The Only Player in ‘Child of Stardust’
Chapter 152 - 114: Crimes

Chapter 152: Chapter 114: Crimes

The dead were the butcher, the judge, and the model.

The butcher died alone in his room, while the judge and the model died naked on the same bed.

In the butcher’s room, the corpse leaned against the bedhead, eyes wide open in fury, as if staring at someone he despised deeply.

His hands were tightly clutching his own neck, blood dyeing his palms red. His mouth was agape, like a fish out of water, revealing a desperate struggle.

The doctor took a pair of rubber gloves from his coat pocket and put them on, then forcibly pried open the butcher’s hands. A deep knife wound could be seen on the corpse’s throat.

The cut was clean and swift, severing the trachea and carotid artery. The influx of blood into the airways would have caused intense suffocation, leading to rapid blood accumulation in the lungs, making it impossible for the butcher to even call for help.

Next, they entered the model’s room.

The judge and the model’s faces showed fear. They seemed to be in a state of post-coital relaxation, unable to react, also having their throats slit, blood staining the sheets and dripping onto the floor.

"Their time of death was approximately twenty minutes ago," the doctor concluded.

Twenty minutes ago... Zhou Yuan calculated. That seemed to be the time he encountered the shadow.

"After encountering me, the shadow killed three people in succession. Could it be that my intervention is causing the plot to spiral out of control? But Maeve’s goal is to stop the ritual. Why has she been killing people all along? This is clearly pushing the ritual to completion..." Zhou Yuan pondered.

"Where’s Jenny?" the officer turned to Zhou Yuan and coldly questioned.

Jenny was the name of the streetwalker.

"She’s taking a bath," Zhou Yuan said. "We had quite the wild time just now."

The officer frowned and looked at the plumber, commanding unequivocally, "Go fetch Jenny."

The plumber nodded and hurried downstairs.

Two or three minutes later, the plumber rushed back up. "She’s not in the bathroom! The shower is on, but Jenny is gone!"

"What?" Zhou Yuan’s face was full of shock. "That’s impossible. She was still in the bathroom when I came up!"

This was a lie.

When the incident occurred, Zhou Yuan knew the movie protagonists would look for the streetwalker, so he sent Fang Qing to the bathroom to set up the illusion that someone was taking a bath, thus framing the streetwalker’s disappearance on the murderer.

...

The officer’s expression instantly turned grim. His eyes scanned the remaining movie protagonists with a cold, piercing gaze.

In that instant, the air seemed to freeze. Everyone realized something, and their eyes changed.

Even the nun, who appeared most kind and holy, now had a face that subtly turned resentful and violent.

The demonic ritual required half the deaths as sacrifices.

Among a class of forty, only ten were still alive. Excluding a hidden betrayer, four of the ten had already died. The movie protagonists knew about the Demon’s Blessing the streetwalker received, and they believed Zhou Yuan could not possibly kill her. The streetwalker’s disappearance could only be Maeve’s doing.

In other words, as long as one more person died, the final condition of the ritual would be met.

Traditionally, at the stroke of midnight, people would begin to kill each other to please Satan through bloodshed and brutality.

No matter what feelings existed between them, they would vanish by then. Each person’s sole purpose would be to kill the others until the sacrifice was complete.

Although it was not yet the predetermined time for the ritual, the current situation was extraordinary enough for the remaining people to disregard this convention.

As long as one more person died...

It would all be over.

The five movie protagonists stood in silent confrontation, like a volcano on the verge of erupting, completely ignoring Zhou Yuan beside them. Only those who traded with Satan were sacrifices. Killing the outsider Zhou Yuan would not satisfy the ritual’s conditions.

And in that moment, the officer moved.

Like a gunslinger in a Western, within a fraction of a second, he completed the whole sequence of drawing, aiming, and firing his gun with fluidity.

Bang, bang, bang!

With the sound of gunfire, several blood blossoms bloomed on the nun’s body. Her eye sockets and lips quickly darkened, her pupils turned to yellow snake eyes in an instant, and her face lost all color, becoming as pale as paper, resembling the demonic nun from "The Nun".

[No one said you could only make a pact with one demon, right? The nun, guilty of false piety, made pacts with at least five demons from Hell. The demon now possessing her body was named Valak.]

So it was the demonic nun... Zhou Yuan was astonished.

The nun’s muscles regenerated quickly, pushing the blood-stained bullets out of her body. She opened her gaping mouth and roared at the movie protagonists, unleashing a surge of invisible, overwhelming energy.

Boom!

The movie protagonists were blasted by demonic telekinesis into the walls. The terrifying force, enough to push a speeding car, pressed them against the walls in a spread-eagle position, their bones creaking under the pressure.

"Your name... is Valak," the officer, clearly prepared, said with difficulty, knowing the demon’s true name. "You are the Scorpion, the Blasphemer, you are the wicked serpent... In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, I curse you to return to Hell!"

A fierce wind rose. The demon inhabiting the nun roared like a wild beast, then was sent back to Hell.

It was clear that in this movie’s world, demons could be banished by their true names. In the real world, demons lacked this fatal weakness.