Following Sister Defulin's final blessing, the bonfire behind the two of them leapt with a roar. The flames flowed along the ritual traces that had been laid out on the ground in advance, with the bonfire as the center. In a few breaths, the fiery red lines had already lit up the entire courtyard.
Those winding lines and ancient runes jumped under the starry sky, and the leaping firelight made them more three-dimensional and more real.
At the same time, the flames flowing on the ground also flowed from Sister Shade and Sister Defulin along the grooves on both sides of the trail to the mansion in front of them. But they turned in front of the steps of the mansion, and the two streams of fire extended to both sides, surrounding the entire building.
The nuns on the sidewalk rang bells, held up porcelain bottles, and waved white banners. The two high-ranking nuns in front of the gate opened the door of the mansion at the same time.
Instantly, the white mist representing the boundary between the two worlds surged out like a roaring beast, but as it moved away from the door, it became thinner and thinner, and stopped spreading right at the edge of the courtyard. The firelight in the courtyard danced in the mist, allowing the boundary to remain stable here.
The land beneath your feet is still the material world, but the world of the dead has also seeped in.
Xia De said nothing more and walked forward along the trail. The white fog seemed to be the thickest on the trail. Walking in it, Xia De couldn't even see the nuns on both sides clearly.
But he could still hear the nuns' soft whispers as they prayed to death itself. The simple language and old grammar seemed to bring time back to the old times, an era when everyone was in awe of death.
Stranger, you feel the miracle.
You feel blasphemy, stranger.
Stranger, you feel inspired.
Stranger, you feel the whispers.
The sound of "her" continued in his ears, and as Shade kept moving forward, he also vaguely felt that the world had become a little different. It was not just the cold wind and some strange whispers, but the whole world had become a little different.
When he arrived at the door of the mansion, he could hardly see the nuns standing on both sides. In front of him was the main door, and Shade walked in without hesitation.
The white fog still existed in the room, but the mansion in front of him was no longer the same as when he entered. There was no entrance hall, only a straight corridor in front of him, the corridor leading to the deepest part of the mansion, and at the end of the corridor was the door.
"Well, I don't have to waste any more time."
The wind carried the smell of decay and corruption, and in the white mist that continued to pour out from the front, there were more and more tiny sounds, and none of them sounded like the voices of living people. Xia De held his breath, feeling the power of the abnormal space, and approached the end of the corridor step by step.
The source of the white mist, the wall that originally represented the "crack" was no longer the rotating black vortex, but now a dilapidated wooden door. Xia De paused in front of the door, then reached out and pushed the door open.
Behind the door was darkness, and the cold air mixed with the white mist hit his body and soul. The thin line on his wrist emitted a red light and gave him warmth, while the leaves in his mouth replenished his body with endless vitality.
"Praise the Father of Infinite Trees, may time be with me."
"Praise the Silver Moon Sage, may the moonlight shine on me forever."
"Praise Mr. Dawn, the light shines on the shadows, and the shadow follows the dawn."
WHAT ELSE
"She" asked softly after Shade's three compliments.
"Praise the ancient god of death, may death protect a stranger like me."
He stepped over.
Crossing the gap between life and death, the blurred boundary allows you to touch the deepest secrets of the soul.
Stranger, you have some understanding of death.
This statement had appeared before he obtained the "Greed" Spirit Rune, which meant that although Shade had some sense of the power of death, it was not enough to construct a spirit rune in the life ring. This was the second time he heard this statement, the first time was when Priest Augustus gave him his last words.
Death, stranger, you leave the world of the living.
Even you cannot stay in this world for long.
I heard "her" reminder in my ears, and after I stepped through the door, the cold wind suddenly disappeared.
The change in space did not make Xia De, who was already used to space jumps, feel any discomfort. However, the feeling of rejection of his body by the surroundings made him truly feel what the "narrow gap between life and death" was.
Outside the door was still a world of white mist, but the mist here did not flow, but remained still in the air. In front of him was still the corridor deep in Baron Russell's manor, but everything seemed to have faded, turning into gray, white and black, and it looked like it had been baptized by a hundred years and had become extremely dilapidated.
The cold and damp fog was very similar to what Xia De encountered when he went down the mountain in the afternoon, and it was even more unfriendly to living people.
"A low-level warlock like a priest can only stay in a place like this for a week at most. What about me?"
With the leaf still in your mouth, you must leave within a thousand days.
"clear."
Xia De nodded and raised his hand to look at it. In this world without color and life, his skin and clothes still retained color. But when he used his limbs, he clearly felt a different sense of power from that of the flesh.
This level 0 relic was very different from the other relics Shade had encountered. The omnipresent four elements did not give him any negative feelings such as headaches. The whispering element was being effectively balanced by the other three elements.
Although the physical strength is not prominent here, but the soul is outside and the body is inside, it is obvious that the soul containing divinity is stronger than the mortal body. Because the ring warlock system is the unity of body and soul, he is still a three-ring, but the abundant spirit and the feeling that he can break through the wall with a wave of his hand are not possessed by a normal body.
He even felt that he could barely use the Mystique once in this place. But Sister Develyn said that in this world between life and death, the recovery speed of the soul and physical strength of the ring wizard is extremely slow. Therefore, if Shad dared to use the Mystique here, he would have to bear the consequences of being completely exhausted within a few hours and unable to use any magic or spells.
"It's not that bad."
The ground was covered with gray moss, and the walls were covered with black marks. Turning back, I found that the door I had come from was gone.
But the thin line wrapped around his wrist was still burning red. When Xia De wanted to go back, he could return to this location, and the line would guide him away.
Instead of setting off immediately, he squatted down to check the moss on the wall, and then barely recognized that it was a special plant called corpse grass. In the material world, this plant was grown from corpses. It was not only extremely poisonous, but also would accelerate the aging of the carrier just by carrying it. But in this world, it seemed like a very ordinary plant.
"This place is weirder than I thought."
He stood up and looked at the pendant on his chest. He touched it gently, and the holy emblem of the righteous god Mr. Liming emitted a golden light, and then floated forward, but because it was tied with a rope, it just floated in front of his chest.
This place that shouldn't exist, on the edge of life and death, has white mist floating all year round. Shade, who has the spirit rune of time and space, can clearly feel that this is not a stable normal space, but more like an illusory dream or something else.
The terrain is basically a replica of Mount Sikar and the city of Midhill Castle at the foot of the mountain, but there is no other life here, only wandering souls.
There was not a single sound in the entire world. Even the sound caused by Shad's footsteps was weakened to the point where he could hardly hear it.
When I left the house and went outside, I unexpectedly found that the sky was not black as I had imagined, but a strange gray. There was no sun, no moon, and no stars. Everything seemed dead.
Xia De was unwilling to stay in such a world any longer, so he followed the guidance of the holy emblem, left the manor and walked towards the city.
The silent world was particularly terrifying. Occasionally, a spirit with a tragic death would suddenly appear beside him. Although it only passed by Shade, it still made his already depressed mood even worse.
Before Shade actually entered the city, he encountered an evil spirit in the woods that tried to attack him. It was a knight ghost holding his own head, riding on a horse, with a sunken chest, looking like a soul that had died a long time ago.
The rituals of the spiritual order should have been able to protect Shad from the attention of the evil spirit, but perhaps because of the unfortunate man's hair, the evil spirit of the headless knight still looked at him after Shad approached.
"As expected, the ritual can indeed weaken the evil spirit's perception of me, but if it gets too close..."
Silently, the knight charged towards Shade on horseback, holding a lance. At the moment when the evil spirit and Shade crossed, the silver moonlight flashed across this colorless world.
Then Shade continued to move forward, and the evil spirit was silently split into two parts, and then dissipated into the air:
"I am a true knight."
These are its last words.
On the border between life and death, Shade is really strong.
Obviously, the manor was far away from the city, but when Shade crossed the forest, he found himself standing in the suburbs of the quiet city of Midhill Castle.
Continue walking one street forward, cross the intersection and step directly into the city. Although this place does look like a reflection of the real world, it is plausible and not exactly the same.
"That would be convenient, but is Father Augustus in town? Is he in the church?"
Shad guessed.
The mist was hazy, and shadowy souls were floating around. The souls Shade had seen today were more than the total number of souls he had seen since he came to this world. It seemed that the souls of people who died in Midhill Castle and the surrounding areas had a chance to come to this abnormal place.
This is a violation of the rules of death. After a normal death, the soul should leave directly.
"How did this wrong place where life and death are ambiguous come to be?"
He really couldn't understand it, but if all the souls that existed here rushed into the real world, even if there were only a few evil spirits among them, they would definitely destroy the entire central and eastern region of the Old Continent.
"Doesn't the church have a way to solve this kind of place once and for all? If we just keep sealing it, there will definitely be bigger problems in the future."
While thinking, he suddenly heard a faint cry for help. Xia De hesitated and stopped, because this world would reduce some sounds, so the source of the sound should be very close.
"Is there anyone else alive here?"
He remembered that the information sent by the college mentioned that a large number of people went missing this fall.