Generally speaking, these old American houses usually have a basement, and if there's any gasoline around, it's probably down there.
And the entrance to the basement is typically near the kitchen. That's the case with the Sawyer family's place too – the hidden basement door is in the kitchen.
That's why Roy ended up in the dining room just outside the kitchen. But he didn't expect the entire Farflay family to be gone.
Roy was pretty damn sure he'd killed all the Farflays.
I mean, one by one, they either had their necks snapped or their chests caved in. If they could survive that, wouldn't you have to call them some kind of legendary unkillable boss?
Then again, maybe not. The Farflays were cultists who worshipped the King of Fury, after all. Who knows what kind of evil magic they might have had to save their hides?
Roy quickly headed back to the living room to make sure the Farflays weren't trying to sneak up on anyone.
Elrasha and Ashley were sitting on the living room couch, being good as gold.
"Roy, why are you back so soon? Didn't you find the gas?" Ashley asked, looking surprised.
"Something's up! The whole Farflay family has vanished."
"What?"
Just then, a huge clap of thunder rattled the house, making Ashley jump.
It was late March, so thunder wasn't exactly a shock, but this one made all the lights in the house suddenly go out.
Ashley yelped and practically leaped into Roy's arms.
"Aaaah!"
In old country houses, power outages from lightning and unstable voltage are pretty common.
But like Roy said before, everything was just a little too convenient.
The Farflay family disappears, then suddenly there's thunder, and after the thunder, the lights go out.
It was like one thing leading to another, straight out of a standard horror movie script, giving Roy a weird feeling in his gut.
He should probably calm Ashley down first.
"It's okay, Ashley, just a tripped breaker."
"Roy, I'm so scared!"
Ashley was squirming in his arms, and Roy had a feeling she wasn't really that terrified and might just be trying to get a feel.
Was she planning on taking advantage of Samantha being gone to get a little action?
"Roy, what happened? Why did the lights suddenly go out?"
Too bad for Ashley, Samantha came out of the bathroom with her son pretty quickly. Of course, with the house pitch black, she couldn't see what her daughter was up to.
Roy quickly put Ashley down, even though the whole "mother-daughter dynamic" thing was kind of a turn-on.
Ashley covered her mouth, giggling. She definitely felt Roy's reaction, which meant he still had feelings for her.
"Looks like the breaker tripped, but I'm not totally sure!"
"Mommy, I feel a little cold."
The youngest, Mike, was really sensitive to changes in the environment. Once he said that, everyone else noticed that the house seemed to have gotten noticeably colder.
Even though rain usually brings the temperature down, this felt like a pretty drastic drop.
If they could feel it that strongly, the room temperature had probably dropped at least four or five degrees.
"I'll light the fireplace!"
Old houses do have their perks. At least with the power out, they still had a fireplace in the living room they could use.
But Roy ran into trouble when he tried to light it. He struck several matches, and none of them caught fire. Things were starting to feel really off.
Gradually, Roy also started to feel the chill. The Parker family was practically freezing and had huddled together for warmth.
Even Elrasha, a succubus, was getting cold and came over to Roy for a hug.
"Daddy, cold!"
"Roy, isn't the fireplace lit yet?"
"Almost there!"
He struck another match, and in frustration, Roy threw the matchbox away. Then he pulled out his revolver and shot the head of a match. Finally, it lit.
The fireplace was finally going, and the people in the living room finally felt a little bit of warmth.
But Elrasha clung to Roy and wouldn't let go, making Ashley super jealous.
"Let's just rough it out here in the living room tonight and look for gas again tomorrow," Roy suggested.
He was worried that if he left, the others might get attacked, so he decided to stay put.
Samantha also felt like something was wrong in the house, but with the heavy rain outside and no gas for the car, they were stuck inside.
"Okay, that sounds safer," she agreed.
But something clearly didn't want Roy and his group to have a peaceful night, because then...
"Waaaaah..."
Ashley, who had closed her eyes to rest, suddenly heard the faint sound of a baby crying. It was so clear, it sounded like the baby was right next to her.
It scared Ashley so badly she let out a shriek.
"Ah! Did you guys hear a baby crying?"
"A baby crying?"
Everyone listened intently. They could definitely hear something that sounded like a baby crying, and it seemed to be coming from the kitchen.
Mike got so scared he immediately grabbed onto his mother. Ashley wanted to hug Roy, but Elrasha already had him in a tight embrace.
Samantha looked at Roy with suspicion and uncertainty. In the flickering light of the fireplace, you could tell she was really scared too.
"Roy, did the Farflay family have a baby?"
"I don't know! If they did, why would the baby be in the kitchen?"
Logically, even if there was a baby, it should be in a bedroom upstairs, right? Unless... was it being kept as emergency food?
That thought was way too messed up. Roy quickly shook his head to clear it.
Kind-hearted Samantha felt bad listening to the baby's desperate cries.
"Roy, should we go take a look?"
Roy glanced at everyone's expressions and nodded.
"Yeah, let's all go check it out. You guys won't be able to sleep with that crying going on."
With that, Roy put Elrasha down and pulled a few flashlights out of his inventory, handing them to Samantha and Ashley.
Samantha looked at the flashlights, surprised.
"Where did you get those flashlights?"
"Found them when I went into the dining room earlier. Just kept them on me."
In the countryside, the voltage was often unstable, and power outages were common, so people definitely kept flashlights and candles handy.
As soon as the five of them left the living room, the fire in the fireplace quickly died down, and the room was plunged back into darkness.
The baby's crying seemed to come and go, sometimes close, sometimes far away, making everyone's skin crawl.
When Roy entered the dining room, he realized the baby's crying wasn't coming from there, but from the basement.
The door leading to the basement was open, and the baby's cries echoed endlessly from inside, like it had its own reverb.
Samantha looked at the dark, gaping doorway with hesitation.
"Roy, do we really have to go down there?"
Roy smirked. That baby had some serious lungs. It had been crying for almost fifteen minutes straight, and the sound hadn't changed at all.
That was definitely not normal.
"Let's go down and see what kind of tricks the Farflay family is playing!"
The basement was really deep. It took Roy and the others a full minute of careful walking to reach the bottom.
The first thing they saw was a room that looked like a storage area. Iron hooks hung down from the ceiling, like they were for hanging meat, but instead of livestock, there were human bodies hanging there.
"Aaaah!"
Ashley and Mike immediately squeezed their eyes shut. The sight was a little too much for them to handle.
Samantha also frowned deeply. Roy had told her how evil the Farflay family was, but she hadn't really seen it until now.
You could even see kids among the hanging corpses!
The thought of her own children almost ending up on those hooks filled Samantha with rage. She wished she could find the Farflays and put a few bullets in them.
"Roy, this Farflay family is just awful!"
"Hold on, Samantha. I bet the Farflay family is hiding somewhere in this basement. We can settle the score with them later."
Roy continued deeper into the basement. There was a spacious stone room with an inverted pentagram drawn on the floor in bright red blood.
This had to be the Farflay family's ritual chamber.
At that moment, the Farflay family was all gathered there. Six people stood motionless around the inverted pentagram, looking like they were dead.
In the middle of the six people, right in the center of the pentagram, was a large, clear glass jar. And inside the jar was a baby.
It looked like one of those biological specimens preserved in formaldehyde.
The baby crying they had been hearing was coming from this large glass jar.
"Roy, what in the world is going on?"
The bizarre scene made the Parker family's skin crawl. Ashley couldn't help but tug on Roy's arm.
Roy smirked. He had a pretty good idea of what was happening.
"If I'm not mistaken, that baby in the jar is the last member of the Farflay family."
No wonder he hadn't gotten a destiny treasure chest yet. He hadn't finished the job!
Gotta keep the family together!
Samantha looked at the baby in the glass jar in shock.
"Isn't that baby dead?"
"Maybe it's in some kind of state between life and death."
Just as he finished speaking, cracks started to appear on the glass jar, and a foul-smelling liquid seeped out.
Then the cracks grew bigger and bigger until the entire jar shattered, and the baby crawled out.
The baby's wrinkled skin quickly turned bright red as it came into contact with the air, and at the same time, two tiny, delicate horns sprouted from its head.
Roy thought: Why are your horns so pointy?
The baby thought: Well, let me ask you...
Then, a pair of bat wings unfurled from the baby's back.
"Ah-ha! I, the great Lord Cask, have finally arrived in the human world! Humans, you will kneel before the magnificent Lord Cask!"
Judging by the current situation, it seemed like Sophie had given birth to a stillborn baby, but Captain Spalding had tried to use demonic magic to bring the child back to life.
However, resurrection was always the most advanced form of magic, so Captain Spalding had never succeeded.
Until now. With Roy having almost completely wiped out the Farflay family, Captain Spalding had risked his last bit of power to summon a demon to possess the stillborn baby, hoping to get revenge on Roy.
But it looked like only a minor demon had possessed the baby. How much fighting power could a little demon like that have?
Roy walked forward and grabbed the little demon's head. It tried to dodge, but it couldn't fly because of the liquid all over it.
"So, you're the one they call Cask?" Roy asked.
The little demon struggled fiercely, but its tiny arms and legs couldn't reach Roy.
"F*** you! You stupid human, let go of Lord Cask right now, or you'll be sorry!"
The little demon's foul mouth made Roy instinctively slap it.
"F*** you! How dare you hit me!"
Another slap.
"F*** you! I'm going to make you feel real pain!"
A third slap.
"You..."
This time, Roy didn't even let the little demon open its mouth before delivering a fourth slap.
"Stop hitting me..."
A fifth slap.
"F***..."
A sixth slap.
After slapping the little demon Cask more than a dozen times, the little guy's eyes finally started to clear up.
"Why aren't you even a little bit scared of me?"
"What do you think?" Roy replied.
With his back to the others, Roy's pupils turned a dark gold color, letting Cask know that he had run into someone of his own kind.
As the saying goes, the most naked hatred is between those in the same trade. Cask quickly put on a fawning expression.
"Sir, I am a servant of the King of Fury. Could you possibly spare me?"
Roy gave an evil grin.
"Of course—not!"
Just as Cask's face lit up with hope, Roy instantly crushed its head.
Cask died instantly, without any pain.
[Ding! Obtained the Farflay family's destiny treasure chest! Open it?]
Finally got the destiny treasure chest. Roy wiped his hands clean.
"All done! This house should be safe now! I'm going to go check the circuit breaker and then take a shower."
Because he had crushed Cask's head, Roy had gotten a lot of demon blood on himself, which was sticky and pretty gross.
Hearing this, Elrasha's eyes lit up.
"I wanna shower too!"
Roy looked at Elrasha's expression and knew the little succubus was craving some more "fresh baby milkshake."
Come to think of it, Elrasha hadn't eaten for a day. She definitely needed something.
However, Samantha seemed to have misunderstood, thinking Elrasha really just wanted a bath.
"Roy, should I help Elrasha take a bath?"
"Samantha, Elrasha only lets me help her shower. She throws a fit if anyone else tries," Roy explained.
Samantha looked at Roy and Elrasha with a puzzled expression, not understanding why Elrasha had so many strange quirks.
Soon, Roy found the circuit breaker and restored the power.
With Cask dead, the power was back on, and the whole house felt like it had come back to life. Ashley and Mike felt much more comfortable.
However, for safety reasons, Roy and the others decided to make a makeshift bed on the living room floor to avoid any unexpected incidents.
So, the Parker family went to the bedrooms to move mattresses and blankets, while Roy went to the bathroom with Elrasha to take a shower.
"Hungry, food!" Elrasha mumbled.
However, Roy didn't notice that someone was peeking through the crack in the bathroom door from the outside.