NOVGO.NET Chapter 1888: The Bluebeard Tale
Chapter 1888: The Bluebeard Tale
Villain Ch 1888. The Bluebeard Tale
They didn’t stop walking. Not once.
Every strike was a motion between strides. Every monster cut down was just another step toward the door at the top of the stairs.
Allen moved like a blade himself—silent, efficient. He didn’t need to look at the countdown to know time was running out.
He could feel it.
The bell tolled again. Faster. Louder.
[Time Remaining: 06:32]
The top of the stairs opened into a massive hallway. At the far end stood a pair of grand doors carved with wedding scenes. The carvings were wrong—the brides’ eyes hollow, the grooms’ faces blank. The doors pulsed with faint red light, like a heartbeat.
The whispers returned.
“The seventh wedding will start…”
“The seventh wedding will start…”
Vivian shivered. “Creepy ASMR.”
Jane’s eyes flicked to Allen. “This is it.”
He nodded once. “Church.”
The group exchanged glances, weapons still slick with fading shadow. Then Allen pushed forward.
They stormed the hallway, boots echoing on the cracked marble, black chandeliers swaying overhead.
Another wave of servants rose from the floor—this time bigger, faster, more desperate.
[Enemy Encounter: Final Servants]
[Shadow Groom – Lv. 240]
[Veil Widow – Lv. 245]
They didn’t even break stride.
Zoe’s tentacle speared a Shadow Groom, tearing it in half. Shea’s feathers sliced through three Veil Widows in one sweep. Vivian’s whip cracked and took the heads off two more. Jane’s shadows reached out and crushed another into mist.
Allen moved through the center, his blade flashing like lightning—cutting down anything that came near him.
It was like watching a storm roll through a graveyard.
Silent. Unstoppable.
The bell tolled again.
[Time Remaining: 04:11]
The grand doors loomed ahead now, the glow brighter. The whispers louder.
“She’s in there,” Allen said quietly.
Larissa flexed her claws. “And so’s he.”
Allen reached the doors. Placed a hand against them. The wood was cold. Pulsing. Like touching a dead heart.
He exhaled once.
“Let’s crash a wedding.”
And pushed.
The doors swung inward with a slow, agonizing groan.
Beyond was the landlord’s true domain.
And it was wrong.
Not in the blood-stained, corpse-piled kind of way Allen was expecting. No, this was worse. It looked… beautiful.
The interior of the church wasn’t twisted or burned or warped like the rest of this cursed little town. It was pristine. Restored. Like someone had hit rewind on the horror reel and brought them back to the exact moment everything went to hell—but just before the hell part. The pews gleamed with polished wood. Gold-trimmed banners fluttered faintly from pillars. Candles floated gently in the air like stars caught mid-prayer. And sunlight—actual sunlight—filtered through the stained glass windows in soft, warm beams.
But Allen didn’t buy it for a second.
Because no church—no matter how fancy—should have that many demonic sigils etched into the walls.
And not in the tasteful “decorative cult” kind of way. No. These were raw. Alive. The kind of marks that crawled if you stared too long, that whispered if you stepped too close. They weren’t there to bless anything. They were cages. Seals. Contracts.
He narrowed his eyes.
This wasn’t a church.
It was a theater.
And the play was already in motion.
At the altar, the bride stood.
Or—tried to.
Elise.
Her dress was white, her veil sheer, but her wrists were gripped tight by two shadowy attendants in crimson robes. Her eyes were wild. Tear-streaked. She screamed—but it was silent. Like someone had muted the scene just for them.
She was fighting. Thrashing.
And no one cared.
The “guests” were packed into the pews. Hundreds of them. Every seat filled with familiar faces—the same townsfolk they’d seen in the streets, the ghosts who whispered and watched. Except now they were alive. Singing.
Not a hymn Allen recognized. Not Latin. Not Infernal. Not Celestial.
Something older. Broken. Words that tasted like ash and syrup on the tongue.
Each one held a candle.
Each one swayed with the rhythm.
And at the front—
Allen’s eyes snapped to him.
The landlord.
This was their first time actually seeing the bastard. Really seeing him.
He was tall. Pale. Elegant in the way dead things tried to be when they mimicked the living. His beard was a vivid, unnatural blue, trimmed with surgical precision, and his smile was wrong. Too many teeth. Lips too thin. Eyes too cold.
He didn’t look like a man.
He looked like an echo trying to cosplay one.
And the thing beside him? That wasn’t a priest. That was a corpse dressed in priest’s robes, with a skeletal face and a tongue that flicked between its fangs like a snake. It held a black book upside down. Chanted in reverse.
The branding iron appeared from behind the altar.
Not a cross.
A ring.
Twisted iron in the shape of a barbed band, glowing faint red.
Elise saw it and screamed louder, thrashing harder.
And Allen—
He tried to move.
Nothing.
His muscles wouldn’t respond. His legs wouldn’t step. Even his breath felt caught in his throat like a stone.
Scripted sequence, he realized.
This wasn’t a fight.
Not yet.
Just a memory. A reenactment.
A trap.
Shea made a soft sound beside him. “She’s still alive,” she whispered.
Zoe’s tentacles twitched, half-summoned. “Not for long if he marries her.”
“She doesn’t want this,” Jane muttered, eyes flickering with necrotic light.
“No shit,” Bella hissed. “Look at her.”
Allen clenched his jaw.
The “priest” opened the book.
The guests’ song grew louder. Creepier.
Then the landlord stepped forward, one hand outstretched, elegant and awful.
“Elise Velladine,” he said. “Do you accept my bond?”
She spat in his face.
Goddamn queen.
The landlord didn’t flinch. He wiped the spit away calmly, smiling like it amused him. Then he nodded once, and the attendants forced her down onto her knees.
The branding iron lowered.
She screamed—silently—and thrashed so hard she knocked one robed figure off-balance.
They pinned her arm against the altar.
And the iron pressed down.
Her skin sizzled.