Chapter 155: An Encounter in the Middle of the Night

Calvin's eyes were grim as the golden quill in his hand shone in a dim light that served to illuminate the darkness around him.

He rushed to the old woman's wooden hut and kicked it open.

Brandishing his golden quill forward, the light from the quill fell onto the old woman.

There, she sat on her stone bed, curled in a ball, and continuously trembling from fear.

"M-Madame, are you okay? I came here to save you!"

"D-D-Don't come closer! I don't want to... I don't want to fall asleep!" The old woman shrieked like a banshee.

"Why do you not want to sleep? Isn't it easier if you just fell asleep? Why don't you just follow the urge to sleep?"

"No... I can't... I don't want to sleep. I don't want to go with them... I don't want to sleep!"

The old woman trashed on her stone bed. She was inexplicably strong, as she moved around, cracks would spread on her bed every time she smashed herself on it.

Calvin's expression turned serious.

He flicked his wrist towards the door and closed it shut. He looked around the room and discovered that the room had a protection talisman, but it obviously didn't seem to be working.

Calvin turned to the old woman. A frown was plastered across his face. The old woman seemed to be trashing on the bed on her own. There seemed to be no one compelling her to do such a thing, and she also didn't seem to be possessed.

Usually, in this case, Calvin would've already diagnosed her to be mentally challenged, but since there was this particular curse in the Village of Tulog as well as the existence of that succubus who wanted to devour him.

Who knew what kind of monsters still lurked in the Village of Tulog?

Given that they were so close to the village, it was entirely possible that a Spectre or two wandered to the outskirts of the Village to look for someone whose fear they could feed on and become even stronger.

But Spectres were generally afraid of head-to-head confrontation.

Unless they deemed it to be completely safe, they would never manifest their true form.

Calvin had to bait out the being that was torturing this old woman and if he wanted to do that...

He had to pretend to be ignorant.

"Madame!" Calvin lunged at the old woman and pressed her down onto the stone bed, "Madame! Are you okay? What's going on?! Don't worry, I'm here... Madame!"

The old woman suddenly stopped moving.

An eerie silence filled the wooden hut.

Calvin could hear the sound of his own heartbeat, and the pitter-patter of the rain outside seemed to have become stronger.

... That he was unable to hear the sound of the door's wooden hut creaking open from behind him.

"Madame... Are you all right?"

The old woman stared right at Calvin.

But there was something strange in her gaze.

She didn't seem to be staring at Calvin, but right through him!

"Why did you open the door... Why did you come here...?"

"It's too late..."

"We will be dragged and cursed into eternal sleeplessness!"

The old woman let out a maddened shriek before her eyes rolled into her skull.

Calvin shook her shoulders and she awakened once more. Her eyelids seemed incredibly heavy for her as she intermittently closed them, trying to fall asleep, but she was ultimately unable to be in peace.

"Too late? Why is it too late? I'm here! I'm an adventurer, didn't I tell you? I'll help you! I'll help you from whatever is making you like this, madame!" Calvin cried out.

The old woman stared through him once again.

Within her eyes, terror surged and twirled.

"It's too late..."

"Why?!"

"She's here..."

The moment her voice trailed off, a biting chill came up from behind Calvin.

He immediately ducked his head to dodge, yet the attack still shaved off a few strands of his hair.

Turning around, his heart abruptly stopped.

Floating behind him was the Spectre of a half-bodied woman.

Her eyes were completely white, and blood dripped out of her lips while her cheeks seemed to be bloated from something.

There was a particularly savage look on her face as she opened her lips and let out a shriek.

"AAAHHH!!!"

A booming sound rang out, the shockwave created by the noise was so strong that it directly tore off the door of the wooden hut.

The Spectre seemed to be aggravated that she was unable to execute Calvin with a single attack.

She dashed forwards while Calvin utilized his footwork to evade the attack to the right.

'A half-bodied Spectre created from a resentment so strong that she was able to gather enough power to blow off the door of this hut... I'm lucky that the source of her power is from her resentment against something or someone. If the source of her power was from an unfinished business, then this would've been a difficult fight...'

Calvin glanced at the old woman and he discovered that the Spectre seemed to be uninterested in her.

Then, in that case— if she wasn't out here to hurt this old woman, then why was she haunting her?

Calvin looked around the area and the half-bodied woman attacked him again.

He leaped backwards and managed to avoid the attack. While he was in mid-air, he snatched the protection talisman attached from the walls of the room and hurled it over to the woman.

"Eat this!"

Calvin crushed the talisman into a ball and threw it at the woman.

But it unexpectedly passed through her body as if it was broken.

"What? It passed through her?!" Calvin was alarmed.

He had confirmed that the talisman was working the moment he held it in his hands. Yet, why did it pass through the half-bodied woman?

There was only one possibility that Calvin could think as to why the talisman was ineffective against the woman.

The woman was an exception.

The person who made this protective talisman must've made the half-bodied woman an exception that wouldn't be stopped by the talisman.

But why?

Calvin didn't have any time to think as the woman sent another attack, forcing him to block with his golden quill as he was thrown outside of the wooden hut.

Calvin deftly rolled on the ground and instantly recovered.

He stood up and stared grimly at the monster in front of him.

"You... Who are you? Why are you attacking me?"

"Why are you haunting that woman? Did she do something bad to you?"

"Do you know that you're already dead...?"

Calvin asked the questions that mattered the most in identifying what kind of a Spectre was the half-bodied woman.

But the half-bodied woman only floated inside the wooden hut.

She was staring at Calvin with this savage look on her face that didn't seem to care for anything other than destroying Calvin.

Or was it?

Calvin furrowed his eyebrows.

'If this half-bodied Spectre was out here to hurt this old woman, then why didn't she do it before?'

'Why does it seem like instead of hurting the woman... She's protecting her against something far sinister...?'

A heavy sense of foreboding flooded Calvin's heart.

But he had already made a decision.

The half-bodied woman was a Spectre made from the resentment that she had before she died. Understandably, she was evil-affiliated.

And since her affiliation was evil...

"By the Emperor's Commandment, all shall obey!"

A majestic and booming declaration came out of Calvin's mouth. The moment his words fell, the half-bodied Spectre started trembling. Terror filled her eyes and the savageness on her face had disappeared, replaced by fear as she floated there frozen and unable to do anything nor move.

By the Emperor's Commandment, all shall obey!

This declaration wasn't empty words.

The Emperor's Veil covered Calvin's body in the golden robes of an Emperor.

He stretched his hand out and Calvin's weapon of choice, the Polearm manifested.

"By the Emperor's Commandment..." Calvin stared at the half-bodied Spectre, "I declare you cleansed!"

He hurled the Imperial Commandment's Polearm at the half-bodied woman.

Under the authority of the Emperor's Commandment, the half-bodied woman could do nothing other than to stand there and accept her fate.

Pierce!

The Polearm pierced a hole through her ghostly body.

This was the power of the Emperor's Commandment...

The ability to harm an evil-attributed Spectre without making them manifest a physical body.

"..."

The half-bodied woman stood there with this huge hole on her chest.

But she still wasn't dead!

"What? Why are you not..."

"Wait, you..." Calvin immediately recovered from the shock.

"A half-bodied Spectre created from resentment and with the attribute of Undying."

"You..."

"You're not an ordinary Spectre!"

"You're an Aswang!"

Calvin immediately revealed the identity of the half-bodied woman.

The reason why he hadn't suspected the woman to be an Aswang was that Aswangs were just too rare!

In the previous timeline, Calvin hadn't encountered even a single Aswang in his entire life. Even though he knew of their existence as depicted by the Bestiary's of the three Judiciaries, he hadn't expected that he would encounter one!

Calvin's mind madly spun. Aswangs were vicious and relentless. Now that he had offended one, he had to see through the end of his decision and destroy the Aswang. But how could he do it when Aswangs had the attribute of undying? Even the power of the Emperor's Commandment was unable to annihilate it, how could Calvin hope to defeat this monstrosity?

It was true that the Aswang had the attribute of undying.

But just as there was a solution to every problem, there was also a way to defeat the Aswang.

Calvin just had to find its lower body!

If he could find its lower body and purify it through fire or the cleansing of salt, the Aswang should also disappear from the face of this world.

But the mountain occupied by the Village of Tulog was so huge that finding the lower body of this Spectre was the same as finding a needle in a haystack. It was unrealistic for him to find the lower body of the Aswang so fast and then purify it through fire or salt. Since that was the case, does this mean that Calvin had no options left and he could only accept his defeat?

Of course not!

Calvin still had a way.

And it was a method that he was excited to try.

The Empire of an Emperor was impossible to make by the hands of a single person.

In short, an Emperor had a lot of subordinates.

But Calvin had just recently received the Emperor's Commandment, so he did not have any subordinates apart from the Mortician whom he forced to submit under the power of his Emperor's Commandment.

Now he had two choices.

One, suppress the Aswang and let the Mortician devour it so that it could grow stronger.

Two, force the Aswang to submit to him under the power of the Emperor's Commandment.

Calvin was quick to reach the answer to his question.

Standing there, Calvin summoned the might of the Emperor's Commandment once again.

"By the Emperor's Commandment, all shall obey!"

An explosion of blinding divine light surged from Calvin's body as the golden robes of the Emperor wrapped around him once more. The only difference this time was that he had a different weapon strapped on his waist. The weapon looked to be a jade-colored sickle with a barbed circle-shaped weight connected with a chain.

The Soul Reaper!

A suitable emperor metes out punishment to those that dare to rebel against the Emperor's Commandment.

Wisps of divine light surged from the Soul Reaper as Calvin gently ran his fingers across its handle.

"Existence of such great resentment... Introduce yourself!"

Calvin's vocabulary changed, but he was still as imposing as ever.

But he received no response from the half-bodied woman.

She was still floating there, staring at Calvin with intense terror in her eyes.

"You, who has such great resentment."

"Submit under the authority of the Emperor's Commandment or be dispersed to the wind!"

Calvin unhooked the Soul Reaper from his waist and stared right at the half-bodied woman.

"I..."

The half-bodied woman uttered in a hoarse voice.

Finally, she was displaying some signs of intelligence for the first time.

She opened her mouth slowly, seemingly struggling to speak, but before she could utter any words of explanation...

Her expression suddenly twisted, the savage look on her face returned and she unexpectedly broke through the suppression of the Emperor's Commandment and roared.

"AAAHHH!!!"

Calvin's pupils constricted.

"I see, so you are still going to be persistent..."

"In that case, I'll force you to submit!"

He swung the Soul Reaper over his head and then threw it at the half-bodied woman.

The Soul Reaper made a beeline to the half-bodied woman, but before it could wrap around her...

A figure unexpectedly appeared in front of the half-bodied woman.

It was the old woman who had been cowering on the stone bed.

"What?!"

Calvin exclaimed in shock.

The Emperor's Veil vanished at that moment and so did the Soul Reaper.

The suppression of the Emperor's Commandment also disappeared.

"Madame... Why are you..." Calvin mumbled.

"How dare you..."

The old woman trembled in anger.

"How dare you try to hurt my daughter?!"