### Chapter 102: When the Flower of Sin Blooms (Fifteen)
What the heck…
This passage is alive!?
Or am I just having another hallucination…
Why does it smell so bad here!?
Buzz—
Suddenly, a soft whisper of a divine miracle drifted out from the depths of darkness, giving my already tense nerves a serious jolt. In front of me, golden light flashed through this bl**d-red vine-covered passage, and I caught a glimpse of the Black Robe’s shadow about forty to fifty meters away.
!
He had clearly just vanished…
No footsteps, no breathing—like he never existed! But suddenly, he reappeared out of nowhere—definitely not something the power of faith could achieve…
Eye of Wisdom!
He’s not a real person…
It was as if he was deliberately letting me find him; that figure stood quietly amidst the flickering golden light, relaxed and non-threatening. The moment I focused my attention on him, the Black Robe suddenly turned and began to walk deeper into the darkness…
Tap…
Tap.
Only two sounds of footsteps.
Then, silence returned.
?
He disappeared again…
I’m sure that wasn’t a divine miracle; it wasn’t teleportation!
Just like before, he vanished into thin air… What does that even mean?
Is he messing with me!?
I instinctively stepped forward, getting into a low stance, and then—whoosh—my body shot forward into the darkness like an arrow released from its bow.
But he didn’t seem hostile…
Whether it was a hallucination or something else, from the moment he appeared, that guy who looked like he belonged to the “Choir of Saints” hadn’t shown any aggression… He wasn’t trying to obstruct me.
He just wanted to lead me somewhere…
Whoosh whoosh whoosh—
The wind rushed past my ears, and the dim light illuminated my path. Countless vines blurred by overhead and beneath my feet.
I was still hesitating…
I couldn’t quite figure out if continuing this chase would pull me into a deeper illusion.
But suddenly, the space ahead became more open.
!
Did I exit the passage!??
Shiiick—
I slammed on the brakes, my feet screeching against the hard vines beneath, producing an ear-piercing sound.
This place is…
It’s way too dark—I can’t see a thing…
So after stopping, I quickly took two steps back, raising my guard, my dark eyes glowing with a faint blue light, scanning left and right without spotting anything unusual. Then I looked down… My feet were still covered by countless twisted vines.
These vines seemed thicker…
They were densely and chaotically entangled, hardly any gaps in sight… This place was crawling with them—left, right, beneath me, and on all the walls… If they suddenly all moved to attack me, that spectacle would be anything but pleasant.
As my thoughts raced, I began to lower my guard.
Thank goodness…
Without the stimulus of Infernal Fire, they showed no signs of movement…
Crack crack crack—
I covered my nose while scanning the darkness, casually waving my right hand to let a hovering ice ball float ahead, brightening my view a bit.
…So where’s the Black Robe?
He led me here, what’s his plan… Huh, wait.
Is there someone over there!?
The ice ball drifted further, its dim light dispelling the nearby darkness, revealing a figure standing deep in the shadows, not the Black Robe, but a short, skinny silhouette holding a sword…
“Sword Demon!?”
I unconsciously shouted her name.
What is she doing here!?
She seemed to be frozen in place…
Wait a second, are those vines wrapped around her legs!?
“Hey, Sword Demon—”
My mind raced with questions, but there was no time to ponder. I charged forward, drawing my “Dragon Claw” and suddenly bent down to clang clang double slash the vines tangled around her legs, slicing them away and yanking her arm to pull her out.
“What are you doing!? Cough, cough…”
So stinky, so pungent…
After dragging the Sword Demon back several steps, I unceremoniously dropped her on the ground to free my hands to cover my mouth and nose again.
Thud!
There was a dull thud as the Sword Demon seemingly banged her forehead, lying face down on the bl**d-red vines.
…Did she pass out?
“Wake up—”
I kicked her.
She’s not dead, right…
Zzzzzt—
Suddenly, astonishing thunder light burst from beneath my feet, wild arcs of electricity entwining around the fallen Sword Demon, and in the blink of an eye, she was standing five meters away in front of me, brandishing her sword and staring at me defensively.
“……”
“……”
I was actually a bit startled.
I didn’t expect her to jump up like that. I didn’t know what to say, so we just stared at each other for a moment until I saw her expression shift from surprise and vigilance to total confusion.
“How did you get here?” She sheathed her sword as if nothing had happened and asked calmly.
“…Shouldn’t I be asking you that?!?” I rubbed my forehead, feeling a headache coming on. “What were you doing just standing there asleep? Do you even know you almost got swallowed by those vines!?”
“…Huh?”
“‘Huh’ my foot!”
This girl doesn’t even realize what happened…
“Do you know what this place is?”
“What place?”
“……”
“I chased a Black Robe here.”
Suddenly, the Sword Demon seemed to recall something, glancing around: “Downstairs, in that place with a lot of white cloth, I saw a sneaky figure. I thought it was someone from the Church, so I followed him upstairs, but he was too fast—I lost him when I got here…”
“Hold on!”
I cut off her rambling: “The Black Robe? You followed him up from downstairs?”
This little shorty also saw that Black Robe…
“Yeah.”
She nodded, sniffing the air like she was smelling something… How can she even sniff in a place like this!? Isn’t she worried about the stink—
“I saw those knights earlier.”
The Sword Demon said as she wandered toward the darkness on the left: “They were sucked in by the vines, right here… Look.”
?
In the distance, I vaguely saw her bend down and pick something up from the ground… Is that a helmet?
“They’re dead.”
Clang! The Sword Demon tossed the helmet at my feet. I looked down and saw it was slightly deformed, like it had been crushed with great force, but there were no bl**d stains on it.
“That’s all I remember. After that, I tried to find you… I went downstairs, couldn’t find you for a long time. When I came to my senses, I found myself lying on the ground and you right in front of me… When did I return to this spot?”
You literally stood there and didn’t move at all, right!?
I got it.
We’ve both fallen into another illusion…
But this illusion was nothing like the previous one. The thing casting the “illusion” didn’t create an overly complex scene but just made the Black Robe appear—leading us to this vine-infested place before vanishing…
Was it the Eye of Wisdom behind this?
It seems like it still had some tricks up its sleeve here; the Sword Demon fell for it, but I didn’t.
Why?
Have I somehow run out of energy and am about to kick the bucket?
That’s not impossible…
After all, I did give it a good pounding.
I casually speculated, my brows furrowed as I walked toward the Sword Demon: “So those knights all died here? Did you see the vines devouring them?”
