I’m Trying to End This Possession Chapter 180

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Finally, the nightmarish night was over. The bodies of the villagers were collected by the paladins, and the matter was wrapped up. Just before leaving for the Grand Cathedral—

 

“The priest has woken up. What do you want to do?”

 

The man who lost consciousness after being stabbed in the back by Rumie. Priest Nelt had regained consciousness.

 

“May I speak with the priest alone?”

 

Fortunately, Rumie cooperated willingly.

 

“Fine. I’ll tie him up so he can’t move, then you two talk.”

 

The location was ‘Danaena Rolland’s’ house. As requested, Rumie tied the priest tightly to a chair.

 

“Priest Nelt. Please tell me about what you did to me today.” Dana asked softly. “What on earth did you do to me?”

 

But the priest only glared at her rebelliously, not opening his mouth once. Even in this situation, he’s not afraid of me. Well, Dana looked so gentle and harmless, like she couldn’t kill an ant. So Dana came out of the kitchen holding a knife. As she approached with it in her hand, Priest Nelt’s face hardened.

 

“Why? Are you going to stab me with that?” The priest twisted his lips in a sneer. “Don’t bluff. Do you think it’s easy for someone like you to hurt someone? A woman like you—”

 

Stab!

 

“Aaaargh!”

 

“Please speak, Priest,” Dana asked calmly. “What exactly did you do to me?” She smiled brightly and pressed the knife in deeper.

 

“Argh, aaaargh!”

 

“Please, priest, tell me quickly.”

 

“Y-You crazy b*tch!”

 

“If I were truly crazy, I wouldn’t have stabbed your thigh, Priest.” Truthfully, Dana really wanted to. She was reaching her limit. Not just out of anger.

 

At this moment, old memories kept resurfacing. What is all this? Amazingly, memories she hadn’t experienced in this life were coming back as well. The rewound timelines, even scattered memories of vanished lives, were surfacing.

 

“A-Alright! I-I’ll talk, so p-put the knife away!”

 

“You made a wise choice.” Dana lowered the knife. At last, the priest surrendered.

 

“T-Today is… the one day in a year w-when the door opens.”

 

“You mean the door to the Ice Lake?”

 

“Yes.”

 

She’d heard the villagers talking after she escaped from that lake. The Ice Lake. The door to it was about to open.

 

“The Ice Lake is the twin of Mirror Lake. They’re connected. And you…” He spoke, his chin trembling. “You are the sacrifice to open the door to the Ice Lake.”

 

A sacrifice. Dana wasn’t even surprised. As expected, these villagers had used her as a mere key to open the door. They’d probably been waiting for this day all along. Afraid she might run away, they’d deceived her under the mask of kind villagers, including that b*stard Carl Windsor.

 

“Why did you choose me as the sacrifice?”

 

“To open the door, you need a connection to the Ice Lake. You are that medium. Because…” Priest Nelt let out a sigh that was almost a sob. “Your true body is submerged in the Ice Lake.”

 

“…”

 

“You are the most powerful connection possible.” Then, with a pale face, he smirked. “You are one of the replicas made in the image of that true body.”

 

Dana sensed malicious anticipation in his voice. Did he think she’d be shocked? But Dana wasn’t surprised. She’d already suspected as much. So it was true.

 

Danae Windsor and Danaena Rolland. And that girl, what was her name again? The girl she’d seen on that bizarre island. The girl killed by Ignis. Even that young girl, who looked like a mix of Ignis and Dana. Was her name Danael?

 

All of them looked exactly the same, like clones. Only the hair, eyes, or general aura differed. Unless they were twins, they must have been artificially created. They were all ‘Yeon Dana’ replicas of the flesh that the priest called the ‘true body.’

 

“Why is that true body in the Ice Lake?”

 

“Why, you ask?” Hohoho, Priest Nelt let out a weak laugh. “Do you know why the Daiana Church grew so rapidly?”

 

What’s he talking about all of a sudden? Dana didn’t answer, but the priest kept rambling as if some evil force gave him energy.

 

“The Daiana Church sold something called holy water to the continent’s powerful. That’s how they gained power.”

 

“Holy water? What’s that?”

 

“If you drink it, incurable diseases are healed, disabilities are cured, youth returns, and the body becomes healthy. It works so well, it can even make severed arms grow back!”

 

Dana frowned. Come to think of it, when she saw Daiana Church believers worshiping, they’d said things like: ‘A better body. A stronger body. A more beautiful body.’ She’d thought it was just cult propaganda, but it turned out to be real benefits for the believers…

 

“I don’t care about holy water or whatever. Tell me about the true body.”

 

“No, you need to know. The water in the Ice Lake is the holy water.”

 

What?

 

“And your true body is submerged in the Ice Lake. Do you know what that means?” Priest Nelt’s greedy eyes swept over her whole body. “The material for the holy water is your true body.”

 

“…”

 

“Your true body is the source of the holy water. Do you understand?”

 

Dana understood it at once. But the answer was so disgusting that it was hard to speak. She felt nauseous.

 

What on earth… What did the Daiana Church do to her body?

 

“This ‘true body’, isn’t it just an ordinary woman’s body? How can it be the source of holy water?”

 

“I don’t know.” The priest answered without hesitation. “I just heard there was some experiment.”

 

An experiment? What kind of experiment could make something like that possible? And more importantly—

 

“How did they get that true body? Where did it come from?”

 

“I don’t know that either.”

 

She thought the priest was pretending not to know, so she raised the knife to stab his thigh again.

 

“I really don’t know! For real!” The priest then shouted in panic. “I don’t know! Really! All experiments related to the holy water were top secret—Aaaagh!”

 

When she stabbed the same spot again, the priest convulsed.

 

“The Grand Cathedral’s Holy Mother Chapel!” He broke down in tears, begging. “That building is the lab! That’s all I know! That’s everything!”

 

By now, it seemed he was telling the truth. So Dana moved on to the next question.

 

“About Lord Carl.” She had to find out about that b*stard. “Was he after the same thing as you all?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Do you know why?”

 

“To live, probably…”

 

“What?”

 

“He’ll die soon.”

 

“…”

 

“He probably doesn’t have much time left.”

 

What is he talking about? That makes no sense…

 

“Don’t lie. Carl Windsor can regrow fingers if they’re cut off. And that’s not all. Even if his whole skin is peeled off in an explosion, he heals perfectly. That monstrous man.”

 

“It’s not a disease of the body. It’s a disease of the soul…”

 

Maybe it was because she’d finally lost her composure, but Priest Nelt sneered, drooling.

 

“Do you know what demon worshippers revere?”

 

Dana frowned. What’s he talking about all of a sudden?

 

“They worship the seven-headed serpent.”

 

“I know.”

 

Of course, she knew. The seven-headed serpent. The symbol of the seven deadly sins. Demon, devil, demon king—called by all sorts of evil names. Who wouldn’t know of that evil serpent sealed by the sun god Ramun?

 

“Carl Windsor was cursed by it.”

 

…What?

 

“The lifelong wish of demon worshippers is to awaken that serpent, the demon. That’s what Carl tried to do. The seven-headed serpent. Carl Windsor tried to awaken when he was a boy and failed, and was cursed instead…”

 

“…”

 

“So he wants to live too. That’s why he’s looking for holy water, to find a way to survive, isn’t he?”