silence.

At the signal, Anna materialized in midair. Her distorted mental projection writhed and stretched out behind her, shimmering like a reflection on water.

Anna's eyes were crimson and terrifying. An invisible yet palpable malevolent force enveloped Lu Li, wrapping around him as if to protect him, layer by layer.

The rope around Lu Li's neck tightened rapidly.

Crack... A sound echoed as if something invisible had shattered. This time, Anna managed to glimpse a tiny fraction of the force attacking Lu Li.

Resistance was impossible. Defiance, unthinkable. It was like being a man in a lone boat in the middle of the ocean, catching a fleeting glimpse of the abyss below.

An Evil Spirit—the final form of all ghosts.

The crimson in Anna's eyes dimmed. She found it difficult to even conceive of confronting such a power.

Lu Li remained calm, but from the suffocation and lack of blood, his face had turned a deep red, the veins bulging on his skin.A ragged cough escaped Lu Li.

Anna's crimson eyes flared once more. Lu Li's suffering triggered a wave of negative emotions that flooded her consciousness. Her breathing quickened, and a deep malice began to awaken within her...

Suddenly, Lu Li grabbed her hand.

Anna snapped her gaze down and saw that the deep red color and bulging veins on Lu Li's face were beginning to fade—he could breathe again.

[— It's you? — Sara loosened the rope in astonishment.]

She had stopped? The Baroness didn't understand what had happened.

[— Why do I feel no fear in you? — Sara regarded Lu Li with a peculiar gaze.]

Lu Li coughed a few more times, catching his breath, and replied, "Fear wouldn't make you let me go."

"I have one request," he said.

Not understanding why Sara had stopped but preparing for the worst, Lu Li said, "If you resurrect Adam later, resurrect us too."

[— No, I won't do that... — Sara quietly shook her head. The rope she had loosened now lay around Lu Li's neck like a bowtie. She could harm innocents for Adam's sake, but she couldn't kill the one who had once saved her...]

Saved her? The Baroness was completely lost.

Only Lu Li stared ahead thoughtfully. He remembered that evening when his coughing, brought on by a cold, had frightened off Francis and saved Sara.

A trivial incident had saved them.

"You have to let Eileen go, too," Lu Li said.

[— Do you truly love her?]

— Yes.

Lu Li tried to sit up, and Sara even helped him.

[— You... you are free, — Sara's voice was filled with exhaustion. She was tired.]

The Baroness could finally breathe a sigh of relief.

Under Lu Li's gaze, Anna struggled to suppress the power raging within her. The problem was that the brief surge of power had made it difficult for her to maintain control.

The crimson in her eyes deepened, and an intensifying chill radiated from her.

[Sara, looking at the moved Eileen, recalled the past... Her gaze fell upon the wounds on Lu Li and Eileen, upon the resurrected Vincent, and upon the two bodies in the corner.]

[She could no longer go back...]

Sara seemed to have given up, but to prevent any further surprises, the Baroness decided to build a rapport with her and asked what had happened.

They already knew much of the story, but "Lu Li the servant" and "Eileen the maid" did not. So they needed to hear it all again to avoid any narrative inconsistencies and to learn the full truth.

Controlling Vincent, Lu Li moved back toward the bodies of Adam and David.

Sara indifferently wiped the table with her sleeve and sat down, beginning her tale.

The story was long, so long that the indistinct, ancient voice began a new chapter.

The final chapter.

[Chapter Ten. Beloved Forever.]

Betrayal by loved ones, a forced marriage to a minor nobleman, an attempted assault by her fiancé at their engagement, returning home to find Adam dead in the garden beneath her balcony, the despair and hope offered by Andrew, the obsession with resurrecting Adam, the realization that Andrew was a devil, the madness born from this truth, and finally, repentance.

Sara recounted her memories, but she did not succumb to emotion, as if she were telling someone else's story.

It was like the calm after a storm.

[— Some force was guiding all my actions, all my reactions predicted by it, but it couldn't have foreseen that I would stop... I didn't even expect it myself, — at the end, Sara brushed the hair from her forehead, a bitter smile touching her lips.]

Lu Li and Anna already knew who this dark force was.

Her "Uncle Andrew," or rather, the devil.

According to his plan, Sara was supposed to kill Lu Li and Eileen, and then, after failing to resurrect Adam, continue to create new victims until her sins dragged her down to hell.

By the time Sara finished her story, it was nearly five in the morning.

If not for the clouds, the sunrise would soon be visible.

"What are you going to do now?" Lu Li asked.

[— When dawn comes, I will tell my father everything and let the police take me away, — Sara had decided her fate.]

As soon as she finished speaking, an old parchment materialized in the air, hovering before Sara.

[— This is... — Sara took the parchment and looked at it.]

It was a soul contract. By signing it, Sara would give her soul to the devil, and in return, the devil would give her a way to resurrect Adam.

"It could be a devil's trap!" exclaimed the Baroness, ever prone to emotional outbursts.

[— It can't get any worse, — Sara, without hesitation, bit her finger and wrote her name on the contract.]

The hovering contract erupted in black flame and vanished with the rising fire.

[Sara lifted Adam's body from the corner and held it close.]

[— Eileen, — Sara raised her head and called out.]

Lu Li lifted the Baroness into his arms and approached Sara.

[— Tell my mother I always loved her. And... I'm sorry, — Sara gently stroked Eileen's hair, then drew back her hand and closed her eyes, beginning to chant an incantation.]

[The ground trembled. Branches began to sprout from the two figures pressed together, and roots, like snakes, burrowed into the earth.]

[Their tattered clothes crumbled to dust, and in their place, two tree trunks appeared. Thick canopies pressed against the basement ceiling, and with a rustle that shook the ground, the branches joyfully stretched upward, breaking through the earth, growing taller and taller...]

Holding Eileen, Lu Li retreated, dodging the writhing roots and falling stones.

A huge hole opened in the basement ceiling, through which patches of clouds, colored by the rising sun, were visible.

[Golden light poured from the heavens, illuminating the treetops.

[The two trees were tightly intertwined, and if one gazed at their trunks for long enough, the embracing figures of Sara and Adam could be faintly discerned.]

[Now they were together forever.]

["Nightmare." Part Three. The Book of Sarah's Death. The End.]