Chapter 533

Chapter 533: .

Faced with this incomprehensible and terrifying sight, the man froze for one or two seconds. Then he suddenly let out a shout, flung the glass away in panic, and dove to the side.

The glass hit the floor and shattered at once. The remaining liquor splashed across the floor like blood. On the surface of every droplet, tiny sparks and that same gloomy, austere face seemed to flicker for an instant. The man staggered back, almost tripping over the sofa beside him. He only managed to stay on his feet by grabbing the wall for support.

Panting hard, he stared wide-eyed at the broken glass and spilled liquor on the floor. His heart pounded as if it would explode. The Smokewisp Jellyfish bound to him under the symbiotic pact drifted blindly nearby, then gradually shrank into a strange, tight ball.

The shattered glass and spilled liquor no longer held that terrifying reflection. What had just happened seemed like nothing but a horrific hallucination. The man tried to steady his breathing, hoping that taking in more fresh air would calm him down. A faint, shaky thought began to rise from his heart. Maybe it really was an illusion. Maybe he really was just too nervous…

“It is all illusions, all illusions… It is mental instability after exposure to Subspace…” he muttered quickly, talking to himself as he laid down layer after layer of mental suggestion. At the same time he drew power from the Abyssal demon of his symbiotic pact to build spiritual defenses. “Stop associating, stop remembering, avoid connections, avoid connections… Holy Master, grant me Your shelter. Let me live forever in the Abyssal Deep. Holy Master, grant…”

“I appreciate your optimistic spirit,” a voice sounded in his ear, “but blind optimism does not solve anything. Relax. I only want to learn a few things from you.”

The man broke off his prayer at once. The voice that reached his ears was like a dreadful whisper from Subspace itself, clutching his mind with an almost physical grip. In stiff, jerky movements, he turned his neck toward the source of the sound—and saw it on the glass of the cabinet. In the glass, ghost-green flame burned quietly. Within the flames was reflected that ghost from Subspace.

“Get out!”

A surge of courage came from nowhere. The Annihilator suddenly grew vicious. He flung out his hand, drawing on the strength of the Smokewisp Jellyfish, and hurled a murky, corrosive ball of energy at the cabinet. With a thunderous bang, the entire cabinet exploded into splinters. Glass shards flew through the room.

But before the shards even hit the ground, that terrifying figure appeared again—this time on a mirror in the corner of the room. “Have you vented enough? If you have, let us talk calmly.”

At last, the cultist found the pattern—mirrors.

That Subspace ghost could invade this place through mirrors!

The next second, the man smashed the mirror in the corner without hesitation. Then he went berserk, destroying every glass ornament on the nearby shelves and every object within sight that could reflect an image!

Sharp crashes rang out over and over as glass shattered across the room. Whatever he could smash, he smashed. Whatever he could not smash, he covered with newspapers, clothes, or anything else he could grab. Fear turned into anger, and anger turned into a false courage. Fueled by that “courage,” the cultist moved at frantic speed, sealing off and destroying every medium in the room that might let the Subspace ghost “descend.” All the while, ghost-green flames flickered from one reflective surface to another, and that grim figure in the mirrors almost never stopped harassing him.

New mirrors kept appearing. New voices kept speaking. New faces kept surfacing within his field of view, gazing at him with gloomy divine eyes.

He did not know how long this ghastly torment continued, but at last it began to fade.

The man had almost destroyed or covered every object in the room that could reflect anything. He had drawn thick curtains over all the windows. As he hurled the last glass vase into the trash, the building fell silent again.

Darkness had settled outside. Inside the room, only the glow of the oil lamp flickered faintly. At some point, the terrifying ghost-green tint had faded from the flame. Standing amid the wreckage, the cultist gulped for air as he watched the dimness and quiet pressing in around him.

It really seemed that the ghost would not appear again.

Even the Smokewisp Jellyfish bound to him under the symbiotic pact had quieted. It now looked withered. The smoke curling from its body was thin and dim, as if the recent struggle had consumed so much of its power that it could hardly maintain a form in the Mortal Realm.

The man stood in the darkness for a long time, as if weighing something with great care. Only after a long while did he slowly let out a breath, reach for the black coat on the sofa, and quickly pull it on.

The noise in the room just now had been loud. It might already have attracted the neighbors’ attention. In a remote neighborhood like this, the constables were always slow to respond, but as long as someone filed a report, trouble might still come knocking.

What was more, this room had already been marked by that Subspace ghost. It was no longer safe. Smashing and covering the mirrors only blocked the channels through which the ghost could descend, but could never truly remove its influence.

Right now, the ghost was only temporarily kept out of the Mortal Realm. Before the constables reacted and before the ghost found a new way to intrude, the only right choice was to leave as fast as possible.

The man quickly laid out his next steps in his mind. He buttoned his coat, hid away the demon of his symbiotic pact, and strode toward the door.

But just before leaving the room, he stopped again. His eyes fell on the pile of junk in the center of the room, covered with newspapers and torn rags.

He thought for a moment, then flung out a hand and hurled a dark ball of energy—the papers and cloth flew away, revealing a heap of shattered mirrors and glass scattered over the floor, glinting with cold, ominous light in the gloom.

“It will be better if someone reports this.”

The man smiled in satisfaction, then did not dare look at those shards any longer. He turned, opened the door, and slipped out into the veil of night.

He moved cautiously through the streets and alleys, using the shadows of the buildings as cover and sometimes hiding his form with spells. He quickly left the area that was no longer safe and, following the familiar routes in his memory, ran toward the Lower City.

Curfew had already begun. Guardians were on the streets. Anyone wandering outside might be stopped and questioned. But for a cultist who had been active in this city-state for many years and was long used to life under the veil of night, this was not much of a problem.

As long as he did not cause too much noise, the “blind spots” right under the noses of the Church’s guardians were everywhere.

Hidden in the darkness, the figure slipped through the checkpoint between districts, then entered the more tangled, ancient alleys of the Lower City. After winding through countless turns and side streets, he finally stopped in front of an old, ordinary-looking house.

The man carefully checked his surroundings, making sure there was no sign of that eerie ghost-green fire in his vision and no suspicious noise in his mind. Only then did he let out a small breath and step forward to knock on the door in a set pattern.

He waited patiently until footsteps approached on the other side. A lowered voice sounded from behind the door:

“It is late. Whatever it is, talk about it tomorrow.”

“The night is very deep. My traveling companion and I just want to come in and rest our feet—we have brought some interesting stories from afar.”

Silence fell behind the door. After roughly ten seconds, a soft click sounded as the lock turned. The door opened quietly in the dark, and a thin, small figure appeared in the doorway under the dim light.

“Come in. Do not make too much noise.”

The man nodded, slipped quickly inside, and closed the door behind him. Only when he heard the soft click of the lock settling back into place did he finally relax a little, a look of relief crossing his face like someone who had barely escaped with his life.

“Why did you come at this hour?” the thin figure asked, still watching the “brother” who had just entered with caution. Although his identity had already been confirmed, his behavior did not fit “protocol,” which put the thin man on edge. “We did not receive any advance word from you.”

“Something sudden happened,” the man in the black coat said, shaking his head and lowering his voice. “My operation failed. An unexpected Higher Being intervened, and now He has His eyes on me—but do not worry, I have temporarily blocked His channels into the Mortal Realm. Right now the urgent thing is to report this upward…”

The small-bodied cultist’s expression turned solemn at once. He quickly cut him off and stopped him from saying more. Then he picked up an oil lamp from the nearby table and walked toward the corner as he spoke softly: “Come with me. We will go underground. Do not speak of our actions under the Four Gods’ gaze.”

“All right.”

The small cultist opened a hidden door in the corner. The two figures, one after the other, slipped into a sloping passage that led down.

Soon, they reached the gathering place beneath the building.

Calling it a gathering place was generous. It was really just a secret basement that had been dug out in secret. In the not-so-large room, several chairs stood around a round table. A few oil lamps burned upon it, alongside a messy spread of tools and materials used for rituals and heretical worship.

At the far end of the room stood a dark statue. It looked like an eerie, twisted “tree.” Its black trunk branched into dizzying, thorn-like limbs that radiated a faint, unsettling presence.

The man in the black coat walked down the steps and saw that several figures were already gathered here. They were the “brothers” who had followed procedure and hurried underground the moment he knocked on the door.

His gaze swept over these “brothers,” and they raised their heads in turn, examining this Visitor who had come after nightfall.

After a few heartbeats, the tight air in the room eased a little. The man in the black coat let out a breath, walked up to the round table, and sat down on an empty chair.

Closest to him sat a man with dry, yellowish hair and a sickly, gloomy face. He looked up at the newcomer, stared for a moment in silence, then suddenly asked, “You ran into trouble?”

“I could not break through that ‘dream’. The Enders must have given us bad information—damn it, I should have known. No one is worth trusting except the Holy Master’s followers…”

“Slow down. Calm yourself first,” the sickly-faced man said, forcing out a small smile as he picked up a glass of water from nearby and slid it over. “Drink some water.”

The man in the black coat took the glass and exhaled. “Thanks, Duncan.”

…

“Reynard! Please, be a decent person!”

“Eh? A person? But I am a fox spirit.”

“And also, please call me Adoptive Father.” )