Leo quickly intervened, shouting, “Stop!”
Angus was startled by the shout and stopped his hand halfway, looking at Leo in confusion.
“Mr. Booth, the situation is not completely resolved yet. If you touch your wife now, everything will be ruined!” Leo said seriously.
This scared Angus quite a bit and he quickly withdrew his hand and took two steps back.
Just as Leo finished speaking, the woman’s belly moved and then a face appeared.
It was a baby’s face with black skin that had an eerie smile on it as it emerged from the woman’s belly.
The strange smile frightened Angus so much that he kept retreating until his back hit the wall behind him.
Leo coldly looked at the smiling baby face and exerted Spiritual Power pressure on it. The smile on its face stiffened for a moment before disappearing into nothingness along with its evil aura after being suppressed by Leo’s power. How dare this thing provoke him!
“Mr. Booth, please go find me a black cat,” Leo said to Angus. “Make sure it has no mixed colors on its body and preferably male.”
Angus nodded solemnly before leaving to make phone calls to have someone bring in a black cat for them.
Black cats symbolized warding off evil spirits while bringing good fortune according to Atraria’s traditional culture beliefs.
In ancient times people believed that Black Cats could ward off evil spirits preventing demons from approaching their homes while bringing good luck to their owners.
Therefore wealthy families would keep or display Black Cat ornaments such as hanging wind chimes with Black Cat designs at their doorsteps.
While Angus was preparing for the black cat, Leo was not idle. He came out of the living room and moved the sofa aside, removed the blood-filled copper pot, used the coffee table as an altar, took out geomancy tools from his bag and prepared to draw talismans.
Drawing talismans had become a familiar task for Leo by now. He laid out yellow paper on the table, mixed cinnabar with rootless water in perfect proportion, picked up a wolf hair brush and began to draw.
Angus and Eric were still standing quietly on one side while their maid had been sent away. The whole room remained absolutely quiet.
This time Leo was drawing a demon-breaking talisman!
Leo almost used up most of his spiritual power within him which created an invisible pressure that gave Angus and Eric immense oppression forcing them to retreat into a corner against a wall.
The talisman must be drawn in one stroke; even pausing for just one second would cause it to fail.
As he continued drawing towards completion, Leo’s right hand holding onto his wolf hair brush started trembling slightly but he gritted his teeth and persisted through it all.
Finally, there was a flash of mysterious light as he finished drawing successfully.
After each excessive use of Spiritual Power, there was a feeling of emptiness in the body that couldn’t be replenished by any tonic.
Leo put down his wolf hair brush and sat cross-legged on the sofa, beginning to regulate and restore his own Spiritual Power.
The reason for going through all this trouble was that the Sinister Infant was planted by a Demon Cultivator, extremely venomous. They had to proceed cautiously and resolve it all at once, or else there would be endless trouble.
An hour later, the middle-aged man who had previously procured the materials walked in again, holding a cage with a black cat inside.
The black cat appeared quite alert inside the cage. When someone approached, it suddenly let out a strange scream.
Leo took the cage from the man’s hand.
Strangely, after the exchange of the cage, the black cat quieted down and lay quietly in the cage, appearing very docile.
Taking the talismans from the coffee table and carrying the cage with the black cat, Leo entered the inner room once again.
As soon as he entered, the black cat in the cage seemed to sense something and looked towards the hospital bed, with its dark eyes unmoving.
The Sinister Infant in the woman’s belly also seemed to sense some threat, as a small bulge appeared and then receded, as if something was moving inside.
Placing the cage in his hand down, Leo affixed a talisman to the woman’s navel.
The movement in her belly immediately disappeared. Without any hesitation, Leo took out the Judge’s Brush.
The reason for using the Judge’s Brush was because it had a natural restraining effect on evil entities.
There was also a legend about the Judge’s Brush.
Legend has it that during the Primordial Era, the Earth Goddess transformed into reincarnation in the Blood Sea and established the Six Paths of Reincarnation.
It was divided into the Three Good Paths: the Heavenly Path, the Human Realm Path, and the Asura Path; and the Three Evil Paths: the Animal Realm Path, the Hungry Ghost Path, and the Hell Path.
Because of these Six Paths of Reincarnation, and the Ten Yama Kings, the Underworld came to be.
To maintain order in the Underworld, there needed to be something to determine how dead things entered the cycle of reincarnation. Under the influence of the Heavenly Path, the Underworld came to possess the Judge’s Brush and the Book of Life and Death.
The Judge’s Brush in later generations was the Brush of Reincarnation, but it was generally held by the Underworld judges, hence the name Judge’s Brush.