Chapter 75 (2/2)

“Did you just say soy sauce?” The idea of calling up a portal in his living room was indeed a pleasant surprise. Hao Ren could now take pride in the fact that there was a more decent tenant in the house. The demonic portal sounded cool but he could not believe what he had just heard. He strode over to Y’zaks only to find the demon squatting and drawing a circular diagram in the middle of his living room. It was about of two to three meters in diameter. He drew it while held a dish in his hand. In the dish was some black liquid and it smelled like… soy sauce.

“WTF?”

“Why not? When you’re at the level of a master, you can draw diagrams with basically anything—even water; all things hold demonic power. I once knew an awesome demon master, who calmly drew a line of hell fire with his pee in the face of 20,000 strong, beastmen.He managed to hold it until help arrived. However, the old pretender later denied he had ever used the pee trick. Instead, he claimed to have performed a blood-smear formation… Any more soy sauce?”

“…Yes, soy sauce right away! Screw it, I’m not gonna be pretentious anymore. I should have known—I’m never ever going to cross paths with anything that’s state of the art! Vivian, please give the gentleman some soy sauce…”

After splashing a whole bag of soy sauce, Y’zaks finally completed the teleportation diagram. The drawing medium notwithstanding, the diagram looked like it meant business with its complicated and exotic demonic runes. They were stacked into rings of three. Rows of unintelligible incantations floated around in the center of the diagram like a living object. Just as Y’zaks exerted his energy into the runes, the diagram emanated a red and green yet cloudy glow. The gateway was finally online!

The only fly in the ointment was the smell of the soy sauce.

And that thought kept ringing in Hao Ren’s mind. Could things get any less magical than this?

Anyway, it was the only way even if it was not magical, Lily’s state of mind was deteriorating fast. She crouched on the floor without making a sound. Her pose and behavior had become characteristically wild (and dog-like). Hao Ren had also witnessed her gnawing on the table leg during the few minutes that Y’zaks was drawing his diagram; the total loss of his table was prevented only because the wood was too unpalatable.

Y’zaks got to his feet and pointed at his creation. “Everyone, move inside the circle and I’ll start the teleportation. Beware, this will work only once. So, we better go at once.”

“Is it because soy sauce has a limited capacity of demonic power?”

“Nope.” Y’zaks shook his head as he pointed his finger at Rollie, the cat on the sofa. “Judging from its edacious eyes, I can tell he’ll lick the soy sauce clean once we’re gone, thus spoiling the runes…”

Hao Ren jumped inside the circle at once. “Alright, let’s go. If we keep this conversation up a minute longer, I’m afraid I won’t be able to convince myself that I’m going to be involved in more magic.”

Fortunately, the soy sauce portal worked without a hitch. Everyone on board arrived at the destination in one piece.

Bastard Barrio appeared as it always was—deserted. No more than a few cars passed by in the day and the camouflage provided by the portal made their emergence less of a problem.

Feeling nauseated, Hao Ren clung to a telephone pole. “That was one hell of a flaky, soy sauce portal—”

Y’zaks had an ingenious smile as he said, “It’s typically demonic—crude and simple yet, practical. Try getting used to it.”

Still crouching like a wolf on the ground, Lily’s head drooped from left to right. With extreme caution, Hao Ren poked her shoulder and said, “Lily, are you alright?”

“So far so good.” Lily raised her head. There was no more reflection in her cloudy eyes but, her sanity remained. “Where’s the floating mansion?”

Hao Ren gave her an assuring smile as he found the familiar telephone pole with the old Chinese medicine sticker. “Ladies and gentlemen, we’re about to witness a moment of wonder!”