Chapter 1 Aromatic Herbs

A strong smell of herbs permeated the room.

No, it didn't permeate; it appeared in the senses instantly—as if that strong scent had already filled the entire space at some unknown time, but this fact had always been shielded from the reality, and until this moment, as the old caretaker's voice fell, this omnipresent aura suddenly revealed its existence to the uninvited guests!

The two men in black reacted almost instantly. The shorter man suddenly raised his hand and pointed at the old caretaker who was standing by the stove, uttering a low, hoarse, and strange cry, as if two voices were overlapping. The other man quickly pulled out several pieces of paper with a dirty texture from his arms and threw them into the air.

The low, hoarse, strange cry turned into a blurry wave that was vaguely visible to the naked eye, covering the space around the old caretaker like an exploding shockwave. The pieces of paper thrown into the air split into countless shadowy fragments with a rustling sound. Upon landing, they turned into countless black poisonous insects, snakes, and scorpions, swarming towards the stove while making a disgusting rustling sound.

The old caretaker hunched his back, silently watching these sinister attacks rushing towards him, without any intention of dodging.

The shock wave tore apart the shelf next to the stove, smashing all the bottles and jars into pieces with a loud noise, and also smashed the burning stove, instantly extinguishing the flames in the furnace that were emitting a strong herbal scent. The dark mass of poisonous insects, snakes, and scorpions crawled onto the old man's body, frantically gnawing at his limbs and flesh.

The old caretaker was almost instantly swallowed by these attacks. His hunched, old body fell to the ground, turning into a pile of messy blood and pieces of clothing.

All of this happened in a matter of seconds. It wasn't until the caretaker fell to the ground and the embers in the furnace scattered all over the place that the two women in white exchanged a relaxed glance.

Both of them had the same puzzled expression on their faces.

"The aura of demons—now I know who you are. So, you are two Annihilation cultists. Your disguise is very good, deceiving my eyes, but not my intuition," the old caretaker continued, "Why are you here? What do you want?"

However, the expected death did not come.

The sudden sound startled the two women in white and also intensified the sense of fear that had been rising in them, and this fear often turned into impotent rage—the shorter woman gave up trying to push the door open and turned to shout at the air, "I don't care where you're hiding!"

The Annihilation cultist looked up in astonishment, looking at his companion not far away, only to see that this figure had fallen to the ground at some unknown time, with a huge hole in his back, and the blood had already drained away.

What about himself?

Knowing that there was no hope and that it was difficult to fight against the cemetery caretaker with his own strength, the cultist chose to sacrifice his heart to the Holy Lord of the Abyss in order to fully release the power he had obtained in the "symbiotic contract" and make a final fight.

The old man narrowed his eyes. In his vision, there was a pale and dim outline standing outside the door. Around this outline, he could see some distorted and chaotic light and shadow, but he couldn't see what it was.

The old caretaker slowly raised his shotgun and aimed at the hazy outline outside the door through the door.

The knocking on the door came patiently. "Another end-of-life hallucination. Fear and anger will be amplified, producing a strong sense of powerlessness, and often feel as if you are omnipotent, and even about to successfully reverse life and death—but that illusion often dissipates in an extremely short moment, and then you fall into greater fear..."

"Is that it?" The taller woman looked at the wreckage on the ground in disbelief and said to her companion in confusion, "These cemetery caretakers, who are said to be bizarre in legends... are so easy to deal with? Or is this old man the weakest of the caretakers?"

There was a strange aura approaching.

His reliable old double-barreled shotgun was placed next to his hand, and the mess left over from the brief fight was everywhere around him.

He didn't even feel his own heart.

The door... opened by itself.

A burst of brilliant and twisted starlight rushed towards him.

However, before he could pull the trigger, a slight click suddenly entered his ears.

He came to the door and was about to open it, but suddenly stopped.

"The Holy Lord grants us courage and pure essence!" The shorter woman said loudly. She forcibly suppressed the fear in her heart by relying on her faith in the Holy Lord of the Abyss and gradually fell into a kind of fanatical sacrifice, "You stupid mundane counterfeits can be complacent! You can only be complacent for a while!"

However, he didn't find anything. The shock wave tore apart everything in the room, stirring up the air, but it didn't force out the caretaker's figure.

An old voice echoed in the hut. For some reason, the two women in white suddenly felt that the voice seemed to become erratic, sometimes near and sometimes far, like light and shadow through a curtain.

A red-hot fire tong was fiercely inserted between her chest and abdomen, and wisps of green smoke were still rising from the place where the fire tong came into contact with the flesh.

"Knock, knock, knock—"

The cultist muttered, his head tilted, and he completely lost his breath.

After speaking, the cultist suddenly took out a black dagger from his arms, and then stabbed the dagger into his heart without hesitation!

"Open the door, please." A polite voice came from outside the door.

As soon as he finished speaking, layers of illusory ripples appeared around him, and in the ripples, he could vaguely see a beautiful bird-like monster standing on his shoulder, stretching its neck and screaming—this was a "Death Omen Bird" demon.

The old man didn't speak, just stared at the dark old wooden door.

She hadn't guessed the caretaker's trick—it was an illusion.

The caretaker used the dual effects of extraordinary power and herbs to hide himself and act mysteriously in this hut, but since his voice was still here, it meant that he was just hiding next to him. As long as the entire house was swept once, the old thing would always be exposed.

The deafening sound of furniture tearing and the huge noise of furnishings falling and smashing instantly rose and fell. The caretaker's small hut was in a mess in the blink of an eye. Almost everything was smashed into pieces in this invisible shock wave, only the other woman in white remained intact—the tall and strong woman in white propped up a barrier, blocking the aftermath of the shock wave while quickly scanning her surroundings, trying to find the hidden caretaker from the distortion of the air.

The screams of the abyssal demons and the shouts of the tall woman overlapped, and a translucent shock wave instantly swept the entire room!

The shorter woman didn't dare to relax at all. She still stared at the position where the old caretaker had been standing before, while quickly scanning the small hut with the corner of her eye. Her brows furrowed a little, "Strange... I didn't smell... the smell of herbs is getting stronger and stronger? It's like someone is lighting incense next to me... No! Get out of here!"

The tall Annihilation cultist lowered his head and saw that he was actually sitting on the chair in the center of the room.

"The end-of-life hallucination is over. May your souls dissipate, with neither blessings nor suffering."

A look of vigilance instantly appeared in the old man's eyes. He suddenly tightened his grip on the shotgun in his hand.

And the next second, a knock on the door came from the other side of the door panel.

A hallucination caused by burning some potent hallucinogen.

"So that's how it is... People can't... die twice..."

In the last few seconds when his vision was rapidly darkening and his mind was gradually confused and disordered, he recognized that this was the terrifying wound caused by a close-range bombardment with a double-barreled shotgun—his companion had already died, and was killed by the old caretaker with a shot from behind the moment he stepped into the caretaker's hut.

She didn't feel the sharp pain that she should have felt when the dagger pierced her body.

What is that?!

On this cold and quiet winter night, the sudden knock on the door was a bit piercing.

The short woman seemed to suddenly understand something and rushed towards the wooden door of the hut, but when she reached out and pushed the door, she found that it was as firm as a wall, and the seemingly strong wooden board felt like cast iron.

"It's really useless... I was so embarrassed by two heretics, and in the end, I didn't ask anything," the old caretaker muttered, striding over the tall corpse lying on the floor and the other corpse on the chair, carrying the shotgun towards the wooden door of the hut, "There are two more troubles outside, hopefully there's still time."

"The Holy Lord grants me power beyond life and death!"

The old man took a few breaths in the chair, recovered some strength, then reached out and took the shotgun from the side, supported his knees and propped himself up from the chair.

Not a living person—but definitely not a dead person either.

He recalled that he had been defeated in a brief and peaceful fight and killed by a fire tong—just ten seconds ago.

An old and sinister voice rang out in the hut: "One of the end-of-life hallucinations, believing that you are trapped in a room, and the passage to leave the room is right in front of you, trying to pass through this passage, but unable to find the correct way to open the door."

The one outside the door is not a living person.