Nightmare Light

Chapter 215 The Old Woman in the Magic Array

After exorcising the ghosts and arranging for the night patrol gods to deliver the message, Lin Wang and A Zhe continued on their way.

Throughout the journey, A-Zhe played with the tree fern fruit in his hand with great interest.

"This thing looks really strange... Is this really the fruit of the World Tree?"

Why does it look a little sad?

"Can it be eaten?"

Lin Wang is usually a quiet person, so he was a little unaccustomed to Teacher Liu's talkative personality.

But it must be said that in such a silent corridor, having someone talking is actually much better than pure silence.

After walking a while in the passage, the two came to a doorway, from which faint sounds of panting could be heard.

The sound was somewhat painful.

Lin Wangchong made a gesture to A Zhe, who understood and stopped talking.

The two crouched low and carefully approached the passageway door.

It was a heavy metal door, only slightly ajar.

The two of them, one above the other, peered through the crack in the door and saw that the room inside was an empty space—it should have been a functional room in this underground facility, but now all the equipment in the room had been removed, leaving it completely empty.

In a corner at the back of the room, Lin Wang saw that the souls of several children and the female teacher were bound by a ball of light and imprisoned in the corner.

Seeing this, A-Zhe was about to rush inside when Lin Wang grabbed him and pointed to the center of the room: "Shh...look."

In the center of the room, on the floor, was a strangely designed magic circle—

A faint grayish-white gas floated on the floor, surrounded by two intersecting petal-shaped patterns painted with black pigment. At each intersection of the patterns, a pale bone fragment was inserted.

The gases were rotating rhythmically along the pattern of the magic array.

In the very center of the magic circle, with his back to the metal door, stood a person.

The man was short and slightly hunched. He wore a long robe with black and white stripes, and on the back of the robe, in the center, was a triangular symbol.

Unlike the temple triangle, this is an inverted triangle.

Lin Wang narrowed his eyes.

He had a vague feeling that the figure from behind looked somewhat familiar.

At this moment, the people inside the magic circle moved.

He raised his right hand, revealing a withered and aged arm, in which he held a jet-black scepter.

Upon seeing the design of the scepter, a thought flashed through Lin Wang's mind—it was clearly the same scepter that Vice-Bishop Zhao held!
However, the one in front of us now is pitch black.

Deputy Bishop Zhao?

The figure before me gradually overlapped with the figure of the old woman in my memory.

Yes, it's most likely her.

I need to think of a way to catch her... Forget it, I'm too lazy to think about it, I'll just go for it.

Lin Wang no longer hesitated and pushed the door open.

Then, due to excessive force, he pushed half of the heavy, dilapidated metal door down.

Bang!

The piercing sound was particularly jarring in the quiet basement.

Ah Zhe, who was standing nearby, covered his ears in fright.

But the figure in the black and white robe always kept his back to Lin Wang, as if he had lost his hearing.

Seeing this, Lin Wang walked towards the magic circle. However, he remained cautious and did not rush in. Instead, he walked around the magic circle and stood in front of the old woman.

Upon reaching the front and seeing Vice-Bishop Zhao's face, Lin Wang was taken aback.

The woman in front of me had an aged face on the right side—dry cheeks, sagging muscles, and dull, lifeless eyes.

But the right half of her face was that of an extremely beautiful young woman—black.

Lin Wang noticed that she was gripping the scepter tightly with both hands. Above the magic circle, dark shadows surged into the magic circle and then turned into dark air currents that flowed into the scepter.

The shadow energy flowed into the scepter and then, along the old woman's left arm, gradually seeped into her body.

Her body, infused with this shadow energy, gradually became younger and more voluptuous, but her skin also gradually darkened.

Once her smooth, black skin covered more than half of her body, her pale left eye began to show some expression.

Vice-Bishop Zhao's gaze was fixed on Lin Wang's face, a strange and stiff smile appearing on half of his face: "Lin Wang...am I beautiful?"

"My God! What is this?!" Just then, A-Zhe turned to face the front and screamed in fright when he saw Vice-Bishop Zhao.

Vice-Bishop Zhao initially only saw Lin Wang, and his expression was just a little strange.

But when she saw a young woman, equally young but with fair skin, suddenly appear in front of her, her expression immediately turned angry and ferocious.

"Younger than me, more beautiful than me... Unforgivable, unforgivable!"

She slammed her scepter on the ground: "Your beauty was stolen from your mother! You must repay her debt!"

As she jerked her foot, the shadow energy that had been gathered by the magic array surged into her body.

The right side of her face instantly turned into a grotesque, black, twisted, liquid-like shape.

She screamed and lunged at A-Zhe.

Without a second thought, Lin Wang took a step to the side, blocking A Zhe's path, and simultaneously summoned an ice shield in front of him.

But to everyone's surprise, Vice-Bishop Zhao was just making a feint.

She lunged forward, but suddenly her entire body collapsed into a cloud of black gas and fell downwards.

The next second, her body actually reformed near the ghosts of the children and teachers.

Deputy Bishop Zhao, still half young but dark-skinned and the other half a pure, dark monster, shouted, "If you advance any further, I will kill these children!"

Lin Wang dispelled the ice shield and did not continue forward.

He looked at Bishop Zhao, then at the children, and said to the old woman, "You don't need to take the children hostage. I can let you go, as long as you answer a few questions for me."

"Ha! Northerner! You think I'd fall for your tricks?" Vice-Bishop Zhao sneered, black liquid dripping from half his face. "I've lived for over a hundred years!"

“I thought that, given how much you value youth and beauty, you would be very averse to the idea of ​​‘living for over a hundred years.’”

Lin Wang said, "However, since you have lived for over a hundred years, you should have heard a saying—Northerners never lie."

"...Shut up! You are not allowed to mention the words 'hundreds of years'!" Vice-Bishop Zhao shouted, his expression becoming extremely agitated.

The shadows seemed to make it hard for her to stay calm. She screamed hysterically a few times before regaining her composure. She gasped for breath and asked, "What do you want to ask?"

Who is helping you behind the scenes?

"Why are you asking this? This is an internal matter of the temple!"

"So, the person who helped you was also someone from inside the temple?"

"Hmph, don't try to get information out of me. I've lived enough... I've been through enough, I would never let anything slip like this!"

"Inside the temple, there is a shadow cult that calls itself the 'Shadowbringers.' Is your friend connected to them?"

"You actually know about your rebellious son?"

(End of this chapter)