From God of Lies to Lord of All Worlds

Chapter 128: The Ghostly Phantoms of the Abandoned School

The line stretching from Texas to Florida encompasses a total of six states, all forming part of the coastal plain.

Proximity to the ocean and a humid climate make this the finest agricultural region. People believe so today, and hundreds of years ago, they thought exactly the same.

Consequently, this entire coastal stretch was once the dwelling place, development zone, battleground, and site of Sacrifice for the Original Inhabitants. Countless traces of their existence can still be found here.

However, with the massive waves of immigration to America and the onset of westward expansion, all signs of the former Original Inhabitants have long since vanished from this land.

Even the so-called reservations initially designated for them have long been taken over as residential areas for the locals.

In the Albany region of southern Alabama, a group of people was trekking through the landscape.

They climbed up a small hill, their eyes fixed on a building at the summit. That was their destination.

Leading the group was none other than Jeff, the famous crazy streamer and a survivor of the New York volcano incident. He was also the biggest beneficiary of that live broadcast, second only to the Church.

He had survived that terrifying battle, livestreaming the first half and directly participating in the second. He had even shown his face in the subsequent official news reports.

Under such circumstances, Jeff's personal channel skyrocketed, recently surpassing one hundred million subscribers!The various events, interviews, and videos he participated in during this time generated astronomical traffic. Money had quickly become the least of his concerns!

Many people sought him out simply because he had met the Holy Knight in the video and had some connection with him. They desperately hoped Jeff could help with an introduction.

Plagued by constant harassment, Jeff hardly believed he could casually contact such divine figures, nor did he want to become a stepping stone for opportunists. Thus, he organized this special livestream event.

"Long time no see, family!" Jeff looked at his team and the various streamers sent by their company to leech off his popularity. Giving a slow nod, he activated the stream. "This is another adventurous expedition with Crazy Jeff, and it doubles as a team-building exercise!"

The streamers behind him greeted the audience in unison. They were all fresh-faced rookies.

"Today, our target is an abandoned school located right here in Alabama," Jeff declared with deliberate mystique. "I heard from locals that this school is extremely bizarre. Every night, horrifying howls echo from within..."

"As you all know, ever since Demons and Angels descended upon our world, things have taken a highly unusual turn!"

"Who knows? Maybe the school we are exploring today will turn out to be exactly that kind of place."

With just a few sentences, he successfully planted seeds of suspense in his viewers' minds. Thanks to his previous encounter with Demons, many who would normally doubt such claims were now half-convinced.

In the past, people would confidently dismiss it as a scripted act, but now they could not help but think: 'What if it is real?'

This was the unique value his identity provided, and the reason he had the confidence to draw millions of viewers into his stream within mere minutes of going live!

The audience eagerly anticipated that Jeff would have the same luck as before, stumbling across another supernatural event for their viewing pleasure.

However, this exact prospect was what worried the others. Off-camera, a female streamer named Caitlyn whispered her concerns to her assistant. "We are not going to actually run into something this time, are we? This is supposed to be a haunted school!"

"Do not worry. The company scouted the location before filming and notified the local officials. There is nothing abnormal here. All those so-called scary things were actually planted by the company in advance!"

Beside her, a male streamer named Drake offered his reassurance. Compared to Caitlyn, whose main selling point was her beauty, Drake carved out a different niche: the rugged, tough-guy persona.

As a result, he exuded absolute confidence. Staring at the abandoned school ahead, a surge of excitement washed over him.

'As long as I show off my tough-guy nature and piggyback off Jeff's massive traffic, I might just blow up my channel in a single day!'

Having finished his opening monologue, Jeff signaled the cameramen to follow and led the group slowly forward.

Soon, the school gates loomed before them. A dilapidated signboard bearing the words "Thomson Original Inhabitants Boarding School" hung precariously from the arch. As a chilling gust of wind swept past, a few team members reflexively rubbed their arms.

The goosebumps rising on their skin seemed to foretell an ominous presence lurking within.

Drake, however, boldly took the lead and pushed open the gates. "If we are going to explore, we need to pick up the pace. It is getting dark, and we are supposed to spend the entire night here!"

His brash words earned a wave of approval from the chat:

"That is more like it! Be bold and move fast. What is with all the slow walking, are they nursing a baby?"

"Exactly! Some streamers purposely drag their feet and blast spooky BGM to manufacture tension. I am sick of it!"

"Show me the cleavage and I will smash that like button. Sounds perfectly reasonable to me!"

"This new guy is built like a tank. You can tell he has guts!"

"Holy crap, four people! It is the classic horror movie squad: the smart leader, the busty blonde, the muscle-head, and the completely forgettable background character. It does not get more textbook than this!"

"Not textbook enough. They are missing the black guy."

"Cameramen and assistants: Yeah, sure, I guess we are not human!"

The lively banter in the chat significantly diluted the terrifying atmosphere, making the group's exploration feel far more relaxed. In truth, the courtyard offered little worth investigating. Stripped of the gloomy, horror-tinted filter, it was nothing more than an ordinary abandoned school.

That is, until the group arrived at the main academic building.

"Is this really a school?" Caitlyn asked, completely bewildered.

Right before their eyes stood a building encircled by layers of heavy iron bars. Some of the grating was topped with rusted spikes, stained with dark, discolored splotches of questionable origin.

Aside from the main doors, which were secured by a massive padlock, the iron bars completely barricaded the entire structure.

The level of confinement here was arguably stricter than a maximum-security prison!

"Maybe something truly monstrous happened inside, forcing them to seal it all up?" Jeff muttered ominously, dialing the dread up to eleven. "This is exactly why we are here! Drake, open the door!"

Drake nodded eagerly. Pulling a blowtorch from his bag, he ignited a sharp blue flame and began slowly cutting into the gates.

Whether it was merely an illusion or not, a faint, almost imperceptible weeping sound seemed to echo through the stream as the metal was slowly seared apart.

The chat exploded:

"Oh, come on, this trick again? Playing crying sound effects?"

"Crazy Jeff has gone bad! He is learning how to fake it just like the rest of them!"

"Impossible. Look at them, they are not even scared. Is it possible they cannot hear it?"

"I guarantee Jeff would never fake anything! If he is faking this, I swear I will marry a Catholic girl!"

"Hah! Having your cake and eating it too, huh? Who does not know that Catholic girls are in high demand right now? Marrying one means a seamless transition into the current Church, allowing you to receive the blessings of those holy figures upstairs!"

"Then I wish upon you a wife from China instead!"

"Bro, that curse is way too vicious!"

The chat remained its usual raucous self, paying zero genuine attention to the actual situation at hand.

Jeff noticed Drake was still hacking away and frowned in confusion. "Drake? Did you run into a problem? Has the torch not cut through the gates yet?"

Drake was equally baffled. "I have no idea, Mr. Jeff. Why will this lock not melt?"

Staring at the completely undamaged padlock and its bizarre, Original Inhabitants style engravings, irritation flared in his chest. "Damn Indigenous Americans. They left this land ages ago, so why are we still dealing with this crap?"

With that, he viciously kicked the heavy iron doors!

"Clack!" The sound of rotting metal snapping filled the air as the solid iron gates simply collapsed forward, hitting the ground with a heavy thud. The sudden crash made Caitlyn jump out of her skin.

The beautiful blonde streamer shrieked and leaped straight into Jeff's arms, maximizing the dramatic effect for the broadcast perfectly.

The group stepped inside, completely oblivious to the humanoid phantoms slowly crawling out from the surrounding shadows in their wake.

...

The sky grew darker. Gusts of wind swept across the highway in front of the school, revealing the figure of Bai Yang seated on his motorcycle.

"Ah, so our Mr. Jeff has become the protagonist of another story? I suppose you will do! The crimes of this school are too numerous to record, making it the perfect location to channel Wish Force. Besides, there really is something buried beneath this place..."

Bai Yang snapped his fingers, and the projection of The Core materialized beside him.

"The Core, how goes the construction of your Aztec Hell, or rather, the Indigenous American Hell?"

"All data is complete, Master!" The Core's voice echoed slowly through the air. "The echoes of Mictlan have already manifested!"

"Excellent. Let them enter the story, then. The surroundings of this school are proving to be quite lively!" Bai Yang chuckled, shook his head, and vanished from the spot!