Hell’s Handbook

The man sat on a rattan chair, his head bowed and his arms folded. One of his hands was searching for something on his upper body. After getting closer, Su Jin realized that this man was covered entirely in bleeding cuts.

The cuts were actually strange little symbols, and they covered almost every inch of the man’s skin. There were so many and so close to one another, Su Jin had mistakenly thought it was the man’s clothing.

The hand that kept moving about on the man’s upper body was actually holding onto a sharp stone that was probably chipped from a rock and was using it to etch those strange little symbols on whatever little skin was left untouched.

“When the light comes, the darkness must leave! When the light comes, the darkness must leave! When the light comes, the darkness must leave!” murmured the man repeatedly.

Su Jin didn’t dare to go too close and said from a distance, “Mr. Sherva, we’re from the church and we’re here to take back the file you borrowed the last time.”

Immediately after Su Jin spoke, the hand stopped carving more symbols into the man’s skin and the man suddenly lifted his head.

He had an extremely twisted face that looked more like an abstract painting. Half of it was the face of an honest looking man, while the other half was a twisted, maniacal face that resembled that of a demon.

“When the light comes, the darkness must leave!” yelled the honest half of the man’s face in pain as perspiration rained down the side of his face.

“Haha! The light cannot remain in the world forever. Once darkness arrives, pathetic followers of the light like you will be burned to death in the flames of hell!” The twisted maniacal half of the face cackled and mocked its other half.

“Get out of here as quickly as possible! Darkness… is here!” the honest half yelled desperately at Su Jin. He used his hands to press down on the twisted half, as though he was trying to stop it from doing something.

“Find that file, hurry!” Su Jin shouted to his companions. There was something very wrong with this man, and he seemed to be going through some sort of mutation. If they allowed the mutation to reach its completion, it might become harder for them to deal with the man then.

Kano Mai and Wu Chen immediately started searching the tunnel, while Su Jin kept his eye on the man. He aimed White Ash at the man’s head, ready to fire anytime.

“Heh heh!” The man suddenly let out a weird laugh. The palm covering his face parted its fingers slightly to reveal an eye that looked like a broken glass ball. It gave off a very eerie gleam.

“Sir, letting out that sort of laughter makes my gun fire!” said Su Jin with a sneer as he fired three shots from White Ash.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

The three shots hit the man’s arms and the shoulder of one arm. Once these shots with holy elements were fired, the man’s cackling instantly turned to shrieking.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you – that laughter really makes my gun go off.” Su Jin scanned the man’s body to look more closely at the three bullet holes. All three had hit the man’s body on both sides, one that belonged to the honest face’s side and one that belonged to the twisted face’s side.

The two bullets that had gone into the twisted face’s side had green smoke coming out of it, while the one bullet on the honest face’s side was bleeding. That proved that this man wasn’t suffering from some split personality disorder, but that there were two different souls living inside his body right now.

“Heh heh! Since you’ve walked into the devil’s den, then you can forget about leaving! Time to become my food!” cackled the twisted side. He suddenly removed the hand over his face to reveal a face that was already rotten and covered in several black tendons.

Su Jin’s finger moved slightly and nearly pulled the trigger, but he stopped himself in time. He raised an eyebrow and said, “You’re trying to agitate me? In that case, this is no devil’s den. You’re nothing but a pathetic little fellow trapped here. If my guess is right… this man has used some information he gleaned from the files to trap you here. And if you want to leave, you need an external force to break this shell that’s trapping you, am I right?”

The twisted face froze for a second before snarling nastily, “Nobody can trap darkness! Like I said, none of you are getting away! You’ll become food for me!”

Su Jin kept White Ash and shrugged. “Sure, whatever makes you happy.” He then turned and walked away, ignoring the man completely.

Actually, even if the man hadn’t purposely tried to agitate Su Jin, Su Jin would have connected the dots himself. The diagram outside the tunnel as well as the weird symbols on his skin were probably how he trapped this demon in the first place.

One possibility was that this man had been possessed by this demon for some reason, but the demon had not been able to take over his body fully at the beginning. In order to save himself, Sherva borrowed the information from the priest and used a method in the files to trap this demon inside him.

But these methods only allowed him to trap the demon and did not help to save himself. But as long as he kept himself alive, the demon would not be able to escape. That was why the demon had tried to agitate Su Jin in order to get Su Jin to kill the body so that it could escape, but Su Jin saw through that ploy.

“Jin, we found it!” yelled Wu Chen as he held a book up.

“Great! Let’s go!” said Su Jin with a nod.

Wu Chen immediately ran toward the entrance, but Kano Mai didn’t budge at all. Su Jin frowned and yelled, “Mai, let’s go!”

But Kano Mai still didn’t respond at all. Her arms were slumped limply by her side, and her head was bent as well, as though she were sleepwalking or something.

“Mai?” Su Jin could sense that something was wrong with her.

“Heh heh… your friend’s name is Mai? Too bad, she can’t hear you anymore.” The twisted face cackled, then glanced at Mai. “What a beauty! Unfortunately for you, she’s mine now!”

Su Jin and Wu Chen had looks of horror on their faces. Su Jin snapped, “Let go of her!”

“Sure! Destroy this body and I’ll let her go!” said the twisted face as he tried to negotiate with Su Jin.

Su Jin flew into a rage and pressed White Ash against the twisted face, but Wu Chen pulled him back. “Don’t do anything rash! If you let him escape, then Mai would be really doomed.”

Su Jin knew that Wu Chen was right. Striking a deal with a demon was a dumb thing to do. He kept White Ash again, then suddenly smiled as he glanced at Kano Mai. “I’m sorry, but my friend doesn’t play with naughty children.”

He walked over to Kano Mai and said, “Mai, wake up!”

Kano Mai’s eyes flew open and she stared at Su Jin in confusion. “I… fell asleep?”

“You didn’t. Something nasty hypnotized you, but too bad, he chose to mess with the wrong guy,” said Su Jin with a smile. He had been a little too angry at first, but after calming down and thinking about the situation more carefully, he realized it was impossible for a demon to control Kano Mai while being trapped in a different body. The only possibility was that the demon had hypnotized her, and hypnosis was something that his psychokinesis could break within seconds.

“Let’s get out of here first,” Su Jin said to his companions. There was a demon here, after all. Nobody knew what he would do next.

“Don’t go! Please! Let me out of here! I can give you strength! Riches! Status! Anything you want!” the twisted face started pleading with them, his threats suddenly becoming pleas. An ordinary person might have been tempted, but the three of them were owners.

They walked out of the tunnel even as the demon continued to plead with them. Once they stepped out, the voice of the demon disappeared. Just like how they felt when they first walked in, the inside of the tunnel and the outside were two completely different worlds. The diagram and other symbols on the outside were what made the difference.

After thinking about it, Su Jin said, “Seal this place off. We can’t let ordinary people enter the tunnel, otherwise we might create unnecessary trouble for ourselves later on.”

Wu Chen and Kano Mai agreed. They took apart some things in the vicinity and blocked the entrance. Once they were sure that it was properly blocked, they left the sewers.

But shortly after they had left, the older woman who led them there suddenly appeared again. She looked curiously at the blocked entrance, then made several other turns in the sewer before gaining access to that blocked tunnel from a different section that was broken.

A few moments later, the things blocking the entrance were suddenly pushed away from the inside. The older woman came walking out with a crazed look on her face as she carried Sherva’s lifeless body.

Meanwhile, the trio rushed back to the church. It was already midnight, and the silence around them was deafening. Not even the sounds of insects could be heard here. They could hear their own heartbeat very clearly.

“Be careful, there’s something that smells fishy,” Wu Chen suddenly warned the other two.

“Something smells fishy?” asked Su Jin puzzledly.

Wu Chen nodded. “I’ve got way more experience than you guys. When I sense this sort of atmosphere, something bad is usually about to happen. It’s just like when the background music of a horror movie starts to get really thrilling – the chances of getting through the next few minutes unscathed is pretty low, isn’t it?”

“Wise words from the old man!” Su Jin and Kano Mai nodded. Su Jin gave Wu Chen a thumbs up, only for Wu Chen to roll his eyes back at him.

Find the original at bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

“AH!” Just then, a shriek broke the silence of the dead night.

The trio exchanged glances, then rushed toward where they had heard the shriek come from. When they got there, they saw a dead woman on the ground, while two men and one woman were crying next to her.

The dead woman looked like she was in her twenties, and the other three were probably her husband and her in-laws. The three of them immediately got up and bowed when they saw Su Jin’s group.

“What happened?” asked Su Jin.

“Sir, my wife has been harmed by a shapeshifter! Please seek justice for her!” said the man through his tears. His parents hugged each other and sobbed miserably.

Su Jin glanced at them, then snorted. “Hey shapeshifter, can’t you even wipe your mouth after eating? I can still see the bloodstains on your lips!”

The three of them instinctively touched their lips when Su Jin said that and instantly realized they had been fooled. But by the time they looked up again, they were met with three bullets fired by White Ash.