Chapter 200: She Saw “Shen Baiwei” Behind the Door
“Four Beasts Bright Sky Cannon!”
Accompanied by Lu Xibei’s low roar, a pale strong light instantly enveloped Shen Baiwei’s body, and beneath this bright light, countless chaotic azure arcs quietly appeared in her palm.
【Spell 59·Thunderlight Floating Mountain】!
This spell simulates the thunder striking the mountains, with lightning filling the scene. It is a finely crafted spell designed to deal with multiple targets, but its striking ability against a single target is weak.
With Shen Baiwei’s A-Class Spiritual Ability User’s physical quality, coming into contact with thousands of volts of high-voltage electricity wouldn’t cause instant d*ath; taking a hit from a 1.754 times amplified 【Thunderlight Floating Mountain】 posed no problem at all. The damage suffered would be minimal, usually resulting in fainting, and in severe cases, a heart stoppage for two or three seconds.
That’s right, Lu Xibei never intended to k*ll Shen Baiwei.
As the pre-prepared guardian of the Siye Society, 【Spell 95·Four Beasts Bright Sky Cannon】 is based on the family heritage spell 【Flowing Bell Devouring Fire】, modified and enhanced, with very limited lethality against humans and structures, even less than a standard spell with a single-digit serial number.
Conversely, 【Four Beasts Bright Sky Cannon】 possesses exaggerated destructive power against urban legends and Spiritual Ability Users with excessive control within their spirit patterns and night encroachment.
The reason Lu Xibei decided to release 【Four Beasts Bright Sky Cannon】 before casting 【Thunderlight Floating Mountain】 is partly due to his consideration that Shen Baiwei’s spirit patterns had already backstabbed her, clearly in a state of loss of control, and casting a spell that directly threatens the spirit patterns would more easily trigger her bizarre authority. On the other hand…
Naturally, it was to frighten Shen Baiwei!
As long as she felt the threat of d*ath and experienced sufficient shock, theoretically, it could achieve the effect of “torture to d*ath” as the proxy player sister described.
Although Lu Xibei was very aware of the effects of 【Four Beasts Bright Sky Cannon】, the operatives within the Siye Society who understand its effects number no more than a handful. How could Shen Baiwei possibly know?
Caught off guard and suddenly ambushed by a forbidden spell-level spirit energy fluctuation, immediately followed by paralysis, at least nine out of ten Spiritual Ability Users would feel certain they were doomed, and even if they didn’t d*e, they would be severely injured.
In a book titled “THELOS the RTOFHEALING,” there was once an experiment mentioned where a blindfolded and bound d*ath row inmate was made to feel a fake cutting on his wrist and was made to believe he was bleeding, even inhaling the scent of bl**d. After a period of time, the inmate died.
Though the authenticity of this experiment is questionable, theoretically, if a person’s fear of d*ath exceeds normal stress conditions, it could indeed lead to excessive parasympathetic nerve rebound, sedation beyond measure, and ultimately result in bodily d*ath.
From a certain perspective, Lu Xibei’s use of 【Four Beasts Bright Sky Cannon】 to attack Shen Baiwei, causing her stimulation, resembles that experiment, while 【Thunderlight Floating Mountain】 is akin to the fake cut on the wrist.
And indeed, this kind of fright proved to be effective.
A second after Shen Baiwei was hit by 【Thunderlight Floating Mountain】 and began to convulse, Lu Xibei felt the familiar dizziness.
The world seemed to spin at high speed in an instant, his vision became blurred, and bizarrely radiant large color blocks appeared at the edges of his vision.
Soon, his consciousness was cast into the profound darkness…
————
Uncertain how long it had been, Lu Xibei emerged from his hazy state, his consciousness gradually becoming clear. Before he could open his eyes fully, he sensed something unusual about his surroundings.
It was quiet around him.
In his ears, only a monotonous and subtle sound of footsteps echoed, continuously reverberating until the sound was completely distorted. Just listening to that sound, even without seeing with his own eyes, made one involuntarily imagine someone walking heavily in an empty, vast space.
The air was cold.
But it didn’t seem to be the cold caused by low temperatures; rather, it felt like some abnormal spirit energy fluctuation, reminiscent of a graveyard or a haunted house, characterized by the chilling that arises from urban legends dwelling for a long time.
His eyes burned.
The spirit energy ignited by his eyes and bl**d gradually spread to his limbs, and his heartbeat uncontrollably accelerated, silently conveying danger, as if some horrifying presence was lurking nearby.
“……”
Something’s wrong! Where am I?
If the save point was successful, shouldn’t I have appeared in Dai Mu Institute, or on the street where Long Bang found me earlier?
Lu Xibei thought carefully, cautiously opening his eyes a slit.
Dim light, a slightly moldy whitewashed wall, metal signs with incomprehensible numbers… The scene resembled a corner of an old hospital corridor, filling his vision.
Lu Xibei froze for a moment, waiting a few seconds. Seeing that no sudden attack occurred, he suddenly opened his eyes wide and sprang up like a carp.
Steadying himself, he looked around and was immediately stunned.
He saw a long corridor that stretched endlessly, winding and twisting like a maze.
Moonlight seeped through glass windows that hadn’t been cleaned for an unknown amount of time, stained and corroded, casting a murky yellow light upon the floor.
Activating his spiritual sense, he tried to detect the surrounding spirit energy fluctuations but found his spiritual sense completely restricted to a diameter of about two meters by some bizarre power, as if a giant python was wrapping around his body, even the operation of spirit energy within him became abnormally sluggish.
Glancing sideways, on both sides of the corridor, rows of iron doors led to unknown places, each adorned with signs bearing numbers.
21-2-3, 21-2-5, 21-3-4A… incomprehensible.
Whether due to the deformation of the dilapidated building or other reasons, certain spots on the corridor walls exhibited inexplicable depressions or protrusions. Nearby iron doors twisted along with the deformed walls, with gaps of varying sizes appearing.
“Hu—!”
Lu Xibei took a deep breath and bravely approached the nearest twisted iron door, pressed against it, and looked through the gap. After just two or three seconds, he quickly retreated to where he was, patting his chest.
The space behind the door was not small; it was built in the style of a small theater, where seats were filled with lifelike puppets facing the empty dark stage.
At a glance, Lu Xibei recognized it as the 【Evil Spirit Performance】 that appeared in the auditorium of Shihhekou Middle School, a horror ritual used for mass-producing D+ to C-class urban legends. Judging by the materials used to set up that theater, the 【Evil Spirit Performance】 in the small theater behind the door was a high-end version.
Although one 【Evil Spirit Performance】 ritual site posed no threat to her now, the long corridor boasted at least hundreds of similar iron doors. If behind each door lay places like this, that would be terrifying.
Hundreds of ritual sites capable of mass-producing D+ to C-class urban legends gathered together would form a large-scale assembly line for creating low-level urban legends.
Taking it a step further, if some higher-end ritual sites were hidden behind certain iron doors, it might not merely be a matter of producing low-level urban legends.
With the support of an assembly line for producing low-level urban legends, it could completely utilize the urban legends’ instinct to devour each other to create even higher-level urban legends.
Lu Xibei, “…”
What the hell is this place?
Where’s Dai Mu Institute? Where’s Zawen Temple? That massive God Realm Yumen?
I merely loaded a save point; how could I jump frequencies into another “game”? Lu Xibei thought.
Her mood instantly soured.
Not only because of the slight panic rising from deep within, but also due to being unexpectedly thrown into such a bizarre place, completely disrupting her plans.
It felt as though she had been stuck for ages against a BOSS in a game, finally figured out the BOSS’s pattern, researched the strategies, and prepared to reload and restart, only to find that the BOSS had changed.
Her anger surged!
Can this still be played? Wouldn’t it make one want to smash the keyboard?
Just as Lu Xibei was feeling down due to accidentally arriving in this cursed place, she noticed that the footsteps echoing in her ears suddenly stopped. After a brief silence, she heard the sound of the wind rustling, like the sound made when the wind blows through tiny crevices.
A couple of seconds later, Lu Xibei’s expression suddenly changed as the sound of the wind grew closer. She realized what she was hearing was not the sound of wind, but the hissing of some massive reptile and the noise created by its scales scraping against the ground.
And now, the source of that sound was right behind her!
She could even feel the icy gaze of its vertical pupils landing upon her, its whip-like tongue flicking back and forth less than an inch from her back.
What to do? Attack? Lu Xibei frowned, silently reciting the spell in her mind.
Incinerating sky, mountains and rivers in all directions, scorched earth, destruction, catastrophe, burn away…
Halfway through chanting the spell for the Flame Sword’s Celestial Funeral, that bone-chilling sound suddenly ceased, and the monotonous, sluggish, subtle footsteps returned.
“Tap tap… tap tap…”
Closer and closer.
Then.
Lu Xibei saw Shen Baiwei, dressed in a pure white garment, like a lifeless corpse, slowly pass by her side.
In the decaying, dark corridor, the girl in white appeared like a ghost, emerging from the shadows, evoking an inexplicable chill.
“Eh?” Lu Xibei tilted her head, letting out a sound of surprise, then recalled the giant snake symbolizing Shen Baiwei in Hong Bian’s dream, and suddenly felt enlightened.
Shen Baiwei was that giant snake; the peculiar wind sound just now must have come from her…
Thinking this, she rushed forward to try to communicate with Shen Baiwei. However, it proved futile.
“Do you know where this place is? Is there a way out?”
“Hey, hey, I’m talking to you!”
“Shen Baiwei? Can you hear me?”
“……”
All her words fell silent into the void, receiving no response. Shen Baiwei continued on her way, lost in her own world.
Could it be she can’t hear me?
Realizing this, Lu Xibei frowned and reached for Shen Baiwei’s wrist, but passed right through.
There was no tangible sensation, as if she had grabbed a handful of air.
Unable to grab her? Lu Xibei paused for a moment, regaining her senses. By the time she tried to reach out for Shen Baiwei again, she found that she had already walked far away.
After hesitating for a few seconds, she took a step forward, intending to catch up with Shen Baiwei and figure out a plan.
Moving along the winding corridor, time seemed to lose its meaning, and the real world gradually faded away, a sense of loneliness, as if cast away by everything, quietly sprouted in her heart.
Like a child lured by the flutist’s melody, lost in spirit, walking into an unknown forest, Lu Xibei followed Shen Baiwei for an indeterminate amount of time, only to awaken suddenly in a painful blaze of light, stopping in place, leaning against the wall, cold sweat quietly sliding down her temple.
To her horror, she realized she had been following Shen Baiwei for a long time, but no matter how quickly she walked or how urgently she hurried, she couldn’t catch up, as if Shen Baiwei wasn’t even in the same time and space anymore; what she saw was merely a projection of Shen Baiwei from another dimension.
“……”
No, I can’t keep following Shen Baiwei like this…
Her condition was clearly abnormal, and it seemed she had also been affected by some bizarre force. If she continued, it would likely lead to a dead end.
Lu Xibei thought, rubbing her burning eyes, the bl**d vessels suffusing her eyeballs tinted her vision with a hint of crimson.
After a moment’s rest, as the pain from her burning eyes slightly eased, she looked ahead again. The moment she caught sight of Shen Baiwei’s figure, her heart felt as if it had been struck by a heavy hammer, her body shuddering slightly.
She saw Shen Baiwei pausing in front of a large metal door at the end of the corridor.
The door was engraved with dense and incomprehensible spell writings, with severe rust marks resembling dried bl**d clinging to it, emanating an ominous presence from beyond.
Just moments ago, while she had been following Shen Baiwei, there was nothing but deep darkness ahead; that metal door hadn’t existed at all.
In other words, that metal door had materialized during the space of those ten or so seconds while she had stopped to rest.
What further horrified Lu Xibei was that as Shen Baiwei stood before that door, placing her hand on the doorknob, preparing to open it, the burning sensation in her eyes spiked once more, a strong sense of impending doom causing all the hairs on her body to stand on end.
It felt as if behind that door sat a “Fire Cloud Evil God,” and opening it would unleash a sea of corpses and rivers of bl**d.
“Don’t! Don’t open the door!”
Lu Xibei instinctively screamed at Shen Baiwei, her voice carrying far and even echoing back. However, Shen Baiwei showed no reaction, merely silently turning the doorknob and pulling the door open.
In the next moment, the scene beyond the door sent Lu Xibei’s stomach churning, nearly causing her to vomit on the spot.
She saw “Shen Baiwei” behind the door, countless “Shen Baiwei”!
Some still looked as if they had just died, while others were already highly decomposed, their faces unrecognizable, clothing torn and yellowed, leaving only pale bones.
These countless “Shen Baiwei” piled together, piecing together the form of a coiled monstrous snake.
That monster snake had hundreds of heads, thousands of eyes, and its scales were composed of densely packed fingers and toes, oozing foul, viscous black liquid that dripped slowly from the gaps between its scales…
Atop its hundreds of heads, a newborn still connected by umbilical cord lay sleeping.
As the “Shen Baiwei” outside the door passed through the threshold, lying quietly beside the terrifying giant snake, eyes closed, the sleeping infant woke up, letting out a heart-wrenching cry, unknown whether celebrating the new life or mourning for the departed “Shen Baiwei.”
In any case…
Amidst the baby’s cries, Lu Xibei felt her consciousness gradually blurring, and she suspected that she might never be able to look at Shen Baiwei the same way again.
