Chapter 1 A Sudden Turn of Events

The sudden turn of events didn't throw anyone into disarray. Everyone gripped their weapons and prepared their spells, retreating in an orderly and rapid fashion from the increasingly strange abandoned house. As soon as they were outside, Hao Ren noticed an unusual sight:

A huge, translucent罩子 (zhàozi - cover/shield) had enveloped the abandoned house at some point. This energy shield-like thing had pale magical runes floating on its surface. The thick fog around the town gathered above it, spinning and compressing into a fluid as substantial as liquid and being injected into the energy shield. It blocked everyone's path from all directions. Lily immediately drew her ice-fire claws, ready to dig a hole, but Nangong Sanba quickly grabbed the rash girl: "Don't act rashly! Let's figure out what this thing is first."

"We're trapped," Hesperide's expression was unusually ugly. "It's a trap!"

Hao Ren was briefly stunned, then began rummaging through his dimensional pocket to see if he had any tools of suitable power, but before he could pull anything out, something suddenly moved in the open space outside the barrier: the dense fog churned violently, and a whirlwind carrying black smoke rose in the fog. This black smoke rapidly gathered a large amount of soot from all directions and gradually formed a human figure—it was none other than the "Heimwin" lord who had dissipated in the house earlier.

However, this man now looked very different from his previous hunched-over, cowering appearance. He stood up straight, held a strange-looking short scepter in his hand, and had a detached, cold expression on his face, standing outside the transparent shield as if looking at a group of experimental materials: "Do you know how long I've waited?"

Nangong Sanba raised his crossbow and aimed at the other party: "Heimwin, what does this mean?!"

"Just collecting the necessary power for my gate," the "Heimwin lord" said expressionlessly, pointing to the magic barrier above everyone, "I advise you not to act rashly. This contains the magic I have accumulated over centuries, and its power is enough to trap an ancient god from the mythical era for a short time. You have nowhere to go. The smartest thing to do is to be quiet and wait for it to drain you. If you don't resist, it won't be very painful."

As "Heimwin" finished speaking, the magic barrier above everyone emitted a series of slight buzzing sounds. The pale runes moved back and forth in a complex manner, beginning to extract the life force of everything within the barrier. Hao Ren noticed that the weeds under his feet rapidly turned to ashes at a visible speed, and even the large house behind everyone kept making strange creaking sounds. Nangong Sanba and Cassandra were the first to react. They felt dizzy, and the power within them was flowing away rapidly as if a hole had been broken!

Hesperide finally reacted at this moment, pointing her long whip at "Heimwin": "You're not the lord...you're Baptiste?!"

The man outside the barrier nodded expressionlessly: "Was it that hard to guess? You only just reacted now, little vampire girl."

Hao Ren suddenly understood what was going on. It turned out that everyone had been fooled from the beginning!

The man in front of them was not some so-called lord's ghost at all. He was actually the wizard Baptiste that everyone was looking for—he had applied necromancy to himself, transforming himself into that kind of ashen, neither-human-nor-ghost monster, thereby completely erasing the traces of magical erosion on his body as a wizard. Everything he had said before was false—this guy's goal from the beginning was to lure people into this abandoned house on the highlands.

He had set up a black magic array here that could extract the power of living beings!

Hao Ren thought about all the performances of the other party when he acted as "Heimwin," that cowering and cowardly posture, that occasional neurotic and occasionally hysterical manic reaction. Now it seemed that these actions were all disguises, to divert the attention of his group: he made himself look like a flustered fool of a nobleman, so that no one would pay too much attention to what he said, nor would they ask him too many questions!

"I've waited for a long time!" Baptiste seemed to have determined that the people in the barrier had no ability to resist. He waited for the magic array to extract enough magic while talking to himself, "I left many hidden clues, just waiting for unlucky people like you. Ah... how rare are experimental materials with magic, the power I extract from a hundred ordinary people is not as much as what a magician can provide, and today so many have come at once! Prepared for so long, prepared for so long! Now I'm finally going to gather the last bit of magic I need... I can finally go to the depths of purgatory!"

Baptiste seemed to be immersed in some kind of manic imagination. Living alone like a ghost in this ghostly place for hundreds of years had completely driven him crazy. He waved the strange short staff in his hand unconsciously while talking to himself, his face constantly changing between wooden and crazy. And as he spoke, Hao Ren saw something emerging in the thick fog a few meters away.

Strands of fog flowed in the air like substance, outlining a huge vortex under the traction of magic. Layers of red light emerged from the fog out of thin air, gradually forming a spherical giant structure. It was like a huge eyeball with a radius of several meters embedded in the ground. Within the sphere of light and mist, distorted scenery like another world was faintly visible.

The Gate of Purgatory—Baptiste had actually found the connection pattern between the purgatory space and Earth. Everything was as precise as calculated. As the magic gathered, the Gate of Purgatory appeared in the focal point of the magic vortex!

It sounds long, but all of this happened in a very short period of time. After noticing that the situation was not good, Hesperide immediately launched an attack on the magic barrier. She raised her long whip high, and the whip was surrounded by fierce ice winds and crackling electric currents. The whip brought a thunderous roar when it was swung down, and the impact on the barrier was as powerful as a thousand pounds, but this attack had no effect. Then, Duncan and Cassandra also launched a series of attacks on the magic barrier, but after a series of violent explosions and vibrations, the barrier remained motionless.

The short staff in Baptiste's hand flashed a few times when the barrier was attacked. He glanced at Hesperide indifferently: "Meaningless struggle, it will only waste your strength."

"Do you know who you're scheming against? My name alone can scare your balls off!" Hesperide angrily pointed at Baptiste and cursed, then looked at Hao Ren, jumping up and down, "Aren't you supposed to be awesome? Hurry up and think of something!"

Hao Ren reached into his dimensional pocket to get a bomb, but before he could pull it out, he saw Lily suddenly run to the front of the barrier.

The husky girl first scratched the barrier with her two claws to confirm that it was really strong, and then did something that no one could have imagined:

She lay on the ground and quickly dug a hole...

Everyone knew about this girl's ability to dig holes. Even with her bare hands, she could dig a hole and bury herself in the blink of an eye, let alone now that she was wielding two claws. On the spot, only soil and rocks were seen flying, and the sand behind Lily was sprayed backwards like a fountain. In almost a few seconds, she dug a hole under the magic barrier that she could crawl out of.

Yes, she just crawled out.

At this time, Baptiste was still holding his staff and posing. It wasn't that he didn't see Lily's actions, but even if he did, he really couldn't think of what to do: this is how normal people think when they first encounter a husky. This wizard, full of bad ideas, just stared blankly as Lily dug a hole and crawled out, completely unable to think of how to stop her... because he was completely unprepared for this situation.

Lily came to Baptiste generously, reached out and snatched the staff from him: "Idiot, your magic barrier is empty underneath."

Baptiste was dumbfounded: "...I've never seen anyone who can dig holes before..."

Lily curled her lips and broke the staff in her hand casually. The magic barrier around everyone immediately shook and dimmed. Hesperide, burning with anger, strode towards Baptiste, preparing to teach him a lesson, but at this moment, something unexpected happened:

Baptiste suddenly screamed strangely and lunged towards the Purgatory Gate not far away!