Chapter 135: The Descent of the Bizarre (4000)

Entering the main gate, withered weeds and various thorns and bushes had already overgrown the path. The combat personnel of the Golden Spiral organization simply cleared the way, and the previously obscured path was finally revealed.

The Black Knight lowered his head and saw that the ground was paved with rows of rectangular stone slabs. The surface of the grayish-blue stones bore deep indentations and scratches, which, upon closer inspection, appeared to be the marks of sword slashes.

"Someone fought here once..."

He continued to lead his subordinates forward, searching from the periphery toward the interior. Soon, someone made a new discovery.

"A long sword..."

The Black Knight weighed the rusted hilt in his hand.

It was a broken sword; the blade was only two or three centimeters long, and the fracture was jagged. At the crossguard, two perpendicular wings extended outward, bearing dark golden patterns. The grip featured spiral grooves.

"A crossguard sword? An ancient knight? Or a martial family specializing in this swordsmanship?" The Black Knight shook his head.

This meager scrap of information revealed nothing.

He advanced toward the main doors and stopped in front of a marble pillar. Stroking it gently, he found a very deep slash mark made by a greatsword.

The Black Knight paused for a moment and glanced outside.

The forest had turned pitch black in the dim light, and the gaps between the tree branches gave a lifeless feeling. The temperature seemed to have dropped imperceptibly.

He stepped directly through the arched doorway and gazed into the interior of the church. Everything was pitch black; a thick layer of dust covered the ground, and spiderwebs choked the corners and the ceiling. Stubborn weeds sprouted from the cracks, fracturing the intact stone flooring inch by inch.

"The third floor..." The Black Knight glanced at the stairs on the right.

Scanty sunlight shone through the shattered stained-glass windows, blending dull red and multi-colored hues together, making the staircase appear as though it were dyed with intricate patterns.

"The five of you search the first floor freely. I'm going to take a look at the third floor." The Black Knight was about to step forward when he suddenly turned his head. "Right, remember to stay in groups of at least two..."

"There might be awakened beings haunting this church, so don't wander off alone. If anything unusual happens, call your teammates or shout loudly, and I'll come..."

"Understood!" The five nodded in unison, immediately splitting into two groups to search the first-floor hall room by room. Their footsteps soon filled the surrounding space.

The Black Knight strode toward the stairs.

He stopped at the edge of the second floor, his gaze sweeping across the area.

The far end of the hall branched into left and right corridors, both of which appeared very dim, with gusts of cold wind blowing through.

Seeing nothing amiss, the Black Knight prepared to move.

"Tap, tap, tap..."

Hmm? He halted, listening intently.

"Tap, tap, tap..."

A faint sound of knocking came from the distant corridor, barely distinguishable amid the howling wind.

However, a Secret Ring Master was not an ordinary person, after all.

The Black Knight instantly perceived the tiny commotion, took a stride, and advanced step by step.

A pale-gray membrane of light covered his entire body. Every step he took on the ground was silent, and his movements were swift.

In the corridor, the Black Knight walked toward the room at the far end. The surroundings were pitch dark, and picture frames hung on the walls between the rooms. They were completely blank, devoid of any religious paintings as one might imagine.

"Huh!?"

Halfway down the corridor, the Black Knight suddenly stopped. He turned slowly and looked back into the distance.

Portrait paintings of various figures had appeared within the blank frames he had just passed, each one looking mysterious and sinister.

Every single figure was gazing directly at the Black Knight.

Staring intently! Fierce, greedy, yearning...

These were inhuman, morbid gazes.

To his right, a gray-haired, one-eyed old man had appeared in a picture frame. A massive scar split his face almost in two, giving him an inexplicable ferocity.

Outside the Black Knight's field of vision, the one-eyed old man's mouth began to open, revealing a deep red throat lined with tiny, jagged, saw-like teeth resembling a spiral tunnel. Like a monster, his mouth stretched wider and wider, eventually occupying half his face.

The head within the painting stretched further and further forward, as if breaking the limits of the frame, ready to snap the Black Knight's neck like a python and drink his warm blood.

"Boom!"

A withered arm wreathed in mist slammed into the picture frame, causing the entire corridor to shudder violently and raining a flurry of gray dust from the edges and corners.

"Hmm? An illusion?"

The Tomb-Bearing Evil Spirit withdrew its arm, leaving only a deep indent in the center of the frame. As for the original portrait, it had vanished completely, as if it had never been there at all.

The Black Knight turned around and looked back behind him.

The picture frames on both sides of the corridor had returned to normal.

Each one remained hollow and blank.

"Could I be hallucinating?"

The Black Knight frowned tightly. He had initially suspected an awakened being was at work, but the portrait phenomenon he had just witnessed defied a portion of his fundamental understanding, as he hadn't sensed any Ring Power in the corridor whatsoever.

Either he was hallucinating, or...

"Tap, tap, tap..."

The knocking at the end of the corridor interrupted the Black Knight's contemplation. He pressed himself against the wall and sprinted forward.

Since a sound had been made, there was no need to be cautious anymore. He wanted to see who was playing tricks.

Clack.

Hands suddenly jutted out from the ground and the walls.

The Black Knight stumbled, several pitch-black palm prints appearing on his tight suit. With a furious expression, he looked at the wall, but discovered nothing.

"Not an illusion. I was indeed touched..."

Analyzing the situation, the Black Knight walked to the very last room and stood in front of the faded red lacquered wooden door.

The continuous tapping inside abruptly ceased, plunging the entire corridor into an eerie, dead silence.

He pressed down on the doorknob, and a chill surged into his heart.

The Black Knight charged forward abruptly, entering the room. His gaze instantly locked onto the window ledge.

A petite figure in white clothes was sitting on the edge, swinging her legs. The little girl was singing an unknown nursery rhyme in an incomprehensible tune.

It was desolate, lonely, and carried a trace of eerie strangeness.

"Who are you?" The Black Knight narrowed his eyes.

Just as he took a step forward, the door behind him clicked and shut automatically. The Tomb-Bearing Evil Spirit instantly materialized behind the Black Knight, attacking the wooden door frantically. Yet the door sustained no damage whatsoever, behaving like modeling clay.

Each claw strike left a mark, only to heal instantly. The surface of the door rippled like red waves.

All the power exerted by the evil spirit was completely absorbed.

Crack, crack, crack...

A series of bone-breaking sounds echoed.

On the windowsill, the head of the singing little girl rotated inch by inch, ultimately turning a full one-hundred-and-eighty degrees straight around to face backward, wearing an innocent smile.

Bloody tears gushed from her hollow eye sockets.

Whoosh!

The room instantly plunged into dimness.

The entire space trembled and vibrated violently.

A moment later, the wooden door creaked and opened automatically.

Only a black earpiece remained on the ground.

"Lord Black Knight, can you hear me? Loya is going crazy! He just decapitated his partner, Jorgen! When we found him, he was disemboweling Jorgen and eating the bloody flesh..."

"My lord?"

"Ah!!!!!!"

"Kill him! Kill him! Loya is possessed by something! He's not our companion, take him down..."

"Ah! My hand! William, why you too!!"

"Wunrun, run! Get the message out!!!"

"..."

Silence returned to the church.

Only a blood-stained figure fled in a panic down the hillside, stumbling toward the direction of the town.

****************

"Is this the place?"

In the clearing outside the church, Xiunan gazed into the distance.

Scanty moonlight spilled over the building's surface, making the mottled, chaotic paint look even more murky and hollow, as if whirlpools were embedded in the walls.

"Yes, Lord Knight."

The man named Wunrun still looked shaken.

Both of his arms were wrapped in layers of white bandages, beneath which faint traces of blood were visible.

"Lord Black Knight went to investigate the third floor, while the remaining five of us searched the rooms on the first floor. Then a monster suddenly appeared in the dark, and William and the others were killed one by one. During that time, we also called out to Lord Black Knight, but received no response... In the end, I was the only one who managed to escape by a fluke..." Wunrun shook his head and sighed.

"Hmm." Xiunan glanced at the moon in the sky.

"Everyone disperse. Squads one through four, seal off the entire church. Squads five through seven, come inside with me..."

He issued his orders swiftly. Xiunan wasn't acting alone; upon realizing the Black Knight was in trouble, the Combat Department had dispatched a large number of personnel at his disposal, determined to ascertain the Black Knight's safety.

To put it simply: dead or alive, they needed to see a body.

"Right, the captain of the first squad, take care of the wounded for now. Make sure to protect them if anything happens..."

"Lord Knight, I want to go in with you."

Wunrun, bandaged beside him, continued, "I'm familiar with the terrain inside; I should be of some use."

"And I believe that with Lord Knight by my side, whatever is playing tricks won't be able to harm me..."

Xiunan exchanged a glance with Wunrun on his left.

He could see the desire for revenge burning in the other man's eyes.

After pondering for a moment, he nodded.

Shortly after, the seventeen-person team entered the church. Xiunan had two squads search the second floor while he took one squad and Wunrun to inspect the traces of battle.

"How are they gone?! Even the bloodstains are gone! And the walls that were damaged..." Wunrun pressed against the wall in disbelief, his eyes wide.

"Let's check the other rooms."

Xiunan narrowed his eyes.

A moment later, all the rooms on the first floor had been searched again. They remained in their original dilapidated state, and even the dust on the ground was undisturbed.

There were no traces of battle whatsoever.

Not even anyone's footprints.

"This..." Wunrun's jaw dropped.

"Interesting. Let's go check the second floor."

With a face as stern as iron, Xiunan slowly turned around. The others followed closely behind, stepping up the stairs one by one.

"Rumble..."

The sky outside suddenly darkened.

Lightning flashed across the clouds, accompanied by rolling thunder. Within moments, a torrential downpour began.

The heavy rain lashed against the exterior walls of the church with a pattering sound, noisy and chaotic.

"Gather in the second-floor hall."

Xiunan stood by the stairs, pressing his earpiece.

A series of doors opening and closing echoed from the corridor, and five figures soon approached from the left passage. However, something went wrong on the right; no one came for a long time.

"What's going on? Didn't I tell you to maintain constant communication when splitting up?" Xiunan turned to look at the middle-aged squad captain, his expression quite serious.

"We *were* maintaining constant communication. Just now, Captain Dantai even reminded us in the earpiece that we were going to gather..."

A look of startled doubt appeared on the middle-aged captain's face.

"Then why didn't I hear it..."

Xiunan snatched the middle-aged captain's earpiece, and the faint sound of Dantai's breathing came from the other side.

"Dantai, where is your squad!?"

He asked with a frown.

"Lord Knight, aren't I standing right beside you? Why are you talking to me through the earpiece?"

Hearing these words, Xiunan abruptly raised his head as a chilling coldness inexplicably pierced upward from his spine.

He swept his gaze around the surroundings. All the members of the Golden Spiral organization were looking at him with utter bewilderment.

"Invisble? No... could it be?"

A scene flashed instantly in Xiunan's mind.

Captain Dantai had followed orders to gather in the spacious hall, and a sham "Xiunan" and sham companions with fake smiles had surrounded them.

And this squad had been completely unaware they were walking into a trap... or perhaps they had fallen prey to a vivid hallucination...

Xiunan pressed his earpiece, about to speak a warning.

"Dantai, who are you talking to?" A voice identical to Xiunan's echoed, making one's hair stand on end.

With a soft squelch, the other side fell abruptly silent.

"La la la~"

A child's nursery rhyme drifted from the far end of the right corridor.

"Follow me!"

Xiunan took the lead, with Wunrun behind him, closely followed by the two combat squads. They bolted directly toward the right-hand passage, their chaotic footsteps echoing rapidly.

"Pat, pat, pat, pat..."

At the end of the corridor, boots slammed heavily against the floor.

Xiunan stared at the door ahead, from which singing faintly emanated. He turned his head slightly to look to the right.

"Where are they!?"

A total of two squads, ten people. They had all vanished completely, despite the flurry of footsteps just moments ago!

The only one trailing behind Xiunan was Wunrun.

Reminded by Xiunan, Wunrun wore a terrified expression as he looked back down the corridor, his eyes wide with horror.

"Hoo..."

Xiunan exhaled a hot breath.

Suppressing his emotions, he reached out swiftly.

Clack. The door wouldn't budge.

Xiunan retreated several steps, planted his foot on the ground, sprinted forward, and slammed his shoulder against the wooden door.

Thud!

This time, the door swung open easily.

Xiunan's pupils contracted as he beheld the sight ahead.

He reached out quickly to grab the doorframe.

Suddenly, immense force slammed into him from behind.

Staggering, he plummeted downward.

The other side of the door was a sheer cliff!!

Boom! A lightning bolt split the rain.

Expressionless, Wunrun lowered his head slightly, and only when he heard a dull thud echoing from below did he finally break into a smile.

The corners of his mouth split exaggeratedly all the way up to his ears.