The Record of Unusual Creatures - Chapter 472

Chapter 472: Underground

 

While Hao Ren was having his meal, Anna sat next to him and suddenly uttered something. The girl’s bizarre eyes and pale face looked even weirder coupled with her mental illness. The words she uttered became even more ghostly and terrifying as a result. However, recent experiences had given Hao Ren nerves of steel. He was just puzzled. “What?” he asked.

“Tannagost… High-energy polymerized form… You cannot kill that thing…” Anna’s eyes were slightly unsettled, but Igor stopped her quickly. “Anna, mind your table manners. Don’t frighten the guests with your screwed up memories.”

“Wait a second.” Hao Ren hurriedly waved his hand at Igor. “I’m very interested in what Anna just said—what is this Tannagost that she’s mentioned?”

Igor forced a stiff smile and said, “It’s the whisper of the evil spirit. Master, you don’t need to care about these crazy things. In her sleep, the evil spirit under the castle has been whispering knowledge from the evil abyss. These things have mixed up with Anna’s memories, preventing her from distinguishing the boundary between reality and illusion. It’s better that she mentions these things less, or else sooner or later, she’ll end up like our family members of the past, completely possessed by the evil spirit.”

“Is the vengeful spirit the one who tells her these things?” Hao Ren showed an expression of great interest while trying to appear like an expert. “I think this information is very useful. Maybe we can infer the source of the evil spirit’s power from this information.”

Igor spread out his hand and said, “Master, you can try, but I guarantee that you won’t get any useful information, because my daughter’s memory is screwed up. The evil spirit will never allow its secrets to be made known.”

Hao Ren turned to Anna and asked, “What is Tannagost? What is a Tannaean? Are these names of the evil spirit?”

Anna lifted her unkept curly hair in front of her face, revealing her cloudy, brown eyes. “They slipped into this world from the other end of the crack. The invisible power exceeds your knowledge. You won’t be able to kill that thing… unless we repay the treasure we stole 300 years ago…”

Igor suddenly raised his voice, “Anna, your memory is playing tricks on you again. Eat well, then return to your room.”

Anna dropped her knife and fork, the she left the room like a wandering soul. Lily watched as the girl staggered away. She could not help but look at Igor. “You have to tell us the truth. We are experts. What did Anna mean by the stolen treasure?”

Igor sighed and said, “This is what the evil spirit tells her, but I think the evil spirit has amplified these negative messages and made her feel that her family is built upon sinful activities. But in truth, all of our businesses have been legitimate. Since our ancestors received their first pot of gold from an adventure 300 years ago, the Andrea Family has followed a strict house rule and used the family fortune diligently. The money wasn’t acquired by deception.”

“Does it have anything to do with the witch? You mentioned an adventurer 300 years ago,” Hao Ren asked casually.

He knew that the portrait of the witch was hung in the castle, and the record about the witch was also in a manuscript in the library. This mystery may be a topic worthy of reverence for the Andrea Family, but it was by no means a confidential one—at least, it was not to the extent where it could not be mentioned, otherwise the portrait would not have been hung there.

Igor nodded slowly and said, “Yes, it’s about the witch. If I hadn’t lived in this castle and experienced everything in this family, I wouldn’t have believed that it was a witch who gave the Andrea Family everything they have now. My ancestor met and helped the witch, so the witch gave him a gift, which included a magical stone and also an ancient spell. The stone would bring him treasure, and the spell would bring in an evil spirit. It was like a deal.”

Vivian could not help but mutter, “This story is lame… But, it sounds rather familiar.”

Hao Ren laughed wryly. He looked up at Igor and was about to further pursue matters regarding the witch when a strange voice suddenly came from below. It was like a purr, but it was abnormally deep and loud, knocking on people’s hearts. There was apparently a huge cave system beneath the castle, and violent winds were creating a resonance inside the caves.

When Igor heard the voice, his expression took a sudden change. “It’s the evil spirit! It’s active again!”

Nangong Sanba pushed away the plate in front of him and drew out the silver crossbow from his waist. “Take us to the crypt .While we’re on the way down, you can brief my friends about the witch and summoned evil spirit.”

Like all century-old castles, the building had a huge underground structure, and in order to suppress some dark creature, the underground structure of the castle was extremely large, just like an underground palace. Igor led Hao Ren and the others to a small chapel behind the castle. The entrance to the underground area was in the chapel.

Several servants under Igor’s command pushed away the podium, revealing a staircase passage under the thick, red wood plank. The entrance was wider than expected and dim lights were visible below. A wave of strange breathing sounds could be heard from below.

Nangong Sanba looked at the stairs and smiled. “I just went down here the other day.”

Igor was more courageous than he looked, probably the result of having spent most of his life in various haunted castles. He had become familiar with the weird things deep underground. Or, it may be because of the trust he had in these “experts”. He did not let his shivering servants lead the way, instead he walked in front of them with a flourescent lamp in hand. “I’ll take you guys down there.”

They went all the way down. Hao Ren initially thought that he would see outdated fireboxes and candlesticks on both sides of the tunnel like in the movies. However, after he went down in the tunnel, he discovered that the walls were inlaid with electric wall lamps. Apparently, ancient forts and evil spirits had also advanced with the times.

It was clear that the owner of the castle only made very limited modifications to the underground chambers. In addition to the wall lamps on both sides as well as some electric ventilation fans and air ducts, traces of its old age could still be seen everywhere under the stairs. Rough rock walls, steep stone staircases, and stucco ceilings that were heavily mottled and had peeled off made people feel as though they were venturing into hell.

Lily found the atmosphere rather boring and decided to say something, “Were your ancestors the one who summoned this evil spirit?”

Igor’s deep, weak voice reverberated between the walls. “…Greed is a sin. The earliest records are blurry, but it was about the time when my ancestor discovered the ‘Stone of the Witch’, which could bring him great wealth. He became even more greedy. He thought that since they were all gifts left behind by the witch, the stone and the spell together would be equally important as well as effective. Although the witch had warned him not to touch the incantation, he still proceeded with the summoning ritual…”

Walking down the stone steps, the road ahead gradually became more level and eventually they embarked on a long underground corridor.

“…The summoning ritual opened a crack leading to the abyss. A strong spirit escaped from it and it is the evil spirit that has bothered the Andrea Family for 300 years.”

Both sides of the underground corridor were also inlaid with slightly less bright wall lamps. Under the dim lights, they could see the portraits of the Andrea Family ancestors, hanging on both sides of the wall. This family seemed to love hanging their portraits on the wall. It was not known if it was an ancestral legacy or something else.

“We have been cursed for violating the witch’s warning. The Andrea Family cannot leave this cursed fortress for more than seven days. Those who tried to escape eventually died on the eighth day. We have great wealth, but it doesn’t allow us to leave this land of ice and snow. The evil spirit murmurs under the fortress all night. I still remember the countless sleepless nights before my eighteenth birthday. Nightmares still bothered me until not long ago. The evil spirit allowed me to see the horrors from another world and told me that the demise of all human beings is the real end…”

As expected, at the end of the rows of portraits was the image of the witch, whose face was covered with a black veil, so that people could not see her true face.

“Why does the witch want to block her face?” Hao Ren asked.

Igor paused for a moment before slowly answering, “This was a modification made by my second great grandfather. Before that, the witch did not wear a veil. That was until one day, a legitimate heir saw the witch’s face. He went crazy and leaped down from the top of the castle the next day. From that day onwards, all portraits of the witch in the castle were covered with veils.”

“Because you have violated the witch’s warning, you’re afraid that she and the evil spirit will come for you,” said Nangong Wuyue as she looked at the creepy portraits in the crypt. “What you say is truly the historical truth?”

“At least, that’s all I know.” Igor pointed at an iron door next to the portrait of the witch. “That thing is behind the door. I’m sorry, I must leave now.”

Then, Igor’s slightly bloated figure disappeared at the end of the ramp. Hao Ren turned to look at the iron gate in the crypt.

A cold, white mist was slowly gathering on the iron door.

Chapter 473: How Do You Even Begin to Describe This?

 

Why was it that everything regarding evil spirits, sorcery or black magic always had to be so eerie? Hao Ren had no idea. It was more grating that the eerie atmosphere did nothing for the effectiveness of magic spells. He had sought counsel from Vivian and Y’zaks, the two masters of spells and found out that one did not need a black rock to summon the spirits of the dead. In addition, Demonic runes did go haywire in the presence of anything gold. Magic was something alive, something very malleable. It was something that did not shy away from looking resplendent.

Thus, he felt that even if an underground catacomb with a sealed evil spirit was fully lit as bright as day; had rows upon rows of Teletubbies as well as My Little Ponies lined up against the spell’s matrix; and had Spongebob painted over the tomb itself, the seal would still hold up just fine.

After Hao Ren spouted that whole load of drivel, it was natural that he earned Vivian’s glare and ire. Nonetheless, he really thought it was worth a shot. At least, the atmosphere would have been much lighter, and generally much better for the overall wellbeing of the guardians. In fact, he felt that the setup would even improve the seals potency. Think about it, a sealed demon opening up a tomb splashed in Spongebob regalia, and stepping on Furbies as it leaves the ritual altar. To it’s left, a host of Teletubbies and to the right, a bunch of Ponies. Even Sargeras¹ would think twice about coming down from the altar…

Vivian’s expression was bordering on the incredulous. If someday anyone summoned her in such a state, she would rather just die inside the portal…

But regardless of how Hao Ren lampooned the place, the Andrea Family’s “catacomb” was still eerie as hell.

They were in a rectangular room with several portraits, which were so worn out that you could not tell whose face was on it. On the wall facing the pathway was the veiled witch. Aside from the paintings, there was nothing else. It almost seemed as if the place was some kind of weird art gallery.

Next to the witch’s portrait was a locked gate. It looked like frost had formed on the gate. At first, Hao Ren thought that the frost simply formed from water droplets that froze on the gate, but he soon realized that the frost was indeed alive.

It was like a breathing layer of light, floating slowly on the gate.

“Do vengeful spirits love pulling stunts like this?” Hao Ren really felt a chill go down his spine, but after checking his shield capacity, he gathered his guts and pushed the gate open. Surprisingly, the gate just simply swung open. “It’s not locked? Aren’t they afraid of the spirit escaping?”

“This is not meant to stop the spirit. It’s for humans. A gate to denote the divide between the realm of the living, and the realm of the spirit. It’s just there to stop some random fool from bumbling into the place.” Nangong Sanba tightened his grip around his crossbow; the demon hunter was clearly nervous. “After passing through this gate, we’ll leave the normal dimension and head towards the world of the vengeful spirit. At the heart of it is a pit of madness akin to another world. Don’t be too cocky, I know all of you can fight, but against the spirit, brute strength alone won’t cut it.”

It was pitch black after the gate, with only one unlit corridor before them. There were no sources of light whatsoever.

Hao Ren took point and got the MDT to float in front of him as a source of light. He brushed his hand against the walls, and suddenly found that the stone walls were unusually brittle. A slight brush had caused a chunk of sand and earthwork to fall off the walls. “How long has it been since anyone came here?”

“Aside from my foray two days back…. 200 years at least,” Sanba’s voice came from behind. “The first few generations of the Andrea Family knew a thing or two about exorcism, and some tricks to survive. Perhaps, it was something they learned from the witch. But, they were not able to fortify the seals beyond this gate and the spirit soon affected their descendants and completely eradicated any exorcist ability from the bloodline. After that, none of the Andreas passed the gate… Maybe some brave exorcist has gone pass it, but who knows.”

The stone walls were rough and cold. On it, you could vaguely see engravings, which looked like runes. Hao Ren held his hand out to touch the runes, but the bricks were brittle beyond his imagination. A whole load of sand and dust just fell from them.

No… Those were not from the brick wall.

Hao Ren looked at his fingers and wiggled it a bit. He saw his own skin and flesh crumbling away like dried dirt; brown sand started spilling out of his fingers, his palms soon followed, then his wrist, and his forearm….

“Hallucination.” Hao Ren stood there stunned for a couple of seconds before shaking his hand with force. He finally felt something trying to invade his psyche, and it was now in retreat. His hand had returned to normal. “Be careful, there’s something causing hallucinations in here.”

Becky, who was beside him seemed to have snapped out of her hallucination too. Her dumb smile quickly turned into a towering rage. “I just caught sight of a mountain of gold, and it’s just a bloody illusion?!”

Hao Ren did not need to hear that to know what she saw.

The dark, unlit corridor seemed endless, and the MDT’s light was a mere flicker in a sea of darkness. Lily decided to pull out Flame-effing-joy to help light the way. Her eyes had already turned gold and she used her superhuman senses to break through the illusion. As they went forth, Hao Ren could hear her mumbling. “The braised pork ribs are fake…. The smoked ribs are fake… the meat buns are fake…. the Spicy Sticks… Spicy Sticks… Spicy Sticks are fake….”

It was almost a pitiful sight, seeing her brave through the hallucinations as they went forward.

As they head farther in, a mysterious, chill wind blew within the pathway. It was almost as if an exit to the surface had appeared in the corridor. Hao Ren then felt something weird beneath his feet, and as he looked down, he found his legs deep in snow.

The corridor was getting wider and wider, but the walls were gettng twisted and elongated. Deformed tree stumps and severed columns began to be visible on the ground. Everything was smothered in a thick layer of snow. The snow fell from the darkness while a strange gust buffeted the party. Hao Ren looked up, and realized that the stone ceilings were gone. Above him, there was only darkness, and falling snow.

Becky pulled out an intricate sword from under her coat, and the blade quickly lit up in flames. Her face was nervous. “Illusion?”

“No, that’s real.” Nangong Sanba gripped his crossbow tightly as he pulled out a few tiny phials from his pouch. “We’ve crossed the borders of reality. This is the domain of the vengeful spirit. The twisted horrors before you are real. This is what happens when a dimension distorts itself.”

“MDT, scan the area,” Hao Ren curtly ordered.

“Energy converging on the left side.”

Nangong Sanba’s crossbow was quickly pointed in that direction. At the same time, a blurry ball of light appeared in the darkness before them. It let out a bone-chilling screech and the distortion around them worsened as the corridor walls simply disappeared. It was open space now.

*Plunk!*

The crossbow sang as it spat out its payload. Nangong Sanba had shot out a silver quarrel. The quarrel was not meant to harm. It exploded as it approached the apparition and released a bright golden light. The apparition’s form solidified under the bright light and Nangong Sanba took the chance to throw out one of the phials in his hand.

The phial exploded the moment it made contact with the apparition. The blessed salt within it brst into flames.

However, the vengeful spirit was not fazed by such an attack. It aimlessly wandered for a while before charging towards Hao Ren.

Hao Ren was ready with his sidearm (he was not certain if his spear would be effective against something without shape or form). He fired the moment it approached.

A gunshot rang throughout the space and blue lightning crackled. Azure crystalline dust started raining on the party.

Hao Ren had indeed found his mark, but the spirit had expanded into a large white mist at the very last moment. The psionic revolver only took out a small part of the white mist.

The apparition reformed, and was just about to launch its attack again when a dazzling net of lightning suddenly came out of nowhere. The net was formed by countless tiny bats, and each served as a conduit for a powerful electric current, which ran through them. The net was even larger than that of the mist, and it canvassed the latter in the blink of an eye.

The electric net and the spirit collided violently before dissipating into nothingness. Only a small amount of bats made their way back towards Vivian.

Lily scratched her head. “Is it dead?”

“No, this is just a greeting.” Vivian frowned. “That was just a ‘phenomenon’ created by the spirit. We have not seen its true form yet.”

Hao Ren took a deep breath as he gazed upon the dark sprawling snowfield. He kept reminding himself that he was in a corridor somewhere beneath the Andrea Family’s castle, but the scene before him left him utterly puzzled.

“What the bloody f*ck is this?”

Chapter 474: The Mystery of the Vengeful Spirit

 

The underground world—if this place could indeed be called as such—was turning into a bizzare spectacle as the party forged on. Hao Ren was 100 % sure that he had not gone bonkers. But if he had been unsure, he would have doubted the fact that he had arrived at his current location through an underground passage. They were trudging through the snowfield in darkness. The place was unnervingly spacious, and snow buffeted them in the face. The sensation was undeniably real.

They were now deep within the twisted dimension created by the vengeful spirit. This was a dimension that lay between the illusion and reality.

Before them now was a cluster of twisted stone towers. Lily dashed forward towards those gargantuan pillars and held her claws up high to light up the area around one of the tower’s surface. “There’s writing on it!”

Hao Ren joined Lily near the tower and noticed that there were indeed neat rows of cuneiform carvings on it. They were clearly some form of words, but they were not Letta runes.

“Doesn’t look like any kind of writing on Earth, and they’re also not Letta runes, or any other known form of writing in the Plane of Dreams.” The MDT ran through its database. “What is this sh*t?”

“It’s pretty common to see marks of something from another world whenever the spirits show up,” Vivian explained. “They’re all similar to this stone tower here. I’ve even seen pyramid-shaped houses and monuments left behind in places where the spirits have appeared. This weird-looking writing was on all of them. Can you translate it?”

“All logical writings can be translated.” The MDT floated towards a few of the towers. “I’ll need more samples.”

Before the MDT went forward to collect more samples of the “spirit’s writing”, something Vivian said piqued Hao Ren’s curiosity. “Why does a spiritual being need this sort of thing? You said they even built houses? Did they need them?”

Vivian curled her lips. “Who knows. The spirits are not something you can communicate with. They’ll appear in a whim and wreck things, leaving a whole load of inexplicable mess. Then, they either get vanquished, or disappear on their own. No one has been able to deal with them. Even the Lord of the Dead tried to conduct some sort of diplomacy with the spirits. He felt that he could bring them to his side. Three times he brought them to the table, three times they wrecked his castle.”

It did not take long for the MDT to collect enough samples. Humming a weird tune as it made its way back to Hao Ren, it went, “The structure of words is much simpler than expected. It’s a very common and logical structure too.”

Hao Ren pointed at the pillar closest to him. “What does it say there?”

The MDT scanned the writing on the pillar before taking a sudden dive. Its voice was rather incredulous. “…I think there’s something wrong…”

“Spit it out.”

“…Popol’s Legendary Brew. Year 1911. Made from 12 fine grains. A bottle of fine brew for all times. Looking for distributors in the Nacrossa Region. For more information—”

Hao Ren was stunned the moment he heard the first few words and he grabbed the MDT closer to him. “What the hell?”

“It’s an advertisement,” the MDT’s voice was sincere. “I swear on my cognitive cores that I’m not lying. So, you can’t just toss me away, or put me together with your devil of a daughter.”

Hao Ren looked at the stone pillar in bewilderment. He simply could not believe that the writings they found in this god forsaken place would consist of advertisements! Even Nangong Wuyue could not help but mumble, “Why don’t we ever encounter anything that actually follows a normal script?”

Hao Ren felt that this one was just a fluke. He pointed to another stone pillar. “Translate that one!”

“…Circle Hill Road , Circle Hill Market, Starlight Street Southeast Plaza, Clearwater Lake… Circular line… First train XX:XX, Last train XX:XX…. I know this is hard to swallow… but this is a signage for a public bus.”

Hao Ren was even more bewildered as he stared at the stone pillars. These pillars stood tall within a dimension that had been distorted by the vengeful spirit, sealed beneath a cursed castle for 300 years. The place reeked of sorcery and forbidden knowledge. Simply pull a few cookie-cutter scripts from Hollywood and you’ll have a setting fit for a 20-part, fantasy-horror film. But now, the MDT was telling them that the mysterious runic writings were advertisements and signages for public transport!

Don’t normal scripts have something like, “Interlopers will be cursed” or “Demon Lord XYZ is sealed here”?!

Vivian patted Hao Ren on the shoulder. “Actually, there’s nothing surprising here. Everything mystique comes from the unknown. Most things lose that lustre once you understand it. Imagine this scenario, the current Earth is destroyed, and a group of new humans pull out some relics from their ancestors. As they gaze in awe at the ancient writings, none of them would guess the relic to be maybe, a leg massager, or an excavation manual, right?

Hao Ren blinked at Vivian. “Looks like your imagination’s almost at my level.”

Vivian gave him a mighty slap on the back. “You and your nonsense!”

Lily did not join in on the banter. The dumb husky had a rather serious look as she demurred. She stretched her hands out to touch some of the pillars and found their material rather suspect. It was a “soft’ feeling, rather than that of cold hard stone. “What does this actually tell us?”

“The vengeful spirits are spiritual beings, and they don’t have any traces of civilization. They don’t produce, they don’t require a roof above their beneath and they don’t require food or nutrients to survive.” Vivian looked at the writings. “But, any time they appear in a place, the space there will distort. And most of the time, you can see some rather weird stuff inside the alternate universe… Frankly, I don’t want to understand it.”

The group then left the weird stone pillars behind. They did not know how big the snowfield was, but Nangong Sanba cautioned that they do not stop moving. The spirit was always monitoring interlopers within its domains and if they wanted to catch the source of it all, they would need to go deeper.

More bizarre scenes started appearing across the snowfield: broken staircases that floated up in the air, a wall that appeared out of nowhere, a door that was stuck to the ground. Everything looked like they were a part of the Andrea Family’s castle design. They were clearly part of the castle (including the ground that the group was on), but it was also obvious that they were now part of the distorted dimension the spirit had created.

The area beneath the Andrea Family’s Castle had already been distorted into something beyond description. A silhouette from the real world had been shattered and rebuilt, leaving a mind-blowing scene before all of them.

Hao Ren walked passed a wooden door and he recognized it as the door of his guest room. The door was now making an appearance in the twisted realm. Next to it were some shattered black material. This was conjoint with the snowfield.

Out of curiosity, Hao Ren pushed the door open and he was shocked to find “Lily” standing behind the door. Her expression was absent, and her form awkward. Behind her was endless darkness with shades of the corridor being visible.

The real Lily was standing behind Hao Ren, and after seeing herself behind the door, she screamed, “Waaaaahhhh!”

Hao Ren pulled out a piece of pork rib and threw it towards the door. He found that the Lily inside did not move. Dismayed, he shrugged. “Well, just the looks I guess.”

Lily was dismayed too at the wasted pork rib. Her ears bristled. “You could’ve given that to me if you didn’t want it!”

Everyone present smiled. Even Vivian was laughing. “Yep, that’s the real one.”

Nangong Sanba was shocked at how relaxed the group was, “You lot still have time to joke? We’ve already entered the heart of the distorted dimension you know!”

“I’ve been to actual different dimensions, mind you.” Hao Ren grinned as he pulled out his spear and sidearm. The weapon combo looked strong, at least from its appearance. “Where next?”

The coordination between the MDT and Hao Ren was impeccable. Without the need to bark an order, the MDT released a ray of light and used holographic projection to point to a location a few hundred meters away. A ball of bright mist was forming in that direction.

Hao Ren had smartened up this time around, and before the ball of light had time to react, he blasted a shot at it. It did not matter to the psionic beam if the target had a physical body or not, as long as it made contact, the target was in for a world of hurt. The ball of light immediately disintegrated into a shower of crystal dust!

Just as he thought that the spirit had been taken out, a spine-chilling shriek came from all sides!

A sea of mist descended upon them and the screech was ringing in their heads, threatening to liquefy their brains. Becky’s defensive enchantments came to life as a colorful magical light radiated around her. Hao Ren felt his skin bristling as well as an energy field formed in the air!

Yet, the enemy was still without shape or form.

Chapter 475: Someone Unexpected

 

Hao Ren admitted that he had underestimated the vengeful spirit; not because of its combat ability mind you, but its bizarre nature.

He found that the enemy was not something quantifiable, and it was beyond anything that he had ever faced before!

Hao Ren did not consider himself a battlefield veteran, but he had been in a couple of hard fought battles, especially one on a bizarre battlefield with so many races: it had elven magic, demonic powers, human technology, and even gnomish “ingenuity”, but he had yet to meet anything close to a natural phenomenon!

A seemingly endless veil of white mist had descended upon them from every direction. The pungent smell of burnt rubber was strong and pieces of blue crystalline rained from above as the gun was fired. But the damage dealt paled to the scale of the predicament that they were in.

Blurry silhouettes were appearing by the dozens in the thick mist, and the shadows let out shrieks and screeches as they darted around the group. From time to time, several of the shadows would charge forth. Becky’s sword was blazing bright at this point, and she gave one of the charging shadows an upward slash. The hit connected only for the shadow to reform somewhere not too far away. “Is this a vengeful spirit?!”

“It’s one of its ‘phenomenons’!” Nangong Sanba shouted at the top of his lungs. The snowstorm around them had gathered strength, first turning into a blizzard, then into a snow tornado. The screeches and howls faded against the raging storm. “The spirit is shapeless! You don’t know if you’re fighting the real thing. Until it is despatched into another world, anything you face, may or may not be it!”

Hao Ren’s shield started to crackle as well. The energy field in the air was strong enough to activate his shield. He realized that the spirit’s attack was also shapeless. The blizzard around them, the energy field in the air, the shadows, the lightning in the distance… All of these were part of the spirit. It seemed like the spirit’s mode of attack was to create a hostile dimension for its enemies, and let them perish within it.

Lily swung her claws towards the shadows that were charging in her direction. The werehusky was getting more frustrated by the moment. Their enemies were formless, and she was unsure if her attacks even connected. Her precious tail bristled as the storm grew.

Nangong Wuyue on the other hand, was holding up a mist barrier, but it was an arduous task to maintain it. “The water element here is unnatural! It’s difficult to maintain the barrier!”

“Any ideas?!” Hao Ren turned to Nangong Sanba. “We can’t fight this battle of attrition!”

“This is the only way!” Nangong Sanba and Vivian shouted back. Vivian then explained that they could only hold on, “The spirits can’t die, but sooner or later, they’ll exhaust their energies. Only then can we send them back to where they came from. Just take out everything it throws at us until it can’t conjure up anything more. We’ll win then!”

“F*ck! I hate that the most!” Hao Ren grumbled. The storm around him however, paid no heed to his feelings and it was closing in like a thick wall, threatening to crush anything in its path. They were now insignificant dots in the eye of the storm. Seeing the situation as it was, Hao Ren finally pulled out a new toy from his Dimensional Pocket.

It was a silver box with Aerymian words saying, “Handle with care” on it. Hao Ren pulled open the lid, and within the box were a bunch of cubes, each the size of a matchbox. Every cube had red, white and black buttons on them.

Nangong Sanba was still shooting his quarrels at the shadows in the distance, acting like he was the main DPS class. He noticed Hao Ren taking something out, and turned to ask, “What’s that thingamajig?”

Hao Ren threw one of the cubes towards Nangong Sanba. “Take off that ring, and press red, white and black in sequence. Then, think of the girl that you’ve slept with before, ask her to give you strength, and toss that cube as hard as you can!”

Nangong Sanba had long decided that it was prudent to listen to the pros, so he just followed what Hao Ren had instructed. Pulling the ring out and pressing the buttons in quick succession, he stood there for a moment recalling something. Hao Ren yelled as he saw Nangong Sanba just standing there, “Throw the bloody thing!”

“Heeyahh!” Nangong Sanba threw the cube with all his might, and yelled, “I haven’t even finish recalling…”

A sharp noise, almost like metal sheets being torn apart blocked out his voice. The cube had exploded mid-air, releasing a flash of white light before a semi-translucent sphere suddenly formed. As quickly as it formed, the sphere retracted, taking the entire space with it. Within a mere seconds, nothing was left there.

Nangong Sanba gawked at the carnage. “F*ck… What is that thing?”

“Graviton grenades,” Hao Ren said as he grabbed a bunch and passed them to Lily as well as Becky. “Throw them farther away. Don’t come looking for me if you lose a limb.”

Nangong Sanba sprang in horror, his forehead drenched in cold sweat. “What kind of techno-sorcery is this…. Wait a minute, can you not spout nonsense while you’re giving instructions for things like this?”

Hao Ren flipped a bird in Nangong Sanba’s direction. “Most people only need a second or two to recall their wife’s name… The time it took you to recall one… I should’ve just left the warning out.”

Lily was excited with her new toys and she started to toss the grenades with gusto. The shadows and lightning clouds in the distance simply vanished under the onslaught as grenade after grenade was lobbed at them. The battle had turned from slashing swords and lightning bolts to something akin to a snowball fight. Lily and Vivian were tossing grenades left, right, and center. By then, almost half of the cache had been used up…

Nangong Sanba was still mumbling. “I… My first love was almost 70 years back…. It just took me a while to recall…”

The cacophony of piercing shrieks thundered the area, but the shadows and storm conjured by the spirit had almost dissipated. The area around them was in shambles. The unorthodox lunatics once again showed their strength, and even the vengeful spirit now realized that these people were not usual prey. It started to retreat and the storm died down.

All the bizarre scenery before them vanished as well.

Hao Ren did not suspect anything, because he had never faced a vengeful spirit before this. Vivian however, was shocked. “It ran? The spirit actually ran?!”

“Won’t they run?” Lily was curious too.

“They won’t. They don’t know fear.” Vivian scouted the dark snowfield around them. Realizing something was amiss, she said, “Wait a minute… It didn’t run… It was being ‘called’ back… There’s probably some kind of mechanism here that’s controlling the spirit’s core. It automatically recalls the spirit once it’s weakened to a certain level.”

Once Vivian finished, a ball of white flame lit up not too far away. A calm female voice could be heard from the flames. “You’re correct. There’s an accursed magical contraption nearby. It’s the spirit’s cage and protection. You lot just ruined two days worth of effort.”

Hao Ren drew his weapon at the source of the voice, but he was sure that the voice did not belong to the spirit. The spirit could not talk after all. Vivian wrinkled her nose as caution lined her face. “A demon hunter?”

Hao Ren felt something stirring in his chest pocket. Lil Pea suddenly popped out of the pocket. The little rascal had been silent all this while. She must have detected something at that moment.

The ball of white flame distorted for a bit, before a white-haired girl walked out from it. “Yes, you’re right. I’m a demon hunter. You can call me White Flame.”

“White Fail? What sort of defeatist name is that?” Hao Ren exclaimed.

Everyone was speechless.

“Stop your nonsense!” Vivian hissed as she gave him a stiff punch on the back.