novelraw Chapter 866: He Wore a Faded Black Cloak
Chapter 866: He Wore a Faded Black Cloak
Humans could not survive the Severe Winter, the fog tide, and the Eternal Night.
Not even under the protection of a vengeful spirit.
The Distorted Figure, who knew this all too well, relayed a prophecy to find someone in the settlement willing to escort them.
The tentacle cultists, led by the ones who had previously made contact with Lu Li and his companions, refused with disgust.
They could not betray their faith by escorting "heretics" who were hostile to their camp.
However, at that moment, followers of the Church of the Vine arrived, declaring that they would safely lead them out of Belfast.
“Did the Prophet send you?” Lu Li asked, but received no answer from the impassive follower.
But silence was an answer in itself.
Given the Eternal Dreamer's accurate prophecies and his knowledge of Lu Li, they had no doubt that the followers of the Church of the Vine could guide them to safety.
Following their guides, they returned to the Church of the Vine and entered one of its rooms.A grayish-brown slime bubbled in a pool, and a follower of the Church of the Vine gestured for Lu Li to enter.
“Don’t... resist...”
Ophelia went first, dipping her palm into the pool. The grayish-brown slime clung to her, forming a waxy layer that radiated the aura of an anomaly.
A high enough temperature would melt the wax.
Convinced it would conceal their auras, Lu Li stepped into the slime, allowing it to cover his entire body.
The Sanity Counter, submerged in the slime, began to crackle. It was a necessary price.
After a brief immersion, Lu Li climbed out of the slime, his body now coated in a grayish-brown wax that glistened in the light of the oil lamp.
Being coated in the slimy wax was far from comfortable—it left his body feeling greasy and sluggish—but the benefits were undeniable.
“It’s time to go.”
Lu Li’s dark eyes swept over Prusius’s anxious face.
The settlement's gates slowly swung open, and beyond the red haze of the bonfires, a spectral darkness stretched into the distance.
The impassive followers of the Church of the Vine stepped beyond the gates.
Lu Li and the others, carrying an oil lamp, followed them under the gazes of the other followers, venturing deeper into the dark fog.
...
White snow drifted through the gray fog, falling into a black world.
The wax concealed Lu Li's "human" scent.
But that didn't mean they were safe. In the fog tide, anomalies were both prey and predator...
Ophelia suppressed her aura. Vengeful spirits were far from the top of the food chain in the anomalous fog; recklessly unleashing her aura would only draw in predators.
The escorting followers of the Church of the Vine offered some reassurance—the Prophet knew they would leave the church, and he knew they would have to travel through the fog tide and the Eternal Night.
In the darkness-shrouded fog, they were not alone.
Footsteps kept pace with them, and strange sounds whisked by in the gloom.
They saw dense, glowing points, like oil lamps, pass around a street corner.
They didn't know what the lights were, but they were certain they didn't belong to creatures like them.
The path out of Belfast was not a straight one; the impassive followers, guided by the Prophet's prophecy, wound their way through the ruins of Belfast, avoiding both obvious and hidden dangers.
This made the power of the Prophet's foresight all the more apparent.
Approaching the noon of the Eternal Night, they reached the peak of Sugard Mountain, with Agate Lake just ahead.
The followers of the Church of the Vine stopped. They would escort them no further.
“It... they’re still behind us.”
Prusius was curled into a ball at their feet.
Prusius felt a throbbing in his blood, a terrifying closeness.
And so did they.
“Did the Prophet say anything else?”
“No.”
Now, the Prophet no longer protected them. Or perhaps, the Prophet believed they could handle the rest of the journey themselves?
“Lu... Mr. Lu Li, Miss Ophelia...”
Filthy and pathetic, his fur peeling off in sticky, fish-smelling patches, Prusius raised his human face:
“Let me stay. They know where I am, and if I go with you, I’ll only bring trouble...”
Ophelia remained silent, waiting for Lu Li's decision regarding Prusius.
“Lead them to Agate Lake,” Lu Li said, looking at the human face Prusius had suddenly lifted toward him.
The Sigh-Worm and its vampire-anomaly minions occupying Agate Lake would surely delay the pursuing heretics.
“Then come back. We’ll wait for you on the mountainside.”
“Mr. Lu Li...”
“Hurry up,” Lu Li interrupted, cutting through his sentimentality.
Relieved at not being abandoned, Prusius gave an excited bark, snatched the piece of fluorite Ophelia tossed him, and plunged into the darkness.
Lu Li and Ophelia continued on their way to the northern side of the mountain.
But before the Church of the Vine's followers vanished at the edge of the oil lamp’s glow, Prusius came charging back, roaring wildly.
“Don’t you dare leave!”
Ophelia knocked him unconscious with a single blow, lifted him by the scruff of his neck, and glanced at Lu Li.
“We’re going to the Sentry Post,” Lu Li said.
Perhaps there was another place where they could hide.
At the edge of the oil lamp's light, the outlines of buildings were no longer visible; the broken bluestone road had been replaced by a blanket of snow.
The path to the Sentry Post seemed calm; aside from strange sounds from the depths of the fog, they had no more close encounters with the creatures within it.
Usually, that meant one of two things.
Either the creatures in the fog weren't interested in this area, or—
A turbulent blast of air tore through the snowstorm, and a foul wind slammed into their faces.
At the edge of the oil lamp's glow, a bottomless maw gaped open, swallowing the two followers who were caught off guard. The maw then instantly desiccated into a leathery sack, which was torn to shreds by the driving snow.
They held their breath and stood motionless for several minutes before continuing on their way.
Thanks to that unknown creature, they encountered no other entities in the fog and successfully reached the Sentry Post.
In the Sentry Post, there was no sign of the Teegole family that had occupied the place, nor of the Pavlov werewolves who had recently attacked; the snow had hidden all traces of their battle.
“You want... the Teegole... family... to help you?”
“No.”
Prusius had not yet woken up, so they couldn't learn the heretics' location from him. But this wasn't entirely a bad thing; at least Prusius could no longer serve as the heretics' eyes.
Lu Li kept to the edge of the street, wading through calf-deep snow in search of a building from his memories.
The houses were covered in frozen growths, like parasites, and their outlines were difficult to make out, but Lu Li still remembered their location.
Neither the members of the Teegole family nor the Pavlov werewolves were anywhere to be seen.
They seemed to have abandoned the place.
The ugly growths covering the building made it hard to distinguish, but Lu Li found it.
Entering the building through the nest's entrance, they saw that the mycelium covering every corner of the floor, walls, and ceiling had frozen, turning into crystalline flowers.
Approaching the outline of an iron door, Lu Li took out a dagger, cut through the frozen mycelium, and opened the door.
A dark passage leading to a basement was revealed.
Ophelia, holding the oil lamp, entered first. Lu Li watched her go in silence, then descended the steps.
“Where... is this?” Ophelia asked, raising the oil lamp as they stepped off the last stair.
The ruins of a collapsed basement came into view.
“An exorcist’s house.”
Lu Li bent down, reaching for the rubble, then, remembering something, looked at his bandaged left hand.
“Is... he still here?”
“He’s in hell. Help me clear this rubble.”
“Sorry...”
Ophelia handed the oil lamp to Lu Li, touched the rubble, and released her power to heat it, gradually melting it into viscous lava.
“Then... what are you... looking for?”
The molten lava flowed nearby, and in the depths of the basement, now bathed in a dark red glow, a black, carved door set into the wall was revealed.
“I’m going to hell to find him.”