Chapter Forty: This Is a Trap

The mine was not far from the town. As soon as they left, barely five or six steps away, the two immediately sensed a sharp drop in the temperature around them and hurriedly put on their cold-weather gear.

Chen Zi’ang carried a suitcase filled with old books in his left hand, strapped the emergency flashlight to the center of his forehead with his right, and then rested his hand on the hilt of the Mandrake Ritual Sword, proceeding forward with utmost caution.

Tsukimi Suzuna, holding her emergency flashlight with her left hand, had her right already drawn with a pistol, following closely behind Chen Zi’ang.

The entrance to the mine had once been sealed with a wooden door, meant to prevent children from wandering in, but it had rotted away entirely, collapsing to the ground with its rusted hinges.

Carefully stepping through the doorway, Chen Zi’ang’s light swept across the floor and, as expected, he found an extinguished oil lamp precisely where he had seen it in his dream.

He continued forward, his intuition heightened, maintaining constant vigilance.

After several more steps, a collapse appeared ahead. The steel beams supporting the shaft were bent under the weight of earth and stone, leaving no space to pass through.

Standing before the obstruction, Chen Zi’ang examined it carefully. It was completely blocked.

“Senior,” Tsukimi Suzuna reminded him, “there’s a side passage here.”

Turning, Chen Zi’ang saw, indeed, a well-concealed crevice in the nearby rock wall.

Had the Public Security Bureau not noticed this during their inspections, or was it discovered only later?

He scrutinized the crevice, finding no traces of tools or cutting—it seemed a naturally formed cave.

“What are you looking at, Senior?” asked Tsukimi Suzuna.

“Nothing. Let’s go,” Chen Zi’ang replied, shaking his head.

With no evidence to go on, it was best not to speculate and mislead his partner.

He squeezed sideways through the crevice, quickly bypassing the collapsed section and reaching the other side.

The gap wasn’t difficult to traverse, but if pursued by something monstrous and forced to flee, there might not be time to slip through.

If such a situation arose, summoning the Abyssal Touch here would be wiser—seal the dangerous path behind, then slip through safely.

After a brief study, Chen Zi’ang led Tsukimi Suzuna onward.

The deeper they ventured, the more the ground sloped downward and twisted. The once silent surroundings began echoing with the sound of dripping water.

Was there groundwater nearby?

Suddenly, Chen Zi’ang slowed his pace; his intuition was sounding an alarm.

It was a subtle sense of danger—a certainty that some evil abyssal presence lurked ahead, though not an immediate threat. He could only stay alert.

“Senior,” Tsukimi Suzuna suddenly said, “do you hear... voices?”

“Voices?” Chen Zi’ang shook his head. “I don’t.”

“Audio monitoring shows nothing,” came the voice of Suikaze Riku through the headset. “It’s not physical sound waves, but a message your intuition receives.”

Tsukimi Suzuna’s spiritual sensitivity was higher than Chen Zi’ang’s, allowing her to perceive messages he could not.

That was not a good sign.

Increasing their vigilance to the utmost, the two pressed forward. After descending for about five or six minutes, they finally entered a cavern.

It appeared to be a larger mine chamber, with wooden platforms erected around for extracting ore from higher places.

At the center of the cavern, in a sunken area, was a deep red pool, its hue reminiscent of blood.

Standing in the middle of the pool was a roughly-made bone totem.

Three skulls—left, center, and right—were fixed atop an outstretched ribcage. Below them, two bone hands were spread open, palms facing upward, as if inviting something to be placed upon them.

“Yes, that’s the totem,” Suikaze Riku’s voice continued in the headset. “Now take the book from the case and place it on the bone hands.”

Chen Zi’ang knelt, opened the suitcase, and took out the old book.

In the pool’s reflection, the leather cover began to glisten faintly, as if blood were seeping from within.

“Senior,” Tsukimi Suzuna suddenly said, “let me place it.”

Chen Zi’ang glanced at her but did not hand over the book. Instead, he asked through the headset:

“Place it on the bone hands, and then? What happens?”

“Then, the curse on the client should be lifted,” Suikaze Riku replied.

“I never said the client was cursed,” Chen Zi’ang challenged.

“My judgment is that it’s a curse,” Suikaze Riku’s tone grew colder.

“The real Riku told me before: what’s left on it is ‘the gaze of the deity.’” Chen Zi’ang sneered. “What, did you not do your homework before impersonating her?”

“Hmph.” Suikaze Riku’s voice in the headset morphed into the cold laugh of the innkeeper, Lady Fuyutsuki. “If you two wish to leave alive, do as I say.”

Suddenly, from the shadows beyond the reach of their lights, came the sounds of shuffling and rustling.

Chen Zi’ang quickly redirected his flashlight, only to discover that, at some point, numerous tall, stooped figures had appeared in the darkness.

Their bodies were wrapped in thick cold-weather clothing, but their upper torsos hunched unnaturally, as if ready to crawl.

Emerging from the collars were strange, canine-like heads, elongated and covered in fur. Their emerald eyes bulged outward, and their cheeks bore signs of festering wounds—just looking at them was enough to induce nausea.

As a wave of acute crisis washed over him, Chen Zi’ang felt his spiritual sight surge wildly, but the shadow cloak tucked beneath his shirt soon sent a chill through him, restoring his dwindling sanity.

At the same time, a familiar message flowed from the shadow cloak into his mind.

[The Lord of the Deep Sea gazes upon you; His wrath is your protection.]

[For every heretic ghoul slain, you will gain 3 fire seeds.]

[Destroy the skull totem, and you will gain 100 fire seeds.]

Chen Zi’ang: ………

Words once spoken by Nightmare Priestess Niko resurfaced in his memory:

“We, the Nightmare clan of the ancient city Enlank, serve the Lord of the Deep Sea.”

“The Lord of the Deep Sea once had a group of ghoul followers, but those shameless, despicable creatures switched their allegiance to the ‘Ghoul King’ of the flesh cult.”

In that instant, all the clues converged:

Niko had revealed that the Lord of the Deep Sea and the Ghoul King were mortal enemies.

The Ossuary of Lingyi Town offered the corpses of its dead to the so-called ‘God of the Mine,’ whose true identity was the Ghoul King.

The innkeeper, Lady Fuyutsuki, was most likely the Ghoul King’s witch, Nishikawa Miye.

The old book Chen Zi’ang had obtained was a relic of the Ghoul King, deliberately put forth by Nishikawa Miye as bait, intended to lure someone to place it upon the totem—a ritual of sacrifice, the completion of which would have dire consequences.

The Lord of the Deep Sea, through the shadow cloak, had realized Chen Zi’ang was caught up in the Ghoul King’s sacrificial ritual, and thus prompted him to sabotage it—to give the Ghoul King a little taste of human defiance...

With this revelation, Chen Zi’ang acted instinctively, raising his left hand and invoking the power of [Abyssal Touch].

From within the blood pool behind the skull totem, massive tentacles suddenly rose, swiftly and tightly coiling around the totem.

An eruption of terrified and furious screams burst from the crowd of ghouls, as if their revered goddess had been mercilessly violated.

Taking advantage of their chaos, enduring the torment of their shrill, piercing cries, Chen Zi’ang seized Tsukimi Suzuna’s hand and dragged her, racing desperately toward the entrance from which they had come.