Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Hao Ren’s mind was flashing with thoughts after reading the message on the door. A sense of incomprehensibility rose in him. He reached out his hand and ran across the inscription; the characters were not very neat.
They did not seem to be the ‘official inscriptions’ left by the builders of the door to decorate or warn those who were to come but someone passing by in a hurry. Since the Calamity Cloister was used by the ancients to seal the Shades of Chaos in thousands of years ago, no one unauthorized personnel would have wandered into this place. Someone, who might have witnessed what happened, left these words here.
“Kasandzor…” Vivian looked thoughtfully at the inscription. “It sounds rather familiar, but I couldn’t recall who it is. We might have been active together back then.”
“I have a terrible feeling of this door,” Hasse said, his brows knit together and he looked serious on his face. “Even when I was on the battlefield of the ancient gods, I had never felt this heavy. There seems to be irrational malice behind the door.”
“We didn’t encounter any shadows on the way in though,” Vivian said, looking at the door. “Maybe they are all behind this door.”
Hao Ren took a deep breath and then, together with Y’zaks, placed their hands on the massive stone door. “Everyone be on alert. We’re going to open the door!”
As soon as their voices trailed off, he and Y’zaks used all their might to push the door.
The door gave way right away under pressure.
The ancient stone door ground open with a panicky sound. As the sound reverberated in the space, there seemed to be some other sounds mixed in the echoes: mourning, screaming, roaring, and the taunting sound of many creatures. The fog swelled and spread into all directions when the door opened as if something had stirred it though there was no wind at the moment. As the door fully opened, a gust of horrible air rushed out from the inside.
It was as if there were millions of mourning bells ringing and hundreds of millions of souls screaming, and a mass of chaos was rolling violently in the passageway behind the door. Focusing his vision into the passageway, Hao Ren could only see darkness. The turmoil and screams were just an illusion, perhaps a result of overstretched senses. Suddenly, some indescribable negative forces hit him on his face. He felt it as if the entire shadowy maze was collapsing towards him. He almost tumbled end over end before he regained his footing and instinctively leaned against the stone door as if he was on a boat holding on to the mast in the raging sea.
“What the heck?” Hao Ren struggled to talk. “What exactly is this?”
Hasse and Y’zaks had also experienced the same shock. Magic on the senior demon hunter responded with a faint light under his windbreaker, and flames rose on the Letta rune card in his hands, forming a protective circle around him. Hasse bent over under the attack, his teeth quivering. “Be focused! Don’t get crushed by your fear!”
Y’zaks was not affected though. Perhaps because he came from the otherworld, or it was his brute strength that enabled him to face the force head-on, save for his face which now looked miserable. “I feel anger, an indiscriminate hostility. Perhaps we shouldn’t have opened the door.”
All of them except Vivian had felt the devastating force. Standing in front of the door feeling as if nothing was happening, Vivian looked at the three of them inexplicably. “Something has come out? I still can see nothing.”
She did not even feel it.
“You’re built of special materials.” Hao Ren poked fun at the bat demon despite the dire situation. “Y’zaks, try move forward,” he said.
Dark-green demonic runes started to glow on his body. Going against the raging forces, Y’zaks stepped forwards. Less than ten meters into the passageway behind the door, his face twitched, and he flinched and came back out. “I can’t! There is a mighty mind-corroding force inside; I almost fell prey to it!”
Hao Ren was shocked. A demon king like Y’zaks could only make less than ten meters before getting beaten by the strange force.
That made him wonder what was behind the door!
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Whatever behind it, the situation could only become worse. Everyone was feeling so except Vivian.
Hao Ren had activated his Steel Membrane Shield, but it was ineffective for the situation. The force was non-physical, the solid shield had a little to no reaction at all. He could rely on the divinity to resist the mind-corroding force.
It was the little divinity Raven 12345 had shared with him as a talisman, but it seemed that it was not enough for this occasion.
Hasse’s expression was getting terrible. Compared to Y’zaks and Hao Ren who had some special protections, he could only rely on his magic and physical resistance. “What should I do now? Judging from the situation right now, we may not be able to reach the location of the Solar Roulette. We can’t even hold up in front of the door for ten more minutes!”
Hao Ren looked at Vivian, who was the only one unaffected. He gave up the idea of letting Vivian go to investigate the situation inside. There were too many unknowns and dangers. Vivian was only immune to the forces in the maze, but might be susceptible to other threats around the Solar Roulette.
“There must be a way…” Hao Ren bit his lips as his mind was racing, trying to think what magic weapons he still had at his disposal. The riotous forces coming out from the door had been very disruptive, he was unable to concentrate. He found his thinking ability rapidly weakened.
He instinctively looked into the other end of the passageway, seeing the smoothly black stonewall squirming, a door seemed to appear. He was shocked. His sanity was declining, the hidden paths and traps in the Calamity Cloister had begun to affect him.
Hao Ren instinctively took out his gun and a few Graviton Grenades from the dimensional pocket. He thought whether he should blow up the passageway and it would make a difference. Before he carried out the idea, a sudden burst of coolness came from his side, it wakened him a bit, and the phobia inside him gradually faded.
Vivian grabbed his wrist. “Hao Ren, something is not right. Let’s go back to the passageway outside.”
“We can’t do that. The forces are spreading,” Y’zaks said. “I’m afraid that the entire Calamity Cloister has been infested. The entrance is closed; there is no going back.”
Suddenly, Hao Ren felt something under his cloak. He immediately pulled out the MDT. “Don’t pretend to be dead, be something of help.”
“Like a machine, I could only think of one effective solution, which is to call in the artillery to shelter this place. The drawback is, the real world will be up in fire as well. South America will be devastated.”
“Damn you. It’d be better for you not to say anything.” Hao Ren yanked the MDT away. Then, something crossed his mind.
Strictly speaking, he suddenly remembered who he was, which he always so conveniently forgot.
“I’ve got an idea!” Hao Ren clapped, scaring Vivian out of her skin. “What idea?”
“I am a pope!” Hao Ren said, holding his head high before a chest before feeling a pain in the ass. “I don’t want to use this trick though…”
Vivian and Y’zaks asked in unison, “Which trick?”
Hao Ren put his hand on his chest, took a deep breath, and slowly said, “Devine Intervention. I’m going to call on the name of Raven 12345.”
It was the best he could think of at the moment, aside from letting the MDT open the entrance by force and evacuate. Considering that forced evacuation meant mission failure, he had no other options.
He wanted to use himself as a medium to direct some of the power of the Goddess against malicious forces.