390 The Demon Compac (1/2)
The holy priest burst out an angry roar and pointed its gold scepter toward the Saint's Gate. Shining lines quickly lit up on the gray stone gate, outlining the strange shape of a beetle.
Suddenly, the Saint's Gate burst out strong light like a small sun. The light was so bright that the high priest had tears in its eyes. For a second, it could not see anything.
In the bright light, the gate slowly opened. The boiling black smoke was suppressed.
...
Lucien suddenly became very alert when he heard the gate opening. He had no idea what had happened, but he was certain that the sphinxes had somehow figured out that there was someone in there.
Should he activate the level nine scroll? Lucien was still holding Pale Justice in his one hand and in the other hand the scroll from Fernando. When his brain was working very hard to come up with the possible solutions, Lucien looked around in the palace. When he saw the gold coffin in the middle, he got an idea.
At that specific moment, it was still not necessary for him to waste this precious scroll.
The gate slowly opened, and bright light cast in.
Lucien used his left hand, the one holding the scroll, and took out another item from his magic pouch. In the middle, there was a cross, surrounded by sunlight rays. It was Maskelyne's Sun's Corona!
Since Finks had gone back to sleep, hiding in the gap of the World of Souls was less dangerous now!
The warm and soft feeling from the divine power soothed Lucien, although the space gap connecting to the World of Souls was just above the gold coffin.
The black winding gap was hanging above the coffin as if there was a sharp sword hanging over Finks.
Holding Pale Justice, Sun's Corona, and the scroll, Lucien jumped in the gap dragging his heavy body.
When the holy priest walked in and scanned the entire palace with its spiritual power, it found nothing there!
”Filthy desecrator!” Hrotos roared angrily, and all the sphinxes outside lay prostrate on the floor again.
Although the holy priest found nothing there, it did sense the smell of a stranger. Hrotos thought that the intruder had escaped.
Raising the gold scepter, Hrotos released a creepy roaring. One of its eyes turned as shiny as the sun, and the other was as bright as the silver moon.
In his creepy eyes, the scenes repeated. The holy priest saw the mysterious man wearing the black hood sneaking into the palace, hacking at the gold coffin, and when he jumped forward, the space twisted.
The ninth-circle spell, Retrospective Sight.
Although Hrotos could not see the details, it could tell that what the man did there.
The intruder had prevented Finks, their greatest king, from coming back to life!
”Your Holiness Hrotos, where is the intruder now?” asked the high priest using a lot of courage.
”He has escaped,” said the holy priest coldly, whose voice sounded from hell, ”He tried to ruin the body of our king to prevent him from coming back to life.”
”Then…” said the high priest in panic.
”The greatest king's power is beyond that tiny bug's imagination,” said Hrotos, staring at the gold coffin, ”I can still feel that our king is watching us. I can still feel his overwhelming power.”
Then Hrotos raised the scepter and tried to find more clues.
The light of sun shone, but it went dim suddenly. Hrotos was shocked, ”He's not in this world?!”
No… that was not accurate. Hrotos could feel the man's existence, but it could not find him!
At least, the mysterious man was not in any dimensions that Hrotos knew.
...
After jumping through the heavy curtains at the entry of the World of Souls, Lucien felt the familiar deathly stillness. There was only black, white, and gray in this world.
However, he was still in the same palace, and the only difference was that it had been deprived of all the colors.
No, it was not all the colors. Lucien was shocked when he saw the dim red lines covering the gray-colored gold coffin. Those lines extended to all the magic circles in the palace.
Although the brownish-red color was rather dim, it still easily stood out in the black-and-white world, and there was no way that Lucien could ignore it. Above the gray coffin, there was also a bloody, dark-red light ball. It was beating like a heart in that very creepy world.
Closing his eyes, Lucien noticed that he could not feel this light ball at all with his spiritual power, however, when he opened his eyes, the light ball was just over there!
And there were many more things changing inside of the light ball.
Lucien wondered what that light ball was, and, in his eyes, these lines were drawing Finks' power. He tried his best not to spend some time there for any investigation, including collecting one of the lines, or taking a closer look at the light ball, after all, a senior-rank specter could be there at any time!
Putting back the sword, Lucien dispelled the spells for strengthening his power and cast a series of new defensive spells on himself. Then, he pushed open the Saint's Gate from inside.
There were no level eight or nine undead creatures since all of the holy priests and the highest priests could build their own tombs.
Beside the gate stood two sphinxes as well. They were the underworld guards wrapped in bandages.
The two guards released silent scream and attacked Lucien in a rigid way, like two cold statues.
Lucien calmly touched the corona that he was wearing in front of his chest, and a holy halo rippled out.
Affected by the warm light, the two guards suddenly became very stiff and they were trapped still. Then they were turned into two piles of ashes as if they had been weathered for thousands of years.
The six-level divine spell, Exorcist Halo!
Lucien quickly ran downwards along the corridor, and the halo was still around him.
The tomb behind the gate sensed the incompatible brightness and a great stir suddenly happened. In the world of black and white, the many underworld guards holding the spears came back to life and chased after Lucien with innumerable black little bugs like flood waves.
The entire tomb slightly trembled when the halo touched the edge of the insect waves and further spread out. The black bugs burned in smoke, and the gray and white guards were instantly demolished into ashes.
The corridor had been cleared out. Lucien ran fast through the corridors and he was already very close to the entrance of the tomb.
Suddenly, a tall and big guard whose eyes were shining with white light jumped out. Surrounded by a death halo and holding a giant sword, it directly rushed at Lucien from the corner.
Lucien did not try to avoid the attack, instead, he activated Sun's Corona before the layers of protection on him were cut open.
A thick light pillar shot down from the ceiling and directly hit the underground guard. The guard was instantly decomposed into many black light spots and they evaporated very quickly.
When the light pillar was gone, there was only a deep hole left on the floor. The black pieces were the remains of the guard.
The level eight divine spell, Sunburst!
Seizing the chance, Lucien ran out of the tomb and saw the gray sky of the World of Souls and the faded desert.
However, what Lucien just saw in the palace, including the dark-red lines, the hidden magic circles, and the dim light ball, still lingered in his brain. It seemed that they were all drawing Finks' power, and probably Rhine was stealing the power as well.
Lucien wondered who set up everything at the very beginning. He had some guesses, but the rust-colored light ball was still a great mystery to him.
However, he dared not to waste too much time there. Lucien activated the transformation mask and turned himself into one of the most common undead creatures in the World of Souls to find another exit.
...
In Viscount Nour's castle in Province Marimburg, Gusta Empire.