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Hao Ren didn't know why places associated with evil spirits, curses, and witchcraft had to be so gloomy and terrifying. In fact, this kind of atmospheric arrangement had no effect on the effectiveness of witchcraft. He had asked magic experts like Izhaks and Vivian to verify that the magic circle for summoning the dead didn't necessarily have to be carved on black stones, and that evil runes didn't clash with gold paint. Magic was flexible and adaptable; it never shunned decoration.

Therefore, he felt that the underground palace sealing evil spirits could be fitted with a hundred or so fluorescent lamps to make it brightly lit. Next to the magic circle, two rows of Teletubbies and Pleasant Goat could be set up. Of course, SpongeBob SquarePants could be painted all over the evil spirit's coffin—these things wouldn't affect the sealing effect itself.

After Hao Ren threw out these wild ideas, he was naturally scolded by Vivian, but he sincerely felt that this was worth trying. At least it could make the sealing place seem more friendly, which would be good for the mental and physical health of the guardians. Moreover, he felt that such a setup would effectively enhance the sealing effect: imagine, the devils and evil spirits who were sealed up pushed open a coffin painted with SpongeBob SquarePants, stepped on a Pleasant Goat puzzle floor, with a row of Calabash Brothers on the left and a row of Balala the Fairies on the right. Even Sargeras would have to hesitate before stepping down from the altar…

Anyway, Vivian stated that if someone ever summoned her with an altar in this style, she would rather die in the teleportation portal…

But no matter how much Hao Ren complained, the underground palace of the Andre family's castle was still eerie.

In the rectangular stone chamber, several blurry portraits, almost impossible to distinguish faces, hung on both sides. Facing the slope was the stone wall with the veiled witch, and other than that, the stone chamber was empty, making it look like a strange art gallery.

Next to the witch's portrait was a small, tightly locked iron door. A thin layer of white frost was frozen on the iron door. At first, Hao Ren thought it was just moisture in the underground freezing on the iron door at low temperatures, but he soon discovered that the frost was moving.

It was like a layer of light that was breathing, slowly fluctuating on the iron door.

"Do all Nu Ling (wrathful spirits) like to play tricks?" Hao Ren felt a chill in his heart from the strange atmosphere here, but after checking the capacity of his shield, he boldly stepped forward and pushed the iron door. To his surprise, the iron door opened with a push. "It's not locked? Aren't they afraid of the Nu Ling escaping?"

"This door isn't to stop the Nu Ling, it's to stop humans—it serves as a boundary marker to indicate the border between the human world and the realm of ghosts, to prevent some unlucky person from breaking in," Nangong Sanba tightened his crossbow, looking very nervous. "Once we cross this door, we'll be separated from normal space. The further we go, the more we enter the world of the Nu Ling. The deepest part is a crazy place like another world. Don't be careless. I know you're all good fighters, but fighting Nu Ling isn't about being a good fighter."

Behind the iron door was a dark, empty corridor, with no lighting equipment inside.

Hao Ren took the lead, letting the data terminal float in front of him to illuminate the way, while stroking the stone walls beside him. He felt that the stone walls were very fragile, and a large amount of sand-like material would fall off with a light touch. "How long has it been since anyone came to this place?"

"Not counting my trip here a few days ago, at least two hundred years," Nangong Sanba's voice came from behind. "The first few generations of the Andre family had some exorcism and life-saving skills, probably learned from the witch. They were still able to enter this iron door to reinforce the surface seal, but soon the Nu Ling influenced their subsequent family descendants and completely eliminated the exorcism power from the Andre family. It is said that no one from the Andre family has entered this iron door since then... but perhaps a few brave exorcists have gone in, who knows."

The bricks of the stone wall were rough and cold, and some rune-like engravings could be vaguely seen on them. Hao Ren reached out to touch the engravings, but the fragility of the bricks was beyond his imagination, and a large amount of sand fell off on the spot.

No… it wasn't sand falling from the bricks!

Hao Ren looked at his fingers, gently rubbed them, and then watched helplessly as his skin and flesh disintegrated like a dry sand sculpture, with brown-yellow sand falling from between his fingers, followed by his palm, wrist, forearm…

"Illusion," Hao Ren was puzzled for two seconds in surprise, then shook his hand vigorously. He finally felt his mental power resisting some kind of inexplicable erosion. As the erosion receded, his hand returned to its original state. "Be careful, this place creates illusions."

Becky, who was walking next to him, also seemed to have just woken up from a dream. The silly smile on her face quickly turned into anger. "I finally saw a mountain of gold, but it's just a damn special effect?!"

Needless to say, Hao Ren knew what this girl had just seen.

The dark corridor stretched forward to an unknown place, and the light of the data terminal seemed a bit weak, so Lily raised the Fire of Great Joy to help illuminate the way. Her eyes had turned golden, forcibly detecting the surrounding illusions with senses beyond human capabilities. As she walked, Hao Ren could hear her muttering in a low voice: "Braised ribs are fake, sweet and sour ribs are fake, meat buns are fake, spicy strips… spicy strips… spicy strips are fake…"

It wasn't easy for her to open the way forward while dealing with the influence of the illusion corridor.

Continuing to delve deeper, strange cold winds began to appear in the tunnel, as if there was an exit to the surface in this deep underground corridor. As Hao Ren walked, he felt something strange under his feet. He looked down and found that he had stepped on thick snow at some point.

The corridors on both sides became wider and wider, and the walls twisted and stretched away abnormally, leaving behind incongruous tree stumps and broken columns in the open space. Everything was covered with a thick layer of snow, and snowflakes kept falling from the darkness, swirling and rushing towards everyone under the increasingly strong strange wind. Hao Ren looked up and found that he could no longer see the rocky ceiling of the corridor: above was only endless darkness, and heavy snow was falling from the darkness.

Becky drew a delicate one-handed sword from under her coat, and a layer of flame quickly burned on the blade. She looked serious. "Illusion?"

"No, it's real," Nangong Sanba held a crossbow in one hand and took out a few small medicine bottles from his arms with the other. "We have crossed the boundary line of reality. This is the territory of the Nu Ling. Any abnormal scene is real—this is the result of space-time distortion."

"Terminal, scan." Hao Ren simply ordered.

"Energy convergence phenomenon in the front left."

Nangong Sanba immediately raised his crossbow and pointed it in that direction. Almost at the same time, a blurry white light suddenly appeared in the dark open space in front. The light emitted bursts of chilling screams, and the corridor walls on both sides, which had already been stretched to an abnormal position, twisted even more, disappearing from everyone's sight in the blink of an eye, making this place unprecedentedly open.

With a soft "bang" of the bowstring, Nangong Sanba fired a silver-white crossbow bolt, but this bolt was not lethal: it suddenly exploded when it flew in front of the Nu Ling, bursting out a burst of golden light. Under the illumination of this light, the figure of the Nu Ling seemed to materialize for a moment, and Nangong Sanba took the opportunity to throw out the small medicine bottle in his other hand.

The medicine bottle shattered the moment it touched the Nu Ling, and the holy salt inside ignited a raging fire.

However, the Nu Ling was completely unaffected by such an attack. It just swayed aimlessly in place for a while, and then suddenly rushed towards Hao Ren!

Hao Ren had already taken out his sidearm (he wasn't sure if his long spear could deal with this thing that didn't even have a physical body). He raised his gun and fired the moment the Nu Ling pounced.

With a bang, blue and white light exploded, and a large number of small, shattered sky-blue crystals fell from the air.

Hao Ren's shot did hit the Nu Ling, but the latter's body expanded into a large white mist in that instant, and the You Neng (etheric energy) sidearm only dissolved a small part of this white mist!

The shadow re-condensed, but just as it was about to launch a second attack, a bright electric net suddenly flew from the side. The electric net was composed of countless small bats, each bat acting as a node, bursting out a large amount of thin electric current to connect with other bats. The net they formed was even larger than the Nu Ling when it spread into white mist, and enveloped the latter in the blink of an eye.

The electric net and the Nu Ling collided violently, and then all the flash disappeared without a trace, and only a group of small bats flew back to Vivian's side with a flutter.

Lily scratched her head. "Is that it?"

"No, that was just saying hello to it," Vivian frowned. "What we saw just now was just a 'phenomenon' caused by the Nu Ling. We haven't even seen its main body yet."

Hao Ren breathed a sigh of relief, looking at the dark snowy field spreading out in front of him—he kept reminding himself that he was in a corridor under the Andre castle, but the scene in front of him really made him not know how to evaluate it.

"What the hell is this thing?" (The novel "Unusual Creature Records" will have more fresh content on the official WeChat platform, and there will also be a 100% prize draw for everyone! Open WeChat now, click the "+" sign in the upper right corner to "Add Friends", search for the official account "qdread" and follow us quickly!)